Zoe and I dumped our bags with everyone else’s and went into the shelter of the pines. There it was still cold but at least we were out of the biting sea wind.
‘Hope you don’t mind me volunteering you,’ Zoe said, once we’d gone a little way from the others. ‘I just didn’t want to get stuck with someone I didn’t know. Especially not Andrew – misery guts.’ She pulled a face to show she wasn’t being serious, but I could tell she was, a bit.
‘No worries,’ I said. ‘So, if you’re not here for “the End”, what made you sign up?’
‘It’s sort of my year out, now uni’s done,’ she said, pulling up a bunch of brown, dead ferns. ‘I know that sounds mad. But it was this or visit my dad’s family in Mumbai and that’s just too many sexist uncles for me to be dealing with. He’s the only one in his family to leave India, not to mention marrying an Irish girl so … they don’t really get me. Plus, you know, this way I get to be on telly – people make careers out of reality shows like this. I’ve already got my social media all set up – @ZozoYogi, mostly about raising awareness and my yoga, stuff like that.’
‘Awareness of what?’
‘The environment, mostly. It’s really disgusting what we’re doing to the sea with all the plastic we throw away. Did you see that documentary with the turtles? Wild.’
She chatted about her upcycling projects while we picked up twigs, sticks and clumps of dry fern. It was the kind of one-sided conversation I find quite soothing – not having to contribute much more than a ‘hmm’ to keep it going. Zoe seemed genuinely nice and I was relieved we had fallen into such an easy acquaintance already. Even if she was doing most of the work on it.
‘So, why did you sign up?’ she asked, as we carried our piles of sticks and dead plants back to the campsite.
‘Not sure really,’ I said, which was kind of true. ‘I suppose … I just needed a break. To get away, you know?’
She laughed. ‘Funny idea of a relaxing holiday, coming here.’
I smiled back. ‘Yeah, I guess so.’
As we walked I couldn’t help but wish I’d been a bit more honest. Not that I had lied, not as such. I was looking for a break. It was just that the break wasn’t just from work, or stress. I didn’t want a holiday. I wanted a break from myself, from my life, as it was. When I’d seen the ad for applications for The Last Refuge I’d not been outside for a week and a half. Not spoken to anybody since I spoke to Mum and Dad’s solicitor and finalised my leave with my manager. I’d lost the only two people who really knew me and without them I didn’t make sense anymore. I didn’t know myself.
I couldn’t really talk to Zoe about it. We barely knew each other. Besides, how would it sound? Pathetic really. A twenty-nine-year-old whose only real connection was to her parents. No old schoolfriends, because I hadn’t been there to make them. No university mates, because I’d been too shy to do more than skulk at the edges of parties. Zoe, full of plans, ambitions, friends, was about as far removed from my grey un-life as it was possible to be.
By the time we returned to the campsite, the guys had made a low shelter. The sides and roof were pallets stuffed with ferns and wrapped around with plastic sheeting. Small, but serviceable.
Zoe and I dug out a hole in the sandy soil. I wasn’t really sure how to build a fire properly and neither was she. We applied some common sense to get a sort of stick pyramid built in the hole. Zoe took out a plastic lighter and tried to get some of the ferns to catch.
‘Bastard things are damp.’
I rummaged in my coat pocket and came up with some fast-food receipts from the trip north. ‘Don’t tell Andrew we cheated.’
She giggled, lighting the paper and getting the fern to catch. We made a couple of trips to fetch stones from the beach. With that done there was a place for everyone to put their pots for dinner.
‘Look at that view,’ Duncan said, standing outside the shelter with his hands on his hips. ‘When you think this must be what our ancestors saw, before all the cities and towns. Amazing.’
Andrew nodded his agreement. ‘Can’t wait to get building properly tomorrow. Imagine calling this place home?’
When Maxine and Gillian came back they had a full plastic tank of water from the stream. Gillian was sweaty and red-cheeked; Maxine still all business. Andrew had brought an SAS book along that explained how to make a crude water filter and he set it up to strain out grit and debris. What with the long boat journey and the lateness of its arrival, it was already getting dark.
