Deadly Sky (ePub), The

by Hill, David

  His eyes searched for one figure. There he was – Noah – climbing over the side of the dinghy, and wading ashore. Alicia rushed at him, wrapped her arms around him. They stood, gasping words at each other. Then a tall woman in a blue dress seized the boy in a fierce hug. ‘Mon fils!’ she was crying. ‘Mon fils! My son!’

  Alicia watched them, then turned to Darryl, where he stood with water dripping from him. ‘Thank you. Noah say the engine break up. The propeller make hole in the boat, and it sinks.’

  Darryl remembered the stop-starting vessel he’d seen from the beach. The bomb tests had caused this. Alicia was right. The tests had killed her father, and now they’d nearly killed more.

  Along the sand, tears had given way to laughter and more embraces. People wrapped blankets around the shoulders of the sunken boat’s crew. Darryl’s mother and Lily were there, handing out more blankets. Noah managed a shaky smile; his mother’s arms were still around him.

  Darryl glanced at Alicia. Her face was set. She looked as though … as though she’d made her mind up about something.

  At least I won’t have to worry about that party tonight, Darryl thought as he and Alicia began a slow walk back towards the lodge, with his mother and Lily, twenty or so minutes later.

  He jerked as Napoleon called from behind them: ‘Now we really have the party, my friends! We have so much to celebrate!’

  Lannya came, as Alicia had said she would. So did Principal Kara, and Father Pierre, and the other teachers, and an exhausted-looking Noah, and the girls from the trade school, and Lannya’s mother from the plane, and women and men whom Darryl recognised from church, and what seemed like a hundred kids.

  The only person missing was Raoul. Darryl remembered what Lily had said about his being in a bad mood. He and Alicia must have had a real fight. Probably just as well he wasn’t here: he and the principal might have another row, too.

  After Father Pierre had led a prayer, giving thanks for the afternoon rescue, everyone settled back to enjoy themselves. The adults sat or stood, talked and laughed. The little kids ran shrieking in one direction, then ran back shrieking in the other direction. A whole pig was roasting on the spit over a fire – Darryl hoped it wasn’t any of the ones he’d met.

  Darryl talked to Noah, who wanted to know all about New Zealand schools. Could pupils swim in the sea? Would there be snow at school? Alicia helped with the English. The other girls listened and giggled. Darryl realised he was laughing, too. The near-tragedy of the afternoon had been left behind.

  They ate. They ate, and ate, and ate. Amazing, Darryl told himself, between mouthfuls of pork and fish, and the fruit and vegetables they had gathered this morning. Amazing.

  A voice called for silence. Principal Kara. ‘We say goodbye to our friends. To Alicia for a little while. We hope she has a best time. To Madame Day-vees and Monsieur Dah-reel. You are bringing good hope for our young people. Please come back to Mangareva. We wish for you both a happy life. Au revoir.’

  Noah stepped forward, holding a little carved wooden canoe, which he handed to Darryl’s mother. Hey, my friends asked me to bring one back, and now I am, Darryl realised. He realised also that there were tears on his mother’s cheeks once more. Alicia was crying, too, for some reason. Heck, she was only going for five days!

  Drumming burst out. One of the men was sitting and beating. Instantly, some of the women were on their feet, arms out, moving from side to side. Small kids rushed forward to join in. Men were there, stamping feet, smacking hands. Alicia, Noah, the other girls, all laughing and exclaiming.

  Hands seized Darryl’s. Little Lannya, face lit with excitement, was tugging at him to join in.

  Darryl sat stiff. He couldn’t. He hated— Then he remembered his mother’s words, about adventure and his father. He saw Alicia watching. Suddenly he was up, holding Lannya’s hands, stamping his feet like the men, swinging from side to side. The little girl crowed with delight. There were shouts of ‘Allez! Allez! Vive la Nouvelle-Zélande!’ from the others. A storm of clapping burst out when the dance ended. Lily and his mother hugged him. Over their shoulders, Darryl glimpsed a new figure, standing by the trees and watching. Raoul. When he looked again, the young man was gone.

