Page 61 of The Beach Holiday

THEN

I was a shell of my former self. I didn’t know who I was anymore. I went through each day as if I were sleepwalking. I spoke only when I had to. I ate only fruit, rice and vegetables.

I had nothing to do with anyone. I had become a version of Ula.

But a part of my brain was still functioning just about enough that I had begun hatching a plan.

Ula and I had been spending most days together now; I was as much an outsider as she was.

Avril emerged into camp later and later each morning.

She had begun to relieve herself of some of her duties and spent most days down at the shore sorting through the stores, tinkering with the boats with Kali, Mary and a burly woman who was sometimes here, other times not.

There were more of them now, the boats, I noted, which stayed here.

Usually only two were moored. Now there are five, sometimes six boats.

The sight of them made me uneasy. Did Avril have a plan, I wondered?

She seemed edgy as though she were making things up as she went along.

So far away from what her life had been for the last few years, where she had been able to live carefree and day to day.

I wondered about all the other women – Mary, Kali, Precious, the mothers – where would all these women go?

How could you leave somewhere like here and then carry on with normal life afterwards?

That night, I immersed myself in camp life by cooking. But even now, I could feel the change of atmosphere. Where before there was any reason to celebrate, now meals were taken without much conversation. The kava was rarely sent around, and most retired to their cabins by eight.

I then had to take the leftovers to Camp Z the next morning.

No more fruit and bread. Avril commented that she didn’t know why she was even bothering anymore and I felt a weight in my stomach that hadn’t been there before.

But what I now knew was that I had blood on my hands; I could have saved James and his friend’s lives.

I was dealing with a cold-hearted killer, and I had to watch and plan my every move around her from now on.

‘Tomorrow Hester, Star and the children will leave the island,’ Avril said with a tone of despondency.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Will we talk about protocol? About Camp Z?’

She looked at me nonchalantly. ‘What about Camp Z?’

‘Well, what we are going to do? I mean the women are beginning to be shipped out, what will happen to the men?’

‘They will end their days on Totini Island as per the agreement.’

Panic rose in my throat. I had initially thought she was going to abandon them. But now I realised she was going to kill them all.