But even Cookie looked a bit panicky when Moko entered the kitchen on Wednesday evening carrying a cat box. The big Japanese man opened the swing door, put the cat box on the floor and gave it a shove with his foot. The plastic box slid across the tiles, turning in a half-circle so that the entrance flap ended up facing away from Cookie and Baz. Moko said nothing – or at least nothing audible. He simply grunted and left.
“Strewth,” said Cookie. “What now?” He went over to take a look at the cat box, and Baz followed – images of cats and cooking pots already beginning to flash through his head.
Cookie lifted the box and placed it on a work surface. He and Baz peered through the grille of the entrance flap, cautious lest the occupant of the box should hurl itself at them in a spitting ball of fury. But it wasn’t a cat in there. It was rabbits – two of them.
They were white, the domesticated sort, and unusually big. Fresh meat was scarce, and it was rare for rabbits to be allowed to reach this size nowadays. Hunger and impatience normally got the better of their breeders.
“Oh God,” said Baz. “Are we supposed to cook ’em?”
“Probably not tonight,” said Cookie. “But yeah, that’s why they’re here.” He opened the door of the cat box in order to get a better view. The rabbits looked calm enough, nibbling away at a few handfuls of dandelion leaves that someone had thought to provide. They made no attempt to escape.
“So... we’ve got to kill them?” Here was a thought that Baz didn’t relish.
“ ’Fraid so. It’s OK. I’ve done it before.”
“Yeah? How?”
“Well, you can do it with a chop of your hand. You hang ’em upside down by the hind legs, and whack ’em across the back of the neck. I’ve never tried it that way, though – not sure I could hit ’em hard enough – so I use a meat hammer.”
Cookie went over to a drawer, pulled it open and took out a metal hammer. It was shiny, with a black rubber handle, and one face of the hammer-head was cast into sharp little pyramids. He handed it to Baz.
“Jesus.” Baz hefted the hammer, tapped it experimentally against his palm. “You hit them with this?” He tried to imagine himself doing such a thing, and knew for certain that he wouldn’t be able to.
“Yeah. Hang ’em upside down and knock ’em over the head. The thing is, if you’re gonna do it, you really have to do it. You can’t bottle it, or have two or three goes at it, ’cos that’d be cruel. You have to do it in one, and that means making a proper job of it – one really good thump. It’s not easy.”
Cookie’s voice was matter of fact.
“But you know what’s really daft? We’ve got rabbits already – here on the island. The copse is full of ’em. I dunno why the divers trade for them when they could catch their own. Same with vegetables – why not just grow some? There’s plenty of room. They don’t think that way, though. Easier to trade a few tins, I guess. But see’ – Cookie continued his lesson in butchery – ‘the tricky bit is paunching and skinning, ’cos if you mess that up it’s a hell of a stink. You have to get all the guts out in one. Look...” He reached inside the cat box and got hold of one of the rabbits, swinging it out of the box so that it hung upside down by its back legs. The rabbit was big and amazingly long. It didn’t struggle.
“You lie it on its back, and press the guts down with your thumbs—”
“Oi!” The kitchen door was open, and Isaac was standing there. “What’re you doing? You’re supposed to be cooking in here, not yakking.”
“Sorry,” said Cookie. He cradled the rabbit.
“Put that thing back in its cage and get some food on the table. Ten minutes.”
“OK. Um... when do you want the rabbits, then?”
“What? Just feed ’em and leave ’em alone. We’re saving them for Sunday. Now get moving.”
The swing door closed behind Isaac, and Cookie put the rabbit back in the cat box. Baz wasn’t sorry to see it go, or for Cookie’s lecture to be brought to a close. When the time came, he thought, he would have to leave the butchering to the expert.
“Better get the rice on,” said Cookie. “The water’s already hot, and basmati only takes ten minutes, so we’re OK.”
As they served the divers their supper – chicken curry and rice, with hot chapatis – Isaac looked up and said to Cookie, “If you’ve got time to be playing around with rabbits, then there’s nothing much the matter with you. Tomorrow you’re on your own again. This one can go back to the sort room, where he belongs. All right?”
