The Day Of The Wave (12 page)

'Really?' Her eyes are wide now, intrigued.

'The kids there are incredible, so smart. You can earn a lot of money doing that, too. But my heart was always here.' 

'I can see that,' she says as the ball is kicked back over to me. 'So, you're still close to your mom, right? And your stepdad?'

I feel my jaw start to pulse instantly. 'I guess,' I say after a second, kicking the ball back, hard. I can almost hear Izzy's brain working as she studies me in consternation, but I don't turn my head. 

'Where else did you travel?' she asks.

'That's a big list. I went all around South America, learnt Spanish in Cordoba in Argentina - that's a great place to party, by the way. I taught English again in Peru... oh and in Bolivia for a couple months, but Colombia beach life was pretty hard to resist. And the diving, too. I spent a couple more months up near Taganga - a place called Palomino Beach. Heard of it?'

'No!'

'It's close to Venezuela, not touristy yet at all. I learnt to surf there, got a girl, got even better at Spanish, you know... but then I heard about a diving job in the Galapagos, so I got my search and rescue qualification out there and stayed a season.'

'The Galapagos?' She looks awed. 'That's supposed to be one of the most beautiful places on the planet! So many animals, right?'

'It's another world,' I say. 'It's everything you've heard about. A guy I taught to dive out there offered me seasonal work someplace outside of Brisbane, so I went to Australia after that and picked avocadoes for cash. That was pretty intense - long days, you know, lots of spiders. Saw a lot of cool stuff though, especially when I got to the west coast, and north. They have bodies of water up near Darwin where the sharks swim with the crocodiles.'

'You're kidding?'

'Deadly serious. Emphasis on the deadly.' I wink at her. 'I bought a camper with another guy from Vancouver and we drove around New Zealand doing odd jobs on organic farms...'

'Ben, you've done everything!'

'Not everything,' I say. 'I've never been to Europe. And I never went to college.'

'You regret that?'

'Sometimes. I found out I could do my masters degree in International Development. I was planning to focus on disaster recovery. I even planned to write my dissertation on all the community-based disaster recovery that happened here but in the end I thought I'd be better off just being out here and doing what I could, you know? Life is fucking short. Why study to do what I could do anyway? What if I died behind a desk?'

Izzy's nodding as I talk, eyes on Justin, who's now on his knees in the dirt pretending to wrestle with a boy and a football. 'You've done so much, without all that. You've lived your life,' she says. 'Really lived it. I've just been existing.'

'You're twenty-six, like me, that's not exactly old,' I tell her, picking up her hand now anyway. I squeeze it against her knee, then let go as the same feeling I felt last night rushes through me in the heat. Kalaya walked with us back to the resort after dinner, dancing in the surf, tipsy on rum. I had to watch Izzy watching us. She was being careful not to stand in the water again. Then I left her on her porch, probably freaking out about her first night on the beach while Kalaya dragged me into my room. I couldn't sleep with her. I told her I had a headache. I did have a headache, actually. 

'When did Marcus say he was leaving?' Izzy says now.

'Wednesday.'

'I can take over his shifts, if you don't have anyone.'

I look at her. She's biting her lip again. She must have really been thinking this through. 'You'd do that?' I say.

'If you need someone, yes. I mean, I haven't taught English before, but I did work with Girl Guides a lot when I was fifteen. They were great. And my English isn't too bad, so I'm told.'

I laugh. 'You'd be an awesome teacher,' I tell her. 'But we don't pay.'

'Of course, I don't expect pay, Ben. I want to help while I can. God... I feel like I've been hiding away from all this all this time, I could have done something...'

'You haven't been hiding, Izzy!' I say. 'Everyone handled what happened in a different way, you couldn't have just left your godmother to travel the world and...'

'You did,' she says, meeting my eyes. I shrug, put my hat back on.

'I did,' I agree, leaning my elbows on my knees. 'But we both had different experiences, and we went back to different circumstances. We've both had different lives.'

'What happened out there, on your dive?' she says now. 

My stomach clenches like she's hit me. I grip the bench, stare out at Justin. Then I stand up, call out to him. 'We should go! These kids need to get home, we've tired them out enough, let's go! See you, Marcus, I'll call you tomorrow.'

