Sister Pact

by Ali Ahearn

  Frankie’s bottom hit the dirt as she slid the final few feet to her sister and popped off more rounds of red paint.

  ‘I’ll wrestle that fucker hand-to-hand if I have to.’

  Suddenly, the low steady hum of the jungle was replaced by a whirring growl. It took them a moment to register it was the sound of an approaching helicopter. Within seconds, the sound filled the ravine in which they were standing. The crocodile, crouching menacingly at the end of Joni’s little pool, did a passable impression of a frightened rabbit, backing off the lip and slipping silently back to wherever he had come from.

  Frankie laughed out loud.

  ‘It’s the cavalry, JoJo.’

  The extraction crew was on hand for just such emergencies as these, so Joni hadn’t expected to see Lex. But the sight of him was like that of Gatorade for an Olympic sprinter.

  Within a few minutes of hearing the chopper, he was beside Joni, lying in the cool shallow water, patting her hair, wiping ineffectually at her purple face with a clean handkerchief, and shushing her and telling her everything was okay now. G would love that. She had always said you could trust a man who carried a hanky.

  Joni sagged into his lean strength and thought there seemed nothing languid or decadent about him now. She lay there, listening to him supervise the tying on of the ropes and harnesses. He sounded both imperious and at ease, like he rescued damsels in distress every day.

  Frankie was in the water next to them, squeezing Joni so hard she made a demented little squeak. They both laughed at the look on Lex’s face.

  ‘Looks like some things have been resolved?’

  His voice was posh and kind and sexy, and his face was warm and mobile, and she decided that for this, she could forgive him. For being her hero, for rescuing her from prehistoric jaws, she could forgive him the locket.

  Joni suppressed an urge to kiss his lovely mouth. From now on, no random kissing.

  If her sister could move beyond the habits of a lifetime, and give up anger and bitterness and open her heart to their sisterhood, then Joni could bloody well stop making such scatty decisions in love.

  And life.

  And everything.

  Starting now.

  ‘Frankie …’ Joni tried to order the thoughts in her head. She didn’t care that Lex was there, she had to explain. In fact, his nearby strength gave her the confidence she would need to explain it all to Frankie. She had never spoken of that night to anyone before the treasure hunt, and the words felt thick and clumsy in her brain.

  ‘No, Joni.’ Frankie was looking directly at her, and her eyes were warm and relieved. ‘We don’t even need to discuss it. It’s gone. Dead. I really, really don’t care.’

  It felt so good to see her sister looking at her that way, to bask in her affection, that Joni only just managed to stop herself from saying, But I care. It was important to her that her sister know the truth.

  She swallowed her words. Frankie was right. It didn’t matter. Not right now, at least.

  Joni watched the lightweight stretcher being lowered on the next set of ropes, along with a stocky, reliable-looking guy who had ‘paramedic’ written into every cell of his body. For the first time, she became aware of the heat and pain in her foot, and shook her head with wonder that this was how the episode was going to end.

  She reached up a hand to grasp Lex’s chin.

  ‘How did you know to come? And how did you get here so fast?’

  Lex coughed. ‘You’d be surprised how close you were; I was, when I checked the homing signal. We were already in the chopper when Kazuki came back and told us to hustle. I’m not sure what went on out here, Joni, but the lad was crying like a baby.’

  ‘I’ll make the little fucker cry.’ Frankie’s face was twisted with fury. Joni put a hand on her arm.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Frankie. Really. This is the best ending I could ever imagine.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ Lex agreed, like he belonged in this saga with them.

  And, somehow, he did.

  A few hours later, Joni found herself standing alone under a shaggy tree that fringed the beach. Her head throbbed from the direct hit it had taken earlier but the breeze coming from the sea was gentle for once and the sea itself swished with a sultry growl, just as it did when the Love Boat would hit Acapulco. And a zillion stars, with no regard for personal space, pressed down from the swirling sky.

  Lex appeared like a fairy-tale prince through the trees, and Joni hiccupped like a fairy-tale princess never did.

  ‘Hello, Lex,’ she said, feeling like a proper, grown-up woman.