“Yes.” Cookie sounded miserable and Baz threw him a sympathetic look. The two boys took up their positions by the swing door, hands behind their backs, feet slightly apart.
Returning to sort-room duties at least gave Baz the chance to catch up with the outside world.
“What’s happening?” he said to Gene. “Is that the motor you’ve been working on?”
“Yeah. Just about done.” Gene stepped back from the workbench, wiping his hands on an oily rag. There was an outboard motor clamped to the bench, a complicated-looking thing with a brass flywheel on top, and a small black fuel tank with the word SEAGULL on it. A long alloy tube led to a propeller down below.
“Does it work?” said Baz.
“That’s what we’re gonna find out. We’ll just give the carburettor a quick tickle...” Gene pressed a little button up and down, and moved a couple of levers. He took a length of nylon cord and wound it around the flywheel on top of the motor.
“OK. Stand back.” Gene yanked on the rope and the flywheel spun round. There was a kind of hollow sucking sound, but the motor didn’t fire. Gene pumped a little more petrol into the carburettor and readjusted one of the levers. Then he wound the rope around the flywheel again and gave it another pull.
This time the engine caught. It fired a couple of times, stuttered almost to a halt, picked up momentum again, and then burst into sudden roaring life. The sort room rang with the high-pitched yammering of the motor, and clouds of blue exhaust fumes spread from the workbench. Gene turned back the throttle lever and slowed the motor to a tickover.
“Just going to check the drive!” he shouted above the din. He pushed at a longer metal bar, and the engine engaged the propeller. This began to spin, and after revving it up and down a few times Gene shut off the motor altogether.
“Nothing wrong with that.” His voice cut through the ringing silence.
The rest of the sort-room crew had gathered round, and Robbie put out a hand, tracing his grubby fingers over the embossed word on the petrol tank. “Wow. It’s great, isn’t it?”
There was something hypnotic, exhilarating, about the smell of exhaust fumes that hung in the air. To Baz it was an instant reminder of the world that had gone, the very street where he’d lived before the floods. There had been a group of lads that used to whizz up and down on their scooters in the evening, parking up on the corner, laughing and talking late into the night. The neighbors all complained about the noise, but Baz had envied the bigger boys and secretly hoped that someday he would be able to join them, have a scooter of his own and plan weekend trips to faraway seaside towns. And this had been the same smell that drifted in through his open bedroom window. Exhaust fumes. Freedom...
“I didn’t have to do that much.” Gene was talking. “Stripped it all down, gave the head a de-coke, unblocked the carburettor jets. Had to put in a new spark plug and new HT lead – Hutchinson found me a big roll of that, which was lucky. And the petrol was ancient, all gummy, so I put some fresh in. That was it.”
“Hey,” said Dyson. “You mean you got petrol?”
“A cupful, that’s all. Just enough to get it going. Hutchinson brought it – don’t even know where it came from. Storeroom, I s’pose. No chance of anymore, though.”
This reminded Baz of Cookie, and his key to the generator shed. “Hey, Gene,” he said. “If we could get hold of diesel, would that be any good? For a bomb, I mean?”
Gene shook his head. “Nah. Not really. Doesn’t
explode in the same way as petrol does. Methane’s way better...”
But then Hutchinson reappeared, brought hurrying back by the noise no doubt, and the boys dispersed. Baz stepped sideways and pretended to study the list of codes on the wall. FB.French beans...
The methane production was going well. Four litres – two big Coke bottles – were now stashed up at the sports center, both full of gas, and a third bottle was well under way. It hung upside-down in one of the water butts, anchored by string to a concrete block, a plastic funnel fitted into its neck. The water duty crew added to it whenever they could, taking a small bottle with them and releasing the contents underwater into the larger container.
Fart Club was observed religiously, evening and morning, so Gene had no cause for complaint. And yet he worried.
“We got nothing to actually put the gas in yet,” he said. “We gotta find a big heavy casing of some sort. And I still don’t know what the mixture should be.”
Gene’s attitude had shifted since Enoch’s death. His thinking had gone beyond just accumulating a store of explosive. He was definitely planning to build something now, a working weapon. A bomb.