Marcus waves from the side of the goalpost as I fish for the keys in my pocket, motion Izzy back to the bikes. Justin hurries after us. His face is red and he's covered in sweat but it's obvious he's just had the time of his life. 'Do you want to see the memorials?' I say to them, handing Izzy her helmet and climbing on. 'We'll go to the museum for now, OK?'

Izzy says yes, OK, but she's searching my face with her big brown eyes all sparkling with sunlight and questions. So many questions. I look to the dash, start the engine. My headache's coming back.

He doesn't want to talk about it. Or his mom, obviously. I noticed he ignored a call from her last night at dinner but I assumed it was just because we were all out. I feel rubbish now for even asking what I asked, but I thought he'd dealt with everything he needed to deal with; otherwise, how could he still live here? How could he be around all this? I don't understand what just happened. 

We ride in silence back the way we came, and inland further till we reach the International Tsunami Museum. I feel sick the second I see the big blue sign.

'What's this?' Justin asks, pulling up beside us. 

'You don't know about this place?' I say, climbing off the bike as Ben puts the stand down. Justin looks sheepish instantly. 

'I thought there was a police boat,' he says, looking around us. 

'There is,' Ben says, pointing behind us. 'It's over there. It was swept inland a mile and a half in the tsunami. They've put it all up on concrete blocks now... we'll go there after.'

A woman bustles up to us with an armful of saris. 'You buy,' she says, fixing us with a wide smile.

'No thank you,' I tell her. I notice her stall selling T-shirts and other tourist stuff, right by the entrance to the yellowy-orange building. It doesn't look like any museum I've ever seen before. It almost looks like some kind of toy shop. There are bright red and purple vending machines in the doorway. A young man walks over with what looks like a shoebox. 'You want DVD?' he asks from under his hat, flashing us his polythene wrapped stash.

'No thank you,' I say again.

'Over here,' Ben says, motioning us inside the building and putting what I think is five hundred baht into a box on the way. It's darker instantly, and colder too, in spite of the yellow walls. I can see framed photos and signs with Thai and English writing everywhere, but it's smaller than I thought it would be. For some reason I was expecting something huge, with remains of buildings and recovered artifacts, like they did for the 9/11 museum in New York. I saw it on TV. My arms wrap around my body of their own accord.

Ben stops in front me. 'Are you sure you want to see all this?' he says. 'I'm sorry, I just assumed you'd want to.'

'I do,' I say, meeting his blue eyes, though I'm wondering if that's the truth. Before I can voice my sudden doubt he's leading me across the room toward some screens showing videos. Justin's on our heels. He's typing something into his phone as he walks. I turn to him and he shoots me an apologetic look, holding the phone up, then putting it into his pocket. He sits down on the wooden bench in the middle of the room, swipes at his hot brow. 

There are several other people in here, a couple of them Thai, the rest clearly tourists. Two fans mounted to the walls are blowing at my hair and tickling the leaves of two morose looking pot plants sitting on the shiny floor. 'I can't believe this is all there is,' I say to Ben, turning up to him. He nods, chewing on his bottom lip. 'It's like a... shed.'

'I don't think the locals like to think about what happened all that much,' he says, lowering his voice. 'Maybe in fifty years or something their kids or grandkids will realize it could be a huge tourist attraction but right now it's raw, you know? All this is still just a reminder of what they lost.'

My eyes fall on the video screen in front of me. It switches from a Scandinavian tourist talking to footage of the tsunami crashing through the streets, filmed on someone's camera. No, no, no, no, no....

I turn into Ben, close my eyes as his arm winds around me. I watch the footage all over again on the back of my eyelids, then relive it how I saw it myself; being picked up and smashed into that fence. My hands went out to save my face. My arms were ripped as I struggled against the rush and the roar, the push and the pull and the debris being hurled on top. I tried to keep my head up. My blood was turning the water red as fast as it could wash away. My dress and bikini were gone. I almost gave up the fight, but the boy pulled me into the tree and we watched people shoot past us with their limbs flailing, crashing into debris that rendered them quiet and still one by one, like moving logs. It came from out of nowhere.

'Izzy, you didn't have to come in here,' Ben says, putting his other arm around me and sighing into my hair. 

