‘It’s gone by too fast.’
We’re slouched next to each other on the sofa, Sarah and me, feet up on the scratched coffee table and wine glasses in our hands. We’re all packed up and ready to go, almost prepared to hand our Delancey Street bolthole over to its next lucky inhabitants.
‘Five years,’ I sigh. ‘You’re right. I don’t know where it’s gone.’
Sarah takes a massive gulp of wine and frowns. ‘I don’t want to leave this place. I wish we could stay for ever.’
We sit in silence and gaze around the living room, the scene of our student parties, our drunken nights, our traded secrets, our late-night laughter. We both know that we can’t stay; this phase of our lives is at an end. Sarah has bagged a new, glitzier job at a start-up cable TV station over on the opposite side of the city and commuting from here to there just isn’t possible. I’ve taken this as my cue for a shake-up too. I can’t afford to keep this place on on my own, and I’m going nowhere fast career-wise. The hotel is transient, the publishing trade resistant. I’m heading home to see my family for a few weeks, and then onwards to Thailand for a while. I know. How fabulous does that sound? I’m daunted by the idea of going alone, but spurred on by my dad’s renewed zeal for getting out there and grabbing life by the balls. My mother was deeply unimpressed when he used that very phrase; they gifted me and Daryl some money at Christmas. It’s not something they’d usually do, but they said Dad’s heart attack has given them a fresh perspective. They cried, so we did, and we both agreed to do something a bit special with the gift. Daryl and Anna are going to buy their marital bed for the new house, and I’m going to spend mine grabbing life by the balls in Thailand. I wish I could pack Sarah in my suitcase; I don’t have a clue how to do life without her next to me. At least I’ll have some respite from the malingering guilt.
‘You’re the best friend I’ve ever had,’ I say.
‘Fuck off,’ she mutters, starting to cry. ‘I told you not to say that.’
‘And I told you not to bloody cry,’ I say, dragging the end of my sleeve across my eyes. ‘Now look what you’ve done.’
We hold hands, really tightly.
‘We’ll always be friends, right?’ Her voice is small and shot through with vulnerability. ‘Even when you go to Thailand and join a hippy commune, or whatever it is you’re going to do over there?’
‘Even then,’ I say, squeezing her fingers. ‘How about when you become a big-shot TV presenter? Will you ditch me for your celebrity friends?’
She laughs, pretending she needs a second to think it over. She went to see the new station about a behind-the-scenes role and wound up being asked how she’d feel about taking on maternity cover for their roaming reporter. They obviously took one look at her and saw what we all see: star quality.
‘Well … I reckon Amanda Holden can hold her drink.’
I thump her on the arm and she sighs, faking disappointment.
‘Fine. I won’t ditch you, even for Amanda Holden.’ She pauses for a second. ‘We’ve had a laugh though, haven’t we?’ she says, leaning against me.
I close my damp eyelashes and lean my head on hers. ‘We have.’
‘You know what my favourite memory of you is?’
I don’t answer her, because there are tears rolling down my cheeks and my throat is aching.
‘It’s a recurring memory, actually,’ she says. ‘I like how you look after me when I’m hung-over. No one will ever hold my hair back like you do when I throw up.’
I laugh despite my tears. ‘You’ve got a lot of bloody hair, too. It’s not easy.’
‘And how you make my morning coffee just right,’ she says. ‘Everyone else gets it wrong. Even my mother.’
‘You have four grains of coffee, Sar. You can’t even classify it as coffee.’
‘I know that. But you do. You ask me if I want coffee, and then you make it how I like it. Four grains.’
I sigh. ‘You’ve probably made me more cups of coffee than I’ve made you. And you’ve definitely made the most sandwiches.’
‘You always forget about the mayo. You know how crucial it is.’ She sags. ‘How are you going to survive out there in the big wide world without me, Lu?’
‘It’s not as if we’re never going to see each other,’ I say, wiping my face. ‘I’ll be able to see you on the TV if nowhere else. I’ll be waiting for the day they make you slide down a fireman’s pole.’
‘But I won’t be able to see you when you’re on the other side of the world.’
I put my arm round her shoulders. ‘I’m not going for ever.’
‘You better bloody not,’ she sniffs. ‘Don’t go shacking up with some yogic monk and knocking out a dozen Thai babies or anything, will you? I want you back in London by Christmas.’
‘I don’t think monks are allowed to have babies.’ I laugh shakily. ‘I’ll only be gone a few months. I’ll be back in time to spend New Year together.’
‘Promise me?’ She links her pinky finger with mine like a little girl, and those damn tears threaten again because she reminds me of another little girl from a long time ago.
‘I promise I’ll come back, Sarah. I promise.’
‘You’re sure you’ve got everything? Insect repellant? Disinfectant spray?’
I nod, squeezing Mum as she and Dad prepare to leave me at the airport. Her perfume and the jangle of the bracelet she always wears are so dear and familiar to me; I’m choked up at the thought of being so far from home.
‘Torch?’ Dad says, ever practical.
‘Got it,’ I say, and he puts his arms round us both.
‘Come on, you daft things. Let’s make this a happy send-off. It’s an adventure.’
I untangle myself from them and wipe my eyes, half laughing and half crying as Dad lifts my backpack on to my shoulders. ‘I know it is!’
‘Go on then,’ he says, kissing me on the cheek. ‘Be off with you.’
I lean in and kiss Mum too, then step back and take a deep breath. ‘I’m going now,’ I say, my lip wobbling.
They stand together, Dad’s arm round Mum’s shoulders, and they nod. I’m sure it would feel less of a wrench if I wasn’t going alone; I feel about fourteen as I turn round at the gate to give them one final wave before I lose sight of them. Mum blows me a kiss and Dad lifts his hand, and then I turn away and walk determinedly towards the gate. Thailand awaits.
