Stranded (12 page)

But it was Sarah who walked up to me at lunchtime today, chewing gum, and said: ‘The end of the world? How does that work, then?’

I looked at her, checked no friends were lurking ready to laugh and thought that she was probably teasing. I started to explain all the same. She listened and nodded.

‘I’ve never been that into God and shit,’ she admitted, popping her gum, ‘but it’s interesting. I mean, the world’s got to end at some point, right? So maybe it
is
now. How cool to be around when it happens. I hope you’re right about it. I quite like the idea of flying to heaven. And I have had this really, really strong feeling lately that there’s something massive about to happen. Something bad. If you guys can turn it into something good, I’m there.’

She’s coming home with me after school tomorrow to find out more.

‘Won’t tell my mum that’s where I’m going, though,’ she said. ‘She would literally go apeshit.’

Martha is jealous that I’ve got Sarah. She hung back after school to try to catch a few more younger ones.

If I can save Sarah’s soul, it will be bliss. Proper, full-on bliss. I am sure she will come. I am certain that she has glimpsed the truth, the light, the grace. In three days, everything will be unimaginably glorious.

I am positive about that. Nothing else matters. We are free.

I assumed it would become mysteriously cold in the night, as it apparently does in the desert. I was wrong.

When I wake up, the sun is rising over the sea. The sky is grey-blue tinged with pink. The air is still, everything suspended.

The jungle, however, is impossibly noisy, with birds and insects and creatures I shudder to imagine welcoming the day. The fire is glowing a tiny bit, just at its embers, and the light is soft and filled with promise.

Even at home there is something special about being awake at dawn; here it feels enchanted. This is the Garden of Eden. I look around, my limbs aching, and see that, during the night, I have kicked the towel back on to Katy (who is sleeping peacefully) and shifted myself away from the fire. I turn on my back and stare at the pink sky, wide awake, listening to the wildlife. My ears are attuned, immediately, for the sound of an engine.

It is far too early for rescue: I know that. All the same, he will arrive, and when he arrives he will be mortified. He will explain and we will understand. We will tell him to stop worrying. I imagine myself saying, ‘Samad, it’s fine! It was the biggest adventure of my life,’ so clearly that I almost feel he is here, on the beach with us.

The jungle life is unnerving, so I sit up, turn my back on it and look to the sea instead. The water is lapping on the shore with the gentlest of swooshes. Mark and Cherry are entwined around one another, and I suppose that this will be a wonderful honeymoon anecdote for them when they get home. Edward is not here, and everyone else is sleeping on the sand. I look at them, absolutely defenceless and unconscious, sprawled around in uncontrolled poses. Their vulnerability worries me.

For half a second I picture a huge prehistoric lizard strolling out of the jungle and burying its teeth in the flesh of the nearest person, Cherry. She would be succulent though muscly, and so probably gristly. My sole hope is that the creatures, whatever is living in there, do not realise that we are here before Samad gets back.

I stand up, aching in strange places, and walk down to the water’s edge. I am glad we had this night. I even wonder whether Samad might have done it on purpose, to give us an unforgettable holiday experience. Perhaps this is part of his grand plan to create a bigger and better trip than anyone else’s. It is audacious, but it has worked.

The warm water laps at my ankles, and I stare at the absolutely straight line of the horizon. I try to remember which direction we approached this beach from, but I have no idea, and anyway, we came from a snorkelling spot and not directly from the main island. When Samad left yesterday, I think he went to the left. I close my eyes and try to replay the moment. I am sure it was the left.

To the left of the beach there is a rocky outcrop. The rocks are big and easy to climb. I scramble up and make my way around, using hands and feet to grip the boulders, until I am perched at the top, with a view of the sea to the left and the little bay in front of the beach to my right.

There is nothing to be seen over here either: no view of the main island, no approaching boat, nothing but more placid sea and the same straight horizon. It is a good spot in which to wait. I pull myself up so that I am sitting cross-legged, shift around so that I am facing left and train my eyes on the water. I try to breathe deeply and calmly like I used to do in the yoga class I briefly went to, and I wait.

