The Trial

by Laura Bates

  When Hayley wriggles out onto the beach it doesn’t offer much relief; her lungs feel hot and thick even outside, like they’re full of cotton wool.

  Shading her eyes with her hand, she looks out towards the sea. Elliot cuts a lonely figure, standing knee-deep in the water, silhouetted like a statue as he patiently pursues more fish. In the distance, she can just see May’s head bobbing along as she swims the length of the island, a morning ritual she claims is keeping her sane.

  The fish they caught last night were a success, of sorts, cooked over the fire on a sharp stick, eager fingertips singed as they scraped scales off soft white flakes and picked minute translucent bones from between their teeth. But there was barely a taste for each of them before the fish were gone, the heads and tails sizzling and spitting in the embers.

  By mid-morning, they’ve run out of coconut water again, the bottles empty and the shallow pit they’ve dug in the shade of the trees to keep a supply of fresh coconuts cool emptied. Hayley hasn’t kept track of how many they’ve consumed, and she didn’t take an exact count of how many were scattered at the foot of the trees on the western coast of the island. But the supply isn’t infinite, and as one long, hot day stretches into another, they’ve been getting through them fast.

  ‘We’re going on a coconut run,’ Brian calls to nobody in particular as Jason charges into the trees. ‘Going to try and get some of the green ones down, Elliot says they’ll have more milk inside.’ He circles his hands around his mouth, shouting through them like a loudspeaker. ‘Yo, Elliot!’ He gestures towards the other side of the island. ‘Come show us what we’re looking for.’

  ‘But—’ Shannon waves a hand dismissively as they disappear without waiting to hear what she had to say. ‘Your funeral,’ she mutters, going back to the damp grass she is carefully twisting into a new length of twine.

  When she’s finished, she ties one end to the top of the tall stake they’ve kept by the fire to split coconuts, and the other end to one of the closest of the palm trees, creating a washing line to hang up some sodden clothes she’s rinsed in the sea.

  ‘Any of the boys help with that?’ May asks as she towels her hair with a dry T-shirt, rolling her eyes when Shannon quietly shakes her head and starts spreading the clothes out on the line.

  The row of dangling shirts and pants hems the camp in neatly, creating a wall on the south side. To the west, the treeline is a few metres away, providing a natural windbreak and helping to keep the fire from being blown out. They’ve built up the fireplace with bigger stones, and around it odd tree stumps, rocks and airplane seat cushions have been placed in a rough circle, providing a focal point where they can gather for food and sit in the evenings.

  A pair of overhead lockers that had been thrown clear of the plane has been dragged nearer to the fire, providing a largely rainproof makeshift cupboard. One side is filled with dry clothes and blankets, the other stacked with firewood.

  When the tide is at its highest, the waves lap at the sand about twenty-five yards from the camp, and when it’s low, the beach stretches out in a molten gold flood, the water so far away you almost can’t see it at all. A little distance to the south, and close to the tideline, the twisted wreck of the plane remains, but it has become almost normal to them. In less than a week, it has morphed from a shocking reminder of their situation to a familiar landmark that Hayley almost doesn’t notice any more.

  The sleeping shelters stretch out in a line to either side of the camp, four for the girls on one side and three for the boys on the other, about ten yards between them, each leaning up against a sturdy palm trunk.

  May and Jessa are sitting in the shade, both wearing black yoga pants and spaghetti strap tops, using white shells and stones rubbed in black soot from the fire to play backgammon on a board scraped into the sand with sticks.

  ‘Double six,’ May gloats, unfolding two scraps of paper she’s picked out of the shoe that holds their makeshift dice.

  ‘Oh really? Again?’ Jessa narrows her eyes suspiciously while May flashes her an angelic smile and skips two of her shells to safety.

  ‘How many sixes are in there, exactly?’ Jessa asks, teasingly, and May quickly changes the subject.

  ‘Does anyone else have their period? Mine’s due soon and I have literally nothing to use.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Shannon says. ‘I had tampons in my bag, but it hasn’t turned up in the stuff from the crash.’ The others shake their heads too.