But to Baz it all seemed less real than it had been. A wild pipe-dream. He thought about his queasiness over the rabbits, and suspected that if he was incapable of killing an animal, he’d find it a whole lot harder when it came to killing men.
Baz sat on his bed and watched the other boys going about their business, finishing their suppers, hanging bits of washing on the lines that criss-crossed the slob room. He could hear voices echoing from the jakes, Jubo and Robbie laughing – Fart Club in full swing by the sound of it. Ray was down at the other end of the room in deep discussion with Gene, both their faces frowning and serious. Probably working on some new aspect of the big plan. Amit and Dyson were having an arm-wrestling match, kneeling at the low table in the seating area. Here were his companions, his fellow captives, his brothers. His family. A pang of guilt accompanied that thought. He missed his dad, missed him every day, but his family was here now. And he cared about them all.
But he cared about Ray the most, and he wasn’t sure why. He knew that it wasn’t in the way that Amit had hinted at. He liked girls – had always liked girls...
The door opened at the far end of the room, and Steiner came in. He looked around briefly, located Baz and pointed a finger.
“You!” he shouted. “Kitchen. Now!”
Kitchen? What had happened? There was no point in asking questions, so Baz scrambled to his feet. He hurried out of the slob room, past Steiner, and down the corridor towards the divers’ quarters.
Isaac and crew were sitting at the table in the dining area, arms folded, and judging by the sour expressions on their faces they were none too happy. As Baz approached, Isaac leaned back in his chair. He nodded towards the kitchen door.
“Get in there and help that fat slob out. He’s ruddy useless.”
Baz pushed at the swing door and entered the kitchen.
Cookie was in a state. Beneath the dim flicker of a single bulb he was rushing around, clouded in steam, a long strip of bandage trailing from his injured hand. There were two saucepans on the stove, a frying pan to one side, an onion on a chopping board. An onion! Baz wanted to stop and stare at this marvel, but there was no time.
“Oh... gawd...” One of the saucepans started to boil over, and Cookie made a grab for the lid. “Chop the onion!” he shouted. “Use that knife with the white handle. Quick as you can!”
Baz picked up the knife that Cookie had indicated, and prepared to tackle the onion. But how did you begin? Weren’t you supposed to peel it or something?
“Cut it into quarters’ – Cookie took the saucepan off the cooker ring, and replaced it with the frying pan – ‘the skin’ll come off easier. Then just chop it up.”
By the time Baz had finished his eyes were streaming.
“Sling it all in the frying pan!”
Baz blindly scraped the onion into the massive frying pan and felt the sharp sting of boiling fat pricking at his fingers. “Ow! What are you making?”
“Onion-fried rice and peas... tin of boiled ham. OK. Rice is done. Empty the water out and tip it in with the onions. You look after that bit; I’ll sort the ham out.”
So Baz mixed the rice and peas in with the fried onions, while Cookie retrieved the tin of ham from the other saucepan.
“God. I can’t do it... can’t get the blimmin’ thing open...” Cookie was struggling.
It was no good. Baz had to leave the stirring of the rice and onions to Cookie, and take over control of the ham. The tin was boiling hot, and he scalded his fingers on it several times trying to get it open.
“Tip it onto a plate and cut it into slices. Then we’re done.”
At last everything was plated up and ready to go. Cookie held open the kitchen door for Baz, and he pushed the trolley through.
The grumbling voices of the divers ceased as Baz and Cookie drew near. They’d been talking about their teeth, it seemed, because Isaac muttered, “We’ll get it all sorted next week. Dentist on Monday.” It sounded funny, the idea that Isaac and his crew had dental appointments.
Cookie disappeared with Preacher John’s tray of food, leaving Baz to deal with the divers. He doled out the plates without mishap, although his whole body was shaking with nerves. When Cookie returned, Isaac said, “Oi. Come here.” He reached out and grabbed Cookie by the arm.
“Take off that filthy bandage,” he said. “Let me see your hand.”
“It – it’s OK,” Cookie stammered. “It’s almost better now.”
