CHERUB: Shadow Wave (16 page)

She unzipped her pack and took out a pen and a small notepad, then began confirming and jotting down basic facts.

‘So you’re sixteen?’

‘Seventeen now,’ Aizat corrected. ‘Wati is still eight, and my grandma is seventy.’

‘And do you go to school, or work, or … ?’

‘Wati has a teacher who comes into the camp. I work, otherwise we’d be broke.’

‘Kyle said you’d been doing some jobs for a carpenter.’

Aizat nodded. ‘I have a boat now, as well. I run errands, take fish to the mainland, carry passengers.’

‘Wasn’t your boat destroyed?’

‘We repaired it after the wave, but the thugs pissed off with it. It wasn’t there when we went to get it. So now I have another boat.’

‘How?’ Helena asked, as she double-checked to make sure that her voice recorder was running.

‘Some people clubbed together,’ Aizat said vaguely. Then he changed the subject. ‘So how is Kyle? Do you see him often?’

‘I’ve met him twice since he contacted me at the beginning of last month,’ Helena explained. ‘Once at the Guilt Trips offices and once at a demonstration we held outside the Kenyan embassy. But he lives a fair way from London and seems to lead a busy life. Exams and things, I guess.’

‘Kyle’s a great guy,’ Aizat said brightly. ‘He even sent me an Arsenal shirt, and some old match programmes.’

‘So you said you’ve got a new boat. Did you get a grant or anything to buy it?’

‘Grant!’ Aizat laughed. ‘I like that, but I’d rather not talk about business on tape. Come along the beach, I’ll show you where our huts used to be.’

Kyle had explained that Aizat had been a kind of leader in the village before it was destroyed, but Helena was surprised at the way he acted. He looked seventeen, but seemed far more grown-up than the pimple-faced teens she caught eyeing her up in London.

Aizat found a stick and burrowed into sand until he found a splintered wooden post. ‘That’s one of the huts that took the full brunt when the scaffolding came washing along the beach. There were two babies trapped inside. Kyle and his youth group helped to rescue them.’

Helena was disappointed. She’d hoped that there would be some trace of the abandoned huts that would be more photogenic than a broken stick poking out of the ground.

‘What’s this?’ she asked, pointing to a greyish-brown layer uncovered by Aizat’s stick.

‘A lot of our beaches are still covered with silt,’ Aizat explained. ‘But with the hotel opening, they didn’t bother cleaning up properly. They just shipped in container loads of sand and dumped it on top of the silt. If you take a boat along the coast, you’ll see that the sand here and all around the hotel is yellowish, not white like you’ll see everywhere else on the island.’

A strange voice came from the other side of the breakwater. It belonged to a fearsome looking man in a blue shirt with epaulettes marked
Regency Plaza Guest Security.

‘Is this gentleman bothering you?’ the guard asked, as he glowered at Aizat through mirrored sunglasses.

Helena shook her head and smiled sweetly. ‘We got chatting,’ she said. ‘Admiring the new hotel.’

‘I’m afraid that this section of beach is for hotel guests only,’ the guard explained.

Helena looked around. ‘But there are no fences, or signs.’

‘We don’t need them,’ the guard explained. ‘There are only a few hundred people living on this part of the island. Most of them work in the hotel, and those that don’t know where they can and can’t go. Would you like me to escort you back to the hotel, madam?’

‘Is the road public?’ Helena asked. ‘Am I OK to carry on my conversation up there?’

‘I suppose,’ the guard said reluctantly. ‘You know, if you want to exercise there’s a good gymnasium in the hotel. It’s got all the latest equipment.’

Helena laughed and spread her arms out wide. ‘Why on
earth
would I want to drip sweat on to a Stairmaster in some air-conditioned room when it’s so beautiful out here?’

She then gave the guard an
I’ll be fine
wave and started walking up towards the road, with Aizat close behind.

‘He’s the big boss, that one,’ Aizat explained. ‘He was beside the police chief the night they threw us out of our village. It probably wasn’t a good idea to meet you this close to the hotel in daylight.’

‘This is supposed to be a free country, isn’t it?’ Helena complained.

‘Are you fit to walk?’ Aizat asked. ‘I’ll take you up to the camp to meet everyone.’

