Stranded (23 page)

I set off for school exactly as usual; but as I was leaving the compound, I heard footsteps running up behind me. My heart was hammering: I knew that I had been discovered. I turned round almost crying, and there was Martha.

‘Cathy,’ she said. ‘Why are you going to school?’

‘I want to do some reading,’ I told her. She knew that already, so I had no idea why she was asking, and I was scared.

‘Cassandra says you should be reading here, not at school. She’s worried that you’re reading unsuitable things there.’ She smiled. ‘I think it’s only just occurred to them that the school library has loads of books in it that they’d burn if you brought them home.’

I did not trust Martha.

‘Well,’ I said to her. ‘I’m going to school today. It’s the last time, though.’ If it had been anyone else interrogating me, I would have pretended that I had to go in for something school-related, but since Martha was in my class, I could not.

‘Cathy,’ she said, her voice dropping. ‘You’re doing something. What are you doing?’

I looked at her, trying not to appear guilty, knowing that I was failing.

‘What do you mean?’ I said quickly. ‘Um, maybe I
am
reading the wrong sort of books. Don’t tell, though.’

She squinted at me. I wanted to tell her not to squint, that it did her no favours. But I did not. I will never see Martha again, so she will never know.

‘You’re not reading books,’ she said scornfully. ‘I’m not
that
stupid.’

‘Well what do you think I’m doing?’

‘I think,’ she said, ‘that you’re seeing a boy. And I think it’s Sean Holden. And you’re promised to Philip, so that is really, really naughty of you!’

She giggled a little, and I relaxed.

‘Well,’ I said. I smiled and looked down, acting my part. ‘I don’t know how you know, but . . . Look, Martha, cover for me today, tell Cassandra and the others that I have to go in for something, to help clean up the field or something, and tonight I’ll tell you everything. OK?’

I looked over at the cabins. Cassandra and Miriam were watching us. In a minute they would come over to see what was going on. Time was short.

Martha followed my gaze.

‘All right,’ she agreed. ‘But you really do have to tell me everything, or I’m going to go straight to them. I mean it.’

‘Promise,’ I lied. ‘Thanks, Martha. You’re great. I’ll be back this afternoon.’

I wanted to say something else, but how could I tell her to have a good life? For a couple of seconds I desperately wanted to ask her to come with me. We looked at each other for longer than we had ever looked at one another before, and then I turned and went.

I got away with it. I walked up the drive, swinging my almost-empty school bag, and left Martha’s life, and God’s Village, for ever.

Sarah was waiting outside school, and her parents were both nearby in their car, which was parked at the end of the yellow zigzag lines.

‘All right?’ she said.

And I had to say yes, even though I was not really feeling all right at all. She smiled and squeezed my arm, and I suddenly hugged her, because she was the only person I had.

Sarah’s hair is really brown, but she dyes it herself, whitish yellow. It looks funny because she has big dark eyebrows, but I think it’s quite nice that she doesn’t match up. I looked at her brown eyes, and I knew she was my only friend.

‘I might just go back, actually.’ I said it without wanting to, said it before I knew what I was doing.

‘No,’ she told me, and steered me to the car. ‘Cathy, you can’t. You can’t go back now, because you need to leave. You know you do. They’re nutters. I’m sorry to say it, because they’re your family, but we’re getting you out and there’s no way you’re going back.’

She opened the back door of the car and shoved me in. For a second I felt that I was being kidnapped. There was so much that was scary now, and nothing that was normal, and I ached to be back in the cabin, living a life with tight boundaries.

Sarah’s dad started the engine, before Sarah had even shut the door.

‘This is the third time I’ve been in a car,’ I said, because I wanted to say something.

‘What were the other two?’ Sarah was interested.

‘School trips,’ I told her. ‘Once we went in Mrs Harris’s car when she gave me and Martha a lift home because we came back from the theatre late. And once when Tom’s mum dropped us off because it was raining. We got in trouble both times, though.’

‘Well,’ her mother said, ‘you won’t be getting in trouble like that any more, Cathy. You’re about to be free.’

