Chapter 18
Watching reality TV might make it seem like contestants are always sitting around having dull chats.
But when you’re actually involved in reality TV – whether working behind the scenes or starring in it – you realise that those conversations about nothing are actually a big part of the day.
It can’t all be challenges, and you definitely can’t just nap your way through it; it’s all about keeping things entertaining.
Now that I’m here, I truly understand how genuinely, genuinely boring most of those conversations can be.
‘I just don’t see the point of learning to do things myself,’ Camilla says, brushing sand from her forearm.
‘I have a lash girl, a brow girl, a hair girl, two spray tan girls, and a cleaner. My PA does all the annoying bits like paying my parking tickets, knowing my passwords and remembering people’s birthdays. I have everything covered.’
‘You don’t remember people’s birthdays?’ Tony checks.
‘Well, some,’ she says. ‘I know when my own is, obviously. But others, yeah, I have a girl for that.’
‘Even, like… your mum’s birthday?’ he replies.
‘Obviously, I know my mum’s birthday, darling,’ Camilla says, offended that he even asked. ‘But my assistant sends her a card. I don’t do post offices. Or licking envelopes – who knows where they’ve been?’
‘Everywhere,’ Tony jokes. ‘Does your assistant wipe your arse for you?’
I shouldn’t laugh.
‘Funny you should talk about hygiene, because I used the outhouse after you, and it was foul,’ she announces for everyone to hear.
Tony places his hands on his chest like she’s shot him.
‘I’ll have you know I’m a very clean boy,’ he informs her with a smile.
‘I also heard you got your downstairs waxed on TV,’ she says. It’s like the words taste dirty in her mouth.
He bursts out laughing.
‘It was part of the show! It’s fly-on-the-wall,’ he says in his defence.
‘Poor fly,’ she says with a smirk.
Honey lets out a little giggle, then tries to hide it behind her hand.
‘You lads ever had anything waxed?’ Tony asks Ozzy and Lockie.
‘Yeah, didn’t hurt a bit,’ Ozzy insists.
The sky rumbles, distant and low. It makes me glance up.
The light is… off. Not dramatic yet, but dulled, like a filter has been laid over everything – or taken away, I guess, because the weather is usually so perfect it looks fake.
It’s giving less Bahamas, more Blackpool.
I squint at the horizon, half-expecting the apocalypse to roll in with a laugh track.
Even the birds have shut up. When the island goes quiet, you know something’s about to go wrong.
I wish I knew what Simon’s weather guy was saying about all of this.
Although I guess there’s no need. The heavens have ripped open. No warning rumbles. No polite drizzle. Just a sudden, violent wall of rain, battering us. The storm is officially here, then.
Squeals, swear words, scrambling to our feet – we all head to our shelter, only for the top to blow right off it the second we get there.
The wind is really kicking up, bending the palm trees, taking what few things we have and sending them hurtling down the beach.
Even if we chased after them, where would we put them?
Then the voice of the island crackles over the nearest speaker, but it’s not playful, or dramatic, or full of innuendo like usual. It’s urgent. Panicked even.
‘Islanders. Proceed to the storm shelter immediately,’ it says. ‘Stay calm and move quickly. I repeat – proceed to the shelter now.’
Not one person stays calm. We go nought to stampede right away.
Tony’s already halfway across the sand (so he can actually run) before the voice finishes speaking.
Camilla bolts after him (so I guess she doesn’t have anyone who runs for her).
Honey squeals and pelts after them. Lockie and Ozzy turn at the same moment, their instincts kicking in at the same time.
I sprint as fast as my feet will let me, but the wet sand has turned into a slip ’n’ slide and my left foot goes out from under me without warning.
I hit the ground with a splat, right as I reach the trees, meaning – just my luck – I land in the mud.
For a second, I contemplate just lying there and letting the elements do their worst. I know, I’m paranoid about going viral, but one fall is a fall.
What if I keep getting up and falling down, again and again – I’m not ready to become a meme. Probably not worth dying for, though.
‘Shit!’ I blurt.
I try to scramble up but the mud just keeps slipping, giving me nothing to grip, no way to get back on my feet.
I look up in time to see Ozzy turn back. He hesitates, just for a fraction of a second. His eyes flick to the treeline, the storm, the others sprinting ahead. It’s a moment of calculation, pure survival brain.
Lockie doesn’t hesitate at all. He doubles back immediately, skidding in the mud, practically sliding into me.
‘I’ve got you, it’s okay,’ he says.
