Page 18

‘Yeah. I need to tell someone something important today. But I’m not sure they are ready to hear it.’
‘Sounds complicated,’ I say, trying to take it all in because it did sound complicated. It sounded like one of those soap operas I had been watching on the TV at night.
‘Ah yes, this one is very complex.’
‘I guess if something needs to be said, it should be said,’ I reply but thinking about my own muddled brain, filled with information I need to be rid of. I knew I was not the best person to be giving advice.
Jane looks at me and smiles. ‘You’re right. I just want it all to be okay. I like to try and fix things.’
‘Sounds like it’s one of those things that will sort itself soon enough,’ I say, not even thinking about what I am saying. The words just seemed to come out of me.
Suddenly I feel Jane’s hand on mine, and she is squeezing it. I look up at her. I think I see her eyes glistening with tears.
Then she laughs and takes her hand away. ‘You’re so perceptive; you know that?’
I laugh too. I’m not sure what she means. I’m not sure about much.
We sit quietly for a while.
‘The weather certainly has turned out nice.’ Jane is speaking again and my train of thought drifts away. ‘Too hot for some maybe. For me actually. I don’t manage too long in the heat.’ She pauses before she carries on. ‘But some people can. Some can spend hours in the sun. I envy those people, the ones who live in a really hot country or have lived in a hot country.’
My body jolts at her words.
The heat.
The humidity.
A flash of a face is in front of me then gone as quickly as it arrives. Blood on sand. A scream from far away. I can’t reach them. I need to reach them.
I drain my coffee cup and stand up. I know I don’t want to talk about heat or humidity.
‘Thank you for the coffee, Jane; it was delicious as usual. Same time next week?’
I don’t turn to see Jane’s face as I leave, for fear it could be the same look of disappointment I see on most people’s faces each day. I may have left Jane in the cold with my brash exit, but her words about heat are still penetrating through me. I can almost feel the sun burning my skin. I rush back to the bedroom, where it’s cool, where I can push my face into the pillow and block out the memories that keep coming and coming. And soon I know I will not be able to hold them back.
13
THEN
The roosters woke me again. I felt as though I had been in a coma. My head was throbbing with what? Heat? Tiredness? I couldn’t figure it out. My body was also aching and as I stretched out one arm I could see a long red scratch from my wrist to my elbow from the forest yesterday. I searched the room for water and found a bottle with a few dregs left beside the bed. I gulped the remaining liquid down.
I wished more than anything that Avril would fulfil her promise to me today.
Clara’s bed was empty again. She must be up and running at dawn. I leaned down to my phone in my backpack. It was officially dead. I hadn’t seen any of the women with phones although Avril had one when we were travelling here. Was there somewhere to charge a phone here? I had seen generatorsfor refrigerating food but there was no Wi-Fi. Maybe I could hitch a ride back to the neighbouring island and pick up some up there if I really wanted to call or text anyone, but I had messaged my parents and let them know I was travelling again. These were all the things I told myself, but the niggle in the pit of my stomach was trying to intervene, telling me I needed to be connected to the world. But I knew it was my Western roots poisoning my organic experience. I needed to learn to live freely. That was what I wanted, wasn’t it? That was one of the main reasons I had run from England, to escape the constraints of life with Bruno.
I eventually gave up on sleep, crept from the cabin and picked my way down the path to the camp and then back out onto the front beach.
This beach wasn’t quite as beautiful as the one further up by Ula’s hut. It had a more rustic feel; it was used more often for campfires and there were some cricket posts made from driftwood stuck in the sand waiting for a game to resume at any point. I felt unsettled as I fell onto the sand and tried to concentrate on the sky turning from a bright orange to a light turquoise as the sun rose. It was cooler out here than in the cabin and I was sure I’d be able to fall asleep here for an hour. I wondered what my third day here would entail. I began to ponder how the camp was divided into tasks and duties, how they filled each hour and made the time count yet lived without expectations or rules.
But the mere thought of work made me realise I was still tired. I laid my head on the sand, curled into a foetal position, and felt the weight of sleep.
I woke suddenly to the sound of a child’s laughter. I sat up, disorientated, unable to remember why I was on the beach and not in my cabin, and then I remembered the beautiful sunrise. The sun was higher in the sky. The temperature must have been getting on for the late twenties already.
A few feet away from me were the two children on the island, the young girl and boy. They both had dark hair so maybe they were siblings. They were playing on the sand; there were no adults in sight. Just then, I noticed, out of the corner of my eye a small object a few inches away from me. I reached out and picked it up. It was a rudimentary doll carved from wood and about six inches high. It had a basic round head and straight arms and legs, with a face scratched into the front of the head, which a child itself could have done. But it was the hair that was the most prominent on the doll. Several thick strands of the blondest locks had been attached to the scalp area. I inspected the head and I could see it had been done with strong glue. I touched the hair, reached to my own long light brown hair, and touched it. The texture was identical. This was real hair. Not unusual, I presumed, to create a toy out of whatever materials were to hand and one of the women must have given up a few extra locks to help make the doll. But I thought back to the women I had seen and met in camp. There were only two women I had seen tending to the children, I was sure one or both of them was the mother and they both had dark hair.
‘Hey!’ I called croakily to the little girl. She turned from where she was knelt next to the boy. ‘Come here.’ I waved her over. She came without hesitation and stood in front of me. I sat up and handed her the doll.
‘Is this yours?’ I asked.