Stranded (31 page)

I squeeze his hand. ‘Try them. You might be surprised. It will have been your brother’s wedding by now, won’t it?’

‘I’m not sure. I don’t think so. Can you remember when I said it was?’

‘May the seventeenth.’ I remember this clearly, for some reason.

Mark appears, his eyes darting around, clearly unsettled. He grabs a chair from someone else’s table without asking, turns it the wrong way round and straddles it. Once I would probably have been mortified to be sitting with someone who does this, but now I could not care less.

‘OK, Mark?’ I say. ‘Did you sleep?’

‘Oddly enough, I did,’ he replies. ‘I slept in a bed, for the first time in weeks, and I slept like a fucking baby. Better than one of them. Much better. It was like I was in the Queen of England’s best feather bed at Hogwarts Castle, without her Majesty beside me or I might have been a bit distracted. Enjoying your eggs there, Esty?’

‘I am, Mark,’ I confirm, ‘and I will never take an egg for granted ever again. We are blessed by the chickens. I’m eating them slowly so I can enjoy them. And so I don’t throw up.’

A waitress has appeared next to Mark, and he says, loudly, ‘I’ll have what she’s having,’ nodding at me, then smiles at his little joke.

‘You’re in a better mood today,’ I observe.

‘I know. Bravado. Time to face the music. I’ve eaten. I’ve slept. I’ve screwed up and I’m going to deal with it.’

‘Seen Cherry?’ Ed asks. Mark nods.

‘She’s on the phone at the reception desk,’ he says, jerking his head backwards. ‘Crying down the phone again. Trying to keep Tom there until she gets back. At least he’s speaking to her. Fuck.’ He shouts the word, again and again. Ed and I look at one another and wait for him to finish, which he does in the end. ‘Hey, sorry, guys,’ he says, addressing the room. ‘We’ve just been stranded on an island out there for twenty-nine days. Twenty-nine days!’

His food arrives and he starts eating. Cherry comes along, her face red and blotchy.

‘My babies,’ she whispers. She is so wretched that I shift my chair over to hers and put my arm around her shoulder, and she buries her face in me and sobs. I find myself blinking back the tears, fighting myself fiercely to stay in control.

‘You’ll be back with them soon,’ I mutter into her hair. She sniffs and visibly exerts control over herself.

‘Yes,’ she whispers. ‘And you’ll be back with Daisy. Tom’s known for weeks that I was with Mark, and maybe he’ll divorce me now. That’ll be OK as long as he lets me have Aaron and Hannah. Aaron and Hannah.’ Their names have been a mantra for her the whole time we were stranded, and they still are now.

‘Anyone seen Katy?’ Mark says, clearly keen to change the subject.

‘Yes,’ I tell him. ‘She was in the room next to ours last night. I saw her this morning. She hadn’t slept. I saw her get in a boat and go around that way.’ I point in the direction of Paradise Bay. ‘I guess she’ll be back, or we’ll see her there. Or we won’t. Anyway, she’s fine.’

‘We need to go back and look for our bags,’ says Cherry, with a sniff. ‘Typical of Katy to be ahead of the game.’ And we all get up to go and make a fruitless search for the backpacks that vanished a month ago.

Chris does not answer the phone this morning either, and I start to feel a heavy dread in my stomach. Something has happened to him, or to Daisy, or to both of them. I ask around for a charger that might fit my useless mobile phone that contains all the numbers I do not hold in my head, but before anyone can find one, we are gathered up by the two policemen and told to get on a boat.

Katy has vanished, as she said she would. I imagine her taking her own path around South East Asia until she feels ready to go home, and mentally I wish her luck. The police tell us that Gene has died, and that Jean’s daughter and her other son are coming out to look after things. I wish we could see her, but apparently we have no time.

Everyone else has made their calls. Things have been arranged without my having done anything. The embassy in Kuala Lumpur is organising flights home for Ed and me, and Mark and Cherry are being looked after by their embassy.

Ed’s parents are coming to Heathrow to meet him. ‘They sounded a bit baffled,’ he said, ‘and I suppose it would be slightly odd to have an emotional call from someone you hadn’t realised was missing. We’re going straight to the wedding, apparently. Mum said: “Oh, it sounds as if you’ve had an adventure. That’ll be a good story to tell at the reception.” The instant downgrading of that experience into a wedding anecdote.’

