Surtsey supposed they were friends. What else did you call this? She needed someone to talk to and here was Donna, that’s what friends did for each other. But she was using her too, an emotional sponge to soak up all the bullshit, a psychological dumping ground.
Donna looked at Surtsey’s empty glass on the table and filled it. Surtsey was in accelerated drinking mode, craving the second and third glasses, soon the tenth. She wondered if Hal had any grass in her room.
The wine was smooth going down, a decent bottle. She looked at Donna, what did she know about her? She’d barely noticed her at school, not on her radar. But that was always the way at school, you never noticed the younger ones, but younger ones always looked up to older girls. Surtsey tried to remember the incidents Donna had mentioned. Tearing strips off Donna’s bully at the bonfire, standing up for her in the toilets at the school disco. The truth was that she pulled a blank, couldn’t remember a thing. Partly she was drunk, but partly it was just Surtsey doing her thing, and there was ego involved in that too. She hadn’t really been defending Donna by the sound of it, she had just been mouthing off on her own agenda, virtue signalling to the rest of the school.
What made a real friendship? Just time and support. And Donna had been more supportive than anyone else the last few days, helping with her mum, someone to talk to. So why not friends?
‘Cheers.’ Surtsey leaned forward to clink. She misread the distance and the glasses clanged together, wine sloshing on the coffee table between them.
‘Cheers,’ Donna said, smiling.
‘Here’s to being friends.’ Surtsey drank.
‘To friends.’ Donna sipped.
Surtsey narrowed her eyes. ‘You really don’t like drinking, do you?’
Donna shrugged. ‘Because of my mum. It killed her and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I never want to feel that powerless.’
‘I get that.’ Surtsey thought about Tom. Christ, the messages on his phone. All the shit with Brendan had made her forget about that.
‘Just a minute,’ she said, slopping her glass on the table.
She left the room and tottered upstairs.
‘Are you OK?’ Donna shouted up.
She checked the phone under her pillow. There was a new message:
Death follows you around, doesn’t it?
She stared at it for a long time like it was a message from God. Maybe it was. How do you reply to God? And how can you make him listen?
She stood there, legs weak, craving more wine.
‘Sur?’
She jumped. It was Donna in the bedroom doorway.
She held up the phone in her hand. ‘God is sending me messages.’
‘What?’
Surtsey laughed, aware how ridiculous it was. ‘This phone is my conscience, the little devil on my shoulder.’
‘You’re not making any sense,’ Donna said.
‘Nothing makes sense.’
‘Are you OK?’
Surtsey stared at the phone. She stared at it so long the screen went dark. She pressed a button to wake it up again then typed:
Fuck you.
She breathed out and looked at Donna, who was holding both wine glasses. She took hers and downed it in three gulps.
‘I need some air,’ she said.
40
‘I really don’t think this is a good idea,’ Donna said.
Surtsey didn’t turn around. ‘Just push.’
They’d hauled the RIB across most of the beach and were almost at the water’s edge. The soft dry sand was behind them, and it was easier to guide the trailer over the packed sand now underfoot. Surtsey was sweating alcohol from her pores, damp stains under her arms as she pulled the boat towards the sea.
‘You’ve had quite a lot to drink,’ Donna said.
Surtsey felt acid rise in her throat and swallowed it down.
‘I’m fine,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘This is exactly what I need, the sea air will sort me out.’
She splashed into the edge of the water, feeling her socks squelch and the cold ripple around her shoes, penetrating the red wine glow. She kept going until the whole trailer was in the water then began untying the boat from the front end.
‘Do the knots at the back,’ she said.
Donna stared at her with a strange look on her face.
‘There’s nothing to be nervous about,’ Surtsey said. She put on a pompous voice. ‘I’m an experienced seafarer, don’t you know.’
‘It’s not that,’ Donna said. She still hadn’t touched the ties at the back of the trailer.
‘Then what?’
‘All the wine.’
‘So what?’
‘Just, with your mum and everything.’
