Read The Island Online

Authors: Olivia Levez

The Island (3 page)

I stare out of the window.

‘You're friendly, aren't you?' I hear Coral shift in her seat. ‘What the hell's that?'

Hi I'm Trish!
has also noticed the ‘super' view.

‘Cumulus.' She smiles. ‘Cumulus clouds across the Indian Ocean. Look at them, all banked up like towers, like a forest.'

I am a rock. I don't have to look at rose-splashed clouds, kissing the afternoon sun like a garden of pink coral.
But I do look. 'Course I do.

And for once the entire plane is quiet; even the pilot, it seems, has not seen a sight quite like this before.

Tiny is pressed up against the glass as if he wants to lick it; his breath makes little huffs of mist.

The clouds are beautiful.

‘Come up, come up, Paul.'
Hi I'm Trish!
's voice.

Tiny scrambles up and over the seats, skinny as string. Sits and gapes through the front window as Trish smiles and gives him a squeeze.

She's still smiling through the first lurch of turbulence.

We rise and fall, but only Joker cheers.

Derek puts down his spoon.

 

Fasten Your Seat Belts

Me and Cassie are watching old movies and eating popcorn on the settee. It's the one where Bette Davis turns from the stairs and tells her guests to buckle up 'cause it'll be a bumpy night.

Cassie is plump as heaven and smells of sweet cider and cuddles.

‘Love you more than the moon and the stars and the planets,' she whispers, and gives me a swig (‘Only one, mind!') of her cider.

‘Love you more than all the fishes and birds and bees,' I whisper back, and the cider fizzes, sweet in my mouth.

‘Sure you love me as much as that?'

‘More than that.'

Bette Davis is right about the seat belts. It gets bumpy all right.

 

Crash and Burn

The plane is being seriously pummelled and it's like we're in an upside-down avalanche.

‘Heyyyyyyyyyy,' whoops Joker. He'll regret that attitude soon.

‘Sorry, folks. A bit of turbulence, that's all,' says Derek-the-co-pilot.

Up front, in the cockpit, the radio crackles. It seems the pilot isn't happy about something. He's sweating in his Hawaiian shirt and shades.

The plane rocks violently and, for a while, we're all quiet. Even Trish. Even Joker.

Coral reaches for Joker's hand and squeezes it.

Me, I turn my music up and Ella Fitzgerald shimmies into my head, singing about summertime.

A jolt, and Coral's Brazil nuts are thrown out of her hand.

She gives a little scream and Joker puts his arm round her again, which is what she wanted.

‘Ohmygod,' she says. ‘Ohmygod.'

And Joker leans to get the nuts but he can't quite reach, so he's unclasping his belt and squeezing between the seats.

Coral's scream is a full stop, but it's also the beginning: it sets everyone off and now the air is whipped with cries and moans and even laughter.

‘Uh, we are hitting…a pretty bad…downdraught,' says Derek. His words are broken and his spoon has clattered to the floor.

But Joker spreads his arms wide and grins. Waves his hands around as if he's conducting an orchestra. Then Joker makes a bow so that everyone claps.

‘What about my Brazils?' Coral shouts.

And then he

then he

hits his head during the turbulence and dies
.

Joker is flung right across the seats, and there is a
CRACK
as his head makes contact with the metal armrest and he smacks against the floor and doesn't move and Coral is screaming.

And me? I've left my body and I'm crouching on the cabin ceiling, safe among the seams. I've left Other Me gripping that armrest, as the dog whimpers and whines.

I see:

Hi I'm Trish!
– she's first aid trained, of course she is – swinging her head round just as
Hi I'm Rufus!
starts to unclasp his belt.

‘Keep your belts fastened,' yells Derek.

The pilot is wrestling – wrestling with the stick and the weather.

‘Stop,' shouts Trish to Rufus, and with this word she saves one life and ends another.

Because, as she rises to help, her foot is caught beneath the seats and at that moment the sky heaves our plane up and Trish lurches forward and
SNAP
.

There's her ankle broken.

She'll not get up again, but Rufus sits back down. Snaps on his belt.