The sun was dropping behind the treetops by the time Aizat and Helena reached the resettlement camp in the jungle. Although many people had left for the mainland immediately after the tsunami, those that remained had either chosen to stay or had no other option.

The sterile environment that Kyle had seen three months earlier had changed as the huts became homes. Kids had formed gangs, people had built screens for privacy and adapted their huts with ventilation holes, extra windows and even extra rooms built from scrap.

But the situation was far from ideal. In particular the drains had been poorly installed. The toilet blocks swarmed with flies and had a heave-inducing stench, while the paths through the camp weren’t suited to heavy foot and cycle traffic and the tropical rains had turned them into a bog.

Helena’s white running shoes sloshed in thick mud as Aizat led her towards his home. He’d found his family a pair of the best huts, far away from a toilet block and on high ground where the soil drained. To make extra space, he’d built a waterproof wood and polythene extension between the two structures.

Inside Aizat had filled the space with furniture rescued from his hut on the beach and some western-style items from the Starfish Hotel. Mrs Leung had given the hotel furniture to the displaced villagers after selling the property to Tan Abdullah and moving to the mainland.

As Helena stepped out of her trainers and entered the hut in sodden white socks, she noticed Aizat’s collection of books piled against one wall. Beyond these were thousands of items that she recognised from her hotel room: towels, flannels, soap dishes, sheets, table lamps, matchbooks, glassware and light bulbs stacked all the way up to the ceiling.

‘I’m a hustler,’ Aizat confessed, as Helena admired the stash. ‘Tan Abdullah steals our land, so we steal from his hotel. The workers pilfer and bring it to me. I take it back to the mainland, and sell it to the stallholders in the markets.’

Helena clapped her hands and howled with laughter. She also imagined the wonderful newspaper article she could write about stolen land, corrupt politicians building vast hotels and the poor refugees who end up stealing from them to survive. She badly wanted to take a picture of the stolen hotel goodies, but didn’t because it would be bad for Aizat if it got published.

‘Do you make much money?’ Helena asked.

‘I do OK,’ Aizat shrugged. ‘But I had to borrow to buy the new boat, and people who lend to the likes of me charge a steep rate of interest.’

As Aizat said this, a boy and girl came inside. They were a little older than Aizat and looked so alike that they were obviously brother and sister.

‘Me, Abdul and Noor make up the campaign committee,’ Aizat explained, as Helena shook their hands and smiled.

‘So what sort of things have you been doing?’ Helena asked.

‘It’s hard because we’re stuck out here in the north-west,’ Noor told her. ‘But I spent some time in the south of the island giving out leaflets and trying to speak with as many influential people as possible. I also met with charity workers and non-government organisations.’

‘What sort of response have you had?’ Helena asked.

Noor shrugged. ‘Lots of people are supportive when you speak with them, but there’s a real sense of hopelessness.’

Helena nodded solemnly in agreement. ‘Tourism is the biggest industry in the world. We’re just tiny groups, fighting against companies with billions of dollars. It can be frustrating, but all you can do is keep chipping away at people’s consciences.

‘Right now fewer than one person in a thousand thinks about people like you being kicked off their land to build a hotel, or the damage that gets done to the environment when they go on holiday. But if we keep plugging away, maybe that will go up to one person in a hundred, or even one in ten. And when you get to that stage, companies and governments
have
to pay attention because it becomes too costly not to.’

Aizat, Noor and Abdul all nodded in agreement.

‘It can be depressing because it takes so long,’ Abdul said sincerely. ‘But my ancestors lived in our village for hundreds of years. Now all that’s left are stumps of wood.’

‘So do you have any kind of campaign strategy?’ Helena asked.

Aizat nodded. ‘We’re concentrating on Tan Abdullah. He’s been governor of this island since before I was born. But rumour has it, he’s up for a government minister’s job in Kuala Lumpur and he wants his oldest son to replace him as governor back here.’

‘Anything that makes Tan look bad right now could stop him getting the government job,’ Noor explained. ‘So we’re trying to cause as much of a stink as possible, harassing him at public appearances and that sort of thing.’

‘He’s coming here on Saturday for the opening dinner,’ Helena said.

Noor nodded enthusiastically. ‘There are supposed to be celebrities, so we’re expecting media coverage. We’re working on a plan to cause some kind of disruption at the event.’

Helena smiled. ‘Sounds good, but don’t be too forceful. As soon as you try anything extreme, your enemies start branding you as terrorists and you lose all your popular support.’

