Emily Barr - The Sleeper

Everything feels straightforward, living like this. Who needs TVs or carpets or any of the rubbish I grew up insulated by? The sun is shining on my diary, I’m sitting at a plastic table, and I’m feeling I can do anything. Rachel’s reading The Beach next to me. We’re meeting Jake in a bar later. I feel excited and sick.

April 19th

Bit hung-over today. We had beers while we were eating, but afterwards Jake produced a bottle of Sang Thip, and when that comes out I know it’s the beginning of the end.

I was nervous introducing him and Rachel in case they hated each other. They are not only my two best friends, but they’re actually my two only friends. Rachel knows that, but Jake doesn’t. Anyway, it turned out that they got on perfectly well. Straight away they were all ‘I’ve heard so much about you’ to each other (Jake was exaggerating as he and I have barely spoken, but he was extremely charming to her), and then it felt as if the three of us had been friends for ever. We all ignored the weird reality of what we were up to.

I’d forgotten how much I love to be beside him.

I’d like to visit myself a year ago, when I was going out with Olly and heading to see the parents for Sunday lunch every week, and tell that boring bland idiot (me) that I’d soon be hanging out in Thailand with an Australian drug-smuggling boyfriend. I’d like to see her face.

I’ve got up early: Jake’s still sleeping in our bed, and there’s no sign of Rachel yet. I don’t know what time it is, but the cockerel is crowing so loudly that I’m amazed no one else is awake. I want to go for a walk, but Krabi is a staging post, not a scenic destination in its own right. I’ll just sit here in the cool morning sun for a bit.

When we were all drunk, Rachel asked Jake if she could travel with me.

As far as I can recall (and that’s unreliable, as my head hurts), he laughed and said yes, she could, as long as she didn’t do or say anything that might risk fucking it up.

I need some water. A German man just came out of the bungalow opposite, wearing a pair of baggy Y-fronts and carrying a towel and a paisley-print sponge bag, heading towards the shower. He smiled and said good morning very politely. People are beginning to get up. I’m going to the shop to buy a bottle of water. Then we can go for the biggest hangover breakfast Krabi can provide. If anywhere will come up with the goods, it’s Krabi. An unpretty town that’s like a Wild West frontier town, a gateway to other places. It’s a place to eat and drink and wait for a bus or a boat or a plane.

April 20th

The flight is tomorrow. It takes forty-five minutes, and then everything will change.

When we get to Singapore, I’m going to ditch Jake.

Any time he’s passing through Singapore, however, I will welcome him with open arms, in a no-strings way.

Rachel and I sat at neighbouring computer terminals yesterday, and looked up websites of potential employers in Singapore. There are opportunities for both of us. She phoned all the international schools, and has made appointments to go and chat to two of them next week. I’ve found two jobs advertised that would suit me. I’ve printed out the (lengthy, bureaucratic) application forms and started to work out how to apply for a working visa.

Derek’s going to meet us at Changi airport when we arrive. We’ll put my backpack in the boot of his car, and he’ll drop us at a hotel with enough cash to do whatever we want.

I must overcome my misgivings about Rachel coming along. She won’t freak out. She will be fine.

April 21st

Excited. Nervous. Unable to string a sentence together.

We’re going to go for cocktails at Raffles hotel tonight. That’s what people do in Singapore. All we have to do now is get there.

I’m sitting on the plane. Rachel is not sitting next to me, because Jake said she couldn’t. I’m just on the plane, summoning my cool. I must get through this. I can’t wait. No alcohol on the plane for me. Cocktails at Raffles later.

Later

This cannot be happening. It cannot. Cannot cannot cannot.

April 23rd

Singapore

I can’t bear to write it down.

So instead I’ll say I’m lying on a bug-infested mattress in a disgusting hostel on Orchard Road in Singapore.

And I can’t even cry. The world has ended.

I’m on my own. It’s just me.

Later

Try to write it. Try to write what happened, step by step. Then I can show it to people who don’t believe me, as proof. Nobody believes me. WHY DOES NOBODY BELIEVE ME?

We caught the plane, Rachel and me. I had the khaki backpack Jake gave me. Rachel had her normal one, her blue one, with a load of my stuff crammed into it. The rest of my stuff had gone with Jake, as usual.

Krabi airport is small. I was busy getting myself in the zone. I almost ignored Rachel. We queued for check-in for ages.

Rachel was quiet, but she looked all right. Every now and then she’d look me in the eyes and force a smile, but we weren’t really speaking. I didn’t want to be distracted.

Jake queued a long way behind us. He wasn’t sitting with us. It’s always like that. Men are much more likely to be pulled over than women. Women aren’t pulled over at all, unless there’s a tip-off.

We checked in just fine. I did all the talking, and we both gave a wide-eyed ‘no’ to the ‘Could anyone have interfered …?’ question. Our backpacks vanished, with airline labels bearing our names.

We didn’t acknowledge Jake in the departures lounge. I tried to cheer Rach up. We had coffee, then lunch, and we meandered around the shops. She was terrified for me – I could see it in her eyes – but it was too late.

Neither of us had a fucking clue.

Of course it wasn’t too late. We could have faked an emergency and got ourselves let back into Krabi. It was only a walk of a few metres. Who cares about the bureaucracy? We could have flown here and walked straight out without bags. But it all seemed inevitable and compulsory.

By the time we got on the plane, she was struggling to hold herself together. I tried to ignore her, but she was sitting five rows in front of me, and she kept getting up and going to the loo. I tried to smile when she walked past, but her face was like a mask, and I had to ignore her because I needed to stay in my zone.

Then we landed. I waited for her, so we could get off the plane together. That was not the plan, but she needed a talking-to.

‘We’ll split up,’ I said. She looked too scared; I couldn’t walk through with her. She was like a beacon. I needed to go on my own to do my usual trance. If she was pulled over for looking suspicious, I thought, it wouldn’t matter because she had nothing to hide. If I were pulled over with her, it would, I thought, have been disastrous.

The backpacks, both a bit battered, one blue and one khaki, appeared on the carousel fairly early. That was good. I took mine (the khaki one), put it on a trolley and set off. ‘See you in a second,’ I whispered. ‘Nearly there.’

I became the head girl, strolled through Customs with my head held high, and grinned as I got to the other side and the relief started to course through me. Cocktails at Raffles, that’s what I was thinking. My first step on Singaporean soil was, I thought, the moment my new life began.

Derek was waiting. He kissed me on the cheek as if he were meeting a friend, picked up my bag and swung it on to his shoulder. While he set off for a taxi, I hung back, waiting for Rachel.

I didn’t realise for ages. It wasn’t surprising that she took a while to come through. If I were a Customs officer, I would have pulled her over. I was glad my bag was gone, so that if she tried to tell them everything there wouldn’t be any evidence.