I sat in silence as they drove out of our little town, past everything I knew, and into the great unknown. We kept going for what felt like hours, though I was watching the clock and it was actually fifty-four minutes. I stared out of the window, watched as it started to rain. After a while Sarah’s mum said, ‘Cathy, I know it’s scary. You’re a free agent. Give it six months. You can probably stay with Michelle for six months if you need to. And after that, when you’ve seen how the rest of the world lives, if you still want to go back then you can. You know they’d be happy to see you. The prodigal daughter and all that. It’s not as if you can’t go back. Just give it a bit of time. Will you do that?’

I nodded. ‘OK.’

They handed me over to Michelle and Steve, and I sat in the back of the car, in the middle, between two car seats that contained Joe and Max. Those boys are only two. They’re quite noisy, and the one on my left kept saying, ‘Cathy? Cathy?’ and when I answered, he just went ‘Cathycathycathy.’ Still, I talked to them and I think they’re going to be useful, because there’s always something to talk about with them in the house.

It only took us twenty-three minutes to get to Isleworth from the services. I cried saying goodbye to Sarah, and we all promised to keep in touch. Sarah and her parents are coming over on Sunday for the day, so that’s something to look forward to.

When we got to Michelle and Steve’s house, Steve went out somewhere and Michelle and I sat down at the table with a pot of tea. That was when I discovered that she’s fascinated by everything about my life so far. I think she loves the fact that she’s helping me escape, and she keeps calling the Village ‘the Cult’. I wish she wouldn’t.

‘It’s not really a cult,’ I told her at one point, because I could not bear to hear her say it again. ‘It’s a religious community. They don’t try to brainwash people or anything.’

She looked at me kindly. ‘Don’t they, Cathy?’ She poured more tea.

‘Well, everyone grows up shaped by what their parents believe, I suppose.’ I was feeling like I wanted to defend the Village by now. It was just so odd not to be in it. At this point there were still a couple of hours to go until I was going to be missed, and I was not looking forward to watching that moment go by. I was pretty sure that 3.45 would be the turning point. We were always home by 3.45.

‘Yes, you’re probably right,’ she said. ‘It’s just that Steph and Jon were so frantic when Sarah had her little flirtation with Doomsday. They actually felt they’d lost her, lost their own child, because once she got hooked, she was like a different person. Fair play to that Moses bloke, though: we were sure he’d make you all drink the Kool-Aid – do you remember that? No, of course you don’t . . . Anyway, we thought there’d be a mass suicide and that was going to turn out to be the Apocalypse he had in mind. And when it didn’t happen, it was like the spell had broken for Sarah. Thank God.’ She looked a bit embarrassed. ‘Or maybe not God. You know.’

I struggled to reply. Part of me was resisting her so hard, and wanting to run away, right back to the Village. The rest of me was desperate to engage with someone sympathetic, an outsider. Also, I was as interested in her life as she was in mine, even though she has no idea that there is anything intriguing about her.

‘It was like that for me too,’ I admitted. ‘I was so sure that it was going to happen. We’d all been on a bit of a high – just a natural adrenalin one, nothing else – for weeks. I was truly expecting to be pulled up to heaven. I mean, I just knew it. It’s hard to explain. Nothing mattered, none of the details, just being taken to heaven with Jesus.’

‘If that man had given you a potion that would have taken you to Jesus, would you have drunk it?’

I did not even need to consider this. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m sure I would, if he’d timed it right. As soon as the sun was up, everything changed for me. Before that. Yes. Sure.’

‘I knew it. Why didn’t he?’

I shrugged. ‘Probably because he believed so strongly that it never occurred to him to help things along.’

‘Gosh, you poor, poor girl, you know? Look, you’re only sixteen, I don’t know if we need to get you deprogrammed or anything. There’s a number I’m going to ring for advice, it took me ages to find it. Boys! Joseph, put that down
right now
! Max, do you need the potty? Do you?’

I’ve spent most of the time since then in my room, just trying to accustom myself to the fact that I have no rules or boundaries. I am allowed not to believe in God. Moses is just a control freak, a petty dictator of his tiny domain. The fact that so many people go along with him is inexplicable. I am not sure what I do from here. One day, I suppose, at a time.

