Corals

Under the weight of two grapefruit-sized stones, I drifted down to the seabed and sat, cross-legged, on the sand. Then I rested the stones on my lap so I wouldn't float back up again.

Around me were banks of coral, brightly coloured pagodas, melted and sprawling in the hot tropical waters. In the recesses of their fans, something recoiled at my presence. It was almost imperceptible – a slight ripple of light spreading across the colours. I gazed harder, trying to pinpoint the strange effect, but once the change had happened the corals looked no different to before.

A strange creature was lying in front of me. A name popped into my head – sea cucumber – but only because I'd heard that such things existed. It could have been a sea marrow for all I knew. The creature was just over a foot in length and about the thickness of my forearm, and at the end nearest to me it had a nest of tiny tentacles. Using a snapped finger from one of the fans, I gave it an exploratory poke. The cucumber didn't move or flinch so, emboldened, I touched it with my own finger. It was the softest thing I'd ever felt. Only the barest sensation of resistance was offered by the silky flesh, and I pulled back for fear of tearing its skin.

'Curiouser and curiouser,' I thought, smiling. Holding my breath was getting me high. From the blood humming in my ears and the mounting pressure in my lungs, I guessed I had less than twenty seconds of air remaining.

I looked up. Six or seven feet above me, perched on an overhanging rock-shelf, I could see Keaty's disembodied legs. He was swinging them gently like a kid in a high chair and had attracted the attention of a little blue fish. The fish was mainly interested in his ankles. Every time they swung near, it would dart forwards as if to take a bite, but stop abruptly an inch or so away. Then, as his ankles swung back, the fish would flick its fins and retreat, perhaps cursing itself for its lack of courage.

A cold trickle of water eased past the hollow of my temples. With my head pointed upwards, the trapped air was pulling the mask away from my face. I looked down quickly, pushing at the glass to re-establish the seal, but it was no use. Too much water had worked its way in. I rolled the stones off my lap and let myself float back to the surface.

On impulse, I nipped Keaty's ankle as I passed it by, using my bunched fingernails like a row of teeth.

'What did you do that for?'

I rubbed away the itch from where the mask had been gripping my face. Keaty was rubbing his ankle.

'There was this little fish,' I began, then started laughing.

'What little fish?'

'It wanted to bite you but didn't have the nerve.'

Keaty shook his head. 'I thought it was a shark.'

'There's sharks here?'

'Millions.' He jabbed a finger at the cliffs behind him, indicating the open sea, then shook his head again. 'You made me jump.'

'Sorry.'

I hauled myself out of the water and sat next to Keaty on the rock-shelf. 'It's amazing down there. It would be so good to have aqualungs or something. A minute isn't really long enough.'

'Or a hose-pipe,' Keaty said. He pulled a plastic film carton from his pocket. Inside were loose Rizlas and grass. 'I went to Ujung Kulon two years ago. You been there?'

'Charita.'

'Well, in Ujung Kulon there were some corals and these guys there used a hose-pipe. You could stay under for a while, but you couldn't really move around. Still…'

'I don't suppose we've got a hose-pipe here?'

'Nope.'

I waited while Keaty finished rolling the joint.

'…So you've done a lot of travelling.'

'Sure. Thailand, Indonesia, Mexico, Guatemala, Columbia, Turkey, India and Nepal. Oh, also Pakistan. Sort of. I was in Karachi for three days on a stopover. You count that?'

'Uh-uh.'

'Me neither. How about you?'

I shrugged. 'I've never done any of the Americas stuff, or Africa. Just around Asia really. Europe too, I suppose. How about Europe? Does Europe count?'

'Not if you won't count Karachi.' He lit up. 'Got a favourite?'

I thought for a couple of moments. 'It's a toss-up between Indonesia and the Philippines.'

'And your worst?'

'Probably China. I had a lousy time in China. I went for five days without talking to one person except when I ordered food in restaurants. Terrible food too.'

Keaty laughed. 'My worst was Turkey. I was supposed to stay for two months but I left after two weeks.'

'And the best?'

Keaty looked around, inhaling deeply, then passed me the joint. 'Thailand. This place, I mean. It isn't really Thailand, considering there's no Thais, but… Yeah. This place.'