‘We know,’ Aizat nodded. ‘But it’s not often that Tan Abdullah makes it out here and brings the press with him, so we’ve got to make the most of it.’

A lad of about twelve leaned in the doorway and said something to Aizat in Malay. Aizat thanked the boy, gave him some elaborate instructions and then explained in English for Helena’s benefit.

‘It looks like the big boss sent someone up from the hotel to follow us.’

‘Damn,’ Helena said nervously.

She’d called in a favour from one of her oldest friends to get the Regency Plaza assignment, and if word got back to the newspaper in London that she was spurning the luxury hotel and offending advertisers by speaking to local activists, her journalism career would be down the pan and her friend would be in trouble too.

‘Let’s go mess with the man,’ Aizat said, as he stood up and walked barefoot into the mud. ‘Come on, Helena.’

Helena sighed as she put on her almost-new Asics running shoes which were now flooded with muddy water. Aizat led her between the lines of huts towards a stocky man in a blue shirt and shorts, skulking around close to a stinking toilet block.

‘Are you following us?’ Aizat asked, sticking to English for Helena’s benefit.

The man smiled dopily and shrugged. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘Some people have short memories,’ Aizat said accusingly. ‘You worked for Mrs Leung at the Starfish, didn’t you? You got kicked out of your village same as the rest of us, didn’t you? And now you do their dirty work!’

The guard tutted and flicked his hand towards Aizat, as if he was swatting a fly.

‘You’re a stupid little kid,’ he grunted. ‘What do you know about anything? Mrs Leung told the people at Regency Plaza that I was a good man and they fixed me up with the job when she sold the Starfish. I’ve got five young kids and two old ladies to feed.’

Helena understood the guard’s position, but Aizat stayed angry. ‘You have no dignity,’ he hissed. ‘You could move to the mainland like everyone else. You don’t have to work for Tan Abdullah.’

A car horn sounded a hundred metres away, just beyond the first row of huts. The guard spun around as the moonlight silhouetted the boy who’d spoken to Aizat, spattering through the mud at full pelt. This was followed by the sounds of a car freewheeling down the sloped road that led back to the beach. The guard swore violently in Malay, before charging after it.

Helena looked at Aizat. ‘That sort of thing makes enemies for no good reason,’ she warned.

‘Nothing to do with me,’ Aizat grinned. ‘I was standing right here when it happened.’

The car was a small Suzuki four-wheel drive. The open rear had made it easy for the lad to climb inside, release the handbrake and then push it off down the hill with the help of a mate.

People emerged from their huts to see what the guard was swearing about as his vehicle picked up speed. At the first bend, the little Suzuki clattered noisily off the road, crunching through tangled undergrowth before thudding against a tree trunk and finally rolling on to its side.

Dozens of kids and adults scrambled down the road to view the wreckage. The guard led the way, but when he stopped a couple of boys in their early teens grabbed rocks and threw them at him.

‘Don’t spy on us,’ they shouted. ‘Stay out of here or you’re dead.’

But the resettlement camp’s residents were divided. Some bore a grudge, but almost as many had swallowed their pride and now worked inside the Regency Plaza, or as construction workers on other Tan Abdullah projects along the coast.

Helena shuddered with fright as a ball of orange flame lit up the jungle. She couldn’t tell if the little Suzuki’s petrol tank had ignited accidentally or deliberately, but the crowd was getting nastier and she was scared that the police would arrive and start asking questions.

The journalist in Helena wanted to stick around and take photos, but a mix of fear and shock sent her storming rapidly downhill towards the beach.

‘Where are you going?’ Aizat asked, as he chased after her.

‘I’m going back to my hotel,’ she said nervously. ‘I’ll be fine.’

‘You don’t want to be out here after dark,’ Aizat said. ‘There’s some dodgy people around since the hotel opened.’

Helena said no more as her long legs strode briskly, with Aizat behind struggling to keep up. It was pitch dark with the canopy of trees hanging over both sides of the narrow trail and she had to dive for cover when a Toyota swept past at high speed.

It was different at the bottom of the hill, where the trees ended and artificial light shone from the hotel windows and a floodlit driving range. Instead of going directly towards the hotel, Helena crossed the beach and stood in the surf, washing the mud off her trainers.