Hostage Three (12 page)

But the constellations are sacred. If we eat the sky camel, said some of the men, then worse things might happen than drought.

Farouz made a graceful gesture intended, I guess, to give the idea of sacredness or – what's the word? – sanctity. Even his gestures were different – his body spoke in a foreign language, too. He moved in another tongue, and sometimes he would say one thing with his mouth and seem to say another with his hands, which was strange to me.

— Are you listening? asked Farouz.

— Oh, yes. Sorry, I said.

And I
was
sorry, because I really was listening, or I wanted to listen, anyway. It was such a relief to be talking to someone roughly my age, and someone who wasn't my dad or Damian or the stepmother. All of a sudden I was aware of how lonely I'd been on this trip, listening to my music, doing nothing but doing it alone.

— OK, he went on.

There is nothing worse than drought, said another of the men of the tribe, in reply to the man who said they should not eat the sky camel. Soon there will be no clan at all, and then what use will it be to have sacred things? Better to eat them and survive.

The next day, the whole clan, those who were still alive, moved to the Al Medu mountains. They organised themselves into a giant human tower, so that they could reach the heavens. The entire clan, everyone, was part of this big tower. And the man at the top found that he could touch the ceiling of the world, where the stars are. The night sky was cold, and the people in the tower began to tremble as the wind blew through their clothes.

The camel of stars was sitting in its usual position. The man at the top reached out and caught hold of the camel's tail. I've got him, he called down.

He's got him, the others called, until even the people right at the bottom, standing on the mountain, knew that the camel had been captured.

Except, then, one of the men lower down remembered that he had left his basket at home. He realised that he would not be able to take a piece of the meat home to his family because he had no container to put it in. Quickly he left his place and began to climb down the tower.

This was a mistake, because when he left, the tower began to topple, and then it collapsed, everyone in it tumbling down, down, down to the mountains. The man at the top was desperate. He took out his machete and chopped at the tail, thinking that he could just take that one piece with him. The camel, feeling this, bellowed and ran, its tail severing from its body as it went.

I shivered, listening to Farouz, and in my head it wasn't the tribe falling, but my mother, spiralling down through blackness, the stars above her. In religion classes at school, they were always talking about the Fall, and that's how it was for me, with my mother; it was in capitals, always. The Event. The Fall.

— Are you OK? asked Farouz.

— Yes, I said. Just cold.

It
was
cold, actually – when the sun went down, it was amazing how quick the heat leached out of the air.

Farouz nodded, taking off his jacket and putting it around my shoulders, almost distractedly – or maybe he was just looking away so that the gesture didn't seem awkward, overfamiliar.

— But then the people below the top man were gone, Farouz said, and he was falling, too, holding the tail. Some people say that he is still falling, still clinging to his tail, because he was so high up when he fell.

Farouz pointed to the Camel with the tip of the cigarette he had just lit.

— That is why the Camel has no tail, he said.

He got up as if to leave. But just before he reached the door, he turned and held something out. It sparkled in the moonlight and starlight, and for a moment, a crazy moment, I thought he was giving me a star. But then he drew closer and I saw that it was my watch, my Chanel watch.

— Here, he said.

I took the watch and, as I did so, our fingers brushed against each other. This happens all the time in life – when you take the change for your coffee, when someone hands you your bag in a club. But this wasn't like that. It was like our skins spoke to each other.

Farouz touching my hand, and other people touching my hand: these things were the same like water and vodka are the same, appearing identical, hitting your insides in a totally different way.

I stood there, dumbstruck, for a moment.

— How did you – I started to ask.

— It doesn't matter. But do not wear it. Do not let Mohammed see it. He is . . . he has a powerful family. He would like to be boss instead of Ahmed. We must be careful. You must keep it hidden.

— I will, I said. Thank you. Thank you so –

But he was already gone.

 

*

 

 

 

The next day, I sort of pathetically moped around
, thinking about Farouz.

I thought:

Does he like me?

Does he fancy me?

Is it just me who feels this, like, static in the air when he's there?

I imagine you've wondered similar things, too, though maybe not about pirates, for which you should be grateful.

The thing was, I just couldn't believe it, that he could be interested in me. I've said it already – I'm not attractive. My only unusual feature, which I shared with my mother, is my grey eyes. They're truly grey, a rare colour. Like the sea, my dad always used to say.

Of course, looks aren't everything – true beauty is on the inside and all that crap – but it's not like I'm an interesting person, either. You have to understand, and it's worth getting this out of the way: I know I'm telling you this story, but it's the story that's interesting, not me. I don't have charming personality quirks. I don't have any hobbies to speak of. I don't paint or make clothes or write a blog or even particularly like shopping. I don't own a phone in the shape of a hamburger or have an invisible friend.

The only interesting thing about me used to be that I was very good at playing the violin, and I stopped doing that.

In fact, ever since the Event, I've tried to stop being a person at all. I don't have opinions. I don't get angry any more. I have no goals or ambitions. I just am.

