Beware of Dogs

by Elizabeth Flann

  3.00–5.00 p.m.: Prepare to leave cave.

  At exactly three o’clock, wearing several layers of clothing, my pack on my back, I found a leafy branch and swept out the cave. As I surveyed it one last time, I was both gratified and chilled that no sign of my presence remained. Placing the tree once more across the entrance, and still carrying a branch to cover my tracks, I set out for the cabin.

  Sunset. Prepare for sleep. Finish diary.

  My heart’s still pounding. I know I’ll be awake all night. It’s not quite dark yet, so I’ll just have time to write up my diary. My journey began very well. I was worried that I would be too weak to carry my pack any distance, but found that although I was very much less fit than usual, I still had enough stamina to carry my already much diminished supplies. In fact, it was such a novelty to be out during the day, without the need for constant fear and vigilance, that I was thoroughly enjoying the scenery, the fresh air and the physical exercise.

  I think I might have begun whistling, or even singing, when the path stopped climbing and I reached the much easier terrain in the valley. Still, as I came over the rise, habit impelled me to hold my branch in front of me, so that I was at least partially shielded as I heard a soft crunching sound and instinctively ducked behind a bush.

  Heart in mouth, I peered cautiously out, and came almost face to face with Dave. He was looking the other way, down into the valley, perhaps having heard my not so careful approach but unable to locate where the sound had come from.

  For a moment time seemed to stop. I froze, overwhelmed with horror, all my reactions suspended, unable to move or think. Dave was still looking around and, just before he had time to turn my way, I somehow forced my body into action, pulling the jagged rock from my pocket and throwing it as far into the valley as I could, praying that he would follow the sound.

  With a curse, he turned and hurtled down the path while, still shaking and sick with fear, I retreated as quickly and quietly as I could, still making the time to erase my footprints until I found a place where I could leave the path and push my way through scrub, frantically hoping to reach the cave before he decided to search in that direction. Choking, retching, scarcely able to breathe, I reached the path to the cave, forcing myself to go on erasing every footprint, pulled the bush from the entrance and then replaced it as I half-fell inside, almost fainting with terror. I shook off my pack, took my remaining weapons into my hands and waited, trembling, for the footsteps I was sure would come.

  It is now two hours later, and no sound has broken the silence. I have not made a toilet run, too afraid to venture out. If my need becomes desperate, I will use a plastic bag. I have set the alarm on vibration for 5 a.m., first light, and if I can gather enough courage I will go out then to try to squeeze some morning dew from the coast banksia flowers, enough at least for one day. But that means a five-minute walk. Can I risk it? The only way to soothe the nausea and retching as I waited in dread of discovery was to take tiny sips of nectar, and over half of what I collected this morning is gone. Although I have food enough for five more days, in my shocked and weakened state I know I cannot survive for very long without water. I have made myself eat some boobialla fruits to add moisture, but the nausea is still there and my heart is beating like a jackhammer.

  I try to calm down by convincing myself that Dave was trying to rescue me, that he had stayed on without Matt because he didn’t want to leave me stranded on the island. But even as I think it, I know it is not true. In that one brief terrified glance I saw what Dave had in his hand. A hunting knife, three times the size of my pocket knife, balanced ready to plunge into my rapidly beating heart.

  No. He stayed on to do a job. He wasn’t searching. He was stalking. Should I just give up and let him find me? But in this state I’d be no match for Dave. And I don’t know what his plan is. Would he care about revenge, with Matt not there to watch? Is it better to be raped than dead? This is crazy thinking, Alix. By now he’ll be in such a state of induced rage, he’d probably try to kill me whatever the plan. I wish I knew if he had any other weapons or any fighting skills. And what he is seeking revenge for.

  As darkness falls, I sit hunched, clutching my weapons, without any attempt to make myself comfortable. The time is 5.54 p.m. on Tuesday the 17th of April.

  * * *

  I cannot sleep, as adrenalin pumps through me, and my mind stays on red alert.