  Talking to a man.

  The thought made her belly twitch. And somewhere lower twitch too.

  This was the Lex she had come to know so well. The Lex who knew her, and still liked her. Who seemed impressed by her, when the rest of the world just saw green hair and a pet ferret. The Lex who made her feel safe, but who she also sometimes caught looking at her like maybe he could gobble her up.

  ‘Joni.’

  The word was like a sentence, a sigh and an explanation all rolled into one. Joni touched the side of Lex’s face, to feel the merest hint of stubble and the soft – strong play of skin over jaw muscle. She considered the clean, elegant lines of his face and stomped harder on the renegade urge to kiss him.

  But even as she fought it, she knew the urge was different this time.

  ‘How could I ever have thought you were a waster?’

  Lex laughed and put an arm around Joni’s waist. Gently, but proprietarily.

  She was dizzily aware of the feel of his hand through her skirt. She felt like one of his flowers, opening up to his touch.

  ‘Yes, well – waster is a little generous, really.’

  Joni could hear there was more behind his words than self-deprecation. She touched his arm where it met her hip. ‘Want to talk about it?’

  ‘No.’ He looked soberly into her eyes. ‘I mean, yes. I think. Long version, or short one?’

  ‘Oh, definitely short, I think,’ Joni nodded quickly, wondering how long she was going to be able to feel his hand on her skirt without pulling it underneath.

  ‘Jolly good,’ Lex agreed, nodding and making her laugh. ‘Now, let’s see. It’s rather … well, let’s just say if it showed up in a script, it’d be too boring to direct.’

  Joni silently communicated she wanted to hear it anyway.

  ‘My wife, you see. Ex-wife, of course.’

  ‘Arhhhh.’ Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

  Joni had a sick feeling she didn’t want to hear this.

  Only she did. She nodded for him to go on.

  ‘Quite boring, really. Wife. Best friend. Now wife of best friend. The only truly spectacular thing about it all was how I took it. Rather silly, really. Now that I look at it all. Now that I look at … you.’

  Joni held her breath and thought: That was nice. Say you don’t still love her.

  ‘I don’t still love her, of course.’

  Joni’s insides gave each other high-fives.

  ‘Not sure I ever did, really. Although of course I thought I did, for a long, long time. And it was all just so … tawdry. And hideous. And everyone knew. It was unbearable. I pretended not to care about it all. And after a while, I didn’t. Care about anything, that is. And that’s where you found me.’

  Joni turned and held out her arms to the tall brown man standing beside her and he stepped into her embrace. She fished with her right hand in a particular pocket, drawing out the beautiful hipflask she knew was there and then held it up to him.

  ‘How bad did it get?’

  Lex took the flask and laughed. ‘Oh, this? Truly, Joni, I don’t even do addiction very well. A bit of an affectation, really. My true rebellion was just … giving up.’

  Joni nodded. She got it. ‘But you’ve decided not to? Give up, I mean.’

  Lex nodded as he looked deeply into her eyes. ‘I’m not saying this because I want you, Joni.’ He paused. ‘Although I do want you
– very, very much.’

  Joni’s insides stopped high-fiving and started turning giddy cartwheels, while some kind of daft inferno was raging in the zone between her knees and her waist. And, somehow, in the midst of the firestorm, his words made up for all the bad things this place had spawned.

  Including the loss of the locket.

  The game wasn’t real life. Lex saving her, Lex wanting her. That was real life.

  And no-one else had ever made her feel so safe.

  He went on. ‘Somehow, it just didn’t seem right to give up. Not here, with all this demon-facing going on. Made my own stuff seem kind of silly. Know what I mean?’

  Joni nodded and, for the first time in a long time, could think of nothing to say. Except for, that is, Just bloody fucking get on with it and kiss me, which didn’t seem appropriate.

  Lex went on. ‘But mostly it was you. Brave Joni.’ He looked at her uncertainly, as if afraid he might ruin the moment. ‘I have something for you.’

