Perfect Strangers

by Dani Atkins

  He undid the fastening, pulled down the zip and began to ease the thick denim down my body. He struggled with the material, his hands virtually stroking my thighs as he tried to ease the reluctant jeans down my legs. The only thing I could be grateful for was that my limbs were so frozen that I could scarcely feel the intimacy of his touch on my frozen flesh.

  He undid my trainers, pulling them and my wet socks from my feet.

  ‘Lay down with me,’ he instructed.

  What? He really was pushing this way too far now. I hesitated, suddenly wondering if I had anything to genuinely worry about here.

  ‘Hannah, I’d be saying exactly the same thing to you if you were a guy,’ he said smoothly, laying half of the oversize dressing gown onto the ground as close to the fire as he could.

  ‘I’m not sure if that makes me feel better, or worse,’ I replied, slowly lowering myself onto the velour covering. ‘Actually—’

  I broke off as he lay down beside me and swept the other half of the dressing gown over us, like a blanket. He pulled me into his arms, his legs covering mine as he lay himself half across me, maximising the area where his body could touch mine. He was cold, but nowhere near as cold as I was, and after a moment of immobilising embarrassment, I leant closer towards him, pressing my ice-cold skin against his. He gasped, as I pressed my upper body against the hard wall of his chest. I think it was from the cold. I hope it was from the cold.

  He brought his head down to mine and I actually thought, for one insane moment, that he was going to try to kiss me, but it was only to lay his forehead against mine for warmth. I could feel the flutter of his eyelashes batting against mine with every blink of his eyes.

  ‘So,’ he said, his breath warming my lips as he spoke, ‘this is different.’

  I was still shivering, but nowhere near as violently as before, as gradually I began to leach away some of his body heat.

  ‘I’m just going to make you cold,’ I said.

  ‘No, you won’t,’ he declared. ‘Put your arms around me.’

  I hesitated for just a second, before sliding my slightly less frozen limbs around his back. He was broader than William, more muscled, and despite the fact there was absolutely nothing in the least bit sexual about our embrace, I could still feel myself blushing.

  He moved slightly onto his side and fastened his own arms tightly around me, as though to prevent me from escaping. He needn’t have worried; I was going nowhere.

  I slept. I would have thought that given everything we’d been through, nothing was less likely to occur, but within just a minute or two of being held against him, I was proved wrong. Perhaps it was the warmth slowly creeping back into my body that did it, or perhaps it was because, for the first time since the nightmare had begun, I actually felt safe.

  I stirred once in the night when Logan slipped out of the velour cover to build up the fire. The chill of his limbs dragged me a little further from sleep when he curled up behind me just a few moments later. Still more asleep than awake I wriggled backwards, intimately, into the curve of his body. Something about the unfamiliarity of the shape and feel of him jarred me awake, reminding me sharply that the man behind me wasn’t the one I shared my life and bed with. I froze, mortified by my actions. Logan must have instantly realised why I’d stiffened like a statue in his embrace. He laid his hand on my hip and gently pulled me back against him, eliminating the space I’d created, a space which would have allowed cold air to creep between us. ‘Go back to sleep, Hannah,’ he whispered softly into the fall of my hair. I did.

  Some time later in the night I vaguely remember wriggling out of the draped dressing gown myself, and adding wood to the fire, before thankfully snuggling back against the virtually naked stranger sleeping soundly beside me.

