Refuge

by Jackie French

  Was she still breathing?

  ‘Where’s Billy?’ Faris panted.

  Susannah pointed mutely down.

  For a moment Faris thought she meant Billy had fallen off the rock. Then he saw that the convict boy had tied one end of the shirt-rope around himself, while Juhi and David held the other end. Billy dangled half in the water as he reached out his arms to the swimmers.

  ‘Here!’ Faris yelled. He dangled the bladders down to Billy. ‘They’ll stop you from sinking!’

  Billy’s face looked up, grim-faced with terror, but his hands didn’t shake as he reached up to take the bladders.

  ‘Pass some to Mudurra too!’

  Faris watched as Billy rested his weight on half the floating bladders, then threw the others towards Mudurra. It was an accurate throw. How many years had Billy spent throwing a ball?

  Billy is the strongest of us, thought Faris, but someone lighter should have gone down. Billy might be too heavy for us to haul up, with the weight of wet cloth too. What if the current is too strong for us, and rips him and the rope out of our hands?

  And suddenly he had the solution to that too. ‘Susannah! Jamila! Help me!’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Pull both lots of driftwood over here. Don’t worry, we won’t lose them.’ I hope, he thought, imagining them all stranded on the rock. ‘Now tie the last sleeve around them. See? If we push the driftwood over the other end of the rock, their weight should stop Billy from being swept away.’

  And if just one of our shirts tears, Billy will die, he thought. Mudurra and the girl will die. Our bridge will be lost. We will all be stranded here till we die.

  They rolled the hunks of driftwood across the rock, then pushed them over the other side. For a moment the lengths of wood swung back and forth, then dangled down.

  The shirts and driftwood held.

  Now, for a while, Billy was secure. Faris squeezed past Susannah and Jamila to the other side of the rock, just as Mudurra’s hand met Billy’s. For a second it looked like Mudurra would be swept away, through the rocks and out to sea. Then Billy had him gripped by both his wrists, while Mudurra held the girl.

  And now to get them up.

  ‘Strip off her clothes, you fools!’ yelled Jamila, Jamila the modest, Jamila the strong. She untied her headscarf. Her hair blew wild and free as she dangled the headscarf down. The breeze blew it back at her. Then suddenly the wind dropped, for a moment, and the scarf became a rope too. Billy grabbed it, using it to steady himself in the rage of water.

  Mudurra was already tearing at the girl’s clothes. The garments drifted for a metre, like sodden seaweed, then sank, as Billy and Mudurra tied the scarf-rope around the girl.

  ‘Pull!’ screamed Billy.

  They pulled.

  The girl came up like a saturated teddy bear, like wet washing. Like a body, thought Faris, then thrust the thought away. She had to be alive. Hands reached for her as she neared the top of the rock.

  She was fifteen, perhaps, a couple of years older than him, white underclothes against a dark skin, a long black plait; she was so thin her ankles and wrists were no thicker than Susannah’s.

  Her eyes were shut. She didn’t breathe.

  ‘Stand clear.’ Faris bent down and began to breathe into the girl’s mouth. His father had taught him this, so many, many years before. He had almost forgotten till now.

  What if he did it wrong?

  It felt strange feeling a girl’s lips against his. They were soft and cold. He breathed out again, trying to remember how his father had taught him to count. Wasn’t he supposed to press her heart too?

  Suddenly the girl gave a heaving breath. Faris automatically rolled her on her side, just as she vomited seawater over the black rock. She lay there, giving short hard pants, her eyes closed. Alive.

  Faris turned back to find Mudurra clambering up behind him, his feet against the rock, using the shirt-rope to haul and guide himself. For a second Mudurra stood there, glistening and black, triumphant above the water, then he dropped exhausted into a surprisingly small heap on the rock.

  ‘Mudurra!’ Juhi bent over him. His hand came up and touched her cheek, as he gasped strength back into his body.

  ‘Billy?’ Faris peered down. Billy bobbed in the water, buoyed by the water bladders. The current tore at him, the waves slapped him, but he held the shirt-rope fast.

  ‘Haul me up, matey!’ he yelled.

  ‘We’re trying!’ David and the others were already pulling. But even their desperate strength and the anchor of the driftwood wasn’t enough to haul up a waterlogged Billy.

