Lewis’s room must be in the other ‘wing’ – and if that’s the same size as my side, then this villa is bigger than my house. I’ll have to take loads of photos
to show Mum.
If she ever speaks to me again after she finds out what I’ve done.
While Lewis is busy, I go back to my room to change, and to check my phone for messages. Nothing more from Cara, but the worry takes a little of the shine off this dreamy place.
I pull on shorts and a t-shirt and turn my backpack upside down looking for make-up. All I find is some orangey concealer and a hairbrush. Worrying about what I looked like wasn’t a
concern when I packed my bag.
So why does it feel like it matters so much now?
I go back to the dining room and sit down, then stand up, then sit down again. I can’t settle.
‘Right, I hope this will perk us up.’ Lewis is carrying a large bamboo tray with a jug of iced water and lots of plates. He lays them out on the table in front of me.
‘Miss Forster, a light lunch as requested. All fresh, to make up for the dehydration of spending way too long at thirty-four thousand feet. Here we have sliced papaya with lime quarters.
Baby bananas with almonds. Mango with ice cream—’
There’s a ping from the kitchen. He disappears again.
My mouth is watering – somehow he’s managed to guess the only things I can imagine eating right now.
When he comes back, he’s holding a white porcelain bowl. ‘And hot chocolate dipping sauce.’
‘How on earth have you done all this? The kitchen was empty.’
He shrugs. ‘The chocolate was in my hand luggage for emergency snack attacks, so I just melted it. Plus there was ice cream in my mini-bar, and loads of tropical fruit in a bowl in the
snug.’
‘Snug?’
‘You mean you don’t have a
snug
in your wing?’ He pulls a shocked face. ‘Well, if you’re very nice to me I might let you come and see mine.’
‘You are the perfect man, aren’t you?’ I say it as a joke but it comes out wrong, sarcastic almost. ‘No. Really.’
He raises his eyebrows. ‘Bon appétit, Ali.’
I reach out, but my hand hovers over the plates. I’m unable to choose. ‘They all look too delicious.’ Finally I pick up a glistening slice of mango. It’s so juicy that
orange liquid runs down my finger. I hesitate before tasting it, bracing myself for disappointment. The last time I saw fruit as ripe as this was on the Beach, where perfection is never what it
seems.
‘Problem?’ Lewis asks.
‘No.’ I bite into it. The mango dissolves on my tongue. A second later, the flavour hits my taste buds, an explosion of sweetness with a scent so strong it’s almost like fresh
flowers. Delicious.
‘Nice?’
I nod. The taste is so intense that I don’t want to speak.
Weird. Who knew you could be knocked sideways by a simple slice of fruit? It’s almost like the first time I’ve ever tasted it.
And then I realise. It’s because of Soul Beach. All these months I’ve been hanging out with the Guests, watching
them
eat and drink the delicious-looking things Sam has
prepared for them. The only time I’ve tried to join in, they’ve tasted of ashes or of nothing. They’ve reminded me of everything that separates me from my sister and the boy I
love.
Here, it’s different.
This is how it tastes to be alive.
‘Right. Enough lazing around. I think we should explore, don’t you?’
Maybe it’s all the sugar in the fruit, but I’m completely re-energised. I slap on a load of sunscreen before we leave. Getting burned is not going to help me find what I’m
looking for.
Burned.
I think of Zoe, at the fire run in Barcelona. No. Don’t go there. I force myself to focus on right now. Like Lewis said, today is a recovery day then, tomorrow, we start
afresh. The bigger issue – what I’m actually going to
do
if we find a doppelganger for Soul Beach – is something I don’t want to think about. I’ve been
focusing so hard on not getting my hopes up that I haven’t considered what we’ll do if it
does
exist.
The Tiger Lily Villa looks even bigger from the outside. It has the same pointy Thai-style roof as the hotel reception lobby. There are two gleaming gold bikes propped next to a tree.
‘The resort’s so huge, I think we should use these instead of going on foot,’ Lewis says. ‘The amount it costs to stay here, they’re probably made of real
gold.’
I pick the one with the slightly lower saddle. When I climb on, it’s still too high and, though I wrestle with the clip, it won’t budge.
