On A Deserted Beach

Jack slowed the motorbike as they rounded the last bend in the road and the beach came into view. The long curving stretch of sand was pristine, newly-washed by the night tide and gleaming in the soft dawn light. It was completely theirs. They had travelled all night to ensure they arrived before sunrise, their aim to savour the solitude and watch the rising sun before the heat of the day brought out the tourists and the locals with their parasols and deckchairs for hire and their coconut drinks.

Jack turned to Sara with a broad smile of pleasure. He felt like the first man, like Adam in Paradise when the whole bright world belonged to one man and one woman. Sara seemed pre-occupied with gazing out to sea, her hand shading her eyes against the ascending sun. Stripping off sweat-soaked clothing as he ran, Jack half-tumbled and half-hopped across the beach until he hit the sea and the sudden coldness of the water made him gasp. Recovering his breath, he struck out strongly into the deeper water, aiming at a boat tied to a buoy some way out. He kept up the pace for several minutes before, realising the distance was too far for even a swimmer of his strength to reach, he turned onto his back and let himself float wherever the current took him. Looking skywards, he watched the heavens turn from dawn pink to the burning blue of another Phuket day. At length, feeling refreshed, relaxed and above all ALIVE, he suddenly missed Sara and, turning onto his front again, swam the short distance to shore.

As he picked his way towards her, retrieving discarded clothing as he went, he registered her hunched figure and a shadow seemed to fall across the sun. She averted her eyes as he reached her and flung himself down beside her on the sand. He watched her profile as she chewed on her lower lip and folded her arms more tightly around herself. She was silent. He remembered that she had barely spoken all through their journey the night before but he had assumed she was tired and had thought nothing of it. In any case, he had had his work cut out for him as he negotiated the winding and poorly-lit roads in the darkness.

“What's wrong?”, he asked at last, dreading the response he already knew was coming.

“I want to go home”, she said in a tight little voice.

He couldn't look at her face; his eyes were rooted to her hands, twisting a tissue into a grey sodden ball. He ached with love for her and yet he hated her too – he hated her for letting go of their dream and for breaking the perfect connection between them. She had spoiled Paradise. Suddenly the emptiness of the beach echoed the void opening up between them. It was then he knew that nothing would ever be the same again.



Phuket 2011