over to the hotel’s reception desk where I made enquiries about renting bicycles. Our leisurely goal for the day was simply to pedal through the countryside to get a better sense of where we were and what was on offer.
No one had eaten and perhaps it was the heat and humidity but, despite our early start and active morning, we all felt thirsty rather than hungry. The sweet, elderly lady at the open-air bar near the front desk offered to make us fresh juice from hand-picked tropical fruit and crushed ice. It was just what we needed. The boys chose combinations of pineapple, mango and coconut water; the latter primarily so they could watch the petite Thai grandmother deftly wield a massive machete to split open the coconut husk and brittle shell beneath. Sam and I both ordered fresh papaya juice with a dash of kaffir lime. In an instant the sea salt was washed out of my mouth. I don’t think I’d ever tasted anything so refreshing.
While slurping contentedly, we looked across the courtyard and spotted a spiral stairway leading to a rooftop viewing deck, so we headed on up to get our bearings as we finished our juice. We were delighted to find that this elevated vantage, just over two storeys high, offered uninterrupted views in every direction. Sam and the boys surveyed the endless stretch of sand for any promising surf breaks – a rarity in the Gulf. Turning away from the beach, I realised we were far more isolated than I had initially thought, surrounded by coconut and pineapple plantations, as well as several drowsy-looking water buffalo.
By now it was almost eleven and everything felt hot and still. Other than a proudly dishevelled rooster flying up to a perch in the branches of a colossal rubber tree nearby, almost nothing was moving. I spotted a Buddhist temple glinting and shimmering in the distance, so I took a few photos and made a mental note of where we should ride our bicycles after lunch, or perhaps later in the day when things had cooled down.
And then time stopped.
I heard a horrendous crash of broken bells, a violent ringing of metal striking stone.
Sam had leant against the safety fence – parallel rows of steel poles bolted to concrete pillars via sturdy-looking timber posts that, unknown to us, were riddled with dry rot. The barrier collapsed beneath her and it was the spinning poles sparking against the hard, blue, cement tiles six metres below that jarred my ears and spun me around by my head.
Startled by the fence giving way, Sam was pulled off balance. She stood poised on the edge for a seemingly infinite sliver of time – leaning back over the void at an impossible angle, her slim arms waving wildly, fingers extended as if to find purchase in the air and take flight.
And then she was gone.
She didn’t scream. I never heard her hit the ground. My ears were roaring with dreadful silence. My mind went blank, all thoughts but one instantly erased in a blinding flash of fear and horror. I dropped my juice and ran to the edge. Looking down was more terrible than I could have imagined. Sam lay twisted on the tiles twenty feet below.
She was utterly still.
Time and space seemed to fold into itself. Suddenly I was kneeling by Sam’s side. She was unconscious but alive. Barely.
The violent impact had thrown off her red thongs, and her sunglasses had also vanished. Her eyelids were not quite closed and I could just glimpse the lower whites of her eyes. This was unnerving enough, but then I saw the hideous bony bulge in the middle of her back, an angry misshapen lump the size of my fist pushing through her t-shirt and I feared the worst.
Sam had bitten through her tongue – her clenched teeth were stained red – and each ragged, gasping breath was a weak and bubbling spectral wheeze. I tried opening her mouth to clear her airway but her jaw was locked shut. I ripped off my shirt and crumpled it into a small pillow, then I tried to tilt her face gently to the side and into the recovery position. But as soon as my cupped hands cradled her head they immediately felt warm and wet. Blood was seeping through her blonde hair everywhere I looked. Her head had been split open in two different directions. No matter where I put my hands, no matter where I parted her hair or how firmly I held my blood-soaked shirt against her head as a compress, I could not stem the bleeding or find the edges of the jagged wounds that were its source. I glanced down and saw Sam’s angelic face at the centre of an ever-expanding crimson halo as her lifeblood pooled onto the concrete. My heart emptied of hope.
I shouted for help. I tried desperately and feebly to comfort my unconscious wife. I shouted for an ambulance. I screamed for help again. I needed someone, anyone, to hold my boys back; I didn’t want them to see their mother like this. But when I looked up, all three were standing right next to me; silent, ashen-faced.
Noah made no sound, but hot tears were streaming down his cheeks. The horror was too much for little Oli, who doubled over and vomited. Rueben, the eldest, did his best to be brave but, when he tried to speak, his voice came out a ghostly whisper: ‘Is Mummy going to die?’ To this day I can’t remember what I said in reply. Or if I said anything at all.
Fellow tourists and Thai locals rushed in; some corralled and comforted the youngest boys, while others dropped down beside me to do whatever I asked of them. Rueben sprinted to the front desk to call an ambulance. Within twenty minutes, paramedics arrived and took control – Sam was strapped to a long, orange spinal board and ferried to the ambulance. I stumbled after my beloved wife, wanting to do anything and everything I could to save her, but capable of doing nothing.
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