Girl. Boy. Sea.

by Chris Vick

  When not paddling with my single oar I looked and listened for a boat or a plane.

  I found a line and hook in the hold. Tried fishing, using bits of tuna or baked bean as bait. But the ‘bait’ turned to mush in the water.

  I looked again for planes. But there was nothing. There kept being nothing, hour after hour, day after day.

  *

  Sea states are measured 0 to 9. 1 is ripples, 11 is the mother of all storms.

  This was zero.

  In the storm the sky and sea had tried to kill me. Now, I thought: They’re still trying, only more slowly. I had this image in my head: The boat drifting ashore. A skeleton in the rags of a stupid cartoon duck t-shirt and shorts. Birds have pecked off my flesh; the sun has whitened my bones. There’s no way to ID my skeleton at first, just a notebook wrapped in a plastic bag, clutched in bone fingers.

  I tried not to think about that. But I couldn’t help it. There was nothing to distract me. Just the sea and me, with some tins of food, three plastic bottles (two empty, one now only half full), a notebook and pen, a knife.

  I made notes. I hoped I’d read them back one day. But I knew I might not. Would anyone? Some stranger who’d give the book to Mum and Dad, so they’d know what happened.

  I tried writing in the notebook:

  Dear Mum, Dear Dad,

  If you read this then

  I couldn’t write any more. I wasn’t ready for that. Not yet.

  *

  On the third day I saw a dot on the horizon. A blurred black star that faded in and out of sight. The sun hammered the water so hard it made the horizon shake. I had to squint to see the dot at all. I couldn’t tell if it was even real, or my mind playing tricks.

  I made my way towards it, paddling with my one oar.

  What else was I going to do?

  *

  As I got closer it became more ‘speck’ than ‘dot’.

  The sun was a searing oven ring on max. If I reached up it would burn my fingers. It was exhausting, paddling in the heat, but if I waited till sundown – when it was cooler – I wouldn’t reach it before night. Still, I stopped every ten minutes. I huddled under my jacket, sipping water. It moistened my mouth for a second. And what had once been my lips. They’d become blisters.

  ii

  The thing was dark and round-ish. Jetsam. Maybe a barrel or oil drum bobbing in the water. And there was something on top of it. Some clogged-up rope or netting.

  I got closer. It was a plastic barrel. The thing draped over the top was covered in rags.

  And had two spindly legs sticking out of it.

  My heart thumped. ‘Hello?’ I shouted. ‘HEY!’ My voice sounded strange in the silence.

  I paddled near in the dusk.

  ‘Oi!’ I shouted. I found a euro coin in my shorts and threw it. It bounced off the rags and plopped into the water.

  I sat there a while, knowing I had to go to the barrel, to the rags, the legs. But working up to it. Because I’d never seen a dead body before.

  iii

  Closer, I saw a nest of black hair falling from the end of the rags and dusty feet sticking out the other. Skinny legs. Bones wrapped in skin.

  I was shaking. I wanted to see. I didn’t want to see.

  I paddled up to the barrel and prodded a foot with the oar.

  ‘Hey!’ I said. Then I thought: I’m shouting at no one. You’re dead.

  I grabbed at a bit of rag and pulled the barrel closer. The rags were a blanket or cloak. I lifted it with trembling fingers. Underneath was a girl. About my age. Long thin face, closed eyes, dusk skin. She didn’t seem to be breathing.

  She was dead. But I had to be sure, had to know. I reached over the side of the boat, as much as I dared without tipping it, and got a hand under each of her armpits. I closed my eyes and turned my face away. She smelled rank. I pulled. She was skinny but a hefty weight. A dead weight. The boat rocked as I dragged and lifted, huffing and grunting, hauling her over the gunnel. She thumped on the floor like a massive landed fish.

  Her eyes were closed, but her lips parted slowly, as if they’d been glued together.

  Her lips closed, then opened again. Her eyes opened too. Brown and wide, rolling and spinning. Not seeing. She breathed a croaking sigh.

  ‘Hello,’ I said. I sat there like a lemon before I sussed what to do. I grabbed the water and poured a sip onto her mouth.

