by Olivia Levez
I take the eyeliner and pull off its lid. It’s a little melty from the sun, but it’ll have to do.
I have a piece of paper-thin curly bark which I’ve noticed peeling off certain trees in the forest.
What should I write?
What do you say to:
a) A bird hunter cannibal?
b) Some psycho damaged kid who’s gone half-mad from being alone on a desert island for far too long? Like me, for instance.
c) A calm, knowledgeable, practical type, preferably the pilot or co-pilot, who happens to be a total expert in survival skills, and not only knows how to persuade the biggest crabs to reveal where they’re hiding, and can swiftly and humanely catch and kill a pig and roast it in some cool dug-out firepit so it’s ready just in time for dinner; but can also get water from rocks and tree trunks and, heck, can even make it rain?
Someone like Hi I’m Steve! for example.
d) All three? They’ve made a camp together and are having a frickin party.
‘Remember your audience and purpose, folks!’
Miss’s voice, confident in our abilities.
All of us in her writing group are scribbling away, up for the challenge.
We have mugs of hot chocolate and biscuits, ’cause Miss has sneaked them out of the English staffroom on a tray. She got me to help her make them, even though students aren’t allowed in there.
‘Hurry,’ she laughs, ‘teachers get very possessive over their mugs. Better not use Mr Hale’s – it’s got a photo of his cat on it.’
So, remember my audience and purpose.
In the end, I write:
HELLO.
MY NAME IS FRAN. THIS IS MY DOG. THANK YOU FOR HIS COLLAR. WE LIVE ON ONE TREE BEACH ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN.
HOW CAN I REACH YOU?
I wonder if Whoever can read English, or can read at all. Do bird hunters need to read? So I draw a crude picture of the mountains and my beach, showing my location. The eyeliner is totally blunt down to the wood, so I sharpen it with my knife, but then the point breaks so I end up drawing One Tree with turquoise nail polish. I add an arrow just to show where we are.
It looks crap, but it’ll have to do. I roll it up tight and slip it between the weave of Dog’s collar. He’s still asleep, whistling with each out-breath. His toes twitch.
I curl up around him, and close my eyes too.
I may have written a message, but there’s no way I want Dog to run off and leave me on my own again.
No frickin way.
Blue as Periwinkle
We hang the fish next to the strips of shark meat on to a washing line that’s hooked in the sun between One Tree and our camp. Well, I do; Dog watches.
It’s a bit fishy-smelling but better than leaving it all for the pelicans to snatch. They’ll eat anything.
Dog is fat as a flea on his fish diet. His breath still stinks though.
‘Love you more than Snickers bars,’ I tell him. ‘Well, almost.’
Dog pants, tail twitching away the flies.
The washing line is made from the same twine that I used to tie the shark. And we have a gutter now: it’s made from loads and loads of plastic water bottles, cut in half and stacked inside each other so that they’re overlapping.
Except it never rains here, does it?
We both stare up at the unblinking sky and it’s bluer than blue, as always; not a cloud, not a whisper of grey that might mean rain.
‘We need a better roof, Dog,’ I tell him.
I dampen a stick in seawater then spear two of our fish with it. Gutting’s easy. Basically, all I do is hack the heads off on my chopping-stone and open the bellies to pull all the guts out.
‘!’ says Dog. He loves fish-gutting.
He watches me as I thread the fish on to the sharpened stick and skewer it into the sand over the fire. Not too close because it needs to cook gently.
I stare at the smoke from our fire as it billows and rises, sprinkling little flecks of ash into the sky.
I keep seeing a different smoke plume.
Below the cliffs, I stare across the sea, straining my eyes. Perhaps I can see it again if I look hard enough. I might be able to see it, rising up behind the mountain.
I can’t. But I keep thinking about it, and it’s weird how something like that can make your eyes prickle.
While we’re waiting for the fish to cook, I make tea by boiling pond water in a coffee can and adding two lime leaves. The lime trees live by the poison-berry tree by the pool – which is drying up, it’s drying up, it’s drying up.
There’ll be no need for my filtration system when the pool has gone.
I try not to think of it. Dog doesn’t like could-be nut water. Time slows. And all the time I’m thinking of that pool with its few centimetres of water and buzzing flies. I imagine the sky darkening and splats of rain big as my hand slapping into the upturned coconut shells, running along the guttering into the MARINA BAIT tub.
I sit down on our bed and Dog jumps up and curls at my feet. We still need to finish the roof. And maybe make a better stove, out of an oil drum.
I look up at the sky through the rustling palms. Listen to Dog breathing and the trees creaking as the sea sighs.
After dinner, I let Dog lick my fingers, then wash the fish-gutting knife in seawater. Then I sit Dog down so he’s giving me his full attention.
‘Listen, Dog,’ I say.
He pants stinky fish-breath and darts a lick at me.
‘You need to leave Mummy and deliver that message,’ I tell him.
His tail twitches.
I point to the mountain. ‘Go,’ I say. Then, more firmly: ‘Go.’
Dog hurls himself on his back, wriggling his hips backwards and forwards. He wants his tummy tickled.