The sun is shining down on me, stronger by the seond. I try to empty my mind. I am suffused with optimism. Rescue will come soon: I know it.

Nobody wants to go far from the beach. We all want to be here, to watch the boat coming closer, to rush into the water and fire questions at Samad, if it is indeed going to be him. Perhaps it will be a friend or a member of his family, or somebody from Paradise Bay who has come out to look for us. Whoever it is, we all want to witness their arrival.

I sit on the rocks for a while, and then Edward calls to me from the beach.

‘Esther!’ he shouts, and I look down at him. ‘We’re going to divvy up the rest of this food! You’d better come and dig in.’

I scramble down.

‘Is that wise?’ I am trying to be sensible. Mark and Cherry are sitting at the back of the beach in the shade of the trees, and I see that they are eating bananas and sharing a can of Sprite. They are no longer caressing one another; in fact they are further apart than I have ever seen them, and their faces are tense and unsmiling. Cherry has black make-up smeared on her face, under her eyes; I hope Mark tells her soon. The fact that he hasn’t makes me like him still less.

I watch them for a moment. Occasionally one of them will say something, and the other will barely acknowledge it. They are not looking at one another.

Being left here is disconcerting. We are in a place we did not choose to be, with people we would not have picked. It is a paradise island, but it is also shaping up as something of a hellhole. All we can do is wait. We are utterly powerless and devoid of choices.

‘We’re working on the basis that Samad or someone will be here for us today,’ Ed says, as I approach. He does not look panicked, but there is a certain tension in his even features. Jean and Gene are busy dividing what we have into piles, and there is a horribly small amount in each: a few bananas, a can of drink between two, a pile of crisps that must equal a seventh of each of the two packs that were left.

‘It’s the only way to do it,’ Gene says, nodding to a pile for me. ‘You’re sharing that can with Katy, darling. Because if we started trying to make it last we’d be left with absolutely bloody nothing. We’ll be sampling the best of Paradise Bay’s fare tonight in their café, you see if we don’t. And young Ed here has volunteered to head over to Coral Bay for some beers when we get back, so we can all toast this little adventure. You get me?’

His certainty is infectious. I put a crisp into my mouth and immediately feel better.

‘Sounds good,’ I say, letting it melt on my tongue so it lasts as long as possible. ‘Do we have any water?’

‘Two small bottles,’ Jean says, nodding to the closed ice box. ‘But we thought we should keep them, drink the sugary stuff first. Just as a nod to the Fates, you know? Keep something in reserve. We’re also lucky enough to have the fishing equipment that Samad left, so if the worst does happen and we end up spending another night, we can always catch ourselves something.’

Gene laughs at that, not in a pleasant way.

‘Oh, listen to the master fisherlady!’ he says. ‘Like it’s that easy. You know why people go out in boats to fish? Because that’s where the bloody fish are. Out at sea. Not at the beach.’

She shrugs.

‘That there is the ocean. Fish live in it. We have the equipment to pull them out. So shut your stupid fat face.’

They resolutely turn their backs on one another.

I pick up my share of the food and carry it to the very middle of the beach, where I sit alone and stare at the horizon. I cross my legs and try to will a small boat into view. I savour each shard of crisp, sucking the salt off it and only swallowing once it is soggy. When they are all gone, I start on a banana, pulling pieces off and appreciating everything. I am concentrating so hard on the food and on the ocean that I do not notice Katy arriving until she touches my arm.

I jump.

‘Katy!’

‘Sorry.’ She is smiling. ‘Didn’t mean to scare you. You were miles away, weren’t you?’

‘Oh,’ I say. ‘I wish. Here, half of this drink is yours.’

‘Thanks.’ She takes the can and swigs from it. ‘Mm, warm Sprite. The kind of thing you would actively avoid back in the real world. I’m sure we’ll be off this island soon, and maybe for a while we’ll stop taking things for granted.’

