The Beach

∨ The Beach ∧

17

Thai-Die

Françoise said it was one kilometre away and Étienne said two. I can’t judge distances over water, but I said one and a half. Mainly it just looked like a long swim.

The island across the sea was wide, with tall peaks at each end that were joined by a pass about half their height. I guessed that once it had been two volcanoes, close enough together to be connected by their lava flow. Whatever its origins, it was at least five times the size of the one we were on, and gaps in the green showed rock-faces which I hoped we wouldn’t need to climb.

‘Are you sure we can do this?’ I said, more to myself than anyone else.

‘We can,’ said Françoise.

‘We can try,’ Étienne corrected, and went to get the backpack he’d prepared with bin-liners, bought from the restaurant that morning.

The A-Team: a television series that was a hit when I was around fourteen years old. They were BA Barracus, Face-man, Murdoch and Hannibal – four Vietnam veterans accused of a crime they didn’t commit, who now worked as mercenaries, taking on the bad guys the law couldn’t touch.

They let us down. For a moment it had looked as if Étienne’s contraption would float. It dipped underwater and held its level, the top quarter bobbing above the surface like an iceberg. But then the bin-liners collapsed and the bag sank like a stone. Three other attempts failed in exactly the same way.

‘This will never work,’ said Françoise, who had rolled her swimming-costume down to her waist to get an even tan, and was not catching my eye.

‘There’s no way,’ I agreed. ‘The rucksacks are far too heavy. You know, we really should have tried this out on Ko Samui.’

‘Yes,’ Étienne sighed. ‘I do know.’

We stood in the water, silently considering the situation. Then Françoise said, ‘OK. We take one plastic bag each. We only take some important things.’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t want to do that. I need my rucksack.’

‘What choice? We give up?’

‘Well…’

‘We need some food, some clothes, only for three days. Then if we do not find the beach, we swim back and wait for the boat.’

‘Passports, tickets, traveller’s cheques, cash, malaria pills.’

‘There is no malaria here,’ said Étienne.

‘Anyway,’ Françoise added, ‘we do not need a passport to go to this island.’ She smiled and absently brushed a hand between her breasts. ‘Come on, Richard, we are too close, huh?’

I frowned, not understanding, a list of possibilities appearing in my mind.

‘Too close to give up.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Yes. I suppose we are.’

♦

We hid our rucksacks under a thick patch of shrubs near a distinctive palm tree – it had two trunks growing from a single stem. In my bin-liner I packed Puri-Tabs, the chocolate, spare shorts, a T–shirt, Converse shoes, Mister Duck’s map, my water bottle, and two hundred cigarettes. I wanted to take all four hundred, but there wasn’t room. We also had to leave the Calor gas stove. It meant that we’d have to eat cold noodles, soaked long enough to make them soft, but at least we wouldn’t starve. And I left the malaria pills too. After tying the bin-liner with as many knots as the plastic would allow and then sealing them again inside a second bin-liner, we tested their seaworthiness. Without the weight of the rucksacks they floated better than we could have hoped. They were even strong enough to lean on, so we only had to swim with our legs.

At a quarter to four we waded into the sea, finally ready to leave. ‘Maybe more than one kilometre,’ I heard Françoise say behind me. Étienne said something in reply, but it was lost as a wave broke.

♦

The swim passed in stages. The first was full of confidence, chatting as we found a kicking rhythm, and making jokes about sharks. Then, as our legs began to ache and the water no longer felt cold enough to cool us down, we stopped talking. By this time, as on the boat ride from Ko Samui, the beach behind us seemed as far away as the island ahead. The jokes about sharks became fears, and I started to doubt that I had the strength to finish the swim. Or doubt, quote unquote. We were about halfway between the two points. Not being able to finish the swim would mean dying.

If Étienne and Françoise were also worried they did nothing to show it. It wasn’t said, but it felt as if mentioning the fears would only make things worse. In any case, it wasn’t like there was anything we could do to make things easier. We’d put ourselves into the situation. All we could do was deal with it.

And then, strangely, things did become easier. Although my legs still ached like crazy, they’d developed a kind of reflex kick, something like a heartbeat. It kept me moving and allowed my mind to drift beyond the pain. One idea that kept me distracted for ages was composing the newspaper headlines that would inform people back home of my fate. ‘Young Adventurers in Thai-Die Death Swim – Europe Mourns’ covered the necessary angles. Writing my obituary was harder, seeing as I’d never done anything of any importance, but my funeral was a pleasant surprise. I drafted some good speeches, and a lot of people came to hear them.

I’d moved on to thinking that I should try to pass my driving test if I got back to England when I saw driftwood on the beach ahead, and realized we were nearly there. We’d been careful to stick together over most of the swim, but in the last hundred metres Étienne pulled away. When he reached the beach he did a cartwheel, achieved with a last reserve of energy, because then he collapsed and didn’t move again until I joined him.

‘Show me the map,’ he said, trying to sit up.

‘Étienne,’ I replied between gasps for breath, and pushed him back down. ‘We’ve done enough. We’re staying here tonight.’

‘But the beach may be close, no? Maybe it is only a short way down the island.’

‘Enough.’

‘But…’

‘Shh.’

I lay down, pressing the side of my face into the wet sand, my gasps becoming sighs as the aching drained from my muscles. Étienne had a strand of seaweed caught in his hair, a single green dreadlock. ‘What is this?’ he muttered, tugging at it weakly. Down by the sea Françoise splashed out of the water, dragging her bag behind her.

‘I hope this beach exists,’ she said, as she flopped beside us. ‘I am not sure I can do the swim again.’

I was too exhausted to agree.