  ‘Well, I ain’t goin’ to let the sea take me. If a darkie can walk up a rock, then so can I.’

  Billy reached up one hand and grabbed the shirt-rope higher up. He let go of the floating bladders and gripped with the other hand too, forcing his feet against the rock.

  Once again he let go with one hand, reached it higher up to grab the rope, then walked his legs, his sodden-trousered, heavy legs, up the rock …

  And stopped halfway. His whole body seemed to tremble. Strength of will had got Billy this far.

  But it was not enough.

  ‘Hold my legs!’ Juhi lay down on the rock’s edge, her arms reaching for Billy, as David and Faris grabbed her. Now Mudurra panted as he seized her ankles too.

  Slowly Billy emerged, like a red-and-white fish, streaming and gasping. ‘Took youse long enough,’ he said. And fainted.

  CHAPTER 15

  It was David who grabbed the rope so that the driftwood bridge didn’t fall into the sea, Susannah and David who hauled up the driftwood, while Juhi hugged Mudurra, and Faris held the girl’s head steady in case she vomited again and choked. Billy gasped beside them, slowly coming round from his faint.

  At last Faris and Susannah guided the length of wood back to make a bridge to the other rock. Faris crossed first, then held out his hands to steady David and Jamila as they helped Billy across, holding onto the shirt-rope, stretched tight between Faris on one rock and Susannah on the other to steady them in case one of them fell.

  They didn’t.

  Mudurra came next, swiftly, surely, even though his hands still trembled, then Faris went back to help Susannah and Juhi carry the limp weight of the semi-conscious girl. The girls had dressed her in one of Susannah’s petticoats, her shawl and apron. They pushed the second length of driftwood over to the cliff. Slowly, one by one, they made it from the first rock back to the shore.

  The bridges held.

  Faris was glad that the girl was clothed, not for his own embarrassment — that seemed to have been long blown out to sea — but for her sake, so that when she properly woke she would know she had not been handled naked by strange boys.

  The girl muttered something. Her eyes didn’t open. But she breathed.

  Between them, Faris, Jamila and David managed to carry her to the beach, to lie her on the warm sand, her head cradled in Jamila’s lap.

  Little Nikko ran to them. He grabbed Susannah’s hand, then peered at the strange girl, panting and semi-conscious on the sand. ‘Is she alive?’

  ‘She is. She’s goin’ to stay alive too.’ Billy sprawled beside them, his legs and arms stretched out as though to drink in strength from the sun. Mudurra sat erect, refusing to let weakness take him. But he accepted pomegranate juice when Juhi lugged the jug over.

  Billy hefted himself up to drink. He grinned as he passed the jug to Faris. ‘We did it, matey! We did it!’

  Faris grinned back. Suddenly they were all grinning, except the girl on Jamila’s lap. For a moment Faris felt he could face anything now — the wave, an unknown future. He looked at the others and knew they felt the same thing.

  Power. They had challenged the sea. They had won. Faris lifted the jug of pomegranate juice. It was good to taste the sweetness. The whole world felt sweet.

  Suddenly Susannah gave a cry. ‘The doorway!’

  She ran over the first bridge and tried to lift the second back to the f
irst rock.

  Faris struggled to his feet and ran over to her.

  ‘We have to get the door back up!’ She panted with the effort.

  Would the doorway ever work again? Propping two pieces of driftwood up together and hanging a length of tatty hide surely could not create a doorway back to their old lives — if that’s what they had ever done.

  Faris looked at Susannah’s face and realised that she too thought the doorway might be gone forever.

  But they had to try.

  David was beside him now. As they carried the second length of driftwood over the first bridge to the rocks where the door had stood, Faris saw Billy shrug and haul himself up. Mudurra followed him and the two retrieved the other bridge.

  It was easy to see where the lengths of driftwood had rested, to replace them in the same position. Easy, even, for David to prop them so they leaned together, almost as if each piece remembered how it had bonded to the other. Faris heard a ‘click’ as the two halves met.

  But he could see the beach between them. No wave, no other worlds.

  Wordlessly Susannah picked up the wrinkled skin.

  ‘How are you going to attach it?’

