Stranded

by Sarah Goodwin

  On the fifth day of this happening I went to ask for the keys. It felt very much like begging, as if I was handing over some form of power. I told myself it was only my pride. I went over to where Andrew and Duncan were chiselling a log. Gill was sitting nearby, her back against the rear wall of the cabin, out of sight of the others.

  ‘Can I get the food box keys, please?’ I asked.

  Andrew glanced at Duncan. ‘Sure … Gill, can you go with Maddy?’

  ‘She doesn’t need to come with me, I just need the keys.’

  Again that shared look.

  ‘I think it’s better if someone goes with you. For accountability’s sake.’

  ‘Accountability for …?’

  ‘The supplies,’ Duncan said, like it was obvious. ‘We can’t just give anyone free access when we’re already rationing. You understand that.’

  ‘Anyone other than Andrew and Gill, you mean.’

  ‘Well, they can’t open the box individually, can they – that’s the whole point of having two keys.’

  ‘No, but they can open it together, can’t they?’ I met Duncan’s eyes and held them. I wasn’t going to seek a fight by chasing everyone to do their jobs, but I also wasn’t going to stand there and be lied to. It was obvious they had been dipping into the stash. Pretending that I was the one who might steal was a power move, even I could see that. I couldn’t accuse them, because they were the majority. I was just one person; what they said, what they pretended to believe, was true by consensus.

  ‘Look, we’ve already wasted enough time on this. The rest of us are trying to work,’ Andrew said. He went and got Gill’s key from her and handed the pair over. ‘Just get on with it. We know what’s in there.’

  I took the keys, ignored the warning in his tone and went back to the hut. With the box open I measured out a third of a cup of oats (the ration we used per person to make porridge). I put this in my billycan along with some dried fruit and a bit of powdered milk, then topped it off with water. Then I paused.

  At the bottom of the food box were the rest of the dehydrated meals. The things we’d all brought with us and added to the stockpile voluntarily. Looking at them, I was sure there were fewer than when I’d last looked. I could have sworn we had several treacle sponge packs, but now there was only one. The rest I couldn’t be sure about. Sitting there, knowing I had to get back as soon as possible, I made a snap decision.

  I picked out the few meals that I had contributed. It was easy to tell mine because they all had the price stickers on the back from my local outdoor supplier. Looking at the friendly yellow logo I felt a spasm of unreality. I had driven to the shop and browsed the shelves. I could remember clearly how I’d picked out each packet, tapping my foot to the instore Christmas music. I remembered the carrier bag on the car seat next to me while I sipped a scalding cup of hot choco­late with marshmallows, watching the windows steam up.

  Blinking snapped me back to reality, to the growl of my flattened belly and the dirty, broken nails on my calloused hands. I flattened any trace of guilt. This food was mine and I had paid for it, however much of a foreign concept that seemed in my current reality. I refused to be denied access to my own food while Andrew, Gill and the rest ate it out from under me. There was no fairness in that. I picked up the packages, hid them in my backpack, under the folded foraging bags, and then locked the box.

  I made quick work of my porridge and joined the others, but all the time I was thinking of where to hide the food I’d reclaimed. There was no privacy in the hut and I couldn’t risk keeping them in my backpack. I’d have to put them somewhere out of the way. Somewhere safe.

  It wasn’t until we had eaten our meagre lunch of greens with a handful of rehydrated chickpeas that I remembered the cave. I’d not thought of it much since discovering it. In fact, I’d only been back once to look for mushrooms sometime in March. Having found none I’d not bothered to check again. It was the best place I could think of.

  After lunch I waited a while, then casually donned my rucksack and left camp with my foraging bag in hand. On my way I noticed that Maxine was washing the plates we’d just used, but that everyone else seemed to be sunbathing in the clearing. For once I was pleased to see them not doing anything. It meant no one would happen on me while I was out.