  As on that first night on the island, sickness and fear battle for my attention. That night I did sleep eventually, but only when I was quite sure that Matt and Dave had fallen into their various states of drunken and drugged unconsciousness. It had been a long and frightening day, and an even longer night.

  When we left the boat my sickness quickly diminished, but I was so upset by the boat trip and the obvious isolation of the island that I must have continued to look slightly green. Dave was still all attention, carrying my pack for me and offering to get water, but Matt eyed me coldly. ‘Thought you were supposed to be the supergirl.’

  The Duffy brothers also gave me some strange looks, but I was not in any state to care about what they thought. They took considerable time loading a lot of identical white boxes onto a wheeled cart, while Lana and Dave carried insulated bags of food.

  To shield myself until I could work out what was going on, I let myself slump into a kind of haze. On the short walk from the jetty to the cabin I asked no questions. I didn’t need to. It was clear enough that Matt’s cabin was the settlement. No architect-designed A-lines here, just a simple fibro-cement shoebox with an outside tank and what looked like an outside dunny.

  Matt must have caught my dismay. ‘Feeling all right?’

  I made it as half-hearted as I dared. ‘OK.’

  ‘Better smarten up. We’re here to have a good time.’ Though his voice was light, there was a hint of menace in it. It was a warning. He was ahead of the rest of us, carrying a very expensive digital camera, and had the place unlocked by the time we struggled up. ‘Welcome to the Island of the Damned. Cocktails on the terrace in ten minutes.’ They all looked at me. I made an effort.

  ‘I should have packed my crucifix.’ It was pretty lame, but Matt and Dave laughed. The Duffy brothers remained impassive as they drew their cart up to the door and silently unloaded box after box, carrying each load carefully into the cabin.

  When that was done they parked the cart around the back and turned towards the sandblow. ‘We’ll be off then.’ Matt followed them and I saw money change hands. The three of them spent some minutes in muttered conversation, then Matt slapped each of them on the palm. ‘See you Monday then.’

  ‘Yeah, Monday.’

  After a short time I heard the boat start up and had a terrible feeling that I should have gone with them, that even the Dodgy brothers would be better than what was in store for me on this island, although what it was that worried me was hard to pin down. There was a charged atmosphere that seemed to infuse every gesture, every comment the three of them made, and I couldn’t help wondering about the camera. Not one of them struck me as having the patience or the artistic temperament to equip them for landscape or wildlife photography.

  Matt’s expression didn’t make me feel any better. ‘Well, here we all are.’ Since the commencement of the boat trip I’d had a dizzy feeling that I was taking part in a scenario where I alone hadn’t read the script. I needed a delaying tactic until I could get my bearings.

  ‘Is there a toilet?’ I didn’t need to put on the shake in my voice.

  Dave was immediately all concern. ‘You still sick?’

  ‘A bit.’

  He took my bag, pointed out the dunny, even opened the door and checked for spiders, but I could feel ill-will all round me. I shut myself in and sat down, about to sink into despair, when another of Kathryn’s useful tips came to me. If you’re stuck at his house and you don’t want to fuck him, throw up. Puts them right off. I tried some heaving noises but they didn’t sound convincing, so I did the full bulimia thing and st
uck my fingers down my throat. It took a couple of tries to get the hang of it but eventually I managed it. I’m not often sick and when I am I try to be quiet, but this time I went for gross-out.

  It worked. When I came out, genuinely green about the gills this time, they all looked pretty green as well. ‘I think I need to lie down.’

  Matt couldn’t even look at me. ‘Put her in the bunk room.’ Again, Dave did the honours and although I didn’t get much chance to look around, I noted a largish living room with a kitchen area and several doors leading off it. The bunk room was small and cramped, but for the moment it was mine. Dave dumped my bag, said to call if I needed anything, and quickly left, shutting the door. Thank God. I was so strung out I lay down on the lower bunk and, amazingly, fell into a fitful sort of dozing state. When Dave came back it was beginning to get dark outside. He was also clearly drunk. ‘Ya want some food?’

  I did. I was starving, but I couldn’t let him know that. ‘I don’t think I can eat anything,’ I said, ‘but I’ll get up. Is there a tap?’