  ‘Aman,’ she breathed.

  I gave her more water. I felt bad because it was all I had left. Then I felt bad for feeling bad and gave her a bit more. A bit.

  She saw me then.

  ‘Aman,’ she croaked, and pointed to the sea.

  ‘What man?’ If there’d been a boat, or anything, I’d have seen it.

  ‘Is that aman?’ I said. The barrel she’d been floating on was bobbing in the water a metre or two away.

  I paddled us to it. It had a short length of rope on the top end attached to a handle. I tied it to the hook on the bow.

  I gave her more water. Her hand reached to grab the bottle. I pulled it away, showed her what was left, and shrugged.

  ‘We have to save it,’ I said, thinking: I have to save it. I had the idea that if she got hold of it she’d drink it in one go. All of it. I thought of the food in the hold, of how long we might be out here. I was glad to have found her, and at the same time, not glad. Worried.

  ‘Aman,’ she croaked, in a voice like dust.

  I got a tin of peaches from the hold. I had to force myself to do it, to share. I opened it and gave her some of the juice to drink. I scooped out a piece and tried to feed her. Her hand came up and took it off me.

  She struggled to get the peach in her mouth. She was so out of it. Quarter-alive, a sliver-alive. Her eyelids closed. A part-eaten chunk of peach fell from her fingers and stuck on her cheek.

  I prodded her arm. She didn’t move. I grabbed her shoulders and shook her. ‘Wake up!’ I said. And whispered: ‘Please.’

  I lifted her head and put my storm-cheater under her for a pillow. She opened her eyes and stared at the sky.

  ‘You okay?’ I said. ‘What does aman mean? Do you speak English?’

  Her eyelids flickered and closed. Her breathing steadied.

  I watched her sleep. I ate the rest of the peaches. All of them.

  The stars came out. Tiny specks. Thin round the moon, thick in the blue, slowly filling the sky with a river of milky light.

  It was huge and silent, beautiful and terrifying.

  Everything had changed.

  *

  Making sure she was asleep I peed over the side. It was a dribble. I was hardly peeing at all. And when I did it was brown. I wondered how I’d manage that kind of stuff, with the girl in my boat.

  I lay down, top and tail, with her feet by my head and my feet by her head. Only she was in the middle of the boat, with her cloak over her and I was squeezed to the side. And she had my storm-cheater wedged under her head.

  I lay awake, getting colder and more uncomfortable by the minute. I was still pleased, amazed, that I’d found her, that I wasn’t alone. But part of me felt grumpy. Because I couldn’t sleep and she was taking all the room.

  There was a more serious thought niggling at me too. The fact of so little food and so little water. And now I had to share. Which would cut the time I could survive without rescue.

  I didn’t want to think that. But it was a fact.

  The boat seemed smaller than before. The sky and sea, bigger.

  I tried to rest but couldn’t sleep for thinking.

  I wrote in the notebook:

  I have to share. But:

  Even if they find two skeletons, not one. In this big nothing, that’s something.

  iv

  I fell into dozy sleep. But then, a gentle wind picked up and this sound started. Sloshy – slosh. I realised; it was coming from inside the barrel.

  And I got it. Ballast! Barrels keep a raft or boat afloat, but to keep steady they are part-filled. Pandora was my f
irst time on a proper yacht, so I’d read a couple of books about boats and sailing before going to the Canaries.

  I looked over the side, pulled at the barrel and lifted it in. It was at least one fifth full.

  ‘Water!’

  The girl stirred and sat up, pointing at the barrel.

  ‘Aman,’ she said.

  ‘Water?’

  The top was screwed tight. I got the knife from the hold and stabbed the barrel two thirds of the way up. I sawed hard, all the way round.

  The inside smelled rotten-fishy. I took the empty peach tin, reached in, scooped and sipped. It was bitter, but it was water. I filled an empty bottle.

  The girl reached out.

  ‘Aman?’ I said.

  ‘Aman.’ She nodded. ‘War-ter.’

  We spoke one word of each other’s language.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I said. But after she drank, she lay down, and was asleep in seconds.