  People left quite early. Some of them still looked shattered from the afternoon’s rescue. They had church the next day, of course. And he had a plane to catch, to start heading home. The men all came up and shook his hand. The women embraced him. Lannya gave him more sticky kisses on each cheek, and crowed again when he lifted her up and swung her around. The other girls from the trades school kissed him too. I could get to like this, Darryl decided.

  When everyone was gone, and Lily, Alicia and Napoleon were cleaning up in the kitchen from which his mother had been shooed away once more, Darryl stood at the edge of the beach and gazed at the sweep of stars and the curve of ocean.

  The people here like me, he thought. I won’t ever forget them, or their island. And I’ve learned to think differently about things here …

  NINETEEN

  They left soon after breakfast. Darryl had already been up for hours. (If he told his friends back home, they’d never believe him.) He’d woken when it was still half-dark and lay there. A bird called, then was silent again. The sea hardly made a sound.

  He turned over, but he couldn’t go back to sleep. The flight back to Tahiti, then the other flight home: this time tomorrow, they’d almost be landing in Auckland. Maybe there’d be a letter from his father. Maybe his dad would say— No, he mustn’t start getting his hopes up too much.

  Anyway, first there was today’s nuclear test. At midday, his mum had heard, hundreds of kilometres away from where they’d be flying, but perhaps they’d still see something. The flash, or the mushroom cloud on the horizon. That would be incredible. But for once the thought of the bomb test made him feel a bit uneasy, too. He pushed the thought to one side.

  The light through the shutters was turning orange. Darryl slipped from bed, pulled on a T-shirt and a pair of shorts, and padded outside. Nobody else was up. A pig or a bird rustled in the trees off to one side. He watched for a few seconds, but nothing appeared.

  He breathed the soft morning air down into his lungs, made sure there was still nobody else around, then opened his arms wide and held them there. On the rim of the sea, a dazzling slice of white light appeared. The sun began to crawl upwards, turning the horizon orange, then ivory, then pale blue. A bird told other birds that it was waking-up time. The other birds agreed. A pair of wings curved overhead. The day had begun.

  Still an hour at least until breakfast. Darryl dawdled along the beach towards the path leading up into the trees. He wanted to be gone, yet he didn’t want to leave. The reef lay, a dark finger into the ocean. He remembered the burned body of the turtle and a shiver touched him.

  Passing the coconut palms he’d walked through on his way to climb Mount Duff, he saw the pile of old stones, the ruins of whatever had been there. Around the bend was the long corrugated iron building, the fallout shelter. If the winds changed after a test like today’s, people might have to wait in here for hours until it was safe. He tried to imagine Noah, the other girls, Father Pierre, little Lannya, all hurrying down here, frightened, not knowing what would happen. It wasn’t right. OK, free countries might need atomic weapons to defend themselves, but they shouldn’t test them here.

  He shook his head. What he’d told his mother was true: he just didn’t know how he felt about nuclear tests any longer. He wondered if his dad still felt the same way about them. Maybe they could talk it over sometime.

  Time to get back. He took a slow look around him, at the trees, the first butterflies drifting on the warm air, at the slope of Mount Duff lifting above. He turned and began striding back down the track.

  As he passed the fallout shelter, he stopped. On the near wall, a painted mushroom cloud rose, black and ugly. Around it lay stick figures of dead people. Flames poured from houses. A boat was sinking in a crudely painted sea nearb
y. Across the mushroom cloud, in tall white letters, the word NON!

  Raoul again. It had to be. The red paint on the government building, the message and dummy at the school, and now this. Yeah, the sooner he’s off this island, the better for everyone, Darryl thought again. Nobody’s going to take any notice anyway. And I’m not going to tell anyone about this last stunt; that’ll just make Raoul feel important.

  He left the shelter behind, and strode on. The beach was still empty; his feet crunched on the sand. Voices murmured from inside the lodge. Dishes clattered. Someone appeared around the side of one building. Alicia.

  She saw him a second later, and stared. Her eyes were wide; her hands twitched. She’s still scared about the flight, Darryl realised.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hi.’ Neither of them seemed to know what to say. ‘You OK – after yesterday?’ Darryl asked. The girl just nodded. ‘Not long now,’ he went. Alicia shot him a look, then glanced away. ‘Until the plane, I mean,’ he said.

