by Ali Ahearn
A wave buffeted Frances’s body and washed into her gasping mouth. Shit! How was it even possible to swallow another mouthful of water and not die from sodium toxicity? Her eyeballs felt like they’d been soaked in formaldehyde, her tongue felt like she’d single-handedly eaten a mega bucket of extra-salt popcorn, and her fingers looked like they belonged on a thousand-year-old mummy.
She’d read somewhere, probably in one of those damn National Geographics, that ingesting too much sea water caused cranial swelling and, as her tired arms screamed at her, Frances swore she could feel her brain bulging out of her ears.
The chunky amulet, supposedly an ancient symbol of potency and good fortune, dragged around her neck, pulling her still lower in the water that foamed around her like a washing machine on acid. It was fair to say Frances was not feeling fortunate. Instead, the immunity trinket felt like a bloody great millstone and Frances had an inkling of what it must feel like to be tossed overboard attached to a concrete block.
‘Come on, Frankie. You can do it.’
Frances wanted to say no. No, I can’t do it. That she was utterly exhausted, and alternating between being scared witless she was going to be eaten by a shark and wishing the mermaids would come for her. But it appeared not even the murky abyss of the Pacific Ocean could kill her pride. No way was she going to admit defeat to a person who had made giving up a lifestyle choice.
Frances chose instead to ignore Joni and concentrate on the money, and on swallowing the least amount possible of the interminable ocean.
At least, thanks to Joni’s amazing first leg, they were only trailing Nick and Cheryl by a few metres. When Lex had told them to choose their strongest swimmer for the trip to Perseverance Island, it had been a no-brainer. But even Frances, lagging behind, had been amazed Joni had given Nick a run for his money.
When Frances had finally dragged her sorry arse up the sand, a few metres behind Cheryl, on that first leg, Joni was clutching the amulet, and jumping up and down like they’d already won the show. ‘Go, go, go,’ Joni had said, flinging the prize around Frances’s neck; she’d staggered a little as it settled like a mayoral chain of office.
‘Just need to … catch my breath …’ she’d panted, bending over from both lack of oxygen and the weight of ancient stones. So much for being fit!
Joni had shaken her head and physically turned Frances around, dragging her down the beach. ‘Later. It’s your leg. You have to lead. I’ve done mine. They’re the rules.’ She pointed to Cheryl diving back into the water, her amulet looking all the more bizarre betwixt two soggy koalas. ‘She’s not catching her breath.’
‘Aussie, Aussie, Aussie. Oi! Oi! Oi!’
Cheryl’s chant drifted to Frances on the stiff ocean breeze, bringing her back to the misery of the present. She wished a thousand deaths on the Aussie squawker. Apart from the fact her screech was probably killing every whale between here and Antarctica, how on earth could she chant and swim?
‘Aussie, Aussie, Aussie. Oi! Oi! Oi!’
Dear God, if there’s a shark, please let it eat Cheryl first.
Frances was only vaguely aware that Kandy and Misty were nipping at her heels and, behind them, coming last, Takahiro and Kazuki.
Poor Kazuki, who was even more aquatically challenged than Frances, was thrashing through the water in a frenzy. It seemed Kazuki placed more stock in the degree of the splash than in propulsion. And, certainly, if splashing had anything to do with it, the Japanese contestants would now have been on the shoreline of Endurance Island, secure in their immunity. But Kazuki was about as effective as footbrakes on a rocket ship. And his team mate wasn’t letting him forget it.
Takahiro’s voice projected like a foghorn across the vast expanse of ocean and, even with waterlogged ears, his tone was unmistakable. Frances had no idea what he was saying but it didn’t sound encouraging.
Dear God. Forget Cheryl. Just send a shark to eat that overbearing fucker.
Surprisingly, she didn’t feel guilty. About the shark or the profanity. Since she’d let fly at Nick, the F words that had been desperate for release since Edward’s betrayal – since before that, even – had found an escape hatch. Who’d have thought a four-letter word could be so bloody satisfying?
Joni had used it as a noun, verb and adjective since the first time she’d heard the word, at the tender age of ten, in a Pogues song. And Edward had used it, of course. But Frances had always thought it too vulgar. G, certainly no prude, had agreed, saying that any profanity was a sign of having a poor vocabulary.