'Sorry,' I tell him. He still smells like the ocean. I pull out of his embrace, step away from him, swallowing the lump in my throat. Justin's looking at us; so are the Thai couple next to us. I walk straight past them all, back to the entrance and Ben follows me outside.

'Maybe I
didn't
want to see that,' I say, swiping at my cheeks again. I'm a mess. Being here is like riding a fucking rolling coaster. I cover my face with my hands, take deep breaths. Colin's voice flies back into my head, telling me he's proud of me for facing this, finally. But Ben's right, it's still all so raw. I don't know how he does it; how
any
of these people do it. How the hell am I going to see that wall at the other end of Khao Lak; see mom and dad smiling back at me from a
plaque?

'Let's go to the police boat.' I say, quickly, before I can crumble again.

'Are you sure?' Ben says, looking at me in concern as Justin joins him. He puts a hand to my cheek, turning me to him. 'Izzy, we really don't have to. Maybe it's too soon.'

'It's just a boat. Let's go.' I turn away, follow the couple who've just walked out and asked the sari lady for directions. We walk there in minutes, under a giant archway and onto a series of what look like concrete semi-circles interwoven with grass. The boat is sitting on its blocks, regal and proud as a hero. Again, it's different to what I imagined. I saw this boat right after it happened. It was sitting right here, but in an obliterated mess of splintered metal and shattered glass and the framework of a hundred buildings. Police Boat 813.

We walk over to it in silence. 'It was swept all this way, from the sea?' Justin says incredulously.

'It was a mile out when it happened, anchored,' Ben says. I realize his fists are clenched to his sides as he talks; clenching and unclenching. He keeps looking at me, expecting me to break I assume. I wish we were alone. I want to talk to him about what happened before at the school, and about the other memorial. I want to know if Toby and Charlie are there on that wall too, with my mom and dad, and whether he's seen the photos. I want to ask him how the hell he survived that dive; even though I know I can't, not again. He doesn't want to tell me.

It's hard to imagine this is the exact same spot I stood before, in the rubble, searching. I don't think Justin has any idea what he's really looking at. He's holding his phone again now, snapping photos at the white numbers on the boat's gray metal side; the way its nose is pointed slightly upwards like a sick, beached shark. 

'It was guarding the king's son when the tsunami happened,' Ben tells him. 'He was jet-skiing.' 

'No shit, the king's son has to jet ski with the regular people?' Justin grins. 

'He died,' I snap. 'Like two hundred and thirty thousand others.'

'Shit, Izzy I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be a dick,' he says straight away. 'I didn't know he died.' He puts a hand to his goatee awkwardly, looks away.

I take a deep breath. I know he wasn't there so he couldn't understand, and I know I'm bitchy 'cause I'm angry and emotional, but my own fists are clenched now. I can't go to that wall memorial today; I just can't do it, especially not when he's with us. 

We walk around the boat in silence, under the blazing sun. Justin shoots some video and talks over it and I bite my tongue. I know Ben probably only invited Justin to the school with us to keep Kalaya off his back. It's obvious she doesn't want us being alone. 

Thinking of Kalaya only adds to the nausea I feel being in this place. I'm sure Ben really likes her; she's really pretty and clever and funny too, but the way she looks at him, it's almost like she wants to lock him in a cage and cover it up with a big black sheet. When we all walked back from Pete's last night, I've never felt more like a gooseberry in my life. She made a point of smiling and waving from his porch before she followed him inside and shut the door. I had to pretend to myself that I wasn't in a hut on a beach for the first time since the tsunami, and that Ben wasn't having sex just seconds away. It wasn't easy. I had to put my music on very loud to fall asleep.

I'm definitely going to Bali ASAP. 

But I can't. I offered to teach at the school.

My heart plummets as I look at Ben. He looks deep in thought now, staring at the boat. I want to stay, but I don't. I'm being pulled and pushed away all over again.

'Come on, please, mom,' I begged her, holding the dive shop phone in my sandy hand and trying to keep my voice as quiet as I could. The guys getting the equipment ready with Charlie were looking at me and laughing anyway. Van, Tee and Dao were the coolest; three local Thais, all in their twenties. I kind of idolized them, not least because they'd given me a beer the night before on the beach. I'd never been given beer by an adult before.