  Susannah shoved off her shoes and socks. The socks were wet and sandy. Her feet were very white. She thrust each sock through the two holes in the top of the skin, then stood on tiptoe to tie them to the wood. She stepped back and studied the doorway.

  It looked like a child’s cubby house. It looked like two pieces of driftwood, propped between rocks on a beach, with a flap tied with a child’s socks. It looked ridiculous.

  Suddenly Susannah sank onto the sand. She began to cry, small choked sobs.

  Faris glanced back at the girl Mudurra had rescued, curled on the sand with Juhi and Jamila, a thin parcel wrapped in Susannah’s shawl. The girl seemed to be breathing easily now. Her eyes were still closed.

  Faris kneeled by Susannah. ‘I’m sorry about the door,’ he said.

  ‘We did what was right.’ Her voice was small and fierce. ‘We did do what was right, didn’t we?’

  ‘We did. It might still work too.’

  Some of Billy’s colour had come back now. ‘And we got Mudurra and the girl safe, didn’t we? That’s what matters.’

  Faris could hear the pride in his voice. ‘You were a hero.’ He looked over at Mudurra, sitting silently on the sand. ‘And you were a warrior.’

  Mudurra spoke for the first time since they had returned to the beach. ‘No. Not a warrior. Yet.’ He used his spear to force his body to stand up, still trembling from exhaustion. He held out his hand to Juhi.

  ‘I am going home,’ he said simply. ‘Will you come through the door with me?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Juhi. She took his hand in hers.

  ‘No!’ Billy staggered towards them. ‘You’re mad, the both of you! What if the door don’t work?’

  Mudurra gave a tired grin. ‘Then we will still be here. But it is time I stopped hiding, as a child.’

  ‘I won’t let you!’ Billy stood in front of the driftwood doorway, his arms held wide. ‘Remember what you’re goin’ back to! Remember the rocks, the fire from the sky!’

  ‘Remember the land beyond the smoke,’ said Susannah softly, from her seat on the sand. ‘Your path of stars.’

  ‘I am going back to be a warrior,’ said Mudurra. ‘To find my beach and the land behind it.’ He met Susannah’s eyes. ‘A true one this time. And Juhi will come with me.’

  ‘But she can’t!’ yelled Billy. ‘She’ll go back to her own time! You know she will!’

  ‘I won’t.’ Juhi put her arm around Mudurra’s waist, supporting him. ‘We’ll change the world together.’

  ‘No!’ shouted Billy again.

  Faris grabbed his arm. ‘Let them go! It’s their choice!’

  Billy wrenched his arm away. ‘It’s a stupid choice.’

  ‘Billy,’ said Susannah quietly.

  His arms dropped to his sides. ‘Your funeral,’ he said, then gave an almost-grin. ‘Nah, not a funeral. I didn’t mean it like that. Good luck, matey. I hopes you get there. An’ you too, girl. An’ maybe the door won’t work,’ he added hopefully.

  ‘I think it will.’ Juhi hesitated. She left Mudurra’s side, then quickly kissed Billy on the cheek. He flushed, the white skin turning red. To Faris’s surprise she kissed his cheek too, then bent and hugged Susannah hard.

  ‘We know what we’re doing,’ Juhi said quietly. She glanced at Mudurra, at the patched-up doorway. ‘Well, perhaps we don’t. But even if we can’t remake the future, the land we are going to will be empty enough to find a place of peace.’ She smiled at Mudurra. ‘A world of our own. Sometime. Somewhere. Pray for us,’ she added softly.

  Mudurra reached out his hand. She clasped it again. They took three steps towards the door.

  For a second they looked back. Juhi raised her hand in a small wave. Mudurra met their gazes, his face calm and resolute. They turned back to the arch.

  Would the doorway work? Faris didn’t know whether he hoped it would, or not. So easy to have all the choices made for you, to have to live here, unchanging, forever.

  Mudurra pushed the skin aside.

  For an instant the opening shone blood red in the growing shadows of the beach. A scent of burning, of sulphur, blew across the sand, the smell and mutter of another sea. Then the two figures filled the doorway. The skin flapped down again.

  A cold wind drifted across the sea and sand.

  Mudurra and Juhi were gone.

