The mood changed on the way home. The combination of heat and dope and the beer we’d drunk to recover from lifting the fridge onto the truck left us wasted. A couple of miles into the return trip we stopped talking. We listened to a whirr of cicadas, the wind, breaking waves, our tyres on loose dirt. We rocked from side to side as the truck hit every bump in the road. Ryan put his hand on Sal’s leg, high up where the frayed edges of her cut-off jeans dipped into the V between her legs. He ran his hand up and down her brown thigh. Sal in turn put her hand on my leg. She kissed my neck. It felt good, but Ryan was right there, feeling her up, staring straight ahead. I pushed Sal off.

‘Pull over,’ I said.

‘Why?’ Ryan asked.

‘I need to take a leak.’

He stopped in the middle of the track.

‘Take your time, man,’ he said. When I was about ten feet away he leaned out the window. ‘Charlie, give us a few, yeah. Go for a swim.’

For the rest of the trip home I sat in the back of the truck with the fridge. My suggestion. Nobody objected.

When we got to KD we hauled our fridge inside, washed the chicken muck off, and gave it the only power point in the kitchen. None of us said anything about the ride home, but I felt bad about it.

A few mornings after the trip to Kerobokan, Sal and I were in the kitchen together, peeling and chopping bowlfuls of fruit for the juices we’d make throughout the day. We were listening to a Joni Mitchell tape, and Sal sang as she worked, playing vamp. I wasn’t rude to her but I wasn’t chummy either.

‘You’re getting strong.’ She ran a finger wet with watermelon juice down my upper arm. I said nothing. She went outside to get more fruit.

‘Help a girl out, will you?’ she said when she passed by on her way back to the bench. She had her arms around a full basket, and tilted her head in the direction of a sleeve that had fallen off her shoulder. I lifted the sleeve back into place and she winked at me. ‘Thanks, babe.’

I recognised her moves because I’d used them, or their equivalents, for years. But never with Sal. She seemed to enjoy our newly charged cat-and-mouse game. I found my days becoming increasingly tense.

The girl on the plane rocks my shoulder. ‘Hey, Bali boy.’ I open my eyes. In my dream, Sal had her arms around my naked waist as I drove our bike along the track to Uluwatu. It takes me a second to realise it’s not her speaking. The hostie lifts a bag out from overhead. I stretch my arms and yawn. The man in the seat in front of me tells no one in particular that it’ll be a scorcher.

‘We’re here,’ the girl says, smiling. ‘God save us.’