'This place is unique… How long have you been here?'

'Two years. Just over. I met Sal in Chiang Rai and we got friendly. Hiked around a bit. Then she told me about this place and took me along.'

I flicked the dead joint butt into the water. 'Tell me about Daffy. No one talks about him.'

'Yeah. People were shocked when they heard.' Keaty scratched at his stubble thoughtfully. 'I'm not a good person to ask. I barely knew the guy. He was a bit distant, to me anyway. I mean, I knew who he was, but we didn't talk much.'

'So who was he?'

'Are you kidding?'

'No. Like I said, nobody mentions him, so…'

Keaty frowned. 'You haven't seen the tree yet? The tree by the waterfall?'

'…I don't think so.'

'Shit! You don't know anything, do you, Rich? You've been here, what? A month?'

'Just over.'

'Man.' Keaty smiled, 'I'll take you to the tree tomorrow. Then you'll see.'

'How about now?'

'I want to swim – Especially now I'm stoned. And it's my turn with the mask.'

'I'd really like to…'

Keaty slipped into the water. 'Tomorrow. What's the hurry? You waited four weeks.' He snapped the strap tight over the back of his head and ducked under; end of discussion.

'OK,' I said to the flat water, allowing dope and beach life to cloud my curiosity. 'Tomorrow then.'

On my next turn with Gregorio's mask I looked out for any shifting colours in the corals, but the strange effect refused to repeat itself. The coral dwellers were still hidden in their pagoda homes. Either that, or my presence no longer scared them.

Bugged

That night, just as the light was starting to fade, we were given our sea-shell necklaces. It wasn't a big deal, there was no ceremony or anything. Sal and Bugs just wandered over to where we were sitting and handed them over. Still, it was quite a big deal for me. However friendly everyone was, being the only ones without necklaces drew attention to our new-arrival status. Now that we'd got them, it was like our acceptance had been made official.

'Which is for me?' said Françoise, carefully examining each one in turn.

'Whichever you like, Françoise,' Sal replied.

'I think I will have this one. I like this colour on the big shell.' She looked at me and Г‰tienne, challenging us to make a rival claim.

'Which do you want, Г‰tienne?' I said.

'You.'

'I don't mind.'

'I also do not mind.'

'So…'

We shrugged at each other and laughed. Then Sal leant forwards and plucked the two remaining necklaces from Françoise's hands. 'Here,' she said, and made the choice for us. They were both much the same, but mine had a centre-piece, the snapped arm of a red starfish.

I slipped it over my head. 'Well, thanks a lot, Sal.'

'Thank Bugs. He made yours.'

'OK. Thanks, Bugs. It's a really nice necklace.'

He nodded, accepting the compliment silently, then began walking back across the clearing to the longhouse.

I couldn't make my mind up about Bugs. It was weird, because he was exactly the kind of guy that I felt I ought to like, almost out of obligation. He was broader and more muscular than me; as head of the carpentry detail, he had obvious skills; I also suspected he was pretty intelligent. This was harder to gauge because he didn't speak much, but when he did speak it seemed to be things worth saying. But despite all these fine characteristics, there was something about him that left me a little cold.

One example was the way he accepted my thanks for the necklace. His silent nod belonged in Clint Eastwood Land; it didn't feel like it had a place in the real world. Another time we were going to eat some soup. Gregorio said he was going to wait until the soup cooled down – the soup was bubbling and still over the flame – then Bugs made a point of taking a spoonful straight from the saucepan. He didn't say anything, just took a spoonful. It was such a small thing that repeating it now, I'm almost embarrassed by how petty it sounds.

Maybe this stands up to repeating. On the Monday of my second week, I saw Bugs struggling to fit a swinging door on the entrance to one of the storeroom huts. He was having trouble because he only had two hands, and he needed three: two to keep the door in place and a third to hammer a peg into the hinge. I watched him do this for a while, wondering whether to offer any help, and as I began walking over the hammer slipped from his grip. Instinctively, he moved to catch it, and the door also fell, bashing against his leg.

'Shit,' I said, breaking into a jog. 'You OK?'

Bugs glanced down. Blood was rolling from a nasty graze on his shins. 'I'm fine,' he said, then bent to pick up his hammer.