A group of people gather to watch us set off on our journey back to Kuala Besut. As well as the four of us, there are about fifteen other people, normal people, making the journey. Most of them are holidaymakers, with a few locals thrown in. Every single one of them stares at us for the first few minutes, and then a man who is sitting next to Cherry turns to her. He is, I think, German.

‘What happened?’ he asks. He has a goatee beard and curly hair, and he looks both kind and insatiably curious.

She shrugs. Cherry, more than any of us, hates the attention. She turns away from him, on the brink of tears again.

Mark steps in. ‘We were stranded,’ he says. ‘On one of those islands.’

‘And how did that happen?’ asks a woman.

‘It just did,’ Mark tells her. He looks across to Ed and to me, and we all smile. We do not owe these people our story. We do not owe them anything. None of us says another word for the short boat trip to the mainland.

It is good to be travelling. This is the first part of our journey home.

I stare out of the window of the taxi which is taking us to the airport. I look at the houses and shops we pass, and already the sojourn on the island is feeling like a dream. Our driver likes overtaking at speed, while Boney M plays at top volume, and a month ago I would have been frightened by his reckless driving, but today it does not seem to matter. Every fibre of my being longs to see Daisy. The fact that Chris is not answering the phone is the only thing on my mind. I screw my eyes tight shut and try to remember the phone number of anyone I know in Brighton. If I can tell someone that I am alive and heading home, they will be able to tell Daisy.

We are in a slightly more built-up area when it comes to me.

‘Three-one-nine-two-one-zero!’ I say.

‘I’m sorry?’ asks Cherry, sitting next to me.

‘My friend’s number. I’ve just remembered it. That’s Zoe’s number. Her niece was the one who told me to come here. She’ll be able to find Daisy for me.’

Ed places a warm hand on my shoulder. ‘Well done,’ he says. ‘You can call her from the airport.’

I sigh, relieved. ‘Yes. I will.’

Mark reaches back from the front seat and ruffles my hair.

‘Good job, Esther,’ he says. ‘See, you’ll find they’re absolutely fine. They will have heard your messages by now anyway.’

I smile back at him. ‘Thanks, Mark. Christ, it’s going to be weird not being with you guys all the time. What am I going to do without Mark, Cherry and Ed?’

Ed and I look at one another. We have not discussed this, but I know we have no future in the real world. It was perfect on the island. Ed was my saviour. But the age difference between us is suddenly there again, and besides, I live in Brighton and he lives in London and Scotland. I have a child and he does not. He has a busy life and I do not.

‘You guys have to come to the States,’ Cherry says firmly.

‘Yeah, come visit our street.’ Mark roars with inappropriate, self-mocking laughter. ‘Come meet my wife, and Cherry’s husband. Nothing will be awkward
at all
. You’ll love it.’

‘We should, though,’ Ed says. ‘I’m not coming to Long Island to visit your families, but Esther and I could make a trip to Manhattan sometime, come and meet up with you. Talk about old times.’

We all smile. ‘The stars,’ says Cherry.

‘Keeping the fire going,’ says Mark. ‘Christ, but I was good at that.’

‘Cooking the lizard,’ I say.

‘Watching the sun rise over the sea,’ says Ed. ‘Look at us – we’re romanticising it already. I could also have said: waiting for Gene to die. Imagining us all starving to death one by one. Carrying that bloody water through the jungle. Being sunburned. Being scared. Being hungry.’

‘Yes,’ I agree. ‘It was mainly about missing people and being hungry. In fact, that’s all it was. Missing people, being hungry, being scared and waiting.’

I stand in the small airport, huddled towards the phone, watching Ed, Mark and Cherry sitting on a row of plastic chairs on the other side of a shiny marble-effect floor. Zoe’s phone rings. It rings some more. I begin to wonder if some catastrophe has befallen Brighton when, just as I am about to hang up, she answers.

‘Hello?’ she says. She sounds breathless.

‘Zoe,’ I say. I make an effort to keep my voice from cracking apart. ‘It’s Esther.’

She is silent for a while. Then she says, in an uncharacteristically timid voice: ‘Esther? The real Esther?’

‘Yes.’ I am half laughing, half crying. ‘The real Esther. Zoe, Chris isn’t answering his phone. Is Daisy OK?’

‘Yes. I’m sure she is. But . . .’ She stops.

‘I know. I got stuck, Zoe. It’s a long story, but I couldn’t get back. And now I can. I’m on my way home.’