  CHAPTER 16

  The beach suddenly seemed empty. Faris shivered. Is this what it’s like each time people go through the doorway? he thought. This deep and complete severing? For none of them would ever know if Juhi and Mudurra had survived that terrible sea and sky beyond the doorway.

  How can we bear it?

  And then he realised that they had all borne worse than this already; had left their homes, their own lands; had left all they had known to arrive here.

  They had survived.

  The wind still blew cold. Faris had never known a cold wind on the beach before. Somehow losing Mudurra seemed to have taken some of the warmth out of the sun.

  The castaway groaned, a small thin bird-sound on the sand. She struggled to sit up. ‘My sisters.’ Her eyes were shadows in her dark face. Her lips were cracked and dry. The girl looked frantically about the beach. ‘Where are my sisters?’

  ‘Drink this.’ Susannah held the jug of pomegranate juice to the girl’s lips. The girl waved it away.

  ‘You have to help my sisters!’

  ‘Drink this first.’

  The girl sipped, gulped, choked, then with an iron will seemed to control her coughing. She sipped again, more carefully, then with growing desperation and thirst. She looked up at the faces around her. ‘My sisters!’ she urged again. ‘Are they here? Are they safe?’

  ‘There was only you,’ said Susannah quietly.

  ‘No!’ The girl lurched to her feet. She would have fallen but for Jamila’s arm. ‘They must still be out in the sea! Please! You must help me! We have to rescue them …’

  ‘You mean they were in the sea with you?’

  ‘Yes! No!’ The girl shook her head, as though to try to clear it. Her wet black plait bounced on her shoulder. ‘I … I don’t know.’

  Susannah and Faris shared a look of horror. He looked out at the bay again. Had there been other bodies in the water? No, he thought. We can’t have missed other girls out there!

  ‘What is the last thing you can remember?’ demanded Susannah urgently.

  The girl sank onto the sand again, clutching Susannah’s shawl around her. ‘We … we were in a boat. It would take us to Australia. My uncle had arranged it, he sent the money to the captain.’

  ‘Your uncle lives in Australia?’

  The girl choked back a sob. She nodded. ‘My uncle and my aunt. But the Australians say we cannot go to them. An aunt and uncle aren’t like mother and father. So we have to hide on the boat to
get there.’

  Susannah stroked the girl’s hand. ‘We can’t help you unless we know more. What place can you last remember?’

  The girl looked at her, unsure. Faris kneeled down. ‘You can trust Susannah,’ he said. ‘You can trust us all.’

  Suddenly he realised what she must be seeing, their strange and varied clothes, the boys’ bare scratched chests, the different-coloured skins. Why should she trust them?

  ‘You rescued me from the sea,’ she whispered. ‘The young man with the black skin — he pulled me up as I sank under the water. I thought he would drown too. The other boy, the boy in red …’

  ‘That was Billy.’ Faris leaned back so she could see Billy as well. The convict boy gave a half-salute.

  ‘I saw you all,’ she whispered. ‘Saw what you did for me.’ She shut her eyes, as if in pain. ‘I have to trust you.’

  Susannah stroked her hand again. ‘I don’t know how much we can help. But whatever we can do, we will.’

  The girl nodded again. She gazed out to sea once more, as though hoping to see faces, a ship, even wreckage. The water was smooth again, except for the lace-edged waves.

  ‘I am Nafeesa,’ she said at last. ‘My sisters and I were in the prison camp at Vavuniya.’

  ‘An’ where’s that?’ asked Billy, his voice attempting gentleness.

  ‘Sri Lanka.’

  ‘Never heard of it.’

  ‘I have,’ said Faris. ‘What about your parents?’

  ‘I think that they are dead,’ said Nafeesa softly. ‘I do not know. The ship’s captain put us in a box, to hide us, he said. A box that stank of fish. For days, I think. We had no water. No air. Just the smell of fish.’ She shuddered. ‘There must have been air, or I would be dead. But not enough. We struggled, and then we were still. And then I dreamed …’

  ‘You dreamed of Australia,’ said Susannah, ‘and then you were here.’

  The girl looked at her in surprise. ‘No. I dreamed of sky and sea and air to breathe, of room to move … Did the boat sink? Is that how I’m here?’