  She didn’t reply, just watched the sea, across which a canoe was gliding. He remembered the one Noah had presented to them last night. ‘You’ll be fine,’ Darryl said after another few seconds. ‘It’ll be OK.’

  Her head came up. She stared at him again, face still frightened. Aw man, now I’ve made it worse, Darryl thought. But then she seemed to understand, and relaxed slightly. ‘Merci,’ she murmured.

  More silence. ‘I hope— I hope things go good for you in Tahiti.’ Darryl couldn’t decide whether to keep talking or keep walking. His voice seemed to make up its own mind, and dribbled on. ‘Mum and I catch another plane to Australia, just four hours after we land, and then home.’ Still the girl said nothing. Did she know about that painting on the fallout shelter? Was she scared he was going to tell?

  He made himself speak again. ‘You could—’ He didn’t believe he was actually saying this. ‘You could come to New Zealand sometime, eh?’

  For a moment, he thought the girl was going to cry. Aw hell no, he begged. Then Alicia reached up, kissed him on both cheeks, said ‘Merci’ once more, and hurried away, back into the lodge.

  Darryl stood staring after her. OK, lots of the women and girls had kissed him last night. But this felt … different. Something he wouldn’t be telling his friends about.

  It seemed almost as though she was kissing him goodbye, he thought, as he also moved towards the lodge. She must have forgotten she’d be seeing him on the plane. And she must be even more nervous than he’d realised.

  Breakfast: fresh bread, mango, pineapple. Maybe the last real pineapple he’d eat until … until he came back here again.

  His mother gave Lily and Napoleon a pair of dishes with paintings of Mount Cook and ferns on them.

  There were tears and kisses from Lily, as Napoleon carried their suitcases out to the Land Rover. Even Darryl felt a prickling in his eyes. He blinked hard. Not hot enough for perspiration yet; must be sand blowing from the beach – although there wasn’t any wind.

  As Napoleon placed their cases in the boot, Alicia appeared, carrying a case and a small satchel. She wore a white blouse and a black skirt. Her glossy black hair was piled on top of her head. She looked … good. Darryl blinked as his mind came up with the word.

  He blinked again as he glimpsed something brown in her small satchel. The bag he’d seen her carrying into the trees three days ago. So it didn’t belong to Raoul. Then what—

  But he didn’t have time to think about it anymore, because Alicia burst into sobbing, racking tears. She threw her arms around Lily, holding her, crying and shaking. Hell, she’s only going away for a few days! Did she think she wasn’t going to survive the flight? She’ll be making me scared if she doesn’t shut up, Darryl decided.

  Finally, the girl was in the Land Rover, sitting in the back beside Darryl, still weeping into a handkerchief. Darryl glanced at the smooth brown neck, the curve of cheek and the thick dark hair, then stared firmly through the front window.

  They looped their way back up among the tall, shady stands of trees. People stood in front of their houses, smiling and waving. Man, it’s like being royalty! Darryl thought, as he lifted his hand awkwardly. Alicia sat gazing out the side window, trying to wave also. Her shoulders still jerked with sobs.

  The white towers of Saint-Michel showed briefly. Darryl remembered the singing and the amazing altar. The school was over that way, too. Be cool if Noah comes to New Zealand; he seems a really good guy. And little Lannya … I’ll send her a present, Darryl decided. I’ll get Mum to show me how. The model canoe was in his case, packed in with shirts and shorts and socks for protection. They could put it over the mantelpiece back home. It would still be cold there; he might even have to start setting the fire again. Hard to believe.

  The same bends and curves up which they’d driven on Tuesday, and there was the jetty below them, the sea glittering beside it. The same white boat lay waiting.

  There were only a dozen other people on the jetty, all adults. Hey, maybe he’d get a row of seats to himself on the plane. Then he could watch for the test out both windows. One of the other passengers stood apart from the rest, not talking to anybody. Raoul. He wasn’t wearing his pilot’s gear this time, just dark trousers and a blue shirt.

  The young man didn’t speak to Alicia either. The two cousins must have had a really major row. Ah well, Darryl told himself for the thousandth time, it’s their problem. He pictured the dummy at the school, the angry painting on the fallout shelter. Just a few more hours, then Raoul would be out of his life forever.