I sigh, and lie back on my bed. I think about weaving more palm leaves together to finish our roof.
Plaiting palm is like braiding hair. I used to braid Johnny’s hair when it was longer. I used to get absorbed in the rhythm of plaiting, of keeping track of all the separate sections in my fingers.
‘Tell me the story again, Frannie?’
‘One day, Monkey, we’ll live together, you and me. We’ll have a bay window and that’s where we’ll have breakfast every morning. We’ll sit at our table and we’ll look out over all that wide blue sea, and we’ll eat our toast and watch the seagulls.’
‘What about Mum?’ he asks. ‘Will she be with us?’
‘Of course,’ I say.
‘And what colour will the sea be?’
‘It’ll be blue as cornflowers, blue as periwinkle.’
Johnny would wriggle and squirm and in the end that’s why we got him the buzz cut.
Palm leaves are definitely easier.
I get off the hammock and pull two leaves towards me. Over, under. Over, under. By the time the sky melts, I’ve woven together three pieces, which makes a tiny section of roof.
But it’s no good. I can’t settle, not with that smoke spiral sneaking and pushing into my mind. Smoke does that. You can close all the doors you like, but sooner or later it will get you, snaking in and around like a bad memory.
The taste of guilt.
Uh-oh
Miss seems different today.
She’s absent-minded as she checks through the register, adding behaviour points and putting in lates.
‘Won’t be a minute, Frances,’ she says.
I can see my notebook, there on her desk, on top of her filing tray.
The door’s propped open but it feels hot in here. Nothing feels right. And yet I still think – stupid me – that Miss is going to critique my work, that we’re going to have a cool discussion about my story, the one that’s growing by the minute; the one about Anna and Jake.
I look around at all the posters on her wall. It’s like Miss really cares about writing, it’s not just for exams. Like, with her, it’s all real.
The road to hell is paved with misused apostrophes.
If t
here is a book locked deep within you, you have to set it free.
Writing is easy. You just stare at a blank page and weep.
But there’s something wrong. I can sense it, sure as if I’m a dog smelling a fox.
I get up and wander about Miss’s classroom. I’m always doing this, wandering. I’m the sort of student who gets up in the middle of the lesson; rearranges the dictionaries, picks up the teacher’s board marker.
Miss is quiet, tapping away on her screen, but I can tell she’s watching me. I move closer to her desk, and that’s when I see it: my story, photocopied, slipped under her class list.
Why has she got a photocopy?
And I want to snatch it back, right there, right now. I don’t want to stay here, in this stuffy classroom.
‘So is the writing club still on?’ I ask.
I still don’t frickin get it.
Miss doesn’t answer. Instead she does something she hasn’t done before. She takes a chair and drags it over to her desk; places it next to hers so that there’s no barrier between us.
She keeps my red notebook in her hands. There are no Post-its sticking out of it today. This time my story is like an unexploded bomb.
I want to snatch them all back, all of those words.
‘So is writing club not on then, Miss?’ I repeat.
‘Frances, is there anything you’d like to tell me?’ she says.
‘Why have you photocopied it?’
She sees me looking, slides the sheet under her teacher planner.
‘I thought your story was…very good,’ she says.
All of my hackles are up. I flit my eyes, looking for an escape route.
‘I think I’ll go now, Miss.’
But her eyes are all wrong too. And the noise of the pages in my notebook as she turns them is way too loud.
I want to snatch it back, take all the words back and lock them safe inside me.
‘Is there something you’d like to talk to me about?’
Miss seems hesitant, like she doesn’t know the words to this script yet. I want to help her out. She’s only new after all.
‘If there’s anything going on at home…’
I stand up. ‘There’s nothing,’ I gabble. ‘Everything’s fine.’ It’s hard to breathe in here. I snatch my book back.
But she doesn’t need it any more, ’course she doesn’t. She’s got a photocopy.
The minute I look in her eyes, I know what she’s gone and done. Her eyes slide past my shoulder to the door and, just like that, my world crumples.
There stands Mr Pearson, Head of Safeguarding and Pupil Welfare, his face all careful concern.
I pick up my bag.
‘Think I’ll be going now, Miss,’ I say.
I push past them both and hurry out of English Block.
Double-crossing bitch.
Flies
The pool is almost dry.
It’s half the original depth now and buzzing with flies.
But that doesn’t stop Dog from lapping thirstily.
‘Move over, Dog,’ I say.
I crouch down and push the Pepsi Max bottle under the water. Muddy bubbles rise as it fills.
The pool’s starting to smell a bit nasty. The dead rat’s mostly gone now though; only its little skull remains. I’ll have to make sure this water’s well and truly boiled.
Dog pants at me, tail wagging. He’s happy; he’s had his fill.
I put the filled bottles into my rucksack. Lick my lips with my dry tongue.
Only three today.
There’s no choice but to push on through the thickest part of the jungle in search of water.
Dog runs on ahead; he keeps any bird hunters away from me and reminds me to tie knots in the leaves as we go.
And all the time the sun’s getting hotter and harder.
