Page 22 of The Beach Holiday

‘Hey,’ I said when I reached her.

‘Morning.’ She tried to shift the frown from her face.

I fixed her with an intent look. ‘Okay?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’ She breathed out. ‘Let’s go to my hut.’

Avril’s hut was larger than mine and Clara’s. All the curtains were closed bar an inch, inviting in a soft hazy stream of light.

I fell into a beanbag.

Avril walked around the dimly lit hut, which smelt strongly of incense, until eventually she reached the beanbag I wasgetting swallowed by and flopped down next to me on a similar-sized one.

‘These are great. Where did you get them from?’

‘Picked them up from Nadi.’

‘Awesome.’

‘Can you get me one next time you’re there?’ I asked.

She nodded. She seemed indifferent today. Not the enigmatic woman who had seduced me to coming to the island a few days ago.

‘Do you think you’ll be happy here?’ Avril asked, not looking at me. She brushed the sand from her feet. I looked towards the window, feeling the presence of the water and its expanse all around me. I thought about the question and what I had seen and felt so far. There were lots of things I still wanted to find out, but I was beginning to feel the pull of the island. Whatever it was that had made all these women stay so far had begun to embed itself in me. Yet I still wondered why Avril would ask me this so soon after arriving. Was she that confident that I would fall under the spell of Totini?

‘I could certainly be happy here,’ I said, not wanting to give all of my feelings away at once. I looked at Avril. ‘Are you happy?’ I dared to ask when I knew so little about her.

‘I’m happiest where others are happy, where there is justice,’ she replied bluntly. Then she looked at me and smiled. ‘You know what I mean though, don’t you, Sadie? That guy at the bar in Nadi.’ I shuddered at the mention of Tony. ‘He triggered something in you. A man has hurt you. Am I right?’

It was my turn to look down at my feet and wipe away the sand.

But I managed a nod that I hoped Avril would see.

‘That is why we must all stick together, us women. That’s why we’re here, to protect one another, to build one another up, to thrive, without the constraints of modern society but also, without the fear of men. There are no wolf whistles, no derogatory comments, no sexism, no inequality. No fear,’ she added finally and with condemnation.

‘And do you think the happiness on this island is down to the lack of men?’ I asked.

Avril looked at me with wide eyes. ‘What do you think?’ she asked candidly.

I sniffed a laugh. ‘I mean, you could be expected to think that. I look around, I see women helping women, building, cooking ... protecting.’ I cast my mind back to the sheer level of bravery I’d witnessed in those women yesterday. Despite the fact it was only one man. His face came to me again, that look of hopelessness.

Avril touched her arm and I noticed for the first time that she had a long cut along it.

‘Avril, is that blood? Are you cut?’

She looked down at her arm and began rubbing at it furiously. ‘My foot hit a sharp rock and I went straight over into a bush of thorns.’

I thought about the combat situation; had they been chasing the man for very long?

Avril was so clear about why there were just women on this island. But I was still curious as to what Avril had experienced to want to start an all-female commune. She had seen the damage in me, and now sitting so close to her, I could sense that she too had been hurt.

‘Women are warriors, and while we have survived alongside men for many years, we also thrive when we are a tribe offemales.’ Avril stood up and went to the other window, which overlooked the camp, and pulled back the curtain an inch. ‘Have you seen us, Sadie? Have you seen what we have achieved, what we can do?’

‘I have seen. It’s wonderful.’

Avril walked over to me and bent down so her eyes met mine. ‘You will achieve great things here, Sadie. That’s why I chose you to come here. You presented great strength the way you handled that drunk at the bar in Nadi.’

I thought back to the day I met Avril, and Tony at the bar. I had been terrified. But she had seen something in me that I hadn’t ever seen.

---