by Olivia Levez
Bob’s your frickin uncle?
‘Here.’
He passes me a tomato, fat and warm from the sun, and I bite into it greedily. It’s hot and juicy and just about the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted. I use the TeamSkill polo to rub juice off my chin and think of my own crappy attempts to find food. In fact, hasn’t the main fruit I’ve found been the poison-berries?
Rufus is humming away, fiddling with some string he’s tied around his pepper plants.
‘By the way, jolly nice bikini you’re wearing.’
‘You what?’
But my gorgon glare seems to have no effect. Rufus is turning his head to flick off an enormous bug, but not before I see him smiling.
A pause.
‘I mean, it’s kind of making me wish I had some matching trunks, although personally I prefer Squidward or perhaps Mr Krabs…’
I stare at him. ‘You’re taking the piss, right?’
But he’s bending over, squishing bugs or whatever the hell gardeners do. Then he straightens up and passes me something.
‘Here – taste that.’
It’s a red pepper.
Crunch.
It’s hard to be a rock when there’s a million taste buds having a party in your mouth.
Bob’s Your Uncle
Rufus walks with a swing, slashing stray creepers with his machete while Dog dances at his feet.
Prat. Wanker. Tit.
He’s got me working straight away. It’s like I’m at his snooty school on one of their stupid army courses.
The minute I’m up on my feet, he makes me:
Water all the veg.
Collect dry sticks.
Help him cut down tree trunks.
Assist him in making another bed for myself to sleep in.
And his rules:
‘Oh, you need to put your shoes over here,’ he says.
‘And it’s probably best if you don’t touch my machete. Best tool we’ve got – took me ages to make it from one of the plane’s fan blades.’
‘I like to sort the logs in terms of size, so that it’s more efficient regulating the cooking temperature.’
Rules and lists all the time.
The tree-cutting is the worst.
He marches on through his garden and down into the forest which contains the waterfall and the tunnel opening.
I trail behind him, scowling.
All I want is for it to be just me and Dog. We might have been a bit crap sometimes, but we got there, mostly. And there was no one telling me what to do.
I imagine burning holes through Rufus’s stupid flapping headdress and his peeling freckled back; taking a match and watching his grass skirt shoot up into flame.
‘OK, so you need to press down on this end whilst I bounce up and down on it until it splits. But first of all, I’m going to chop at it to give a dent.’
I fold my arms and deliberately don’t look at him as he strikes at the trunk again and again, his headdress swinging. I concentrate on an insect instead; it’s moving up a fallen log, front legs feeling the air stiffly, like it’s made of clockwork. It’s big as my head and would be good to eat. I bash its head quickly with a stone and put it into my Hello Kitty bag, which I’ve strung from my waist.
I’ve got a mismatched pair of flip-flops from Rufus’s collection and one of his home-made knives tucked into my palm skirt.
I can hear the waterfall from here. Its hiss and rush is lovely but it makes me need to –
I leave my Hello Kitty bag where it is, and find a suitable spot in the trees.
I’m squatting on the forest floor when Rufus’s voice makes me jump.
‘We’re ready to call timber now, Frances.’
‘Can’t you see I’m busy?’ I snap.
Why does he always flush like that? So that the skin around his freckles is stained bright pink?
‘Gosh – so sorry. It’s just that I need you to –’
‘All right, all right, I’m coming.’
I yank up my SpongeBobs and follow him to the tree, glaring.
‘These saplings are the best for uprights,’ Rufus is saying.
‘Yeah right, whatever.’
‘So if you would just hold that end down whilst I come and put weight on it…’
I hold the tree trunk where he’s pointing and immediately it springs back up, nearly having my eye out.
‘For frick’s sake.’
‘Watch out, won’t you? Here, I’ll get hold of it again.’
Time and time again, he tells me to hold the tree, but it’s stupid and impossible; the tree’s too strong and heavy and there’s no way I’ve got the strength to hold it down while he messes around at the other end with his big-man knife.
So I put less and less effort into it each time; I can tell he’s getting wound up by the way he takes a deep breath every time he speaks to me. He’s got the same sort of tone that Miss had that time I told her I’d eaten my mock paper:
‘Right. One more time then.’
‘Over there where I told you.’
‘Remember you need to press all your weight down, like I said.’
Blah blah blah.
He’s lobster red in this heat. Doesn’t seem to be able to cope as well in the sun as I can. Somehow this fact gives me great pleasure.
Look at him, with his stupid headdress flapping around like a frickin –
‘Christ almighty.’
This is when the sapling whacks him against the head for the fourth time.
I shrug.
Rufus leans against the tree, breathing heavily.
‘OK,’ he says at last, and I’m surprised he has still kept his temper.
We both look at the half-fallen tree.
‘Why don’t you do it?’ he says.
‘What?’
‘Why don’t you do it? I’ll sit on the branch at the top, and you use the machete to finish the job off. Here.’
And he passes his knife.
