by Beale, Fleur
Oh crap.
I turned away from her and wrapped my arms around my body. It was so cold here. My friends. I needed my friends but I would not cry, I would bloody not. I stalked to the table and crashed the dishes around. Mum winced. I dropped a pile of cutlery on the kitchen floor. I couldn’t begin to imagine what Seb would say when I told him. I thumped a fist against my head. When would I get used to this? I wouldn’t need to tell him — he’d see it all on telly.
I glanced at hypocrite mother. She was all huddled up on the sofa, more tears running down her face and she was shivering. Let her suffer. This whole circus was one hundred per cent her own fault.
I ran water into the sink but over the noise I heard an electronic beep. For one glorious moment I thought it was a phone. It went again. I traced it to the radio. ‘What?’ I snarled.
‘Listening watch,’ Mum whispered.
Oh, fantastic. Where was Dad when I needed him? Where he always was when I needed him — absent. But the chance of talking to somebody was too bewitching to ignore. I switched the radio on.
It crackled with a burst of words. ‘Motutoka Island, this is Maritime Radio. Motutoka Island, this is Maritime Radio. I have one weather observation to pass to you.’
I stared at the radio, then at Mum. No help from either of them. ‘Uh, hello. This is Minna on Motutoka Island and I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.’
Maritime Radio laughed. ‘You’re doing fine, Minna. What you’d normally say is: Maritime Radio, this is Motutoka Island, Zulu, Lima, Mike, Tango. Go ahead, please.’
Zulu Mike … My eye fell on the letters ZLMT stuck on the wall. We had a call sign? ‘Hi there, Maritime Radio,’ I said and I was grinning — a diversion from the churning thoughts lurking in my brain. ‘This is Minna on Motutoka Island, Zulu, Lima, Mike, Tango. Hit me with your weather observation and tell me what the — er — what I’m meant to do with it.’
Maritime R was with me all the way and laughing his head off. ‘Maritime Radio to Minna on Motutoka Island. You write it down and pass it on to anyone else who calls you. It might be a boat, or somebody in a remote shore station. Over.’
‘Minna to Maritime R: you mean there’s poor suckers more remote than I am? Okay, ready to write. Um. Over.’ I could get to like this — talking to a person who talked back to me.
He read out the weather observation. I wrote it down. What it amounted to was northeasterly winds and heavy seas.
‘Minna on Motutoka Island to Maritime Radio. I’ve got your weather. Glad I’m on Motutoka and not out in a boat. Is that it?’
‘Maritime Radio to Minna on Motutoka Island ZLMT: that’s all we have for you. And Minna — when you finish you say Roger.’
‘For real? I thought that was only for movies! Roger, Maritime R! Roger!’
‘Roger, Minna.’ I heard him laughing as he switched off.
What now? I sat by the radio, waiting. Somebody from a boat called up wanting the weather observation. I passed it on. And that was it. At 7pm I switched the radio off.
Reality crashed in on me again. I was Minna on Isolation Island with parents about to split, a stoner brother and all the people who mattered to me an ocean away.
I got up quickly before the tears started. Cara would have telly to die for after Dad’s little performance, Mum’s big confession and then her tears. She would not get any from me.
The room was cold. I looked at the woodburner but couldn’t see any cheerful, cheering flames in the fire. I opened the door and chucked a lump of wood on the embers.
Mum lay unmoving, with her eyes shut.
Babies took nine months to gestate and we were going to be here for a year, unless Dad pulled the plug on the whole enterprise.
All the happy bubbles that I’d got from talking to Maritime R burst and settled in a sludge in the bottom of my stomach. I wanted Seb’s arms around me. I wanted — no, make that needed — to talk to somebody.
I took off to my bedroom to do my video diary but I couldn’t summon up the energy.
I went to the window but didn’t draw the curtains because who cared if a penguin looked in? I hoped one would. Pre the big announcement from Mum, i.e. when Dad was still talking, he’d said yes, there were penguins on the island — little blue ones. Were penguins faithful? Were they monogamous? I bet they were.
