The Island (19 page)

This is how I will die. Shivering in a cave, in the dark, because this is how monsters live and how they die. They don't die on beaches. They die inside rocks.

Hand over hand, I shuffle over the bridge to the other side.

I know why I'm cursed, 'course I do.

I've always known.

 

London's Burning

Today is Sports Day. See how thoughtful I am?

I may be fucked up but I'm not a killer.

I only want to burn down every brick, every book, every lie –

'cause books are lies and Miss is a liar.

Mr Sparrey, the caretaker, turns and says, ‘All right, love? Shouldn't you be outside?'

Out in the sun, everyone's choosing teams and doing stretches and getting ice creams, and the teachers are all relaxed and they've got their sun cream on and their bad fashion shades on, and some will have even got their legs out.

The PE staff are on the loudspeaker.

The Head's picking litter and pretend-smiling.

The coast is clear.

A carrier bag clinking with bottles.

Heart
boomboomboom
angry.

I hate.

It's so easy to get inside English Block. No one's bothered locking it.

There's no one on the landing. Usually there'd be a cluster of Year Sevens messing about doing drama, but not today.

So I head straight for the stock cupboard next to Miss's room. It's that easy.

Shut the door. Here are piles of exercise books (old and new), old coursework, controlled assessments, sugar paper filled with students' scrawl, books, papers, sliding piles of essays.

More importantly, there are all the books Miss loves so much.

So let's destroy!

What will it be first?

How about a heap of textbooks? I rip the plasticky covers off and shove the paper middles on to the floor.

Next, the Shakespeare plays. Off with the plastic jackets. Off with their heads. On to the pile they go. I splash the vodka around and the smell of it is sharp and sweet.

Slosh.

I sweep all of the books off the shelves and there are hundreds of them; all those stories; all the words Miss likes. I want her to realise why I've done it.

Slosh.

Bitch.
Behind that smug, I-really-care-about-the-kids exterior, behind the nods and the shoulder-taps and the winks and the smiley faces, she's no better than the rest of them.

She's worse 'cause she pretends to care; she prised open my soul and she saw what was inside.

I take a long gulp of vodka.

It's her fault, all of it. That Johnny's gone –

his little hands reaching out like stars.

And if she knew – if she only knew – what her interfering, double-crossing actions would lead to.

Looking after Johnny made me
me
.

So who am I now?

I am nothing and no one

without him.

Keep waking up and he's not there. The sound of his breathing is missing; the warm huff on my cheek.

Slosh.

Vodka doesn't burn. It's not enough.

I know what will be enough.

 

Shiver

The science labs are below the English rooms and now I know how to make the pain go away.

I start to float, right out of my body, right above myself. I drift, bumping against the ceiling, and watch myself turn all the Bunsen burners on and close all the windows except one.

A fly is trapped inside one of the strip-light fittings. As it crawls, it feels everything gently.

Patpatpat, checking, checking.

Other Fran walks out of the lab and closes the door. I know she is walking around the side of the building, reaching into her bag.

Everyone is outside, on the field. Teachers are chatting in the sun. All the students are stretching and racing and lazing.

Other Fran slides the matchbox, takes a match.

Whirr
, goes the fly.

The flame shivers a little.

Then it is flung through the half-open window.

WWWHHHHUUUMMMPPPPP
, goes the science lab.

And the girl that is me feels nothing.

 

Where the Rocks Weep

The walls weep.

I have changed to a crawling creature; I lick the cave walls with my fat shining tongue. My shoes are gone, drowned in the water. My rucksack too, lost in the swell when I tried to get out my drinks bottle. I have only my Hello Kitty bag, which I clutch dog-like in my teeth.

About me is only darkness now; these breathing, weeping walls.

Time trickles and drips; for centuries I climb, hand over hand.

And the dark creeps behind me on slithering elbows.

 

Water Like Diamonds

My throat has a thousand flies buzzing in it, waiting for me to unhinge my jaw and let them out, a swarm to block out the

whitelightwhitelightwhitelight
.

And always that insect sound of endless hissing:
churra-churra.

There's a break in the rocks. And a slimy ledge, and the rocks are different here; they're smooth and wet and furred. They're covered in
moss
and that means, that means –

Water.

And behind the moss is splintering light, endlessly patterning.

Moaning, I break out of my cave and there's a curtain, a tower: endless, deafening, hurling, hissing water, bright as diamonds, fast as bullets.

Churra-churra churra-churra.

It could be insects but I don't think it's insects.

I'm behind a waterfall.

I try to touch it and it's hard as stone; they'll snap my fingers off, those water-swords.

I crawl, slither, fall over the mossy rocks, downdowndown, and I'm aware of the endless roaring beside me and the terrible glare of sun that blinds me, strips me raw.

I fall, into water burning-cold; into sun that unpeels my eyes.

 

Falling Light

The water's hailing down now, stabbing the darkness away. I drink and drink like a dog, and all the time water tumbles over me, cuts me like shards of glass.

When I'm done, I collapse into the pool, lie back with my face staring at the sky.

I could die now, in this sun, in this burning water.

As I sink lower, the water weeds stroke me and I drown.

I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.

Lie back, lie back, give in to all this brightness.

Turn my face up to the sun and let it melt me. Blister my stony flesh in slow splashes around me.

I didn't mean to do it, didn't mean to hurt anyone.

Let the waterweeds stroke my hair.

There's nothing for me now, there's only the sun that unpeels and the water that burns.

So let it end here, in this moment. The last thing that I will see is that leaf with its diamond beads of water. And behind the leaf, that pile of stones. Stone placed over stone with perfect precision. Five stones in total, all carefully balanced, neat as you like –

I blink my gritty eyes. Think.

Stones don't balance themselves.

