The Water Is Warm

by Jennifer Stawska

  We spent that evening kicking a football around the beach, putting wood on the bonfire and then getting ready for the next day. I explained to Sunil that I was going with Josh when he went to Colombo and promised that I would return to look after him; I doubt that he believed me or, probably, even registered what I was saying. Josh arranged for a taxi to take us to Colombo and, by 9.30 p.m. we went to sleep in the tent, Josh and I curled around Sunil who slept between us. Raja returned some time later and, although I woke and tried to talk to him, he was far too drunk for that and just lay down at the end of the tent and slept, snoring noisily.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  The taxi had been arranged for nine o’clock the following morning. Josh went for a final dive into the sea and then towelled himself down by the tent before turning to say his goodbyes to Raja and Sunil. Raja was a complete wreck after the day before and Sunil just stood blankly. Josh gave Sunil a radio that he had bought for him, picked him up and hugged him; then we walked down the beach, the two of us, each holding one strap of Josh’s bag. Half way along the beach I turned and saw Sunil standing on his own, watching us, with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

  Josh and I both sat on the back seat of the taxi on the journey to Colombo, the taxi driver doing what taxi drivers do all around the globe, I imagine. A monologue. We sat listening to his views on everything under the sun, but especially on the civil war, his views about what lay in store for the LTTE and also about what would happen to the country after the tsunami. I leant against Josh as the image of Sunil burnt itself into my thoughts and as I contemplated what lay ahead after saying goodbye the next day. Despite everything that we had both said I was convinced that I would not see Josh again and, although I had the beginnings of something to do back in Unawatuna it seemed, once again, a very long and lonely road ahead. I can see it now for what it was, a sense of impending loss but at the time I felt sick and I wanted to behave like a child.

  Josh looked across at me and read my misery. He stretched his arm along the back shelf of the car behind me and moved his leg so that it rested against mine. I looked across to him, mouthed ‘thank you’ and smiled. I shut my eyes, pushed my back further into the seat so that I could feel his arm and hand more distinctly. I did not want that taxi ride to end even though we hardly said a word to each other.

  But, like all taxi rides, it did end and this one drew to a close amidst the mayhem of post tsunami Colombo. The taxi took us to this hotel, the same one where I am writing this now. Neither of us looked like the sort of guests that would arrive at a smart hotel like this. I am sure that I stank and certainly looked like someone who ran the risk of being ejected from the YMCA, never mind a stylish western hotel and Josh cannot have looked much better. However, money talks and, with the receptionist making it very plain that he wanted to hold his nose, we booked in after Josh produced a credit card, insisting that he paid the bill. We got to our room and showered. Josh had a backpack of clothes, ready for his trip home to Sweden. I had nothing at all, except for the gear I was wearing, a cleanish T-shirt and my money belt of essentials.

  ‘Here,’ Josh said and threw me a pair of his trousers. ‘See if these fit,’ and, of course, they did, although I remember it felt pretty odd at the time to be wearing someone else’s clothing; it doesn’t now.

  We went for a walk along the waterfront in Colombo, to the area called Galle Face Green. There is a raised promenade there, besides the sea, and next to it are brightly coloured stalls selling food that exude the typical rich smells of spices and smoke that fill the air here when someone is cooking; there were also, and still are, the usual pedlars trying to foist their junk on gullible passers-by. The promenade had survived the tsunami and was full of people strolling along; it had not taken much time for the merchants to return. We joined the crowds and walked slowly along the seafront taking in the atmosphere. Josh was quiet and I could feel the emptiness that was driving his sadness too but I did not know how to reach across the divide and didn’t have the energy to try.

  There are concrete benches along the seafront but they were all full of families and couples, so we walked down towards the magnificent and brightly lit Galle Face Hotel at the far end of the green and sat down on the sea wall. I have just been back there and sat in the same place. I know that sounds feeble.

  ‘You’re very sad,’ I said to Josh.

  ‘I’m sorry. Not much of a last night. And how are you?’

  ‘No. This is not about me now. This is about you. What are you thinking?’

  ‘The truth? That I can’t face going back to my flat on my own. I keep imagining opening the front door and stepping into the empty, clean place that waits for me there. I am thinking that I don’t want to leave here. That I would like to get to know you better. That I would like to spend time caring for Sunil and looking after people here.’

  That’s the gist of what he said and I could sense the warm breeze of his affection flowing towards me, leaving me with a voice that was singing in my head. Don’t do it. Don’t go there. Remember Catherine’s face when she walked past you at the Crown court? You are the one that hurts people. He’s going back to Sweden, you’re staying here. There is nothing to this. You’ve spent a nice time with a kind man who has things that he wants to sort out. Let him go, this is not real.

  That’s what I was thinking. And, what is more, I was thinking ‘why are you acting like this. You’re not gay.’ It had nothing to do with any primal urge for sex, I just craved companionship and Josh was the one who was offering it. I knew that this was good but I also knew that it couldn’t last – a bit like Will the Australian. It was simply part of the traveller’s tale.