I see:

Poor Trish writhing and gaping, but no one cares because the plane gives a little leap and
POP
, the propeller stops.

I see:

The pilot on his radio, listening and gabbling, fingering the rosary beads around his sun-scoured neck.

Brazil nuts begin to roll and the plane begins to drop, left wing first.

Words.

‘We…lost…the…engine…'

The pilot checks the panel – for fuel? For God? – and white smoke pours in. And all the time, this high-pitched, whistling whine.

That control stick doesn't want to go forward.

‘BRACE!' screams the pilot.

Other Fran shoves her head against her knees and Ella's voice in her earphones is plaintive as hell as she sings about spreading her wings and taking to the sky.

The suddenness of sea.

Time stops.

 

More Than

‘Love you more than the stars and moons and planets.' It's a whisper.

‘Whatever,' I say.

Cassie blinks at me through smeary eyes. Her nest is made of grubby bedding and tissues and
Heat
magazines.

I yank the duvet off her and she cowers into the settee, trying to hide her great, fat, useless body. She's wearing her business suit: a baby-doll nightie in black and red nylon. Her legs need a shave.

‘Love –' she says.

‘Move.'

She lets me shove her off the settee into a standing position. Stupid cow can barely walk. I watch her stumble over to the armchair and sink down with a sigh. She reaches for her Rizlas and starts to make a rollie. Her fingers shake with the shock of the morning.

I chuck the dirty sheets into a black bag and remake the sofa bed with fresh bedding. It smells of the outdoors because I used buckets of fabric conditioner.

Cassie looks around, bewildered, and I throw her the lighter, which was underneath a photo of some celeb flashing her tits.

Cassie lights her ciggie and sucks in her first breath of the day.

 

Unravelling

Sea is up over windows and it is not rain – it is sea. It is not rain – it is sea.

Fumbling to undo seat belts. Fumbling to get life jackets out of front seats.

‘Life jacket –'

We are standing, clambering, unravelling. Legs, shorts, hands.

Sea is rolling down the floor of the plane.

Flip-flops, trainers, yellow rubber.

A flash of red hair and yellow plastic.

Where's my life jacket? Where's –

Sea is rolling down the floor of the plane.

I grab a package with the words LIFE RAFT and now I'm clutching yellow rubber.

Seawater swallows me. I should be cold, should feel the shock of the cold, but I don't. Maybe it's because my face is being pressed up against the ceiling of the plane. And I'm floating now. Not just floating – I'm drowning.

Screams have turned to throbbing silence. It takes me some time to realise that this sound is my heart
whup-whupping
.

I have five centimetres of air space left. The last thing I will see is the seam of the ceiling; this grey vein curving away from my cheek. I clutch my rubber package and my shoe falls off and drifts away.

The water rises and I'm all covered, above and around and below. This is the way my world ends.

Something nudges my arm and I open my eyes and turn and it's Coral.

She gapes at me, her blind eyes bulging.

Her hair swirls and it rests and settles, stroking my arms, my face. She is water-whitened, but her hair is beautiful.

I cannot breathe.

I push her away with my foot; her belly is porridge-soft.

I cannot breathe.

 

Up

Soon all this will be over: this last, gasping, thrashing fight for air.

Saltwater fills my lungs and I am still fighting, banging on the ceiling with my weak, useless hands.

Burningburning suckingsucking chokingchoking.

Death is a struggle.

And just as the lights switch to black, the seam splits.

A searing crack of whitelight whitelight whitelight.

I claw through the opening

and I yank on the string of my yellow package

and something bursts

and I whoosh through the water, up like a rocket,

and am yanked up through the silver skin of the water into

air

pure and clean and cold like a

slap.

 

Burning

My throat burns.

I can smell talc and rubber, and sunlight is dancing red ripples behind my eyes.

I open my eyes. Stare at bulging, writhing walls.

I have no shoes.

I try to sit, and immediately vodka-waves rise inside me and I throw up, all over this strange, moving floor. At first I think I'm on a bouncy castle like the one in Brockwell Park, when the Lambeth Country Show is on. I retch and retch and wipe my mouth with my hand.