  *

  I woke at dawn, sweating-hot and shivering. A fist was holding my guts and twisting them. I sat up. I couldn’t feel my hands, could only see them gripping the gunnels. Pins and needles tortured my skull. Sweat rivered down my skin.

  I leaned over the side and puked, then dry-retched for minutes till I collapsed, gripping my stomach.

  The girl put her cloak-blanket over me and lifted my head and put the storm-cheater there for a pillow. She took the bottle, with the last of the clean water, and fed me sips.

  It slipped down like liquid crystal.

  *

  The water cleared my head. Enough to think, and write in my notebook:

  The girl’s used to water that doesn’t come from a bottle or tap. And I’m not.

  Unless we’re rescued, or it rains in the next 72 hours, I will die.

  Fact.

  I read what I’d written.

  Then I held the pen like a knife and scribbled across the word ‘fact’ till I could no longer read it. So hard the pen tore the paper.

  The girl raised a hand and lowered it, as though to calm me.

  I searched the horizon.

  Nothing. Again. Just end-of-night purple in the west. Pink – changing to blue – in the east. Another burning day coming at us.

  The girl sat up. She found an empty tin, and sat with it in her hand, glaring at me.

  ‘What are you… oh, right.’ I turned away. I listened to her pee, then lean over the side and get rid of it and clean the tin, which she kept hold of.

  I lay down. Right by my head was the plastic bottle. Inside was a tiny pool that the girl hadn’t quite tipped down my throat. Something to save.

  I checked the top with a shaking hand to make sure it was tight, so no water would escape as steam.

  I watched it. I willed the bottle to be full.

  Steam condensed at the top and trickled down the inside, back to the small pool at the bottom of the bottle.

  I had an idea.

  The barrel was at the back of the boat, in two pieces. I edged my way there, dragging my body.

  The girl gestured at me to lie down. I shook my head. I took the top part of the barrel I’d cut off. I reached over the side and scooped up a few centimetres of seawater. Then I wedged the barrel top at the end of the boat. I took the peach tin and placed it in the middle of the water. Then I covered the top with my storm-cheater, and tucked it under the sides of the barrel, so the jacket was like a lid. Next, I took the knife, and placed it in the centre of the top, so the nylon lid sagged in the middle, right over the tin.

  The girl watched, fascinated.

  I lay down clutching my stomach. And waited.

  An hour? More? Long enough for the sun to rise. But instead of hating it, I wanted it. The hotter the better: to make steam, to gather under the knife on the skin of the storm-cheater.

  The first drop came slow.

  Plip.

  Then the next.

  Plip.

  It took time. But we had that. Endless loads of it. Then the drops fell, like rain we’d made.

  When the base of the tin was covered I took the contraption apart. I lifted the tin and tasted. Peachy, tinny water. But clear and clean.

  I worked hard not to cry I was so happy. I knew I wouldn’t die. Not of thirst anyway.

  I offered what was left to her.

  ‘Water. Aman,’ I said. She pressed her hands together and pointed them at me, telling me I needed to drink. I did. I was desperate.

  Then I set the thing up again.

  We drank water as soon as we made it. But it was slow.

  I pointed at the barrel and the water in it, and then at her, suggesting maybe she could drink that, if she was okay with it. But she shook her head. She wanted the good water too. So we shared.

  v

  Hours came and went. We hid in pools of shade, me under my storm-cheater, her under her cloak. I wrote:

  Who is she? Where has she come from? How has she survived?

  She looks scraggy. A ragged sack of bones with shining teeth and mad hair. But then, how are you supposed to look when you’ve been clinging to a barrel for three days?

  I thought about how I must look too. If my hair was bleached, if my face was burned to a beetroot.

  I opened a tin of rice pudding and handed it to her, holding a finger at the middle of it, like telling her to only eat half. She shovelled it into her mouth.

  ‘Hey, slow down!’

  She did, as if she’d understood.

  ‘D’you speak any English?’ I said. She licked glops of pudding from her fingers.

  ‘What kind of boat were you on, in the storm?’