I stare at the machete in my hands. It’s big and heavy and glint-sharp. Of course, it’s totally professional-looking. Unlike my pathetic attempt at a knife, this one could have walked straight off a survival programme.
‘Fine,’ I say, casually.
Rufus yanks down the top half of the tree and throws all his weight on it, even getting his leg over like he’s riding a horse. The tree bounces and creaks.
‘OK,’ he calls through the branches. ‘Ready?’
‘Yeah.’
I carefully place the machete against the dent he’s made; then lift it back and hack it against the cut. The tree’s like iron.
But there’s something satisfying about using such a serious knife after all that time with a stick and a tin lid, and I use all my strength for the second whack.
Imagine it’s Rufus, with his stupid feathers and bossiness.
Whack.
Here’s one for Angela, with her fake concern and rising lies.
Whack.
And a ’specially hard one for Big Wayne.
Whack.
And each time Rufus throws all his weight on to the trunk like he’s a WWF wrestler.
Gradually the tree cracks.
When it goes, Rufus leaps off and I snatch back the machete, panting. Trees and twigs rain down on us as the sapling smashes a space in the clearing.
‘Timber,’ Rufus howls, as Dog spins and barks.
I stand beside them and we all stare down at the fallen tree.
I act cool as anything when Rufus high-fives me.
But inside I’m thinking yesss and my heart’s thudding so hard I swear it’s too big for my ribcage.
Barbed Wire
We fell three more trees, sharing a drink of could-be-nut water after each one.
Rufus sharpens a stick with a few slashes of his machete and jabs it down to pierce the top of the could-be-nut. Takes him about three seconds.
He hands me the first one in his ever-so-polite way.
‘Peepa?’
‘You what?’ I say, taking it.
‘A young coconut. In some parts of the world islanders call them peepas.’
‘Oh.’
I make a mental note of the word. Peepa. I like it.
After a quick break, Rufus stands up and claps his hands together. ‘OK, um. Now to take them back.’
I stare at the huge pile of trees. ‘You are joking?’
But he’s already at the other end, hacking off the smaller branches.
Swearing under my breath, I gather up the lighter wood into a pile so that we can come back and collect it later for the fire. When Rufus bends to lift the heaviest end, I take the other.
The journey back is torture. The spikes that are all that’s left of the branches get caught up in the undergrowth and we have to stop constantly so that Rufus can hack away at the creepers to clear room. And mosquitoes are eating us.
We end up padding our shoulders with my Hello Kitty bag and his shirt. I don’t admit it to him but by the end I think that the wood is going to smash straight through to my collarbone.
At one stage I can see the mosquitoes, whizzing around Rufus’s head like it’s a beacon. He’s going to suffer later. But he doesn’t complain. Ever. Just picks up the trunk again and resettles it against his shoulder. I close my eyes when he does this, ignoring the fire in my flesh and especially the image that keeps coming into my brain: of barbed wire grinding into raw hamburger.
By the end of the day we have:
Four uprights.
A neatly stacked pile of smaller branches.
And a whole load of throbbing pain.
Rufus rubs his hands together.
‘Super work,’ he says.
Cliffhanger
‘What’s up there, Rufus?’ I ask him one morning.
We’re eating the last of the tomatoes for breakfast. Rufus has been keeping the seeds on his drying shelf and has some baby tomato plants in his melon garden, but it’ll be weeks before we can eat them again. Dog is licking fish scales from last night’s dinner off a chopping board.
Rufus looks up to where I’m pointing.
‘Oh, that’s the mountain. Fear Mountain, I call it. I reckon it’s the highest point on the island. You can probably see all the way across to the north side where you lived.’
‘Have you climbed it?’
He shakes his head.
‘Why not?’
‘Not much point. It’d just be a waste of energy,’ he says, but he doesn’t look at me.
‘I want to climb it.’
‘I don’t think that would be a good idea.’
‘Why not? I want to see the whole of the island. There may be parts we haven’t explored yet. We could find more food, animals…’
Rufus busies himself with the fire, piling on more green palm leaves to keep the smoke going.
‘Come on,’ I say. ‘Let’s explore.’
‘I really don’t think –’
I kick at the log pile sulkily. ‘Why is it that you always have to decide what we should and shouldn’t do?’ I grab his knife. ‘Fine. I’ll just go by myself.’
I’ve reached the melon pile when he comes after me.
‘You’re not going alone,’ he snaps.
But the skin between his freckles is pale.
Here, the rock is white like ash.
The rich green of Rufus’s garden and the small amount of forest that skirts it falls away to a scrubby blankness, the colour of recycled paper.
It’s hard going but I’m determined. I want to prove Rufus wrong; I want to return to camp with loads of stuff or at least a mental map of the island. And I’m desperate to see the rest of the island; to feel light and space and air around me after spending so long in his hot little garden.
I miss One Tree Beach –
Dead Man’s Bay –
but mostly, I miss seeing all that sky, all that blue with its endless, careless shimmer.
I don’t care that the stones are scattering and getting into my shoes and trickling over the path. I don’t care or wonder how far behind Rufus is. I wonder what made this tiny path, whether it’s rabbits or goats or whatever else may live on this island as well as us.
