The Other Side of Nowhere (22 page)

At least a dozen heads turned towards me. I lifted my hand up in a small wave, listening to the soft, urgent murmurs spreading throughout the cave.

‘It’s okay, it’s okay. He’s my brother,’ said Matt, above the rising mumble. He spoke slowly, raising his hand to his heart when he said ‘brother’. He turned back to me and motioned for me to come into the cave. ‘It’s okay, Johnno. They’re cool.’

Still unsure, I edged forward. Matt came over to greet me, a sheepish grin on his face. ‘What took you so long?’ he said as I pulled him into a bear hug.

‘You okay?’ I said, studying him. He had a nasty red brown welt on one cheek but other than that seemed all right.

‘Yeah, I’m good.’

I looked around at the sea of anxious faces staring at me. ‘So who are your friends?’

‘Well, they don’t say much and not many of them speak English, but sounds like they’ve come from, like, the moon to get here.’

Out of the shadows a tall, slim figure appeared behind Matt. I was still trying to get my mind around a cave full of people and how they ended up here.

‘You know a way out?’ the man said in thickly accented broken English.

I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck. He sounded just like Zaffar. His dark eyes darted between me and the entrance of the cave and the passage behind me. He was clearly nervous.

‘Not exactly,’ I said evasively, not sure yet what I should be telling him. ‘There’s no way out the way I came.’

‘Where are the others?’ asked Matt.

I shot a look at Matt silently, urging him not to give too much away. But he didn’t seem to care. He was obviously comfortable with these people. My eyes flicked between the man behind him and the small girl, both of them looking back at me with wide, expectant eyes.

I didn’t know what to say, or how much to say. I could only assume that Zaffar had brought these people here from whatever country he was from. But then why did they look so scared? I stood there, wishing George and Nick were here. They’d know what to do.

‘Listen Matt,’ I said slowly. ‘I’ll be back in a sec … I’ll just go get the others.’

Matt’s whole body seemed to sag, as if some of the air had been taken out of him. But he nodded that he understood.

‘Where you go?’ said the skinny man, stepping forward and gripping my arm.

I pulled away from him. But then I saw the strain on his face and realised that I didn’t need to be scared of him. He was scared enough for both of us.

‘I’ll be back in a few minutes, trust me. Just wait here.’

‘Don’t muck about, Johnno,’ said Matt looking just as anxious as the man beside him. ‘I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but I think they’re waiting for a boat. They’ve already been here a couple of days. I think maybe today they’re gonna leave – and I reckon they’re taking me with them.’

I remembered Baldy tinkering with the inflatable. Matt was right – they were getting ready to leave.

‘Don’t worry. I’ll be straight back.’ With a quick thumbs-up, I turned, darting to the back of the cave and into the tunnel.

I ran the whole way back to Nick and George. My stomach squeezed a little as the torch fell on them, lying on the ledge intertwined in each other’s arms.

‘I’ve found him,’ I blurted out. ‘I’ve found Matt.’

‘You did?’ said George. She sat up, blinking in the torchlight. ‘Is he okay?’

‘Yeah, he’s fine,’ I said. I picked up the sodden backpack and threw it over my shoulder. ‘But here’s the thing. It’s not just him. There’s a heap of other people there too.’

Now Nick sat up, rubbing his eyes. ‘What do you mean, other people?’

‘C’mon let’s go,’ I said urgently. I heard them shuffling to their feet as I headed back along the ledge towards the cave. ‘Just people … I don’t know where they’re from, but they sound a bit like Zaffar. They must have come with him. They seem nervous, though.’

I heard Nick’s voice behind me. ‘What are you talking about? Come here? To Shell Harbour? Why?’

‘Jeez, Nick, I dunno. Ask them yourself,’ I said, not looking back. ‘Just get a move on, will you? Matt thinks there’s a boat coming to take them today.’

George grabbed my arm, pulling me to a stop. ‘Hang on, Johnno,’ she said. ‘Slow down and think for a second. When we get Matt, then what?’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked, pulling my arm away. ‘We get him out of there.’

‘How? We can’t go back that way,’ said Nick, motioning behind us.

‘What is the matter with you guys?’ I hissed in frustration. ‘Matt’s right here. We’ve come all this way to get him. What’s the problem?’

