The Island (12 page)

I'm wearing my new shoes. I've made them by cutting up my bra and using the cups as the front section and the straps around my heels. Pity they're only 34B but it's a lot better than using a T-shirt or leggings. At least they don't come off all the time.

We wade further into the swamp; well, I wade and Dog swims hard as he can. Dog immediately climbs up on a root-bank 'cause he's knackered after swimming so far; he can't paddle for long with those short legs.

A bright light glints, down by my foot. I bend down and tug and it's a pink plastic mirror, with most of its glass missing. There's an arrow-shaped shard left and I peer into it curiously.

A stranger looks back at me; I see a wide green eye, a triangle of dirty brown skin, a straggle of tangled hair. I turn the mirror this way and that and see hollows under those eyes, the sharp edge of a cheekbone.

Dog is bored; he gives a very small whine and looks at me hopefully.

‘?' he says.

I put the mirror carefully into my bag.

‘Want Frannie to pick you up?'

I'm about to take him when I see a small movement in the water. I thrust the jam jar in, quick as thinking; hold it up to the light.

Inside, a sea horse floats like a ghost.

I tilt the jar and stare.

It's a perfect thing, transparent, all its pulsing life on show.

If I wanted I could turn it to stone. I could freeze its furling fins, its unblinking eye, its coiling tail. Turn it to ice.

It floats and trusts in my hands. I am a giant.

I set it free, watch it slide like a sigh into the folding water.

I watch for a long time.

 

Shark Swamp

Dog waits on the bank as I climb down to inspect the roots.

Today there's good pickings. So much that I have to leave some of it behind for later. Tucked up between the twisted stems I find:

3 large tin cans, labels scratched off by the sea

2 broken flip-flops, different sizes

1 big, empty white tub with
MARINA BAIT
on its side

1 glass jar with a label that says it once contained gherkins

3 empty fizzy-drinks bottles: Fanta, Sprite and Dr Pepper

I'm glad that I've found more tins; they'll be useful for cooking. I've been thinking of making fish stew with could-be nut water. I don't want to leave the drinks bottles because they're so useful for storing the water I've boiled on our fire, but then I remember that the pool's been looking a bit low lately and think that maybe we don't need so many after all.

What about when the water runs out?
a sneaking voice says, but I shove the thought out of my head and get back to my task.

We pile everything carefully between two gnarly could-be mangroves that look like they're having an arm-wrestle and I stuff what I can into my bag. I can't imagine chucking any old crap into this beautiful sea, but then I remember my drunken rage on the life raft. I suppose it's good for me and Dog that fishermen are such tossers.

I tug yet another plastic bottle from the white roots. This time it's a Pepsi Max bottle, still with its lid on and some brown liquid in it. I sniff it and slug it and it's warm and wonderful, such a magic-chemical taste after coconut water.

It's when I'm shoving the bottles into my rucksack and other ideas of how I could use them are buzzing round my head –

great for catching rain and maybe even small fish if I weight one down on its side, and what about gutters?
–

that I see it.

A fin, yellow-grey and smooth as a smile, is knifing through the water.

Shark.

 

Fin

Now I'm splashing, dropping all my things – backpack, knife, bottles – scrambling up on to the root-bank.

‘Dog.
Dog –
stay where you are,' I pant.

For a horrible moment I think he's going to jump back into the shallows; his little feet are skittering on the roots as he peers down.

We huddle on the bank, watching the shark as it coasts, leaving an oily trail in its wake. From above we can see it quite clearly; it's about as long as my leg, freckled on its back like a pebble. It's ultra confident, I can see that; knows these waters well. I wonder if the scratches on my legs and feet have left blood-traces. Maybe it's tasting me as we watch.

We shrink back when it reaches our bank.

It's definitely man-eating, I think. Will it rear up? Will it rear up like a crocodile?

It's only when it changes course and starts heading back to the open sea that I start breathing again.

‘
Stay
,' I tell Dog.