  He pulled away for a moment, holding her gaze as he slowly, carefully, withdrew Des and kneeled down. Once he had carefully placed the sleeping rodent in a little indentation in the sand, he stood up again, reached around Joni’s waist and removed her mike pack, before digging a little hole next to Des and burying it. Then he dug in his pocket and pulled something out. Joni squinted as moonlight glinted on its surface. She recognised the swinging object and gasped.

  ‘But how?’

  Lex looked sheepish. ‘I pulled a bit of a swifty, I’m afraid. I just couldn’t let Sal destroy something that obviously meant so much to both of you. Debbie from Make-up had a similar locket and a potent dislike of Sally. I switched it when we were all groping around in the dirt. I’ll keep it safe for you, until the end. But I needed you to know that I had it. That it was safe. That I would never let you be hurt like that.’

  His face had the long, arrogant lines of a king. A very beautiful, clever, kind and exceptionally dear king. Joni wanted to ask him whether he had any royal blood. But she couldn’t right now.

  Because right now he was going to kiss her.

  He was going to kiss her.

  As he leaned close she smelled the sun and sea and how clean he was. She even noticed the first grey at his hairline.

  ‘Lovely Joni,’ he breathed. ‘Why did it take us so long to get here?’

  And then his mouth was on hers, and her hands were in his hair, and her whole body was pressed against his.

  ‘Joni, you are so perfect.’

  And Joni thought so too. In fact, she thought everything was perfect.

  Well, almost everything.

  As Joni lay on the sand, kissing Lex like her life depended on it, she knew there was still something she needed to confront. Forgiveness from Frankie wasn’t going to be enough. She needed her sister to understand.

  Chapter 18

  Frances, Day 29

  Frances craned her neck for the first sighting as Darryl narrated the non-action like a cricket commentator during a rain-delayed test match. Joni craned hers too and her green curls, now straw-like above the glowing purple bruise on her forehead, brushed against Frances’s own Worzel Gummidge catastrophe. The noise, like a cricket rubbing its legs together, sent Des scurrying into the recesses of Joni’s shirt pocket.

  Takahiro and Kazuki stood beside them, also peering eagerly towards the beach.

  A jungle drum beat somewhere in the background – sounding appropriate amid the lush, wild tangle of life teeming around them – and Frances heard her heart rate pick up the tempo. As she waited with her sister, their hands joined, she knew that any moment now their parents would enter the clearing.

  When The Stapler had informed them they each got to invite a loved one for the last show, Christmas Eve, and demanded to know who they wanted, she and Joni had been at a loss. The only person they’d really wanted was unavailable.

  Death was a bitch like that.

  Sally had proposed Edward – after all, Kazuki and Takahiro were having their wives as their guests. But even if she hadn’t felt Joni’s flinch all the way to her toes, Frances would still have shrunk from the idea.

  Edward? She’d rather invite the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

  Which kind of left them with only two possibilities. Lizzie and Carter.

  The Odd Couple.

  It was depressing, really, that neither could get more excited about it. But the sad fact was that, as parents, Lizze and Carter had been totally underwhelming. A classic example of too many hormones and dodgy contraception.

  But still. Standing like this, with her fingers woven through Joni’s, the strands of their shared sisterhood and of fresh beginnings interlinked to form a fragile new bond. And Frances felt that maybe there was hope they would all become a proper family.

  And, frankly, as long as the boat that brought the Parents From Hell also brought Nick – long, strong, golden Nick – Frances was willing to suffer a couple of hours of the Carter and Lizzie Great Train Wreck.

  Yes, she’d been angry with Nick when he’d disappeared down the trapdoor, but a lot had happened since then.

  Her libido had no pride. And a good memory.

  The stone fireplace crackled fit for a medieval banquet, and the evening breeze lifted Frances’s hair, rubbing the dry strips together like sandpaper.

  She shuffled her feet impatiently, not willing to give The Stapler the satisfaction of displaying an impatient expression in the obligatory dram-cam shots. Darryl’s excited pitch, yabbering about Christmas and the final countdown, burbled into the tense silence.