We boiled the water and finally got our much-awaited tea. The list had also said to bring a month’s worth of rations as a minimum, after which we’d have to forage and fish to eat.
‘Snap!’ Zoe said, seeing my packet of dehydrated vegetable curry and waving her own. ‘Guess we both hit the camping shop pretty hard. Want to cook together and go halves?’
Around the fire, similar bargains were being made to get food cooked quicker. I noticed that Maxine had also gone the hiking rations route. Andrew had large packs of staples – lentils, powdered egg, oats – and Duncan had protein bars and some kind of powdered whey mixture.
‘Right then, now we’re all fed,’ Duncan said in his booming, ‘matey’ voice. ‘I know we’ve been chatting a bit but let’s do proper introductions, find out where we’re all coming from. So, I’m a carpenter but I’m also an IT manager, love a bit of rugger and captain my local team, and I’m here for an adventure.’ He gestured to Andrew on his left. ‘Your turn, Andy.’
‘All right, I work at the City Farm in Bristol, mostly looking after the permaculture project we’ve got going on. I’m here because I love me some Ray Mears and I think this’ll be a good experiment to show the public not to be complacent about our future.’
Maxine was next. ‘I’m Maxine. I’ve been in the Guides all my life, currently Tawny Owl for my local Brownie group. I help out with the DoE award and I’m here to live up to it and show that guiding is still important.’
Zoe waved when it was her turn. ‘I’m Zoe. I’m a graphic art student and I guess I’m here to learn how to do more with my upcycling and recycling. I’m hoping to get some inspiration for my artwork and generally have the gap year I never got.’
Then it was my turn. Thoughts of my inheritance, the empty flat and my old job flitted through my head. In the end I said only, ‘I’m Maddy and I studied botany. I’m a forager and I’m really excited to get working tomorrow.’
‘You know plants and stuff?’ asked Shaun, the guy with the cigarette behind his ear. ‘Any chance of finding something for us to smoke once all this is gone?’ He waved a pouch of rolling tobacco.
‘Lots of things – nothing with nicotine in though, sorry.’
‘Guess we’ll have to hope those telly people left some in a bird nest somewhere,’ he said. ‘Anyway, hi all, I’m Shaun. I’m training to be a butcher and really keen to cook wild food in the great outdoors.’ From the looks of him he was aiming to be the next Valentine Warner and Jamie Oliver combined – rustic and irreverent in his woolly jumper. I hoped he could do more than look the part.
Frank’s introduction was even shorter than mine. He was a retired pub landlord and had come for the fishing. To me he looked ready for a nap.
‘That just leaves me then,’ Gillian said. ‘I’m forty-two, single and looking! Up until a few months ago I was my mum’s carer. Since she passed I’ve been running a home business selling essential oils. I do a bit of DIY and have a nice little allotment, so I’ll be growing lots of lovely veg, and I’m excited to meet you all!’
With the official intros over, the talk turned to plans for the year ahead. I mostly let it wash over me. Hearing Gill talk about her loss reminded me of my own. I hoped to be as unaffected by it as she was, one day. It would take more than a few months.
The day had been exhausting and I was craving my bed and a bit of time alone. However everyone seemed content to stay up late and watch the fire die. I didn’t want to seem unfriendly by being the first to tur
n in.
At last, as the fire fell to ashes and small embers, Zoe yawned and went to fetch her bags. The rest of us followed on and soon we were trying to fit all eight of us into the small shelter. All the bags had to be left outside under a plastic sheet. Inside I felt like a match in a box. I fell asleep listening to the muted roar of the sea and the snores of the only people I’d be seeing for the next year.
Chapter 4
‘Who do you think you’ll miss most?’ Sasha had asked, smiling from behind the camera as a woman finished forcing my hair into crisp curls and slipped away.
