It was in Li’s mind too, but how could Presh make that journey? Between feeding-places the tribe moved steadily, close inshore where possible, wary of sharks. Towing Presh would slow them and make them more vulnerable, and would need a calm sea, which they were soon not going to have. How would his leg mend, constantly in movement in the water? Where would he sleep? There were only two sets of caves on the coast, and elsewhere the tribe used ledges with a difficult climb to them, which no predator would make.
No, he must lie on land, in shade, with drinking-water easy. There was only one place, the bay with the water-caves. He must go back.
Li swam off to look for Tong who was family-close and had been her main helper the night before, but found him in confrontation with Kerif. With Presh unable to patrol the tribe and remind everyone of his authority it was natural for the other males to start jostling for status, so Tong and Kerif were face to face beyond the headland, rising and falling, yelling their challenges and sluicing their arches of water. It was still more like a game than a serious contest for leadership, but their minds were filled with it. Nor could Li have brought herself to interrupt. Though she was aware of her own new status in the tribe she knew that it only worked some of the time. Now, with two adult males engaged in something that took all their energies and attention, she was an unnoticed child. Li watched for a while but the contest showed no sign of ending so she swam back to Presh.
He too was anxious, but only about his need to move on from this exposed headland. ‘On’ for him meant south, past more headlands with shingle beaches between, plagued by the savage crabs, and eventually to the coral beaches and the fresh-water pool. He had not considered how long it would take to get him there, where he would sleep, how great his need to drink would become. Normally before a move he’d have gone round the scattered families expressing his restlessness in sounds and signals, making them feel restless also, so that when he at last swam off they’d all have been ready to go. But it was different here. There was still plenty of food and it was important to eat all they could before the sea rose. No-one expected to move or wanted to. Even Ma-ma and Hooa, who’d been attending to Presh’s needs and could sense his anxiety, could only mutter soothingly to him and coax him to stay where he was.
He was relieved to see Li, but astonished and angry when she grunted a Come-help to Hooa, put an arm under his arm and started to tow him north. Her idea was to take him to Tong and Kerif and use his authority to stop their contest. Then, somehow, she would have to get him to detach Tong and a few of the others to help tow him back to the water-caves while the rest of the tribe continued their usual journey south. They couldn’t all go back. They’d just stripped that section almost bare of food. So it would have to be like that.
At one level Li was aware that she was asking something almost impossible. You simply didn’t leave the tribe. To do so was a kind of dying. The tribe was where you belonged. But the need was now so obvious to her that at her surface level she couldn’t see that the others would be unable to grasp it.
So Presh resisted and Ma-ma and Hooa didn’t know what to do but at length gave in to Li’s insistence. They found Tong and Kerif, their contest over, feeding together, touching each other often and sharing any prey they caught. They peered briefly at Presh, grunted commiseration and returned to the vital business of re-making their friendship.
It was the same with all the others. They were hungry, and occupied with settling into themselves after yesterday’s upheaval. They didn’t want to move. Only two attached themselves to Li’s group – a young male, Goor, who was in the stage of splitting himself off from his immediate family, and the stranger whose baby had died, Rawi – Presh had always been kind to her and she would have liked to mate with him.
Presh was too tired, too shaken by his loss of command to resist any more. Ma-ma and Hooa were deeply worried about leaving the tribe and at first gave signs of wanting to break off and return, but then became afraid to leave the little group. Rawi and Goor were readier for the idea and did most of the work, towing Presh through the rising swell, lying on their backs and kicking with their webbed feet, the tribe’s usual stroke for longer journeys.
Normally it would have taken them less than half a day to reach the caves from that headland, but it was almost dark when they came to the bay, hungry and exhausted, and working together lifted the unconscious Presh across the rocky foreshore and into the smaller cave.
NOW: TUESDAY MORNING
VINNY WOKE WITH the sun shining into her eyes and remembered where she was. They’d finished putting the tent up in the dark, but now when she looked around she saw that it was as large as a small room, with her cot one side and Dad’s the other and plenty of space between. There were mosquito nets at each end to let the wind blow through. Dad’s cot was empty.
She twisted out of bed, tapped out her slippers, and still in her pyjamas pushed out through the netting. The dawn air smelt as it had yesterday only more so, with fewer human smells to muddle it. In front of her, shadow-streaked in the sunrise, rose the outcrop. Dad was already up there, digging. She could see his yellow shirt bent beside the big rock.
He’d left a note for her on the folding table. ‘Breakfast at site, please. Banana, coffee, muesli, two slices bread and Marmite.’ She put the kettle on to the propane burner, dressed, got two breakfasts ready, put everything carefully back into its containers the way he’d shown her and carried the food-bag up the slope.
By the time she reached him, Dad had taken his shirt off and was streaming with sweat, so that all his tanned skin glistened and the muscles showed clear. Vinny had seen him half-stripped yesterday, but hadn’t realized then how fit and strong he must be, certainly compared with Colin who had a bit of a beer-belly and regarded watching American football on TV as good exercise.
‘Morning,’ he said. ‘Sleep well?’
‘Oh yes. I found your note. I think I’ve got it right. How much hotter is it going to get?’
‘Same as yesterday, give or take the odd degree. There comes a point where you don’t notice the variations. Beats me why our ancestors chose to evolve in a moderate oven.’
‘It was the other way round. They found themselves in the oven so they went into the sea to get out of it and then they evolved.’
He was unstoppering the Thermos as she spoke and didn’t pause. In spite of May Anna’s encouragement Vinny hadn’t meant to barge straight in like that, but she’d been thinking about the coming heat, and how lovely it would be to have sea to swim in, while she’d been bringing the food-bag up the hill.
‘I don’t follow the logic of it,’ he said mildly.
‘They’d need to stand up to keep their heads out of the water,’ said Vinny. ‘And the water would help, too. I mean if chimps started wanting to hunt or something on their hind legs they’d have a terrible time. They’d actually be slower than they are now. And all their bits would be in the wrong place. And they’d get frightful back-aches – we still do. And – you know – sinuses – they don’t drain right because of the way we’ve got to hold our heads now . . .’