by Chris Vick
Stephan nodded and smiled. I didn’t like the way he smiled.
‘How did you come here?’ I asked.
He turned and started walking. ‘Come, you see.’
We followed, Aya and me faltering, holding each other up, because our legs were still not used to walking. And all the time we looked around us at the rocks and the few bushes and trees and the birds in the sky. Drinking it in.
We walked to the north of the island. From the cliffs we saw part of a blue fibreglass hull, upside down, trapped between rocks. It was a quarter of a boat. Less. The hull had a jagged edge, as if the rest had been bitten off.
‘Fishing boat?’ I said.
‘Yes.’
I paused before I asked: ‘The crew?’
Stephan waved an arm at the sea. ‘Go in the storm. Many miles from here. I think dead.’
‘That’s what’s happened to us too. We’re survivors, aren’t we? All three of us.’ I nodded at Aya, thinking: We’ve found another human, Aya! She just kept an eye on the strange boy and a grip on my arm.
‘Will they look for you?’ I said.
‘No. Not for me. Maybe for you. But if they come, I think it is before. Understand, England boy?’
‘My name’s Bill.’
‘Okay, England boy.’
I didn’t like this. We’d found someone. Someone we could work with. Survive with. But he hadn’t welcomed us, he’d hidden from us, then ripped through our stuff, like Gull with fish guts.
‘Come, you see where I live,’ he said.
‘We’ll get our gear,’ I said.
He walked off, towards the lighthouse. I turned to Aya.
‘What’s wrong?’ I said.
‘He is no fisher boy.’
‘How d’you know that?’
‘I see him before my boat leave. Many boats leave this place, our boat is just one. Is possible he is fisher boy, but it is possible he is one of the men making trade with people.’
‘A people-smuggler?’
‘Maybe. I think he works with these men.’
‘Did he recognise you?’
‘No.’ She screwed her eyes up, chewed her cheek. ‘This boy is bad.’
‘How do you know?’
Aya frowned, staring hard at Stephan’s back. ‘I know.’
We returned to the boat to gather our things. Gull was in the middle of it, picking at a tin of bait.
‘Where’s the knife?’ I gasped.
‘I say before. I have the knife,’ said Aya. ‘What we do with bird?’
‘Free him.’
We trapped Gull again, smothering his head so he couldn’t see. Aya magicked the knife from her cloak and carefully unpicked the knot tying the line to Gull’s leg.
‘Shoo. You can go,’ I said. But he only went to the nearest rock and sat there, twitching his head, watching.
We gathered the last bait tin and all of our stuff in Aya’s cloak, using it as a sack. I put the line and hook and lure in the pocket of my storm-cheater. We left the aman-maker and the turtle shell.
‘We’re going to have to trust him,’ I reasoned. ‘Work with him. Maybe he was a people-smuggler, or he worked for them. But he’s not now, is he? He’s not anything any more. He’s like us.’
*
We joined Stephan in his camp; the stone hut by the lighthouse.
We sat outside on a rock by the fire pit. There were two coconuts on the ground in front of him. I hadn’t seen any when we’d first looked in the hut. I wondered where he’d got them from. He picked one up.
‘Hold coconut on the ground,’ he instructed. I did as I was told. He picked up a short, sharp stick, put it in one of the three eyes at the top of the nut, then picked up one of the stones from around the fire, and used it as a hammer to hit the stick into the eye. I flinched, almost let go of the coconut, but held it solidly. He hit it with quick, brutal force. I blinked and flinched again. Stephan smiled. He did the same with one other eye. He picked up the nut and drank. A lot. Then handed it to me. I gave it to Aya. She drank some, then it was my turn. The rich taste made my head spin. We drank until it was empty, then did the same with the other coconut. I could have drunk a dozen.
Stephan took a larger stone and handed it to me.
‘Break the coconut,’ he ordered.
I lined it up, raised the stone over my head and brought it down fast. The stone bounced off the side of the nut. I tried again. The coconut shot away like a rugby ball.