Blind
It’s dark in this little bay, overshadowed by the monstrous trees. Only the sea glistens. Here, the trees end in gnarly tangles and a miserable stretch of sand that you can’t really call a beach.
There are cliffs, and there are caves. The mean little beach soon runs out, so I pick my way over the rocks, hoping my bra-shoes won’t unwind. Below, the water shimmers blueblueblue, the sea settling and unsettling.
Dog runs ahead, jumping from rock to rock. Sometimes he slips, his little feet scrabbling, but he never minds; just picks himself up and carries on.
I’ve tried to avoid the green rocks to be safe, but it’s no good. My hip hurts because I’ve slammed it hard so many times by falling on to skating-rink slime and my bruises are going to turn all the colours of the sunset.
There are fish in these rock pools: bright flitting things that shiver and vanish as soon as you put your hands in their warm world. We could catch crabs here, Dog and me.
‘!’ says Dog.
He’s found something.
A dolphin, cast up on to the rocks, its sides bristling with sandflies.
I touch it with my foot and a sweet stench rises, thick and cloying. Its skin is hard as rock and there’s a gaping hole in its side where things live now. All day that smell will follow me.
‘Ugh. Leave it, Dog!’
Its flesh is dry as old bones, dry as my tongue.
When I turn to call Dog, he’s disappeared.
And then I hear him.
His bark sounds smothered and faraway. It’s coming from deep inside the rock face.
I edge myself around the cliffs, but there’s nothing; only more rocks. And all the time, the water swirls blue-as-chlorine, blue-as-plastic, blue-as-daylight.
Where the frick is he?
I stand, bottle in hand, squinting in the sun.
‘Dog?’
The tide is still out but it’s on the turn, little licks and flicks around the tiny beach.
Tucking my bottle in my sling, I strain to hear him.
‘!’ repeats Dog.
The crusted walls scratch my hands as I push on further. All at once something cold and wet touches my leg and I scream.
‘Jesus, Dog, you nearly frickin killed me.’
He disappears again and I curse. Don’t want to be stuck here at high tide, not when there’s the fire to keep going and the dark descends sudden as a hand scribbling over the sun.
Twice I slither and twice I cut my hands on the rocky wall. But then I see the crack in the rocks. And that’s where his bark’s coming from.
I clamber up and stick my head inside and you have to squeeze through the gap in those pressing rocks in order to get inside. Maybe there’s a cave on the other side. Maybe it’s just a never-ending tunnel. I wriggle my shoulders through and am met by solid darkness.
I feel like I cannot go back and I cannot go forward. Like I’m frozen in this dark space. And all the time I’m tortured by that sound, that trickling –
It could be water. You know it could be water –
but I can’t climb into that cave.
I can’t. It’s just too dark. And silent, apart from the dripping.
Suddenly I’m desperate to get out, desperate to see daylight.
I can’t hear Dog any more.
He’s left me again.
Sunken
Dog still hasn’t come back.
He went into the darkness and hasn’t returned. Last night, for the first time in ages, I slept alone. There was no warm body curled into mine, no panting breath hot against my leg.
He went into the cave like he knew it was there.
He left me.
So I lay listening to the heaving sea but all the time I was listening for
the
thunk
of could-be nuts falling to the sand.
But there’s been no wind. Everything is warm and still, as if the island is holding its breath, waiting.
Waiting to die.
I spent hours just calling him. Even pushed through to the back of the crevice where it starts to twist, but I couldn’t go further; couldn’t bear the darkness, those pushing roc
ks. The way my voice echoed back, mocking me.
Maybe Dog’s found a way to the other side of the mountains.
Maybe he’s gone back to Whoever. Will they see my message? Will they tell me how to reach them?
I thirst.
Sometimes I stare into my mirror for hours at a time, just gazing. The girl inside stares back at me through sunken eyes.
I spend hours watching her.
And all the time, through the shimmering smoke of our fire, the sky burns cruel and blue.
Candyfloss
I squat and pee in the sand.
My urine drips dark. I haven’t had any fluids for two days, and three –
three is the magic number –
means death. Everyone knows this.
I know I should be getting could-be nuts down from the trees but when I look upward they are a million miles away, clutched up high in the spindly palms. I reach for them with my finger and touch them, one by one. Then spread my hand and blot them out.
All my thoughts are confused like candyfloss in my head, like clouds –
except there are no clouds.
Once I get a stick; it’s the longest, thinnest one and it even has a fork at the end which would be perfect to hook round those nuts if only I could stand for long enough and if only my head didn’t swim like all the water that’s trapped inside them is sloshing round my brain.
I did try, before.
Dog and me, we used to spend hours trying to get those nuts down. My hands stripped raw from climbing the palm trees, Dog barking below. Like, why would you make a tree with no branches?
No.
• No. of could-be nuts left: 0
• No. of filled water bottles left: 0
• Pond water left: 0
• No. of clouds in the sky: 0
Knock, Knock. Who’s There?
‘Cassie,’ I hiss. ‘Get up.’
’Course, she can’t. There’s stuff all over: sliding piles of magazines and receipts and bills and cans, cans, cans.
I clear the cans away and open the window.