Chapter 17

OVER THE NEXTfew days, we fell into an uneasy rhythm. In the mornings we gathered at the cabana for breakfast, then someone, usually me or Joel, would make our way back to the staff quarters to try the radio. The rest of the day we would spend fishing, exploring the island and then, as the heat grew more unbearable, everyone would retreat for the afternoon to the shade of the villas, playing cards, sleeping, and trying to ignore our growing thirst—waiting impatiently for the sun to touch the leaves of what we’d started to call the Water Palm on the tip of the island, when Conor doled out the evening ration.

Conor, Zana, Angel, and Bayer seemed at first to have established themselves in Palm Tree Rest, the villa Nico and I were to have had, but after the altercation between Conor and Bayer over breakfast, it quickly became apparent that that wasn’t going to be an arrangement that could stick, long-term.

I had half been expecting that one couple would make a move to begin renovating one of the wrecked villas—probably Bayer, as he seemed most unhappy with the current arrangement, and in fact had twice spent the night in the ruined Ocean Bluff, sleeping under the stars. But what actually happened was something quite different—something none of us had predicted.

We didn’t notice it until we gathered at the cabana for supper one evening, and then it was Santana who spotted it. She was leaning over the railing of the cabana, looking out at the sunset, beyond the beach, when she gave an exclamation.

“Wait, who’s been rebuilding the jetty?”

“That would be me,” Conor said with a grin. “Cave man tools—a rock and scavenged nails—but it worked. Kind of.”

We all crowded to the wall and looked over, and I saw that Santana was right—someone, presumably Conor, had scoured the beach for the washed-up sections of decking, and had fastened the pieces back onto the upright struts that had survived the storm. It wasn’t remotely perfect—there were some very large gaps, and the planks were broken and uneven. And the rope handrail was long gone, along with the lights strung along it. But you could once again make your way out to the water villa without swimming.

“Zana and I will be sleeping there,” Conor said. He turned to Bayer and gave a little nod. “You can have Palm Tree Rest.”

“Oh I can, can I?” Bayer said sourly. He had plainly found some beer and had been drinking—we had been able to smell the beer coming off his breath the moment we sat down at the table with him, and Dan and I had had a whispered discussion about whether beer had been factored into the liquid allowance, and if not, how to raise it, before deciding now probably wasn’t the time.

“Bayer…” Angel said placatingly. She put one hand on his leg, and Bayer growled and turned away.

I was looking at Zana, who was sitting at the far end of the table, her hand in Conor’s. She looked pale and miserable, and I couldn’t help recalling the visceral terror she had displayed at getting over to the water villa first time round. How was she going to manage on a rickety, jerry-built gangway?

“How do you feel about that, Zana?” I asked, and she flinched.

“Fine.” Her voice was monotone, and so faint I could hardly hear it. She sounded almost comically unfine, in fact. I glanced curiously at Conor, to see what he made of all this, but there was no response from him. Yet he couldn’t be unaware of Zana’s phobia of water, could he?

“More cheerfully,” Dan said, with an effort at bringing the mood of the group back, “look what Lyla and I found this afternoon.”

He reached below the table and came up with a hand of bananas, plus three ripe and two unripe coconuts. We had tried the bananas in the forest and found they were smaller, starchier, and less sweet than the ones in the supermarket back home, with enormous black seeds you had to spit out, but they’d been tasty enough to eat, and beggars couldn’t afford to be choosers. The coconuts, we’d found on the ground. There were dozens of them lying around the forest, and when I found the first one I’d been jubilant—thinking that our water troubles were over—but Dan had shaken them, listening for the sound of sloshing, and had shaken his head. They were too ripe. If we wanted coconut water we needed the green unripe ones, which were, frustratingly, mostly still in the trees, tantalizingly high above our heads.

While Dan and I divided up the bananas, and Joel and Angel puzzled over how to break open the coconuts, Conor began measuring out the water. We’d agreed half a liter each morning and evening, but it turned out that in this heat, half a liter wasn’t a lot to get you through to supper, and now I found myself watching him greedily as he poured each person’s allowance into a tin can marked up for the purpose, and then decanted carefully into a mug. When he set mine down in front of me, I had to fight the urge to pick it up at once and down the lot—but I didn’t want to. I wanted to save it.

Bayer, on the other hand, put down the bagel he was chewing and took a giant gulp, wiping his mouth, and then bit into his banana. He made a face.

“Gross.” He spat a handful of seeds onto the ground. “Tastes like shit.”

I exchanged a glance with Dan. Thanks seemed like a more appropriate response given Bayer hadn’t brought anything to the table, but I could tell that neither of us were in a hurry to provoke him. He seemed to be spoiling for a fight.

The silence was broken by a cheer from Joel, and Angel standing, triumphantly holding up the coconut, which now had two small holes in the top, where they’d managed to pound a nail through the eyes.

“Et voilà! Coconut water!”

“Hold out your cups,” Joel said. He was grinning.

We all did, and Angel carefully drained a little of the liquid into each cup. It was cloudy and mixed with bits of shell and hair, but none of us cared about that—none of us, that is, other than Bayer, who pushed his cup away roughly as Angel poured the coconut water in.

“That’s disgusting. You’ve just poured a load of crap into my water.”

“It is not crap,” Angel said impatiently, rolling the r sarcastically on the last word. “It’s perfectly clean coconut hairs.”

