The Beach

'With a lame dress?'

'Yes! My God, she was so beautiful!'

'She was.'

'Anyway, Richard. Come to the restaurant.' He reached out a hand and hauled me up. 'I think we have a boat to take us into the marine park.'

The man was the Thai version of a spiv. Instead of being lean and weasel-like, with a pencil moustache and a flash suit, he was short, fat, and wore drainpipe marbled jeans tucked into giant Reebok trainers.

'Tha' can be arrange',' he said, quoting from the universal phrase book of the entrepreneur. 'Of course, yes.' He gri

Etie

'Actually, my frien', your gui' book is no' correc'. You can stay Ko Phelong one nigh', two nigh' – is OK. Bu' this island you can only stay one nigh'.' He took Etie

Etie

'OK,' said Etie

The spiv furtively looked over his shoulder at the empty tables.

'Yes,' he whispered, leaning forward, then looked around again. 'Bu' is mo' money, you un'erstan'.'

The deal was eventually struck at 1,450 baht, diligently knocked down from 2,000 by Etie

That left us with only a couple of problems.

If we made it to the next island along, we would be missing when the spiv came to collect us. To deal with this, Etie

Another difficulty was how to get from the drop-off island to the beach island. We could have asked the boat to take us directly there, but not knowing exactly what we were going to find on the beach, we didn't want to blunder in on a motor boat. Anyway, as the beach island was out of bounds to tourists, we thought it better to start out from one we were allowed to stay on – if only for one night.

Etie

The final problem was what we would do with our bags. Again, Etie

'The backpacks will not be a problem, Richard,' said Francoise. 'Actually, maybe they will help us to swim.'

I raised my eyebrows. 'How's that?'

'We need some plastic bags,' said Etie

'Uh-huh. You think it'll work?'

Etie

'On TV?'

'It was The A-Team '

'The A-Team? Oh, that's great. We'll be fine, then.'

I lay back in the water, propping myself up on my elbows.

'I think you are very lucky to have met us, Richard,' Etie

'Yes,' Francoise said. 'But also we are lucky to meet him.'

'Oh, of course. Without your map we could not find the beach either.'

Francoise frowned, then smiled at me. 'Etie

I smiled back, noticing as I did so that the bad mood I'd been carrying all morning had completely lifted. 'We're all lucky,' I said happily.

Etie

We sat in silence for a few minutes, basking in our luckiness. Then I stood up, clapping my hands together. 'Right. Why don't we go for a long swim now? It could be a practice.'

'It is a very good idea, Richard,' Etie

She shook her head and pouted. 'I think I will stay in the sun. I shall watch you two strong men from here. I will see who can swim the furthest.'

Doubt flickered in my mind. I looked at her, trying to see if her words were as loaded as they appeared. She was watching Etie

'That's it, then,' I thought. 'Just wishful thinking.'

But I failed to convince myself. As I waded after Etie

Just wishful thinking after all.

Eden

Sunset was spectacular. Red sky gently faded to deep blue, where a few bright stars already shone, and orange light threw elastic shadows down the beach as people strolled back to their huts.

I was stoned. I'd been dozing on the sand with Francoise and Etie

'Someone must have put it there knowing we'd come looking,' Zeph had said as he sat down beside us. 'Isn't that such a decent thing to do?'

'Maybe it was a stupid thing to do,' Francoise had replied. 'Someone could have taken this key and robbed your room.'

'Well, uh, yeah, I suppose.' Then he'd looked at Francoise, obviously taking her in for the first time, and given his head a little shake. I think he was clearing a mental image that had just appeared. 'No, definitely. You're right.'

The sun had begun its rapid descent to the horizon as the grass began to take hold. Now we all sat, watching the colours in the sky as intently as if we were watching television.

'Hey,' said Sammy loudly, breaking us out of our reverie. 'Has anyone ever noticed that if you look up at the sky you can start to see animals and faces in the clouds?'

Etie

'Yeah,' Sammy continued. 'It's amazing. Hey, there's a little duck right above us, and that one looks like a man with a huge nose.'

'Actually, I have noticed this since I was a small child.'

'A small child?'

'Yes. Certainly.'

Sammy whistled. 'Shit. I've only just noticed it. Mind you, that's mainly to do with where I grew up.'

'Oh?' said Etie

'See, I grew up in Idaho.'

'Ah…' Etie

'Well, you know about Idaho, huh? There's no clouds in Idaho.'