'Do you need a hand holding the door?'

Bugs shook his head.

So I went back to where I'd been sitting, slicing the tops off bamboo sticks to make spears for fishing, and about five minutes later I misjudged a swipe and cut open my thumb.

'Ow!' I shouted.

Bugs didn't even look round, and as Françoise ran over, her face even prettier for being so alarmed, I could sense his satisfaction – stoically tapping the peg into place while blood collected in dusty pools around his feet.

'That really hurt,' I said, when Françoise reached me, and made sure I said it loud enough for Bugs to hear.

While I'm on a roll, I might as well add that there was one more thing that bothered me about Bugs. His name.

The way I saw it, calling himself Bugs was like, 'I'm taciturn and stoical, but I don't take myself too seriously! I call myself Bugs Bunny!' As with my other gripes, it wasn't a reason to dislike him; it was just something that grated. The whole point was that Bugs took himself extremely seriously.

Over the two weeks I was getting to know Bugs I spent some time wondering where his name had come from. If, like Sal, he'd been American, I could have imagined that Bugs Bunny was how he was christened. No disrespect to Americans – they just do come up with some odd names. But Bugs was South African, and I couldn't see Warner Brothers having that strong an influence over Pretoria. Then again, I once met a South African called Goose, so you never know.

Anyway. Back to the night I received my necklace.

' 'Night John-Boy.'

Silence… Panic.

Had I said it loudly enough? Was there a rule of etiquette that I hadn't picked up on? Getting the necklace had given me the courage, but maybe only group leaders were allowed to start it off, or people who'd been at the beach more than twelve months…

My heart began to pound. Sweat sprung. 'Well, that's it,' I thought to myself. 'It's all over. I'll leave tomorrow morning before dawn. I'll just have to swim the twenty miles back to Ko Samui, and I'll probably be eaten by sharks, but that's OK. I deserve it. I…'

' 'Night Ella,' said a dozy voice in the darkness.

I froze.

' 'Night Jesse,' said another.

'Night Sal.'

' 'Night Moshe.'

' 'Night Cassie.'

' 'Night Greg.'

' 'Night…'

Zero

Colour-wise, progress was good. The sky had been mainly cloudy over the first few days, and by the time the sky had cleared I had enough of a base tan to avoid burning. Now I was getting close to my darkest shade. I peeked under the waistband of my shorts to check I was as dark as I hoped.

'Wow,' I said, seeing the creamy skin beneath.

Г‰tienne looked round. He was sitting by the edge of the boulder, cooling his legs in the water. His tan was rich and golden, I noticed enviously. I never went golden. At best I went the colour of a recently ploughed field. Walnut brown, I would sometimes describe it, but it was much more like earth.

'What is it?'

'Just my tan. I'm getting dark.'

Г‰tienne nodded, tugging absently at his necklace. 'I thought maybe you were thinking of this place.'

'The beach?'

'You said В«wowВ», so I thought you were thinking how good it is here.'

'Oh, well, I often think that… I mean, it was worth the trouble, wasn't it? That swim, and the dope fields.'

'Worth the trouble.'

'You fish, swim, eat, laze around, and everyone's so friendly. It's such simple stuff, but… If I could stop the world and restart life, put the clock back, I think I'd restart it like this. For everyone.' I shook my head to stop myself rambling. 'You know what I mean.'

'All these thoughts are the same as mine.'

'They are?'

'Of course. The same as everybody's.'

I stood up and gazed around me. Gregorio and Françoise were climbing out of the water a few boulders over, and past them, near the sea-locked cliffs, three dots of colour described Moshe and the two Yugoslavians. From the land I could hear a steady tapping – Bugs and the carpenters working on some new project—and walking along the beach I could see a single figure. Ella, I thought, until I squinted against the bright white sands, and recognized Sal.

I remembered the way Sal had teased me to realign my expectations. 'You'll see that this is a wonderful place, as long as you appreciate it for what it is,' she'd said. I pushed my shoulders back and closed my eyes against the hot sun, and thought how right she was.

