The Island (29 page)

‘Nowhere in particular. I was looking for food. I thought I might find more wild pigs.'

But he doesn't sound convincing.

‘So what did you really do?' I ask.

‘I made you something,' he says.

He roots around in his hammock and passes me something bright and plasticky.

‘For me?' I say.

I turn it over in my hand. A necklace like no other. Its fishing-wire chain has been strung with bottle-tops, each pierced precisely in its centre. It rattles as I put it on. It doesn't matter that the bottle-tops scratch my sunburn 'cause it's the thought that matters.

‘Well, it's beautiful,' I say.

‘Simply stunning,' he agrees.

So all that time he went walkabout, he was making me a present. A surprise for me.

I could cry.

‘The way the Fanta ones coordinate with the Sprite, that's really special,' I say.

‘Just the effect I was aiming for,' Rufus says.

He winces as I hug him.

‘Mind my sunburn, Cow-bag! I spent hours combing the island, looking for these. Found a lot of them washed up by our fishing rock, but some were on bottles floating in the sea. Had to swim out to get them.'

‘I don't have anything to give you right now,' I say, ‘but I'm working on something.'

Rufus bows his head gravely. ‘Understood.'

‘It would be kind of difficult to top – as gifts go, I mean.'

‘Say no more.'

I squeeze his hand, and we go to get firewood, bumping hips, Dog running ahead, scenting every tree he can.

 

Barrels and Bamboo

There's something in the water.

I wade through the shallows and there are two of them: huge metal barrels, their letters blistered by the sea.

They're big enough for a water butt, or for making the coolest range oven, or maybe a beach barbecue.

I have to swim to reach them; each time I try to grasp the barrels, they roll out of reach. I hang on to one, kicking water till I get back to the shallows. It's buoyant, only half-filled with seawater.

I roll it upright and sniff inside. There's still a faint whiff of petrol, and I think how useful
that
would have been, for keeping the fire going, or if we found a boat.

When I've rescued its twin, I kneel on the sand and examine them.

The sea has made them beautiful; turned this trash into colours of violet and ochre and cerulean. It's streaked and blended the rust; worn away the branded letters till they're just a whisper.

‘
Shellex Oil
,' I read.

I wonder where all the oil went; whether it cloyed its way into the ocean, leaving treacled beaches and glued-up feathers and rocks and beaks.

I stare at the barrels, and I think of the coffee drum we use as a table.

I think of the bamboo, long and strong and hollow.

Then I start to smile.

Because these barrels mean so much more than a water butt.

Rufus is finishing the melon fence I got bored with.

‘You're not helping?' he says.

Dog's hovering. He doesn't like it when we separate into two groups.

‘!'

‘It's all right, Dog. You stay with Daddy.'

‘Come on, Virgil,' says Rufus.

I give him the finger. Dog doesn't mind having two names though; I think he quite likes it.

‘I think I've seen some more onions by Mosquito Alley,' I lie.

Rufus nods. He hates Mosquito Alley.

‘Put the kettle on,' I call after them.

Each day I do a bit more: chop a couple of bamboo; forage for netting and rope; tie in another pole. And all the time I'm searching, searching for that fourth barrel, 'cause I can't finish the raft without it.

I haven't told Rufus because he'll go all sensible and frown and I can hear what he'll say: ‘
Water first, Fran. Then logs, then fishing.
'

I bet he'd say that, even though he took a whole afternoon to make me a necklace. I kiss one of the Cola bottle-tops and it bumps reassuringly against my chest as I work.

I need to make another frame and then sandwich the oil drums at each corner. Better still would be if I had six or even eight barrels, but I'll make do with what I have. Each time I'm done working on it, I heave the raft off the beach, tuck it away behind the bamboo.

It's hard to get it finished.

Fishing takes longer now; the fish don't seem to be so plentiful any more. Maybe it's the spring tide or maybe it's us, and we've overfished our little area.

We're getting thinner, and more tired, and sometimes it takes all day just to keep the fire going.

But the raft burns like an obsession.

