by Claire Gray
‘What is that?’ I ask, but they keep walking.
Steve goes to pick one up but he can’t read the Thai. ‘I need to learn,’ he says. ‘I don’t know why I haven’t.’
‘No, look on the back,’ I say. A bad translation has been made into English. ‘I think it’s just explaining how to claim money from the government for help with rebuilding and, you know, other costs. There are some phone numbers and things, look.’
‘Yes.’ Steve nods, staring at the paper in his hands as it buckles slightly in the warm breeze. ‘Sorry, Lucy. When I spoke to the mayor’s secretary yesterday, I definitely got the impression that this was more of a formal meeting.’
‘Don’t worry about it. I mean, the owners of the ice cream place could still turn up. I’m sure I’d recognise them.’
We decide to wait a while longer, and sit beside the pile of paper on the doorstep, looking through leaflets from the shelves but not really absorbing any of the information. No one else arrives.
‘Let’s just go,’ Steve sighs. But then a moped rounds the corner and stops on the patchy grass.
‘Who’s this?’ I say.
The rider removes his helmet and we immediately recognise him as the owner of Bar XS, a middle-aged Australian who people had been saying had left the island already. We’d also heard a rumour that he’d been blinded by the explosion, but as he walks towards us he smiles and waves. We regularly print coupons and adverts for Bar XS, and Steve has spent the odd evening over there, taking photos of tourists to stick in the newspaper when we don’t have very much to say.
‘Hi, Aaron,’ Steve says. ‘How are you doing?’
‘Have I missed the meeting?’ Aaron asks, looking along the empty street.
‘Doesn’t seem like there is one,’ Steve tells him. ‘They’ve left some paperwork.’
Aaron picks a page up, glances at it and folds it into his pocket.
‘How is the bar?’ Steve asks. ‘Have you been able to get back in there?’
‘No offence, guys, but I really don’t want to talk to the press about any of this. Some people would be selling their story all over the place but not me. I’m not like that.’
‘Oh, we wouldn’t pay you,’ Steve jokes, but Aaron doesn’t seem to hear him. He’s looking at the windows of the building, which are reflecting the sunlight, scattering white rays across our faces.
Aaron shrugs. ‘It’s all locked up, huh? Well, this is goodbye for me. I think I can get some sort of insurance pay-out but then I’m out of here. The dream is over. I was thinking about moving on anyway. It was getting too touristy here. Do you know what I mean? There were no real travellers coming through anymore.’
‘Would you mind if I just ask you a couple of things?’ I say, trying to meet his eyes. ‘Not for the newspaper. Just because I want to understand what happened.’
‘You can never understand a thing like this,’ Aaron says. ‘There’s no sort of reason to it.’
‘But were you there that night?’
‘I was at home. I’d taken the night off. I came down to see what was going on though. Got to the bar about two in the morning. Honestly, just the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life. You see it too?’
We nod.
‘Yeah. There wasn’t much I could do. The police wouldn’t let me inside. I snuck in yesterday. There was smashed glass everywhere and the smell is awful. I couldn’t even describe it to you. Part chemical, part blood. Awful.’
‘Some people are saying that the bomb went off right outside the bar. Do you know anything about that?’ I ask.
‘That’s what they’re saying. I don’t know. I’ve heard people say it was maybe next door. The ice cream parlour.’
‘We heard that too,’ I say. ‘Do you know the owners?’
‘Bob and Mary.’ Aaron nods. ‘Those aren’t their real names. They don’t expect western people to be able to pronounce their Thai names so they picked out English ones for themselves. Bob and Mary. They’re nice people.’
‘Have you seen them since that night?’ I ask.
‘They’ve been away, visiting someone on the mainland. They weren’t here when it happened. I think they were planning to be back by now but I haven’t seen them around.’
‘Who’s been watching the place while they were away?’ asks Steve.
‘I dunno. Someone was.’
‘Do you know where Bob and Mary live?’ I say.
‘They won’t want to speak to you guys. They’re very private, very sensible people.’
‘We can be sensible too,’ Steve says with half a smile. ‘We’re not that bad. Don’t you have an address?’