  Finding my way back to the cave was a little tricky. Everything had grown so much since then that it was disorientating. Previous markers like fallen trunks and oddly shaped rocks had been swallowed by the rising tide of greenery. The opening of the little crevice was chock full of ferns and tall grass, so I had to fight through it to get inside. The air in there was cool and damp, the floor packed earth and dry leaves. A prickle went over my neck as I remembered my own stupid horror story – the witch’s house. How easy it was to picture her in here, waiting for the unwary.

  After rooting around on the floor for a bit I found a stick and used it to gouge out a decent sized hole. Once I’d put the foil packets of food inside I covered them over with dirt and leaves. When I left the cave I packed the entrance with ferns and greenery again to keep it from view. Otherwise I could foresee it being used by Zoe and Shaun for a bit of privacy.

  I snatched up some chickweed and nettles on my way back to camp, to sell the idea that I’d really gone foraging. I needn’t have bothered because there was no one there when I returned aside from Frank. I left him dozing in the sun and followed the sounds of shrieking and whooping down to the stream. All of them were splashing around in the water, aside from Gill who was lying on a large rock. For a moment, looking at them being so happy, I felt a stab of guilt. I quickly squashed it. I wasn’t stealing from them. That food wasn’t for myself. As soon as stocks were depleted I would bring it back so that we could all enjoy it, not just the select few.

  Part of me wanted to join them, but I was too self-conscious. How could I have fun when it felt like Duncan, Gill and the others were recording my every moment for later mockery? I had no idea who I could trust, if any of them. Instead I opted to spend some time in the wild greenery of the allotment. I was too tired for much actual work, but it felt like a rest day. Everyone else was enjoying the sunshine, so I stretched out and basked.

  Chapter 14

  ‘How do you typically handle conflict, or arguments?’ Sasha had asked. ‘With all the stresses you’ll be under, it’s only natural that there will be times when the group has to handle disagreements.’

  ‘I’m quite a calm person,’ I said, ‘I don’t really like all the shouting and screaming that goes on, like …’ I faltered.

  ‘Like on reality TV?’ Sasha said, with a small laugh. ‘You can say it. After all, this isn’t really “reality TV” – it’s a social experiment. A new reality.’

  I nodded, internally cringing. I wasn’t sure if Sasha really believed that or if she was just parroting the brief. Conflicts definitely sounded very much in the realm of reality TV.

  ‘How did you handle your last falling out?’ Sasha said, as clearly I’d been silent too long.

  I thought of my last visit home. Nausea crawled into my stomach. This was not the place for that. Still, I couldn’t stop the memory surfacing. Couldn’t unhear Mum’s voice.

  We’d been cutting out scones together, listening to Radio Four. I’d just left my job in the lab, unable to cope with doing Owen’s work on top of my own. It had just sort of happened. One day I was struggling, the next I was being disciplined for falling behind. Then I was giving my notice. I was angry with myself for not standing up to him, but how could I go over his head and tell anyone what was going on? I couldn’t even tell Becca; she was his girlfriend, and we’d only been growing apart. Owen was friends with everyone, a team player. I was nobody.

  I’d just started my first temp role and was bored out of my mind. Every day I wished I’d stood up for myself a little bit more, told someone what Owen was doing. But I hadn’t, and it was too late.

  ‘We worry about you, Maddy – all alone in that big town. Are you taking care of
yourself?’ Mum asked, pouring milk into a bowl.

  ‘Yes, Mum,’ I’d said dutifully.

  ‘I don’t see why you have to spend hundreds of pounds a month on that flat of yours when we have a room here for you. It was good enough while you were saving for your master’s.’

  ‘I work in the city, Mum.’

  ‘Well, there are jobs here, since you’re not working in pharmaceuticals anymore. You can work anywhere. And here you wouldn’t be on your own. We hardly ever see you anymore.’

  I’d pushed the cutter down hard without meaning to, sliding it over the veneer counter with a squeal of metal on plastic. There was a short silence.

  ‘We just worry,’ Mum said again, softly. ‘You’re not a city person. You’re a homebody. You need people around you.’

