Stolen (23 page)

I gathered together all the vegetation I could find or pick without slashing my hands too much and stuck it under the tires, but still I couldn’t move the car. The wheels just ground the plants into the sand, unable to get a grip. I tried again, using small stones this time, but it got worse, the tires digging deeper. If I’d had someone else to push the car while I revved, then I might have done it, but with just me it was hopeless. I got out and kicked the tire a bit, but I knew it was a lost cause.

By the time I set off it was already getting light. I carried the bottle of water and shoved your hat on my head. It flopped down over my eyes, a little big. I knew it would be hot, walking in the daylight, but I didn’t have much choice. I couldn’t stay with the car; no one would find me then. And anyway, it was early. Still cool.

I trudged through the sand, keeping the dune to my right. I soon felt the strain in my upper thighs. I tried walking fast at first, trying to cover as much ground before the heat set in. But the heat came anyway. I noticed it when it became difficult to breathe deeply anymore and when each step felt like my boots were made of lead. I put my head down and focused on my feet … one foot forward, then the other. I was beginning to stink, my fresh sweat merging with the stale, dried sweat from yesterday. I sipped at the water. Each mouthful was never enough, but I wouldn’t let myself take more.

I’d been walking for a while when I realized I couldn’t see a tree. Not one. The tallest thing to aim for in that rusty-brown landscape was a clump of spinifex. I stopped, turned around, and looked at the endlessness surrounding me. Nothing but sand everywhere. How did anyone find anything? I sat on its warmth. I curled into the tiniest ball and rocked. I cried, then hated myself for it … for wasting all that water on tears. Hard grains of sand stuck to my cheeks and scraped against them. Farther away I could hear the wind, stirring up the grains and swirling them around. Dust slipped into my mouth and stuck to my teeth and tongue. The land was beating me, wearing me down like it had worn down the rocks. I was going to die. I’d been stupid to even hope I’d get anywhere.

But something wouldn’t let me give up. Not yet. Not then. I pulled myself to my feet. I kept walking. I tried thinking about home. I imagined Anna was walking beside me, urging me on. But every time I turned to look at her, she vanished. Her voice was there, though, swirling around me like the light wind.

I sipped at the dregs of water. Then I licked around the top of the bottle, my tongue delving into the grooves. I chucked the empty bottle in the sand. I kept going. I was doing all right for a while. But then the sun moved higher and beat down right on top of me. I started to stumble. I fell down. I pushed myself back up. I stepped forward again, my toes dragging in the sand. I held my arms out in front and grabbed at the air, trying to pull myself on. The earth wanted me; it had arms waiting to grasp. I couldn’t hold out forever. I stumbled again. This time I couldn’t get up. I crawled forward on all fours.

I tore at my shirt, ripping it away from me, needing to do something, anything, to be cool. My boots came off next. I left them behind in the sand. And then my shorts. It was better crawling in my underwear. I even managed to stand and walk a few paces before I fell again. Then I lay on the sand, face up to the sun, trying to breathe. Everything was so bright and white. I turned over. I needed to keep moving. I stuck my fingers inside the elastic of my underpants and slipped them down over my legs. A few feet farther, I unhooked my bra.

I crawled forward. The sand scratched my skin, but I could deal with that. I was cooler. I pulled myself up again until I was standing. I could do it, just. My body wavered, my head drawing circles in the air. A fly flew up my nostril, desperate for moisture. I felt him crawling farther in. Then more came. They swarmed and settled on my body as if I were a carcass already. They were in my ears and mouth, between the tops of my thighs. To brush them off would have used too much energy. I took a step instead. The world spun. For a moment the sky was red, the sand blue. I shut my eyes. I took another step. I concentrated on the feeling of grains on the soles of my feet: hot, but not sharp. I walked like this, naked and sightless and covered in flies, just feeling my way. I no longer knew where I was headed. I no longer knew very much. I just knew I was moving.

Sometime later, I collapsed again. And that time, I knew I couldn’t get up, no matter what I did. I rolled against the sand, and thrust my face into it. I wanted to be an animal, burying deep, deep down. I dug, trying to pull my body under, trying to reach the cool. But all my strength had sweated out of me. Everything had drained away. The sand had absorbed it all. I lay there, half-buried in the grains. I closed my eyes against the sun and sank down.

First my toes went, then my legs, my body, and finally my head … sinking down, down, deep beneath the sand. I fell through the grains. I kept going through earth and rock, past animal tunnels and tree roots and tiny digging insects, kept going until I reached the other side.

I was lying on my bed, back home. My eyes were stuck shut, but I could hear people talking. My TV was on. I recognized the voice of one of the news anchors.

“And today, London is getting hit by some incredible weather,” he was saying. “Another crazy heatwave.”

My duvet was pulled up tight around my neck. I couldn’t push it down. It felt like it was sewn to my pillow, choking me with a blanket of heat. I could feel sweat pooling in the small of my back, sweat settling in my hair.

I smelled something. Coffee. Mum was home. I listened for her. She was banging things about in the kitchen and humming some stupid tune. I wanted to go to her, but I couldn’t get my legs out of the duvet. My feet just kept kicking against the side, trapped. And my eyes were still shut, as if my eyelids were glued there. I started screaming.

