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GEORGINA SAT ON THE sofa with the curtains open and watched the sun set. She pulled her cardigan round her jumper and smoothed her trousers. Then she sat on her hands and thought about David Blameworth
She knew he wasn’t just going to burst into her house and shoot her. It was too quick. No, he’d want to savour her defeat. She’d bought a pistol, a semi-automatic, and practised using it in the woods behind her house. She expected to hate it, but she’d grown attached to it. It was under the sofa.
If she was to stand a chance against him, he’d have to lay his cards on the table quickly. Lately, she’d noticed in herself the early symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease – her father had had it. Time was against her.
Or it had been until thirty minutes ago. The phone had rung. She picked it up, expecting Lek.
“Happy Christmas, Georgina,” he said.
“David.”
“I can see you.”
She ran her hand over the sofa arm then got up to close the curtains.
“Don’t move, Georgina. I also know you’re alone. Sad, all alone on Christmas Day.”
She sat down. “I could phone the Police.”
“I could cut the phone lines.”
“I could use my mobile.”
He laughed. “I have your mobile, Georgina. I’m using it to phone you.”
She pulled her bag to her. Scissors, nail-file, purple notebook, comb ... He wasn’t lying. She realised he was watching her go through her things and absurdly, she blushed.
“Do you want to hear the story?” he said. “Last night, you were in The Starfish with that bitch, Lek Shawcross. So was I.”
“Really? You should have stopped and said hello. We’d have loved to see you. You’re never going to get away, you know. If I was you I’d give yourself up to the authorities right now. Save time.”
Suddenly, she was aware of a luminous red dot on her cardigan. Wherever he was, he was pointing his gun at her. Or a toy. Pathetic, but she froze.
“I could kill you now,” he said. “But I don’t want to kill you. I want to make amends. Meet me in The Starfish, tomorrow morning about ten. I’m going to pay back the money I embezzled then I’ll be on my way. Come alone. For old times’ sake. We’re not that different, Georgina Chappel. After the handover, I’ll be on my way. There are lots of ways I can get off the island. I just want to leave with a clear conscience.”
“So why can’t you give me the money now, post it through my letterbox?”
“Close your curtains now. I won’t shoot you.”
“Why can’t you just give - ”
He hung up. She closed her curtains. Her heart was pounding against her ribcage as if it wanted to get out.
He wasn’t an original thinker. She knew what was on his mind. He was planning to suffocate her and dump her at sea to make it look as if she’d drowned - or disappeared, if the tides were favourable. But he was in for a surprise.
At half past eight the next morning she packed her pistol in her shoulder bag, picked up her walking-stick and set off for The Starfish. Walking helped her think.
When Adirake left for work, Solada put on yesterday’s pink vest and denim skirt and a pair of flip-flops, and went outside to look at the horizon. Something bad was about to happen. The Moken could divine the sea’s moods. It was what her parents and grandparents had told her. Everyone believed it, even outsiders. It looked ominous, she couldn’t say why.
She tidied away the breakfast things – she’d wash them later - and scraped the remains of Nui’s food into the bin. She changed her nappy and dressed her: a jacket, a cap and a pair of loose white trousers. Finally, she brought in the laundry and rang for a taxi.
While she was waiting, she changed into shalwar kameez and a hijab and said a du’a prayer.
The car arrived twenty minutes later. Nui was beginning to whimper. Solada picked up the shoulder-bag, popped some chewing-gum in her mouth and went to meet it.
“Where to?” the driver said.
“Patong.”
“Nice baby.”
Nui began to cry, which suited Solada fine. She didn’t want a conversation. “Thanks,” she said.
Adirake would be angry that she had splashed out on a taxi, but she’d make it up to him somehow.
She pulled Nui’s cap down and adjusted her hijab. Could she be suffering from post-natal depression? What she was doing was mad. She almost asked the taxi-driver to turn around.
But then dread took hold of her again and she bit her tongue.
Georgina walked into The Starfish to find it empty. It was carpeted in red and blue, with a jukebox next to the exit which led to the toilets and a long bar flaunting a bamboo frontage. The barman-proprietor came out and smiled at her. The double-doors to the beach were shut tight.
She was early for the meeting, but the bartender – Toni: a Thai man in his late fifties with long hair and a Hawaiian shirt - seemed to be expecting her. He came out to greet her.
“Are you here to meet Mr Smith, the Englishman?”
