LITMIR.BIZ

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Denny said. ‘They’ve definitely picked the right location.’ He glanced out across the water to where the sun was getting lower, painting the water rose-gold. As he turned back, his gaze moved to the entrance. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Here they are.’

      Two men in their late twenties strolled across the bar, a younger blonde woman with bare feet walking between them. Denny waved them over and made the introductions.

      Aaron, another Kiwi, who was square-jawed and thick-necked, stood with his hands gripped over the back of a chair. ‘I picked up the part,’ he told Denny, ‘but I had to go to the mechanic’s cousin’s brother’s shop.’

      Denny rolled his eyes. ‘What did they charge you?’

      ‘Six thousand pesos.’

      ‘Pretty good.’

      Aaron nodded.

      ‘No Joseph?’

      Aaron raised an eyebrow, communicating something that Lana didn’t understand. ‘Right, I’ll get the beers in.’

      Heinrich, a German with even white teeth and a sensible haircut, pulled up a chair for the blonde girl, Shell, and set his next to it.

      ‘What happened?’ Shell asked, looking at the ice pressed to Lana’s ankle.

      ‘I got in the path of a runaway cockerel,’ Lana said, lifting the napkin to reveal the swelling skin.

      ‘Bloody kamikaze cockerels,’ Kitty added.

      Shell leant forward and pressed the backs of her fingers very gently against Lana’s skin, a flock of slim silver bangles jangling on her wrist. She drew her fingers lightly around the edges of the swelling. ‘Looks like a sprain. Keep topping up the ice tonight.’

      Lana liked Shell immediately, sensing warmth in the wideness of her smile. She tried to decide whether Shell and Heinrich were a couple, but couldn’t tell if their easy manner with one another was familiarity or intimacy.

      Aaron returned with the drinks and conversation began to flow. Kitty was entertaining the table with a story of a love tryst she’d witnessed earlier between a slight Filipino woman and an ageing American. Lana was content to sit back and listen, trying to place the accents and dynamics of the friends who explained that they’d travelled through South-East Asia together.

      A heady blend of beers and rum on a warm evening meant conversation flowed easily from one topic to another. Lana forgot the pain in her ankle and grinned at the colourful details she learnt about the others: Denny would only fall asleep in a Spider-Man outfit until he was nine years old; Heinrich was so competitive that he used to beg his brother to score him on how long he peed for; Shell’s parents owned a cattle-feed store in Ontario and she used to go sledging on the wide plastic sacks the feed was delivered in; Aaron had once got lost in a rainforest on Réunion island and taken a badly aimed crap on an ants’ nest.

      Several more rounds of drinks were bought and drunk. Candles were lit and streams of white fairy lights began to twinkle around the bar as night arrived. When it was Kitty’s round she ordered more beers, with a tray of chasers, and the noise around the table rose even louder.

      ‘So what made you decide to travel? Why the Philippines?’ Shell asked Lana, the group’s attention turning to her.

      Lana glanced down at her drink, her mouth turning dry as she thought about what led to her decision to leave England. She remembered her father’s expression when he’d found her kneeling on the threadbare carpet of his bedroom with a Manila envelope in her hands: his features seemed to slide downwards, as if weighted by guilt.

      Later the same night, she’d waited on Kitty’s doorstep, rain dripping down the collar of her coat, her shoulders hunched against the biting wind. At her centre was a hollow, raw feeling, as if her insides had been carved out. Kitty had opened the door, taken one look at Lana and tugged her indoors, saying, ‘Jesus! What the fuck’s happened?’

      At the time, Kitty had been renting a poky studio-flat in Ealing above a florist, and she’d led Lana into the cluttered main room where a double bed heaved with cushions and crochet throws. Kitty’s clothes hung on two rails at the side of the room and her shoes were thrown in a trunk at the end of the bed. Her dressing table was covered with make-up, body lotions and bottles of perfume, and the whole place had the feel of a costume department.

      Kitty plucked a fleecy dressing gown from the back of the door and wrapped it around Lana, who was trembling all over. She squeezed Lana’s red hands. ‘You’re freezing. What’s happened? Are you okay?’

      ‘Can I stay?’ Lana asked, her voice edged with tears.

      ‘Of course! What’s going on? Sorry it’s so cold in here. Pissing landlord hasn’t fixed the heating,’ Kitty said, moving a hand to the plug-in radiator where two thongs and a tea towel were drying. ‘I’ll do us a hot-water bottle. And tea.’

      A few minutes later they were sitting in bed with the covers pulled up, a hot-water bottle tucked between their feet. Lana cupped a mug of steaming tea to her chest, feeling her heart pounding against it. A tension headache pulsed at her temples as she began to talk. She told Kitty everything – about discovering the envelope hidden in her father’s room, about the truth it contained, about how her father had no words to deny what he’d done.

      Kitty listened with her eyes fixed on Lana’s, her lips pressed together. Neither of them drank their tea.

      By the time Lana finished talking, her face was streaked with tears. ‘I’ll never forgive him.’

      ‘No!’ Kitty had said suddenly, sitting forward. ‘Don’t say that. He made a mistake. A terrible mistake. But you mustn’t hate him. You mustn’t!’ She spoke with such vehemence that her hands shook, a dribble of cold tea spilling onto the duvet.

      Lana pushed the memory away now. She couldn’t think about that day. Not out here. When she looked up, she realized everyone was watching her, still waiting for an answer.

      ‘Spin of a globe,’ Kitty said, coming to Lana’s rescue. ‘That’s how we chose the Philippines, wasn’t it?’

      Lana nodded.

      ‘I spun it – and Lana closed her eyes and pointed.’

      Heinrich laughed. ‘Really? That’s brilliant.’

      It was true – at least in part. It might not have been why they’d left, but it was how they’d chosen to come here. Lana had been sitting cross-legged on Kitty’s bed with the globe in front of her. She’d closed her eyes and felt the lightest breath of air move against her fingertips as the globe spun. Then, as it slowed, she pressed her forefinger against its cool surface.

      When she opened her eyes, her fingertip was placed in the centre of a mass of islands near the equator. She lifted her hand and read the name aloud: ‘The Philippines.’

      *

      ‘More drinks?’ the waitress asked, a tray propped against her hip.

      The bar was crammed now, voices clamouring to be heard above the thudding music.

      Aaron glanced at the watch on his thick wrist, then pushed back his chair and stood. ‘I think we’re done here, thank you.’

      When the waitress left, Aaron turned to Lana and Kitty and said, ‘We’ve got some rum back at ours that needs drinking. Gonna join us?’

      *

      Lana and Kitty wove behind the others with their arms linked, Lana trying to put little weight on her injured ankle. She’d tugged her hairband free, and her hair fell loose over one shoulder in thick waves of amber.

      Ahead of them the group came to a stop by the shoreline. Lana could feel the effect of the beers she’d drunk – had it been five, or perhaps six? In the darkness she watched as Aaron untied a rope from a wooden post. The other end was attached to a small metal dinghy with an outboard engine, which he walked out into the shallows.

      ‘What

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