Chapter 5: The Yellow Line

The heat hits Peter at the top of the aircraft steps like an open oven door. Wet heat, heavy, smelling of hot tarmac and the sea and something green and rotting-sweet underneath. After two flights and a night in a transit hotel he is wearing the jeans he left Manchester in, in February, and by the bottom of the steps they are stuck to the backs of his knees.

Loose trousers. He packed them. They're in the suitcase.

The terminal is small and white and cool, with ceiling fans as well as air conditioning, as if nobody quite trusts either. The baggage carousel is a single loop. He stands beside it with the other passengers, families mostly, island families going home, children asleep on shoulders, and a man in a suit with his jacket over his arm who is showing a photo on his phone to anyone who'll look.

"Tuesday," the man says to the woman next to him. "Three point four kilos. A girl. Didn't even wait for me to get back."

"Congratulations," the woman says. "Your second?"

"Second and last." He grins, and slides the phone back in his pocket and pats it. Late forties, grey at the temples, a tan and a comfortable belly, the easy look of a man who flies a lot. "My wife says she always knew this one would come while I was in Singapore."

"Card or cage?" the woman asks, as easily as asking about a new car.

"Card. A cage is no good to me, I'm through an airport every other week. Every scanner in Asia goes off, and some fellow in gloves wants a look." He pats the pocket again. "And my wife's forty-five. She's not doing this again, whatever happens. Done is done."

Peter's case comes round. He hauls it off and joins the queue for passport control. Two desks, two officers in short-sleeved white shirts. Above them a sign in the rounded letters from the website: "Welcome to the Garden."

The man in the suit is in front of him. When it's his turn, he hands over his papers and his phone at the same time, photo up.

"Oh, she's lovely," the officer says. She actually takes the phone and looks properly. "Look at the hair on her. Congratulations, Mr. Hale. It came through on your record on Wednesday. You know the way?"

"I know the way," the man says, and picks up his briefcase and walks off to the left, following a yellow line painted on the floor. He's whistling.

"Next."

Peter steps up and hands over his passport and the printed visa. The officer looks at the passport, then at him, then at her screen. Her nails click on the keys.

"Mr. Lowe. Let's see. You're not on the deny list, and the visa is valid." She scrolls. "What I don't see is a certificate of sanitisation. Have you been to the island before?"

"No."

"First time! Lovely." She stamps the visa with a thump and slides both back to him. "You'll follow the yellow line on the floor from here, to the yellow door. They'll sort you out. Then come back to me."

The line runs along the wall and around a corner. He follows it, pulling his case. It's a good, bright, cheerful yellow. Someone has repainted it recently.

The door at the end is the same yellow. There's a sign on it with a pictogram he recognizes. The man with his arrows, waiting for his bus.

---

Inside is something between a waiting room and a first-aid post. White walls, a strip light, a row of plastic chairs, a counter with a woman behind it in a pale blue tunic. Two curtained cubicles at the back. And in the corner a third curtain, pulled open, and behind it what could be a ticket machine or a photo booth: a grey steel cabinet, waist high, with a screen at the top, a padded opening at the front about the height of a man's hips, and a narrow slot near the floor.

Mr. Hale is at the counter, his briefcase at his feet.

"Name for the birth record?" the nurse asks him, typing.

"Mila. With one L."

"Pretty. Sign here, please." She holds out a clipboard and he signs it without looking and hands it back. "Whenever you're ready, Mr. Hale."

"Ready as I'll ever be." He winks at Peter. "First time, is it?"

Peter can't find anything to say. He nods.

"Don't look so worried, son. You're only getting the bracelet." He walks to the corner, briefcase and all, and pulls the curtain shut behind him. A belt buckle clinks. Cloth slides down. The padding creaks as it takes his weight.

The machine hums. "Ooh," says Mr. Hale's voice. "That's the needle." Then a sound, sharp and metallic, a clean snap like heavy scissors through cardboard, and right after it a short hiss. A smell drifts over the curtain rail a moment later, faint, like a struck match.

