‘I’ve got a ghost story,’ Danny says, swallowing his mouthful. ‘Do you know the one about the hitch-hiker and the…’
‘Yes,’ the others groan.
They’ve been telling ghost stories since Anuman put the fish on tree-branch skewers above the fire, dropping their voices at the tense bits then shouting the punchlines to make each other jump.
‘I know,’ Honor says. ‘Let’s tell each other the scariest things that have ever happened to us.’
‘Isn’t that the same as a ghost story?’ Meg asks.
‘Well, no. You can be scared without ghosts being involved,’ Jessie pipes up. Unlike Danny, who’s sitting so close to the fire he feels as though his cheeks are glowing, Jessie is far away, practically sitting in the entrance to the sleeping shelter.
‘We could go for a walk in the jungle,’ Milo suggests, but he’s immediately shouted down by Jefferson who only has to say the word ‘dangerous’ before the others all boo and then burst into laughter.
Anuman, sitting apart from the group, and sorting through the contents of his bag under the light of the food shelter torch, laughs too.
‘So what do we talk about next?’ Danny asks.
The air rings with suggestions as they all shout over each other, then Honor’s voice rings out clear and loud.
‘Let’s talk about our worst phobias.’
‘Are you kidding?’ Meg, sitting on one side of Danny with her knees pulled up to her chest, shivers theatrically. ‘Most of them are on this bloody island!’
They all laugh.
‘Come on,’ Honor cajoles. ‘It’ll be fun. We’ll find out which one of us is the biggest weirdo.’ She pauses for effect. ‘Jeffers?’
Everyone, including Jefferson, laughs.
‘Fine.’ Jefferson shrugs. ‘I’ve got a phobia of heights.’
‘You do not!’ Danny scoffs. ‘I sat next to you on the flight over here and you were fine.’
‘Not that kind of height. I’m OK when I’m sitting down surrounded by a metal box. It’s sharp drops that freak me out. You know, when it’s really steep?’ He presses his fingertips together, one hand horizontal, the other vertical. ‘If I get to the edge I get this really weird compulsion to throw myself off.’
‘Why don’t you?’ Milo says and everyone laughs again. There’s nothing malicious in Milo’s comment, or our reaction. It’s light-hearted banter, an easy togetherness formed over seventeen years of friendship.
‘Be a bit weird if you were afraid of heights, Milo,’ Jeffers banters back. ‘You’d be scared every time you stood up!’
‘Heights I can take.’ He uncrosses his long legs and stretches them out towards the fire. ‘Snakes, on the other hand…’ He glances at Meg, sitting beside him. ‘I blame you. When I was four she put a worm in my mouth when I was sleeping.’
‘Didn’t happen! You dreamed it.’
‘I did not!’
‘OK, OK,’ Honor holds out her hands. ‘Enough bickering or I’ll put you both on the naughty step! Jessie, how about you?’
There’s an awkward pause as all eyes turn to Jessie.
‘I’ll go next,’ Meg says quickly. ‘I’m afraid of—’
‘No, no.’ Jessie’s voice cuts across her like a knife. ‘Let me take my turn. I don’t mind. I’ve got a phobia of vomiting. There, I said it.’
No one says a word.
‘Seriously,’ Jessie continues. ‘It freaks me out. I can’t stand the smell of it, the sound of it, the way people retch and I’m shit-scared of puking myself. I haven’t been able to eat prawns for three years since I had a dodgy takeaway.’
There’s a beat then Jeffers says, ‘Don’t blame you, vomit stinks! Did I tell you about the time that I—’
Honor holds up a hand. ‘Yes, we know and we don’t need to hear it again.’
Everyone laughs and Danny feels the tension ease from between his shoulder blades. Jefferson might be a know-it-all but, for once, he picked the right time to launch into one of his stories. Everyone sitting around the fire knows that Jessie just lied about her phobia. When Anuman asked for volunteers to use the flint and steel to start the fire she couldn’t get away fast enough. She wanted to go beachcombing to find stuff that might be useful, she said. They all know what happened last summer – their parents told them and they’ve discussed it in a private WhatsApp group – but Jessie hasn’t mentioned it once since she arrived and none of them has had the guts to bring it up. Danny wasn’t sure who was more uncomfortable when she walked into the hotel lobby with her parents on the first night in Thailand – her or him. While Jessie’s parents stood hand in hand, she stood apart. You could have fitted another person in the gap between Jessie and her dad. Her older brother hadn’t been on one of the NCT holidays for years – preferring to stay at home instead – but he was there, in the mental scrapbook of Danny’s memories: sitting at the head of the kids’ table, deliberately swimming out to a buoy when they’d all been told it was too far out, laughing at Danny and calling him ‘a little kid’ when he was too scared to attempt a zipwire. And now there was a Tom-shaped space in the hotel lobby that would never be filled. Danny stared at it for a very long time.
‘Anyway,’ Meg huffs. ‘My phobia’s blood. No big deal, apart from to me. Honor?’
Danny glances at his girlfriend. He knows what her phobia is and she knows his. They’ve had this conversation before. There isn’t a single thing they don’t know about each other.
‘I’m not going to say,’ Honor says, giggling nervously, ‘because I wouldn’t put it past one of you bastards to try and scare me.’
‘We wouldn’t,’ Jeffers says.
Milo laughs. ‘I would.’
‘You try it,’ Honor says to him and Danny picks up on her flirty tone.
‘No one’s going to be trying anything,’ he says pointedly.
‘Dude.’ Milo raises an eyebrow. ‘I was joking.’
‘As long as that’s all it is.’
‘Seriously, Danny?’ Honor glares at him. ‘You’re going to do this now?’
‘I’m not doing anything.’
‘And I am?’
Danny tips his head to one side and mimes flicking long hair over his shoulders. ‘You try it,’ he mimics.
‘Dan—’ Meg stops tracing her finger through the sand and looks up at him. ‘Leave it out.’
‘Yeah, can we just get this done?’ Jessie asks. ‘It’s getting boring now.’
‘Well, sorry to bore everyone,’ Honor says irritably. ‘I was trying to share my phobia but someone wouldn’t let me speak. Anyway, it’s spiders.’ She holds up her hands, palms face out. ‘There, done.’
Danny watches as she crosses her arms over her chest and stares, sullenly, into the fire. He can’t keep up with her mood swings this holiday. One minute she’s playful and fun and the next she’s quiet and prickly. Maybe he shouldn’t have called her out on being flirty with Milo but she’s never flirted with anyone in the group before and it creeps him out. He’s going have to take her to one side for a chat. Find out what the hell is going on.