Power Games (44 page)

The raft was four feet by five. Jacob pushed it further in. Pockets of liquid slurped against the sides and he held it down, testing the buoyancy. Water seeped between the logs but it stayed afloat. They would leave their belongings, bring as much water as they could and pray for salvation. Jacob did not know what lay ahead, but he was willing to test the unknown. He had always been willing to test it.

‘You oughtta take me,’ said Kevin, his torso rippling in the sun. ‘Defence.’ He delivered a sharp punch to the air, as if he were breaking through a wall. The move brought to Jacob’s mind a video he had once seen the pop prince in, where Kevin had channelled a Rocky Balboa vibe and pounded a punch bag. He had looked so different then.

That made three, then. With Eve and her baby, four.

‘Don’t do this.’ Angela tried once more. ‘We have to stick together. It’s the only way.’

‘It’s the only way you can see.’

‘We’re nothing if we’re not together. Jacob, think about this—’

‘You’re saying I haven’t thought about it? What else is there to do with my time, Angela,
except
for think? Celeste, Eve, let’s go.’

‘I’m begging you. We’re in this as a group, we have been since the first day.’

‘And what day are we now?’

‘Too many—I know that. But we’re just trying to survive.’

‘So am I. You’re living in a fantasy if you think they’re
still searching. We’ve got a pregnant woman here and we’re doing nothing about it. What’s going to happen when that baby comes? Has anyone actually considered that? Has anyone planned for it? Wake up and smell the fucking coconuts, people:
we’re on our own.
I don’t know about the rest of you but I want to live. I want to go home. Seeing as that isn’t a priority at this end, fine, you’re by yourself.’

‘I’m not coming.’

Eve’s voice made him turn round. ‘What?’

‘It’s too dangerous.’

Jacob stormed back, eyes ablaze. ‘I might have been blind once but I can see pretty fucking clearly right now. If anyone should understand the urgency of getting back to civilisation, Eve, surely it’s you.’

‘I understand the urgency of living another day. We’ll die out there.’

‘We’ll die if we stay.’

‘I’m not coming either, Jacob.’ Celeste bowed her head. ‘I’m sorry.’

His face drained.

‘I can’t swim,’ she said.

The admission took them all by surprise. Jacob disregarded it. Need for Celeste to agree overtook his common sense.

‘You don’t have to.’ To prove the point he climbed aboard. The float submerged, tipping to one side before he corrected the balance and it righted itself. Pushing a stick into the sand, he anchored it in place. ‘See?’

‘I’m scared.’

‘Come here,’ he encouraged, ‘you’ll be fine; it’s safe, I promise …’

Without warning, Kevin charged down the sand and threw himself on the raft.

Jacob’s stick snapped with the impact and rushed them into reverse. The raft bucked. Water gushed up. One of the logs spun loose, and once one was freed the rest followed, tumbling like a spool of tree trunks from the back of a truck. Jacob went under, coughing and sputtering. Kevin laughed, held his nose, and toppled backwards.

Jacob went for him.

‘
You idiot
!’ he thundered, dragging Kevin from the water and thumping his chest. ‘Look what you did; you dumb punk! You think this is funny?’

Kevin stopped laughing. The thump barely moved him. He squared up against Jacob. The men stood in conflict on the beach, brute against brute.

‘I’ll show you funny.’ Jacob shoved him, but Kevin didn’t move. It was like slamming into a brick wall.

Kevin looked down at him—
down
, since when? Jacob couldn’t conceive that this was the same kid that had trawled him round Boston all those months before. For starters, this wasn’t a kid. Kevin Chase was a
monster.

Jacob launched a blow, but instead of flooring his target, Kevin didn’t flinch. ‘What the fuck is the matter with you, huh? You
freak
!’

Kevin drew back. For a moment it looked as if he was going to walk away, then at the last instant he turned, cracked his fist and landed it in Jacob’s solar plexus.

Jacob collapsed onto the sand, gasping for breath. Kevin descended on him, bolting his fingers round his throat. Angela fought to intervene, but trying to haul off Kevin was like trying to move a mountain.

