part0009

They walked together, hand-in-hand, towards the island beach of Koh Phangan, where over twenty-thousand bodies vied for space, dancing, drinking and partying. Ana saw the bus they had arrived on still sitting there, the driver leaning against the side, smoking a cigarette and watching her. Ana looked away, surprised to find her heart racing.

He’s not staring at you. No one is. There’s nothing wrong , she told herself. But still, she let go of Ricky’s hand and checked to see if her dress was tucked into her knickers. It wasn’t.

‘You okay?’ asked Ricky .

‘Do I have something on my face?’ asked Ana.

Ricky looked confused. ‘No.’

‘Okay. I just…I feel like people are staring at me.’

‘Everyone here is too drunk to stare. I doubt they can focus on anything.’

Ana looked back towards the driver. The still-smoking cigarette lay in the dirt by his feet. Beyond him stood someone else, only the side of their face visible behind the driver. It was pale and shrivelled, a bleached husk, the kind of face she was glad was hidden from full view. The sinister figure put a pale hand on the driver’s shoulder, the ancient, powdery skin almost transparent in the sunlight. Ana couldn’t see the thing’s eyes, but they were definitely staring at her, she knew it. For real this time, no trick of the imagination.

But she could see the driver’s. He mouthed something at her, seeming to move in slow motion, his words lost, drifting away on the wind. They locked eyes and Ana froze. The driver’s mouth opened wide, his gaze fixed on her. Her heart pounded. The pale thing remained still as the driver began to shake, a trickle of blood running down his chin.

His neck bulged obscenely and his jaw slackened even further as whatever was inside him struggled to fight its way out.

The pale creature stepped out from behind the driver and Ana’s stomach dropped.

‘Ana? You okay?’

She turned to Ricky, her face phantom-pale.

‘Jesus, what’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ she said, gasping for breath. ‘Nothing. ’

She turned back towards the grisly scene, knowing full well that when she did, everything would be back to normal. The driver leaned against the bus, a half-smoked cigarette clamped between his teeth. He was fine. The figure was gone.

It couldn’t be. Not again. It had been a year. It was over, the past, a distant memory, a bad dream.

Should she tell Rachel?

Best not to. No sense worrying her, not now. She would wait until they got back to Scotland. It didn’t matter, it was all under control now. She knew how to deal with the visions; she knew they weren’t real.

It wouldn’t be like before.

She wouldn’t let them get inside her head.

‘Ana, come on, what’s wrong?’

She struggled to control her breathing. ‘Nothing. I’m sorry Ricky, I thought I recognised someone. False alarm, thankfully.’

‘You look pale,’ he said, the concern genuine.

‘I always look pale.’ She smiled, surprised at how easy it was to slip into old patterns and even older excuses.

She took Ricky’s hand and let him lead the way. Despite the heat, a cold shiver traced its icy fingernail down her spine.

This time she didn’t dare turn back.

Shacks lined the beach; bars, street food stalls and more bars. On any other day it would probably be another stunning Thai coastline, all white sand and palm trees. But one night every month - this night - it became a weird backpacker carnival, where people took the “anything-as-long-as-it’s-fluorescent” dress code very seriously indeed. All around bodies thrust and jerked in a bacchanalian frenzy, daubed liberally with glow-in-the-dark paint over every inch of exposed flesh.

‘The paint factory must have exploded,’ said Ana.

‘What?’ shouted her sister over the music.

Ana leaned right up to Rachel’s ear, started to yell her comment into it and gave up. It was a lame joke anyway.

‘Come on, I need a drink,’ she said instead.

Rachel didn’t need telling twice.

They pushed their way through the crowds, Ana gripping on to Rachel the whole way. A strobe light kicked in and the scene became a spectacle of twitching bodies. Ana felt the old sliver of anxiety creeping up on her like a spider. She always got this way around crowds.

Ten years ago, aged eighteen, her sister sixteen, she had accompanied Rachel to the New Year’s Eve fireworks display in their native Edinburgh. Thousands of pissed-up Scots crammed onto the main shopping street to celebrate the end of another miserable year and the beginning of an even worse one. It was an excuse to get drunk, as were most events back home.

But there, trapped among hordes of drunks, Ana’s throat had begun to tighten, her legs turning to jelly, a vast pit opening in her stomach. As the New Year countdown reached zero, she lost Rachel, separated by a group of boys pushing through. At that point a great cheer erupted and then everyone was hugging and kissing. Hands reached for her, groping and searching, brushing against her arse and breasts; one older man had leaned in and kissed her, the stench of alcohol on his breath making her retch. She had tried to retreat but there was nowhere to go, the people were packed in too tightly. She fought her way through the human quicksand in a panic, the throng surging against her at every turn. Then she must have blacked out, for the next thing she knew there was an EMT hovering over her in a mobile medical unit.