“Yes - Mr Smith,” she said. “Georgina Chappel.”
“Drink? Everything’s on the house. Get what you want when I’m gone. You have exclusive use of the bar for four hours. I’ve been told you won’t be needing me, but I’ve left my mobile number next to the cash register, should you change your minds. I can be here at short notice. I’ll be down on the beach.”
“I’ll have an orange juice, please.”
“Coming right up.”
She put her hand in her bag and checked the gun for what she hoped was the final time. She accepted the orange and took a deep sip to wet her mouth.
“I’ll be leaving now,” the bartender said. “Here’s hoping you have a prosperous meeting.”
She smiled and raised her glass.
Solada stepped out of the taxi on to the road along the beach. It was a measure of her anxiety that she paid twenty-five Bahts more than she’d intended. She put Nui on the ground and rubbed her head with sun-block. She gave her a little drink and re-hoisted her onto her hip.
Patong looked utterly normal. It was a clear morning and the holidaymakers had colonised the beach. Rows and rows of multicoloured umbrellas poked from the sun-loungers, as neat as if the military had taken charge again. Out at sea, through the heat haze, she could see hundreds cooling off.
She didn’t know where Adirake was but she was sure she’d find him if she wandered up and down for a while. He was rarely in one place for very long. He had a lookout tower but he often went on patrol and he was in charge of the other lifeguards.
She suddenly had a nasty presentiment about her presentiment. Perhaps it wasn’t about the sea at all. Perhaps Adirake was seeing another woman. Maybe it wasn’t a Moken’s intuition that brought her here. Maybe it was a woman’s.
She stepped up her pace. She pulled out some plastic sunglasses and unfolded them and rammed them on her face. Her fingers were trembling.
If he was cheating on her she didn’t know what she’d do. She pulled her hijab forward. Maybe she’d prefer not to know. Maybe she should go home.
Then she looked out to the beach. The sea had begun to recede at speed. The tourists squealed and cheered and some of them ran after it. Fish lay stranded on the sand, flashing like fireworks. People were picking them up and trying to return them to the water.
Her stomach lurched and her mouth popped open. This never happened except ... All her earliest intuitions were correct. All of these people were about to be killed.
Wherever he was, Adirake would now know that, too. And he wouldn’t abandon his post until the last person was evacuated.
But even if a few people made it, most of them would die.
Therefore Adirake was going to be killed.
She had to make up her mind whether to run - maybe saving herself and Nui - or to stay where she was, assist with the evacuation and die.
She could already see the wave approaching. She kissed Nui for the last time and ran down onto the sand.
Apart from the spotlights, Kits, the Kitkailarts’ bar, looked very much like The Starfish: the same bamboo bar-frontage, the same dark carpet smelling faintly of cigarettes and alcohol, the same double doors leading to the beach, also closed. The jukebox was playing Wonderwall, but was drowned out by noise of the vacuum cleaner.
Tasanee sat at one of the tables, counting the takings and doing sums in the accounts book. The boys wore swimming-trunks, Tueng polishing glasses behind the bar, Wichien vacuuming the carpet. The day’s first customer was yet to arrive.
Tasanee raised her voice above the noise. “I don’t want to hear any more about it. I wish Georgina and Mrs Shawcross had never got involved.”
“Come on, you two,” Wichien said. “He swindled us. We’re entitled to some sort of compensation.”
“He’s a good man,” she said. “You don’t know him. You don’t remember the old days.”
“I’m with Mum,” Tueng said. “We’re better off with fifteen percent of twenty one million than ninety of a hundred thousand - which is all bloody Mr Jarunsuk on Thung Kha road would have got us.”
Wichien laughed. “And he’d have paraded it.”
“I thought Noonie might have rung yesterday,” Tasanee said.
“She’ll be in touch,” Wichien said.
“Loves her mother,” Tueng said.
“Christmas is a big thing over there, Mum. All Charles’s relatives probably came round and expected her to cook for them. Then they’ll have had to go sledging, build a snowman, that sort of crap. Then supper and the washing up. She was probably tired out.”
“She could have phoned,” Tasanee said.
“What? With all that going on? And I bet it wasn’t straight to sleep afterwards, either.”
“Don’t!” Tasanee said.
“You worry about her too much. She’ll be fine.”
“Ring her at New Year,” Wichien said. “I’ll do it for you, if you like. Would you like that?”
“Would you?”
