Beyond the Beach, the Trees #2
“Wasn’t me, then. Cape Town born and bred, although I’m living in Singapore now. When I’m not propping up Fijian bars, of course.” Margot laughed unnecessarily. “You must have mistaken me for someone else. Can’t believe there’s someone out there with these good looks though, heh?”
Alastair shook his head. The heat must be messing with him; he could barely form a coherent thought. Funny that he should have mistaken two different people for old Simmonds, but he couldn’t deny that he wasn’t at the top of his game. He wondered if he was having some kind of episode.
Curtis must have spotted the thought. He stepped up to the bar next to Alastair and placed a heavy hand on his shoulder.
“That’s the face of a man who needs a drink. This round’s on me. I can recommend the local rum, if you’re up for the heavy stuff.”
Alastair did his best not to shrink from his touch. In this place, with the mood he was in, it seemed charged in a way he couldn’t explain. Not quite erotic, but not entirely dissimilar.
“Rum sounds fine.”
“Good man. Now, can anyone see where Filipe has got to? The staff here are super friendly, but I swear, they spend half their day under a coconut tree whacked out on kava. He was telling me earlier that they won’t even leave the beach. Where is he?”
Alastair had stopped listening again. Curtis’s hand was still on his shoulder, surprisingly dry and cool through the fabric, but he was looking farther up his arm, beyond his elbow.
A jagged scar zigzagged across his bicep, disappearing under his shirtsleeve.
It was clearly old—the scar tissue had paled to almost match his skin tone—but thick and uneven, as if it hadn’t healed straight.
The edges were puckered, too, giving the impression that he was made of clay and someone had simply pinched him back together.
It had to be a foot long—maybe longer, if it continued under his shirt.
“Here he is!” Curtis yelled without warning, waving to a short Fijian man in T-shirt and swim shorts who had materialized out of the darkness. “Filipe, my man! Two large rums and whatever the lady is drinking, when you have a minute. You know my lodge number, right?”
But Alastair was barely listening. He was still staring at the scar, and wondering what damage a speeding train would do to a body.
* * *
Alastair floated barely fifty feet from the beach, arms and legs starfished.
Yellow fish no bigger than his finger darted like tiny blades in the water, so close he imagined he could reach out and touch them.
He still had a hangover, his mouth gummy and rancid.
He hadn’t slept well since they’d arrived—the bedroom was too hot, even at night—and he slid willingly into something like a trance.
When Margot reached out and tapped his shoulder, to signal they were going in, he almost lashed out at her with his fist.
Alastair’s back was sore that evening, the sunburn already starting to redden and blister, but Margot convinced him to throw on his loosest shirt and venture out to dinner.
The cotton rubbed against his shoulder blades like sandpaper and he thought he might be sick.
Only the memory of the rum brought a smile to his face. It was as good as Curtis had said.
When they arrived, though, the bar was closed. Filipe had propped a handmade sign against an empty bottle, an arrow drawn on it pointing toward the beach. Now that he looked, Alastair could see the orange flicker of a small bonfire on the sands.
“What’s this for?” he muttered, the soreness intensifying now that relief had been snatched away. “What kind of resort won’t even sell you a drink?”
“I suppose we should go see,” Margot replied. “Filipe did say there was a surprise tonight. He’s quite chatty when you get to know him.” She took Cassie’s hand and they started down the path toward the fire.
There were figures in the firelight. Curtis and some of the other guests were sprawled in a semicircle, a few with drinks in their hands.
Filipe and two other men from the staff sat with their legs crossed, their backs rigid.
In front of them was a large wooden bowl, maybe three feet across, its edges crudely carved with a rolling pattern that made Alastair feel seasick.
Within it lay a muslin bundle the size of a cricket ball, tied at the top with string.
Curtis turned and waved to them, indicating an empty space next to him. “Here they are. Better late than never. Pull up some dirt and join us—Filipe has made kava.”