‘I’m not sure,’ I said, mind frantically searching for an acceptable response. The studio lights were making me sweat and I worried the unfamiliar makeup might start to melt. Really, I wouldn’t miss anyone, much. The only people I knew in the city were those I’d worked with and I did everything I could to avoid them outside the office. It wasn’t that they were bad people, it was just exhausting trying to seem normal to them. To pretend I knew about or was interested in the TV they watched or the diets they followed. To listen to their stories of children and husbands and have only anecdotes about my small life to offer in exchange.
‘Probably my friend Becca,’ I said. ‘We went to university together. We did the same kind of work – pharmacological botany.’
No need to mention that I hadn’t spoken to her in two years, or sent a text in four months. We’d been almost close at uni, but after we’d started working together she’d said some things. Things about Mum and how protective she was. Only she hadn’t said ‘protective’. She’d said ‘controlling’. It hadn’t helped that she’d been seeing Owen by that point. Owen who technically had the same rank as me, but spent every day passing me his work to do, taking all the credit. Owen who told me once that I was holding Becca back, that she was too nice to say anything.
After that I avoided Becca until I crumbled under the pressure and left my lab job. I hadn’t wanted to bother her with the news when I lost my parents. I didn’t feel like we were that kind of friends anymore.
‘Do you work together now?’
‘No … she still works in a lab; I went a different route. Botany’s sort of a hobby these days, not my job.’
‘And what is your job?’ Sasha asked, for the benefit of the camera, as it had been on my application.
‘I’m an administrator. An administrative assistant. In a HR office, at the moment. I temp around. For the experience.’ Not that you needed much experience in making coffee and filing thousands of reports alphabetically. Still, temping meant I was a stranger wherever I worked and people mostly left me alone to my podcasts.
‘And what thing do you think you’ll miss most? Chocolate? Wine?’ Sasha asked.
She’d taken the two most obvious answers, which annoyed me. Behind the blinding lights shadows moved around as people went back and forth with equipment. I blinked, eyelashes stiff with mascara.
‘Hot showers,’ I said, eventually. ‘There’s nothing better than waking up with a shower.’
*
Our first full day on the island got off to a bad start. The plastic sheeting had blown off our bags in the night and rain had drenched them. This meant no fresh clothes and some of Frank’s food got wet. The wood Zoe and I had gathered was also wet and refused to light.
‘I think the first thing we’ve got to do is get a spot picked out for the shelter, so I think today a couple of us should try and scout a good location,’ Duncan said.
‘We don’t necessarily need to scout,’ Maxine said. ‘We already know it needs to be near our water source, the stream – and near the forest so we don’t have to drag wood so far to build.’
‘But we don’t want to haul all our stuff up there looking for a place to build,’ Duncan countered, ‘so it makes sense if some people stay behind and look for these caches we’re meant to be finding.’
‘We don’t have to take all our stuff, but we should all go and look at the potential sites, because we’ve all got to be involved in the decision,’ Maxine insisted. ‘We should also really work out how we’re going to make these decisions – a simple majority vote seems best in my opinion.’
Duncan shrugged. ‘Sure, that’s fine.’
‘We should get on with it though,’ Andrew said. ‘We’ve got no fire and no reason to be sitting around here chatting. Let’s get a shift on.’
We collected water bottles and the few things we thought we’d need and followed Maxine and Gill to the stream where they’d drawn water the day before. Following it through the woods proved a little difficult. Under the trees the ground was uneven, pitching up and down in mossy banks peppered with crags of rock and fallen trunks. Frank was soon lagging behind with a red-faced Gill. My own fitness level wasn’t great, but I gritted my teeth, determined to do my best.
After a while the stream started going uphill steeply and we stopped for a rest. The trees had thinned a bit and there were some large rocks through which the stream had carved a path, creating a natural pool.
‘This place isn’t too bad,’ Zoe piped up. ‘I’m not just saying that ’cos I’m exhausted.’
‘It looks fertile too,’ I said, having noticed the dense grass and sprouts of fern. ‘If we want to be able to grow anything near the shelter we’ll need a clearing like this so the plants’ll have light.’
Gillian, our gardener, nodded at this. I wondered what kinds of seeds she’d brought with her. We were all told to bring ‘specialist supplies’ with us; for me that meant a guide to identify edible and medicinal plants.
