Only the Ocean

by Natasha Carthew

  She leaned on to the raft and lifted her legs out of the water to test the bounce, and when it didn’t sink she jumped up on to her stomach and lay flat with her breath held tight until she could trust the platform to not capsize. Kel sat up and settled the oar in the water to steady herself. She let out a little breath, and then a little more, and then she put a hand against her heart and came close to uttering a promise-prayer that said something about doing the best she could. She dug the oar into the sea occasionally and she lifted the water and watched it trickle over the ridges of plastic.

  She wished she’d had the foresight to build the boat when first they had smashed into the island, but back then seemed like a hundred days in the past. Time was a stop-start carry on anyway. Since the Kethovek it had developed parallel zones and realities and there had been moments after the boat capsized that it stopped altogether. Minutes had become hours and hours became a lifetime of cold black night.

  Kel took the vessel as far as she dared and she marked the ridge of rock that surrounded their cove and she told herself yes, it was doable. They were stubborn rocks, but together they would leave the island tomorrow for good.

  Back on the beach she pulled the boat a little way out of the water and she tied some of the netting rope she had found earlier to the bow of the boat and secured the other end to a rock that protruded from the sand and she tied it tight until there was no rope left to knot and she went to sit by Rose who had woken recent.

  ‘There’s a few winkles if you want them,’ said Rose, and she passed Kel a fistful of wet chew.

  ‘Thanks.’ Kel put one in her mouth and swallowed it down with a gulp of water.

  ‘So?’ Rose asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘How’s the raft coming along?’

  ‘It’s good,’ she said. ‘It works.’ She looked at Rose and told her about the ring of rocks that circled their bay.

  ‘Can you get past it with me in the raft if it’s mostly rock? You struggled to float just me around those rock pools.’

  ‘It’ll work, it has to.’

  Kel picked up the baby and she sat him in her lap for his feed. ‘Won’t be long now,’ she told him. It would not be long until they were freed from the island shackles; freed and rescued and saved good and proper.

  She petted the baby’s head and held him up so she could look into his eyes. What it was to be innocent and without worry, an eager face and untarnished spirit ready to take on the world. He started to cry and she passed him over to Rose for the calm.

  Tomorrow they would win this game called life. At first light they would be up and out and off; packed and settled on the raft and heading out toward the sea. Once more upon the deep unfathomable blue, not quite back on track but heading somewhere other.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Kel couldn’t recall when it was that the bit-bad and unusual weather upgraded itself into the next category of storm. She lay in the cavity that was nestled between sleep and awake and listened to the roaring waves. She told herself it was just a dream, it had to be. She opened her eyes and sat up straight, felt the fear creep up her spine and sit heavy across her shoulders. At the mouth of the cave she could see the top layer of sand had been lifted by the wind and it blew across the beach and made dunes of the rocks. The tide had changed too, giant waves heaved from the ocean floor and crashed against the shoreline.

  Kel looked across the fire toward Rose, and when she saw that the girl was still sleeping she crept from the cave. To know the storm fully was to put them someplace within it; to have the hammer fall or keep it firmly in hand.

  Kel stood with the world hurtling towards her and she shielded her eyes from the torrent to focus on what the dawn light cared to show and she looked for the raft. She ran down the stubby thin-strip of sand toward the place where she had anchored it yesterday but found the rock was buried in shifted sand, whilst the raft had completely disappeared. She fell to her knees and dug her hands into the sand but it was no use, the vessel she had so lovingly constructed was gone.

  Kel waded into the grappling surf and peered east to where the early morning light revealed all in its pointing and she saw fully what destruction the night’s run-river rain had caused. The cliff that was once a clean cake-slice of rock was nothing now but a mountain of silt and tumble stones falling into the rolling waves. It was as if the island was melting and with it Kel and Rose and the baby were dissolving the same. She wrapped her arms around herself in some pretence of normality and looked toward the cave. This was where they lived. A cavity cut into the earth, a triple grave. The raft that was going to save them and bring them back toward the living was gone and it was gone good. No matter how far she dared to step into the surf and stretched herself to peer toward the other bay, nothing but a great big barrel of empty glared back.

  Kel knew even before the thumping waves tripped her that she should turn back, but the image of the raft was scratched so mighty in her mind that she could see it and see it and see it. She could see the raft in her mind and she felt like it was in reach and so she stretched and paddled and then she swam. When her feet were swept clean of any grounding and a little salt water sloshed in her gut, Kel finally turned into the waves and she let them pick and tip her and return her to the shore.

  She lay in the encroaching tide, heavy rain making pools of her eyes and she emptied herself fully of care. The island would not let her go; suddenly Kel knew this without any doubt. It was as if she were paralysed both inside and out. Everything had stopped and was broken and gone.

  She could hear Rose calling out and she wondered what she might say to her to make all the wrong partway right. If there were one right thing to say that would have her grasp hold of hope then Kel would think it and say it, but all faith was lost.

  She reached for her notebook and threw it into the sea. No more dreams, no more plans worth making.