  I’d looked away, not wanting her to see the shine of tears welling up in my eyes. I’d thought it myself, of course, a hundred times. What was the point of struggling to hold onto my horrible flat in a city where I didn’t know anybody? Where I was miserable? Wouldn’t it be better to be at home, with people who loved me, whom I loved? After all they were the only ones who really knew me, had been there my whole life. They understood me better than anyone.

  Only, I could see the danger there. If I went home, back to my old room with its camberwick bedspread and rows of dusty Enid Blyton books, I would never leave. I would stay there for ever; making scones with Mum, walking the dogs with Dad. I would never change. They wouldn’t let me. There wouldn’t be room for me to change. In the city, I was miserable, but at home I would be numb, slipping back into old routines. Being a good girl. I didn’t want that to happen. I had to be pushed, to open up, to grow. And Mum had never pushed me. She liked me just where I was: in her kitchen, listening to Radio Four.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I said at last, when I could trust myself to speak without bursting into tears.

  ‘Madeline—’

  ‘I’m fine. And I’m not moving home, so can you drop it, please?’ I said, standing up for myself at last. Far too late.

  Mum sighed and I recognised the sound as a signal that she was not going to drop it, but for now she would be content with wounded silence. It would be up to me to apologise, or to pretend no disagreement had taken place. Mum did not apologise.

  Somehow we’d got through the rest of the visit without incident. Partly this was because I made up a work emergency and left a few days early. Back to my musty flat for the rest of the time I’d booked off. I didn’t see or speak to anyone until I went back to work at my temp role.

  That was the last time I went home to see my parents. Being there, enfolded in the familiar warmth of their home, was too tempting. To stand any chance of changing my life, making it work, I had to stay in the city and try to live like any other person my age. I couldn’t risk being persuaded to give that up.

  So I made excuses: work commitments, social en­­gagements and holidays, none of which existed. We spoke on the phone but that was it. I would not allow myself to be convinced or cajoled into making the trip to my home village, not until I was stronger. There would be plenty of time, when I was ready.

  Only there wasn’t, and I found that out far too late.

  An icy road, a sharp bend. Just like that, I was on my own. And all my reasons, all my ideas about what I needed and why, felt suddenly very hollow. I had traded time with the two people I loved most for a job I hated and people who barely knew me. I had given up the chance to confront them, to fix myself. I could never get that back.

  ‘I think it’s best to handle things up front,’ I said, hands clenched into fists in the folds of my skirt. ‘Burying them, ignoring them … It just builds up, until somebody snaps.’

  *

  The summer brought out midges and horseflies that bit and stung. We all dreaded leaving the fireside, where the smoke drove them away. Duncan declared that the cabin would be finished in autumn, in time for winter. As of August, it just sat there, humming with insects and with walls barely at waist height.

  The next big blow-up had nothing to do with me, at least, not directly. Maxine’s disapproval of Zoe hadn’t been dampened by my outburst; instead I seemed to have made it worse by driving her towards Gill, who relished gossip.

  Maxine’s barely hidden disapproval started to bubble over. First it was ‘forgetting’ to put aside vegetarian food for Zoe. Then it was Zoe’s birth control being misplaced whenever Maxine took it on herself to tidy the hut. She nagged and criticised Zoe whenever she got the chance. Gill joined in and the two of them formed a spiteful coven of two.

  With Shaun gone during the day, chopping wood or just pissing about in the woods with the guys, Zoe turned to me for sympathy. I felt guilty for being glad of Maxine’s jibes. At least it gave me someone to talk to, even if I didn’t want to be in the middle of their row.

  ‘She treats me like a naughty teenager,’ Zoe complained as we wedged clay together, throwing it down on a flat rock. ‘If she had her way, me and Shaun would be in separate huts.’

  ‘I think she’s just a bit … old-fashioned,’ I said, trying to be diplomatic. ‘You probably remind her of her daughters.’

  ‘I feel sorry for them then, landed with a tight-arse like that as their mum. Can you imagine? Bet they never got to do anything.’

  I hummed, non-committal. Zoe’s annoyance cut too close to my own thoughts about Mum, the ones that had kept me away from home.