A pleasant female voice speaks from the cabinet. "Thank you for using our services. Please pick up your certificate from the bottom slot."

A grunt, someone bending carefully. The buckle again. Then the curtain rattles back and Mr. Hale steps out, tucking in his shirt. He blows on a plain white plastic card the size of a bank card, though there's nothing on it to dry, and slides it into his wallet. "Better than the dentist," he says, to nobody in particular.

"Go home now, Mr. Hale," the nurse says. "Take it easy for two days. Ice if it swells." She takes a flat box from a drawer under the counter, a leaflet tucked under the lid. "Your hormone patches. Twelve in the box, one a month, so that's your year. Put them anywhere they don't rub. They're waterproof. Any pharmacy has the next box."

"Wonderful. Thank you, ma'am." He drops the box into his briefcase with his papers and nods to Peter on his way past. "Enjoy your stay. Beautiful place." And he's gone, through the yellow door, whistling again.

Peter realizes he's been holding the handle of his case so hard his fingers hurt.

"Mr. Lowe?" The nurse is smiling at him. "You're the visitor device? Good. Come and sit. Have you had a good flight?"

He sits. She asks him things and types the answers: allergies, medical conditions, any surgery down there. Then a form to sign, the same consent he ticked at his kitchen table, printed out. He signs it. His signature looks like someone else's.

"Was he." Peter nods at the cabinet. "He just. In his tie."

"Mr. Hale? His second was born on Tuesday. With his second on the record he can't come through without choosing. Card or cage, we do both in here. Saves a trip to the clinic. Or a device for two weeks, if he wants to ask his wife first." She says it the way you'd say someone picked up their dry cleaning on the way home. "Most take a cage while the children are small. Not Mr. Hale. He's done his two. He's free now."

"Free."

"No red weeks, and no steel." She stands up and holds back the curtain of the first cubicle. "In you come."

The cubicle has a padded table and a steel tray. On the tray, in a sealed bag, is the thing from the drawing. It's smaller than he expected. That's the first thing. A curved steel tube, a ring, a tiny brass padlock with the key already in it.

"Trousers and pants off, please. You can keep your shirt."

He does it. The air conditioning is cold on his skin. The nurse pulls on gloves and takes a measuring ring from her pocket, a set of them on a loop like keys, and holds them up to him one after another without the slightest change in her expression, as calmly as a jeweler sizing a finger.

Of course, his body chooses this moment to take an interest. It's nobody's fault. A woman's gloved hands, after five months of a phone screen.

The nurse sighs. "Everyone does that. Think of something boring. Think of tax forms."

He thinks about the quarterly audit. About the fault rate on a batch of brackets from a supplier in Stoke. It works, slowly.

She is quick after that. Cold gel, the ring behind, the tube over, a fiddle and a click, the little padlock snapped through. She takes the key out and drops it into a small envelope, and seals it, and writes his passport number on the front in thick black pen.

"There." She peels the gloves off. "The key stays with us. When you leave, you come back here and we take it off. Same room. Takes a minute."

He looks down. It's absurd. It's like something from a museum, or a joke shop. There's a weight to it, cold, then not so cold, already taking on the warmth of his body.

"What if something goes wrong? If I need a doctor?"

"Any clinic on the island can call us. Showering is fine, use soap, rinse well. If it rubs, a little powder." She hands him a leaflet with the pictogram man on the front, and a yellow slip with a stamp on it. "That's for the desk. It feels strange the first day. After that you forget. Most of the visitors say so."

He doubts it. He pulls his pants on over it and then his jeans, and it presses against the denim in a way he is going to feel with every step.

"See you in two weeks, Mr. Lowe," the nurse says, and holds the curtain open for him. "Follow the yellow line back."

The officer at the desk takes his passport and the yellow slip, though the way he walks up to her would have told her anyway. She glances at the screen and smiles with her whole face.

"All done? Welcome to Paradise Island, Mr. Lowe."