once more. Hang in there. You’re going to be fine. She shook it away. What did he know?
‘Hey, there’s our hostel,’ Jaddi said, pointing at a two-storey yellow building on the opposite side of the road, its colour like a beacon against the backdrop of grey structures that surrounded it.
‘Lizzie,’ Ben said, drawing her gaze back to him, ‘when we get into our rooms, I’m going to get a quick bit of footage of the three of you in your dorm, and then I’m going to need to do some editing and send everything from today back to the studio, so it can go into the first episode on Saturday.’
‘Oh.’ She squeezed through a gap between two parked scooters, her mind racing through the events of the afternoon. Ben had asked her in the hospital if she’d wanted to watch the footage from the restroom, and she’d said no. She didn’t want to see it, but she didn’t want anyone else to see it either. She wished she had a little more, or any, of Jaddi’s guile when it came to getting what she wanted from the opposite sex.
‘And before you ask,’ Ben said, ‘the answer’s no. I send it all. No special cuts.’
‘I wasn’t …’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘Yes, you were. And don’t even think about sending Jaddi to sweet talk me. I saw the full force of her charms with the doctor, and they won’t work on me.’
‘Jaddi’s charms work on all men.’
‘Not me.’ He shook his head. ‘But look, there’s something you can do.’
‘What?’ Lizzie asked, the throbbing returning to the back of her head.
‘Do tonight’s video diary as soon as we get into the hostel. Explain what happened. Reassure the viewers that you’re OK.’
Lizzie’s energy levels dipped as they crossed the busy road to the hostel. So much for normal, she thought again. Then she pictured her parents, settling down on their floral sofa to watch the first episode; her dad on the left with a glass of his home-brewed beer and a packet of smoky bacon crisps, and her mum beside him with a glass of wine or a Horlicks, depending on her mood. How would they feel when they saw their daughter collapsed on the floor? A rush of guilt accompanied the image. She’d put them through enough.
‘OK,’ she mumbled, picking up her pace and catching Jaddi and Samantha as they stepped into their home for the next four nights.
‘You all right, hon?’ Jaddi asked. ‘I’d hug you, but I’m too sweaty, and frankly, so are you.’
Lizzie nodded. ‘Ben wants me to do a video diary the minute we get into our dorm room.’
Jaddi nodded. ‘That’s a good idea, so everyone knows you’re fine.’
‘That’s what he said, but …’ Lizzie’s voice trailed off. She couldn’t find the words to voice her frustration.
‘But what?’
‘I don’t know.’ Lizzie shrugged. ‘I tried doing one on the plane and it was all right, but it was weird too, you know? I can’t decide if I should think about it as talking to my mum and dad, or like I’m talking to you guys, or at the however many people watching.’ Lizzie sighed as they stepped into the yellow-walled foyer of the hostel. She wasn’t making any sense.
‘It’s called a diary,’ Jaddi said. ‘Maybe the easiest thing to do is forget everyone else and talk about your day like you’re talking to yourself.’
Lizzie nodded. ‘Maybe.’
‘If you run out of things to say, then I can jump in, or better yet, just video Samantha meticulously unpacking her backpack. That alone will get some laughs.’
‘Hey!’ Samantha leant over Lizzie and shoved Jaddi. ‘Our backpacks are our snail shells. Our home away from home. It doesn’t cost anything to be organised.’
‘Of course not.’ Jaddi laughed.
Lizzie smiled and tried to laugh, but the burst of energy she’d felt stepping into the market had drained away, leaving the aftermath of the seizure tainting her thoughts. A desire to sleep overwhelmed her along with relief at having dodged an MRI. Day one, and she was clinging to their dream with a spider’s thread. At this rate they wouldn’t make it to day five, let alone ninety.
Day 4
Samantha
Fifty-one … fifty-two … fifty-three. Samantha counted each step as she made her way slowly up the narrow stone steps of the Temple of Dawn. She’d covered the first twenty steps with ease as her eyes had absorbed the detail on the temple walls on each side of the staircase. Tiny seashells, fragments of glass and coloured porcelain placed into spiralling flowers and intricate patterns stretched across every inch of the walls surrounding the temple. Stone sculptures of ancient Chinese soldiers and mythical tiger-like beasts stood in rows around the centre of the vast stone structure.
It was like nothing she’d ever seen before, although she’d had the same thought yesterday when they’d wandered the grounds of the Grand Palace, and again in the evening when they’d entered the ramshackle streets of China Town, the only part of the city that hadn’t succumbed to modernisation.
She’d always loved London’s old white-stone buildings mixed in with the sleek glass of modern architecture, but now it seemed stuffy and dull compared to the dazzling colour and creativity of Bangkok’s history.
A group negotiating their way down the steps bustled past. Samantha shuffled closer to the railing and stopped, relieved to have a momentary break from the burning pain shooting out from her knees and up her thighs. It didn’t help that each stone step was at least three times the height of a normal step, making it feel more like climbing a very long ladder.
Her eyes followed the group as they continued down towards the river, lapping at the edges of the temple, now far below, and she wasn’t even halfway. Samantha forced her legs to begin climbing again and focused her gaze towards the top of the central prang, where Lizzie, Jaddi and Ben continued up, eager to reach the viewing platform before the sun began its descent.
Sweat cloaked Samantha’s skin under her long-sleeved T-shirt, one of the only garments from her backpack she hadn’t thrown away. All of the cotton vests and shorts she’d packed in England now felt thick and uncomfortable in the heat. Replacing them with the lighter clothes, sold in the markets for next to nothing, had helped with adjusting to Bangkok’s humidity over the past three days. Except when they visited the temples, and had to adhere to dress codes that required the majority of their skin to be covered.
As Samantha continued to ascend, the air began to clear. A breeze blew over her face and neck. It was the first hint of cool she’d felt since leaving the temperature-controlled room in the hospital. Lizzie had bounced back from her seizure almost instantly. The only reminder that it had happened at all were the purple bruises on Lizzie’s shoulders and legs. That, and Samantha’s memory of it, which played on loop in her mind the moment her head hit the pillow each night. Neither Lizzie nor Jaddi had spoken about it since, and Lizzie had been quick to brush Samantha’s concerns away whenever she’d asked. Lizzie hated to be treated any differently because of her illness, and yet it was a struggle not to. She had to try harder though, Samantha thought. The cloud hovering over them was dark enough without Samantha adding to it.
Samantha pulled in a long breath and caught a whiff of musky incense burning from somewhere inside the temple walls. She wondered how much the burning incense was for the monks’ rituals and how much was to mask the stench of sewage and rotting vegetables rising from the Chao Phraya River below.
‘It’s so majestic here. The energy is so peaceful,’ a woman with a Scottish accent said from five steps below her. Samantha glanced at the woman, and the boyfriend she’d spoken to, then back at the temple walls. The original china pattern on the