The Island (30 page)

 

Angry Yowl

‘So tell him now,' Rufus suggests.

‘You what?'

‘Tell him now – what you just said to me. Do an angry yowl.'

‘What the frick's an angry yowl?'

‘You know, like on
Dead Poets Society
. The teacher, played by Robin Williams, makes his student do one. You just roar out all your rage, get back to your primal self.'

‘Like Medusa on the rocks?' I say. ‘After she was betrayed by everyone?'

Rufus shakes his head. ‘You're not quite right there,' he says. ‘In Classics we learnt that she…'

I glare at him. ‘I'm right,' I say. ‘I know I'm right.'

I know about Medusa.

I know all about monsters, don't I?

Rufus shrugs. ‘If you say so,' he says. ‘Anyway, give it your best gorgon yowl.'

So I do.

I put down my fishing line, prop it carefully on the rocks; stand and face the sea. I lift up my face and shout, making the pelicans lift and the seagulls scream.

Below us on the sand, Dog barks and barks.

 

Scribbles in the Sand

Rufus stares.

‘Um, Fran. I think you might have frightened the fish away.'

‘There's quite a lot more where that came from,' I pant.

‘Well, maybe when I'm doing my yoga, you can do your yowling,' Rufus suggests.

Dog is delighted that I've stopped; he drops a pebble on the sand and rolls and rolls on it, wriggling and scratching with a demented look on his face.

‘So are you still afraid of Wayne?'

‘No,' I say. ‘He's just a sad old loser with his sad old songs.'

‘Definitely a wanker,' Rufus agrees.

I sit back down; pick up my line.

‘What are you going to do, if you ever get off here?' asks Rufus.

I consider. ‘Well, I'm going to get me and Johnny a little house by the sea and it's going to be whitewashed, very simple, and there'll be shells leading up to the front door, and a tiny little front garden, just enough to sit in, and…'

I blush.

Rufus doesn't laugh.

‘Me, I think I'll buy the house next to yours. And paint. I've always wanted to paint. You could do your writing and I can do my painting.'

‘And Dog?'

‘Virgil will be inside both our houses, hogging the beds and the sofas. What about Cassie?'

‘Maybe Cassie could come and sit on a chair in the sunshine with her tinny in her hand. She always did like the sea.' I frown. ‘I'll have to get her into Turkish coffee though. A can of Kestrel doesn't really fit with the scene…What?' I demand. ‘What's so funny?'

The float dips.

‘Got a catch?'

I wind my line a little around its jam jar. ‘Nah, frickin fish has taken the bait again.'

‘Frickin fish,' Rufus agrees.

I wind it all the way in and catch the hook. It's a good one; made with a ring pull from a cast-up Cola can. I've broken it and bashed it into a mean, sharp point.

I smash another limpet with a stone and jab its flesh on to the fish hook. Limpets here are bright yellow, like pollen.

We're fishing for snapper.

When we catch them, they shimmer in the plastic peanut-butter tub like they're mother-of-pearl or something. Rose and coral coloured and tastes like heaven.

Except we've only caught two.

The shallows burn blue-white below us. Above us only sky.

When we're thirsty, Rufus opens us both our 3,799th peepa (or something).

Then:

‘Fancy doing some sand-doodling?'

I leave off prodding the fish and look up, squinting. My Ray-Bans got lost long ago. Rufus says I have white lines around my eyes from screwing them up so much against the sun:

‘You'll get crow's feet like knife-cuts,' he warns.

‘Sand-doodling?' I say. I'm feeling drowsy and peaceful, resting here against this warm rock which moulds just so around my back. The sea has stars in it; it winks at me with infinite eyes.

Rufus is in one of his energetic moods. I wedge my line in the rock and trail after him to his favourite part of the beach.

He's sort of dancing, is Rufus; swaying and curving in slow motion, he's drawing crazy patterns with a stick in the sand.

The tide is lowlowlow and has left us an empty page.

Laughing, I pick up a stick and join him.

It's the best thing ever; we twist and spiral and loop the loop till the beach is covered in one giant doodle.

‘Let's fill it in,' I suggest.

This time I choose a broken shell 'cause it has lovely jags and thicknesses, which make interesting lines like calligraphy. I spend hours hopping from shape to shape, filling them in with wiggles and whirls and coils.

Time passes; the tide turns.

Rufus takes my hands and swings me round and round on our beautiful patterned floor. The sunlight is spinning and our smiles are flying and just at this minute, this moment, this exact moment, nownownow –

I. Feel. So. Happy.

But the tide is coming in.

It sucks at the sand, at our beautiful scribblings.

‘Fran?'

I can't bear it. I can't bear it.

‘Silly old Cow-bag.' Rufus puts his arms around me.

‘It's all going to go – it'll all be washed away,' I mumble. Inside his arms, I feel safe as a crab in its shell.

‘But that's all right, Fran. That's the way it should be.'

I pull away. ‘It's not all right. It's never all right to have something you love rubbed away.'

We watch the sea as it licks and nibbles at our drawings.

Rufus starts to cut up the fish on a flat stone.

‘So what did your brother look like when you last saw him?'

I consider. Think of his bright eyes, his sweaty hair. ‘Happy,' I say.

‘Ah.' He busies himself with the snapper and I wish he'd skewer himself with the frickin stick.

I wish he'd stop sounding like Sally-the-counsellor.

I wish he'd tell
me
more.

He hands me a piece of snapper, fresh and raw like sushi.

The fish tastes good today.

We sit for a long time on the edge of the shore, and watch the tide lapping slowly inward, closer and closer, licking the tip of the picture delicately, till it kisses the top of our drawing, then trickles into each line, each curve.