She had done her best to avoid crowds since then, but somehow here she was, of her own volition, at one of the busiest parties on the planet. It made the New Year’s Eve party look like a visit to an old folks’ home.

Rachel deftly picked her way through the crowd, not seeming to mind being bumped into, burned with cigarettes or having innumerable drinks spilt down her, and they emerged from the worst of it at one of many bars set up along the beach. At least the music was quieter here.

‘Jesus Ana, let go of my hand. It’s fucking sore!’

Ana slackened her vice-like grip and relaxed.

Rachel brushed a strand of red hair away from Ana’s face. ‘Listen, if you don’t want to stay, you don’t have to. I can get you back to the hostel if you like?’

Ricky and Paul emerged after them, followed by Josh and Lillian, who ambled through the crowd wide-eyed. Ricky scanned the area, spotted Ana and Rachel and made a beeline for them.

‘It’s fine, honestly. I’ll just stick to the edges for now.’

‘Okay. But if you change your mind… ’

‘Then I can make my own way back. Don’t worry about me. Have a good time, okay?’

‘I’m glad you came,’ said Rachel. Ana smiled back, embarrassed. Rachel wandered off in the direction of the bar, where the drinks were served in small buckets like in a London hipster joint, the kind where food arrived on surgical trays and you ate peanuts out of a slipper.

Ana settled back against the wall of a dilapidated cabin that doubled as a body painting and henna tattoo area. An endless queue stretched around the corner and out of Ana’s line of vision. Most people wore the requisite matching neon vests with slogans that made little sense. ‘Same, same’ was the most common, whatever that meant. It reminded her of the t-shirts she would see at the local market back home; ones with ‘Same shit, different day’ or ‘FBI: Female Body Inspector’ written on them in Comic Sans. She had always wondered who bought those awful things, but now she figured they must be the UK’s biggest export to Thailand.

‘First impressions?’ she asked Ricky.

‘I fucking hate it.’

Surprised, Ana laughed, though it came out as more of a snort. She hoped the music had drowned out the sound.

They waited in silence as a circle formed around a man standing in the middle of the sand. He produced a long rope from a tub of gasoline, held up a flame to it and the whole thing ignited with a whoosh. Ana flinched. He snaked it around the sand like a burning serpent, entreating the assembled mob to back off slightly. When there was enough space, he spun the rope, first over his head and then in circles around his body, showering the crowd with sparks. Ana hoped the cheap neon vests were not as flammable as they looked.

Actually, would that be so bad ?

Uninvited, a young woman shimmied her way over the sand and began to dance beneath the rope, tiny embers cascading over her body. This whipped the crowd up even more, and soon a familiar chant had begun.

‘Get your tits out, get your tits out, get your tits out for the lads!’

Wow , thought Ana. It’s like I never left home.

Unlike back home though, the chant seemed to work. It’s amazing the things people will do when they’re on holiday and don’t have to face the consequences.

The girl began gyrating madly, sticking her arse out and shaking it, urging the crowd to chant some more, lifting her shirt up past her navel, dropping it back down, lifting it higher. It was like being at a strip club, except nobody was getting paid and the biggest danger was a different type of burning sensation. The man with the rope spun the flaming cord, and as the chant reached its apotheosis, the girl tore the shirt over her head and dropped to her knees in the sand, undulating wildly, as the crowd (mostly men, but some women too) roared their approval.

‘Suddenly I feel overdressed,’ said Ana. Ricky tore his eyes away from the topless dancing with some effort.

‘If you want to join her, I’d be happy to hold your clothes for you.’

‘I’m sure you would. Thing is, she’s about eighteen and bounces in all the right places. When I move, it’s more than just my tits that wobble. I wouldn’t want to have put anyone through that.’

‘I wouldn’t mind,’ squeaked Ricky, his voice breaking mid-sentence.

Ana shook her head, amused, as the same insistent techno beat that had played since they arrived came to a merciful end, only to be replaced by one that sounded exactly the same. It was the lift muzak from Hell.

Rachel arrived with the drinks and saw Ana’s glum expression. ‘There it is,’ she said. ‘The face where smiles go to die.’

‘I’m having the time of my life,’ said Ana, her stony expression unchanging. ‘Can’t you tell?’

‘Shut up and drink this.’

Ana picked up the glass, a toxic green liquid sloshing about inside.

‘Herbert West called. He want’s his reagent back,’ she said. No one got the reference and she immediately regretted it, mentally adding it to her List of Mildly Embarrassing Moments . She wondered how many hours of sleep she would lose thinking about this one.

‘It’s very…green. What is it?’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

Ana looked back at the man with the rope, the girl still writhing beneath him. She tugged the string of her bikini bottoms and they slipped off, the crowd roaring its approval as she got on her hands and knees and shook her bare arse for them.