Stephan laughed. He picked up the coconut, and placed it between his feet, turning it over and over until he was happy with the angle. Then he raised the stone over his head and smashed it down. The coconut shattered. Pieces of its white flesh glared in the sun. He handed me a chunk, and tried to hand one to Aya, but she hesitated. He urged her to take it, using words I didn’t understand.
‘Why don’t you speak in English?’ I said.
He pushed the piece at her, barking more words.
‘Hey!’ I said.
‘She must eat, England boy.’
‘You don’t have to talk to her like that.’
Aya looked at me sharply, then grudgingly took the food.
I chewed the white flesh. It was good, like the juice. When we were done, and we’d rested a while, I said: ‘Now we should go fishing.’
‘You don’t want to rest more?’ said Stephan.
‘No, I’m hungry.’
I took the line and the hook wrapped in paper from my storm-cheater pocket and the last tin of bait from the cloak.
The smell of the sticky guts made me retch. It was good we hadn’t been at sea longer. It was good we hadn’t had to eat it.
*
Aya watched from the shore while me and Stephan took the boat. We left the barrel parts but took the turtle shell to store fish in.
We heaved the boat in, waded, and climbed aboard.
It felt strange, being back in the boat so soon. And without Aya.
I went fore and paddled. Stephan sat aft. The sea was more alive than when we’d landed. There were currents, fresh wind and waves. To get to open sea was tricky; there were big rocks and narrow spaces between them. When a wave smashed against them up ahead, it hit us hard, lifting us up and back.
‘You should take the seat up and use it as an oar,’ I said. ‘The boat moves a lot easier if two people paddle.’
He shook his head, breathing hard. I shrugged and continued paddling, to get us to the open sea.
I was pleased to be doing something I was good at. I didn’t like how Stephan acted in charge and all boss-like. The island was his home and he was older. But it didn’t give him the right to be like he was, especially with Aya.
I kept looking back. He seemed nervous.
‘You’re the fisherman,’ I said, ‘where’s the best place?’
‘It is different!’ he said. ‘I fish in big boat. Not this.’
He was probably lying. But then, I thought, maybe he was a fisher boy once and worked for the people-smugglers now. It made sense for him to hide what he did. That’s not the kind of thing you’d own up to. Not the kind of thing you’d want authorities knowing, if we got rescued.
We went to a place a hundred metres or so offshore. I could see the small group of trees on the coast, and Aya, sitting on the cliff watching us.
Below there were rocks and seaweed and fish, snaking and darting. Lots of fish. Silver and gold. Shoals of millions, whole clouds of tiny fish, and fat predators, lurking.
Stephan watched as I prepared the line, lure, hook and bait and rolled the line around the oar.
As I was busy with my hands I nodded at the water.
‘See any sharks here?’ I said. ‘Big ones?’ He put a hand on the gunnel and held it firm. He looked at the sea and shook his head.
‘Do not try to scare me, England boy.’
‘What country are you from?’ I asked.
‘Canaria.’
‘Spanish? But you speak Arabic, too, or is it Berber?’
‘My mother
is Spanish, father Arabic. You and girl? You are England, what is the girl?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. That was true. I didn’t know exactly. She’d called her tribe Amazigh as well as Berber.
‘She is Berber, I think,’ said Stephan. ‘Life is not good for some tribes of this peoples.’
I focused on unreeling the line from the oar.
‘You say name is Aya,’ he said. ‘Where is she from?’ He wasn’t giving up.
‘Why do you want to know? She doesn’t say much about herself, she might have reasons not to.’
‘You have this girl?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Do not be stupid. I see you hold hand. Many days in boat. She is yours?’
‘I dunno what you mean,’ I said, thinking: You reckon Aya could be mine? You can’t own someone. I don’t even know what she’s thinking most of the time.
He smirked. ‘Okay, England boy. Why she leave?’
I sighed and huffed. ‘I don’t know, right.’
Stephan looked at Aya on the island, and made a ‘tsch’ sound between his teeth. ‘This girl is not poor. She look poor but is not.’
‘How do you know?’