It was dark outside and cold in my room. I looked for a heater but there wasn’t one. I opened the boxes of effective clothes and put on a bush shirt which made me cry, remembering how we’d laughed. I sniffed and hiccupped and was glad I’d turned the camera off. This place gave me the creeps. Outside it was howling and yowling — louder than I was. What was that noise?
Thwack! Something belted against my window and scared my heart into stopping for a dangerously long time. I stared at the window and saw my terrified face staring back at me, then there was another thwack and this time I saw the thwacker as it fell down the glass. Birds! I ran across the room and stuck my face against the glass. Hundreds and hundreds of birds sweeping overhead in a great flood — and more hitting the window with skull-shattering thwacks.
I ran to the light switch handily placed near the door, not the bed, and snapped it off. I waited a moment or two, but there were no more crashes.
I ran out to the family room. There might be carnage there too — of the bird rather than human variety this time. I was right. A bird crashed and slid before I could get to the light switch. Another crashed and slid in the very moment I snapped off the light.
‘Poor birds.’ That was a whisper from Mum, which I ignored.
I eased the ranch-slider open and picked up the nearest bird. It was warm in my hands and pretty, with feathers the colour of a washed-out blue sky. It was a pigeon maybe — it was around the right size. Mum might know except that I didn’t want to ask her. I sat there holding the blue bird, hoping it would shake itself and fly away out of my hands.
But it was dead. As dead as my parents’ marriage.
I laid it gently on the verandah seat, then sat beside it watching thousands and thousands of its mates sweep and fly overhead.
Would Dad divorce Mum? Would she want to go off with the baby’s father? And who was the father anyway? I’d never seen her near another man.
I went back to the family room and my faithless mother.
Dad came stomping in from somewhere a long way off. ‘Why are you sitting in the dark?’ He snapped on the lights. ‘And why haven’t you done the dishes?’
‘It makes the birds hit the windows and kill themselves.’ I snapped the lights off again. ‘And exactly why should I do the dishes? I cooked dinner and I did the listening watch.’
He stumbled around in the dark. I heard, ‘Oh, crap!’ which might have been because of whatever he’d bashed into or it might have been about the listening watch. I didn’t ask. He turned the lights back on but drew the curtains. ‘We can’t sit in the dark all night. Let’s hope this’ll do the trick.’
It seemed to, because the birds kept zooming over us but left off attacking the windows.
‘Do the dishes, will you Min,’ said Dad, busy not looking in Mum’s direction.
‘No,’ I said. I was proud of the restraint I showed, but I couldn’t help feeling that a bit of restraint around here right now could be a good thing.
Various bits of Dad’s face flexed and bulged. ‘I have asked you to do something, Min — and I expect you to do it.’
Showdown time. Restraint might have to fly out the window along with the birds, and to hell with the cameras. ‘I cooked the dinner. I know it wasn’t great, but I cooked it. I did the listening watch. I didn’t want to. I wanted to go away and bawl my eyes out, but I did it. No dishes. Not me. Not tonight.’
He caved without another word and, of course, I felt like the meanest slug on the island. And anyway, why me? Where was Noah? Why not him?
eleven
The evening of Day One was a bunch of happies. Mum sat up. She wanted to go to the toilet. Moving made her sick, b
ut I’d cunningly put a bowl beside the sofa by then so it wasn’t the disaster it could have been.
She tried to stand up and she staggered. Dad sat at the table doing some paperwork and wouldn’t even look at her. Noah, as always, was absent — in both body and mind this time.
Mum let go of the arm of the sofa and tottered across the room. I was expecting her to ask me to help her. She didn’t. She didn’t even look in my direction. She stumbled and clutched at her stomach.
I looked at Dad. Nope, he wasn’t going to move, not even if she dropped down dead.
I sighed loudly, got up, went over, put my arm around her and helped her out of the room. I didn’t talk to her and I figured she got the Bad Mother message.
Dad turned a page. Loudly.