George grabbed my arm tighter. ‘We get it, Johnno. But we need to get him and get away, too.’

She looked at Nick as if willing him to have the answer. But his face was a complete blank. After a moment or two he just shrugged and shook his head. ‘I don’t know … But hey, we’ve made it this far. We’ll think of something.’

George was chewing at her lip nervously.

‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘We’ll think of something. So c’mon. Let’s go.’

As we neared the entrance into Matt’s cave, I motioned for them to creep forward silently to the boulder I’d hidden behind before. I stuck my head around.

Matt and the little girl were where I had left them near the stream. They saw me the moment I poked my head into the cave.

‘All clear?’ I whispered.

Matt looked out through the cave entrance. ‘Yep, no sign of them.’

Nick and George followed me into the cave. They stared in amazement at the huddle of people. Dozens of faces stared back at us, their eyes filled with a mixture of fear, suspicion and hope. No-one moved or spoke.

After a moment, George broke the silent spell. She skipped across the stream and swept Matt up in a long hug. Then she knelt down in front of the small child. The little girl, who couldn’t have been more than six years old, stared at George, smiling at her friendly face.

‘Hi there,’ George said, slowly. ‘My name is Georgina. What’s yours?’

I don’t know if she understood George or not, but in a small, uncertain voice she said something that sounded like ‘Amira’.

‘What a pretty name,’ said George, smiling.

The tall man who had approached me before stepped forward again. He placed a protective arm around the little girl’s shoulder.

‘I am Ali. How did you get here?’ His thick accent made the question sound more abrupt than probably intended.

George wasn’t fazed, though, and offered her hand for Ali to shake. ‘That’s kind of a long story, but not as long as yours I bet.’

The man smiled politely, but there was a sadness in his eyes. ‘Unfortunately our journey has not gone as we had hoped.’

‘But how did you end up here?’ asked George.

The man offered a wry smile. ‘Here? I do not even know where here is. And I fear the men who brought us here do not have our best interests in their heart.’

‘Who are they?’

He paused for a moment, his eyes narrowing. ‘They are jackals. Dogs that prey on the weak.’

Nick was standing beside me watching Ali. I noticed he had a distasteful look on his face, as if he’d eaten something that was off.

‘What’s up?’ I said to him.

‘I think now we’ve found Matt we should just get the hell out of here,’ he answered in a low tone. ‘I mean … What are we going to do with this lot?’

I looked around the cave at the tired, drawn faces, bowed heads and sagging shoulders. For a moment they reminded me of the terrified, bug-eyed cattle in the truck that had nearly run over Matt on the way into Shell Harbour. I knew nothing of these people, where they came from or how they got here. But they looked like they’d been to hell and back.

Ali stepped closer to Nick, reading the expression on his face. ‘Perhaps you are not sure of us?’ he said evenly. ‘To you, we are illegal immigrants? Even criminals, perhaps?’

Nick shrugged dismissively. ‘I didn’t say that.’

Ali nodded slowly, his eyes lingering on Nick. ‘There is a saying in my country.
There is no colour blacker than black
. Where we have come from – the place we once could call home – it is now a very black place.’

He laid his hands out before us.

I gave an involuntary gasp. Two of his fingers had been severed and in their place were raw, still-healing stumps.

‘For my family, there was no choice but to take a journey that I would not wish on anyone. All I can ask is that you do not judge what you cannot understand.’

Nick held Ali’s stare but said nothing.

‘Mr Ali,’ said George softly, ‘did someone manage to escape?’

I looked at her in surprise, momentarily unsure why she would ask such a thing. Then I remembered the body on the rocks.

Ali’s eyes lit up hopefully. ‘Yes, my brother, Farouk. You have seen him?’

George looked down and swallowed hard. She tried to be brave and tell him the horrible truth, but she faltered. ‘I’m sorry … We found him.’

Ali sagged, and it was clear he understood. The hopefulness drained from his face as quickly as it had come.

George looked at me with a deep sadness in her eyes, mirroring my own. Even though we knew nothing about these people, it was impossible not to feel bad for them.

I looked at Matt and noticed that he had moved closer to the little girl again, as if he was protecting her. Then it occurred to me that I needed to protect him in the same way.