He scoops me up, one arm under my knees, the other around my back, and runs with me in his arms.
The raindrops are so big they almost hurt, pounding my skin, getting in my eyes, making it almost impossible to see.
Tony stands by the shelter hatch, waving frantically.
‘Quick, quick,’ he calls out.
We reach the hatch just as a gust almost rips the door from his hands. We all pile inside, squashing up tight like we’re playing sardines, so that Tony can close the door.
Instant darkness, then dim emergency lights buzz to life. It’s so cramped – shoulders touching shoulders, knees overlapping, someone’s elbow in someone else’s ribs.
It smells like the apocalypse in here, and it sounds like it outside. Wind roaring, rain thrashing against everything, the sound of palm trees snapping like twigs.
Honey wipes at her face, trying to flick the water from her eyes.
‘I’ve watched every series of Welcome to Singledom and I’ve never seen weather before. Like, bad weather. Not ever.’
‘It is Survival of the Fittest,’ Ozzy reminds her.
‘I thought that meant, like, hotness,’ she replies.
Obviously it’s a pun.
‘I guess the show is closer to storm season this year,’ Lockie points out, still catching his breath.
I give him a sideways look. He’s the reason we’re filming this late – all his new ideas, which are working out just wonderfully for us, by the way. I’d say something, but he did just carry me to safety, so I’ll hold my tongue… for now.
Camilla’s hugging her knees, horrified.
‘Everything is going to be filthy,’ she says.
Because that’s our biggest problem.
‘The rain will clean it all, love, don’t worry,’ Tony jokes.
Ozzy squeezes water out of his hair before re-securing his man bun. He seems relatively calm.
‘These storms come in big and ugly and then leave like nothing happened,’ he tells us. ‘We’ll be back to paradise before you know it.’
I don’t know about that. I’ve worked on this show for multiple seasons and I’ve never seen weather like this. It’s hard to imagine what we’ll be going back out to.
‘Right!’ Tony claps his hands once. ‘Alphabet game. Foods. A to Z. Let’s go.’
‘Are you a child?’ Camilla asks him.
‘We’ve nothing better to do, ’ave we?’ he reminds her. ‘Come on, we’ll go mad.’
‘I’ll go mad regardless,’ she says.
‘I believe that,’ he replies. ‘Come on, Honey, you can go first.’
‘A… apple,’ she says proudly.
‘Good one,’ Tony replies. ‘Who wants B?’
Camilla sighs and rolls her eyes dramatically.
‘What about when we get to X?’
‘Extra apples,’ Honey says, beaming like she’s solved all our problems.
I lean my head back against the wall. This is going to feel much longer than it is – however long it is.
I try to count the seconds by the sound of rain but lose the will before I even get to fifty.
It’s an interesting feeling, experiencing both boredom and mortal danger at the same time.
It doesn’t make for a very good headspace.
Ozzy closes his eyes.
‘Perhaps we should sit quietly for a bit,’ he suggests. ‘Sometimes the sound of a storm can be relaxing.’
A fresh crash of thunder rattles the hatch roof. I think it’s safe to say no one is relaxed, not even him.
Lockie shifts in his seat, then casually drapes an arm around my shoulders. I stiffen for half a second, then force myself to stay neutral. I have to remember it’s for the cameras, even in here. I can see just the one, up in the corner.
Still… for half a moment, with the world falling to pieces outside, his arm feels warm and solid around me. It makes me feel better, even if it isn’t real.
The storm doesn’t sound like weather, it sounds like war.
It feels like hours of the wind howling, the rain hammering the tin roof like it’s trying to break in, thunder rumbling so loudly I feel it physically rattle me.
Conversation dried up after the third round of the alphabet game (J is for ‘Japan’, K is for ‘Kyrgyzstan’, L is for ‘Let’s never play this again’).
The storm shelter is barely big enough for six people to crouch in, let alone lie down.
It’s a glorified hole with a hatch, dug into the ground and lined with rusty metal.
It barely seems fit for purpose, but we’re still here (in both respects).
We’re crammed shoulder to shoulder along the curved wall, squashing one another, getting on each other’s nerves.
Honey’s curled up against one corner, twisting her damp hair into curls.
Camilla keeps flinching every time water drips from somewhere overhead, as though getting any wetter will suddenly make her hair look worse.
Tony is just staring up – I’d love to know what goes through that man’s mind.
Ozzy is sitting cross-legged, eyes closed like he’s meditating, like he’s mentally somewhere else.
And I’m still with Lockie, his arm still around me, still taking comfort from the warmth of his body.