He whimpers, tail quivering.

Keeping the dark hook of the fin in sight, I slide back into the water and retrieve my stuff, every minute expecting to feel a jaw clamp down on my ankle.

There could be more
.
These waters could be infested with sharks.

Dog whines.

‘All right, Frannie's here.'

I stoop to pick up my knife, drifting in the water with its string unfurling. I'll need to reattach the tin-lid blade. I made the knife by inserting a tin lid into a piece of driftwood, then binding rags and string round and round the handle. It's a lot sharper than the safety knife – if you don't mind the risk of losing your fingers.

The fin is a distant speck now, far out to sea. I start to relax.

Till something touches me on my leg and I scream.

 

Ghost

It's only a fishing net, wrapped around my leg.

I unravel it and follow it like that hero with the ball of wool in the Minotaur's maze. It's all twined around the roots like a giant web.

I'm excited; this is a Real Fishing Net which is going to double our food if I can mend it. I unsnag it from the roots, quick as my fumbling fingers will let me, and my heart's skidding because Dog doesn't seem at all happy up there on the bank, and I'm trying not to think of the shark nosing round like it owns the island.

‘Frannie's nearly finished, Monkey,' I say.

Did I really say that?

I stare into Dog's trusting eyes as my fingers workworkwork to undo those knots.

‘!' he shouts.

And it's back.

The water is cut in two as it slices straight towards us.

I yank the net and then I'm grappling at twisted roots, fingers sliding through mud, feet slipping and sucking.

‘Oh God, oh my frickin God –'

And all the time Dog's barkingbarkingbarking like he's ready to take on five sharks, if only I'd let him.

I see a flash of its skin, freckled and pale; it leers, opens its jagged mouth, and tears at the section of net that's still trailing in the water. I whimper, breath ragged. Claw myself up on to the roots.

Dog's vanished; then I see him on another tree island. He's looking around, darting back and forward. That's when I notice that the sea has come in; we're surrounded by water and Dog's little tree island is shrinking fast. He'll get cut off. Only the leafy tops of the mangrove-trees are showing now, their scrubby roots snaking over the water. There's barely any bank left; his tiny island has all but disappeared.

‘Dog, go home,' I shout. ‘
Go home!
'

Dog barks at me, his little feet scrabbling. And then he's gone; he's scrambled through the remaining root-banks back to One Tree Beach, in the next cove.

But I'll have to swim back. I have no choice but to get back in the water.

 

Smile

Nearly there.

My backpack's hitched high on my shoulders, bra-shoes, bottles and what remains of the knife and net shoved safely inside. I'm swimming with nice long strokes and so far nothing's happened. To calm myself down, I make myself think about how we can leave the net in the sea overnight, weighted down with bottles. I try to decide how this would actually work; where I'd need to tie them.

And Fang Rock is right in front of me, I'm really close now; I can see the late sun glinting on its seaweedy back. My arm-strokes are soothing. I can see lit-up pearls of water on my dark skin.

Then the monster rises.

For an instant I see:

An eye, black and evil.

A lemon-grey flank, satin smooth.

A mouth like an upside-down smile.

I pull myself through the water, lungs screaming, checking back every so often to see if the shark's following me.

It is.

It's like a wasp, but casual. It's not flapping around, this one. Just waits for me to become a piece of drift-meat.

I'll not go without a fight though.

I'll kick it. Punch it between the eyes.

I tread water as its fin carves out an arc in the water, straight towards me.

Then two things happen:

The first is that three humps appear with fins like sickles, and the shark leaves, fast as a knife through grease.

The second is that I feel the bump of sand beneath my feet.

I'm home, but there's no Dog on the beach to greet me.

 

Cardboard and Parakeets

Cassie's put cardboard at all the windows in the lounge again. Only good thing about our flat and she covers it up.

‘Can't sleep with all that light,' she moans, cringing from sunlight like Edward frickin Cullen.

I rip it away like I always do. There's tidemarks of old tape criss-crossed all over the glass.