  Better still, there was a bathroom. No toilet of course, but a washbasin and shower, fed from the adjacent tank. Perhaps for Lana’s benefit, the basin had a large and revealing mirror. I looked like shit. Good. I did a very basic clean up and went outside.

  I hadn’t seen the barbecue when we arrived because it was behind the cabin on the beach side. It was huge, built of brick, with wings on each side to serve both as tables and woodboxes. On one of these tables was a bowl of lettuce, some sliced avocado and tomato, and a pile of plates. On the other was a mixed array of glasses, bottles and debris. Clearly the drinks party had been going for some time, but I was just in time for the food.

  ‘Drink?’

  I asked for soda water, and when Matt pressed me, jocularity leaving him as the drink kicked in, to have whisky in it, I said, apologetically, ‘I don’t want to be sick again.’ That shut him up, but it didn’t improve his mood. I sensed that my time was coming, but he started in on Lana.

  ‘What are you having, darl? A lettuce leaf? Can I cut you a teeny tiny sliver of meat? Or would that make you too fat?’ He turned to me. ‘Lana says she’s a vegetarian, but what she really is, is anorexic’. I had no answer for this. Of course she was. How else could she stay so pleasingly thin? ‘You’re not a vegetarian, are you, Alix?’

  Something in his tone stirred an odd feeling of solidarity with Lana. ‘I think I’ll just try salad. I don’t think I could face anything fatty.’

  Lana must have picked it up, because she said quite kindly. ‘I could cut up some cucumber, if the avocado’s too rich.’ I thanked her and went to follow her into the cabin, but she brushed me off. ‘I can do it.’

  I picked up a plate and chose some lettuce and tomato. Somehow I had to eat some meat and, if possible, avocado, if I was to follow the plan already hatching in my mind. While Lana was occupied, I needed to get the men away. A distraction. On rock-climbing trips, all that was needed to galvanise a group of blokes was to ask them to build a fire.

  I made a huge effort to make my voice sound normal. ‘I would have thought you’d have had a bonfire going here.’ I looked around me. ‘Plenty of fuel. But maybe you’re not allowed to light fires. When’s fire-ban season?’

  As I’d hoped, Matt immediately leapt into action. ‘No rules here. My dad owns the fuckin’ island. We can do what we fuckin’ like. Burn it to the ground if we want to. Not going to spread anywhere, is it?’ He made a sweeping gesture, taking in the surrounding sea, with no other land to be seen anywhere. ‘C’mon Dave. Show her how it’s done!’

  The effect was instant. Matt used his foot to draw a circle on the sand, well away from the cabin, I noticed. Dave busied himself collecting driftwood and small sticks and then adding logs from the woodpile, while Matt stood to one side, watching. ‘A few more on this side, mate. Now, one more log.’

  Finally, he was satisfied. ‘That’ll do.’ He turned to me. ‘You want to light it?’ But years of assiduously obeying ‘no lighting fires’ laws kicked in, and I couldn’t bring myself to strike the match. I shook my head and casually wandered back to where Lana was standing at the barbecue.

  Whoosh! It didn’t take long before the whole pile was alight and the darkening sky turned red, and Lana moved towards them to watch. The two guys started dancing around it, whooping, hollering and capering like secular dervishes, fuelled by what seemed to me to be more than the effects of alcohol. Who says modern man is civilised? But at this moment I didn’t care. I quickly grabbed a steak, the leanest I could find, covered it with avocado and took it around the other side of the cabin, eating as quickly as I possibly could without really making myself sick. When I came round the far side of the cabin Lana was putting slices of cucumber on the salad plate. She looked at me oddly. There was a tap attached to the tank, and I ostentatiously washed my hands (and surreptitiously my face), appearing beside her and adding some cucumber to my as-yet-untouched plate of food. ‘I knew there’d be a tap somewhere.’