  Kel looked to where Rose was huddled in the cave with the screaming baby and she got up with the crazy wind pushing her every which way and she went to them. She did not speak and she picked up the boy and they watched as he sucked the last bit of strength from her.

  Kel thought about what it must be like for him. To be oblivious to the wilds, unaware of the weather in all its extremities and the ravishing hunger that was twisting her belly down to a bud. She doubted if he even heard the island’s noise in its proper form, the constant forever running wind that had burrowed its way into her ears and threatened to live there always, minute after hour after every day. She looked up from the baby to see Rose’s eyes set on her and Kel asked her what it was she wanted her to say.

  ‘Something,’ said Rose simply, her eyes filling with tears. ‘Something more than nothing.’

  Just then they heard movement above their heads, a shifting of earth and rock, they could see it tumble at the mouth of the cave. It fell like a waterfall.

  Kel shoved the baby into Rose’s arms.

  ‘I can’t believe this is happenin,’ she said. One thing after another, the island did not want them to leave. She looked at Rose and shook her head and all she could think to say was game over, so she kept her words to herself. She was all out of ideas, empty of any notion and thought besides dying. She went tentatively toward where the mouth of the cave used to be and put her hands against the rocks that had fallen there, her fingers gripped, pulling but nothing fell loose.

  ‘We’re trapped.’ Kel turned to Rose and looked at her through the dim light. ‘There int no way back.’

  ‘You can’t give up on us,’ said Rose.

  Kel cleared her throat. ‘I int,’ she lied, and she reached for the baby and put him on her shoulder.

  ‘There’s a sliver of light at the top,’ said Rose. ‘You could try and push through.’

  ‘Dint you hear me? We’re trapped, buried alive.’ Kel could feel the surge of panic rising in her, an ocean rushing, and she turned her head into the baby’s; to smell him and feel his warm cheek on hers was to keep the fear at bay one minut
e longer. She thought she could hear his heartbeat, hear her own. The sudden silence that ballooned within the cave was the worst kind of noise, it was everywhere, went nowhere. The cave was a death knell; it smelt of the damp cliff, wet smoke, dead things.

  Kel sank to the floor of the cave and closed her eyes and hid down deep in that well of despair. She could hear Rose’s voice and felt her hand on her leg, but all things that were love and comfort were a million miles from Kel now and when the baby started to cry Rose took him from her and Kel dropped into the space where he had been. If ever there was uncharted land, then this was it; a world where Kel did not belong.

  In the little light that remained in the cave Kel watched as Rose settled the baby to some level of sleep before coming to lie near and Kel let the girl stretch to her and put her arms around her.

  Rose told her it was going to be all right and she lifted Kel’s face to look at her and she repeated what she said.

  Kel looked into her eyes and that was when she fell head first. She couldn’t speak, and didn’t know what to say even if she could. Her words clogged the back of her throat and sat fat and larded on her tongue. It was as if everything that had been inside her now lay strewn all around them; her life chewed over and spat out and stamped to dust.

  Rose continued to talk. ‘I’m just telling you what you’ve been telling me all along.’ She wiped Kel’s face with the corner of some rag and it was a surprise to both of them to see tears there.

  ‘You’re daft, do you know that?’ said Rose. ‘Daft, for all your tough ways.’

  Kel tried to laugh.

  ‘It’s true. I know more about you than you know yourself.’

  Kel doubted it and she looked away with shame, and when Rose tilted her head back to look at her again she felt a hundred times shame for the things she had done.

  The two girls looked at each other for what seemed like forever and when Rose leaned close to kiss her it was the only thing left to do in the world that made any kind of sense.

  Kel felt the loose detritus that had fallen from her beginning to rebuild, and where it stacked back up it felt twice tougher than before. Rose breathed life into her as they kissed, and they held each other close until the day became night became day again.

  Neither girl spoke to keep the moment complete and Kel was grateful for the small mercy that was the world standing still for them. A moment’s peace and a moment’s grace in which to become themselves once more. She pushed Rose from her just a little to see her face in the falling firelight and she told her she was sorry for the kidnap, that she was not just sorry but a hundred times sorry.

  Rose smiled. ‘I know,’ she said simply.

  ‘If I’d known how things would turn out, thought bout what it was I was doin, I dunno.’

  Rose put a finger to Kel’s lips. ‘It doesn’t matter now,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t matter because here we are, and everything good has been swapped for bad and everything bad has been swapped for good. Everything has been equalled out.’

  Kel started to laugh. ‘That’s a funny way of lookin at it.’

  ‘I’m, right though, aren’t I. Something good has come out of this.’

  Kel nodded and she realised that what had developed between them was not just good but everything that was great and growing.

  She didn’t know what to say and she kept her head lowered to hide the hot burn-bubble that was coming into her cheeks. She wanted to sing out for the happy and cry for the misery that was the island and the corpses they were becoming. Everything had arrived too late, and that was the story of her life.

  Kel sat up and she couldn’t help but look at Rose some more for the picture she painted. Through her eyes Kel set a home fire hearth burning for the both of them and its brightness fuelled the future bright the same. She realised that Rose was home to her. She was the home that Kel had never known, and maybe there was a life worth living out there for them, a place beyond the swamps and too far away from the ocean for anything except glimpsing it in the disance.