Something about the neatness, the precision, reminds me of

reminds me of

tiny cramped numbers scratched in sharp pencil.

I have time to register that the mountain's spat me out on the other side of the island; I've been spat out right where Whoever lives –

the bird hunter, the smoke-maker, the dog-catcher, the –

Be careful what you wish for.

And then there's a splashing noise, and movement, and two hands grasp me under the arms.

A voice, hoarse and panting.

‘Oh fuck,' it says.

 

Feet

The voice is not what I expected in heaven. And it's too posh for hell.

There's splashing and gasping and someone pulling at me, dragging me out, but I'm too busy dying.

I don't come easy. It's nice, being dead. I try to beat them away.

‘Getoffgetoffgetoff,' I say, but my voice comes out all wrong. That can't be me, that ragged howling. Sounds like a beast that's been dragged from the shadows.

When I'm out of the pool –

can't be Poison Pool 'cause it's far too clean and there's no waterfall there, 'course there isn't
–

there's that voice again.

‘Christ, oh shit. I can't believe it, I don't believe it.'

A hoarse voice that's not been used in a long, long time. Cracked, but posh as plums.

Through drowned hair I see:

Two perfectly plaited flip-flops containing

Two peeling freckled feet.

Then my stomach twists with pain and I cough and gasp and retch up water all over them.

 

Face

A face, hovering.

Disappears and appears again.

Is it an angel? Do angels have matted red hair and ginger beards?

‘Go away,' I tell the face. ‘Leave me alone. I want to die.'

I curl up tight as pain.

The face comes back again and again. The face says things like ‘Who are you?' and ‘I think you need to drink this' and ‘Were you on the plane?'

It's a face that's blistered and peeling and hollow-eyed.

I close my eyes and ignore it till it goes away.

But it keeps coming back. It gives me water in a tin cup. It tries to feed me.

I'm hollowed out.

Someone has taken a spoon and scooped out all of my flesh, the stone, and left me just this tired old skin.

I sleep. I try to watch, to grasp on to the face that hovers.

It comes a lot, mostly just to stare.

I wish it would go away.

I wish it would come back.

 

Breathing

‘You can go in now.'

The nurse is nodding and smiling. Her voice is happy-jolly, like it's the best thing in the world to be lying in bed surrounded by sucking machines.

I take a deep breath and step inside.

It's the sound that gets me first of all, then the smell.

The noise is a mechanical clamping and sucking; regular, monotonous, like wind being forced through a tube.

I hate it.

I see a bed and curtains pulled back and a cabinet full of bottles and boxes and tubes. The air is antiseptic, sharp and bitter. The breathing machine sucks and resucks.

I feel hot in my mask.

I need to get out of this room of sickness.

But I look at her face.

At first I'm relieved. Miss is sitting up in bed, putting on make-up. She's smiling into a mirror, outlining her eyes in purple shimmer. When she sees me, she waves to me with a bandaged hand.

‘How's your magnum opus?' she asks, and I see that she's dropped her eyeshadow pencil.

Because she only has stumps in those bandages. There are no fingers to hold it.

‘Oops, silly me,' she says.

Something is happening to her voice. It's getting higher and higher and now it's ringing.

Now I'm close, I realise that a plastic mask presses her poor molten flesh back to keep it in place. As I watch, her face starts to melt like a wax crayon, like a Barbie doll.

Hot fat.

It's splashing on to the bed sheets.

Drip drip.

‘Let's do an ink waster,' says Miss, and her voice is high and jarring; it's turned into a fire bell.

Her bandaged hand reaches out to touch me.

 

Feathers

‘It's only a dream. You're dreaming.'

That voice again.

It's buzzing round me like a fly. I want to bat it away and sink into darkness.

I'm lying on something that crackles, but can't make myself care enough to look.

I feel the space where Dog used to sleep, like an ache. Dog will be drowned now, swirled away or trapped for ever in those hell-caves. I curl up, tight on my side.

I lose everything I touch. I'm cursed. I destroy all those who look at me.

I think of Dog, those treacle eyes.

A hand, reaching out like stars.

A face pressed behind its plastic mask.

And I think of Cassie, rising from the settee.

Love you more than the sun and stars and planets.

A feathered headdress floats in front of my eyes. I squeeze them shut. A bird hunter, I think. But I can't make myself care and I can't make it go away.

‘Um, I really think you should eat something now.'

Something cold and wet is pressed against my lips. I lick it. Sweet and cold.

Turn away to my pain.

A sigh.

‘Well, I'll leave it here and you can take some when you're ready.'

The voice goes away.

Good.

I lie alone, sweet juice still cold on my lips.

 

After

They told me afterwards that the caretaker had saved both their lives.

Turns out she was still in the classroom. She was mentoring a kid in her room; she wasn't at Sports Day with the rest.

She won't need to spend time doing her hair in those pretty styles again because most of it's crisped off. It'll be quite a while before she puts purple shimmery eyeshadow on again.

Miss and her student didn't know anything was wrong till the fire bell went off, but that classroom door had always stuck – it never locked properly – and they panicked and couldn't get out.

The caretaker dragged them out; risked his life to get them both out of English Block before the fire service took over.

Miss made the student get out first so she ended up with burns over most of her body. Lost the skin on both hands.

‘They've brought her out of her coma now,' Angela says. ‘Do you want to go inside?'

We're standing in the hospital corridor. There's a glass window into Miss's room.

‘Ant-bac,' says a nurse. In silence we squirt gel on to our hands, rub it in till it vanishes in a whiff of ice.

‘She wants to see you,' says Angela. ‘She's been asking for you, once she knew what happened.'

‘Wear this,' says the nurse.

She passes a protective gown to me. It rustles as I put it on.