Lewis looks round. ‘Hang on, let me.’
I hold the bike steady while he unjams the post. So hot. But not just because of the sun. Being this close to him makes me feel self-conscious in a way I never have before.
‘Fixed,’ he says. ‘Try that now.’
I do. ‘Better.’
He grins. A bead of sweat is travelling down from his brow. I’m about to reach out to wipe it away, as I would have done before, but I stop. My cheeks redden.
I want to touch him, I realise. More than I’ve ever wanted anything.
No. It’s the heat, the jet lag, the journey.
‘We’ll soon cool down once we get the wind on our faces,’ Lewis says, and I feel myself blushing deeper. He’s practical, a good mate. He’s not interested in me like
that;
why would he be? We’re friends.
And yet, my hand tingles where I almost touched his face. The wind won’t do anything to cool down these new feelings for Lewis.
I climb onto the bike, looking anywhere but at him. Thank God he doesn’t suspect anything. Nothing’s changed for him even though
everything’s
just changed for me.
‘Chocks away, Alice!’
He takes off so confidently that I wouldn’t be surprised to see him using the satnav app on his phone to find his way. But when I pull alongside him, I see an expression of wild pleasure
on his face and realise he’s just enjoying the freedom.
My
Lewis.
We cross a bridge and almost collide with a golf buggy full of staff and laundry. They smile and say something in Thai as we sail past.
‘Brilliant, isn’t it?’ he says.
‘Yup.’ I haven’t ridden a bike for ages. The breeze
is
cooling my flushed face and the sun feels delicious on my arms and my neck, although it’s making me
sweat.
‘You know what’s even more brilliant?’ he calls out.
‘Nope.’
‘I know no one is going to call me to demand I come over and sort out their shrivelled hard drive, because no one knows where we are!’ He’s laughing as we cross a bridge over
another lake and then freewheel at high speed down the other side.
He doesn’t have a clue how I feel but perhaps it’s better that way. I laugh too.
But the laughter catches in my throat. Suddenly, things feel different.
What’s wrong?
Even though the only other people I can see are hotel staff – tending the gardens, re-painting the outside of an already pristine-looking villa – that
darkness
has come
back.
The feeling, no,
certainty,
that I’m being monitored. The same icy sensation I had in my sister’s old bedroom, and with Sahara, and at the fire run just before Zoe was
trampled . . .
The sun’s still strong but I don’t feel the warmth any more. Sweat trickles down my back and makes me shiver.
That’s when I realise those dark feelings in the past
must
have been my overactive imagination. Like Lewis said, no one even knows we’ve left the country, never mind that
we’ve travelled to Thailand. I’m not even on the same continent as the killer any more. I should be making the most of being safe, at last.
‘Hey, watch out!’ Lewis shouts, and I only just swerve in time to avoid a skinny black cat who clearly wasn’t going to move. I wobble for a few seconds; it doesn’t take
much to knock me off balance.
‘I reckon the beach was that way,’ Lewis is pointing across to our right.
‘I’ll take your word for it.’ Right now, I want to turn round and head back to the safety of our villa, but I realise I’m being irrational.
Breathe slowly. Calmer, calmer.
That’s working. The bikes run so smoothly and the landscape is stunningly lush. I didn’t know there were quite so many shades of green, from leaves so dark they’re almost
black, through to lime flowers so vividly neon they hurt my eyes. But actually, being here seems to be making my vision clearer: I see the difference now between our villa and these ones nearer the
main lake. These are smaller and built much closer together. The bikes parked outside are a dull brown rather than gold. That makes me smile; even in paradise, there’s a class system.
Ahead of us, a guard stands to attention when he hears us approach, then tips his hat and stops the traffic as we cross. I’m not sure I’d ever get used to that.
Now that I know the beach isn’t going to look like
Soul
Beach, I appreciate it more. Our bikes go over the dip and suddenly the sea is there, and in the afternoon sun it
does
look the same turquoise as I remember from my online paradise, with the same starbursts as a breeze whips up tiny waves.