“You drink it, then.” Bayer shoved the cup towards her, almost tipping it as he did. Angel raised one eyebrow.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.” Bayer’s voice was truculent. “I don’t want this now you’ve filled it with dirt.”

Angel shrugged, picked up Bayer’s cup, and drained it.

I was expecting Bayer to make a fuss, say that he’d been joking, maybe even take Angel’s water from her. The idea of lasting all night without any more water wasn’t pleasant. But he did none of those. Instead, he pulled the big five-liter water bottle towards him, the one Conor had set down after carefully measuring out our rations, unscrewed the top, and took a long gulp.

For a moment there was absolute silence. We all just stared at Bayer, unsure what to do. Then, almost involuntarily, I found my eyes going to Conor.

“Put. That. Down.” Conor said very quietly. The words dropped like stones into the silence.

Bayer put the bottle down and grinned, widely. There had been almost a liter left in the bottom. Now there was barely half a cup.

“Sure,” he said.

“Listen to me.” Conor’s voice was calm, but deadly, and it made a shiver run down my spine. “I am giving you three strikes, Bayer, and you’ve had two of them. But if you try something like that again, you’re out.”

“Out?” Bayer gave a guffawing laugh. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, mate, but there is no out. There’s nowhere to fucking go.”

Conor had stood up, towering over Bayer, and now Bayer stood up too, putting them nose to nose. The air crackled with testosterone, and beside me I heard Joel swallow nervously.

“Guys—” he tried, but neither of the other two men even acknowledged him.

“You think you could take me?” Bayer was asking. Conor just shrugged.

“I can hold my own.”

Bayer laughed, scoffingly, as if he doubted that, but looking at the two of them, I wasn’t so sure. True, Bayer was the more muscled, he must have had a good stone on Conor, and he looked like he wouldn’t mind fighting dirty. But he also had the beefed-up bulk of someone who’s spent a long time pumping iron, but not much time on cardio—and his dislocated left shoulder definitely wouldn’t help. Conor, on the other hand, looked fit. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, and his muscles were hard, with tendons like whipcords. And there was something in his stance that told me this wasn’t the first time he’d been in this situation—and that he wasn’t scared.

I swallowed too, my throat suddenly dry in spite of the coconut water.

“Bayer,” Angel said now, standing up. “Bayer, stop being a dickhead. Conor, look, Bayer should not have done that, he knows this, but it was one time. He will respect the ration from now. Won’t you?” She glared at Bayer. “Won’t you.”

“Respect has to be earned,” Bayer said, his lip curling. But he turned away from Conor’s pale, unflinching gaze and began walking into the night. “Come on, babe.”

Angel gave a look back at the group as if to say, what can I do? Then she followed Bayer into the gathering darkness.

There was an audible exhalation of breath from around the circle, and a feeling like a balloon had been pricked with a slow puncture, a dissipating tension. Conor flexed his fingers and shoulders, and I heard his neck crack. Maybe he had been more tense than he had been letting on.

“I’m sorry about that,” he said. Santana shook her head.

“It’s okay. Someone had to say something.”

Dan nodded.

“Yeah, I’m glad you put a line in the sand. Fuck knows, I wasn’t about to fight him, but we couldn’t let him keep getting away with flouting the rules, could we. Right? I’m not wrong, am I?” He glanced around the circle, looking for agreement, and I found myself nodding, though I didn’t like the them and us mentality that was developing. Every reality TV show I’d ever watched, there was the pack, and the outsiders. And both could be a dangerous place to find yourself.

I remembered Conor’s words on the boat—every show needs a villain. And I remembered, too, Joel saying, these things have a formula… there’s always the alpha males, the ones who’re duking it out for the prize…

We were falling into the reality TV tropes I’d seen play out on-screen. And the implications of that unsettled me in a way I couldn’t quite articulate. Because the stakes here were so much higher than a trophy or a cash prize. The stakes here were life and death.

“I’m going to bed,” I said at last, standing up and draining the last of the coconut water in my cup. Somewhere over the course of the evening, a raging headache had set in, maybe thanks to the heat and dehydration, or perhaps triggered by the argument between Bayer and Conor.

“I’ll come too,” Santana said, and Dan nodded.

“Coming, Joel?”

“I’ll follow up,” Joel said. “Give Conor and Zana a hand clearing up.”

I nodded.

“Thanks, Joel. Will you guys be okay?”

“We’ll be fine,” Conor said. “Won’t we, Zana?”

“Yes,” Zana said, almost inaudibly. I bit my lip. I had to say something.

“Zana, listen, are you sure you’ll be okay getting out to the water villa? Because if you’re not—”

“She’ll be fine,” Conor said reassuringly. “Won’t you, Zana?”

“I was asking Zana,” I said, unable to prevent a note of irritation from creeping into my voice. Conor smiled and put up his hands.

“You’re right. Rude of me. Zana?”

“I’m fine,” Zana said, echoing Conor’s words. But she didn’t look it. She looked deathly pale. I turned and looked at Santana, trying to communicate my unease, but Santana was frowning down at her diabetes monitor, fiddling with something on the display.

“Dan?” I said at last, but he only shrugged.

“I’m bushed. Are you coming or not?”

I felt a wave of powerlessness sweep over me. But what could I do? If Zana was determined not to admit her fears in front of Conor, how could I bring them up?

“Okay,” I said. “Good night, all.”

And then I turned and followed Dan and Santana into the darkness.