“So this is what’s stopped you phoning her, so far, is it?” Tueng said. “You’re a bit scared of her, Mum, aren’t you?”
Tasanee blushed. “It’s just that ... well, she did marry very well. And she’s very clever. And she did get us this business. Without her, you two would still be in Bangkok, washing rice and - ”
“We didn’t wash rice.”
“Sorry. It’s just that - ”
“It’s just that you feel you’re not worthy,” Wichien said. “Pass me the phone, Tueng. I’m going to put an international call through. This is stupid.”
“No, no!”
But Wichien was already dialling the operator.
“Wait a minute,” Tueng said. “What’s that?”
Suddenly, they all heard it. A roar.
Wichien put the phone down, went to the door and flung it open.
They all looked outside. Standing there, like an unexpected guest, was an unbroken wall of dark water.
Georgina took a table in the middle of the room so she couldn’t be surprised. She finished her orange. David Blameworth entered.
He was much thinner than she remembered, his cheekbones far more sunken, his eyes more cadaverous. His short-sleeved shirt, worsted shorts and dirty boat shoes looked like growths. He had a long beard.
He sat down opposite her - at point blank range, assuming she could reach her gun in time. Despite her precautions, she’d been taken by surprise. Not the suddenness of his entry but the opposite.
“Thank you for coming,” he said.
She needed to restore the physical distance between them. “Could you get me another drink?”
“How can I refuse? It’s all on the house. What are you having?”
“A cocktail, please. Mexican Firing Squad.”
“Interesting. I don’t know it but I can take instructions.”
He went over to bar and opened the gate.
“One ounce of good quality silver tequila,” she said.
“Tequila ... yeah. This may take a while: I’m not familiar with the layout. Right, next.”
“One and a half teaspoons of fresh lime juice.”
“Limes, limes ... wherefore art thou, limes? Ah. Knife ... knife ... next.”
“One and a half teaspoons of Kahlúa.”
“What’s ‘Kahlúa’?”
“By the tequila. Spelt with a ‘K’. Accent above the ‘u’.”
“Got it. One and a half teaspoons, you say? ... Done.”
“A lime wedge,” she said, her voice trembling.
“Done.”
“A glass of pale ale, separate.”
“A pint?”
“Half a pint.”
He returned to their table with her drinks. She was pointing the gun at him.
“How predictable,” he said.
“Because I know you’re not here to repay the money you owe. Are you?”
“I’m here to kill you. I’ve already spent the money.”
“This is loaded. I will use it.”
“Will use it if ... what? I’ve already told you I’m going to kill you. Look, your hand’s shaking, you really ought to get that seen to. I’ve already told you I’m not here to repay the money. Use it now. What’s stopping you?”
“I will - ”
“You won’t kill me. I’m another human being. You’re a humanist and a Buddhist and a coward all rolled into one. And you think you’re something else. Give me the gun, Georgina.”
Her hands shook. He took the gun off her and flicked it open.
“It actually is loaded,” he said. He emptied the cartridge and put the bullets and the gun into separate trouser pockets. “Drink up, I’ll get you another.”
She was now displaying the very signs he’d almost certainly come looking for: signs she knew she’d lost. They were in the final stage of his drama. She already detected him inhaling the fumes of the experience. She drank her cocktail and began to quake more visibly.
“Now the beer,” he said. “Then I’m going to get you another drink, calm you down. Triple Jack Daniels. What say you to that, my olde maid?”
She said nothing.
He punched her in the face. Her chair fell backwards and she slid across the floor and landed at the foot of the bar.
He picked her up by the scruff of her neck. “Do you know what I’m going to do to you? Do you know?”
She was trying hard not to cry. “You’re going to force me to get drunk then you’re going to strangle me, and then dump me in the sea, to ‘make it look like an accident’. Because that’s all you know, David. Nineteen seventies clichés. Your collection of Miami Vice videos must be pretty worn out. I’m not scared of you any more,” she said, gaining more and more self-control. “If you think I’m having a triple Jack Daniels or anything else in here, you must be mad. You can take a horse to water, David ... and that’s as far as you’re going to get.”
“You - ”
“’You meddling fool. If it hadn’t been for your interfering, I’d have got clean away with it’.” She laughed, the tears put away now. “Say it, go on.”
He punched her in the stomach. She collapsed on to the floor. “You’ve got a hell of a nerve, trying to persuade me I think I’m someone I’m not. You couldn’t even pull the trigger of a loaded gun.”