I waited outside the toilet until she reappeared.
‘There’s a tap there.’ I pointed to where it lurked in the weeds.
She didn’t answer. Just started the totter back to the house without washing her hands. I kept my arm around her and my mouth shut but there was plenty going on in my head — mainly that if she was too sick to wash her hands, then she was pretty damn sick because my mother was a bit on the fanatical side about hand washing. And if she was that sick, then she should go home, and if she went home then I’d go too because I for sure wasn’t going to stay here and be Dad’s pet handmaiden. But if Mum thought I was going to live with her she could think again. I would live with Lizzie.
Or I could live with Seb. The thought of that set my toes tingling and zapped up the heart rate. His parents would be cool about it so long as he didn’t get me pregnant. His mother liked me. I could go on the pill and I’d make sure Seb always used a condom as well just to be double, total certain, because one thing I knew for double, total certain was that I didn’t want to get pregnant.
Mum stopped to gather her strength before attacking the steps. I would be so glad to be out of here and away from her. I nearly turned my head to ask her where she’d go when we left the island, but didn’t in case she said she was going to live with him, whoever he was. But, thinking about it, that’s exactly where she should go. He was the one who got her into this state so fair dos for him to look after her till she was better. Huh! That would teach him to be a bit careful who he shagged.
‘You want to go to bed?’ I asked as we stumbled back into the house.
She said something that could have been yes.
‘She can sleep on the sofa,’ Dad said.
The silent one speaks. This whole farce was his idea so let him sleep under the eye of the camera. I was pissed off with the pair of them, but at least Dad could still look out for himself. ‘The bedroom’s along here.’
‘Minna!’ Dad yelled in a sergeant-major voice. ‘Did you hear what I said?’
I yelled back over my shoulder. ‘Yes I did and so did the whole freaking country.’
That shut him up.
The bed wasn’t made but Mum lay down anyway. I tucked a thick duvet around her. The room was cold and she was shivering. I looked at her. Hell. I couldn’t just leave her like that — yeah, she deserved to suffer, but still …
I walked a couple of steps on my way to ask Dad what to do before I worked out that he wouldn’t help me. ‘Mum? What …?’
‘Hottie. In a box.’
It was in the third box I looked in. I filled it from the hot tap in the kitchen. Chatty father ignored me. ‘Thank you, Min,’ whispered my mother.
I’d had enough of Day One, of my family and of Isolation Island. I did my video diary: Can’t complain that nothing happens on an island. I hadn’t bothered with the make-up and my hair was less than sophisticated but Cara might appreciate the understated irony. Lizzie, Addy and Jax would understand and at least I’d avoided showing my real feelings. But I should have taken more trouble. When Seb saw me looking like a refugee he might forget I was one hot chick and dump me. I twisted the ring on my finger. Had he given a ring to Jilly Trant too?
I picked up the koala and held it tight. My mind was made up — when Mum left the island I would go too and I would ask Seb if I could live at his house.
I jumped into bed and lay there shivering. It wasn’t entirely from the cold. What if Seb’s parents said no? What if Seb said no? No doll, I don’t think that’s such a hot idea.
I snuggled down into the bed. It was comfortable and I wondered who would sleep in it next — would Cara find another family to torture in the name of good television? I fell asleep with images of the island as we’d seen if from the chopper swinging through my head.
Day Two, and I woke up to a weird howling noise. I sat up, not sure for a second where I was. Oh, that’s right. Isolation Island, but not for much longer praise the Lord, and the inventor of the helicopter who I think was Leonardo da Vinci. Well, good old Leo. If Seb and I ever did have a kid we could call him Leonardo da V.
I jumped out of bed. It was cold. I put on my jeans, then I swapped them for trackies, bush shirt and thick disgusting jersey — clothes I would never have to wear after today.
Dad wasn’t in the kitchen but there were blankets airing by the woodburner.
Tell the world how pissed off you are, Father dear. Make it perfectly plain and clear that you didn’t go near your wife last night and don’t intend to ever again.
