Page 18 of The Beach Holiday

‘Okay, I’m going to head back to the beach for a while.’

We parted and I took a slow walk back to the beach.

I felt I needed to keep looking out at the horizon, to get my bearings.

This was where I was right now, on Totini, and I wanted to live in the moment as much as I could.

I reminded myself to do this daily on the mainland, but it felt more important to do it here because of the beauty and serenity of the place.

After some meditation, I went back to the hut. I opened the door and found Clara hunched over with her back to me. She straightened as I entered the room, and I saw her slip something into her rucksack and then she turned to look at me. Her eyes looked bloodshot. Had she been crying?

‘Hey.’ I sat on my bed and crossed my legs.

She turned all the way around to face me. ‘How was the beach?’

‘Still there.’ I smiled. ‘I feel I need to keep looking at it like I can’t quite believe I’m here.’

‘I know.’

‘You were up early this morning.’

‘I like to run,’ she said quickly, ‘and walk, before it gets too hot. It’s the only way.’

I nodded. I hadn’t thought about exercise, but I knew I would need to keep my body moving; early mornings seemed the best time.

‘Maybe I’ll join you one morning.’

‘Maybe,’ Clara said, not sounding convinced. ‘I run fast. I like to do it alone.’ She looked at me. ‘But we can go together some mornings?’ She flashed me a grin and I didn’t feel as though she was trying to avoid being with me.

‘I’ve always been an early riser,’ I said. ‘But it was hard to get up this morning after the travelling, and I’m still not really adapted to the temperature even though I’ve lived in Fiji for a month.’

‘It’s easy to rise early in paradise,’ Clara said and we both realised how cheesy the line sounded. Clara laughed and I was pleased; we both had the same sense of humour.

‘Well, what shall we do today then? Sit, walk, sit some more?’ I laughed.

‘I know, it’ll take some getting used to, this slower way of life.’

‘I presume I’m expected to do chores?’ I had already imagined myself cooking on the open fire.

‘This week they will just let you bed in. Don’t worry, you’ll be busy enough soon.’

‘Yes,’ I said yawning at the mere mention of it. ‘I might take my book onto the back beach. Fancy joining me?’ I asked Clara as I slipped on a bikini.

‘I think I’ll try and grab that forty winks. You were right – I was up particularly early this morning.’

I picked up my book from next to my bed and walked to the door. Clara was looking at her rucksack. Whatever was causing her sadness today was in there.

I headed through the woods the way Precious had taken me back yesterday.

It was about a good twenty minutes to get to the other side of the island through this stretch of wood and when I arrived, I was not disappointed.

It was still as spectacular as it was when I saw it yesterday.

The island then stretched out and formed into a larger sphere on either side of this spot where denser forest lay in between both sides.

I was happy with this spot for now. There was plenty of time to explore the deeper sides of the island.

I put my towel and book down and decided to get in the sea for a quick swim.

Nature’s bath. It was lukewarm and I lay down on my back and let the water take my weight as I floated.

The ease of lying in water whilst it supported my whole body was exhilarating.

The sky was cloudless. I turned over and swam out further, seeing shoals of fish beneath me.

Then I took off following the shoreline and swam until I felt a pleasant ache in my arms and legs.

It felt good to move my body. I stopped to tread water and looked left to where I could make out the speck that was my towel on the sand.

Then I looked to my right and realised I had swum far enough to see the panes of wood through the foliage up on the hill.

That was the hut that I had enquired about with Precious yesterday. That was where the woman Ula was.

I swam to the shore and stepped out, dripping onto the sand.

The heat would dry me in minutes. I walked to the foot of the hill and tried to make out if there was some sort of path that led up to the hut, but I couldn’t see one.

The hut was barely visible even up close, as so many bushes encased it.

The words of Precious rang in my ears – Ula was looked after; it was her choice to live alone and so on – but curiosity had the better of me.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see her or just her dwellings.

Either way, I had an urge to catch a glimpse of something.

I got the impression I was supposed to leave her to her own devices but I was finding it difficult to accept that someone would and could live solitary here.

I pushed my way past a few shrubs and found that it opened onto a tiny pathway. A spot where it was apparent people had walked up and down a few times and so some of the brambles and shrubbery had cleared a space.

I felt a branch slice across my leg and winced at the pain. I would need to get back in the water to get some salt to it.

I found my way into the slight clearing. It was tight. It couldn’t be used very often. I wondered again why Ula was living here alone. Had she really made that choice herself?

