Read Online The Backpacker by John Harris - Free Book Online Page B

this calls for a celebration. You hang onto this while I go downstairs and buy us all a beer. How’d that be, Dave ?’
    Dave watched her storm off. ‘Whoo-ee, getting touchy aren’t we?’ he called after her, and, conscious of the guitar that was propped up against him, tried to make light of the incident by kissing it. ‘C’mon baby, you an me, don’t need three,’ and rode astride it.
    We drank the beer that Suzy bought, and Dave toasted freedom and ‘La-di-da British girls’ before dozing off, using his guitar as a pillow. I pretended to sleep to avoid having to talk to Suzy. She seemed nice enough but I had other things on my mind; like how long the rest of my money would last, and what I was going to do if, as I feared, Rick wasn’t on the island any more.
    I was still thinking about these things when we pulled into the ferry pier on Koh Pha-Ngan and transferred ourselves into one of the waiting Isuzus that took new arrivals to various parts of the island.
    Dave loaded himself and his gear into the back of the pick-up and held out a hand, pulling me up. ‘Where’re you heading John?’
    â€˜Hat Rin,’ I said, brushing the dust off the seat before sitting. ‘You?’
    â€˜Same-same, bro.’ He dusted a seat with Shakespearean melodrama, intended for Suzy, but she ignored it, tutting and sitting on the opposite bench to us instead.
    Following a bit of negotiation we sped off up the bumpy track into the island, clouds of dust billowing around us and covering everyone except the driver, who sat in an air conditioned cab, in a fine yellow layer.
    â€˜You, ahem, know where you’re gonna stay?’ Suzy asked, opening her guidebook on a map of Hat Rin, leaning across and balancing it on my knees.
    I shrugged, twisting my neck to read the map that was upside-down. ‘Play it by ear.’
    â€˜That’s the spirit.’ Dave snatched the book and threatened to throw it out the back of the pick-up. We suddenly hit a bump in the road and the book jumped out of his hands and tumbled out onto the track.
    â€˜Stop!’ Suzy banged on the cab window. ‘Make them stop, Dave, John!’
    â€˜Shit.’ Dave slapped the car roof with the palm of his hand, bringing us to a skidding halt. We reversed, picked up the battered guidebook and drove off again. No one talked for the rest of the journey except Dave, who kept apologising.
    We must have passed at least a dozen different sets of beach bungalows as we followed the coastline intermittently across the island, each one stunningly picturesque, but nobody got out. Everyone, it appeared, was heading to Hat Rin beach, and when we finally arrived I could see why: a single crescent of gleaming white sand hemmed in by a turquoise sea. Dave and I dropped our gear on the beach as we ran down and plunged into the warm clear water.
    â€˜Woo-hoo!’ He belly-flopped like a starfish, turned over and went into a handstand. I dived and swam underwater, and swam and swam, not ever wanting to stop. My eyes opened and the world became a soft blue that was so pleasant I kept swimming until I was in about twenty-five feet of water. A turn onto my back enabled me to see the surface: a gently rippled glass ceiling through which saturated rays of sunshine pierced like a thousand torch beams. Running out of air, I stood on the bottom, did one quick three-sixty to locate the sloping beach and pushed upwards, breaking the surface with a gasp.
    â€˜John!’ Dave thumbed towards the beach where I could just make out Suzy, standing over his guitar with her arms folded across her chest in anger. ‘Gotta go, you coming?’
    â€˜You go and find a place,’ I shouted. ‘I’ll catch up with you later.’
    He marked the air with a forefinger and attempted a back-flip. It went wrong and he walked off up the beach rubbing his head.
    Floating, that’s all I wanted to do, face up and face