Ana downed the drink, gagging on the acrid aftertaste, her throat burning. She looked to Ricky but he was distracted by the impromptu All Nude Revue. She couldn’t blame him, the girl had a great body. Still, the joke was on her. She’d be picking sand out of her vagina for weeks.

She downed Ricky’s drink. The sooner she got steaming, the better.

It didn’t take long.

‘Rach, you promised me a “wide variety of music”,’ she said, pointing dramatically at her sister. ‘Your words, not mine. So far all I’ve heard is this techno shit, dun dun dun dun all night.’ She emphasised the point by pounding the table with each dun , the empty glasses bouncing with each strike, threatening to topple.

‘Not true,’ said Rachel, matching Ana slur for slur. ‘At the start, they were playing house . Then, techno. This is more…rave.’

Ana sipped from the bucket. ‘They all sound the same.’

‘There’s a reggae tent down the beach,’ suggested Ricky, prompting Ana to splash some of her drink at him.

‘Hey! I guess you guys are too old to appreciate good music.’

Rachel cocked an eyebrow. ‘Hey Ana, did he just play the old card?’

‘I think he did.’ Ana stared straight at Ricky and said in her huskiest voice, ‘And to think I was going to fuck you.’ She shook her head as Ricky choked on his drink.

‘How old are you anyway?’ asked Rachel. ‘You look about seventeen.’

‘Actually, I’m twenty-one.’ He paused in an attempt at dramatic effect. ‘I’m twenty-one today.’ And then, just in case they still didn’t get it (they both did), ‘It’s my birthday.’

Ana was first to speak. ‘Well Ricky, first of all, thank you for explaining how birthdays work.’

‘And second, happy birthday!’ said Rachel. ‘That’s it, a round of shots, and then we dance!’

‘There’s no amount of shots in the world will make me dance,’ said Ana, but Rachel wasn’t listening. She got unsteadily to her feet, holding onto the back of Ana’s chair for balance.

‘Woah. I’m pretty wasted.’ She reached down the top of her dress and hooked a handful of Thai Baht out of her bra. She noticed Ricky staring at her breasts as she did so, and handed the bills to him. ‘You. Get the shots,’ she commanded, slumping back down into her chair.

Ricky scurried off towards the bar, leaving the sisters alone for the first time since the hostel. Josh and Lillian were off dancing and Paul was somewhere, though no one knew where. It didn’t matter, they could locate him with their phones if they needed to.

Rachel leaned in close.

‘He likes your tits. Been checking them out all night.’

‘He’s a guy, he likes tits. Doesn’t matter whose. Mine are more on show, that’s all.’

‘I guess. But Rach, he’s twenty-one.’

‘Yeah, but you’re only twenty-seven.’

Ana considered. ‘I think I’m twenty-eight.’

‘Oh yeah.’ There was a moments contemplation. ‘He still likes you.’

‘It would be one hell of a twenty-first birthday present,’ cackled Ana.

‘What would?’ said Ricky, gingerly laying down a tray of shots on the table. As expected, he found no answers, only laughter.

Rachel raised a glass, and the others followed suit.

‘Happy birthday Ricky. You’ll get your present later,’ she said, winking theatrically at Ana .

Ana started to say something, but Rachel quickly cut her off.

‘To Ricky!’ She downed the shot.

The drinks were soon gone, but there were many more to come.

The night was just beginning.

After a while it all blurred into one indivisible whole.

Ana let go, shedding her inhibitions, no longer in control of her mind or body. Time slipped by, drifting out to sea on a tide of unrelenting techno. The colours morphed, changed, the strobe light turning everything into jerky slow motion. Her own arms moved in front of her, above her head, but she didn’t recognise them. She told Rachel she loved her and Rachel told her she loved her too. She was thirsty, but nothing satisfied. She noticed that when people danced, their limbs left a trail behind them. How odd never to have noticed that! Her eyelids were heavy, but sleep would be impossible. Her heart raced. She vomited. It made her feel better. Someone held her hair - Rachel or Ricky? Maybe Lillian? She took a drink of bright green liquid and gulped it down. She told Rachel she loved her and Rachel told her she loved her too. They met a group. More drinks. Someone offered her a pill. She refused, unaware she had already taken one. One minute she was dancing. Then she would blink and be at the bar, Ricky beside her. ‘You remind me of a puppy,’ she told him, but he didn’t understand. Later, she stood by a tree and watched the sea roll in, the waves forming ethereal images. They frightened her. She felt like she had been here before, or would be here again. She considered wading in but was afraid that the tide would carry her out. How long had she been standing there? Rachel found her and Ana told her she loved her and Rachel told her she loved her too. They rejoined the party. No one knew where to find Paul. They walked along the beach and lay in the sand to watch the stars. Someone had a wild idea. Time marched on.