‘Look – animal tracks,’ I call.
There are footprints: pairs of semicircles planted at angles to each other, like a cake with a piece missing. Looks like whatever did them was a lot heavier than a rabbit.
Dog is darting up and down and I smile. It feels like old times, just me and him.
But Rufus is trailing far behind us, holding a sturdy stick he’s plucked from the thicket. Normally he’d be the first to notice. Why the frick is he being so slow?
‘I can see our fire from here,’ I call. ‘The smoke signal’s good – look.’ I point down to where a steady plume of thick white smoke is rising.
Rufus looks over the edge. I notice that the knuckles around his stick are white-tight.
‘You all right?’
‘Yes.’ His voice is strained.
I shrug and continue upward.
I wonder whether there are goats here.
‘Would there be goats?’ I call.
I can hear Rufus breathing heavily behind me and get annoyed. Why doesn’t he hurry up?
I want someone to share this with me; this feeling of freedom as the blueblueblue spreads endless shimmering wings and it’s above and around and below me, all this space –
I stumble over a loose stone and steady myself with my hand on the rocky ground.
‘Whoops,’ I laugh. ‘God, it’s high up here, isn’t it?’
I have to be careful; only a finger’s width separates me from this rock and the million miles down below to the ocean. I dislodge a rock and a handful of small stones skitters down the track.
‘For Christ’s sake, be careful.’ Rufus’s voice is tight and high.
I turn round to look down at him and then I get it.
‘So that’s it: you’re scared of heights.’
He’s on his hands and knees now, and his face is white-sweat as he grips his stick and holds on to a rock. He’s breathing in and out, hwoo hwoo hwoo.
‘You’ve got – what d’you call it – vertigo.’
‘What if I have?’ he says through clenched teeth.
‘But you don’t need to be scared, it’s fine. Look.’
And I spin my arms round like Maria from The Sound of frickin Music. Just because I can.
‘What are you doing?’ His voice is almost a scream.
‘All right, all right.’ I steady myself, giggling. I do feel a bit giddy. ‘Come on up – I’ll give you a hand.’
‘No. Thank you.’
‘Suit yourself.’
I turn away from him and continue to climb. And it really is climbing now; the animal tracks, whatever they were, have long gone. Dog has vanished somewhere, probably looking for rabbits. There’s certainly enough animal droppings here.
I leave Rufus clutching his rock and claw my way to a rocky outcrop, right at the top. It’s next to a little scrubby tree, clinging with all its strength to the edge of the mountain.
It’s tricky, but I manage it.
And the view is
A-frickin-mazing.
What I see is:
One Tree Beach, snaking around to my right like a silver necklace. For the first time I realise how much damage the storm did to my part of the island. I can see lighter patches of crushed trees, as if a giant has punched a fist into them. Rufus’s side is untouched; I suppose the mountains must have protected it somehow. It’s like the storm chose my beach – my camp – deliberately, to scribble it out.
There are dark blobs on the beach here and there, with seabirds buzzing around them like flies, but I don’t think of them.
The jungle, thrown over the island like a fur cloak. It’s much bigger than I imagined and I shudder when I think how easy it was to get lost; how easy it would’ve been to never find a way out.
Our camp, with its rising smoke. That patch there m
ust be the watermelons. And the green fold must be Waterfall Valley with its scrawl of jungle.
Behind me is the cove I could never get to ’cause of the tide. Me and Dog must have passed right under this mountain to get to this side of the island, right through its belly.
I look straight down, holding on to the scraggy little tree for safety. There are rock stacks and frothing currents and inlets with tiny beaches, hot-white and much smaller than One Tree Beach. Beyond them, the ocean stretches far as a dream.
But not empty.
A glimpse of something shiny. As I squint at it, it winks back at me in the sun.
Then it’s gone; a cloud passes over and I frown.
‘Oh my God,’ I shout.
I begin to scramble my way down, slithering, falling on the loose scree.
‘Rufus, Rufus!’
He’s staring up at me, his mouth a black O of terror.
‘Frances? What are you doing? What are you –’
He screams as I slide into him and he loses his grip on the rock and we both go slithering down on our backsides –
‘Christ, ouch, shit’ –
till I grab hold of the trunk of a thorn bush and we both lie there, gasping.
Then Rufus unpeels his hands from my legs and sits up.
‘Why are you such an absolute shitty bitch?’ he bursts out, crimson-faced.
So?
I’ve been called worse.
I watch Rufus let himself down the rest of the rock face on his bottom, shuffling carefully and taking a million years to find the right places with his hands.
I walk behind him, enjoying the sun on my back, the light and space around me.
Inside, I’m hugging a wonderful secret.
But I won’t tell him yet.
Because Rufus can be a right prat sometimes.
Cabbages and Snails
Rufus is strangely quiet when we get back.
He doesn’t look at me as he busies himself around camp, laying aside the fishing net he’s been trying to mend as he starts to make dinner.