In my mind's eye I imagine it standing tall and proud on the water: a sail and a flag, and even a cabin to keep the sun from frying us 'cause there'll be nowhere to hide once we're adrift.

Adrift
.

There's a word to make you shiver.

 

Fishing

We go fishing, Rufus and Dog and me.

We perch at the end of Fishing Rock and dangle our legs and cast out far with our hand-made lines and wait.

We talk, sometimes, of something or nothing.

Often we sit in silence, letting the world lap warm waves round us, in this endless, ceaseless sea.

‘Cerulean,' I say once.

Rufus looks at me like he knows what I mean. ‘Yes, it is. It is cerulean, it's exactly that. Cerulean as the sea.'

‘And cerulean as a swimming pool,' I say, leaning back against the rock. If I wriggle, just so, it fits, like I'm part of it.

‘Cerulean as a sandwich?'

‘Well, maybe a mouldy sandwich. Maybe one of Cassie's sandwiches…'

‘Why do you call your mother Cassie?'

‘Cassie is a hopeless old prossie. I had to look after her, be her carer. Look after my little brother too.' I let out my breath; check to see if he's shocked.

The line twitches.

‘So she's lucky to have you,' Rufus says matter-of-factly.

Really? But I'm a bitch. I'm cruel. I cut her a thousand times a day.

I turn my face away. Try not to think of great, fat, useless Cassie, with her arms soft as heaven.

‘I never really had a mother,' says Rufus.

‘Oh. I'm sorry.'

‘I mean, she's not dead or anything. She left when I was a baby. Went to live in New York. I never see her.'

There's no fish on the line. Not yet.

‘So what about your dad?' Rufus asks.

I shiver. ‘Big Wayne's my mum's boyfriend. He's the one who made Cassie the way she is.'

Rufus watches me closely. ‘He never – tried anything with you?'

I think of his smiling mouth. His hands holding my wrists.

‘It was after they took Johnny away,' I say. ‘It meant I didn't share my room with my brother any more. It meant that Wayne started to get ideas…'

I leave my sentence trailing.

‘So what did you say to him?' Rufus cuts into my memory.

I laugh bitterly. ‘I told him he was a fat, ugly, creepy wanker.'

‘Did you really?'

‘No.' I stare into the water. ‘I said nothing.'

 

Dirty Sheets

It's been a week since I visited Johnny, and I can't stop hearing his voice –

‘Did you do it, Frannie?'

‘Are you a monster?'

I sit on the floor, back against the cold radiator. I clutch my scalding coffee and sip its bitterness and close my eyes. I can still smell him here.

Johnny smells of:

Warm skin

Scraped knees

Dirty feet

Damp hair

Chocolatey fingers

Turned pages.

I missed a few of Johnny's things when packing. There's his collection of Olympic Games fifty-pence coins in a Cadbury's Creme Egg mug, one of those cheap ones you get with an Easter egg. The planet mobile he made still hangs from the ceiling with Sellotape. It spins slowly now and then in the air currents.

There's something poking beneath his bed.

I slide it out and it's a picture book:
The Gruffalo
.

The others are gone of course –

See them shrivel. Watch them die.

Rip them up, rip them up, rip them up.

Johnny had lots of favourites:
The Runaway Train
and
The Gruffalo
and
Beegu.

Beegu
is about a little yellow alien that gets stranded all alone on Earth and everyone's mean to him because he's yellow and different and then he makes friends with some children but at the end his mum and dad find him and whisk him back up into their spaceship.

It's a nice story but the pictures kill me a bit and I never really liked reading that one.

Johnny liked it though.

‘Again, again.'

‘Only one more time, Monkey.'

We both knew all the words to
The Gruffalo.

My coffee's lovely and muddy. I swirl the grindings around my tongue and hug my mug as I read. As always, the story and its rhythm calm me.

I turn the page. The book's nicked from Brixton Library. It's dated five years ago; we just never took it back.

I smile as I read the words aloud, and in my head my brother's voice mixes in with mine.