Besides, even before that, Mom had enough personality quirks for both of us. You know when someone says they're a little bit OCD just because they like things to be tidy? I used to think I'd like to bring those people round to my house to show them what OCD really looks like. People forget that it's
Obsessive
Compulsive Disorder. They just get hung up on the Compulsive part, think it's all about counting things and turning the light off three times and keeping things clean. Believe me, my mom did that stuff. The lights did have to go off three times, the oven had to be checked twice before bed, the fridge, too – to make sure it was on, then to make sure it was closed. This is the kind of thing that, on a TV show, might be endearing.

But there's the Obsessive part, too – the part that made her afraid of bad luck and contamination. The part that made her wash her hands any time someone shook hands with her, and throw away food if someone else touched it, refuse food if someone else handed it to her.

I saw my mom on her hands and knees in the kitchen, scrubbing the floor with wire wool until her fingers bled. I've seen her with a chopping knife, carving great big slashes in her arm because I'd been naughty and she'd said something mean about me to a friend and she thought god would take me away from her as punishment. I had to call an ambulance that time, and years later she still had silvery scars all over her forearm.

I saw her screaming, I mean really screaming, pulling out her hair, because we had to go to a family party and she didn't know what to wear.

I saw her lie in bed for three days in a row, crying.

I saw her tell Dad she would kill him, she would gut him in his sleep, because he wouldn't turn the car around, three hours from home, so she could check the dials on the oven.

I saw all those things, so I've always been happy to just be me quietly, to not be quirky. I'm also one of those people who prefers hanging out with other people to doing stuff on my own, who would rather go out clubbing than listen to music on my own. Not that going clubbing worked out particularly well, which is another reason the head teacher had reached the end of her tether with me. Looking back, I had too many late nights in the East End, with bass-heavy dance music making the floors shake, the sonic boom plugging me straight into the speakers.

On the yacht, there was no escape from myself, and it wasn't like there were any distractions. I was just stuck there with my own ordinariness, like a prisoner in my own skin, wondering, all the time, if Farouz might have feelings for me.

Never wondering what it might mean if he did. How I might pay, like in a cautionary fairytale, to get what I wished for.

 

Every second day, the pirates let us have showers. I was glad when it came round the next time because I was feeling really sweaty and horrible. I went first, then the stepmother went after me and said not to expect to see her for an hour or maybe more. I thought it would be less than that – the heating came from solar panels, and it didn't last that long.

As she washed, I went out on to the rear deck. I was surprised to see Dad there, sitting on the diving platform so that his feet were in the water, a glass of something dark in his hand, with grainy bits floating in it.

Normally, I avoided my dad, but I guess I was feeling a bit guilty about last night and Farouz, even though nothing had happened, so I walked up to him. My shadow fell over him.

— Is that what I think it is? I asked.

— What do you think it is?

— The coffee, I said, that the pirates make. Half coffee, half sugar. Lukewarm water.

For some reason, something softened in Dad's face, tension slackening from muscles.

— Yep, he said. When in Rome. He raised the glass to Ahmed, who was strolling above us, gun in hand, and Ahmed saluted back.

The way my dad makes friends, it's weird, I'm telling you. But I didn't say that.

All I said was:

— Ugh, Dad, gross.

I sat down beside him, kicking off my sandals as I did so. He was wearing shorts, and I could see his legs disappearing into the clear warm water – or, rather, not disappearing, but starting again at a certain point on his calves, at a slightly different angle, so that by immersing his legs partly in the water it looked like they were very slightly broken, dog-legged around the joint of the sea's surface.

I put my feet in the water, and they, too, jagged off from me at an angle. I was startled by the silkiness of the water, the coolness of it. Funny, how simple your desires become sometimes, like when there's stifling hot air wrapping you up, restricting you.

Heat
Cold. That's all your body wants, and it's enough.

— This is good, I said. Refreshing.

— Yes, said Dad.

I closed my eyes. The pirates had the engine going to power the computer or something. It made a kind of counterpoint with the sound of the waves, the tone similar but the rhythm different, like baroque music. I stopped that thought before it led me to my violin.

That was when I caught a whiff from Dad's drink.

— Oh my god, Dad, I said.

— What?

— That's not just coffee.

Dad looked at the glass in his hand as if someone else had just put it there.

— No, he said. I don't suppose it is.

— But you hate drinking!

— Do I?

— When Mom drank, when I drink . . .

— I hate my daughter drinking. You're seventeen.

— Nearly eighteen!

Dad sighed.

— I don't want to discuss it, Amy, he said in his and-that's-final voice.

— No way, no. You don't get out of this that easily –

— I lost my job, Amy-bear.

I turned to him so fast I nearly made him spill the drink. There was more coldness in me now, more than the water was giving me. I looked at him. Still handsome. Silver hair. Crow's feet, but still those green eyes: sharp, clever eyes, always moving. Which goes to show what you can't always see from people's eyes, because Mom's grey eyes were always still, and her mind never was.