Out of the Shadows. Senta Holland

really kiss much, but this time I just drank and drank and drank his mouth dry.

      I remembered the sea mussels, all soft inside. I was one of them. If I could have changed myself into liquid, I would have soaked him through his clothes and seeped in through his pores, so that I could travel inside him. Wherever he went. Losing cohesion would be a small price to pay.

      Then I let go.

      I was never one to fight to the last.

      Always hoped they would stay of their own accord.

      He said ‘goodbye’ and went.

      I saw him give the attendant his ticket, I saw him walk past the barrier.

      He turned round and waved. I waved too. The waving cut through my breath. It seemed final.

      Something in me pushed and pushed.

      He turned again.

      I couldn’t help it, I couldn’t hold it back. I hadn’t held anything back for the last three days and five hours.

      It came up in an awkward shape, unformed, unfiltered, unheard of, unthinkable.

      ‘Don’t go!’ I blurted out.

      He stopped and blurted back.

      Just as awkward and unfiltered.

      ‘I have to.’

      Yes.

      Then he was gone.

      I saw him drive past, sitting on the little wagon where I had spotted him when he arrived.

      I waved again, but it was too late.

      Then he was gone.

      The sun was very hot and bright as I walked back from the airport to the main tuk tuk ring road. It was a long way, particularly carrying my computer in my backpack. I cried and cried and cried.

      My feet rubbed raw against the cheap new flip-flop shoes. I didn’t care. I was accosted by motorcycle drivers and then insulted and cursed when I didn’t want to ride with them. I didn’t care. I cried so much water I could have passed out from the dehydration. I grew a monumental headache, so that I nearly didn’t see the tuk tuk when I finally reached the main road.

      I didn’t care.

      In the main fishing town I found an email place, inside an electrical repair shop.

      I knew he couldn’t have written, he was on the plane. I needed to read what other men had written to me, so that I wouldn’t drown.

      I found many letters from men on the alternative lifestyle website: they gave me brutal commands without knowing me, they just wanted a fuck for the night, they felt all women were whores and they needed me to do all sorts of things for them while they themselves weren’t going to do anything for me. They weren’t really quite sure what they wanted. I wasn’t good enough for them anyway.

      I sat between the cut-off cable rolls and the conversion plugs and thought of my Nai without panic. Even if I never saw him again, my Nai had given me an experience that was in a different world from men like that. He had been himself. I had had a chance to become myself. More of myself than I ever dreamed of. I would probably never have a relationship again, considering what was usually on offer and expected, but I had been with him. For a whole three precious days. And five hours.

      I stopped the internet connection but bought the conversion plug.

      It would be nice to put on the fan AND the laptop at the same time when I returned to my hut on the other island.

      I remember waiting for a long time on the pier, under a thatch and between sweets stands, never quite sure when the ferry went and if I would be called for the right one and in time, surrounded by blood red dragon boats, and just looking out on the sea.

      It was completely calm.

       The other island

      I had always planned to go to the island, sit in a hut, and write.

      And that was what I did.

      The hut I ended up in was right on top of a hill, overlooking the South China Sea. It had a view of green, still water in the day and of the same water, black, at night, with a string of huge lights reflected on it. The lights were spooky. They looked as if a big city had settled on the sea at nightfall, or the faraway coastline of the Gulf of Thailand had suddenly closed the gap, but they belonged to the bottom draggers who had already fished the region almost empty. All that was left when you went down to the little beach, dodging the water bottles and broken stones, was empty sand and empty salty sea. The bottom draggers themselves looked like huge spider crabs with bright white eyes at the end of their many feet. They were on the verge of replacing biology. The only animal inhabitants left here were vicious amphibians who could swim and dig through the sand with equal determination and who would cling to human toes and sting.

      The only other animal inhabitants were youthful tourists who had been hoping for an authentic experience and ended up staring at the emptiness, consuming various legal and not-so-legal substances and nursing their bitten feet.

      Up on the hill there were only a few of us, and our huts were far away from each other. I had a stylish veranda with artistically cut logs that still showed the stumps of their erstwhile branches under elegant veneer where I could sit and write. Thousands of ants used that log railing as a highway to circle the hut in endless ceremony. At night, dog sized lizards heaved themselves onto the veranda to survey and hiss at the scenery. Huge cockroaches and hand sized tiger-pattern spiders raced each other round my mosquito net.

      We had electricity for a few hours at night, unless the owner decided to play his special moonlight collection. In that case I had more time to use my laptop but I also had to listen to his music.

      I worked on my project, as I had intended, and with great dedication, considering that each night I had to choose between my laptop and the electric fan.

      Every few days I climbed onto the owner’s four wheel drive truck and went on the hour-long journey on deep red tracks hacked into the virgin jungle and desperately trying to heal themselves with long green creepers, into the island’s only larger village. There the owner went off to look for visitors coming off the ferry, while other hut inhabitants went for a much needed dose of cheese in the Western café.

      I walked down the dusty street and looked for a phone.

      There were no internet terminals in the jungle huts, but the dusty boom town street had them.

      The first time I came down with the jeep I almost didn’t dare to enter. My Nai hadn’t contacted me, not at all, since I had left on the train, but then there were many possibilities or reasons. One of them was of course that he didn’t want to contact me.

      Still, I had proved to myself that I was strong. I had found him. I had realised that he was what I wanted, and more. I had given it my best, I had made it clear to him and to myself. But I had not raised my hopes, and consequently I had not had them dashed.

      So I was telling myself when I went into Mr Hong’s world-wide connection shop and sat down at the ancient computer with the encrusted keyboard that did its best to crank itself up to the speeds required by global communication. The lights on its old curvy screen flickered dangerously.

      I had many other people to look up of course. I decided to start with those others first, and end with them. Looking for a mail from my Nai would have to be sandwiched in between. Safety insulation.

      So many mails never come.

      In my journey on that round-the-world trip, the most common mail I got from a Dom was the first.

      And still I looked out for my Nai’s mail from the corner of my eye.

      What does it matter, the project, the island, the fear, the hope, the lizards on the veranda.

      The only thing that counts is his skin touching mine. And knowing that he is, so finally, so simply, so improbably the one who understands me.