Chapter Seven
Cillian
Mathieu, as it turns out, is excellent at climbing. Before I have the chance to start throwing rocks to knock the coconuts down, he’s scaled the tree and neatly plucked the largest ones.
“This one is for Jules.” Mathieu separates the biggest coconut from the handful we’ve collected. “And this one.” The second biggest. “And this one.” The third.
“Save one for me, if you don’t mind,” I say. I don’t mean it. I’m thirsty and hungry and sore, but if we were sharing one coconut between us all, then I’d make sure Jules got the lion’s share. He’s up and talking, but he’s unsteady on his feet, and several shades paler than yesterday.
Mathieu sets aside the tiniest one of the bunch. “For you.”
I glance from it to him, finding a glint of mischief in his eyes. “Appreciate it.”
Mathieu chuckles to himself. He has to undo his organisation as we bundle the coconuts in our arms and walk back towards the others.
“Do you know how to make a bag out of palm fronds? Or a—um, I don’t know the word in English. A cart?”
“I think anything in the ‘wheel’ variety is beyond my skill,” I say. “But a bag I could manage. Seán’s parents religiously watch Survivor, and they always make backpacks.” Though we won’t be here long enough to need anything like that.
I cast an eye over our surroundings. Bar the sister island, the horizon’s empty of anything but ocean.
There’s no glint of sun on glass, or the sparkle of a white sail.
The only things moving are those dark clouds.
Seán is right; they’re coming our way. I focus once more on the beach, picking up my pace.
I can see Jules standing in the distance.
“Are you scared?”
I glance at Mathieu and find him watching me.
His eye contact is direct and honest. His teasing, light attitude has slid away.
Mathieu stopping mid-hook-up to check if Jules was too drunk for sex flits through my mind.
He stayed with me on the deck, despite the risk, and he’s been there every time I’ve turned around, volunteering his help.
I love initiative.
“Not now that Jules has woken up,” I say, his honesty drawing something similar out of me.
“I was scared,” Mathieu says. “But Jules is awake, and you make all of this”—he shrugs, hands full of coconuts—“manageable.” Mathieu looks at the ocean, tracking the thundering waves. “I freeze when I’m the one who has to be responsible. I end up doing nothing.”
“You’ve done far from nothing.”
His expression grows muddled. Pleased and doubtful both. A strange sound draws my attention away from him, down the beach.
Jules is on the sand, face buried in his hands. I drop the coconuts and sprint, crossing the distance between us in seconds. I fall to my knees and grip Jules’s shoulder. “What’s wrong? Is it your head? Your neck?”
Another strange sound drags my attention to Mary, who is bent double, clutching her stomach. Laughing. I pull Jules’s hands from his face. He’s not choking, but laughing the same way. The adrenaline drains out of me. I sink back on my heels, tipping my face towards the sky.
Mathieu passes me. “Scaredy-cat,” he whispers.
“What’s funny?” Mathieu sets down his coconuts in the centre of our makeshift camp. It’s not much of a “camp” per se, just a break in the treeline with a half-circle shape. Our discarded life jackets are piled just outside the treeline, a bright orange waypoint.
“Jules said—he said—” Mary is wheezing too much to answer.
“No, Mary said—” Jules breaks off in a fit of laughter.
Mathieu kneels next to Jules and leans over him. A grin tips up the corners of his mouth, creating dimples that Jules’s gaze catches on. “Tell me. I want to hear the joke too. You’re excluding me because I’m French.”
I raise a brow. Apparently, Mathieu isn’t going to let something small like a shipwreck get in the way of his flirting.
Crisis averted, I gather the abandoned coconuts.
Mathieu and I do several more trips until there’s enough for everyone.
I learn very quickly that relegating Jules to camp to rest was useless.
He gets himself a sharp rock and has a growing mountain of fronds and vines gathered.
I don’t want to think about the level of activity that went into collecting them.
He can barely turn his head. There’s a pile of bamboo sticks, which Mary reassures me Yasop and Willow brought back under Seán’s instruction.
I give Jules a warning look when I start building, which he ignores. I meet Mathieu’s eyes instead. He bear-hugs Jules and walks him back to Mary. “Sit before Cillian loses his temper.”
“I can help.”
“You are not allowed,” Mathieu says firmly. “I will tie you to the tree with the vines you collected if you don’t sit still.”
Jules sinks to the ground next to Mary. He watches Mathieu and me work, glaring like a sulking child. I turn my back to hide my smile. Mathieu sees and huffs his own private amusement, knocking his forearm against mine in a friendly manner.
“He’s so cute,” Mathieu whispers. Louder, he asks, “Are we building a hut?”
I choose to address the second question rather than the first remark.
“A series of lean-tos will work best. It’s easier to get stability in smaller structures than in big ones. I’ll show you how to do the frames. After that, we’ll get the fronds woven together, kind of like a basket, to keep us dry.”
Mathieu holds the frame in place while I lash it together with vines.
Jules found soft ones that bend rather than crack like bark, which is fantastic, though cutting them is a huge pain.
With only a sharp rock, what should be a simple snip becomes a labour-intensive job.
My arms remember the battering I took yesterday.
When I finally have a decent, solid frame, my back is objecting too.
“We’ll need…three?” Mathieu guesses.
“Three,” I confirm.
“How do you attach these?” He fetches a handful of fronds, catching Jules’s glare as he passes him. “So cute,” Mathieu whispers to me.
