Page 33 of The Beach Holiday

THEN

I left the front beach, making my way through the clearing, and edged my way through camp, trying to appear as inconspicuous as possible, and then found my way to the path that led to the back beach.

The rain lashed against my face, the thunder rolled on, and then, occasionally a flash of lightning.

I imagined it would look just as spectacular from the back beach, but I wasn’t going to watch a thunderstorm; I was on a mission to find something else.

Even though they had burned Clara, surely they must have left some sort of grave for her?

It was only right that when someone died they were given a proper burial and a grave.

Clara had parents, maybe sisters and brothers; there would be people who needed to know where her final resting place was.

I thought about my own family and my last conversation with them.

I would need to speak to them again soon.

But already I felt different to the person who had left the mainland a few weeks ago.

I felt this island had made its mark on me in some way and that trying to put myself mentally back into a world that was so far removed from this one would be impossible right now.

Yet the doubts about why I had come here and whether I should be staying consumed me just as much.

I had not considered the effect the island would have on me, that it would get into my skin the way it had.

And I hadn’t thought that I would feel compelled to see it out despite my reservations.

And I certainly hadn’t imagined just a few weeks into being here I would be looking for the grave of a friend.

If I could have seen into the future, would I still have come?

I pushed on through the terrain. The path always became thinner towards the end before it suddenly opened up again to the vast white beach. Except I was seeing it through sepia today. The whole island had lost its vibrancy and colour, washed out by the almost black clouds and torrential rain.

Once on the beach, I wasn’t sure which way to turn.

If I went right, I would eventually end up by the foot of the highest peak, past Ula’s shack.

Or I could go into the depths of the forest where I had never been before.

The foliage was so dense, I was sure I would get lost. I knew I was being silly and, of course, I would find my way out eventually, but I was still nervous around the island, of her tendrils taking hold of me and pulling me in.

I took a walk along the beach to the right.

Ula’s cabin was perched up on the ledge and would be visible in a few minutes.

I hadn’t ventured past it before. I hadn’t even walked the circumference of the island yet.

There was no time like the present, so why not choose to walk around the island when the weather was the worst since I arrived here?

After walking for a few minutes with the wind and the rain in my face I looked up to my right and saw Ula’s hut.

I wondered what she would be doing in there, how she must feel alone.

And then, as I heard the word she had spoken to me through the bush that night, it was as if the wind had just whispered it back at me to remind me.

Run.

I didn’t feel as if I was in any immediate danger.

I was perturbed about the attitude of the campmates, and yes Clara’s death had shocked me.

Still shocked me. Then the way the campmates reacted to things that I would have thought would have affected them more.

The way no one spoke of Ula, the woman who lived alone in the shack on the hill.

And a young woman at that. When I had heard of her, I had presumed she would have been elderly and out of her mind with dementia or something.

I took a sharp left, leaving the sanctuary of the beach behind me, knowing I was venturing further into the woods where the trees grew thick and dense to see if there was any other sign of a path.

And then I spotted it. A very slight indent amongst the foliage, as though someone walked there occasionally, but it hadn’t yet evolved into a path.

I wondered if this was where Ula walked or where Adi hid out.

The rain pelted relentlessly at my face. I kept wiping my hand across my eyes, but it made little difference; my vision was a watery haze.

I pushed through the first part of the bush, expecting it to open up immediately, but the plants stayed close to my arms, the sound of them scraping across my rain mac as I walked.

I felt my heart thump in my chest as I thought about trying to find my way back.

The woods and forest here were wider than where we were at the camp – to get to the other side of the island from here would take me at least thirty minutes, maybe more in this weather.

Or so I had been told when I asked the questions when I first arrived.

There were so many questions, yet I was too terrified to go and find out for myself.

I had stayed where I felt secure within the camp area.

But now the time had come and my curiosity had got the better of me.

I wanted to work out exactly what I was surrounded by.

Clara had been burned here somewhere; there had to be another clearing around where they could have done that safely without risking burning other trees or foliage.

I walked on. My face was drenched, and I had stopped wiping it a long time ago; now I just let the rain fall over it.

Eventually, I saw ahead the path began to open up into something more substantial, and I almost yelped with relief.

This could be it; this could be where they left the remains of Clara.

But even if it wasn’t, I reminded myself, it was a milestone for me; I had made another break from camp and ventured out alone.

I stopped among the clearing, the rain pouring through the trees.

I could see a small path opposite, so I headed straight for it, not before making a note of where I had come from.

I picked up a rock and placed it next to the entrance I had come through, as I could now see several indents within the outer foliage.

I looked around, took in my surroundings.

All around was just trees, foliage, and nothing else.

What was I doing coming here in this weather, soaked through only to stand in the middle of a clearing getting even more drenched?

I scanned the area once more, and my eyes landed on the mark I had left, a large rock.

Yet what was that? Before my gaze landed there, I had seen something in my peripheral sight.

I turned an inch and there it was. I had missed it because I had been looking everywhere except right under my nose.

Three rocks, each the size of my palm. Not a coincidence that they had all ended up there together in a small circle.

They had been placed there. Was this the final resting place of Clara?