  She wanted to know ‘what now’, and was about to ask out loud when Rose answered her with a smile. ‘We’re going to get off the island.’ Rose nodded. ‘Get off the island and back to a life worth living.’

  Rose’s words were like a jab of fresh blood thinking. There had to be another way off the island, there just had to be. She turned to look at the rear of the cave and saw that a little of the slate-rock had fallen away.

  ‘That’s it!’ she shouted.

  She went to the back of the cave and she peered into the hole that bored high and deep into the rock. She closed her eyes and felt a little breeze against her cheek and it made her smile. Everything that wasn’t then was again and the possibilities for surviving were endless and Kel wondered if the island held the puzzle-piece to living.

  ‘What can you see back there?’ asked Rose.

  ‘The cave, it goes on forever.’ Kel stretched to hold the lighter and she strained so as to see fully into the crack and she watched the flame dance in the wind as the light fanned out into the wide cavernous room.

  ‘It’s big,’ she said and she turned to look at Rose, ‘bigger than you’d think.’

  ‘How big?’

  ‘Forever big. Makes you wonder how the island stays up.’

  ‘Well it might not stay up for much longer. Half of it’s been dumped in the sea since last night.’

  Kel sat down by the fire and she checked over the torches she had been making in the evenings with tar and rags.

  ‘Do you honestly think those rags are going to hold up?’ asked Rose. ‘Whilst all the while we go down and through and miraculously pop out somewhere else? Are you mad?’

  Kel didn’t know what to say. It was better than nothing.

  ‘If you ask me those rags won’t hold up,’ Rose continued. ‘But I suppose it’s worth trying.’

  Kel nodded. She had been planning and thinking and it had all come down to this. She’d been preparing for something completely different, but now this moment was upon her she found she was prepared for it all the same. They had torches for finding a way and food for eating and sticks for supporting Rose, they could do it. She packed up everything worth bothering about, including the smoked dolphin, and nothing Rose might have said in way of caution would have made any difference to her. All they could hope for was that the tunnel through the cave led somewhere and that somewhere was outside. Kel splintered and rebandaged Rose’s leg to a position worthy of straight and standing and this was how she guided her into the cavity at the back of the cave. When Rose was through Kel passed her the baby and pushed through the bag of stuff and threw in the torches and she followed with a leap of faith because that was what it was, a leap and a jump and a stumble into the unknown. Inside the new gape of rock Kel lit the torch and they stood like trespassers in an alien world, the dripping fungal walls and the smell of dead sea things strangling their throats. A screw-hole in the earth that had been sculpted by the scratching ocean.

  Kel looked at Rose and she saw the fear that was never far from either of them return and she took her hand, jostled the baby central in the knotted sack on her back and held the torch out in front of her to see the winding pathway in front of them. ‘Let’s go.’

  Kel made sure to keep some light stretched above their heads to watch for falling stalactites loosened by the storm and she took her time to step further into this new world.

  ‘Shouldn’t be long,’ she told herself, ‘wherever it leads. The island’s only small, we swam halfway round it gettin here and that dint take so long.’

  ‘It isn’t as simple going underground though, is it?’ said Rose. ‘Not so simple if we end up heading at all angles. And we don’t know if it goes all ways through, do we.’

  Kel ignored her and she continued on the thin winding and only route available to them. To think about a path that went nowhere would have been to think about a world without hope and this was her only hope; it would work because it had to.

&n
bsp; Occasionally the path became so thin that it was nothing more than a string line for drawing, and it was during these times that Kel had to settle the baby into a push-dip in the bag on the ground and help Rose circumnavigate the steep, unforgiving gorge. They went slow and that was fine, because time did not matter now in any case. It had given up on them a long time ago. Not since the first day that Kel had woken on the island had she seen a full morning or night; every one was cut into and cut through with a stony stab of grey. So they went on and when the path widened they stopped to fill their lungs with the breath space it afforded them, a room within a room in which to stretch the confining rock walls from their bones.

  ‘How you doin?’ Kel held the torch between them and they stood in the circle of light like holy men.

  ‘I’ve been better.’

  ‘How much walkin you got left in your legs?’

  Rose shrugged. ‘As much as it takes. We’re halfway aren’t we? Seems to me like it’s cutting clean through the island.’ She put the sticks she’d been using to walk down on to the floor so she could flex her hands.

  Kel nodded yes and inside she hoped to all the island spirits that they were right. ‘You ready to push on?’

  Rose didn’t speak. Instead she jostled the bag on to her back and picked up the sticks and the two girls set off once more.

  There were times when Kel thought she saw light up ahead and she shielded her torch, and what was there wasn’t and what wasn’t was. Firefly flashes of faith for the living. She wanted to tell Rose what she had seen, but the ticking time bomb that was madness was not quite for sharing and the light might have been nothing more than reflection from the one in her own hand. So she kept quiet and even when the light grew larger she kept her eyes from it.