The Beach

∨ The Beach ∧

12

TV Heaven

Thais, or South–East Asians in general, make eerily convincing transvestites. Their slight builds and smooth faces are a recipe for success.

I saw a particularly stunning transvestite as I waited under the palm tree. His silicone breasts were perfectly formed and he had hips to die for. The only thing to betray his gender was his gold lamé dress – a bit too showy to be worn by a Thai girl on a stroll down Chaweng.

He was carrying a backgammon set under his arm, and as he slunk past he asked if I wanted to play a game.

‘No thanks,’ I replied with neurotic haste.

‘Why?’ he wanted to know. ‘I think maybe you afrai’ I win.’

I nodded.

‘OK. Maybe you wan’ play in bed?’ He tugged at the long slit up the side of his dress, revealing fabulous legs. ‘Maybe in bed I le’ you win…’

‘No thanks,’ I said again, blushing slightly.

He shrugged and continued walking along the beach. A couple of beach huts down someone took him up on the backgammon offer. Curious, I tried to see who, but they were blocked by the trunk of a leaning coconut tree. A few minutes later I looked back and he was gone. I guessed he’d found his punter.

Étienne appeared not long after, beaming.

‘Hey, Richard,’ he said. ‘Did you see the girl walking this way?’

‘With a lamé dress?’

‘Yes! My God, she was so beautiful!’

‘She was.’

‘Anyway, Richard. Come to the restaurant.’ He reached out a hand and hauled me up. ‘I think we have a boat to take us into the marine park.’

♦

The man was the Thai version of a spiv. Instead of being lean and weasel-like, with a pencil moustache and a flash suit, he was short, fat, and wore drainpipe marbled jeans tucked into giant Reebok trainers.

‘Tha’ can be arrange’,’ he said, quoting from the universal phrase book of the entrepreneur. ‘Of course, yes.’ He grinned and made an expansive gesture with his arms. Gold sparkled in his mouth. ‘No’ difficul’ for me to do tha’.’

Étienne nodded. So far he’d done all the bargaining, which was fine as far as I was concerned. I don’t like dealing with money transactions in poor countries. I get confused between feeling that I shouldn’t haggle with poverty and hating getting ripped off.

‘Actually, my frien’, your gui’ book is no’ correc’. You can stay Ko Phelong one nigh’, two nigh’ – is OK. Bu’ this island you can only stay one nigh’.’ He took Étienne’s book and laid a chubby finger on an island close to Phelong.

Étienne looked at me and winked. From my memory of Mister Duck’s map, which was back in the beach hut, our island was the next one along.

‘OK,’ said Étienne, and lowered his voice conspiratorially, even though there was no one around to hear. ‘This is the island we want to see. But we want to stay more than one night. That is possible?’

The spiv furtively looked over his shoulder at the empty tables.

‘Yes,’ he whispered, leaning forward, then looked around again. ‘Bu’ is mo’ money, you un’erstan’.’

The deal was eventually struck at 1,450 baht, diligently knocked down from 2,000 by Étienne. At six the next morning we were to meet the spiv in the restaurant and he would take us to his boat. Only then would we pay him the money, a point Étienne wisely insisted upon, and he would take us to the island. Three nights later he would come back to pick us up – our contingency plan in case we got stuck there.

That left us with only a couple of problems.

If we made it to the next island along, we would be missing when the spiv came to collect us. To deal with this, Étienne invented a story about some other friends we were going to meet there, so we might come back early – no cause for alarm.

Another difficulty was how to get from the drop-off island to the beach island. We could have asked the boat to take us directly there, but not knowing exactly what we were going to find on the beach, we didn’t want to blunder in on a motor boat. Anyway, as the beach island was out of bounds to tourists, we thought it better to start out from one we were allowed to stay on – if only for one night.

Étienne and Françoise seemed far less concerned about this last step of the journey than I was. They had a simple solution – we would swim. By examining Mister Duck’s map and the map in their guidebook they’d decided that the islands were roughly a kilometre apart. According to them, that was a manageable distance. I wasn’t so confident, remembering the diving game from the day before. The tide had pulled us a long way down Chaweng beach as we swam. If the same thing happened between the islands, the length of the swim could effectively double as we corrected and recorrected our course.

The final problem was what we would do with our bags. Again, Étienne and Françoise had worked out a solution. Apparently they’d done a lot of planning last night while I was getting stoned. Later that day, sitting in the shallows with the wash collecting sand around our feet, they explained.

‘The backpacks will not be a problem, Richard,’ said Françoise. ‘Actually, maybe they will help us to swim.’

I raised my eyebrows. ‘How’s that?’

‘We need some plastic bags,’ said Étienne. ‘If we have some plastic bags we can tie them so water does not enter. Then…they float. The air inside.’

‘Uh-huh. You think it’ll work?’

Étienne shrugged. ‘I think it will. I saw it on television.’

‘On TV?’

‘It was The A-Team’

‘The A-Team? Oh, that’s great. We’ll be fine, then.’

I lay back in the water, propping myself up on my elbows.

‘I think you are very lucky to have met us, Richard,’ Étienne laughed. ‘I think without us you could not reach this beach.’

‘Yes,’ Françoise said. ‘But also we are lucky to meet him.’

‘Oh, of course. Without your map we could not find the beach either.’

Françoise frowned, then smiled at me. ‘Étienne! We are lucky to meet him anyway.’

I smiled back, noticing as I did so that the bad mood I’d been carrying all morning had completely lifted. ‘We’re all lucky,’ I said happily.

Étienne nodded. ‘Yes. We are.’

We sat in silence for a few minutes, basking in our luckiness. Then I stood up, clapping my hands together. ‘Right. Why don’t we go for a long swim now? It could be a practice.’

‘It is a very good idea, Richard,’ Étienne replied, also standing. ‘Come on, Françoise.’

She shook her head and pouted. ‘I think I will stay in the sun. I shall watch you two strong men from here. I will see who can swim the furthest.’

Doubt flickered in my mind. I looked at her, trying to see if her words were as loaded as they appeared. She was watching Étienne as he made his way into the sea, giving nothing away.

‘That’s it, then,’ I thought. ‘Just wishful thinking.’

But I failed to convince myself. As I waded after Étienne, I couldn’t help wondering if Françoise’s eyes were now on my back. Just before the water became deep enough to swim I needed to know, and glanced behind me. She had moved up the beach to the dry sand and was lying on her front, facing the land.

Just wishful thinking after all.