They’d read about this in the guidebooks: a traditional drink of kava root steeped in water. There were ceremonies attached to its consumption that made it a quasi-religion on the islands. Apparently it numbed the tongue and brought a general feeling of euphoria and well-being.
Alastair slumped awkwardly, aware of the dirt sticking to the sweat on his shins. Surely a four-star resort should have chairs? He tried to keep his gaze from straying to the scar on Curtis’s arm, but there was a loose thread hanging from his sleeve that drew his eyes.
The barman, Filipe, smiled and waved to him. He pointed at the bowl. “You want to try it? We’ve made some fresh. It’s good for you, yes? Brings a smile to your face.”
Alastair felt there was a personal dig at him hidden in the faked camaraderie, but he nodded anyway.
He’d only get grief from Margot if they didn’t try it.
He could see an inch or two of murky water in the bottom of the bowl, like the gray suds left behind after she’d done the dishes.
It didn’t look even slightly appetizing—no wonder they needed a ceremony to give it some appeal.
“Sure, I’ll try it. Do I get a glass from the bar?”
Filipe smiled again, showing all his teeth. “No, no. We have this for drinking.” He held up a half coconut shell, then dunked it into the bowl and held it out. “Drink quickly. One gulp.”
Alastair stared into the makeshift cup for a moment.
It really did look disgusting. He was convinced they were serving up muddy puddle water, laughing behind their smiles at the ignorant westerners.
Still, if the others had tried it then it clearly wasn’t poison.
The sooner he drank, the sooner they’d reopen the bar and he could wash it down with rum.
He gave his most convincing smile and lifted the coconut shell to his lips, tipping it back to let the brackish water flow into his mouth.
It was slightly gritty on his tongue but barely had a taste at all.
Everyone clapped and he waved the coconut in the air, then handed it back to Filipe, who smiled and stowed it behind the bowl.
He didn’t partake of the kava himself, Alastair noticed.
As a pleasant numbness spread across his gums, he grinned.
* * *
Alastair wasn’t sure if it was the kava or the rum that came after, but by eleven he felt the world starting to slip away.
He was still sweating like he was in a sauna.
The difference was that he no longer cared.
His arms and legs felt divorced from his body, as if they were separate entities that he could only control through force of will, and each breath flowed in and out of him like the ocean.
A full moon sat swollen and yellow on the horizon.
Inland, the trees shushed and hissed as a breeze blew in off the water.
Curtis was saying something about pigs when he tuned back in.
“I could go for a bacon sandwich right now,” Alastair said, acutely aware of a gnawing emptiness in his stomach. They’d forgotten about getting dinner; Margot was back at the lodge, putting Cassie to sleep.
“Not these guys you wouldn’t,” Curtis said, running his finger around the rim of his empty glass.
“Filipe says they’re big and wild, more like boars than pigs.
Tusks and all. They live among the trees—a villager on the other side of the island was gored by one last month.
It’s why they keep us all on the beach. Safer—plus they can sell us overpriced cocktails by the bucketload.
He said the animals won’t come near the buildings, and the natives stay away from their runs between the trees. ”
“Likely story.” Alastair had to concentrate to force the words out, his tongue still numb and his head like a balloon. “They’re just trapping us. We’re free-range humans!” He shouted the last part, almost falling off his chair.
Curtis laughed. “You alright, mate? You don’t look all with it. I think they mixed you the extra-strong root.”
“Bugger,” Alastair said, somehow convincing his legs to stand. “I need to piss. I was going to go in the trees, but I don’t want to be gored by a Fijian pig-boar. Not tonight.”
Curtis laughed and stood. “I’ll come with you. I need one too—we can protect each other. Just in case your bacon comments have got them all riled up.”
Alastair didn’t know where the friendship with Curtis had come from. He’d thought of him as Margot’s friend—god, she flirted with him enough—but the man had bought more than half his rum. He appeared to have latched onto him like a tick.
Alastair’s legs were wobbly as they staggered to the trees, the earth rippling beneath him.
He was glad when he reached their cover and was able to grip onto the coarse trunks for support.