I see the others standing up. If they had bags, they would be gathering them up. All three of them look across at me. I know it must be time to go upstairs to the departure lounge.

‘I’m at the airport,’ I say quickly, ‘and I have to go. Zoe, can you find Chris for me? Can you tell him I’m coming. I’ll be a couple of days. I’m not quite sure yet. All my stuff has gone, so the embassy are sorting it out for us. But I’ll keep trying him, all right? And can you tell Daisy . . .’

I stop. She knows what I mean.

‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I can tell Daisy. Just get yourself home and we can make it all OK.’

‘Thanks Zoe. Got to go.’

I catch up with the others, and we walk up the stairs into a departure lounge that is full to bursting and so hot that it is hard to breathe. A television screen advertises our flight to Kuala Lumpur. People are starting to surge forward to get to the plane. I take Ed’s hand and join the throng.

We are descending into Heathrow. The cloud parts to show us London spread out below us. It is huge and exciting, and I grin at the sight of its roads and sprawl. I am ready for everything now. I am on my way to find my daughter.

We said goodbye to Mark and Cherry in Kuala Lumpur, and left them shakily waiting for their own aeroplane.

‘Antonia doesn’t want to know,’ Mark said glumly after his third conversation with his wife. ‘I can, of course, hardly blame her. It’s going to take all my powers to persuade her to let me see the boys from time to time. She slammed the phone down so hard that I felt the reverberations from here.’

Cherry was pale. ‘Tom’s the opposite,’ she said. ‘He keeps telling me to get back safely and we’ll work it all out. Can you believe it? He won’t even leave me after
this
!’

‘You can leave him, though,’ I reminded her, and she nodded.

‘I’ll just have to hope that he doesn’t go for residency,’ she muttered. ‘I’m not exactly going to come across as Mother of the Year in court proceedings. Hannah and Aaron. My babies.’

We have sworn that we will keep in touch. I am sure we will: our shared ordeal is too vivid to be forgotten. Now Ed and I have been on a plane for what feels like days and nights on end, and all of a sudden the journey is about to finish. I am glad I have had him by my side, because the inside of this aeroplane is so much the exact opposite of the island that at times I have had to ram my fingernails into the palms of my hands to stop myself standing up and attempting to run away. It is only now, as the journey ends, that I feel excited.

There are hundreds of people, all crammed into a confined space, all breathing the same air, with no connection to any place on earth. On the island we were seven people, with air and water and beach and jungle, all pristine, all around us. On the island we scrabbled around for enough food to keep us alive. On the plane we just have to sit still and be good, and mass-produced food is handed to us on a tray.

‘Is it weird,’ I asked Ed at one point, ‘to be slightly pining for the island?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s not. I know what you mean.’

The woman on the other side of him gave us an understanding smile. I forced a smile back. She clearly thought we were unhappy to be returning from our holiday. I opened my mouth to explain, then closed it. We do not, at least, look so weird any more. In KL we were able to smarten ourselves up, and neither of us looks like anything more unusual than a beach bum now.

By the time we get through passport control and walk straight past the baggage reclaim, with nothing to collect, I have forgotten the aeroplane altogether. My heart is pounding, my legs actually feel weak, and I grab hold of Ed’s arm just to force myself to keep going.

I left long and detailed messages for Chris and for Zoe, from KL, telling both of them what flight I would be on, and when it was going to land. I have not, however, spoken to anyone at home since my truncated conversation with Zoe. I desperately hope Daisy will be here to meet me. Even if Chris hates me for disappearing, he is not unreasonable. He will let Zoe bring Daisy to meet me. I begged them both to let her be here.

Ed squeezes my arm. ‘She’ll be here,’ he says. ‘She’s in the same building as you right now.’ I force a smile, trying to believe him.

I step through the automatic doors, and scan the waiting crowd. My knees are weak; my breathing is erratic. I look at every single person. I look past the drivers with boards bearing names written in marker pen. I stare greedily at the children, glancing at one after another, discarding them. There is a girl with light brown hair who makes my heart leap, and I take a step towards her before she turns slightly and I see that she is not Daisy. I slow myself down, keep walking, look from face to face, desperate to see the only person in the world I want to see. She must be here. My daughter has to be here, somewhere in the crowd.

When I vaguely notice a woman calling, ‘Edward!’ in a posh voice, I let go of his arm so he can go and see his family. I stretch my fingers out, realising how hard I must have been gripping.