  But Josh realised what I was thinking and there was a long silence before he said ‘I’m asking you not to shut me out’ and when I asked him what he meant he told me precisely how I was feeling, what I was thinking and he told me that I was wrong. ‘I don’t want you to walk away.’ That’s what he said and I told him that I was just not good enough for him – and that is certainly true, I knew it then and know it now. I wasn’t and even now I am not. How could I possibly think differently?

  ‘I have nothing to offer you.’ It was how I felt so why not say it? He would be gone next day.

  ‘That’s for me to judge,’ he replied. ‘I need a friend.’

  ‘So do I, but...’

  And Josh interrupted and said ‘Simon, please try.’

  ‘You’ll have to help me. I’ve made such a mess of things. I’m not good at friendship.’

  ‘Try me,’ and he reached forward and touched my shoulder.

  That’s when I told him about the game. I told him that, when my father was alive, we used to play a game whenever I was worried about something. That he would say to me ‘tell me what you can see, hear and smell right now – describe it to me’ and I would do that and he would ask me questions about it and then tell me in return what he saw, heard and smelt. That, somehow, meant that I knew that he understood and whatever the problem might be, it became so much less important and frightening. It caged the Colossus.

  I pulled up my legs that had been dangling over the wall and held my crooked knees with my feet nearly touching his legs. ‘Tell me what you see now Josh.’ That, therefore, is how we came to play the game together for the first time. The first of many. He found it difficult and stumbled through it, describing the sea, the people and the colours. Then it was my turn and I want to try to rewrite what I said even if I know that I did not say it with anything like the fluency to which I now pretend. I didn’t shut him out. I took the plunge and told him how I felt. I opened myself to him.

  ‘I see a world full of people around me. Busy people who seem to know what they are doing, where they are going, even if they may not. I see people who have colour and sound. People who know where they belong and behave like proper grown-ups. I hear their talk and watch their movement. I can hear and smell the sea that is unchanged despite everything that has happened and to which I am a co
mplete irrelevance. I hear it reminding me that I am something that will just come and go like everything else. I can smell the cooking from the stalls and can see the bright lights and it feels like watching a show at a theatre because I know that when I walk away I will go to a different world, a muted world where life is lived in my head. I see you, a kind, gentle man whom I would love to know better but I know the score very well and I know that, tomorrow, you will go to Sweden and I will stay here. I feel futile, small and very stupid. Undeserving. I know also that I want to make the most of this evening, every second of it so that there is something good to keep in my brain, to store away. I don’t want my lead weights to drag this evening down. That is what I see, hear, smell and feel.’

  And when I had finished, Josh looked at me and just said ‘What am I going to do?’ That is not how Josh is, bringing the conversation on to himself. But he did then.

  He was searching my face for a solution that I did not have and I knew how wicked it would be to influence him with what I wanted, to try to bring him into my world. You see a beautiful flower. You smell its fragrance. You sense its surroundings. But you never, ever pick it. And you don’t cage wild animals. They don’t belong to you. Nothing does.

  ‘Josh, you have to go home and try to put all this into perspective. Think about it. See if you can make your life in Sweden work. All I ask is that you stay in touch with me. I really mean it when I say I don’t want to influence you because that would never work. What I have done may seem attractive but it isn’t. And if things don’t work out, you can always do what I have done but think hard before you do. It’s chucking everything away.’

  ‘How can I contact you?’ He came straight back with that.

  ‘I will write to you and let you know where I am.’ I held my hand out to him and he took it. I covered his hand with my other one.

  He looked at me and just said ‘Promise?’

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  It felt hopeless.

  We got up and walked back to the hotel. Josh barely said a word. When we got back to the room, I pushed the twin beds together while Josh washed, then I also washed and lay down next to him. Like me, he was half dressed. He looked slightly apprehensive as though he thought I was about to try something on, so I said: ‘No really, nothing like that.’ I put my arm under his head and we lay next to each other, talking quietly and looking up at the ceiling. I asked him to tell me more about his childhood in Malmo and, after he had done so, I told him some more about my life in Devon before my father died. We talked about places that we each had visited and I told him, in a failed attempt at comedy, all about my marriage to Penelope, about Tosser Tom and about my life at the bar but the comedy sketches didn’t work, weren’t right.

  We also played the ‘one minute’ game where we asked each other to describe something for a minute – so ‘what were chambers like?’ in a minute, ‘what is Malmo like?’ and ‘what is your flat like in Stockholm.’ It’s a game that we played a lot later and I could really piss Josh off by telling him his time was up since he invariably overran.

  Then, eventually, we fell asleep.

  The next day was terrible and I don’t want to remember it. Josh had to check in at the airport by ten o’clock and the taxi came at six to take him there. Bandaranaike airport was like a cattle market. Utter chaos, with people still trying to leave the country after holidays that had been wrecked by the tsunami and aid workers coming to do their bit. As soon as we got there the demands of travel kicked in with queues, check-in hassle and all the junk that goes on in crowds here. It felt like someone being pulled away from me in a rip-tide. Then passport control and the move to the departure lounge - the point of separation. We stood at the place where Josh had to join the queue for search, passport and then departure.

  ‘Be happy Josh and please remember what I said last night on the sea wall. And please keep in touch.’