But the older Frances had got, and the more her marriage had gone down the tube, the urge to scream it at the top of her lungs had been almost overwhelming. It had simmered inside her like a bloody volcano. She should have known it was only a matter of time before it erupted from her with a force strong enough to bury a thousand Pompeiis.
‘Getting closer, Frankie. Look!’
Frances squinted at where Joni was pointing. Endurance Island came into watery focus and she was surprised to see how much bigger it was. She could even make out figures on the beach.
Hallelujah! Maybe she wasn’t going to die today.
Encouraged by the island looming larger, Frances found her resolve and swam harder.
‘Not long now, Mr Tutu,’ Lex whispered, holding Joni’s ferret up to his face and looking directly into his eyes. ‘Mummy is minutes away.’
Sally pointed at a nearby member of the crew soaking up some rays. ‘Don’t miss one single second of Kandy and Misty coming out of that ocean. I either get nipple or your arse on a platter.’
Her voice might not have been much louder than a whisper but it was somehow way more menacing than her sergeant major bellow. It certainly had a galvanising effect on the cameraman.
‘The sisters are coming second,’ said Nigel, peering through binoculars. He’d arrived just as the contestants had reached Perseverance Island and claimed their immunity symbols.
‘Jolly good,’ Lex murmured.
‘Tip fookin’ top,’ Sally snarked.
Nigel scanned everyone’s progress as they all ignored Takahiro’s abuse carrying to them on the wind. ‘I say.’ He pressed the binoculars to his eye sockets. ‘Is that a fin?’
Lex refocused his attention from Des’s cute twitching nose. ‘What?’
Sally gaped and grabbed at the binoculars, yanking Nigel, attached via a neck strap, with her. ‘Fook me,’ she whispered, as a magnified grey dorsal fin emerged from the waves, not far behind the group of contestants.
Nigel grabbed the binoculars back and extricated himself from the strap, looking again at the menacing fin. He looked down at Sally. ‘Do something,’ he commanded. ‘If my clients end up as shark food, I will personally name you in the lawsuit that Schuster, Schuster, Lathbourne and Lathbourne will bring against this show.’
‘What the fook do you want me to do about it?’ she croaked. ‘I don’t keep a bloody shagging shark whisperer up my sleeve.’
‘I do not give a damn what you do; just make it go away or I will see you are dragged through every court in the land. You must have planned for this contingency.’
Sally snorted. ‘What do you think the bleeding disclaimer is for, you ponce?’
Nigel gave her a hard stare. ‘For lawyers like me to get around.’
She blanched. ‘Why me? He’s the director.’ Sally pointed at Lex. Or rather, at the spot where he’d been a few moments ago. Her confusion was interrupted by the roaring of an engine, as Lex mounted an Endurance Island jet ski with ‘Go Low Mobile’ emblazoned on its side and ordered two of the crew to do the same with the remaining machines.
‘Fook me,’ Sally whispered. ‘When did he grow a pair?’
The sudden commotion from onshore didn’t go unnoticed by the contestants. Frances saw the jet skis heading in their direction and almost drowned on the spot. She could see Lex on one, his open shirt flapping. He was pointing and yelling something, and everyone had stopped to stare at the spectacle.
&
nbsp; ‘What the fark is he saying, Nick?’
Nick strained to hear above the wind and the motors. ‘Shark?’
‘Shark,’ Joni repeated.
‘Huh?’ Frances frowned at her sister.
‘Shark,’ she hissed. ‘Swim!’
Frances, deluged by foaming water as the other contestants temporarily forgot about the game in the face of this immediate peril, needed no further encouragement. Cheryl’s warning about falling behind loomed large in her mind and she struck towards the shore, a propeller suddenly attached to her arse.
Poor Kazuki. It was patently obvious that he would be the shark’s first victim. She felt a moment of remorse for the young man who had wished them good luck. But still, the shark had to get past Lex and his merry men before it could exact retribution for all its harpooned relatives.
The swell picked up the closer they got to the island, and slammed them around like skittles, making headway difficult. When the jet ski cavalry arrived a minute later, Frances had swallowed even more water and was gagging as she swam. And she’d thought spam was the worst thing anyone could swallow!