‘Who the hell are you talking to?'

I jump and spill my coffee.

Wayne's blocking the doorway, his tiny eyes raking the room.

‘What's it to you?' I say.

We stare at each other.

I stand up.

Wayne lights a fag and blows smoke.

‘ 'Course, it's better on all of us now Johnny's gone,' he says, eyes never leaving my face.

My nails dig into my palms.

‘Messed-up kid, always wetting the bed. Always stealing food. “Send him to his dad,” I'd say, but your mother wouldn't have it. Too soft, she is. Always has been.'

‘Joel got married. Went to live in Australia,' I remind him.

‘Should've taken his kid with him then, shouldn't he?' Wayne shakes his head, then walks over to the bed.

‘Look at this. Dirty sheets. Stains all over the mattress.'

He's lifting the bedding, scenting the air, his fag wedged in the corner of his mouth.

‘Get off his stuff,' I say.

Wayne raises his eyes.

‘We all know it's difficult, love. But he's better off where he is. And you can get a proper night's sleep, not always waking to clean up after him.' He sighs out fag smoke. ‘It's not right, love.'

I clench my fists.

Wayne makes a sad face. ‘I know you meant well, with all you did for him. But did you ever think you might be making him worse with all that mollycoddling? Kids need to learn to grow up, sweetheart.'

He nods over to where I'm standing. ‘All them stories, all them books. You gotta admit it's easier without him. You can be a proper teenager now. Got your room to yourself, like a big girl.'

He lets go of Johnny's bedding, wrinkling his nose.

‘We could turn this into a proper room for you now. Get new stuff. Somewhere to put your clothes. A nice little dressing table for you to put your make-up on.'

He's moving around Johnny's room, touching Johnny's things: his coin mug, the mobile,
The Gruffalo
. Wayne smiles and smiles.

Then he comes closer.

He strokes my hair, turns me to face the mirror. ‘You oughta smile more. You'd be quite pretty if you smiled more.'

He's pressed close behind me, so his fat belly's squashed against my back.

‘There's ways you could start earning your keep,' he says, ‘now that your brother's gone. Now he's not always in the bed with you.'

Wayne's smile broadens.

‘You're a big girl now. I know people who'd like that.'

His hand's crawling over my leg now, like a giant crab or something.

‘What d'you think, darlin'? You never know, you might enjoy it.'

Climbing fingers, breath quick and fast.

Snap.

 

What Then?

‘So what did you do?' asks Rufus.

He and Dog are watching me seriously. Dog gives me a little lick on my hand.

‘Not enough,' I say bitterly.

 

Revving Up

Wayne is staggering about, clutching his face.

‘You little cow. You're unhinged, you are. Look what you've done – you've burnt me.'

There's coffee and granules down his face, his best shirt.

He's stumbling towards me now; he's going to get me for that.

I run, ignoring Cassie's bleats from the sofa, clambering over the boxes of crap in the hall.

Fumble with the door chain, pelt down the steps.

There's a lady struggling with her Sainsbury's bags.

Kids outside are revving their cars.

I want to run far, far away, but there's nowhere to go.

In the end, I just sit watching the ducks in Brockwell Park. I smoke one fag after the other till I feel sick.

Wayne won't come to find me; he's too lazy for that. He'll be spinning lies to Cassie, about how uncontrollable I'm getting.

Or maybe he'll be laying into her, taking his temper out.

I stub out my fag and watch a duck cleaning itself. There are terrapins by the edge of the lake; they're soaking up the sun, big as dinner plates.

So what if Cassie needs me? Sad, old, fat, loser, waste-of-space Cassie doesn't even try to hold on. Loses her son without getting up off the settee. There's nothing there any more, nothing left for me to hate. That's why I turned my hate to Miss instead. The one who started it all by telling tales.

Ten days till the court hearing, and then maybe they'll put me away in some institution for kids who've gone off the rails. Sometimes I think this would be for the best.

There's no way I'm going back to my room. Not when there's no lock on my door. I decide to sleep up on the roof tonight.