To the Wild Sky
Page 20
‘Look, Jan,’ Colin cried, ‘that’s the whole point. We do want to stick together. All of us together. We want Gerald to come with us because we think it’s the right thing. And we can’t go without Carol. Golly, Jan. Take a grip on yourself. We’re not going to settle it by screaming at each other. All we’ll get by screaming is a raging thirst and a first-class row.’
Gerald felt very much alone, stranded without Carol, but screaming or no screaming, row or no row, they would not pass him even by force.
‘There’s nothing to settle,’ he said. But there was a shake in his jaw and a weakness in his knees. ‘We stick where we are. That’s the rule. Look, your lives will be on me if you go. I might as well have killed you if you go. Don’t you see? My dad’s aeroplane. My mother’s guests. You can’t go. I won’t let you.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ Bruce growled. ‘I don’t know about this letting business. I’d like to see you stop us, that’s all.’ He didn’t like himself for that – or for Jan’s attitude either – not after yesterday, but today was today and it was different. ‘We’re cutting across the island, see, to the other side, then we’re building the raft and heading for the mainland.’
‘And how do you know the mainland’s there?’
‘We know. We’ve worked it out. With paddles and sails we’ll do it in a night. Tomorrow night. Tonight even, if we get across soon enough.’
‘You’ve worked it out? You’ve talked yourself into it, you mean. You’ve no more idea where the mainland is than I have.’
Jan started up, but in sudden anger Colin shouted her down, and Mark flinched. Mark didn’t like the way things were shaping. He liked a fight, but not with kids as big as these.
‘Shut up, Jan,’ Colin had shouted. Then he turned to Gerald. ‘You’re wrong about it, Gerald. You really are. They’ll never find us here. There’s not a hope in the world.’
‘You’re the one that’s wrong! They’re not fools. They’ve had plenty of practice looking for people. People across Queensland must have heard us. They’ll get round to it in the end.’
‘Yeh, and what happens to us while they’re getting round to it? I reckon they’ll run a dead heat with this bottle idea. The bottles will never get there and they’ll never get here. On the mainland we’ve got a chance. We can grub around for our food even, if we’re quick. But we’ve got to get there quick!’
‘Oh, blow him,’ said Jan. ‘Why waste time with him?’ She made a grab for Carol’s case and headed with it up the beach straight at Gerald. ‘Now stop me,’ she taunted, ‘let’s see how big and brave you are.’
‘No, Jan,’ cried Colin. ‘Don’t . . .’
‘I’m with her,’ Bruce bellowed. ‘Go through him, Jan. Let’s get it over with. If he lays a hand on you I’ll flatten him.’
Gerald backed away from it all, bewildered. ‘No, Jan,’ he pleaded. ‘Please, Jan, no.’
‘Puff of wind,’ she said, and walked past him, and but for her sneer might have got away with it. Gerald’s temper flared and he grabbed a handful of her dress and wrenched her off her feet. She hit the sand shrieking and he darted back towards the trees and faced them again like a prize-fighter, with his hands up. Bruce came lumbering for him, forgetting that his ankle had been hurt, but he walked into a fist that Gerald had never used before, that Gerald himself had not known that he possessed. He unwound it and flung it at Bruce’s face and Bruce went down yelping, with blood spurting from his nose.
‘You won’t go,’ Gerald yelled.
He darted along the beach a few more yards and shaped up again. ‘Come on,’ he yelled. ‘One at a time or all together.’
Bruce was getting back on to his feet, spluttering and wailing. ‘Me nose. He’s busted me nose.’ And Jan, still sprawling, was flabbergasted. Not for a moment had she thought that he would do it. Not for a moment had she thought that he had the nerve. He’d manhandled her. Thrown her down. And stopped Bruce. Stopped Bruce like a wall. And Bruce had had enough. He was holding his head back and pressing fingers to his nose, gasping, reeling in circles, making the most of it. But Colin hadn’t made a move. There he stood with drooping shoulders, Mark at his side. Colin had no heart for a fight, not with Gerald, not when Gerald might have been right.
Jan was alone without a doubt, but not in the way of the dream.
‘Crumbs, Gerald,’ she murmured, ‘you didn’t have to play it so rough. It’s not as if we hate each other or anything.’ Then she picked herself up and went back to her fireplace to be on her own, and started twirling one pointed stick into the groove of another with savage energy, gritting her teeth because her hands were so sore.
She had Mark for company after a while, after perhaps a quarter of an hour, and he said, ‘Carol’s a queer one, isn’t she?’
‘Is she?’ Jan said.
‘Yeh. She’s still out on the sea wall, just standin’ there. Is she all right, do you think?’
Jan sighed. ‘I wouldn’t worry about her. I suppose she’s upset. She had a row with Gerald.’
‘Is that why you’re upset, too, because you had a row with Gerald?’
She didn’t say anything, just twirled the stick between her raw hands, perhaps with less hope for fire than to punish herself with pain.
‘Will we finish the house tomorrow, Jan?’
‘I guess so,’ she said, ‘yes, of course we will. Where are the boys?’
‘Gone after the ducks.’
She looked up.
‘They said I had to stay with you in case – aw, you know – in case of anything.’
‘What ducks, Mark?’
‘Bruce saw them when they were fixin’ up his nose. They flew right over the top of him they did, going inland. Ducks head for fresh water at night, Gerald says. Well, fresh enough, anyway. Fresh enough to drink at a time like this.’
She was crying, but Mark couldn’t see that, and when she dropped her eyes again the point of the twirling stick was glowing in the dark.
‘No,’ she gasped, thunderstruck. ‘It can’t . . . It couldn’t . . .’
‘Yes,’ Mark yelled. ‘Yes it is, Jan! Keep it going, Jan. What do I do? What do we do, Jan? Tell me, Jan. Quick.’
But she had started laughing; sobbing and laughing.
‘You silly so-and-so,’ he screeched. ‘Tell me what to do.’
She continued to spin the stick, sobbing and laughing and wincing from the pain in her hands. ‘The grass, Mark. Put the grass against it and blow. It’s in the fireplace. Quick, Mark.’
He grabbed it, a great fistful of it, and it crumbled like old straw and he was shaking so much that he couldn’t get it in the right place until the second try and then he blew and almost at once smoke puffed, and suddenly flames came, singeing his hair, handfuls of flame that Jan, shrieking with excitement, pushed into her fireplace.
Then they sprawled away from it, licking their burns, still shrieking, and Mark started dancing in a circle with his finger in his mouth, making a noise like a Red Indian, flickering shadows and showers of sparks and bright smoke, and Jan, exhausted, lapsed into a smile, a set smile of something like bliss.
The fire leapt up, crackling, with a warm glow and just like an ordinary camp-fire that might burn in that other world where friends and families lived far away. It immediately brought that world so much closer, immediately made it real again. And for the very first time, Jan found herself hoping that the people looking for them didn’t find them too soon, for really and truly there were so many things it would be fun to do.
Mark suddenly fell on her and tightly grasped her blistered hand. ‘Gee, Jan,’ he said, ‘isn’t it beaut? Aren’t we clever?’
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