‘For sure. Like, when we were at Paradise Bay – you know it felt like we’d left our normal lives behind and we were living so simply, all of that? When we had dinner together at the beach café – well I don’t know about you, but I think I was happily ignoring the fact that there were so many members of staff in that place, all of them catering to our every whim. People cooking, people asking what we wanted and getting it made and bringing it to us. Someone else crushing up fruit into smoothies. They’d bought the fish from the fishermen, they’d made sure they were stocking everything they needed, all the spices for the sauces, all of it. And I did not really give any of that a moment’s thought because I was so busy being pleased with myself for being there.’

Katy nods. ‘I know what you mean. You take everything for granted without even knowing that’s what you’re doing, don’t you? And it takes something like this to make you realise . . . But not even this, really. I mean, we’re sitting here drinking a fizzy drink made by one of the world’s biggest companies. We’re eating processed food. We’re still one step away from harsh reality. I do hope we don’t really end up having to fend for ourselves.’

All of a sudden I am scared.

‘Could we make a raft, do you think?’

We both look around. There are so many trees in this jungle, which, if it is the same as the jungle on Perhentian Kecil, will get thicker and thicker as you go back from the beach. There will be strong creepers and plenty of wood. There is ample material for a raft. In fact we could probably make a sail with some of the enormous leaves that are bound to be in there.

‘We’d need an axe,’ Katy says. ‘Or something with a very sharp and strong blade, anyway.’

‘Maybe we could find a sharp stone?’ I try, looking at the fine sand that covers the beach. There is nothing remotely sharp on it. Everything here was washed smooth thousands of years ago.

Katy is rightly sceptical, but she kindly says, ‘Maybe.’

We both look back at the horizon.

The sun is overhead and we are all lying in the shade of the trees at the fringe of the forest. Nobody is speaking. There is nothing to say.

I am drifting in and out of sleep. All we can do is wait. We have eaten every single crumb of our supplies. We are in the shade but still sweltering and dripping with sweat. I am very well aware that I have been wearing this bikini all day and all night, and that the sarong that is wrapped around me was also my blanket last night.

By the time I go to bed tonight I will be clean and moisturised and full. All this will look like a bizarre adventure. I hang on to that thought as tightly as I can.

Sometimes I think I see something on the horizon, and I jerk upright to look, but it is just the flash of the sun on a wave, or perhaps a sea creature surfacing. It is never a boat. I notice other people doing the same, but they never say anything either. My head is throbbing at both sides, tapping out a rhythm to the afternoon.

‘We could make a flare,’ Mark says at one point.

‘Using what?’ says Cherry, her voice uncharacteristically sharp. Nobody replies, because it is too obvious. The fact that Mark, who until now has been the voice of mocking cynicism, could propose so ridiculous a plan makes me feel more hopeless than anything else that has happened.

By the time the sun slips behind the jungle, we all know that, once again, he is not coming. We are stuck on the island for a second night and we have no food left and only two small bottles of drinking water between the seven of us.

‘He might still come,’ Katy is arguing, but she sounds frantic, and seems to be arguing with herself more than with anyone in particular. She is furiously constructing scenarios. ‘He might have had an accident and be in hospital. Of course they won’t remember us for a while. Maybe they’ll stay at the hospital for the morning and then they’ll go home, or some of them will go home, because they’ll have to, and when they get there, they’ll remember us. And the people at Paradise Bay will be wondering where we are, and they’ll all get together, maybe about now, and Samad will have told his family we’re here, and they’ll get straight into a boat and come and pick us up.’

We have been through all of those scenarios many times, out loud and in our heads, and Katy saying it now sounds more like someone reciting a ritual than anything else.

‘Yes,’ Jean says, but her voice is hollow. ‘But why the hell are we still here? All of that should already have happened.’

We stare out to sea, just in case, but all those words have not made any difference. Nothing we do or say is able to change anything.

The sun is low over the rainforest. I wish this beach faced the other way. For one thing we might see a boat, and for another I would like the sun to set over the sea, rather than creeping behind the forest, leaving us to endure the inexorable leaching away of the day. Drama and colour would be better than this gradual fading-out of everything.

The fire is burning with a strong flame. We are still here. No boat will come in the dark, but we all make an effort and drag what leaves and branches we can manage on to the beach, just in case some fishing boat comes by in the early morning and sees our fire and comes to investigate.