“You OK, buddy?” he asks.
I roll over on to my stomach and get to my knees. Idling in the surf is an inflatable Zodiac, its tiller in the grip of a wiry man with a goaty-looking beard. Behind the dinghy, riding deep water swells, is a twin-hulled craft with Hector’s Dolphin Tours painted on the side. The vessel seems to be outfitted with bleachers. Three tiers of tourists stare down at me. Everything about them reminds me of clip-art people, the generic folk that online advertisers use as stand-ins for the general population. I give them a wave, but no one responds.
“Are there any others with you—we heard there was a group of you up here. There was some kind of trial for a TV show, like Survivor.”
I shake my head—no. I look back at the tree line, half expecting to see my two captors come running from the burning woods, both of them wielding machetes. Instead, an otter-like animal slinks along the sand, looking for somewhere to burrow, finally taking refuge behind a driftwood log.
“Reality TV?” the man talks as though speaking to a non-English speaker.
I look at him dumbly. For a moment I have a fleeting picture of the strange glamour that had once invested my life. I feel a great shuddering sob well up inside me—a cry against everything I have lost: my youth, my dream, my beautiful Lila. Hardest of all to accept is the knowledge that the love I had to give—meagre to begin with—has withered away to almost nothing.
“Reality TV? Something like that,” I say to him.
“They’re evacuating the hotels. They asked those of us who could handle a boat to take a run along the beach and look for stragglers. I picked up that crowd behind me. I’m from Carbonear, Newfoundland, by the way. I’ve been an inshore fisherman all my life. I’m down here helping out with the fishery.”
“Carbonear,” I say. “I’m from St. John’s.”
“Yes, b’y. Anyone else with you?”
“No one else.”
“Last man on the island?”
A fireball bursts out of the trees behind me. The sky turns black. I am looking down on myself from a great height and the place where I am kneeling is, in fact, the memory of one who claims not to remember me. This, I know, is a trick, a great one, like forgiveness. I know now I will perfect this trick and walk back into my life, nuzzling my grief down over my head like a rough sweater.
“Last man on the island?” Tilley hat asks again.
“Last man on the island,” I say.
PATRICK WARNER was born and raised in Claremorris, Co. Mayo, Ireland. He moved to Newfoundland in 1980 in search of better weather and economic prosperity. Bitterly disappointed on both counts, he turned to writing, penning four critically acclaimed poetry collections and a novel, double talk. One Hit Wonders is his second fiction offering. Patrick currently lives in downtown St. John’s with his wife, Rochelle, and two daughters, Annie and Greta.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to Rochelle for her many helpful suggestions and for her encouragement during the writing of this novel. Love hardly covers it. Thanks to all the gang at Breakwater Books: James Langer for taking on this manuscript and for carefully guiding it to completion, Rhonda Molloy for her excellent design, Megan Coles for getting the word out, and Rebecca Rose for keeping the whole operation afloat.
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