  ‘I cannot deal with that here,’ May declares, dramatically. ‘We are going to have to get rescued in the next…’ she counts quickly on her fingers… ‘nine days or less. We just have to. It’s non-negotiable.’

  ‘Right,’ says Shannon drily. ‘Because Jessa’s possibly infected arm can wait, but God forbid we should still be here when your Aunt Flo arrives.’

  ‘It’s getting better, I think,’ Jessa interrupts, with forced brightness. She flashes a smile that doesn’t come close to her eyes. ‘I think it’s much better than it was, actually.’ She turns to May, abruptly returning the focus to her best friend. ‘We’ll manage something, sweetie. Rags, or whatever. That’s what they used to do in the old days.’

  ‘Oh good. I’ll look forward to it.’ May pulls a face.

  Jessa leans over to take the shoe and gasps, her face twisting in pain.

  ‘Jessa!’ May leaps to her side, shells and stones scattering beneath her feet.

  ‘It’s nothing, it’s nothing.’ But Jessa’s breathing is heavy and she’s biting down hard on her lower lip.

  ‘Show us,’ Shannon commands, and Jessa reluctantly loosens the scarf sling, groaning as her arm droops into her lap. Gingerly, she begins to unwrap the bandage, and as the layers peel back it darkens with a wet, seeping liquid. Hayley’s gut twists as Jessa finally, delicately lifts the last layer from her arm, revealing a slick, pulpy mess that reminds her sickeningly of the fruit she ate for breakfast.

  ‘Jessa!’ May gasps again, and Jessa swallows hard.

  ‘It’s not as bad as it looks,’ she says, shakily.

  ‘Why didn’t you say something sooner?’ Shannon sounds almost irritated, but Hayley recognises the tone; it’s the same disguised panic that crept into her voice when Coach Robinson cancelled a Saturday practice at the last minute because the gym roof was leaking; the tone that creeps in when something happens that is outside of Shannon’s control.

  ‘Hayley,’ she barks, ‘get the first-aid kit.’ There’s not much left of it: a battered red case that Jason dragged out from under the twisted metal remains of one of the plane seats. They’ve already used one of the bandages, but there’s a tube of ointment, some gauze and plasters.

  ‘Iodine, get the iodine,’ Shannon snaps, and Hayley rummages through the box until she finds a small, shattered bottle at the bottom, shards of glass floating in a sticky pool of dark ochre.

  ‘It’s broken,’ she whispers, helplessly.

  ‘We need something else then,’ May says, smiling reassuringly at Jessa, her voice about two notes higher than usual. ‘Something else that’s a disinfectant.’ She casts around wildly. ‘Alcohol,’ she shouts. ‘How many cop shows have you seen where they pour vodka into a wound when they can’t get to a hospital?’

  ‘Can I just say I am not reassured by how many of our survival attempts on this island have been guided by stuff people have seen on TV?’ Jessa gasps, with a weak smile, though her teeth are gritted against the pain.

  ‘It’s actually not a bad idea,’ Shannon says. ‘We need to clean out that wound.’ But they can’t find any alcohol in the supplies Jason pulled out of the plane, supplies that have dwindled to some pieces of metal and plastic trays, a fire extinguisher and random plastic cutlery, piled neatly next to the overhead locker cupboard.

  ‘There has to be something they missed,’ Hayley says, cautiously approaching the metal carcass of the jet. ‘What kind of a plane doesn’t have those miniature bottles of spirits on board somewhere?’

  She has to bend doubl
e to get inside, wriggling between jagged edges and deformed, unrecognisable shapes. She edges forwards on her knees, passing a pile of smashed glass, long, triangular shards sticking into the sand at odd angles like peanut brittle. And she has to stop for a moment, to let the familiar clench of pain pass, to clear her head of the image of making peanut brittle with her mom in a cosy, steamed-up kitchen, laughing more and more hysterically as it completely failed to set and started bubbling uncontrollably over the stove top.

  Unclench. Breathe. Don’t remember.

  Almost everything that was inside the plane has already been stripped out. The one remaining overhead locker yawns empty, its door hanging wildly off a single hinge. Hayley reaches the tail, where the food would have been stored. A metal trolley lies on its side, its drawers lolling out like dead tongues, emptied of food trays by Jason. But there’s another drawer at the top, a locked drawer that doesn’t look as if it’s been touched. Hayley pulls at the metal handle: something rattles inside.