  It must have been some sort of latent sixth sense that woke us. I’m fairly certain there had been no noise, and it was still dark beyond the cosy make-shift sleeping bag we were deeply cocooned within. There was no reason why Logan and I should have both suddenly snapped awake as though a clanging alarm clock had begun to ring. No reason at all. I stirred in his arms, aware from the pattern of his breathing that he too was no longer asleep. His arms tightened around me and his lips moved closer to my ear as he breathed, ‘Don’t move.’ The instruction was unnecessary. I don’t think I could have moved, seeing as I was practically paralysed with fear. Something was there in the clearing with us. Something that had circled our dwindling fire and our entwined bodies beneath the concealing dressing gown. Something, not someone. I heard sounds, snuffling and then a weighty crunch of something heavy pacing on the stony ground. I held my breath, too frightened to exhale in case whatever it was that was out there could hear me. I didn’t know whether to be grateful or not that we had pulled the covering over our heads during the night. Was it better to know what manner of creature was currently deciding whether or not we posed a threat, or was ignorance preferable? I almost cried out when I felt unexpected pressure on the corner of the gown, down near our feet. The material was pulled more tautly over our legs, as though something extremely heavy was standing on it. I felt every muscle in Logan’s body tighten in preparation. He’d protect me, as much as he was able, I felt certain of that. Without even knowing him, I was sure that was just the type of man he was, but ultimately we’d be no match for a predator and any fight would end badly, for both of us.

  Suddenly whatever was standing beside us must have got a little too close to our small pyramid of logs. They fell in a noisy percussion followed by a thud and then a loud crackling hiss from the fire. The pressure by our legs was suddenly gone and through the covers I heard scrabbling claws frantically digging for, and finding, traction on the ground. Neither of us moved for at least a minute. It was only when I felt Logan’s hold on me relax a little that I finally dared to release the breath I was holding in a shaky sigh of relief. ‘I think it’s gone,’ Logan said, but his voice was still little more than a hushed whisper.

  ‘What was it?’ I breathed back, already afraid I knew the answer.

  ‘A bear, I think,’ he replied, slowly levering himself from me.

  ‘Don’t go out there,’ I begged, my hand frantically reaching out and grabbing his arm to keep him beside me. ‘It might still be there.’

  Very gently he prised my fingers from his forearm. ‘I have to check, to make sure. Just stay very still and don’t move.’ He squeezed my shoulder lightly and then slid away from me and onto his feet in one smooth manoeuvre. It felt like an eternity before the edge of the velour covering was gently peeled back from my face.

  ‘It’s gone,’ he confirmed, with a reassuring smile, which still looked a little tight around the edges.

  I cautiously raised my head and scanned the clearing, as though he might just possibly have missed it. Given what I could remember reading about the size and weight of the bears who inhabited this part of the world, that was hardly likely.

  ‘What if it comes back?’ I asked, sitting up and holding the velour covering against my neck like a shield. Because that was going to stop a bear, right?

  ‘I don’t think it will,’ Logan assured. His voice, unlike mine, was no longer a whisper and sounded relatively calm and normal. ‘It got frightened and ran off.’

  ‘It got frightened?’ I exclaimed, and then clamped my lips together when I realised how loudly I had spoken. Unlike Logan I wasn’t so sure that the bear, if that’s what it had been, wasn’t lying in wait just beyond the fringe of trees, ready to come back and finish what he had been about to start.

  We looked down at what was left of our fire, after our intruder’s interference. The sticks and branches we had carefully piled into a pyramid were now scattered all around, and the fire’s centrepiece – the twisted remnant from our plane – had been knocked over and was now lying on the ground surrounded by clusters of burning embers. I felt certain the unfamiliar noise of metal hitting the stony ground was what had saved us. Wordlessly we quickly began to rebuild the fire, both silently
aware that next time a predator came to call we might not be so lucky.

  Pale pink and grey fingers were just beginning to claw through the dark sky and although dawn was still some way from breaking, the night was over for both of us. Neither of us would sleep any more. Despite the fact that I had spent the last five hours or so cradled in his arms, wearing nothing more than my underwear, my hands gripped tightly onto the velour gown which I clutched tightly around me.

  ‘Let’s get dressed, shall we?’ Logan suggested, ‘Before any more inquisitive wildlife comes calling.’ My eyes flew worriedly to the edge of the clearing, where it was so easy to imagine a group of grisly bears just waiting for the right moment to come creeping out from the foliage for a tasty human morsel. The collective noun is a sleuth of bears, supplied the annoying anomaly in my brain, the one which allowed me to excel at crossword puzzles and was pretty much useless the rest of the time.