No one’s spoken in maybe twenty minutes. I think we’re all a bit sick of each other’s company, to be honest.
Eventually the weather lets up, the noises calm, the shelter doesn’t feel like it’s shaking. The air feels different, all of a sudden, like the island can breathe again.
Lockie runs a hand through his hair.
‘It sounds like it’s over,’ Lockie says.
Ozzy cocks his head and listens to the nothingness.
‘Yeah, it’ll be out to sea by now,’ he adds.
Nobody moves at first. It’s like we’re all waiting for someone else to be the idiot who opens the door first and gets struck by flying debris or blown out to sea.
‘I’m not sitting in here with you lot any longer,’ Tony says, heading for the door. ‘If I die, I die outside, not in here from boredom.’
The hatch door creaks open and… yep, the storm has passed. We can go back outside.
One by one, we crawl out and… oh, it’s bad.
Palm trees bent like snapped straws. Fruits and branches and God-knows-what scattered everywhere. The storm has ploughed through the island and taken no prisoners.
That’s not the worst part though. There’s something so, so much scarier than our camp being trashed.
It’s as we’re walking through the trees, back to the beach.
You know that unnerving sound of the cameras following us, panning as someone in the control room remotely stalks us?
The only thing more unnerving than hearing them, it turns out, is not hearing them.
They’re not moving. No one is controlling them. I don’t think anyone is watching…
The others don’t notice. Perhaps they’re not as sensitive to them as I am, or they’re too busy taking in the aftermath.
Our shelters are gone. Flattened and/or scattered like confetti. The beds we built seem to have survived but they’re not where we left them and they’re soaked like everything else is.
Camilla hugs herself.
‘Well, we can’t sleep here,’ she says. ‘Not now.’
She looks around for a camera to complain to.
‘Do you hear me? I said we can’t sleep here,’ she shouts when she finds one.
‘She’s got a point,’ Tony says. ‘I’m surprised no one has come to get us, to take us to safety. They must be on their way… right?’
Honey wipes her nose and looks up at one of the cameras above our camp.
‘They wouldn’t let us stay here if it wasn’t safe,’ she says, voice wobbling. Then, louder, to the lens: ‘Right? You wouldn’t leave us here if it wasn’t safe?’
This is normally where the camera would switch from looking at Camilla to looking at Honey but it doesn’t move an inch.
Lockie catches my eye. He’s noticed it too. That the cameras aren’t moving any more.
‘They’ll reply soon,’ Ozzy says. ‘For now, let’s start Operation: Clean-up. Even if they are coming, we can’t leave the beach like this. It’s not good for the wildlife. We might as well put everything back.’
Tony nods. ‘Yeah, come on. It will be easy if we all do it.’
‘If we all do it?’ Camilla repeats back to him. ‘I’ve been through a lot.’
‘We’ve all been through a lot, princess,’ Tony claps back.
Honey instinctively wraps an arm around Camilla to comfort her… only for Camilla to wrinkle her nose every time Honey sniffs hard.
‘Perhaps the speakers here got too wet,’ Lockie suggests. ‘Maybe the crew are trying to speak to us. I’ll go for a walk, check the others.’
‘Good idea,’ Ozzy says.
‘Be careful,’ I say instinctively.
‘Of course,’ Lockie replies.
I smile, but my stomach is in knots.
If the speakers aren’t responding, if the cameras aren’t moving… that means no one’s watching – I daren’t even think about why not.
‘Okay, let’s move the beds back up the beach,’ Ozzy suggests. ‘If they dry out in the sun, we can at least sit. And if it rains again…’
‘Let’s not even think about that,’ Tony suggests.
No one argues. Everyone wants a task – anything to make this feel temporary, like we’re past the problem and at the solution.
We carry materials back to where we had them, trying to make things right again. The silence between us is brittle. Every few minutes I look at the cameras, to see if they’re moving again, if there are any signs of life, but no such luck.
Something’s wrong. Something is definitely very, very wrong. I don’t know if it’s with the island, the yacht or both, but it’s bad.
It’s not just the storm, or the mess, or the way the vibe has changed.
It’s the feeling that we really are well and truly deserted now.
We’re off-grid, off-brand for the most part, and off the rails.
For the first time since this started, I think we might actually be on our own.
I know Lockie wanted to raise the stakes – I guess he got his wish.
Although even Lockie wouldn’t have wanted things to pan out like this.
We’re alone, with no idea what’s going on, and no director to tell us what to do.
Reality TV just got real.