‘I couldn’t tell you exactly.’ Aaron checks his watch and then looks towards where some chickens have appeared beneath the trees.
‘Vaguely?’ Steve says.
‘Near the hairdressers. One of the flats behind there.’
We thank him. He grunts and goes back to his moped, straightening its wing mirrors which are attached with tape, and then leaving, scaring the chickens as he passes them.
Chapter Seventeen
We’ve been trying to phone Kadesadayurat but can never get though; there’s just a clicking on the other end of the line that reminds me of insects. Steve has sent a series of text messages instead, relaying our conversation on the beach last night with Mike. Kadesadayurat texts back to say thank you. He doesn’t comment on the information.
‘Do you think he’s dead?’ I say.
‘Who? Bernard Shuttleworth? Maybe. Try not to think too much about it. You don’t need that weight on your shoulders.’
Steve’s managed to source a small bag of weed from somewhere and he tells me he’s going to spend the rest of the morning smoking it in the little courtyard behind his house, where barbed plants grow through the cracks and the sun heats the flagstones to the point where they can burn you through your clothes. He drags a wooden chair out there and, fumbling, puts some headphones into his ears and starts scrolling through the music on his chunky old iPod.
‘You want to join me?’ he asks, seeing me watching him from the open kitchen window while I wash up our breakfast things.
‘No, I don’t like to smoke,’ I say. I hate the feeling of having my brain fold in on itself, crossing thoughts and memories that ought not to be crossed.
‘Don’t judge me,’ he says, although I’m not. ‘I need this. I need to drift away from all these awful things for just a few hours.’
‘That’s cool,’ I say. ‘I’ll go and see Lena for a little while.’
The streets are busier today, but the usual population seems to have been replaced with people who ought not to be here; dazed looking foreigners, policemen from the mainland and soldiers too. Beyond the familiar buzz of mopeds and the sizzle of food cooking on street stands, I can hear the clunk of heavy machinery, and I think this is coming from the bombsite. I walk away from this noise. The heat presses close. I sweat against my clothes and feel my hair damp upon my forehead. I’d like to go for a swim, but I won’t. I think it would be obscene to do something like that, something with the sole purpose of making me happy. I need to keep pushing ahead; thinking about the victims, the missing and the potential culprits. I feel like I have a deadline to meet and I need to tie everything up neatly. As I’m thinking this, I walk into the back of someone who has stopped suddenly in my path; a white man dwarfed beneath his beat-up backpack. He says something to me in a foreign language, his eyes narrowed. I can tell it’s a swear word.
‘Watch it,’ I say quietly. But as I walk away, I look back and realise that he is close to tears. I walk on, faster.
I walk to the other side of town where Lena is staying with her boyfriend, the fisherman, and his friends. I’m out of breath when I get there. She’s alone. I suppose they’re all out on the water.
She’s pleased to see me. We sit on the floor and take turns holding the puppy.
‘How are you doing?’ I ask her, when the conversation falters and we’re both left listenin
g to the puppy’s shallow breathing.
She takes a while to answer. All of the muscles in her face are tense. ‘You’re lucky you have your job, you know?’ she says eventually. ‘I wanted to volunteer and pull people out of the rubble. But everyone’s out now, or dead. I missed my chance to help. Now I feel like I’m waiting, but I don’t know what for. At least you have a purpose.’
‘I’m trying,’ I say.
‘Do you remember Ralph?’
I nod. I remember his foot touching mine beneath a table when he was aiming for Lena’s. I remember the pink gemstone he wore around his neck, and I remember him picking up my phone for me, when I dropped it in the laundry room and thought the screen had smashed; it hadn’t.
‘Half of his face is all burned up. He’s in hospital but I’m scared he’s going to die.’
‘I hope he doesn’t,’ I say. We both nod. Lena touches my hand with her fingertips. Her hand looks like a spider. I say: ‘What about Ben? Remember him? One of the Irish guys. I haven’t seen him. We were talking that evening, before it happened.’
‘Oh, Ben, yeah. He likes you,’ Lena says, smiling.
‘Have you seen him?’
‘I haven’t seen any of those Irish guys.’