She spat blood and met his eyes. “But unlike you ... I’m kinder than I thought I was.”
He sat down hard on her chest. Her ribs cracked, she groaned, her eyes bulged. She died.
Suddenly, the door burst open and a lifeguard stood outlined against the daylight. “Everyone out! There’s a tidal wave coming!”
David Blameworth stopped what he was doing and found himself face to face with Adirake Leekpai. There was a pause as both of them took this new turn of events on board.
Adirake put his head on one side as if the new information was too much. “David - ? Georgina! What – oh - what the – my God - ?”
David Blameworth tried to get up but Adirake had already crossed the floor and grabbed him. He looked again at Georgina as if to confirm what his senses declined to believe. “You’ve killed her!”
“She’s going to be okay! I was – I was helping her!”
“You’ve killed her!”
“Oh, God, I was helping her!””
Adirake hoisted him up by his hair and slammed his forehead against a bar pump. There was a muted crunch as his skull broke. Finding him still whimpering, he flung him on the ground and stamped on his neck.
He knew he’d lost control. He was about to die and so were hundreds of others. In comparison, David’s Blameworth’s crime was a banality. Yet part of him was filled with horror at what he’d done.
“Adirake!”
He turned round. Solada stood in the doorway with Nui, a look of utter terror on her face. He awoke from the blood-lust and looked past her. It could only be a matter of seconds away now.
“Run to me!”
She didn’t run to him. There was an explosion and she was swept into him. He grabbed her with both arms and they were borne through the bar. The wall that should have blocked their exit collapsed in front of them.
Silence, except for the sound of bubbles. He held on to her. They were deep underwater now. They were buffeted by shards of wood, a roll of lino, a mirror, a chair. They turned over and over. He tried to keep his eyes open. Everything was grey and brown and disintegrating. Beach chairs, a radiator, a table-lamp, a car wheel hurtled past in different directions as if gravity had been unhinged.
Suddenly, they broke the surface. They all gasped deeply and loudly, as if they were sucking in the whole earth’s atmosphere at once. He saw Solada still had Nui. Then they were pulled under again.
A candle passed, spinning like a propeller. Little things materialised then disappeared: a salt pot, a bag of sugar, a pair of spectacles. Before they reached him he didn’t know whether they were large getting larger or small getting smaller. The adrenalin fired into his blood and gave him a sensation of unreality. He both struggled for his life and seemed an impartial spectator. Things were produced by the murk like the creation of the universe from void. The plankton sparkled, he gripped Solada, he saw his life as if it was a film.
They slapped into something hard. A wall? He looked at Solada. Her hair billowed, she looked angry and confused, but she was still clutching the baby. He chose a direction and pointed, hoping his instincts were right. She nodded once and they began to struggle in the same direction.
Suddenly, they broke the surface again. They gasped and as the water spilled from their ears, they were being shouted at and arms were being stretched towards them. They went under again. A piece of plasterboard grazed them and disappeared in slow motion. They resurfaced. He could see what the arms and shouts were now. A group of about ten tourists on a flight of steps. He kept a grip on the topmost step with his fingers and held on to Solada with the other.
“Pass them Nui!” he shouted.
The tourists seemed to know what was expected of them. As Adirake tried to hold Solada steady, she held Nui out with both hands. The tourists formed a chain and grabbed her. They grabbed Solada then Adirake the same way. They cheered and high-fived. Nui began to cry and Adirake collapsed on his haunches and gasped his next breaths. Solada threw her arms round him and wailed.
A man in a wet dress suit knelt down next to Adirake. “Excuse me, I’m the manager of this hotel. You’re Adirake Leekpai, yes? Can I get you anything?”
“There’s another wave coming!” someone yelled.
“We’d better go upstairs a few flights,” the manager said.
Adirake kissed his wife, stroked Nui and, giving thanks to Allah, led his family up the stairway.
Lek was standing in the doorway when Mark arrived back from work. Behind her, the radio blared updated news of casualties.
Mark leant out of the car window. “School’s been suspended till further notice. Are you ready?”
Lek transferred her daughter to the baby-carrier. She hitched her on to her back and picked up the First Aid box.
“But what about the baby?” he said. “I could go alone ... ”
She shook her head and wiped her eyes. “She’s one of us, Mark. She’s not for wrapping in cotton wool. Now, go.”