‘There’s definitely enough space to get a decent build here,’ Duncan said confidently as he paced off imaginary walls. ‘Lots of good straight pines too for cabin walls.’
‘Is that the best option,’ Maxine said, ‘a cabin? That’s a lot of trees to fell. Who brought proper axes with them?’
Only Duncan and Andrew raised their hands. Duncan frowned.
‘We were all told to bring tools, that included an axe.’
‘I have one but it’s not like a “here’s Johnny” axe. It’s little. Probably not going to get a tree down with that – just branches for firewood,’ Zoe said.
I nodded and noticed Shaun and Gillian do the same. The axe I’d brought was actually a hatchet – single-handed, with a short handle and small head. Perfect for general wood cutting but not something that stood much of a chance against one of the tall pines that creaked overhead.
Andrew didn’t seem that worried. ‘It’d take too long to make a cabin anyway. We need to get something up that’s fast to build and durable. Otherwise, we’re going to have to keep coming up from the beach every day for months before we have a proper shelter here.’
This sparked another wave of questions. Duncan and Maxine had assumed we’d be moving to our chosen site straightaway, bringing the pallets and plastic sheeting up and re-creating our current shelter. Frank, in a quiet but firm way, laid out the advantages of having an emergency shelter by the sea in which to keep his fishing supplies and get out of the rain if a storm caught him down there.
The debate went on for a while with everyone chipping in. It reminded me a lot of meetings in the office I’d worked in. All we were missing was tea and biscuits. Still, it was our first full day out of civilisation and no one was getting annoyed or sounding off. I was content to listen and weigh up the options.
‘All right, we’ll put it to a vote,’ Duncan declared. ‘Get it decided, then we’ll start getting on with moving our stuff around and working out what we’re putting where. Show of hands for moving our shelter up here.’
Duncan, Andrew, Gillian and Shaun raised their hands. Duncan sighed.
‘That’s a tie. Come on guys, we can’t fall down at this first hurdle.’
‘What about a compromise?’ I said, after a few long moments of silence had passed. Everyone looked at me and I felt myself start to wilt under the attention. ‘We … uh, we could stay in the shelter for the next few days, until we get enough built here to move
. That way we keep the fishing hut where it is, but … we don’t spend weeks commuting back and forth.’
Shaun nodded, slowly. ‘That makes sense. I vote for that.’
Maxine put her hand up, followed by Zoe, Frank and Shaun. I raised mine as well.
Duncan shrugged. ‘That’s decided then.’
I felt a little thrill at having found a way to unite us and get a decision made. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d even tried to volunteer an idea in a work meeting. Somewhere along the line I’d stopped trying. Just like in every other area of my life I’d sort of surrendered. Maybe this challenge, this experiment, was exactly what I needed. Maybe I’d been right to take it on.
We drew sticks to decide who would hike back down to get everyone’s tools. Gill and I got the short ones. I didn’t really mind.
‘Everyone seems to be getting on well, don’t you think?’ Gill asked as we followed the stream through the trees. ‘I was worried there’d be a few bad apples but, so far we’re all working together.’
‘So far so good,’ I said. ‘At least we’ve got a site picked out – looking forward to having a sturdier roof over my head.’ After a few steps I added, awkwardly, ‘I’m sorry about your mum, by the way. I just lost both my parents, it’s not easy.’
‘Yeah, it was a bit of a shock. I mean, she was old and had a lot of stuff wrong with her in the last few years. Still, finding her … Since the divorce I’d been living with her, taking care of her. My sister’s got kids to be worrying about. Then one day I went up to help her after her bath and she’d had a stroke, drowned.’
‘That’s awful.’
‘Yeah, it was pretty fucking shit, and then all the police and ambulance people going through … Total circus.’ She took out a rollup and lit it, took a puff and cleared her throat.
‘That Duncan, you can tell he’s a team captain, can’t you?’ she said.
I nodded, realising I’d pried too far and she was probably upset, changing the subject.
‘Very fit, and commanding.’ Gill mused, as we picked through the supplies that had been left at camp.
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