‘Oh.’
We’re silent for a few beats, thinking about what this could mean.
On the wall behind Lena is a collage of postcards showing scenes from the island. I think Lena must have put these up. I remember there being a similar display in her room at the hostel. One shows images of the temples here on the island; ancient ruins deep in the jungle. Lena and I went out there a few months ago. When we got back into town we were covered in orange dust. I remember that now. It was orange, like the clay we used to use at school. Mike, the guitarist, mentioned Dolph’s car being covered in orange mud when he found it.
‘Do you want to get out of here?’ I say, suddenly noticing how dim the light is in this room, so that I can barely see her eyes at all. Only the cut on her forehead stands out clear in the gloom.
‘I should. I have done nothing these last few days. See how pale my skin has gotten? But where can we go? I want to lay flowers by the hostel but I’m not ready to go back there. Besides, I hear there are camera crews all around, and I don’t want to see them.’
‘I was thinking out of town,’ I say. ‘Steve’s having some time off and trying to relax. Maybe that’s a good idea. Don’t you think?’
‘Might be nice to see a beautiful part of this island. Instead of this broken town.’
‘Like, maybe the temples?’ I stretch my arms towards the ceiling and look again at the postcards on the wall.
‘We could do that.’ Lena thinks for a minute, picking at a loose thread on her shorts. ‘We could hire bikes to go out there. The track to the temples won an award for the best cycle route in Asia. Something like that. Maybe not the best, but definitely up there.’
‘Sure.’ I nod, although I haven’t ridden a bike in years.
‘I definitely need some exercise. Look at my arms.’
‘They’re fine,’ I say.
‘I’m losing muscle definition.’
‘Well, I think we should do it,’ I say. Aside from this sudden desperation to see something beautiful and untainted by the current tragedies, I also want to see if there are tyre tracks out there — maybe Dolph went through that way before abandoning his car. I don’t know why he would have done, unless he decided to go sight-seeing. There’s nothing out there except for the ruins, the trees, the monkeys and stinging insects. No one will be going there at the moment; no tourists, no locals trying to sell things. But maybe Shuttleworth’s out there, tied up or buried beneath the dust? My throat closes and I don’t say any of this to Lena. I merely smile, and manage to say: ‘We can forget about everything for a while.’
‘The temples are beautiful,’ she says. ‘I’ll bring my camera. Just let me fix my hair and wash my face.’
I watch her go, and then, just faintly, hear water running. I should probably tell her about Dolph’s car. She needs purpose right now, just like I do. She can help me look for signs of visitors in the mud. But what if she tells me I’m being an idiot about it all, and the orange mud means nothing, perhaps even the car itself means nothing? If she said any of that, I’d be left empty; with just this sickness in my stomach, the bruises on my skin.
Chapter Eighteen
Lena and I hire bicycles from a man in a rickety shed. He’s pleased to have customers and lets us pick out the nicest ones. He asks us where we’re going and we tell him the temples. There’s just a split second when we see something negative in his face; perhaps he’s wondering how we can engage in tourism so soon after tourists were killed. Lena swears in German and pushes her bike out onto the street. I stand there for a moment, on the brink of explaining about Dolph’s car and the mud. But it’s my secret, and perhaps it would make me sound like even worse of a person, or crazy. I thank him in clumsy Thai and follow Lena outside, the frame of my bike rattling.
We estimate that we can hit the first temple in an hour; the more distant ones are perhaps twice that far. Lena has a map, folded and worn, which we put into her bike’s basket, along with a bunch of bananas to eat on the journey. She doesn’t know that we’re searching for something, but she seems to share my anxiety to visit every temple. She plans our route, and there’s something comforting about her familiar bossiness.
Mopeds share the road with us for the first mile, flitting in every direction. Some carry more than one person; little kids watch us with giant eyes, balancing effortlessly as their parents weave the bikes about. One man rides past with a dead pig strapped up behind him. Its eyes are open. Lena and I exchange a glance.
Buildings fall away, and then patchy fields turn to trees. Plants are packed densely together, pressing in on this track as it becomes narrow and uneven. I clench my teeth and my head starts to ache, but I keep on pedalling.