  Mrs Davis pulled the camera from her bag. ‘Hardly any left on the film! Darryl, Alicia, Napoleon, you stand there in front of the boat. Oh, and Raoul, too. Smile, everyone!’

  I hate smiling for photos, Darryl grumbled silently. He managed a twisted sort of grin. Raoul gave a tiny lift of his mouth; Alicia seemed about to burst into tears once more.

  She did, when passengers began climbing into the boat and it was time to say goodbye to Napoleon. Her uncle held her as she shook and wept, murmuring to her in Mangarevan. He kissed her on the forehead; watched as she stumbled towards the boat. ‘I tell her she is the strong girl,’ he said to Darryl’s mother. ‘Her father is proud for her.’

  Then he embraced Raoul. The young man was biting his lip. Hey, he’s not supposed to be nervous of flying, Darryl thought.

  Napoleon turned to the two New Zealanders. ‘Thank you. You are good friends. Return back again. Au revoir.’ The big arms held each of them for a moment, and Darryl felt that bit of sand in his eye once more. His mum was crying and smiling at the same time.

  Then they were all in the small boat. The engine started, the ropes were cast off, and the jetty where Napoleon stood with one hand raised was already growing smaller behind them.

  TWENTY

  The long skinny island – the reef, almost – with the airport lay ahead, coconut palms stirring in the warm breeze. Darryl turned to gaze at Mangareva, the rocky crest of Mount Duff against a glowing blue sky. He pictured the beaches, the groves of trees, the smiles and songs. It’s such a special place, he told himself again. When he was older, he’d like to do work like his mum was doing now, helping people from places like this.

  Dark outlines of small reefs showed beneath blue-green water as the boat purred on. Darryl remembered the other reef, by the lodge. ‘You are our guest,’ Alicia had told him; she’d seemed so different that day. He glanced at her now: she sat staring over the side of the boat. She’d stopped crying, but she gripped her handkerchief in one hand. How come girls always had a clean handkerchief?

  Raoul was on the opposite side, also gazing across the calm water, not looking at Alicia. The young man’s expression was grim: his lips pressed together. I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of him, Darryl decided.

  The little boat throttled back. They’d almost reached the other jetty. On the runway between the trees, their plane stood waiting.

  They boarded immediately. Their cases were carried away;
Alicia clutched her satchel as though she was afraid someone might take that, too.

  It was the same slim plane that had brought them here. The same type, anyway. This time, a curly-haired woman in a dark green uniform stood at the bottom of the steps, greeting each passenger in French and English.

  Darryl’s mother was just in front of him, next to Alicia. The girl was shaking, he realised. Hell, she shouldn’t be flying if she was that bad. Mrs Davis murmured to her, patting her shoulder. Alicia wheeled around and stared past Darryl, dark eyes stretched wide. She looked as though she was going to run.

  A voice spoke, a couple of places behind him. Raoul, talking in Mangarevan, fast and tight-sounding. Alicia’s shoulders drooped; she turned and began climbing the steps, head down. About time her cousin did something, Darryl thought. He wasn’t going to sit anywhere near Alicia, if he could help it. If she got hysterical, somebody else could handle it.

  He mounted the steps. Two uniformed figures – the same pilots as last time? he couldn’t tell – were busy with switches and dials in the cockpit. The flight looked as though it would be only half-full.

  He and his mother were together, about halfway down the aisle. Alicia was one row in front. She didn’t seem to be shaking now: she sat utterly still, looking straight ahead. A few tendrils of dark hair curled on her neck. Raoul was sitting somewhere down the back; he’d stalked past without looking at any of them, face still set.

  The passengers were all aboard. The air hostess spoke briefly to the pilots, then nodded to someone outside and swung the cabin door shut. The bright sunlight dimmed. Through his window, Darryl glimpsed the steps being wheeled away. Goodbye, Mangareva.

  The announcements in their two languages were the same as the time before, except the other way around. Well, Darryl thought, I know what I mean. ‘Welcome … Tahitian Airlines … Flight 766 to Papeete … Your pilot is Someone Different From Last Time … Your co-pilot is Someone Different Too … Your air hostess is Françoise.’