Mama nudged him in the ribs to get his attention. ‘She’s been gone all day. Either Crows did for her or, the other thing happened, as we all feared.’
There was nothing to see that he hadn’t seen for himself every time he looked up. The beach, the bay, the sea, the distant island: that was it. Once in a while, a bird would drift into view and his heart would leap, but they were only ever regular seagulls and they broke his hope a little more each time. Now, the sun was going down and he was in pieces. Today’s achievements had been to dig two graves, lose Luiza, lose Mary, lose the maps, lose the boat and lose Crows. They’d gained a handful of loose change and a plastic egg.
All in all, not a fair exchange.
‘Perhaps she can’t find her way back,’ he said.
‘We’re like pimples on a face, Dalip. We’re in plain view for all to see◦– we’re the orangiest things in the whole of Down. No one is going to miss us here, least of all Mary.’ She waggled her toes. ‘We’re the only ones left, so we have to decide what to do now.’
‘We have to stay here, in case she comes to find us.’ He remembered a similar argument, not so long ago, even though it felt like a lifetime had passed. He’d been on the other side then, persuading the others to move on and away from the portal, while Mama had been all for staying put. He made a face. ‘I know how it sounds.’
‘We can’t stay, can we? We all understand why. There’s nothing left for us here.’ She gestured at the empty beach. ‘We have no wood, no way to light it, no food, no way to catch it, and we can’t hang around here for another boat because we can’t go chasing after them when we have no idea where they went. We’ve got to get on with living as best we can.’
‘What does Elena want?’
‘That girl doesn’t know what she wants at the moment. But the sure thing is, if we stay here she’ll do nothing but weep over Luiza’s grave, and I don’t trust Down to leave her alone in her grief. Once this place has its hooks in you, it doesn’t let go.’ She leaned in, butting her biceps against his. ‘Us three have to stick together, because this place is as cruel as it is beautiful.’
She knew she was right, and so did he. He’d had all those thoughts himself. ‘We can’t go anywhere now. It’s going to be night soon.’
‘We can go under the trees. It’ll be warmer out of the wind.’
‘But that’ll mean…’ He clicked his tongue. She knew what it meant, which is why she suggested it. Get Elena away from her cousin, stop him staring out to sea. ‘Okay. We’d better move while we still have some light.’
Mama hauled herself to her feet, using Dalip’s shoulder as a brace. She held out her hand.
‘Come on, Dalip. We can’t give up now.’
That stung him. He wasn’t giving up, least of all on Mary. She hadn’t deserted them. Not when they were Bell’s prisoners, and not now. So why would he give up on her? She wasn’t dead, either. Not her.
He wanted to say something to that effect to Mama, but all that came out was a growl. He took her hand instead, and she pulled him up. He looked one last time towards the far horizon, and there was still nothing. How was all this possible, when the sun had risen on such promise? He deliberately turned his back and blotted out the view by descending the far side of the dune.
‘We’re,’ he started. He still hadn’t found the right words to say to Elena, and these weren’t right either. ‘We’re going into the forest. We might not be able to light a fire, but I can build a shelter, or at least a windbreak.’ He had a machete, so he wasn’t promising anything he couldn’t deliver.
Elena looked up from the heap of sand that covered Luiza’s body. She’d placed flowers on top, and the plastic egg against the side of the dune at the head end. Those were the only things she had to lay there. Sikhs didn’t mark graves◦– shouldn’t even have graves◦– but this wasn’t his relative or his religion and he didn’t say anything.
Mama went around behind her and gently lifted her up, guiding her with an arm around her, whispering in her ear as she went. It was going to be okay, she said, when the truth was the worst had already happened, and it might never be okay ever again.
At least the forest was still there, and they camped in a little hollow in its scrubby fringes. Dalip found that the machete was incredibly usefuclass="underline" he could cut saplings, split them ready for weaving, sharpen stakes with the edge and hammer them in with the flat side, and chop undergrowth to cover the frame.
It was past twilight by the time he’d finished, and he was utterly exhausted. It was little more than a low semicircular trellis, with a rough roof lain across it, but it would have to do. Mama rolled in, and encouraged Elena to follow. By unspoken agreement, Dalip would sleep just inside the entrance. Best, perhaps, if any of the Wolfman’s men were still hanging around, but that didn’t seem likely. Tomorrow they too would be gone, in a direction yet to be decided.
He got down on the ground himself and stretched out. It was hard, and uncomfortable, but he’d forgotten what it was like to sleep on a bed, and was so tired at the end of every day that it didn’t really matter any more. He lay there, not moving but for his chest and his eyelids, listening to the noises of the night. Mama and Elena were making little mutters as they turned and shuffled, and the softening wind made the shelter creak and scratch. Further out was the static hiss of fluttering leaves, and beyond that was the profound, deep silence of Down that threatened to drown out everything else.
The sky outside darkened to impenetrable black, and even the insects seemed to quieten. His thoughts started to become discordant as he began to drift off, amongst scattered moments of clarity that he would remember later.
Mary would be waiting for them when they woke up, sitting on the beach, wondering where they’d got to.
He could try to make fire: he had soft steel and hard stone to spark together, and plenty of time to practise catching bone-dry tinder alight.
The coins and jewellery would have value as refined metal and cut stones. Keeping them was more than a sentimental connection to home.
He didn’t want to be responsible for Elena and Mama, but just because he didn’t want to be, didn’t mean he wasn’t.
With his hand still curled around the machete’s grip, he slowly fell asleep.
And just as slowly, he woke up.
Yesterday, the moon had risen some time after midnight, and had still been in the sky in the morning before being chased away by the sun. Tonight, he could see the vague glimmer of silver through the woven walls of the shelter, and knew there were still several hours of darkness. That wasn’t what had woken him.
There was a pressure, a weight against him, down his right-hand slide, pinning his arm and the machete against the sandy soil of the shelter floor. In his befuddled state, he couldn’t work them free, and it was only when he pulled hard and Elena grunted against his chest that he realised she was almost lying on top of him, arm across him, leg hooked over his, her head in the hollow of his shoulder.
And he had an erection.
At least he managed to stop himself from panicking. He wasn’t responsible for what happened in his sleep, and neither was she. If he could extricate himself without waking her then no one but him would ever know.
He took a couple of deep breaths to steady himself, and slid his leg out from under hers. She made no sign of stirring, and he took encouragement from that. Inch by inch, he eased himself away, and even managed to lift her head so that it rested on his arm rather than his shoulder. He reached under her for the machete, and carefully pulled it free.
Only his arm remained trapped, and there seemed no way of moving it without disturbing her. The situation was so foreign to his experience that he was desperate enough to try something he’d seen in a film once.