  She watched me, with the right side of her face turned to me. The way some people do when they’re really listening.

  I took the tin off her and looked inside. Had she eaten more than half? I told myself next time I’d make sure to eat my bit first.

  I tried miming stuff. Like the boat sinking, to maybe get from her what happened on her boat. She shrank back. I’m sure I came across as a bit of a nutter, firing questions and miming.

  I sat back, huffing. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’m talking because you might be the last person I ever talk to. And… dunno why. It’s not like you understand.’

  The side of her mouth twitched. She turned away.

  ‘Or do you?’

  She was smiling. The tiniest bit. Actually smiling.

  ‘You do, don’t you?’

  ‘Some. Oui. Un peu. Tu parles français?’

  I cracked up laughing because it was so crazy.

  ‘No, no. Not really. A bit, from school. You speak French! And “aman”, is that Arabic?’

  ‘I speak some words French. Little English. Little.’ She held her hand up and pinched her fingers together. ‘Mais je ne suis pas Arabe… er, I am no Arab, je suis Berbère,’ she said in her soft voice. ‘Je m’appelle Aya.’

  ‘I am Bill. Your name is Aya?’

  ‘Yes. I am Berbère. Amazigh peoples. My name is Aya.’

  vi

  Je m’appelle Aya is a mystery!

  Do I seem as much an alien to her as she does to me?

  She doesn’t talk much. Sometimes her English seems pretty good, then I think maybe she’s pretending not to understand, as she doesn’t want to tell me stuff. Who knows. I guess I’ll find out if we’re stuck here together much longer.

  If.

  And if we are, how long can we survive for? I daren’t talk about that.

  If it’s weeks the food rations will run out faster than if I were alone.

  Except that’s not right (!). Because she had the barrel. And that’s the aman-/water-maker. And that’s life.

  And if I had to choose between water and food and being alone, versus sharing supplies and not being alone, I think I’d choose being together.

  Because 3 days alone – really alone – was a long time.

  *

  We started communicating more, though it took a bit of work. She spoke some English and when she didn’t know the English word sh
e said the French. I knew some of those and wished I knew more, but I hadn’t done French for a couple of years and even before that I’d focused on subjects I was good at, like maths and physics, and not bothered with French much. She flapped her hands about and mimed stuff and when I didn’t get it she got frustrated with how stupid I was being, and drew in my notebook. It was a weird mix. Pictionary, charades and a language lesson all at the same time. Slow, but it worked.

  ‘Where are… were you going?’ I said.

  She paused, thinking.

  ‘Gran Canaria. Europe.’

  ‘Where’s your family?’

  ‘Dead. No brother, no sister, only parent. They are dead.’

  I took a breath. ‘On the boat?’

  ‘Oh! Non, non.’ She seemed upset that I hadn’t understood. ‘Er, avant. Trois ans. Three year.’ Heavy words. A sadness she’d lived with a while.

  ‘How?’

  ‘I not know word… er, like you avant.’ She mimed me throwing up and shivering.

  ‘Sick?’

  ‘Oui.’

  I wondered what kind of sickness, but it didn’t feel right to ask.

  She went into a trance for a while, staring at the water.

  ‘Why didn’t you speak at first?’ I said.

  ‘I not know you. This is right English? Tu comprends?’

  ‘What happened on your boat?’

  She whistled a sound of wind and moved her hand across the sea to be the waves, using her fingers as the rain.

  ‘Storm?’

  ‘Yes. Bad storm.’

  ‘Were there many people?’

  ‘No. Boat is small.’

  ‘Sunk?’

  She frowned.

  ‘I mean, in the water. Did the other people… do you think they survived? Lived?’

  ‘I not know. I want they live? It is right?’

  ‘You hope they lived.’

  ‘Yes. And you? People?’

  ‘I don’t know either. I hope they’re okay too.’

  ‘Mother, father. On boat?’

  ‘No, they’re at home. In England. Safe.’

  ‘Ah, I think they will think for you. Of you? You know? I do not know the words.’

  ‘You mean worry? Yes. They’ll be worried sick. Do you have other family? Which country are you from?’