“Take it off, I said!”
Cookie began to unwind the long strip of grey and greasy bandage. His big round face was already crumpling as the flesh became exposed, and Baz could hardly bear to look.
The skin on Cookie’s hand was almost purple, with puffy weeping areas of bare flesh, fingers swollen into a soggy mass. Baz had had no idea that it was that bad. The poor guy must be in agony.
“What’s your name?” Isaac’s voice was flat; no emotion there.
“Matthew.” Tears rolled down Cookie’s face.
“Matthew. Right then, Matthew, you’re no good to us now—”
“I’m fine. I’ll be all right. I just need a bit more time... bit more help—”
“Don’t interrupt. I said you’re no good to us. Understand? So you’ll go back tomorrow. Preacher John wants you down on the jetty and ready to leave first thing.”
“Please... oh, please...” Cookie was shaking, near to collapse. He dashed his forearm across his streaming eyes. “Don’t. I can’t go—”
“You’re going.” Isaac turned his attention to Baz. “And you’re taking over. From now on you’re Cookie, understand?”
Baz couldn’t find his voice.
“I said understand? Are you lot deaf or something?”
“No! I mean, yes! I... I understand.”
“You start tomorrow, then. Now hop it. I don’t want you talking to this kid again. Get back to the slob room.”
Baz looked once more at Cookie, hesitated, and then turned and walked away. As he left the dining area, he heard Isaac say to Cookie, “Take the trolley back to the kitchen and get the place cleaned up. Then you’re done.”
* * *
Cookie stumbled into the slob room after lights-out, a confused and shadowy figure. Baz heard his shaky breathing as he made his way into the jakes. Everybody knew what had happened, and for once there were no sneers or jeers following the boy’s progress. But there were no words of comfort either.
As Cookie came out of the jakes, Baz was surprised to hear his voice – a throaty whisper in the darkness.
“Baz – got something to show you. Early tomorrow. “Fore I go.” Cookie passed on, his feet thumping softly on the carpet tiles.
But by the time the boys were up in the morning, Cookie had already disappeared.
As Baz hurried down to the kitchen first thing, he bumped into Moko, carry
ing a bundle of wetsuits over his arm.
“Has Cookie—?” Baz began to ask, but Moko walked by without even a sideways glance. Whatever it was that Cookie had wanted to say, he’d left it too late.
The busy day took over, and there were enough worries and moments of panic to keep Baz from dwelling too much on Cookie’s departure. He found himself thinking about the rabbits in the odd spare minutes that he did have, and wondering how on earth he was going to cope with preparing them for the pot. At around midday he slipped outside the main building and pulled up a few handfuls of grass and dandelion leaves to feed the creatures, and as he stood upright he took a moment to stare out over the seascape. The line of blue water he’d seen on Monday seemed to have moved further away. It was still visible, but surely more distant than it had been. So much for Preacher John’s ideas on the power of prayer, then.
Back in the kitchen he fed the rabbits, watching the silent creatures as they nibbled their way through the fresh fodder. The fate that awaited them hung far more heavily over his head than it did theirs.
Time to think about the cooking. Baz decided to play it very safe. He went to the store cupboard and sorted out some tins of I/STEW. Irish stew. Couldn’t go wrong with that. And for pudding he would just open some tins of stewed fruit. Maybe he would try his hand at custard, made with milk powder. If it went wrong he could simply leave it out – not serve it – and nobody would be any the wiser. As Baz pulled open the utensils drawer in order to find a tin-opener, he saw the shiny metal hammer winking up at him. He snatched at the tin-opener and quickly pushed the drawer shut.
That evening he delivered Preacher John’s supper for the first time. Walking down the dim corridor, carrying the aluminum tray of food, Baz felt as though he were approaching a dragon’s lair... an ogre’s castle. Well, at least he wouldn’t have to face the monster within.
He turned the corner and came to an immediate halt, rocking forward on his toes in an effort to keep his balance – and almost dropping the tray. Preacher John was standing in his open doorway, a dark and solid mass against the eerie light from the room beyond. The smell of burning wax drifted out into the corridor. Candles.
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