I began up the incline, my heart pounding with the exertion; it was steep, and with every step my muscles throbbed and my mouth became drier, the sun burned my neck.

I reached a point where the hut revealed itself a little more. I could see how worn down it was, much more so than the huts back in the main camp.

I dared myself to go a little closer, to walk to the other side where there would probably be a window alongside the front door.

But as I approached the hut, I could see things on the outside of it: a pattern of sorts.

As I got closer I could see they were handprints.

Red handprints all over the back side of the house.

Some were faded to barely anything, whilst some were bright and bold as though they had been put there fresh today.

The newer ones overlapped the faded ones at specific points.

The more I looked at them, the more confident I was that they had been made with blood.

I felt my gut twist with unease, and I shivered despite the heat.

I tried to make myself walk around the other side of the house, but my body had frozen itself to the spot knowing I wanted to see more, but knowing I should retreat, head back down the incline, back to the beach that now seemed like a sanctuary.

But the more I stared, the more I wanted to know.

The same feeling I’d had when I had seen the other side of the island that they rarely used and when the man appeared in front of me.

I wanted to know. I needed to know. I took three tentative steps, so I was halfway along the side of the house; there were more handprints along the side of the hut.

What if this woman was injured or in pain? What if those handprints were blood from an injury? But they looked too uniform and neat, as though they had been placed there purposely as decoration or as a statement of some kind.

I had barely taken one more step before I heard an animalistic noise coming from inside the hut. My heart lurched and I pushed my hand against the wood to steady myself.

This isn’t your business, my head was telling me. I remembered the words of Precious yesterday. They had their reasons for leaving Ula to her own devices. What if she was dangerous?

The animal noise came again, this time louder.

I stopped and took a deep breath then took three long strides until I was at the front of the hut. There was no way to see in through the one window at the front; there was a curtain pulled tightly across. Whoever was in there must be sweltering.

‘Sadie!’ Someone was calling me from below.

I stepped to the ledge and peered down where Clara was waving up at me.

‘Whatcha doing up there?’ she called in her West Coast accent.

‘I was walking and took a wrong turn,’ I lied, looking behind me at a slight pathway that led down to the hut from the other side.

It could have been true. I didn’t want anyone to think I was trying to cause trouble here or going against every system they had in place; however inhumane it appeared from an outsider’s perspective.

She waved me down and I picked my way back through the bushes and down the tiny trail until I was back on the beach. She walked up to meet me.

‘What were you doing up there?’ she asked again, with that same dazzling smile, a real-life American sweetheart.

‘Like I said, I was taking a walk. I stumbled upon the hut there.’ I pointed back up to Ula’s place.

‘We tend to leave Ula to her own devices. She can come to us when she wants to. None of us are trained to deal with her behaviour.’

‘Her behaviour?’

‘She’s slightly erratic, prone to a few outbursts.’

‘So when was the last time anyone saw her, spent some time with her?’

Clara thought for a moment and stared up at the hut. ‘I haven’t seen her for a few months now. But some of the girls have. They’re the ones who take the food up to her.’

‘Right. What exactly is wrong with her?’ I persisted. I felt Clara would want to tell me because we were room buddies and I felt I had more of a connection with her already than I’d had with anyone else.

‘She’s just a bit loopy. Different things happen to different people. We can’t all stay sane, can we? I’d say she had problems before she came, and something triggered her and she just ... went a bit mad.’

‘Should someone not try to get her to the mainland, get her home to her family where she can be properly looked after?’

‘She won’t come out; no one can reason with her. She’s too far gone.’ Clara shook her head.

‘So she’s just going to stay there?’ I stared back up at the hut, imagining a woman in there all alone, hunched in a corner, rocking or talking to herself.

Clara touched my arm. ‘Hey, listen, Sadie, I know how you feel. I was the same as you. I wanted to save everyone. But then I had to accept that things are different here; it’s not like it is back home.

Sometimes, we must accept nature as nature.

’ She sounded sad yet so sure of herself; she had lived here much longer than I had.

I knew I needed to let things be and not worry as Clara had said but I was buzzing with questions about everything and everyone.

‘Fancy another swim? Bet I can beat you back to your towel over there?’ She pointed along the sand.

She took off and was practically in the water before I thought to catch up with her and try to give her a run for her money. As soon as I was in the warm turquoise waters and with the sound of Clara’s voice egging me on from ahead, I almost forgot about Ula alone in the hut. Almost.