I lie on my back and look up, not at the stars but at the peeling ceiling of the hut, illuminated only slightly by the moonlight that creeps through the two windows. Katy’s breathing is deep and slow, and she is snoring slightly every time she inhales, a sound so intimate that I feel embarrassed to be listening to it. For a while I lie still and imagine the woman she loves, sharing Katy’s air, listening to her gentle snores. I wonder about that woman, whose name I do not know, and about whom I know solely the fact that she does not appreciate Katy’s values. Ed, next to me, seems to be unconscious, and his breathing is almost inaudible.

I have been here for hours. I have no idea how I assumed I would be able to sleep on hard floorboards. I think I had taken for granted the idea that houses are comfortable, overlooking the small fact of the lack of any kind of mattress. Every part of me that is in contact with the floor feels bruised, and I am craving the sand.

In the end, I stand up as unobtrusively as I can, wrap my tattered sarong that is now more hole than fabric around my shoulders, open the door as quietly as possible and tiptoe down the rickety steps to the beach.

The fire has gone out, probably because it was impossible to find any fuel for it that was not at least partly damp. All the same, the sky is clear and the sand, though still clumpier than it has been, is soft between my toes.

I sit beside the remains of the fire and stretch my legs out in front of me. The rainforest, for once, is quiet; the only sound is the lapping of the waves on the shore. It is odd to be here, at night, on my own. I am not used to solitude any more. The moon is nearly full, and it lights the water so brightly that I almost believe I could walk across it, all the way home.

When I lie down, I feel the reassurance of the familiar. This is my home: the beach at night. The sensation of the sand beneath my body makes me instantly sleepy. I close my eyes.

‘Esther!’

I pretend not to hear, although I know it is Ed, purely because I was on the brink of blissful slumber and I do not want to have to make the effort, even for him.

‘Esther,’ he whispers again, and I sense him sitting down next to me. Then he puts a hand on my shoulder, and I am compelled to open my eyes.

‘What?’ I ask ungraciously.

‘Couldn’t you sleep?’

‘No. It was the floor. Sorry if I woke you.’

He laughs. ‘Don’t be silly. I think I turned to grab you in my sleep and there was no one there, and then I realised I was bunking up with Katy, and that didn’t seem quite right, so I thought I’d try and track you down.’

‘I was easily found.’

‘You were. It’s actually nicer out here anyway, isn’t it? It smells in there.’

‘And Katy snores.’

‘I was trying to be gentlemanly. I wasn’t going to mention it. I never noticed it when we slept outside.’

‘The confined space probably amplifies it. It echoes off the walls.’

‘Doesn’t it just?’

I am awake now, so I sit up and yawn and look at him. Ed feels like a part of me now. There is something rock-solid in all of this. I know his face far better than my own. We have all changed to the point of, I imagine, unrecognisability since the start of this adventure. When I try to picture my face, the woman I imagine is not the woman whose contours I feel with my fingertips. In my mind I am a cosseted Westerner with rounded cheeks, skin that is well nourished and moisturised, and nice white teeth. I know, though I choose not to dwell on it, that in fact my skin must be blotchy and rough, my contours haggard, and I dread to think what my teeth, cleaned only with a stick fashioned into the most basic sort of brush, look like. Everyone else’s look grim, and mine must too. At least they have been untroubled by anything sugary.

I lean into his bony body. Ed is the truest ally I have ever had. Something occurs to me.

‘Ed?’ I say. He looks at me, eyebrows raised, his face craggy in the silvery light. ‘I don’t really know anything about you. In fact this is what I know: you’re Scottish. You’re lovely. You’re thirty-one and you were travelling with Jonah and Piet, but only because you met them in Thailand. Whereas I know a hell of a lot more than that about Mark and Cherry, and Jean and Gene, and even Katy, actually. And you know everything about me. I’m sure you know far more than you want to about Daisy and about Chris.’

I look at him, suddenly doubting that I know this man at all. I run over our conversations in my head. They have, every one of them, been either about the immediate predicament, or about me. He has divulged nothing whatsoever about himself.

He laughs, and leans back on his hands.

‘The thing is, Esther,’ he says, ‘that I’m not remotely interesting. I wish I had a grand story to tell like everyone else. Do you want to know about me? It’ll put you to sleep, so I’m happy to be of service if that’s what you want.’

‘Yes,’ I tell him. I lie down on my stomach, loving the feeling of the sand beneath me, lean up on my elbows and wait. He copies my pose and leans in close to me.