I was broken out of my reverie by a sudden cold splash of water against my legs. I opened my eyes and looked down. It was the fish in the bucket, getting close to the split second before Game Over. I watched them for a while, impressed by their tenacity. It often surprised me how long it took for fish to die. Even speared right through their bodies, they still flapped about for as long as an hour, working up a bloody lather in the water around them.

'How many do we have?' said Г‰tienne.

'Seven. A couple are big ones. That's enough, isn't it?'

Étienne shrugged. 'If Gregorio and Françoise also have seven, it is enough.'

'They'll have seven at least.' I checked my watch. It was exactly midday. 'I think I might go back early today. I'm meeting up with Keaty and he's going to show me this tree.'

'Tree?'

'Some tree by the waterfall. Want to come? We could leave the bucket here.'

He shook his head and pointed to Gregorio and Françoise. Gregorio had his mask pushed up on to his forehead. 'I want to see the corals. They sound very beautiful.'

'Yeah, they are. Maybe I'll come and find you after this tree thing.'

'Good.'

'Tell the others for me.'

'Yes.'

I dived into the water, shooting down at a steep angle then levelling out to skim over the seabed. The salt stung my eyes but I kept them open. Even without Gregorio's mask, the blurred colours and scattering fish were a sight to see.

There were two ways I could get to the garden. The first was the direct route that Keaty walked every morning. It was the quickest way, but I'd only done it a couple of times, and that was with Keaty. I knew if I tried to do it alone I'd only get lost; once in the jungle there wasn't much that could be used for orientation, apart from distinctive trees and plants. Instead I chose the second route, which was to follow the waterfall stream to its source. Once there I could turn left and walk along the cliff, which eventually led to the garden.

After about ten minutes' walking I began to empathize with Keaty's complaints about his work detail. Without a sea breeze and cool water, and stuck in the greenhouse forest, the heat was incredible. By the time I reached the waterfall my whole body was greasy and prickling with sweat.

Since arriving at the beach, I'd only been to the waterfall a couple of times, and never on my own. It was partly because I had no reason to go there, but also, I now understood, because the area made me feel uneasy. It represented a link between the lagoon and the outside world, the world I'd all but forgotten, and as I stood by the pool I realized that I didn't want to be reminded. Looking up through the fine mist of water vapour I could see the spot where I'd crouched before jumping. The memories it brought back were uncomfortable. I didn't even pause to cool my face. I found the path that led towards the garden and headed straight down it.

Quarter of an hour later I found Keaty on the outskirts of the vegetable patch, disconsolately poking at weeds with a Bugs-made trowel.

'Hey,' he said, perking up. 'What are you doing down here?'

'You were going to show me a tree. I got off work early.'

'Right. I forgot.' He looked over to where Jean was growling at one of the other gardeners. 'Jean!'

Jean looked round.

'Gottataketimeoff.'

'Heugh?' Jean replied.

'Backlateriftherestimeok?'

Keaty waved, and Jean waved back uncertainly. Then Keaty propelled me out of the garden. 'If you talk quickly he can't understand,' he explained. 'Otherwise he would have tried to make you wait until the detail stopped work.'

'Smart.'

'Uh-huh.'

It was a rocket-ship tree about twenty metres to the right of the pool. I'd noticed it before when I'd been wondering how to get down from the waterfall. Some of its branches grew near to the cliff, and I'd considered an Indiana Jones-style leap into its lower canopy. Standing at its base, I was glad I'd had the sense not to try. I'd have jumped on to a deceptively thin layer of leaves and fallen forty feet to the ground.

It was, like all the other rocket-ship trees, an impressive sight, but that wasn't why Keaty had brought me to see it. He'd brought me to see the markings cut into one of its twelve-foot stabilizer fins. Three names and four numbers. Bugs, Sylvester and Daffy. The numbers were all zeros.

'Sylvester?'

'Salvester.'

I shook my head. 'Sal.'

'I tawt I taw a puddy tat.'

'So they were the first?'

'The first. Nineteen eighty-nine. The three of them hired a boat from Ko Pha-Ngan.'

'They knew about this place already, or…'

'Depends who you talk to. Bugs said he'd heard about a hidden lagoon from some fisherman on Ko Phalui, but Daffy used to say they were just island-hopping. Found the place by chance.'

'Chance.'