  With some difficulty, unable fully to turn around in the cramped space, she looks around until she finds a loose, thin piece of metal. She slides it into the narrow slit at the top of the drawer and begins to wiggle it back and forth, forcing the flimsy lock. The drawer judders open, revealing rows of shining glass bottles with brightly coloured labels and metal caps. ‘Bingo,’ she calls, grabbing a handful.

  Jessa screams when Shannon pours the vodka into her wound. She can’t help it. Her lips curl back from her teeth and tears spring to her eyes as her fingernails dig deep into May’s hand.

  The liquid runs black, then brown, then yellow, then red, like a grotesque rainbow.

  ‘That’s cleaned some of it out at least,’ Shannon says, apologetically. She pours another bottle over her own fingers to clean them, then gently dabs ointment into the wound, pausing each time Jessa flinches. Then she carefully dresses it with the remaining clean bandage.

  ‘We need to get you a drink,’ Shannon says firmly. ‘The boys should have been back with the coconuts by now. I’d say they’ve had long enough to attempt it on their own. Shall we?’

  ‘Not you, sweetie,’ May says firmly, as Jessa tries to get to her feet. She gently ties the orange sling back around her best friend’s arm. ‘You stay here and try to rest.’

  ‘Don’t tell the guys,’ Jessa whispers, as they leave. ‘They’re not strong enough to take it. They think they are, but…’ She sighs and closes her eyes.

  * * *

  The boys, when they reach the other side of the island, are a sorry sight. Brian is sitting in the sand, panting, nursing what looks like a split fingernail. Jason is clinging a few feet up the trunk of a palm tree, sweat beading his forehead, cheeks puffed, desperately clamping his knees together and pushing himself up a few inches only to slide back down several inches more. And Elliot is stripped to the waist, trying unsuccessfully to use his T-shirt as a makeshift catapult, flinging rocks towards the green coconuts clustered twelve feet above him, his missiles going nowhere near his targets but landing dangerously close to the others.

  ‘Knock it off,’ Brian shouts, angrily, as one of the stones whistles past his elbow. They’re so wrapped up in their exertions that they don’t even hear the girls emerging from the trees.

  May takes in the scene and starts to laugh, a wicked, infectious cackle that shakes her whole body.

  Hayley is starting to think that each person on the island has a ‘tell’, like in a game of poker. Whenever anyone mentions how unlikely they are to be rescued, Jessa’s fingers worry at the little cross around her neck, without her even seeming to realise it. Jason goes quiet at first when he’s worried, but then his silence builds up and builds up inside him until it bursts out in a fit of expletives, usually aimed at Elliot. Shannon becomes hypercritical, her sarcasm sailing off the charts. Elliot withdraws, back into his familiar, silent shell. Brian seems to swell, somehow, wrestling whole saplings out of the ground and pounding away at the coconut stake like he can smash his feelings away. And when May is scared, she becomes exuberant, a sparkling, bubbling stream of songs and giggles.

  ‘It won’t be so funny when you don’t have anything to drink tonight,’ Jason says, his low voice angry.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ May gasps, trying to catch her breath, ‘I’m sorry. But it’s just… has it not occurred to any of you guys that you have a group of people here with the exact skillset you need?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Jason slides irritably down from the trunk, rubbing his grazed palms.

  Shannon cracks her knuckles and takes a deep breath. She flicks up her head, smiles widely and strikes a pose, beneath the palm tree, one arm in the air, the other hand jauntily on her hip. ‘Go, go, Ridge Raptors, go,’ she chants, and the boys look at her like she’s crazy, but Hayley suddenly sees what she’s doing and the same realisation is dawning on May’s face too as she moves to stand behind her captain.

  ‘Go, team, go! Get into formation!’

  And as the guys watch, Hayley moves smoothly, lining herself up directly in front of Shannon, her feet planted shoulder-width apart, knees slightly bent, hands firmly on thighs. Ready and braced for the impact as Shannon leaps lightly up behind her, planting one bare foot in the crease at the back of her knee, the next in the small of her back and then pushing herself deftly up, placing first one and then the other foot on Hayley’s shoulders.

