The Beach

'Would you sort this out for me, Rich?' Mister Duck said, passing me a half-rolled joint. 'I can't do it. My hands are too sticky. The Rizla… The Rizla keeps falling apart.'

He laughed apologetically as I took the joint.

'It's my wrists. Slit them all over and now they won't stop bleeding.' He lifted up his arm and a squirt of blood arced across the Formica wall. 'See what I mean? What a fucking mess.'

I rolled the joint but didn't lick it. On the strip of gum was a red fingerprint.

'Oh. You don't want to worry about that, Rich. I'm clean.' Mister Duck looked down at his sodden clothes. 'Well, not clean…'

I licked the Rizla.

'So spark it up. I'll only make it wet.'

He held out a light and I sat up on the bed. My weight sunk the mattress and a stream of blood ran down the slope, soaking into my shorts.

'Now how's that? Hits the fucking spot, huh? But you want to try it through a rifle barrel. That's a serious hit, Rich.'

'Blow my mind.'

'Yeah,' said Mister Duck. 'That's the boy. That's the kid…'

He lay back on the bed with his hands above his head, wrists facing upwards. I took another drag. Blood ran along the blades of the fan and fell around me like rain.

KO SAMUI

R&R

The journey from the train station at Surat Thani to Ko Samui passed in a sleep-fogged blur. I vaguely remember following Etie

Our jeep from the Ko Samui port to the Chaweng beach resort was a big open-top Isuzu. On the left the sea lay blue between rows of coconut palms, and on the right a jungle-covered slope rose steeply. Ten travellers sat behind the driver's cabin, our bags clamped between our knees, our heads rolling with the corners. One had a baseball bat resting against his shoulder, another held a camera on his lap. Brown faces flashed past us through the green. 'Delta One-Niner,' I muttered. 'This is Alpha patrol.' The jeep left us outside a decent-looking bunch of beach huts, but backpacker protocol demanded we check out the competition. After half an hour of slogging across the hot sand, we returned to the huts we'd first seen.

Private showers, a bedside fan, a nice restaurant that looked on to the sea. Our huts faced each other over a gravel path lined with flowers. It was tres beau, Francoise said with a happy sigh, and I agreed.

The first thing I did after shutting the door behind me was to go to the bathroom mirror and examine my face. I hadn't seen my reflection for a couple of days and wanted to check things were OK.

It was a bit of a shock. Being around lots of ta

Chaweng was a travel-brochure photo. Hammocks slung in the shade of curving palm trees, sand too bright to look at, jet-skis tracing white patterns like jet-planes in a clear sky. I ran down to the surf, partly because the sand was so hot and partly because I always run into the sea. When the water began to drag on my legs I jumped up, and the momentum somersaulted me forwards. I landed on my back and sank to the bottom, exhaling. On the seabed I let myself rest, head tilted slightly forward to keep the air trapped in my nose, and listened to the soft clicks and rushes of underwater noise.

I'd been splashing around in the water for fifteen minutes or so when Etie

'What's up?' I called.

Etie

I began wading towards him. 'What fish?'

'I do not know the English – Aaah! Aaah! There are more! Aaah! Stinging!'

'Oh,' I said as I reached him. 'Jellyfish! Great!'

I was pleased to see the pale shapes, floating in the water like drops of silvery oil. I loved their straightforward weirdness, the strange area they occupied between plant and animal life.

I learnt an interesting thing about jellyfish from a Filipino guy. He was one of the only people my age on an island where I'd once stayed, so we became pals. We spent many happy weeks together playing Frisbee on the beach, then diving into the South China Sea. He taught me that if you pick up jellyfish with the palm of your hand, you don't get hurt – although then you had to be careful to scrub your hands, because if you rubbed your eyes or scratched your back the poison would lift off and sting like mad. We used to have jellyfish fights, hurling the te

I looked at the jellyfish around us. They looked the same as the ones in the Philippines so I decided it was worth the risk of a sting, thinking how worldly and impressive it would seem to Etie

'Mon Dieu!' he exclaimed.

I smiled. I didn't realize French people actually said 'Mon Dieu'. I always thought it was the same thing as English people supposedly saying 'what' at the end of every sentence.

'It is not hurting, Richard?'

'Nope. It's about how you hold it, like stinging nettles. You try.'

I held out the jellyfish.

'No, I do not want to.'

'It's fine. Go on.'

'Really?'

'Yeah, sure. Hold your hands like mine.'

I slid the jellyfish into his cupped hands.

'Oooh,' he said, a big grin spreading over his face.

'But you can only touch it with your palms. If you touch it anywhere else it'll sting.'

'Only the palm? Why is that?'

I shrugged. 'Don't know. That's the rule.'

'I think maybe the skin is more thick there.'

'Maybe.' I picked another one out of the water. 'They're weird, aren't they? Look, you can see right through them. They don't have any brains.'

Etie

We peered at our jellyfish in silence for a few moments, then I noticed Francoise. She was on the beach, walking towards the water in a one-piece white swimsuit. She saw us and waved. As her arm lifted her swimsuit drew tightly over her chest and shadows from the one o'clock sun defined her breasts, the dip under the ribcage, a groove of muscle down her stomach.

I glanced at Etie

When she reached us she was unimpressed by our catch. 'I do not like them,' she said curtly. 'Will you come for a swim?'

I pointed at the chest-deep water, shoulder-deep for Francoise. 'We are swimming, aren't we?'

'No,' said Etie