'But all the camp and stuff. That didn't start until ninety. They spent the second half of eighty-nine doing the Goa thing, then came back to Ko Pha-Ngan for the new year.'

'And what, Ko Pha-Ngan was on the way out?'

Keaty nodded. 'Well on the way. That's when it clicked. The thing was, those three had been going to Ko Samui since it was a secret, so when they saw Ko Pha-Ngan had maybe a year left…'

'A year left at best. I heard by ninety-one it was already fucked up.'

'Right, so they'd seen it all before. Especially Daffy. Daffy was completely obsessed. You know he wouldn't ever go to Indonesia?'

'I don't know anything about Daffy.'

'Boycotted because of Bali. He went there only once, in the late eighties, and wouldn't ever go back. Used to talk all the time about how sick it made him.'

We sat down with our backs against the slab of root and shared a cigarette.

'I mean,' said Keaty, exhaling hard, 'you've got to hand it to them.'

'Definitely.'

'They really knew what they were doing. Most things were set up by the time Sal took me here, which was… uh… ninety-three. The longhouse was up and the ceiling was sorted out.'

'Two years.'

'Uh-huh.' He passed me the cigarette.

'So when you came, were there this many people?'

Keaty paused. 'Well… Pretty much…'

I looked at him, sensing that he was being cagey. 'How do you mean, 'pretty much'?'

'…Everyone apart from the Swedes.'

'In two years the only new people were the Swedes?'

'…And Jed. The Swedes and Jed.'

'That's not many. Well-kept secret.'

'Mmm.'

I stubbed out the cigarette. 'And the zeros. What are they about?'

Keaty smiled. 'That was Daffy's idea. It's a date.' 'A date? The date of what?' 'The date they first arrived.' 'I thought that was eighty-nine.'

'It was.' Keaty stood up and patted the stabilizer fin. 'But Daffy used to call it year zero.'

Revelations

Set up in Bali, Ko Pha-Ngan, Ko Tao, Borocay, and the hordes are bound to follow. There's no way you can keep it out of Lonely Planet, and once that happens it's countdown to doomsday. But set up in a marine park, where you aren't even supposed to be…

The more I thought about it, the more the idea grew on me. Not just a marine park, but a marine park in Thailand. Of all places, backpacker central, land of the beaten track. The only thing sweeter than the irony was the logic. The Philippines is an archipelago of seven thousand islands, but even in that huge fractured landscape, an equivalent secret would be impossible to contain. But amongst the legions of travellers passing through Bangkok and the southern islands, who'd notice when a few slipped away?

Strangely, the thing that least intrigued me was how they'd actually managed to get it all done. I suppose I sort of knew. If I'd learnt one thing from travelling, it was that the way to get things done was to go ahead and do them. Don't talk about going to Borneo. Book a ticket, get a visa, pack a bag, and it just happens.

From Keaty's few words, I pictured the scene. January nineteen-ninety, maybe New Year's Eve, Ko Pha-Ngan, maybe Hat Rin. Daffy, Bugs and Sal, talking as the sun starts coming up. Sal's found a boat to hire or even buy, Bugs has some tools in his backpack, Daffy's got a sack of rice and thirty packs of Magi-Noodles. Perhaps bars of chocolate have melted and moulded around the shape of his water bottle.

By seven that morning they're walking down the beach. Behind them they can hear the rumble of a portable generator through the thump of a sound system. They don't look back, they just push off from the sand and head for the hidden paradise they found a year before.

As I walked back towards the camp, on the way to find Г‰tienne at the coral garden, I found myself almost hoping for another meeting with Mister Duck. I wanted to shake him by the hand.

I never did find Étienne and Françoise. I bumped into Gregorio on the beach. He was carrying our catch back to camp, and when I told him I was going to the corals, he looked doubtful.

'I think you should wait,' he said. 'Wait for… maybe one hour.'

'How come?'

'Étienne and Françoise…'

'They're having sex?'

'Well… I do not know, but…'

'Uh-uh. An hour, you reckon?'

'Oh…' Gregorio smiled awkwardly. 'Maybe I am too generous to Étienne.'

I shook my head, remembering my first night in Bangkok. 'No,' I replied, irritated to hear a sudden tightness in my voice. 'Spot on, I'd say.'