Not that I blamed him. I just wished he wouldn’t provide Cara with quite so much excellent television.
I fed bread into the toaster. What if I wasn’t his kid either? How much did a DNA test cost? When I had kids — excuse me, make that if, and a big fat if at that — I’d make sure they knew who their father was. My ring clanged against the toaster. Seb and I would be responsible and careful. We wouldn’t drag a poor, unwanted kid into the world.
Jilly’s baby was due next month. But Seb would have learnt from that. He’d make sure it didn’t happen again and he must love me or he wouldn’t have given me the ring. He would be so surprised to see me this very afternoon.
The toast popped and I got down to some serious eating which I have always found to be an excellent antidote to thinking. So — just me, my toast and that weird howling noise. I grabbed my iPod and drowned it out.
The alarm went for the listening watch so I did it. Good old Maritime R. Did they know how fantastic it was to talk to another human being?
Then I took myself off to the state-of-the-art facilities beside the chickens and discovered that the weird howling noise was one hell wind ripping across the top of the hill. I stood and stared up at the trees that grew sideways instead of upright. Could a helicopter land in such a high wind? I hoped so, but the longer I watched the trees bending and swaying, the more I had to admit that no chopper would be coming near us today. What if Mum got better before the wind stopped and I really had to do the whole jail sentence of twelve neverending months?
The hens cackled at me and rushed to the fence. ‘What?’ I squatted down. ‘What’s your problem?’ I worked it out. Hunger.
What do hens eat?
It turns out they are rather fond of burnt spud, mushy broccoli and bits of bread. I stayed watching them for a bit. Then I remembered the camera. I was supposed to be doco-maker extraordinaire so Cara could have shots of hens doing what hens do. Not a lot of variety in the hen compound, but I felt it served her right because it was her bright idea to shut me up here with nothing but hens to talk to.
Back in the house there was still no sign of the males of the family. I had to get home today or I’d go mad. Boredom and isolation — a fail-safe recipe for madness. I tiptoed into Mum’s room. If she was still sick, then the chances of getting off the island had to be good.
She was awake. ‘How you feeling, Mum?’
‘Better thanks, Min.’
Not what I wanted to hear. ‘You want anything to eat?’
‘Just a cup of tea. Weak. Thank you, Min.’ Her voice wasn’t much above a whisper.
I made the tea. She was still sick — trying to put a brave face on it, but she didn’t fool me. She’d be much be
tter off at home where there were doctors and hospitals.
She drank half a cup of the tea.
After that there was nothing to do.
Noah slept till lunchtime. Dad didn’t show up to drag him out into the real world of howling wind, pissed-off fathers and faithless mothers.
Only the thought that I’d be off the island as soon as the wind dropped prevented me from jumping off the cliff and swimming for it. All I saw of Noah was his back disappearing out the door. ‘I hope the wind’s blown your stash away,’ I yelled after him. That put a spring in his step.
Mum had a quarter of a finger of dry toast for lunch but it stayed down, along with the other half of her cup of tea.
If she got better I’d kill her.
An hour later she staggered out to the kitchen; I helped her with the journey to the loo. All the time I waited for her outside the door, the hens yelled and yabbered at me. ‘What?’ I yabbered back, but it obviously wasn’t the right answer because they kept on and on.
I thought Mum might say something but she didn’t. Instead, she threw up. So, not getting better. Good. We didn’t talk.
I was seriously pissed off with Dad. He didn’t come back all day and what exactly was I meant to do with those damn chickens who yelled at me every time I had to go near them?
I shut myself away from cameras, read my magazines and listened to music all afternoon. I wrote to Lizzie and then to Jax and Addy but it wasn’t the same as talking to them. I wrote to Seb but I’d never have the guts to send it to him.
Darling Seb, I love you so much. Come and take me away from here. Let’s live together. Tell me you love me.
I cried. But I vowed again that no way was I ever going to film myself crying and being sorry for myself.
By late afternoon I was yearning for real food as well as for company. Maybe Mum …