If I tune out the ever-present reggae and the high tones of the skinny masseurs gossiping as they pummel fat tourists, then I can almost imagine hearing Meggie’s voice, exactly as I heard
it when I first walked along Soul Beach. The hour I first
believed . . .
‘Ali, shall we park up? I’ve never tried cycling on sand but I can’t imagine it’s easy, especially with killer jet lag.’ Lewis grins at me. I’m already
halfway onto the beach, my front wheel kicking sand into our faces.
‘Sorry, miles away.’
And he nods, and I know he understands exactly where I thought I was. ‘Are you too jet-lagged to risk a beer, Ali?’
I follow him up a couple of rickety steps into a restaurant that’s tantalisingly close to the shore. A beer might cool me down a little, though as long as I’m with him, I’m
going to feel flustered. ‘Was this whole coast affected by the tsunami, Lewis?’
‘A lot of it, I think. I’m not sure if this actual beach took a hit. Scary thought, though. Thousands of tourists sitting with their beers, like us. Hundreds of thousands of locals
going about their everyday lives. Then . . .’
He doesn’t have to spell it out. We both saw the news footage.
The waiter brings us menus but Lewis shakes his head and orders local Singha beers instead: two brown bottles as big as skittles. We take our first sips in silence.
‘So is there anything about this place that reminds you of Soul Beach?’ he asks.
‘I didn’t think so earlier, but now, well . . .’ I gaze out to sea. ‘The colours are the same. If I half close my eyes, then maybe. What about you?’
He shakes his head. ‘I only had the briefest glimpse. But those rock formations at the very end of the bay,’ he points towards the coast beyond where the reggae café is,
‘they seem similar. Then again, a rock is a rock is a rock, right?’
Except the rocks on the Beach acted as prison walls to the Guests until they all had no choice but to ‘save’ themselves.
All except Danny.
‘So how far away is the beach you found online, Lewis?’
‘A taxi ride, plus a speedboat trip. There’s a whole group of little islands. Makes most sense to organise a private trip. I’ve already spoken to the all-singing, all-dancing
concierge, and they can do it tomorrow. That’s if you think you’re ready.’
I want to say
no,
I’m not ready yet. How brilliant would it be to wake up in the morning with the Thai sun on my face? To hang out on
this
beach, where sand is sand and
sea is sea and I don’t have to look for the hidden messages all the time?
It’d be wonderful just to while away a few hours drinking beer with Lewis. To pretend to myself that we’re on a date, that he likes me too, that everything is normal.
But that’s not why I’m here – and we can’t ignore the fact that the clock’s ticking towards the moment when Mum and Dad find out I’ve gone and all hell breaks
out.
‘Tomorrow will be great,’ I say.
I think I see a flicker of disappointment cross his face, but then he grins and I decide I was imagining it. Perhaps the reason he’s doing all this for me is because he wants to end our
high-maintenance friendship and, after this, at least he won’t need to feel guilty if he never sees me again.
That thought makes everything seem dark, as though someone’s pulled a thunder cloud across the sun.
‘To Mission Implausible,’ he says, knocking his bottle against mine.
‘To friendship,’ I toast back, wishing it could be so much more.
The light changes again before I can take my first sip of beer. I know I’m jet-lagged, but surely it’s too early for sunset?
Then the rain starts. From sunshine to storm in less than five seconds.
We try to drink our beers as the water thumps down on the umbrella above us, but soon it’s dripping through the fabric, onto our heads.
Lewis pays for the drinks – I’m embarrassed that I haven’t bothered to get any Thai baht of my own – and by the time we make it back to the bikes, there are deep pools of
water on the path and we’re soaked.
‘That’ll be why everything round here is so lush and green,’ Lewis says as we leap onto our bikes. I’m behind him and I try not to look at the way his t-shirt clings to
the muscles on his back. We cross the road without waiting for the security guard to do his lollipop lady routine, and cycle back into the compound.
I mean, the hotel.
There are three different routes we could take. ‘Which way, Professor?’
It feels important to make the right choice. Hundreds of bright strikes of lightning are now forking down from the sky to the earth, and the thunder that follows scutters through my bones. I
suppose at least if I get hit, the bike’s tyres will absorb the shock.