Jacob choked, his eyes bugging, his face turning red. Kevin’s grip tightened. ‘You’ll kill him!’ Celeste screamed. ‘Get off him, let him go, you’ll kill him!’ Kevin stared down with amusement. His thumbs pressed deeper.

Jacob blacked out, blinking through clouds of gloom.

‘Let him go!’

In the end it took all four of them to drag him away.

Violently Jacob coughed. Celeste rushed to his side.

‘What is wrong with you?’ she cried. ‘Have you gone insane?’

Kevin stared back at them without remorse.

He shrugged, unbothered. ‘Just messing.’

83

N
ight fell. Certain colours shone brighter in the dark. As Kevin emerged onto the plateau, sprays of fuchsia lit his way. The pink was extreme, the artificial pink of hard-shelled candy. Flowers were giant, each petal as big as a hand, and they carried a melting, sweet fragrance that emitted pockets of dizzying intensity.

He didn’t need the others. Fuck them: they were a bunch of losers.

Kevin wasn’t taking shit off anyone. The way they had reacted, as if he had actually killed the guy? Jacob was a pussy. To think Kevin had worshipped him was some trip. Now
he
was the don. He was the one to be admired.

He had only hung around because of Tawny being a hot piece, and now she was gone, well, why should he stay? He would set up a new camp, a better camp.

Kevin was a survivor—and the jungle belonged to him.

It was different this side of the island. Harsh. The ocean resented his presence. To the west lay the caves, dark and foreboding. Spray crashed against hostile rocks and angry currents whirled. No lagoon, just open water.

Kevin stood naked at the top of the mountain. He breathed the air, his feet set apart and his hands on his hips. Hair
crackled down his forearms, and his cock hung heavy between his legs. A burst of fireflies erupted from a nearby bush.

He had the power. It felt good.

He walked on, embraced by darkness.

84

D
awn came. Noah floated in and out of consciousness.

The boat swayed. He lay sprawled in the orange shade, lips dry and skin cracked; his body sagged and his lungs were lumps of fire.

Two days he had been adrift on the water. The engine had choked. Hours passed, and determination turned to dejection. He had rowed a day and a night, chasing an empty horizon. Land was nowhere: only blue. Sky and sea were all he had, and the occasional passing turtle shell as it drifted beneath the surface.

The heat was unfeasible. His water supply had run dry and the sun blazed. He had rigged the tarpaulin into a shelter, but still it burned.

He imagined Angela was with him. Her face came with startling clarity, the splash of green in her eyes and the scatter of freckles on the bridge of her nose.

He loved her. He would never again get to tell her that.

It wasn’t meant to happen this way. He had let her down. Just as he had let her down all those years ago, when he had walked away from their friendship, frightened to feel what he felt because Angela was too good for him. How could he have believed, even for a second, that she thought him unworthy? Angela had never made him feel inferior: of all
the people who could have, who should have, she had never belittled or derided his upbringing. She had made him forget it.

Just as he had let her down at the theatre, not knowing then that her father was dying and what an impossible decision she might have been forced into. He hadn’t let her explain. Hurt and anguish overtook and he had pushed her away, not even calling her up when Donald was laid to rest.

He was sorry for that, most of all. He couldn’t bear to think of her alone, so sad, wishing for him.

The sun crept round, a spotlight on the stage of his sorrow. It bathed his feet, encroaching on the den of airless shade, and he darted from it like a lizard on a rock. His tongue was dry and fat in his mouth. If he didn’t drink soon, he would die.

Waves lapped; a circle of wings overhead, flapping, heavy in the heat.

So accustomed was Noah to the soundtrack of the sea that at first he didn’t notice the rumbling addition that wove itself in between.

The purr of an engine came closer. He tried to raise himself, but found his limbs would not budge.

There was a burst of aggressive foreign voices. He didn’t know what they were saying. Lots of them, talking over each other, shouting, directing, and the nudge of wood against wood as the boat scraped alongside.

Shadows pooled across his lonely capsule. Strong arms hauled him up.

85

Day 53

W
ith Kevin’s departure, the dynamic on the beach changed.

Frictions dispelled. Arguments ceased. Hostilities died. But with the loss of passion settled a depression: a sense of giving up, of waiting for the time to pass because each hour was an hour closer to the inevitable.