And now a third of it is gone. And then a half.

And then.

And then.

I suppose Rufus's right; it is kind of beautiful.

Beautiful as an ache.

 

Almost There

Only one more barrel to find.

Just the second frame to finish now.

Smiling, I take what's left of the TeamSkill polo shirt and rip it into two halves.

We never wear clothes now, not really. Our skin's kind of used to the sun; my legs and arms are brown and hairy as coconuts. Poor Rufus will never be sun-friendly; he's just one big freckle nowadays, but he covers his blistered shoulders as best as he can with his feathered headdress.

So we can spare half of this polo shirt.

Carefully, I fold up the second half and tuck it in with my knife at my hip. We'll need it for washing, bandaging, as a sun hat, dishcloth and a tool-bag.

It's just the piece in my hand that I need now.

I take a piece of charcoal that I've saved from the fire and draw a large face: coiling snakes for hair, and a fanged mouth. Then I nick my thumb with my knife and splash in two blood-spots for eyes. Suck my wound quickly to keep it clean.

I tie my work of art to a thin sapling stem and stick it in the sand.

There.

A flag for our raft.

The raft of
Medusa
.

Long may she sail.

 

Lists

‘OK,' Rufus says. ‘If you could eat anything right now, what would it be? Make a list.'

He's always doing this: thinking of games to distract us from hunger or boredom. In a way he's like Miss but somehow less annoying.

Mine goes like this:

• Fish and chips

• Quarter-pounder, no cheese

• Snickers

• KFC bucket

• Triple vodka and Coke

• Turkish coffee

• Haribos

‘And yours?' I ask him.

Rufus's list:

• Couscous (I have to ask him to explain and spell this)

• Moules frites (and this)

• Guacamole (and this)

• Bouillabaisse

‘Oh for frick's sake,' I say.

 

Stick Insect Banana Surprise

Ingredients
:

• 3 green bananas

• 1 wild onion

• 2 giant stick insects

• A handful of snails

• A brownish piece-of-root-that-could-be-ginger

• 1 wild plum

Method
:

1.  Chop onion finely and add to coffee can, together with the piece-of-root-that-could-be-ginger.

2.  Dry-fry to release the flavours then add a little seawater to stop it sticking. Add the chopped plum.

3.  Ignore any growling noises in your belly.

4.  When softened, throw in the stick insects and snails.

5.  Try not to think of big blue fish, fat as cushions.

6.  Debate it for a moment, then add chopped bananas. Yes, they're hard, but the cooking will soften them.

7.  Definitely don't think about wild pig.

8.  Take a deep breath.

9.  Eat.

10. That root-thing definitely isn't ginger.

 

Rockfall

Maybe it's because the tide's turned.

Or the season's changed.

Or we've overfished this little cove.

I untangle Rufus's line for the eleventh time.

‘Snails?' we say at the same time.

Rufus is right when he says they're scarce too.

I remember when the rocks were heaving with snails, tucked like wet stones under the ridges and crinkles. Now we find nine.

We're running out of food.

We're getting weaker, though we don't admit it to each other.

Rufus is thin. I'm thin. Dog too.

Dog's ribs show sharp through his fur and he no longer dances around the sand. None of us do. The fish have left One Tree Beach and the rocks; I think we're all fished out. Every limpet has been picked, every crab, every snail.

Neither of us has the energy to go clambering after wild pigs. There are hardly any peepas except in the trees; most of the ones left on the ground are rotten. We try hacking into them every so often but there's a stink when they crack open which makes us retch.

Dog spends most of the days in his favourite shady spot by the hammock. His tail still thumps when you say his name and he has learnt to answer to both Dog and Virgil. He doesn't get up much now though.

‘The forest?' I ask again.

Rufus shakes his head.

‘There's nothing, Fran. Everything's been used up.'

‘No more onions?'

‘No more onions.'

Neither of us mentions the melons. They ran out ages ago. I've watered the seeds I planted in the new garden I made, but they're spindly and exhausted-looking, like us.

One day we decide to look for better fishing grounds. This means climbing rocks.

Rufus is uncertain.

‘Too dangerous,' he says, when I show him where I mean.

I shrug. ‘It's the only place we haven't tried. What choice do we have?'

I start to climb the rocks but he stops me.

‘They're too green,' he says. ‘And the sea's too rough. We'll wait for a better time. Maybe later when the sun's dried them.'

But I'm stubborn. My stomach growls for fish and I just know they're out there somewhere, waiting. All we need is a couple of big ones, maybe snapper, and we'll be set up, at least for a day or two.

‘It's fine, I'll be careful,' I say.

I slip.

Oops. My leg throbs but it's fine, there'll just be a bruise later.

‘I'm fine,' I call.

I pick my way over the drier rocks, the ones that are still crisped by the sun. I no longer bother with shoes; my feet are like toughened leather underneath.

Vaguely, I'm aware of Rufus following. Dog doesn't bother to join us. I'd hear his little claws tick-tacking on the rocks if he was. He'll be lying in the shade somewhere close, listening and waiting.

Soon there's an overhang and a crevasse. It's deep and slick with green weed. To get to the other side, the rocky outcrop that juts over the sea, we'll have to climb over. To my right, the sea throbs; it's absolutely filled with fish, I'm sure of it. Below me, the deep crevasse, which is beginning to fill as the tide comes in.

But there's the rocks and the fish-filled sea.

And it's not going to be dark for hours yet.

‘It's OK,' I call, ignoring the thudthudthudding as I place one foot and then the other on the driest rocks first; begin to descend the crack before I can get to the other side. I wish I wasn't so weak and hungry. My legs haven't always felt as shaky as this.