  Seemingly nowhere near as cold – or inhibited – by the lack of clothing as I was, Logan crossed to the bush over which he’d draped our wet clothing. He briefly examined the items before turning back to me with a rueful smile, shaking his head as he lifted up his jeans. They were frozen solid, now curiously looking as though they were fashioned from cardboard instead of fabric. Logan rapped his knuckles against them to demonstrate the problem; the sound was like a muffled knocking on a door. ‘Somehow I don’t think these are going to be any use to us,’ he declared. ‘I’d hoped they’d be dry by now, but I guess we’re going to have to find something from the suitcase to wear.’

  ‘We should hit them,’ I replied, as a useful memory, I didn’t even know I possessed, filtered to the surface.

  The green eyes staring back at me narrowed, as one eyebrow rose slightly at my words. ‘What? Like in punishment?’

  I made a small noise which was as close as I was going to get to humour, given our present circumstances. ‘Hit them against the ground, or smash them onto a rock. They’re frozen solid and the ice will have drawn most of the moisture out of them. They’re going to be virtually dry if we break it off.’

  Logan looked more than a little dubious, but he picked up the bone-stiff denim and struck it powerfully against the ground several times. He never flinched as the cloud of frozen chippings struck his naked torso, leaving tiny rivulets trickling like tears down his chest and abdomen. When the trousers yielded no more icy shards, he crumpled them into his hands, and then turned to me with a look of admiration and surprise. ‘Well, what do you know . . .’

  He pulled them on and reached for my own pair and repeated the task. ‘So,’ he said as he passed them to me, ‘I’m kind of hoping now that you’re some sort of Arctic survival expert.’ I turned my back on him and let the velour dressing gown fall to the ground as I awkwardly swayed and hopped from one foot to another as I struggled into my jeans. They weren’t totally dry, but they were at least wearable.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, turning back to face him, with my arms folded across my chest, hiding as much of my remaining nakedness as I could. ‘But not even close. I work for a large international corporation in their marketing department. No Arctic skills at all, I’m afraid. But I do have an insanely good memory, and I guess I must have read what to do with frozen clothes somewhere . . . once . . . a long time ago . . .’ My voice trailed away, the way it usually did when I tried to explain the curious phenomenon of my photographic recall to people. It usually earned me the kind of look that Victorian side-show freaks would have easily recognised. But on Logan’s face there was nothing except quiet admiration and respect.

  ‘Interesting,’ was all he said, before crouching down beside the damaged case of clothing and rummaging within it. Rather than put on the rest of our damp clothing, we hunted among the stranger’s belongings for t-shirts and sweatshirts to wear until our own were properly dry. Logan’s borrowed clothes stretched so tightly across the breadth of his back that the seams looked to be screaming in protest, while I was lost in folds of material that had to be rolled back several times before I found my hands.

  I sat down beside the crackling fire and slid my feet into my trainers which squelched uncomfortably as I got to my feet. I could feel my face beginning to redden with embarrassment even before I spoke. ‘I er . . . I have to . . . I need to . . .’

  Logan looked up from the fire, where he had just placed another small log. There was a twinkle in his eyes. ‘Are you looking for the restroom?’

  I shook my head. He really did have the most curious sense of humour. I sighed. ‘I just wasn’t sure if it was safe to go into the woods.’

  His amusement evaporated and I realised then that he wasn’t nearly as confident as he had claimed that the danger had past. ‘Perhaps that’s not such a great idea. Why don’t I just take a stroll to the edge of the lake for a minute or two and give you a bit of privacy?’

  My cheeks were still flaming as I found a suitable location, did what I had to do, and kicked snow over the ground, hoping I hadn’t just made our temporary camp even more attractive to predators.

  Some of the recently added wood must have been damp, because the fire was now throwing off cough-inducing clouds of grey smoke. My eyes followed the phantom-like twisting tendrils as they rose up, disappearing into the early morning light, long before they could be a useful signal to any potential rescuers. I blamed the smoke on the fact that my eyes were noticeably moist when Logan approached the campfire, shimmering like a mirage through the distorting heat haze.

  ‘Do you think they know yet? Do you think they’ve been told?’