They must have burnt her up on the beach and buried any remains here.

I was thankful that they had done this. I couldn’t imagine her just left somewhere or tossed into the sea.

I took two steps to my right and bent down next to the shrubbery.

Three small rocks perfectly placed on top of a small mound.

I leaned closer. The rain was beginning to blur my vision, and I had nothing dry left to wipe my face with.

The droplets kept falling as I bent to look closer.

I could see one of the rocks had marks across it.

I crouched, almost touching it, and then I could see there was writing.

It had been scratched on the rock with a knife or another sharp piece of rock. It spelt out one word. A name. DENY.

Deny. I said the name out loud, and then a recollection hit me hard: I had heard that name before. The little girl on the beach, her doll had been called Deny.

I had come looking for the final resting place of Clara and instead I had found some sort of memorial path.

I cast my mind back to the beach and the rudimentary wooden doll with the locks of bright blonde human hair glued to the head.

Someone else had died here too. I wondered how she, if it was she, Deny, had died and if she had been in another accident.

I thought about the mothers telling me Adi’s mother had deserted him.

Was Deny Adi’s mother? Had she gone, or was she another victim of something gone wrong? Another accident?

Leaves shook behind me, and my heart rate sped up. As I turned, I thought I saw a flash of bright colour amongst the forest’s green, but my eyesight was so blurry now that it was impossible to tell for sure.

I took one last look at the memorial spot and headed forward towards the tiny path.

Not knowing where it was about to take me, but then realising that I hadn’t really known much about where anything was taking me since I got on the boats and helicopter with Avril three weeks ago.

As I walked, I thought about what Deny would have looked like.

Would she have been tall and fearless or scared like I was? Did she come alone? Did she die alone?

The thoughts kept moving around my head and I forgot that I was still moving forward.

Did I imagine the trees and shrubbery around me becoming thicker and denser?

The rain was slick, falling down my face and clinging to my skin.

I thought about dipping further into the woods and finding shelter for a while.

I started to breathe faster, and realised I was crying although my tears were mixed with rainwater.

I felt all the anger and sadness surge through.

I suddenly wanted to be back at the camp.

My ears began to tune in to a sound, a loud braying.

I was approaching the area where the cows and goats were kept.

I was sure of it. I understood why this area was kept so far away from the main camp, because of the level of noise, even with the storm so loud overhead.

I could hear the definitive sound of cattle.

Finally, the path seemed to open up. Trees swayed on either side of me; a wind hissed, thrusting in my face. This area had less protection from the storm and so I was exposed to the elements, rain now hitting me from all sides.

As the path opened up further, I began to see something through the foliage.

As I allowed my eyes to adjust through the flurry of wind and rain, I eventually worked out that they were panels of wood standing upright.

The wood became more prevalent with each step I took until finally I was able to see it was a cage.

I saw a breed of bird I didn’t recognise.

From where it was perched it looked as though it were in the cage.

Maybe this was an aviary, although I’d never heard anyone mention one.

I could imagine Avril wanting something so beautiful like that here.

But the bird leapt from where it was perched and flew up and over the cage.

Of course it wasn’t trapped in there. Caged birds went against everything Totini stood for.

So maybe this was where the animals were kept, more chickens and the goats, yet I had seen cattle grazing freely around the island.

The closer I got to the cage, the more my gut began to protest. A tightening began there and expanded right through into my chest. Fear clamped in my stomach the way it did when I was unsure. An instinct told me to turn back, yet a yearning to know forced me forward.

I eventually found myself in a clearing, with the cage now directly in front of me.

It was about ten foot high. I could estimate this accurately because the wall around the flat I had in the UK was ten foot.

I had looked at that wall endless times, and now I was looking at a cage that represented that exact same height.

Within the cage was a small hut, almost like something I had seen on a pig farm.

I stared and stared at that cage, waiting to see the pig, or something that made sense in my mind.

Then as I continued to stare at the cage in front of me, I saw it, the thing that my gut had been preparing me for.

I saw a pair of legs, then the torso they were connected to.

A slick, sweaty, tanned body with the head of a man attached.

He was lying on his side, as though he were sleeping, but the rain was dripping into the cage and onto him.

A sound took my attention from him and I swung my head to my right.

Another cage, this time, another man. It was impossible to tell his age.

I would have guessed anywhere in his twenties or thirties.

He was wearing a thin pair of trousers soaked to his skin, and he was clinging onto the thick wooden bars of the cage.

He was mouthing something, then the sound came again, the one that had brought my attention to him in the first place. The animal sound I had heard, except now I knew that animal was human.

‘Help us,’ I heard, and I swung around again to my left, to an older man with greying hair and a skinny, tanned torso.

Beyond him, in a separate cage, I glimpsed a face, and I had a flash of recognition.

It was the same man that I had seen in the clearing when I had first arrived, the one who had been marched off by Precious and Kali.

The look of hopelessness was still on his face as though it were permanently etched.

I looked again at the sleeping man in front of me and then again to the man who was calling out to me, then my eyes roamed beyond and as far as I could see was cage upon cage, each one containing a man.