The gang of jet skiers circled around the frantic swimmers, halting their progress. ‘False alarm,’ Lex said cheerfully as he cut his engine. ‘Just a whale shark. No danger to humans. We scared it off, though.’
The group of eight trod water, the swell bobbing them like corks, all too relieved to say a word. Frances was torn between wanting to cry and yanking Lex off his machine and getting the hell out of Dodge.
‘A whale shark?’ she reiterated.
Lex nodded. ‘Beautiful creatures. Only eat plankton.’
Frances glanced at Joni. She knew her sister had developed a friendship with the hapless director but right now his upper-crust joviality was rubbing salt into an already pickled wound.
‘Fair suck of the sav, mate,’ Cheryl growled. ‘You scared the living shit out of all of us.’
‘Sorry about that,’ Lex beamed. ‘Better to be safe, what-o?’
Frances rolled her eyes at Joni. ‘Who the hell does he think he is?’ she whispered. ‘PG Wodehouse?’
Joni shrugged. ‘He’s from the theatre.’
‘More like the bloody Twilight Zone.’
Joni giggled, but Frances caught her staring with appreciation at the smooth brown chest exposed by Lex’s flapping shirt. Frances opened her mouth to say more but Takahiro, taking advantage of the lull, started ranting at Kazuki again and they were all plunged back into the game.
A minute later, the field of swimmers had all settled back into the same positions they were in before their brush with the vegetarian monster from the deep: Nick in front, Kazuki bringing up the rear. Frances’s arms were about to fall off and the island didn’t seem to be getting any closer. Maybe it was just some hideous joke thought up by The Stapler; some man-made mirage to taunt them with, to see which of them cracked up first.
It was a measure of her exhaustion that Frances suddenly didn’t care if it was her. She felt like she’d been treading water, ineffectually battering against the swell and the current, struggling like a landed fish. The frantic swim during the shark scare had wiped out all her resolve and, as she swallowed one more mouthful of ocean, she knew she couldn’t go any further.
‘I can’t do it, Joni,’ she said, her arms slowing. She was so cold. ‘I think I’m hallucinating.’
Joni looked over at her struggling sister. ‘Of course you can. You’re Frankie. You can do anything.’
Tears welled in Frances’s eyes at her sister’s faith in her. How often when they were children, left to their own devices, had Joni looked at her with utter conviction that her big sister could do anything? The current dragged at her feet and a wave slapped against her face.
She coughed and spluttered as Kandy overtook her. Had she been less shattered, she’d have reached for the pneumatic cheerleader – any floatation device in a storm.
‘No, not this time. I’m sorry.’
Joni frowned. She looked around. Cheryl had slowed right down and the others were far enough behind that she and Frankie could spare a little time. She swam closer to Frances and trod water beside her, rubbing her hands up and down her sister’s arms as vigorously as she could while they were underwater.
‘You can do this. It has to be you first up the beach. You. I got the amulet, you have to place it on the altar. They’re the rules. We’re so close now.’
‘We’re not,’ Frances cried, pointing at the recalcitrant island. ‘It’s a mirage.’
Joni shook her head and pushed wet strips of Frankie’s once expensive and sleek, now just bedraggled, bob behind her ear. ‘No, it’s just the current and the swell. It gets worse closer to shore. We are getting closer.’
‘You’re just saying that.’ Frances was sobbing now as she battled to keep her head above water. ‘God, I can’t believe G would … do this to us.’ She spluttered as a wave washed over her head, taking her by surprise. She emerged, coughing. ‘Why couldn’t she just …’ cough, cough, splutter, ‘leave it be? If she wanted me … drowned,’ another cough, ‘why didn’t she just … throw me in the b … b … bloody Thames when I was first born?’ She saw greyness in front of her eyes as panic took hold. ‘She never liked me as much as she did you,’ Frances accused, her legs kicking furiously, her teeth starting to chatter. ‘You were always her favourite.’
