Summary

In the following chapter, “The Girl,” Clive recounts, in first person, the days leading up to the night Alison died. He admits that for the resort staff, mostly teenaged boys perpetually horny and usually stoned, every week a new American girl would arrive to torment them. As they tidied up around the pool, delivered drinks to the Americans, and sold them black market pills and ganja, the staff ogled the girls. “Every week there’s a girl” (291). Edwin is particularly drawn by Alison. He is certain she dresses to be provocative, enjoys the flirting, wearing scanty swimsuits, tossing her hair in the sun, and swinging her hips seductively as she walks. She joins them at night for ganja and rum in an empty parking lot abutting Faraway Cay near the resort. She tells them she thinks she saw a strange woman with flowing...