So I went back to the camp with Gregorio.

There was nothing much to do there except compare fish sizes with the other details. The three Swedes, as usual, had caught the biggest and were swaggering about, telling the cooks about their fishing technique. I got pretty pissed off listening to them, but even more annoying were the images of Françoise and Étienne that kept popping into my head. Eventually, craving something to occupy my mind, I went to Keaty's tent and dug out his Nintendo.

Most bosses have a pattern; crack the pattern, kill the boss. A typical pattern is illustrated by Dr Robotnik during his first incarnation in Sonic One, Megadrive version, Greenhills Zone. As he descends from the top of the screen, you jump at him from the left platform. Then, as he starts swinging towards you, you duck under and jump at him from the right. As he swings back, you repeat the process in reverse until, eight hits later, he explodes and runs away.

That's an easy boss. Others require much more manual dexterity and effort. The last boss on Tekken, for example, is a relentless fist-swinging nightmare.

The boss that distracted me from Étienne and Françoise was none other than Wario, nemesis of Mario. The problem was that to reach him, I had to struggle through several tortuous stages. By the time I arrived at his lair I'd taken too many hits and had lost the vital power-ups I needed to finish him off.

Every now and then, Unhygienix would take a break from cooking and wander over to inspect my progress. He and Keaty were the only two people in the camp who'd ever completed the game. He'd say things like 'Donta pausa on thata platforma.' (I'm abandoning his Italian accent from now on. You'll just have to imagine it.)

I'd scowl in frustration. 'If I don't pause I get spiked by the falling block.'

'Si. So you jump more quickly. Like this.'

He'd take the Gameboy, guiding Mario with amazing skill considering the size of his fat hands, and show me how the trick was done. Then he'd wander back to his cooking, fingers drumming a rhythm on his giant belly. The Gameboy was always slippery after he'd used it, and smelt of fish, but I considered that a fair price to pay for his expertise.

It took an hour and a half, but eventually I was able to reach Wario with a full complement of power-ups. Finally I could start trying to crack his pattern. Or so I thought, because at that moment the monochrome screen began fading away.

'EverReadies!' I yelped.

Keaty, who'd returned from the garden while I'd been playing, poked his head out of his tent.

'That was the last batch, Rich.'

'There's none left?'

'None at all.'

'But I've nearly cracked Wario!'

'Well…' He shrugged apologetically. 'Leave it alone a while. If you turn it off for twenty minutes you might get another five minutes' playing time.'

I groaned. Five minutes wasn't nearly enough.

It was a bitter blow, running out of batteries. I could live without completing the Mario game, but Tetris was another matter entirely. Since Keaty had told me his record of a hundred and seventy-seven lines, I'd been trying hard to beat him. The closest I'd made was one six one but I was improving every day.

'This is ridiculous,' I said. 'Walkmans. What about them?'

Keaty sighed. 'Forget Walkmans.'

'Why?'

'Give, and gifts will be given to you, for whatever measure you deal out to others will be dealt to you in return.'

I paused for a moment.' …What?'

'I went to church every Sunday until I was fifteen.'

'You're quoting the bible?'

'Luke, six, thirty-eight.'

I shook my head incredulously. 'What's the bloody bible got to do with anything?'

'There's only five people with Walkmans in the camp, and I've refused all of them batteries in the past.'

'Oh… Then we're fucked.'

'Mmm,' Keaty agreed. 'Looks like it.'

Invisible Wires

But as fate turned out, we weren't fucked. Help arrived from an unexpected source.

We went over to the cooking hut to tell Unhygienix about the batteries, and as I began to explain he turned from the fire, his face an angry red and shining with sweat. I took an instinctive step backwards, amazed he was taking the news so hard.

'Batteries?' he said, in an alarmingly quiet voice.

'Uh… Yes…'

'What about the rice?'

'The rice?'

Unhygienix began swiftly marching to one of the storeroom huts, so we followed behind.

'There!'

We looked inside. I could see three empty canvas sacks and two more, full.

'What's the problem?' said Keaty.

Unhygienix tore open the top of the nearest full sack and rice poured out; black and green, puffed up into fat clods of fungus, completely rotten.