‘Sawatdee kha.’
I raise my hand in greeting to Nakul, and he grins and throws me a thumbs-up as I take a rickety seat at an equally rickety table at his cafe on Sunrise Beach. It sounds bizarre to say that my time here has been a hectic blur of Buddhist temples, but that’s how it feels – a weird juxtaposition of absolute serenity amid happy, noisy chaos. No one could ever call Thailand boring; my head is in a spin and I’ve got muscles where I never had them before. I travelled north after I arrived in Bangkok, intent on getting my shot of culture in early; I feared that if I headed straight to the south I’d spend my entire trip in a hammock on the beach.
But now I’ve seen enough to allow myself the luxury of resting, and I’ve hit the eye-wateringly perfect castaway beaches of southern Thailand. I’ve set up temporary home in a cheap-as-chips beach shack; it’s one room, but it’s my room, and there is a veranda to sit and read on overlooking the beach. I don’t think I’d realized how much I needed this break from reality. When I first got to Thailand I cried for almost a week straight as I trekked through jungle terrain with a small group of other travellers. I didn’t cry because the trek was so strenuous, although it certainly was. I cried with sheer relief, hot, salty tears, releasing my heavy burdens into the earth as I walked. A few weeks before I came out here my mum and I caught Eat Pray Love at the local cinema, and though I haven’t got anywhere near to finding love, I am having some kind of mini epiphany. I’m like an in-patient in recovery, learning how to forgive myself for the mistakes I’ve made and acknowledging that I’m still me, still a good person and still a true friend to Sarah, despite what happened with Jack. Perhaps one day I might even deserve to be happy.
‘Coffee, Lau-Lau?’
I smile, pleased by Nakul’s adulteration of my name as he picks his way across the warm, powder-soft sand to my table. I’ve been here on each of the four mornings since I arrived on Koh Lipe, and the island is working it’s laid-back magic into my skin and bones. It is as if I’m finally standing still for the first time in years.
‘Khop khun kha,’ I say when Nakul places a small white cup down in front of me, still hesitant over my Thai manners. He grins nonetheless, hopefully because my clumsy attempt at his language is better than not at all.
‘Your plan for today, Lau-Lau?’
He’s asked me the same question each morning, and every time my answer has been the same: ‘I don’t have a plan at all for today.’
Koh Lipe isn’t a place for people with big plans. The entire point of the island is to chill out. He laughs as he walks away to speak to new customers who’ve just ambled up from the beach.
‘No plans on a beautiful day like this?’
I turn towards the distinctly English voice and a guy drops down at the little table on the other side of me. He catches Nakul’s eye and raises his hand in greeting, his smile easy and relaxed as he stretches his long legs out in front of him on the sand. The Thai sun has baked my own skin honey gold, but this guy has been more serious altogether on the sun-worshipping stakes. He’s chestnut brown, his almost blue-black hair flopping in his dark, amused eyes.
I smile and shrug a little. ‘Nothing beyond floating in the sea and reading my book.’
‘A fine plan,’ he says. ‘What are you reading? Please don’t say The Beach.’
‘It’s a good book,’ I joke. Not that it isn’t, but no self-respecting traveller can admit to such an obvious choice. ‘The Great Gatsby, actually.’ I don’t elaborate and tell him that my reading matter is completely dictated by the small stack of books someone left behind in my shack. Much better that he thinks me educated enough to carry F. Scott Fitzgerald around the world in my backpack.
‘Shack find?’
I roll my eyes and laugh. ‘Busted.’
‘You could have lied and I’d have believed you.’
‘I find that lies encumber me.’
He stares at me, as well he might. I sound as if The Great Gatsby has gone straight to my head.
‘I’m Oscar,’ he says, stretching his hand out formally across the space between our tables. ‘And my plan for the day is to spend it with you.’
‘You look like a starfish.’
Oscar prods me idly with the oar of the kayak, and I let him spin me slowly on my back with my eyes half closed against the glare of the sunlight. Brilliant blue above me and below me, bath-water warm over my blissed-out skin when he ladles seawater over my belly with the paddle of the oar.
‘I feel like a starfish.’
True to his word, Oscar has spent his day with me. I wouldn’t usually warm to someone who sounded so horribly self-assured, but something in me is determined to do the opposite of what I’d normally do. He’s been in Thailand for a couple of months longer than I have, choosing to stay on in Koh Lipe for a while after his travelling companions returned home to the UK. It explains his native tan, at least.
‘Have you ever eaten one? They sell them on sticks like lollipops on Walking Street.’
I open my eyes, appalled, and find him laughing.
‘Very funny.’
He’s lounging in the boat, his chin resting on his forearm as he looks over the side at me, his fingertips trailing in the sea. I flick a little seawater at him, speckling a shimmer of droplets over the bridge of his straight nose. I’ll admit it. He’s bloody good-looking in a classic, chip-off-the-old-Greek-god kind of way. He has the confident aura of wealth about him, louche and debonair. I know, I know. Who uses words like that any more? Me, apparently, after a day spent drinking local beer and reading The Great Gatsby in a hammock. There’s something about living in a different place that allows you to be whoever you want to be.
‘Can I take you to dinner tonight?’
I lay my head back in the water and close my eyes again, floating. ‘As long as it isn’t starfish.’
‘I think I can promise that much.’
I roll on to my front and swim the few strokes to the kayak, curling my wet fingertips over the edge. His face is inches from mine.
‘Let’s not make each other promises,’ I say.
He gives me the same perplexed stare he did when we met at the beach cafe this morning, then leans in and brushes his warm, sea-salt lips over mine. ‘I like you, Starfish. You’re interesting.’