The Beach

∨ The Beach ∧

78

Secrets

I walked close to the longhouse entrance, past where Sal sat talking with Bugs and Jean, and continued along to the beach path. At the first corner I stopped, leaning against the fin of a rocket-ship tree, and lit up. Sal appeared when I was about an inch from the filter.

‘Something is up,’ she said immediately. ‘What is it?’

I raised my eyebrows.

‘By the way you walked, by the look in your eye. How do you think I know? So spit it out, Richard. Tell me what’s happened.’

I opened my mouth to reply but she beat me to it.

‘They’re on their way, aren’t they?’

‘…Yes.’

‘Fuck.’ Sal stared into middle distance for a few seconds. Then she snapped back into sharp-focus mode. ‘What’s their ETA?’

‘Sometime tomorrow afternoon, if they don’t get scared off by the dope guards.’

‘Or the waterfall.’

‘Or the waterfall. Yeah.’

‘Their timing is unbelievable,’ Sal muttered. ‘Absolutely unbelievable.’

‘It turns out they were building a raft.’

‘Building a raft. Of course they were. They had to be doing something…’ She clutched her forehead. ‘I’m taking it for granted you know about Christo.’

I thought for a moment, then nodded. I didn’t want to get Jed in trouble, but when Sal was in this mood it was dangerous to lie. ‘You don’t mind me knowing?’ I said nervously.

‘No. The thing about secrets is you can’t keep them unless you tell at least one other person. It’s too much pressure. So I knew he had to tell someone, and I was fairly sure it would be you…’ She shrugged.’…Seeing as you have your own secrets to keep, I figured that this way we’d keep all the secrets together in one little bunch.’

‘…Oh.’

‘Yes. It is clever, isn’t it? Unless…’

I waited.

‘Unless the person you told about our guests wasn’t Jed. After all, Jed already knew, so it was hardly telling him a secret…’

‘…Hardly relieving the pressure.’

‘Quite,’ she said casually, but watching me pretty close. ‘So did you tell anyone apart from Jed? Keaty maybe…Or Françoise? I certainly hope it wasn’t Françoise, Richard. I’ll be extremely upset if you told Françoise.’

I shook my head. ‘I didn’t tell a living soul,’ I said firmly, thereby excluding Mister Duck.

‘Good.’ Sal looked away, satisfied. ‘To tell the truth, I was worried you might have told Françoise. She’d tell Étienne, you see…And you haven’t told Françoise about Christo either?’

‘I only found out about Christo twenty minutes ago.’

‘If Étienne finds out about Christo…’

‘I know. Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone.’

‘Fine.’ Her gaze lapsed back into middle distance. ‘OK, Richard…It looks like we have a slight problem with these rafters…But you don’t think they can possibly get here until tomorrow?’

‘No way.’

‘Absolutely sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I’m going to sleep on this. I need time to think. I’ll give you my decision on what we do about them in the morning.’

‘Right…’

I hung around, unsure as to whether I’d been dismissed or not. A full minute later, Sal was still gazing into nothingness, so I slipped away.