  I could see she was puzzled by my behaviour, as we stood silently, nibbling salad and watching the blokes stumbling into the shallow water and then moving further and deeper. They started pushing each other’s heads under, first playfully, then, at least on Matt’s side, not so playfully. It was unnerving to see how innocent they looked, the firelight reflecting kindly on their country-boy faces, tousled hair and strong white teeth, the kind of young men you would choose to advertise toothpaste or a health spa. Just as long as you didn’t look too closely. Jumping around in their multi-coloured board shorts, they could have been brothers, with Matt the handsome, blue-eyed elder, and Dave the slightly inferior copy, always trying to keep up.

  I turned to Lana. ‘How long have you been with Matt?’

  She didn’t say anything but silently beckoned me to come inside the cabin. ‘Stay sick as long as you can,’ she whispered, her voice urgent, and somehow different. ‘Do not go anywhere alone with Matt.’ Just as quietly, she hustled me outside again and got back to cooking the steaks as if nothing had happened.

  I don’t think anyone said another word to me until I told them I was going to bed and Dave said goodnight, and helped me to my room, even bringing me a glass of water for my bedside.

  Why was he bothering to be so nice to me?

  CHAPTER SIX

  Caves and rock fissures make ideal shelters. However, make sure your chosen shelter is completely dry and above the waterline if close to a river or seashore, and check for signs of inhabitation that might make your stay uncomfortable (for example, by bats, insects or reptiles). Dry caves are generally warm in winter and cool in summer. If necessary, a fire just outside the entrance can deter nocturnal visitors such as dingoes.

  Atkinson’s Guide

  FIELD DIARY – Wednesday 18 April

  * * *

  Today will be a day for sticking to my timetable to the letter.

  Daybreak: Go outside for exercise and toilet.

  A hideous night of feverish nightmares interrupted by wakeful periods trying to stop myself from genuinely throwing up. I thanked the entire pantheon of gods and goddesses when the alarm began to vibrate, and I knew the long night was over. It was not yet dawn, but I could see enough to get myself ready and the moment a hint of light appeared I put on my boots, grabbed my knife and hurried as much as was humanly possible to get myself outside, looking behind me nervously on the short journey to the holey rock. I had held it in for so long and so successfully that I thought I wasn’t going to be able to go at all, despite the pressure on my bladder. Eventually, thinking about waterfalls, massaging my stomach, even making myself cough, I managed to let go, but the resulting stream was worryingly small. I now had only about a quarter of a bottle of nectar water for the day, and then I would have no water at all, but I could not imagine ever daring to go out collecting again.

  My body was knotted up from stress and lack of movement, so I did a rapid kind of dance on the rocky headland to try to loosen up, but was so spook
ed by the possibility of Dave’s return that I scuttled back to my cave before I could get any real benefit. It was not even six o’clock yet, and I stood just inside the entrance, peering through the branches of the dead tree, breathing the slightly fresher air.

  Finally, when my watch showed six, I managed to haul myself into the interior of the cave to start my day.

  6.00–8.00 a.m.: Housekeeping.

  Since I changed my clothes yesterday, and have been too scared to go out searching for nectar, there wasn’t much in the way of housekeeping to do. Instead I read over my diary and tried to predict my future. From conversations half-heard on the boat coming over, I know that the Duffy brothers run a fishing-tour business, available on Mondays and Thursdays, when they also run any errands to the inhabited islands, so there’s a remote chance that a boatload of tourists might stop off on this island tomorrow. If I could find some way of bypassing Dave, I could leave with them, because surely even the Dodgy brothers wouldn’t dare do anything to me in front of onlookers? But how to bypass Dave? If there was a way down from yesterday’s hide I could stash myself there at dawn and then coolly step out of the scrub to join the party. But there isn’t and no other plan has presented itself, no matter how much I scour my mental map of the terrain.

  By seven o’clock I was so fed up I ate my ration of nuts and sultanas and took two tiny sips of the rapidly diminishing nectar. To hell with the timetable. Unless Dave or I leave the island tomorrow, the next opportunity would not come for another four days. By then I will have run out of food as well as water, unless I can find a way to gather some more. A thick lump of fear and despair clogged my chest and throat. I longed for the release of tears, but the ability to cry was beaten out of me many years ago by the flowers of budding English womanhood at Lambton School for Young Ladies.