“Mum! Come here!”

But she didn’t. She just hummed louder. I knew she could hear me, though. The kitchen was the next room along and the walls were thin. I called again.

“Mum! Help!”

She stopped banging things for a moment, almost as if she were listening. Then she turned the radio on to something classical, blocking me out. I thrashed around, trying to pull myself up out of bed. But I couldn’t get a grip on anything. I kept screaming for Mum to help. But she only turned the radio up higher. And then, suddenly, I understood why she wasn’t coming. She’d sewn up my eyes and she’d sewn up my bed. She wanted to imprison me.

Then I felt arms reaching up from my mattress. They came up either side, and wrapped around my stomach, clasping together in the middle. They were strong, brown arms, arms with scratches all the way down them. They pulled me through the mattress, pulled me away from the sewn-up sheets. They dragged me down through the stuffing and then through the floorboards of my room, down through the concrete foundations of the house, and to the soft, dark earth beneath. There they just hugged me, cradling me against the earth’s chest.

When I woke, it was cool. Almost too cool. Cloths soaking with water were lying over my body. On each side of me, a fan was whirring. A washcloth was flat on my forehead, its water dripping down my cheeks. I turned a little. My body stung as I did, and one of the cloths fell off my arm. Beneath it, my skin was bright red and blotchy, blistered in places. My arm went hot again immediately. Your hand reached across, picked up the cloth, and put it back, squeezing its water gently onto my skin.

“Thank you,” I whispered, my voice barely escaping through my swollen throat. Those two words hurt more than you can imagine.

You nodded; then you laid your head down on the side of the bed, inches from my arm.

And I slept again.

When I woke next time, you had a cup to my lips.

“Drink,” you were urging. “You have to. Your body needs it.”

I moved away from you, coughed. Pain seared through my limbs. It felt like my skin cracked every time I moved, opening up into sores. I looked down. There was a thin sheet covering me. Underneath I was naked, or I thought I was. My skin was too numb to really tell. But I could feel the cold cloths were no longer on my body. I tried moving my legs, but they were raised up, tied to the bed with soft cloth. I pulled at them.

“You said you wouldn’t,” I whispered.

You squeezed a towel, dripping water onto my forehead. “You’ve got bad burns,” you said. “I had to raise your legs to reduce the swelling. I know I said.” You stepped toward my feet, lifted the sheet up a little to look at them. “I can untie them if you like. You heal well.”

I nodded. Gently, you put your hand around my right foot. You untied it, then lowered it to the mattress. You did the same with the other one, and covered them both with the sheet.

“Do you want more cold cloths?” you asked. “Are you hurting?”

I nodded again. You padded out of the room, your bare feet sticking to the wood floor. I looked up at the ceiling, testing different parts of my body, checking what hurt most. I tried to piece everything together. I’d been escaping. I’d been sinking into the sand. But then?

You’d been there. I’d felt your arms around me, scooping me up, cradling me against you. You’d been whispering something; I’d felt your breath on my neck, your hand on my forehead. You’d picked me up, so gently, as if I were a leaf you didn’t want to crush. You’d carried me somewhere. And I’d curled into your arms, tiny as a stone. You’d splashed me with water. And then, after that, nothing. Blackness. Just blackness.

You came back in, with cloths soaking in a bowl.

“Do you want to do it, or should I?” You started to squeeze water from a cloth, then began to lift the sheet.

“I’ll do it.” I snatched the sheet from you. I lifted it and peered down at my body. Much of my skin was red and shiny, some of it peeling badly. I touched a blister on my chest. Around it the skin looked wet. I laid the damp cloths you’d wrung out over the worst parts, and it felt better immediately. It was as if my skin breathed out when the cloths touched it, then breathed in straight after, absorbing the water. It was hard to get to the burned lower parts without you seeing me naked, though I suppose you’d seen it all by then anyway. I shuddered as I remembered you carrying me in your arms. How had you touched me when I’d been like that? Was I brave enough to ask?

After a while, I gave up on the cloths. I lay back onto the pillow.

“How long have I been here?” I asked. “Like this?”

“A day or so. You won’t be fully healed for a few days more. It’s lucky I found you when I did.”

“How did you?”

“Followed your tracks. Easy.” You leaned your elbows on the mattress, too close to me. But it was too painful to move myself farther away. You picked up the cup of water and held it out. “I took the camel.”

“How?”

“Rode it.” You smiled a little. “She goes pretty fast.”

Something dried up had settled in the corners of my lips. I licked at it. I let you pour the water into my mouth.

“You’ll start to feel better soon,” you said quietly. “If you’re lucky, you won’t even get any scars.”

The water tingled in my throat. I gulped more. Right then, that water wasn’t brown or full of grit; it was the finest champagne. I let the excess spill down my neck. I thought of the car, bogged down deep in the dirt.

“How did we get back?”

“I carried you at first, then I put you on the camel. We walked through the night.” You nodded toward the cup. “Want more?”

I shook my head. “What about the car?”

“Didn’t find it. You were heading back toward me when I found you.”

“Toward …?”

You nodded again. “So I figured the car had probably got stuck or died somehow, and you were just coming home.”

“Home?”

“Yeah.” Your mouth twitched. “Back to me.”