  I liked the way he instantly knew what I was talking about. ‘Our families? Yes. I’m sure they’ve been informed by now.’

  I tried to imagine the panic of a ringing phone in the dark of the night. Of a disembodied voice, probably some poor overworked airline official, having to make the call no one ever anticipates they will get. I closed my eyes as I visualised Kate, sliding down the wall beside the phone in their hallway, the receiver falling from her shocked fingers as Stephen stumbled half asleep from their room in response to his wife’s desperate howl. Then Lily, always the lightest of sleepers, would have begun to cry, because she always did whenever her mother was upset. I’m here, Kate. I’m okay. I survived. I’m not alone. I willed the message to reach her across the miles, knowing in my pragmatic heart that it never could.

  I imagined another location, the flat I shared with William in central London. Was the phone ringing there too? Kate would call him, I knew she would. Despite everything that she’d said about him, and the things he’d done, she’d still believe he had the right to know. Would he even be there? I wondered, sprawled face down on the pillows, his arm flung out over my vacant side of the bed. Come to that, who was to say my side of the bed was even vacant any more? Perhaps that last piece of our territory together had been claimed by the woman – no girl – who had prised William from me. My mouth twisted as though I’d swallowed something tainted or bad.

  ‘You said you have a sister?’ Logan asked. ‘Is she in the UK, or Canada?’

  ‘Canada,’ I said, in exactly the same sad tone of voice I always used when I had to acknowledge the thousands of miles between us. ‘I’ve been staying with her for the last five weeks.’

  Logan smiled. ‘Holiday?’

  Something inside me clenched up. ‘Not exactly,’ I replied tightly, dropping my gaze to the fire’s flames to avoid the curious look in his eyes.

  I heard the crunch of his feet on the stones as he walked around to my side of the fire and hunkered down in front of me.

  ‘It’s going to be all right,’ he said quietly, and just for a moment I thought he was talking about William and me, which was ridiculous, because I hadn’t even mentioned that there was a William, much less one whose actions had led me to fly halfway across the world to escape him. ‘We’re going to make it through this. We survived the crash, and we’re going to keep on surviving for however long it takes until they find us.’

  His words jolted through me
as though they’d been charged with electricity.

  ‘What do you mean, however long it takes? Don’t you think they’ll find us today? They have to be looking for us right now. The tail of the plane broke off, for Christ’s sake, someone’s got to notice that?’ I could hear my voice, and the panic within it, rising with each sentence.

  Logan reached out and took one of my hands in his and patted it comfortingly. My own looked pale and fragile within his. I could feel a slight roughness of his skin as it grazed mine, even though the nails were neatly manicured. His clothes, his manner and the price of his airline ticket screamed businessman or executive, but his hands told me there was more to his story than that.

  ‘Of course they’re going to be looking. But—’ I could hear the hesitation and uncertainty in his voice: sugar coat it, or give it to me straight? ‘We just have to prepare ourselves for the fact that they might not find us today.’

  ‘So when? Tomorrow? The day after?’ I could hear the unreasonable accusation in my voice, as though this was somehow Logan’s fault. ‘How long do you think it’s going to take?’

  They were impossible questions; we both knew that. ‘There’s no way of knowing, Hannah. I just didn’t want you to get your hopes up, and then be disappointed.’

  I snatched back my hand, irrationally blaming him, even while the sensible part of me knew he was speaking the truth. There were too many variables affecting our rescue. Had we flown off course? Had the rest of the plane even been found yet? How extensive was the search area? How far from civilisation were we? I tried to push away the memory of newspaper reports where crash victims had waited weeks or even months before being found.

  Logan left me stewing for just the right amount of time before despondency or depression could slide over me and suck me down. ‘But in the meantime there’s plenty we have to do. We’re going to keep ourselves busy until help arrives.’ He waited patiently for me to look up and respond, but I didn’t. Because suddenly all I could think of – all I could see – were the hundred or so other passengers who’d been on the plane with us. Where were they now? Were they also lost and alone, scared and waiting to be rescued, were some of them injured . . . or worse?