“They’ll sit like this.” I show Mathieu, who immediately proves himself as adept at knitting together big banana leaves as he is at climbing.
“You’re good at this,” I say.
“I’ve crocheted with my grandmother every weekend since I turned five. I’m good with my hands.”
When Seán comes back with everyone, the rest of the work goes quicker. Good thing too. The light is fading fast. My hands cramp from using rocks to cut, and from the way the others shake out their fingers, I can tell they’re feeling the same. I wonder if my knife is still on the yacht.
Seán watches us, frowning, but his shoulder’s too messed up to help.
Once, when Seán and I were on a mountaineering course, a trainee fell and dislocated his shoulder.
A qualified field nurse put it back into place right then and there.
The immediate pain went out of it, but the guy’s shoulder swelled up and bruised.
Seán’s shoulder looks like that. As if he’s dislocated and relocated the joint. I wish I had more than his mutilated windbreaker for a sling.
We’re stuffing fronds onto the sandy ground beneath the lean-tos when the downpour starts, bringing with it the beginning of what I’m sure will be a long, dark night.
The shelters are beneath the canopy and angled away from the open-skied beach, but I know from the force of the rain that they’re not going to keep us dry.
Charles carries Mary into a lean-to. Willow and Yasop dart inside another.
Mathieu takes Jules by the wrists and pulls him to the third.
Darren joins them. He tries to sit on the far side of Mathieu, and Jules tries to move over to let him, but Mathieu locks his arm around Jules’s waist and keeps him in the middle.
I’m too far away to hear what is said, but Darren settles on the far side of Jules. Neither Jules nor Darren looks pleased.
“We’re going to see if we can find some kindling before it gets dark,” Seán says, raising his voice to be heard over the force of the rain.
We head a good length down the beach before ducking into a small gap in the undergrowth and taking shelter.
We lean against the same tree, our shoulders pushed together.
I let my head rest on the trunk and sag, hoping there are no snakes hidden among the vines clinging to the bark.
I’m too tired to check. I’ve wanted to catch my breath since that first gust of wind hit the sails.
“I told Irvin I’d let him know later what day to expect me back.” Seán breaks the silence. “I remembered just now. I didn’t say we’d be back tomorrow.”
“That blip turned into a monster. The coast guard will be checking if any ships were out on the water.”
“What if it was all localised? And nobody even realises that there was a squall?”
I don’t think it’s likely given how mental the weather was.
“Worst-case scenario, Irvin waits a week before calling the hotel to check if we’re still there, and when we’re not, he’ll call the coast guard, give them your yacht information and our planned route.
And if you haven’t noticed, we’ve got a handy landmark telling everyone where we are. ”
Seán’s breathing, which had grown shallow, evens out. “Right. Yacht’s right there.”
“And what else is out there?”
Seán sags. “Emergency beacon.”
“Exactly. We just have to worry about food and water,” I say. Jules’s pale skin flashes behind my eyes. “And a fire. It’s too cold in this rain and wind.”
“Jules doesn’t look good.”
“No, he doesn’t,” I agree. “I’m pretty sure he’s got whiplash. Given how spotty his memory is, likely a concussion too.” Pain twists his mouth every time he moves, and Jules won’t sit still.
“Thank you for getting him back on the yacht.”
“I’m not accepting thanks for doing my job.”
“Saving him was a miracle. After he got ripped into the air like that? You risked your life staying out there. Don’t pretend you didn’t.”
The leaves let through streams of water. They drip down on us, soaking through our clothes.
“The equipment was good enough to hold together while I winched him in, and Jules unclipped himself. We didn’t need a miracle.”
“I think there’s magic in those tattoos.”
“Bull.”
“Nothing’s scary when you’re around, even when it should be. It’s always been like that.” Seán reaches out, cupping his hand to capture falling water. “We’re not going to get a fire lit in this. It’s too heavy.”
I let him change the subject. I have no clue how I’d respond otherwise.
“It’s a priority for tomorrow. We have all those coconut halves for collecting rainwater, which we’ll do now. What did you see food-wise?”
“Bananas, figs and gooseberries.” He gestures to the tree we’re leaning against. “Sea almonds. Pretty sure I spotted peppers and cashews too before it got dark.”
“The rain’s distorting your voice. Can you repeat that?”
Seán chuckles. “I told you. Magic.”
“Seán.”
“I think this island was used for tourism twenty years ago. The Thai government put together ‘wild foraging’ trips and let tourists scavenge for their own food. To prepare, they went ahead and planted a string of islands with tons of edible varieties of trees and plants.”
“Do we have good or bad luck?”
“God’s keeping it even. Let’s go. I want to get this set up before it’s pitch black.”
“Wait,” I say.
Seán pauses.
Careful of his shoulder, I hug him. I learned this trick from Seán’s dad when they took me in. Seán is tense at first but slowly sags against me, the same way I collapsed into the tree minutes earlier.
“We’ve got this.”
Seán nods against my shoulder. He hugs me back with his good arm, squeezing tightly. “Alright.” He looks fortified when we return to camp.
We crack the coconuts and bring them to everyone in the lean-tos.
Everyone eats hungrily except Jules, who takes two bites, turns green and passes his half to Mathieu.
At least he drinks the coconut water. We set the empty shells in holes in the sand, positioning broad fronds to funnel rainwater into them.
When there’s no visibility left, Seán directs me into the lean-to with Willow and Yasop before joining Mary and Charles. I look towards Mathieu and Jules, but their lean-to is only a shadow. I can’t see them.