At first they thought that Kevin would be back.

Three days later, there was still no return. Angela went to look for him, and found only a jumble of clothes on the peak. The ocean swallowed her call.

‘Let him sulk it out,’ Jacob said, his neck still bruised from Kevin’s toxic grip. He was intent on building a new raft: rather than dissuading him, the confrontation had only cemented his resolve. ‘The kid needs to cool it.’

‘I don’t like that he’s out there,’ said Angela. ‘We don’t know where he is.’

‘He’ll show up sooner or later.’

‘He’s changed—you’ve seen what he’s become.’

‘Then we’re better off without him.’

Angela drew a cross in the sand. ‘Not necessarily.’

‘You’re scared of him?’

‘Aren’t you?’

Jacob secured a knot, slicing the ends apart. ‘Of course not,’ he lied.

Eve lay in the shelter. The heat made her weak.

Angela came in and touched a hand to her forehead.

‘Just checking,’ she said.

‘I’m going to have this baby here, aren’t I?’ said Eve. Her stomach was stretched, almost eight months gone. ‘I want to go home.’

‘So do I.’

‘I can’t think about it. Home. Can you?’

‘I shouldn’t, but I do.’

‘We’re so far away.’ Eve thought of London, her flat, her kitchen with the red kettle and the magnets on her fridge. ‘There’ll be no doctors, no drugs, no one to hold my hand …’ Before, she would have rejected the idea, insisted she was fine on her own.

‘
Do you want me to come with you?
’ Orlando had said when she’d told him she was pregnant. She had been adamant. No. She didn’t want anything.

Why had she done it to herself? Why had she systematically removed everyone who cared about her from her life? Why had she insisted on self-sufficiency to the point of total isolation? When had people become projects to her, subjects she might write about, defined by how useful they were to her work?

Orlando had been useful, for a time. But it had been more than that. She knew that now.

She wished he could hold her hand.

‘I’ll be there,’ said Angela. ‘You won’t be alone.’

Eve swallowed her tears. ‘Thank you. I never said that, but you saved my life—and his. You know, when we first got out of that plane I wished I’d died.’

‘You weren’t the only one.’

‘But now I’m glad we made it. We made it this far. Whatever happens, we lived a little longer. Thank you for not leaving us behind.’

‘As if I could.’ Angela smiled.

‘How did you know?’

‘About what?’

‘The pregnancy.’

‘Just a feeling.’ Angela glanced down. ‘You know, whoever the father is, he’s crazy to turn you away. I always wanted to have kids some day.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Now I’ll never get a shot.’

‘You don’t know that,’ said Eve. Seeing her upset, she took her hand and laid it on her tummy. ‘Feel the kick?’

Angela laughed. The thump felt good: strong and definite, new life fighting to get out. The world had to be worth living in—even their version of it.

‘There’s something I have to tell you,’ said Eve.

‘Yes?’

‘It’s about my baby’s father.’

Angela waited.

‘He’s …’

Eve faltered. She closed her eyes.

‘Just that maybe he was right,’ she said. ‘Maybe this baby was a mistake.’

Angela touched the bump. Again she felt it kick.

‘That isn’t a mistake, Eve,’ she said. ‘At least I’m fairly sure whoever’s in there doesn’t think so.’

86

C
eleste watched Jacob at work on the float. Consumed by the task, his arms worked the ropes with brutal efficiency. A thrill shot through her at the memory of his fingers inside her: the intimate places she had allowed him to touch.

The heat, the blaze, the fear, the single shining quest for survival sharpened every desire to a spearhead. They wanted to live, and there was no better way of expressing it than the pleasure they had brought to each other. Celeste had given to him without limits. She craved it again.

Yet she knew in her heart that she could never venture out on that raft, whether Jacob went or not. Fear, then, was stronger than love. Was she in love?

She had thought herself in love with Carl, but in a way she witnessed rather than felt. Memories of her relationship became a moving disc at the end of a telescope, a long dark tunnel between her and it. Was that why she didn’t want Jacob to complete the raft? Maybe it wasn’t the water; it was the idea of return.

‘We’ll be together,’ said Jacob. But it wasn’t that easy. Carl would find her. Out here, he couldn’t find her. He would never find her.