Maybe Nick was right. Maybe we should just take him with us now and hide out in the deep crevices and maze of tunnels at the back of the cave until Baldy and Zaffar had done what they had come here to do. It would be easy enough.

But when I shot a look at Matt, I didn’t get the impression he would come quietly with us. I felt sure that if I asked Matt to come, he wouldn’t. That he would feel as I was beginning to feel: that it was no longer just about us.

I turned to Nick to tell him what I was thinking, but he wasn’t there. He was standing at the cave’s entrance, peering outside.

He caught my eye and mouthed, ‘Just going to take a look outside. Back in a sec.’

‘What? Wait,’ I hissed, but it was too late. With a fugitive’s glance left and right he stepped into the shaft of light and vanished.

George was so focused on Ali that I don’t think she even realised Nick was gone. ‘Can you tell us how you ended up in here?’ she asked Ali.

At first Ali didn’t respond. His nervous energy had vanished and now he seemed distant, hollow and dark, as if a light inside him had been switched off. But when Amira reached up and clutched his hand, tucking herself tightly against his leg, he gave a faint smile and took a deep breath.

‘First we walked and sometimes hid in trucks and cars. Then we boarded a boat for what was meant to be the last part of our journey to your country and to a new life, free of fear and hate. We were on the boat for some few days. Everything was good, we were very happy to be nearly there.’

For an instant the light in Ali switched back on, as if for a moment he recalled the joy he’d felt at being so close to his final goal.

‘But then there was a plane. It saw us and circled many times. The man, Zaffar, at first he became angry but then I think he became scared. You see we are very valuable cargo for men like him, but we are also a great risk.’

George was listening intently. ‘So he brought you here to hide out?’

‘Perhaps. I don’t know. Perhaps he wanted to come here the whole time. We were told we would wait for another boat and that it would be the one to take us to freedom.’

George turned to me. ‘I bet that’s why there was someone staying in that hut, to meet Zaffar’s boat when it came in.’

I nodded back in vague agreement. It made sense that the island might be used as some sort of rendezvous point before heading to the mainland.

‘Then came a very bad storm and even though the plane could no longer see us, Zaffar and the crew, they yelled and argued with each other. I could tell they were fearful and didn’t know what to do. They kept speaking to someone on the phone but still they argued. We didn’t know what they were going to do with us. In the end, we came here.’ He looked at Matt and smiled. ‘To an island, I believe it is.’

‘What happened to the boat?’ I asked. If what Ali was saying was right, we had both arrived on the island at about the same time. But we hadn’t seen any sign of another boat.

‘As soon as we were all on the beach, it left. We have not seen it again.’

‘You said you didn’t know what they were going to do with you,’ said George. She was frowning and seemed to be choosing her words carefully. ‘Why don’t you think they’ll take you to the mainland?’

Again Ali paused and pulled his daughter closer to him. ‘These men have little regard for human life. Since the plane, I think they are now more desperate.’ Ali paused and looked longingly at the entrance to the cave. ‘It is why Farouk ran. He was certain something bad was going to happen to us, that we would never be free. I suppose now he is free after all …’

Tears welled in Ali’s eyes as he spoke and he clasped the shoulder of his daughter even tighter. ‘You too have seen too much, my young friends. I am very afraid for what they might do to us – to all of us.’

Ali’s words pulsed through me like an electric shock. I was sure he was right. Whatever was going on, things weren’t going as planned for Zaffar, and that meant we were all in danger. It suddenly occurred to me that even though we were in a cave full of adults, they were scared and helpless and looking to us, a bunch of kids, to help them out. Strangely, I was okay with that, and despite not having a clue what to do, I felt myself standing straighter as if trying to show my resolve.

A noise outside made me jump. It was a raspy cough followed by a phlegm-filled spit. Matt and I locked eyes, momentarily frozen in fear. The girl’s father grabbed her roughly and, despite her protests, pushed her ahead of him into a throng of waiting arms. In the blink of an eye, she was hidden among a shroud of cloaks and shawls. Matt dropped to the ground and pulled a blanket up to his chin.

George grabbed my arm, pulling me into the shadows, just as the hulking frame of Baldy entered the cave.