  ‘I just want her to get off my back. It’s none of her business who I sleep with,’ Zoe huffed. ‘And just because I don’t do meat-and-two-veg doesn’t mean I don’t know how to cook. I’m an adult.’

  Zoe was laying a lid on some leaves to air dry when Maxine came by. I watched her eyes narrow as she took in the mud that was all over us both and the pile of plain pots.

  ‘I hope you’re going to rinse your clothes before they go in the laundry.’

  ‘Yes, Miss,’ Zoe said acidly. ‘Right away, Miss.’

  Maxine’s lips thinned to invisibility. ‘There’s no need to act like a brat. I was just reminding you that this –’ she waved a hand ‘– creates a lot of mess and waste, which other people have to deal with.’

  ‘I’m not wasting anything – I am using natural resources to make something we need.’

  ‘Because we desperately need pots we can’t cook in and plates that harbour germs,’ Maxine said, shaking her head. ‘Meanwhile you’re using our firewood, all the buckets, a perfectly good towel—’

  ‘Guys, maybe we should—’ I started but was interrupted when Zoe leapt up and jabbed a clay-covered finger at Maxine.

  ‘Oh my God, shut up!’ Zoe snapped. ‘No one cares. Stop trying to control everything I do! I bet your daughters are made up that you’re not at home bossing them around. Probably couldn’t wait to be shot of you.’

  Maxine reacted like she’d been slapped. Her face went white aside from a few patches of mottled red on her cheeks. Her eyes hardened and she shot an accusing glare at me before storming off. I winced watching her go; clearly she thought I was on Zoe’s side. Really, I just wanted them both to be friendly again, to each other and to me.

  It was obvious to me that Maxine’s behaviour came from missing her family. Sometimes I caught her looking wet-eyed as she held the picture of them she used as a bookmark. I knew what it was like to miss someone that much; to not know who you were without your family. She was lashing out to distract herself.

  Zoe simmered down once Maxine was out of sight and we didn’t discuss her further. There were plenty of pots left to make and get dried out before firing. By nightfall the two still weren’t speaking, but were at least around the same fire. Least said, soonest mended. I hoped.

  Despite Maxine’s comments, Zoe managed to produce some very rustic ceramic crocks. We used them to keep foraged berries and nuts in as they dried or waited to become preserves.

  Each day I went out in the pre-dawn and then again straight after breakfast. It became the norm that I would make my own food when I retur
ned from the woods. It was annoying being left out, but anything that reduced my exposure to Duncan was its own silver lining. After the argument about the keys, I made my meals from forage alone. I busied myself bringing food into camp. There was a lot of it to harvest and preserve before winter; mushrooms to pickle, berries to turn into jam and seaweeds to dry and crumble into jars. We were in a time of plenty.

  Plenty would seem a foreign concept within a few short months. I looked back on that time a lot and bitterly regretted every leaf, root and berry left ungathered. Every scrap wasted. It was a task too great for any one person. Had anyone thought to help me bring it all in, had they not deprived me of food, of fuel to do my work, we might have had more. Had enough. Things might have been different. Lives could have been saved.

  I found Maxine by the fire one afternoon, monitoring two of our largest pots as they steamed and spat over the glowing wood. Since the blow-up with Zoe I’d been treating them both with caution. Maxine in particular still carried an air of hurt feelings and mild disapproval wherever she went.

  ‘Got more of those ceps,’ I said, by way of greeting. ‘How are we for vinegar? Do you need more berries?’

  ‘Could be doing better,’ Maxine said, nodding towards an empty squash bottle half full of murky liquid.

  ‘I could get some more juice for you. Or you could come out with me if you like – have a break from camp?’

  ‘I’ll see if there’s time; I’ve got a lot to do at the moment.’ She glanced up, her face red and sweaty from the fire. ‘I picked some of the tomatoes from the allotment earlier. It’s not looking great over there.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s not produced as much as it could have,’ I said diplomatically, thinking of Gill and her ‘bad back’. I wasn’t looking to spark another disagreement.