  ‘Steady now,’ Shannon whispers, and Hayley grips the top of Shannon’s calves as they both focus carefully on a spot out in front of them, thinking of nothing but balance, as May scampers, catlike, up Hayley’s back, clasping Shannon’s hands, using Hayley’s wrist as a stepping-stone and finally emerges on Shannon’s shoulders, straightening carefully, triumphantly to her full height, her bare toes curled in a tight grip.

  Hayley hears the wild applause of the crowd rushing in her ears, feels the tingling sense of elation she had when they’d pulled off this formation at the end of the last game of the tour. They’d finished out the trip at Duke’s Academy, a prestigious Texas private school packed with the children of elite oil oligarchs and banking bosses. It was a rush, that last game. They were five points behind coming into the last quarter, and Hayley saw the strained looks on the boys’ faces as Erickson brought them in for the huddle. Sweat dripped from Elliot’s face, Erickson was shouting something, his clenched fist smacking into his palm, Jason animated beside him. Shannon was vibrating in front of Hayley, her face alight with intense excitement, outlining their final routine, urging them to give it everything they had.

  She felt the pressure ramp up as the whistle blew, forcing her high kick higher than she’d ever managed before, the roar of the crowd whirling her out of her handspring as Brian made a basket, followed quickly by a free throw from Elliot, closing the gap between the teams to just two points. And as she felt Shannon’s toes dig into the back of her knee, as the last moments of the game ticked away on the clock, Jason took a long shot from outside the three-point arc, the ball sailing past May as she straightened on top of Shannon’s shoulders, the triumphant climax of the routine perfectly coinciding with the ball swishing lightly through the net and winning them the game.

  A wide grin spread across her face as the crowd noise surrounded her like a wave, aware of the tension in her every muscle as she strained to keep perfectly still. She felt better than she ever could have imagined this could make her feel. And as May and Shannon backflipped smoothly down to land, as they were enveloped in a chaotic, elated scrum of hugs and back-slapping and sweaty necks, she was, for a moment, one of the squad.

  That had been when one of the Duke cheerleaders, a tall, pretty girl with curly red hair, had come over to congratulate them and invite them to a party at her house. ‘To celebrate your last night on tour,’ she’d said, with a wink. And Brian had laughed, saying something gross about how much action he could fit into one night, and one of the Duke players shrieked that it would be wild, and Shannon laughed, Jason suddenly there with his arm around her shoulders, his
lips on her mouth. Meanwhile, Hayley’s feeling of lightness and excitement quickly hardened into the usual foreboding that preceded any major social gathering – especially a house party with strangers – and she mentally flicked through underwhelming outfit combinations, already planning her excuses for slipping away early.

  May lurches suddenly to the left, wrenching Hayley back to the present. ‘OW! Careful!’ Shannon shouts crossly from above.

  ‘Sorry, mosquito!’ May gently prods at the bunch of coconuts now immediately in front of her and frowns. ‘Well, are you all just going to stand there gawping or is somebody going to pass me something to cut them down with?’

  Elliot hands the cutting stone over wordlessly, Hayley passing it without looking to Shannon, who reaches up to May, who bends slowly down to get it, one arm out wide for balance.

  ‘Well, we did not think of that,’ Brian mutters, sheepishly, as May begins to cut delicately through the stalk of the first coconut.

  ‘Catch!’ She tosses it in Elliot’s direction and he jumps forward, arms outstretched.

  The young coconuts are different: their husks are shinier and tougher, and opening them is harder work. It takes Brian almost half an hour of carving and swearing at one before he finally reaches the hairy brown shell inside. But it’s worth the effort. The meat of these coconuts is less developed, a jelly-like layer almost like underboiled egg whites that clings to the tongue with a rubbery wobble. ‘It’s like sick flavour blancmange,’ Brian whinges, letting it drip out of his mouth into the sand. But there’s at least twice as much water inside these nuts, its taste far sweeter and fresher than what they’ve become used to. They won’t need to worry about thirst again, at least not for a few days.