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Chapter Thirty-Eight

M ackenzie loved Abi’s new enthusiasm and considered her offer, however he enjoyed surprising her—and himself for that matter—with his finished projects. “No, you can go do … whatever it is you do. Leave me to my masterpiece.”

A long-forgotten memory suddenly flashed into his mind. A time when he was still Malcolm. He was in the kitchen with his Mum, she’d just baked a cake, her own recipe she’d said and announced herself as an artist. He could still smell it now.

“What are you thinking about?”

“What?”

“You had that look. The one you get when you remember something.”

Abi’s intuition had hit overdrive lately. It was scary. “I was just thinking about my mum.”

“You never talk about her. Tell me.”

Mackenzie didn’t want to talk about it. He touched the scar on his chin, but then quickly dropped his hand. He decided to gloss over all the rotten details. “It was one day after school. I’d just gotten home, and Mum was in the kitchen. She’d made this beautiful cake, banana and walnut. It smelled divine.”

“I bet it tasted good too.”

He paused. “Yes.” He lied. He never did get a chance to eat it .

Abi’s eyes searched his face. “You didn’t eat it, did you?”

He glared at her. “Jesus, Abi, what are you … a friggin’ mind reader?” He strode away, furious that she could read him so well.

“Mack, what did I say? Sorry.”

Mackenzie was a man possessed and making the bath suddenly seemed like a test. An obsessive urgency to create a masterpiece overwhelmed him and he desperately needed to build something his mother would be proud of. Failure was unacceptable.

Setting off for the back half of the plane, his dedicated focus blocked out all sound. It was like the eyes of the devil were watching him, waiting for him to fail.

As he approached the back half of the plane, he glanced over at Tom’s final resting place. The grave site was no longer visible. The dirt had settled back into place and several plants were now flourishing upon it. Any sign of Tom’s existence had completely disappeared.

Suddenly making the bath seemed even more important.

The way things were going, he and Abigail might never be found alive but when their campsite was discovered, people would know that, not only did they survive the crash, but they thrived amongst the ruins.

As he entered the plane, he cast the thoughts aside. The idea of making a bath from the moulded toilet cubicle had been rolling around in his mind for a while. He examined the fiberglass walls and was pleased with its potential. The curved sides made it a perfect shape, but the test would be how the roof and floor were secured. The seals would need to be watertight. Using the blunt axe, he painstakingly carved the cubicle from the wreckage, careful not to damage the fiberglass.

He was panting with exhaustion and lathered in sweat when it eventually fell free. He manhandled it over the seats and out of the plane to examine it. The only obvious issue was a hole, about the size of a bread plate, where the toilet pipe once ran through. He mentally itemized every piece of equipment they’d scavenged from the crash, searching for a way to close the hole. It wasn’t until he’d dragged the shell back to within sight of the plane that he had a plan.

He pulled the toolbox out and rummaged through it to find the tube of quick set Araldite glue. When he’d first found it all those months ago, he’d thought it was a worrisome item for the pilot to have and had wondered which parts of the plane were held together with it. Maybe Dave’s shoddy repairs were the reason the plane crashed.

Mackenzie sliced open one of the inner tubes from the plane’s wheels and cut a piece of rubber large enough to cover the hole with an additional two inches overlapping. Working fast, Mackenzie glued it into place.

He glanced at the graves, several metres away. “Hey Charlie, I think it’s going to work.” Charlie would know what it meant to have to prove himself. He’d spent his whole life trying to show his family. Mackenzie shook his head, saddened by the type of life Charlie had led. When they got home, he’d make sure Charlie’s heroic efforts out here were recognised.

Mackenzie dug a shallow pit in the ground that was only just deep enough to hold the fiberglass steady but wouldn’t be any support for the sides. He hoped the sides were strong enough to hold their shape. With immense satisfaction, the fiberglass shell slotted into the hole like it was meant to be there.

The sun had already passed overhead, and the searing midday heat had begun to cool, but his body still throbbed with heat and exhaustion. He grabbed the toilet cistern and headed for the lagoon.

The stream had dwindled to a third of the volume it was when he first discovered it. Fortunately, the water continued to flow, ensuring it remained fresh. Stagnant water would’ve created a whole gamut of problems he didn’t want to think about. The cool water beckoned, and he placed the cistern aside and dived in. His skin tingled as if releasing tiny bubbles of heat and tension.

His mind flashed back to that moment with the cake and Mackenzie decided that today’s creation would be made in his mum’s honour. He lay back, floated on top and closed his eyes trying to push those sad memories from his mind.

He decided he’d better get moving. It was going to take many trips from the lagoon to fill the bath. He stepped onto the rock pontoon and pushed the cistern under the water; it filled readily, then straining to lift it onto his shoulder, he adjusted it for comfort and powered up the steep slope.

With each addition to the bath, the water rose just two inches. A pink-coloured sunlight filtered through the trees, and he had only a few hours before the blackness of night consumed them, so he picked up his pace. It wasn’t until late in the afternoon that he was satisfied with the water depth.

Earlier in the day he’d placed large rocks in the fire and now using the axe he rolled them from the coals to the bath. With a couple of sticks he juggled them into the water and with a harsh sizzle they dropped to the bottom. Twenty-two rocks were needed to heat the water and satisfied the temperature was perfect, he removed the rocks.

It was time to show Abi.

He stripped naked.