  Then Josh did something typically Josh. He put both of his arms around me and held me with all of his strength. ‘I won’t forget. And you mustn’t either.’ Then he reached into his pocket, took out his mobile phone and said: ‘Here. Have this. Now you know I want to stay in touch. I’m under O for Ohlsson.’ I knew his surname already, it was on the note he had given me and I had memorised it when I saw it on his credit card as we checked into the hotel. J.S. Ohlsson.

  ‘Josh I can’t keep your phone.’

  ‘You must. I want you to. I will pay for it when I get back. So now you must keep in touch.’

  ‘What about all the calls that people will make to it? And the texts?’

  ‘Ignore them. I’ve got my contact list and will tell people I’ve got a new number. Please take it.’ And he thrust the phone into my hand. In the confusion, we were in the way of other people trying to get into the queue, I didn’t argue. I leant forward, put my hand on one side of his head and kissed the other.

  ‘Go well, Josh.’

  Then he turned into the queue. I sat on a bench and watched him go. When he was about to go out of sight, he turned and waved to me with his wide open hand, smiled and then walked on.

  I stayed on that bench, buried my head in my hands and wept. I wept and I wept. I don’t know for how long. Then a kind American lady came to me, put an arm around my shoulder and said ‘I am sorry.’ I thanked her and left the airport. When I checked his phone I found that he had left only one entry on the phone contact list. His. He must have planned that well in advance. He had entered his full name, Josua Sebastien Ohlsson. And his date of birth. 15 November 1965. He had left his home telephone number. And his email address. And his home address. He had even left a work phone number. I checked the phone to see what else there was on it and there was only one thing. A photograph of Sunil.

  Why me? Why did you choose me?

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Before he left Josh told me that he had paid for me to stay another two nights in the hotel, as well, and wanted to hear nothing of my attempts at insisting that I would pay him back. I told him that I would be in the room at noon the following day, so that he could ring when he got back to Sweden. He rang on the dot of noon and just sounded tired and flat. It had been a 15 hour overall flight with a change at Frankfurt and he had not arrived at Stockholm airport until midnight - there is a 3 ½ hour time difference, so he had not been able to get much sleep. There was very little to say but the call at least meant that we had shown that we could communicate now that he was in Sweden.

  Staying in the hotel on my own was really difficult, not least because I remained in the same room where we had been together. I spent the next day sorting out money and also wrote an email to Jennifer for the first time since being in Sri Lanka, telling her about the tsunami and what I was intending to do but not mentioning Josh because there seemed nothing to tell her about him at that stage. I could hardly say ‘I’ve met a Swedish guy.’

  By the time that I had finished it was too late to travel and so I went shopping for things to give to Sunil. I was keen to get back to him – he was the one remaining person in Sri Lanka that I knew besides Raja.

  The following morning, I checked out of the hotel as soon as I woke and set off to Unawatuna. This time I went by bus and, by the time that I got to Galle, it was already evening. I made it back, eventually, and found a place to stay in a hotel as there was no way that I was just going to dump myself down in the tent with Raja and Sunil.

  The hotel that I found had survived the tsunami without damage and was very like the one I first stayed in when I came there with Josh; my room was clean and neat and, most importantly of all, there was mobile reception from the room. There were very few remaining tourists at the time and so the hotel owners were keen to have any clients that they could. I paid for two weeks in advance so that I could use it as a base. Josh rang and gave me the number of the new mobile phone that he had already bought and we had a short and crackly conversation over a poor connection. But, at least, I could now text him and we agreed th
at we would write letters to each other.

  Writing letters is somehow much easier than sending text messages or speaking on a phone and Josh’s written English was pretty much perfect. His vocabulary was incredibly expansive, probably because he took such care about what he wrote and, like me, enjoyed the use of words. His handwriting was distinctive and reminded me of my grandmother’s; it was deliberate, neat and stylish but also appeared to have a slight elderly shakiness about it, which surprised me. I enjoyed being able to think through what I wanted to say and could carry the contents of the letters that I intended to write around in my head during the day so that, when I came to write them in the evenings, I could include everything that I wanted to say. I started to keep a notebook in which I would jot things down.

  Next morning, I went down to the beach. When I arrived, Sunil was on his own, wandering around and bearing that look of vacancy that I saw so often in him. He gave me a flicker of a smile when I arrived but I beckoned him to me and said ‘I told you that I would come back.’ He didn’t reply.

  ‘Here you are,’ and I gave him the things that I had bought in Colombo.

  He said ‘thank you’ with his usual politeness but gifts were not going to cure what he was going through. He looked pathetically underfed.

  ‘Come with me, Sunil. It’s about time that we got some proper food inside you.’

  So, we walked inland to one of the other hotels that had survived the tsunami and sat in the bar area where I told him that he could eat and drink what he liked.

  The waiter was obviously nonplussed by the sight of an unwashed local boy in his hotel and ignored Sunil entirely. He dumped two menus on the table, gave me a mixture of a smile and a grimace and walked off.

  ‘What do you want to eat, Sunil?’

  ‘I don’t know.’