‘Ow, ow,' whimpers Cassie.

I chuck a pillow at her and she pulls it over her face.

She's in her usual nest on the settee. Eats, shags and sleeps on a pile of grubby blankets. Around her, the fug of flat lager, old bedding and stale skunk. The stink of being Frickin Useless.

A handful of crisp tenners is sticking out of her grotty bag. I whip two for myself and tuck the rest away in her purse in case she loses them when Wayne comes calling.

Still raining, but the sun is out.

We have a balcony – not that you could call it that really. It's more a dumping ground for old crap. I swing open the door and breathe in rain and sun and mown grass. Then I step over all the carrier bags of empty bottles and beer cans; the old pushchair that was Johnny's; the dead runner beans that Cassie tried to grow from a free seed packet on a magazine. I step over and lean on the railing overlooking the park. Mouldering clothes hang forgotten on a sodden washing line. I push a pair of Cassie's huge leggings aside and watch a bird fly out of one treetop into another. It's bright green, the colour of McDonald's walls.

It's a parakeet; the trees are screaming with them.

Lime-green birds in a wet, grey London park. Do they remember? Do they…

 

Staccato

…remember

that there were once so many shades of green?

Green as gold, and green as blue and white-green, black-green, dancing-green.

Layers and layers of leaves and sky and song.

Up close, a creature creeps forward on a leaf, feeling its way with wavy legs. It flies, light as air, then
swoosh
, lands on a blue flower and sucks greedily.

Thirsty work, flying.

There's the clackaclack bird with his gunfire call; close behind the
trillatrillatrilla
of all those little birds jostling for space.

Cuhcuhcuhcuhcuhcuhcuhcuh
, goes their mate.
Yo, brothers, come round some time
, he's saying.
You know where I live.

Plink plink plink plink plink.
The plink plink bird makes staccato notes in the forest.

The trees twist themselves in knots trying to reach the sky.

 

Grand Designs

I haven't seen Dog since the shark came.

I called and called his name.

I searched the beach, the forest. Even returned to Shark Swamp once the tide went back out.

It's been three nights, three days.

To keep myself busy, I work on our shelter. Home Camp. Except it's not a home without Dog.

I've sawn the plastic bottles in two and shoved the top parts inside the bottom halves upside-down. I've lined these with my cut-up leggings to filter out all the gross bits from the water before boiling it.

So I did remember something from
Hi I'm Steve!
after all.

The bottle filters are constantly dripping with my new drinking water. If you let it settle before boiling, it's kind of OK. Not that the pool will last for ever, not without a rainfall. Not much chance of that now: the sky's a cruel blue today.

I slump down against a tree to take a break.

Here the sea sparkles white-blue between my legs and the palm leaves shiver and the heat beats time with my breathing, which is slow as a sigh.

Overhead, trees tall as tower blocks cast their shadows. It's like the birch trees in Brockwell Park. A place where we'd hide out, me and Johnny, watching all the winos and druggies drift in like ghosts.

I have my shelter now, almost made. I've killed myself over the last few days, rebuilding, shifting, sawing. I've even started making a palm roof over our hammock; half-plaited leaves lie in the sand.

The fire is the centre of Home Camp, of course. Beside it, the log pile's kept well stacked, and next to that is my toolkit. I've got three knives for different purposes: my blunt safety knife for coconut-opening; a sharp flint-stone for the quick killing of crabs; and my tin-lid knife for cutting and filleting fish. The prettiest shells line the entrance of my home. And there's even a beach-garden feature made with coloured glass-bottle fragments, blurred into gemstones by the sea.

Look at it, a home any girl would be proud of.

But it's not enough.

Sighing, I pick myself up and go to check the bottle-net.

It's out by the rocks, under the mountain I tried to climb, that very first day I arrived.

Wading in, I reach out and start to drag the net in.

And that's when I hear it.

 

Limpet

‘!'

A bark, high and thin.