A spume of water hits the ceiling of my new, closed world and I cower back. Slide down, back into the puddle.

Everything on this raft is yellow: yellow walls and floor. Above me, a crack of white light behind a yellow flap. I shift round on my knees, lift the flap.

I look out and see:

Blue shimmering water.

Blue shimmering sky.

And nothing.

Lots and lots of endless nothing.

I am alone in the heaving sea.

I remember the whoosh and I remember the yank as the life raft inflated, as the nylon rope detached from the broken body of the plane. I look about, try to see the plane, but there's nothing: no smoke, no smashed-up metal lying in the sea. It's like my whole life has just evaporated:
poof
– just like that.

I think of Trish and Coral and Tiny.

I stare at the sea for a long, long time, and all the while the sun beats down and all the while my throat burns.

I must drink.

There's a plastic water bottle bobbing in the puddle of seawater; I feel it with my foot. I reach down and press it to my cheek. My tongue feels thick and swollen and I wonder if I'll even be able to swallow.

Oh God.

Vodka. It must have fallen out of my hoodie pocket.

Neat and mocking, it burns the roof of my mouth. I'm alone in the middle of the ocean and I have no water.

I put the lid back on the bottle; let it slide out of my hand.

After a million years, I get back on my knees and lift the flap again.

Outside, the ocean slops and swells, bigger than the world, bigger than my life, smacking me in the face with salt spray. When I zoom out of myself and look down, there is nowhere and nothing to cling to: I am a pinprick in the heaving sea, a scrap of yellow nothing in all that blue.

And that's when I start to laugh.

I'm still laughing when the first rolling wave hits me.

 

Dead Calm

Sun wakes me like a headache.

It beats down, heating up the yellow roof and the puddle. There is a lot more seawater inside than before; it reaches up to my thighs, my knees.

I trace my finger over the seams and now I see that the raft's skin is pierced in many tiny places. We are sinking, my life raft and me. The sea is killing it like it's killing me.

But I think the storm has stopped. All night it shrieked as I slid about the raft floor. I hid my eyes so I couldn't see the joins that criss-cross the body of the raft. I imagined the waves beating the raft so hard that the glue unsticks. Imagined it splitting like a watermelon.

I squirm upright and poke my head out of the roof.

Around me, the sea is milky calm; the sun drips on to its surface, warm as melted butter.

Exhausted, I flop my arms over the sides, sliding raw fingers down hot rubber. My throat burns. My tongue is fat and thick in my mouth.

I spin on my rubber island in all that wide, wide sea. Stare out at the ocean which the sun stabs with stars.

So thirsty.

 

How to Get Water

‘This is probably the most important survival lesson you'll get,' announces
Hi I'm Steve!

He's squatting in front of a sheet of grubby plastic and a bunch of leaves.

I need the loo because I drank too much coffee at breakfast.

Steve's got Tiny and Joker digging with spades.

‘So you make a deep hole, about an arm-width across. Then you fill it with fresh, green leaves, just yank them off…'

It's started to rain: great fat splats of it from a muddy sky.

They start doing something with a plastic tub and a drinking straw and I pull my hoodie up against the rain. Open my mouth and catch it on my tongue.

‘Are you listening at the back?' Steve barks.

Coral nudges me.

‘What?'

‘I'd like you to sum up to the group how to make a solar still,' Steve tells me.

I consider.

‘Well. First you take the spade, which you've randomly taken to your desert island,' I say. ‘And then you dig a great big hole with it – your own grave I s'pose, for when you die out there. And when the rain hammers down, like it is now in case you hadn't noticed, you drink the frickin water.'

Everyone sniggers.

And I kill him with my stone stare.

 

Red Nylon Bag

This water is fire.

As I drink the vodka, I see myself pouring cold-as-ice water on to the scorched runway. See the steam shimmer. See my water bottle rolling, rolling under the plane seat.

I lick my lips with my dead-wood tongue. The vodka scorches the back of my mouth and sinks into my veins heavyheavyheavy.

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