Joni blinked at her sister’s rising hysteria. Misty passed them now too. ‘Frances!’ She shook Frances hard and was rewarded with wild-eyed attention. ‘Listen to me. You have to do this, and do this now. I don’t know about you but I never want to stand on that trapdoor, ever again, so we must win this. Now, snap the hell out of it. I need you.’
For a few moments, Frances was too stunned to answer. She put her hand to her face, sure Joni had slapped her.
‘Frances!’
Joni’s voice reached right inside Frances and yanked at her big-girl pants until they were rammed solidly in the crack of her arse. A mental wedgie.
The game. The inheritance. Immunity. G.
It all came crashing to the fore and, in that instant, Frances was back. She smiled at Joni. ‘Who the hell are you and what have you done with my sister?’
Joni smiled back. ‘Beats the shit out of me.’
‘Thanks,’ Frances said, giving Joni a brief, hard hug before kicking out, the shoreline firmly in her sights.
For the next few minutes, Frances swam like there really was a shark after her. She pulled level with Kandy and Misty, surprised to find Cheryl not too far ahead. Maybe Nick’s harpy had gone too hard, too early, with all that ‘Aussie Aussie Aussie’ carry-on?
Frances kept going. With her gaze on the main beach and Joni slightly behind and to one side of her, she suddenly felt like she could take over the world. Did she want to stand on that evil trapdoor again, and wait while Darryl and The Stapler drew out the suspense for the sick pleasure of millions and what she suspected was their own gratification?
No sodding way!
Thank God for Joni.
Not that Frances had ever thought in a hundred lifetimes she’d be thanking anyone for Joni. But this week she’d excelled as a teacher and her pep talk just now was the stuff politicians’ wet dreams were made of. Maybe, just maybe, Endurance Island would be the making of her?
The making of both of them?
Maybe G hadn’t been certifiable after all.
Better yet, maybe it was time to forgive and forget? Well, forgive, anyway. Start rebuilding their relationship.
Frances couldn’t believe she was even contemplating this, as she determinedly kicked and grabbed at the water. Maybe it was the adrenalin? Or maybe that she’d missed being Joni’s hero.
By the time Frances was close enough to see Lex petting something in his hands, she was nipping at Cheryl’s heels.
Hah! Move over, Koala Tits, eat my foam!
An athletics champion as a child, she was sure she was a faster runner than Cheryl by far. Nothing could stop her o
nce her feet touched the sand.
She turned to smile triumphantly at her sister. But Joni was nowhere to be seen. ‘Joni?’ she called.
Joni appeared from under a wave, her face contorted in pain. ‘Keep going,’ she panted. ‘I just have … a cramp … be there in a sec.’
Frances saw Kandy and Misty closing in and, in her peripheral vision, Cheryl was standing, obviously having finally touched the bottom. She bit her lip uncertainly.
‘Go,’ Joni shouted. ‘Don’t let them win!’
Frances, as ignorant about the dangers of cramps while swimming as she was about anything aquatic, didn’t need any more encouragement. A convenient wave propelled her towards the beach, and she rode it in on her belly like she’d been born in Hawaii not on the side of the M1 in the pouring rain. The wave dissipated before it reached land proper, depositing Frances at Cheryl’s feet.
‘Watch it, you stupid sheila,’ Cheryl yelled as the impact nearly knocked her over.
Frances ignored her. All she could see, all she could think about, was the altar that had been set up at the far end of the beach where the rainforest met the sand. It was an impressive prop – large and sandstone – or as near to sandstone as the prop department could make out of polystyrene and papier-mâché anyway. She sprang out of her tumble like a springbok and headed straight for the finish line.
‘Go, Frances, go!’ Lex called and earned himself a short, sharp elbow in the ribs from The Stapler.
Frances ignored him too. She vaguely heard Cheryl calling out to Nick, and Nick yelling at her to run, run, run, which she also ignored. Not even the glorious heat of the sun reaching right into the chilly marrow of her bones registered as she pushed her screaming muscles a little bit harder. The altar was in her sights and adrenalin had her in its grip.
Thirty seconds later, her heart slamming in her chest, she was pulling the ugly amulet off her neck and draping it over the altar as requested. ‘We win, right? We win?’ she demanded of Darryl, who was standing smugly by the altar in a pose worthy of Captain Kirk.