As we approach the first temple, the sky begins to darken, clouds hanging low over the trees.
‘I think there might be a storm coming,’ I say. But we’re not afraid of the weather. And then, reaching the top of a hill, we see the ruins ahead of us, grey stones fighting off the trees.
Our legs are covered with orange dust; just like they were the last time we came out here. I’ve got blisters on my hands from gripping the handlebars too tightly. Lena passes me a banana, which I struggle to peel. We leave the bikes lying side by side at the edge of the track.
This temple is easy to reach from town, and so people have been stealing stones from its walls for centuries. Islanders have used them to build with, and to pave their courtyards. The ruins have an aura that we can feel even now, when there’s so much going on to distract us from beautiful things. I finish my banana and bury the skin beneath some loose leaves and dust, feeling like the building itself is watching me.
We walk through its chambers; rooms without ceilings frame the deep, grey sky. In one corner a bees’ nest is humming, insects darting in and out of the windows. There are no people. No sign of anyone having been here for a while, although as we’re leaving we see some burned incense sticks on the ground. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but it’s not here. Lena doesn’t say much, although her face is straight just like mine, and her eyes flick from corner to corner.
We cycle on, towards the heart of the island, where vines and ferns creep. The track thins even further and dust climbs up our bodies, mixing with sweat and turning to mud. Insects are busy all around us, and the forest shivers and sighs. We stop at more of these small, skeleton temples but only discover resting reptiles and a family of monkeys. Lena takes photos with her old Pentax, a proper one with film inside it. She doesn’t ask me to be in any of the pictures, but she does get me to take one of her with a baby monkey in the background. I don’t talk to her about Dolph and Maliwan. I’m not even close to mentioning it. There are moments when I think she is drunk; she stumbles and mutters things in German, while kicking at stones, p
atting her hands against sun-dappled walls. I don’t feel like I can talk to her, or like she wants me to. There’s something about being the only two humans out here that has started a weird sort of energy fizzing between us; it’s like all of our fear and pain is finally getting communicated, and we can see how damaged we are but are powerless to help each other.
I’m aching and hungry, but we keep cycling and reach the island’s most famous temple. It’s a pyramid of sorts, and barely damaged. Jagged steps lead to its summit above the tree line, and faces are carved into the walls. They’re screaming, a lot of them. Dark doorways are fringed with cobwebs. The air around the building seems cooler than elsewhere. I can feel my body temperature drop as I breathe.
‘Magnificent,’ Lena says, and that’s when an explosion rips through the sky. My spine splinters into a thousand terrified needles, but then I open my eyes and realise that it’s not a bomb; it’s just thunder and lightning, right over our heads. The rain comes down; hard little pebbles of it, splashing the orange dust up in arcs. We run to the nearest doorway and stand there together, the noise and smell of the rain all around us. Lena’s arm is pressed against mine; cold and damp. I resist moving for a while, but then put my hand up to smooth my hair, stepping away from her.
‘I don’t think this is the kind of rain that stops,’ I say, glancing sideways at my friend. I hope she’s not mad at me for bringing us out here for no good reason, and dragging her into the centre of a tropical storm.
She’s not mad. She says: ‘Then we should keep going,’ and steps out of the doorway. Rain engulfs her. She laughs and stares straight up through it, past the temple and into the purple clouds.
I just hope we don’t get struck by lightning. It feels like exactly the kind of thing that could happen.
‘Come on!’ Lena shouts through the rain.
I step out after her. Instantly I’m soaked, and colder than I’ve felt in a long time, although the trembling is familiar. The treetops are bending beneath the weight of the rainfall, and water runs down the sides of the temple. All of a sudden, I don’t think we’re going to find anything out here. I’d like to go back to Steve’s house now. I feel embarrassed for suggesting we come out here, embarrassed for bothering the police with my theories and thoughts. I should be in town doing something real; interviewing victims, speaking to their relatives on the phone. I expect that’s what Steve will be doing, after his afternoon off. I should listen to him when he tells me things; he’s been a journalist for years. He knows people and he knows what he’s doing.