It was dark beneath the canopy but not as dark as he’d imagined.
The moonlight penetrated even here, rendering everything in a flat monochrome.
Curtis had walked four or five trees in, so he couldn’t be seen from the bar, and Alastair could hear him unzipping. A sudden splash as a torrent of urine hit one of the trunks.
“That’s better,” Curtis sighed as Alastair drew closer. “Must be all the kava, heh?”
Alastair could see him now, his penis in his hand.
His eyes must have adjusted to the dim light, because it was all so clear, like they were stood in a lightbox.
He watched as Curtis put himself away and zipped up.
The ragged scar up his arm shone, and Alastair could see the loose thread on his sleeve again, two or three inches of it hanging below the hem.
“Here,” he said. “I’ll get this for you.”
Reaching out, he grasped the thread and pulled.
It resisted at first, like it was caught somewhere.
He gave it a tug, and finally something relented, the thread unspooling as he pulled and pulled, the scar on Curtis’s arm opening wide as the skin peeled away from his body.
It curled back in two wet flaps, and as Alastair let go of the thread, Curtis reached up and took hold of one of them, peeling it back even further until he could slide his arm out of it like a glove.
The exposed tendons glistened like raw chicken in the pale light.
“See what you’ve done now?” he said, as if he was talking about a spilled drink. “You always ruin everything, don’t you Alastair? It’s no wonder people hate you.”
Alastair could feel bile rising in the back of his throat.
His entire body was humming, but he couldn’t scream.
He could barely make a sound. Instead, he threw himself at Curtis, or Simmonds, or whatever he was—slamming his head against the tree, once, twice, three times, until something gave and the body fell away, leaving a patch of hair adhered to the bark.
There was a sudden stink, fecund and meaty, and finally the vomit came.
Collapsing to his knees, Alastair purged onto the fallen palm leaves.
* * *
When Alastair woke, his head felt like it was split open. The lodge was already sweltering. Looking down, he saw he was naked apart from his underwear.
What had he got up to last night? He had a few flashes of memory and nothing more.
Had something happened between him and Curtis?
He thought they’d got into some kind of fight, but when he checked his knuckles they were smooth and unbroken.
There had been blood, though, hadn’t there?
His, or someone else’s? Had he dreamed that?
Eventually he peeled himself from the bed and staggered into the bathroom for a glass of water.
His clothes were there, piled in one corner where he’d shed them.
That brought back a memory of something too, although he couldn’t put his finger on it.
God knows what they put in that kava bag.
Maybe he’d got a bad batch, a moldy kava root. Was that a thing?
It was midday before he felt well enough to drag on some clothes and stumble out of the lodge.
The sun was high in the sky and bright. Masking his eyes with his hand, he headed toward the bar.
Someone would be there, surely. He couldn’t remember whether Cassie had one of her lessons today or not.
Usually Curtis was somewhere around; Margot seemed to find him easily enough.
The bar was empty, though, the sun spearing through the disheveled canopy illuminating only a few lazy mosquitoes.
Alastair kicked at the sand for no reason other than his own impatience.
Where was everyone? He knew he was up late, but it wasn’t as if the resort offered a panoply of diversions.
It was here or the sea. His eyes drifted inland, toward the line of trees, then snapped back to the tacky bamboo of the bar again. No, they must be in the sea.
Before he could will himself into motion, Filipe rounded the corner of the bar. He was drying a glass with a towel, and raised both by way of a greeting. Smiled that wide smile of his.
Alastair tried to smile back. “Morning. Do you know where everyone is? My wife? Margot?”
Filipe shook his head, the smile not leaving his face. With the hand that held the towel he pointed behind them, at the trees.
“Pig,” he said, his eyes widening. “Big pig.”
For a second Alastair thought he was insulting him, but then he heard a movement beneath the palm trees.
Something heavy was lumbering their way.
He could hear its body thudding against the trunks as it came, a guttural grunting growing louder and louder.
A crash as it thumped into something solid; a wordless growl that was almost, almost human.