  Her foot nudged an object and she looked down at the small bag that her paltry belongings didn’t even fill. They’d been told to pack light and she would be taking even fewer things back with her. She never wanted to see these Robinson Crusoe clothes again.

  As Frances glanced back at the white tableclothed altar behind them, her mouth watered thinking about the Christmas feast they’d been offered as part of the finale. She’d refused to eat anything today. She was buggered if she was going to suffer yet another instalment of depression food when mince pies were in the offing.

  Thanks to four weeks on the Island of the Damned, she could do starvation.

  Takahiro had scowled at her as she’d emptied the contents of her breakfast bowl into the fire. She’d flipped him the bird. At least Endurance Island had liberated the Joni in her. And since Takahiro had shot her sister between the eyes and then buggered off, leaving them to face down a prehistoric predator, she’d given up any pretence of civility.

  Kazuki, she liked. Takahiro could burn in hell.

  ‘Any moment now,’ Darryl intoned, ‘our guests will be arriving for our finale – traditional English Christmas dinner …’

  Frances rolled her eyes at Joni. ‘He makes it sound like Jamie Oliver’s going to parachute onto the island with Jools, the kids, a stuffed goose and a Christmas pud under each arm,’ she whispered.

  Joni grinned. ‘Pukka pukka.’

  It was hard to believe it was even Christmas Eve. Holidays were as irrelevant on this island as was the passage of time. Having a traditional English celebration seemed surreal.

  And, anyway, in what version of hell was it hot and sultry at Christmas? When they’d left England a month ago, Frances had been wearing Jag jeans, a Burberry tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, a cashmere scarf and soft leather gloves. She looked down at her black one-piece bathers and the three-quarter-length cargo pants that were now so loose, she could have been a breakboy.

  Hardly customary Christmas gear. What would the Haversham Old Girls make of her?

  A droplet splashed on her face and she peered up at the canopy, like lacy black coral against the moonlit sky. At home she could have been secure in the knowledge that the drop had been from melting snow. But the drip was too warm and Frances feared its origin. Oversexed plants and a steamy atmosphere had some interesting by-products.

  As she wiped it away, Frances had a sudden primal longing for snow
. And tinsel. And carols. Anything to remind them that this was, after all, December twenty-fourth. Surely The Stapler could have arranged for a few baubles to hang on the fornicating foliage?

  Still, in a couple of hours it would all be over and they’d be heading home. With G’s money. And maybe, hopefully, a little bit more …

  No more Darryl or Sally. No more God-knew-from-what random overhead drips.

  And then, just when the waiting really became too much and Frances was about to yell ‘Shut the fuck up!’ at Darryl, a shape appeared in the distance, and then another and another, moving towards them until they took form, with arms and legs and faces.

  ‘Momoko,’ Kazuki called, waving like a desperate schoolboy. And when the wait obviously got too much for him, he broke ranks and trotted towards her.

  ‘Oh,’ Joni murmured as Kazuki swept his young wife into his arms.

  ‘That’s sweet,’ Frances muttered. And she meant it. It humanised the young man to see him with the person he loved.

  But her eyes searched the group for one person only.

  The Honeymooners, still draped over one another like dirty hormonal teenagers, passed by. Kandy and Misty, still wearing clothes no toddler in a healthy weight range could squeeze into, squealed as they launched themselves at Joni and Frances for a group hug. Frances held them a few seconds longer than necessary, surprised to feel such a fierce connection.

  Daragh, looking more robust than he had just weeks ago, swooped in and wrapped them in bear hugs. Colm joined him. Frances watched as Joni touched Daragh’s face and smiled at him and a lump came to her throat. Before her were two people who were proof positive that addiction could be conquered. Sure, Daragh had a long road ahead. But tonight, on Christmas Eve, in the middle of a megalithic jungle, it looked like he’d make it.

  Then, suddenly, in her peripheral vision she saw him.

  All tanned and tall and glorious, in board shorts and a t-shirt that showed off his work-honed legs and his very capable arms. His blue, blue eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled at her and they were as vibrant as she remembered, despite the night and the undiluted oestrogen that was clouding her vision.