He tapped his head. The way he did it was odd, jabbing his finger hard on his skull. He seemed strung-out, hardly able to focus. A little crazy. Or maybe just hungry.
‘Poor girl does not go to Europe,’ he said. ‘Muy caro.’ He rubbed his fingers together. ‘She have money.’ He pointed to his eyes. ‘I see. How she speak, how she is.’
But Aya hadn’t said more than a few words to him.
I got a bite then, the tug of a strong fish. I pulled and reeled. Stephan didn’t help and I didn’t ask him to. The fish was broad and short, but meaty. I didn’t have the knife to kill it, so once I’d unhooked it I left it flapping and gasping in the shell. It would have been better to bang its head; to smash it with the oar like Stephan had smashed the coconut. But I didn’t want to do that.
That was the end of our talk. Every time I sank the line it wasn’t long before we got another bite. It kept us busy. We lost a few, but got a good catch all round. I did most of the work, baiting, unreeling, pulling and teasing the line, while Stephan paddled, badly, to stop the current washing us too far along the shore.
One big fish got the hook caught far back in its cheek. When I took the hook out, the fish struggled. It was hard to keep it steady over the shell. Ruby drops coated my hands and dripped on the deck.
‘Over boat in sea!’ said Stephan.
‘No.’
‘Why?’
‘Sharks.’
That shut him up.
The blood and noise drew a small crowd of birds, swooping above.
Gull flew in and sat on the fore. He eyed the fresh fish.
‘Not yet,’ I said to him.
Stephan shrank from Gull, and took the seat up to shoo him away, maybe to hit him.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Don’t do that. He’s our friend.’
‘Bird is amigo? Tonto. Only England boy can believe this. I see the shell of turtle. It is your friend too?’ He laughed.
‘I don’t care what you think. Don’t hurt him.’ I thought of when we’d caught him, how I’d have killed and eaten him without blinking. But now it was different.
*
Stephan had a fire pit in the earth floor of the hut just like the one outside. Against the wall he’d stored dried leaves and grasses. He took a large handful outside, placed them on the ground, then fetched part of an old glass bottle he told us he’d found on the shore.
When the sun showed its face from behind a cloud he used the glass to magnify the heat, directing the spotlight it made until the kindling smoked and flamed. He picked up the smoking ball and blew gently into it, and quickly carried it inside. He placed the ball in the fire pit, added more grass, then, stick by stick, turned the tongues of flame into a fire.
‘I make magic,’ Stephan said. His eyes glinted.
I thought about us making aman in the barrel. Well, yeah, we can make magic too.
We hunched around the fire. And its warmth and light did seem magical. We had the power to hold the night away, rather than being swallowed up by it.
We hadn’t been cold on the boat much, only sometimes in the early morning. It wasn’t cold in the hut either, but the wind was strong, and it was good to be sheltered and to feel the warmth from the crackling twigs and burning logs. There were enough holes in the roof for the smoke to escape.
And we had fish to cook. I wanted to use the knife to gut and clean it. But the knife was secret and had to stay that way, at least till we got to know Stephan better. So instead we went down to the rock pool by the shore and, using shells to cut open the fish, we gutted them, and took them back to the hut, spearing them on sticks.
We thrust the speared fish directly into the flames, but Aya cried: ‘We must wait!’
Stephan spat words at her for daring to question him. She bowed her head. I didn’t recognise this Aya. The Aya I knew had fire that flamed from her mouth when she was angry. But not with Stephan. I didn’t understand why she was so wary of him.
The fish went black in the flames and smelled bad. Aya was right. After that, we built the fire slowly, till there was a bed of smouldering logs and the flames flickered. We piled stones on either side of the fire, then hung the fish skewers between them, slowly turning the catch until the skin browned and crisped and a rich smell filled the hut.
We ate from coconut shell bowls, pulling flakes of fish and devouring them. It was a hot and messy business. I burned my fingers.
We had a lot of fish. But still Aya and me ate eyes and sucked stuff out of heads. We chewed skin and spat out scales. Stephan watched, disgusted.
When we’d finished we sat with stained, sticky fingers and small piles of bones and heads in front of us. It felt so good. Not just the food, the knowing; that we had an endless supply of fish. Fish and water and coconuts. And who knows what else Stephan had. We could stay here, we could live here.
Until the boats came. Or the planes.
Stephan said something in Arabic and Aya slowly stood and began gathering the debris of our feast, shovelling it high on her own shell-bowl.
‘You don’t have to do that,’ I said. ‘Leave it.’ She shrugged and carried on.
‘I take for the bird,’ she said.
I meant to help her, not to let it be something she did because Stephan asked. But I didn’t. I was so full and tired. Exhaustion seeped through me. And a weight had been lifted; a weight of days spent worrying about food, water, another storm. Never seeing land or rescuers, not knowing the future or if there was a future. Empty days of fear.
Now we had full stomachs, an island, a tomorrow.
‘I didn’t know what it meant to be full until I’d starved,’ I said. ‘Does that make sense?’
‘Sound loco,’ Stephan said. I laughed, and felt grateful too, not to be dizzy or delirious. I thought about what I’d be like if we hadn’t found land. Fear, heat, hunger, exhaustion. They’d burrowed into my mind and eaten away a part of me.
I lay down.
‘We haven’t been on solid ground for so long,’ I said. ‘The earth feels strange. Still and moving at the same time.’
‘Muy loco,’ said Stephan. ‘What you do, days in boat?’
‘Fishing, making water, swimming.’
‘The sea is a bad place.’
‘Yes. A lot of the time, but…’
‘But?’
‘It could be like a monster. But it’s the most beautiful thing too. In the morning it could be like milk in the mist. Under a full moon, there’d be a river of light, so strong you’d think you could walk across it.’
‘So you make time with poems?’ he scoffed.
‘Stories, actually.’
‘Story?’
‘Shahrazad. Stories of thieves and sultans. Aya told them. Right, Aya?’
She carried on scraping scraps off the floor, making everything clean.
‘Why don’t you sit?’ I said. ‘Maybe you could tell us a story?’ She checked Stephan’s reaction.
‘Story,’ he said. ‘You tell story?’ He nodded as though this told him something he understood. ‘This is for children, no?’
Aya sat beside me.
Stephan leaned over and whispered to Aya. ‘Maybe I like stories. Tell me a story of your boat.’ He spoke to her again, in Arabic, more softly than before. He put his hand on her knee. She drew away, saying something sharp. Stephan laughed.
‘Aya, are you okay?’ I asked. She nodded. ‘What was he talking about?’ She gave me a slight shake of her head, like saying: Don’t ask. Then she spoke to Stephan in her language. One of them.
They got into a conversation. I listened, watching the fire. On and on it went. It seemed okay, better than before, more friendly. I was glad.
When it came to sleep, Aya curled up by herself, away from me, and on the opposite side of the fire to Stephan.
*
Day? I don’t know. They’re all melting into each other.
There’s no need for a tally now.
We’re going to live.
The world of the boat and the sun are more of a nightmare than a memory.
We have a new life on the island now, and it’s a kind of paradise.
You wouldn’t think that if you saw it, because there’s little but a few trees, rocks and sand. At dawn the island is pink, in the day it’s sandy and hot. In the sunset, the whole sky burns like it’s on fire.
Offshore there is a deep blue that stretches to the horizon.
Aya hooks fish from the shallows.
Stephan has a bag of oats, though I don’t know where he’d hidden it.
And he showed us where he’d found a beehive in the trees. We lit a fire under it and smoked most of the bees out and stole their honey.
Aya and Stephan stand on the cliff-top, shouting while I climb down and pilfer eggs.
We’ve put weight back on. Aya’s a bit rounder. Me too. Our bodies are taking all they can get and clinging to each morsel.
Her English is better too. She uses all the words she learned, apart from when she’s angry, then it’s short and sharp, or a babble of Berber. I learn a few words of her language that way. When we do our ‘lessons’, Stephan gets bored and goes off by himself. And it’s just us again.