Surtsey stopped fiddling with the rope and looked up. ‘You knew my mum as well as anyone.’
‘I didn’t really, she was a patient, not family.’
Surtsey waved that away. ‘You saw her the other day on the Inch. She was happy, right?’
Donna nodded. ‘She seemed to be.’
‘She loved the water, loved the island, loved everything about being out there. I’m the same. This is what I need, Donna, trust me. I need to get out there, get away from all this.’
She waved a frantic hand at the prom, as if it was responsible for her troubles.
‘Maybe another day,’ Donna said. ‘When you’ve had some sleep.’
‘Fuck that,’ Surtsey said. ‘Sleep is the cousin of death.’
Her legs felt rooted in the sand beneath the waves lapping at her calves as if she might be stuck forever like one of those Gormley statues people kept trying to save from drowning. She imagined being made of metal, rusting over the years but unbending to the vagaries of life.
She finished undoing the knots at the front of the trailer and looked up. Donna was untying the back, good, none of this waiting till Surtsey was sober. Surtsey couldn’t imagine being sober long enough to get her shit together.
The boat bobbed free of the trailer and Surtsey held the guide rope on the side.
‘Get in,’ she said.
‘I don’t know.’
Surtsey raised her eyebrows. ‘I’m going out in this thing with or without you.’
Donna looked at Surtsey then out to sea in the direction of the Inch. She turned to look back at the terraces along the prom.
‘OK.’
‘Get in backwards, it’s easier. Grip the handles at the sides then scoot over on your bum.’
They were both wet up to their knees but Surtsey could hardly feel the cold. She watched as Donna thudded into the boat. She pulled herself in, landing with a flap of limbs in Donna’s lap. She looked up at her, silhouetted by the evening sky, her face in darkness.
‘Excuse me.’ She smiled, righting herself.
She clambered to the back and started the engine. Spray kicked up and they were off, heading into the low waves, bouncing with each encounter.
Donna looked back.
‘Will the trailer be all right?’
‘Tide’s going out, it’s fine.’
Surtsey had no idea if that was right, hadn’t checked the tides.
Donna looked around. ‘Lifejackets?’
Surtsey made a show of inspecting the interior of the boat. ‘Don’t see any.’
‘Christ, Sur.’
It felt strange hearing Donna call her by her nickname, but not bad. Why not, they were friends now.
They were in open water, two hundred yards from land. Surtsey breathed salt into her nostrils, but her head stayed foggy. Her legs were heavy. She’d noticed it earlier trudging through the sand, but they felt like lead weights now. She must be drunker than she thought.
Something occurred to her.
‘We didn’t bring any wine.’
Donna shook her head. ‘You’ve had enough.’
Surtsey made a panting sound, her tongue was furry and felt too big for her mouth. ‘I’m thirsty.’
‘You’re fine.’
They
rattled along, spray in their faces, the land a thinning line behind them. Surtsey turned the rudder, pointed west towards the Inch.
‘What are you doing?’ Donna said.
‘What do you think?’
‘Is that a good idea?’
‘Come on, Donna, you always knew that’s where we…’ Her mouth stopped working for a second. Surtsey frowned and swallowed. It was hard work. She tried to get her tongue into gear. ‘Where we … were headed…’
Surtsey’s hand slipped from the rudder. She tried to turn and look behind her but her head was immensely heavy, a rock that her neck couldn’t support. She couldn’t swallow either. She tried to grab the rudder handle again but her arm wouldn’t move, the signal from her brain didn’t reach her body. It was so hard to breathe, her lungs concrete, pressure on her chest. She closed her eyes and struggled to open them again. Her mind was fog. She tried to think what she’d just been saying but couldn’t remember. She felt a hand on her chin, raising her head up from her chest where it had slumped. She eventually opened her eyes.
Donna smiled at her.
‘You have a little sleep,’ she said, easing Surtsey’s body down to lie along the seat. She took the rudder and gunned the engine. ‘I’ll take things from here.’
41
She couldn’t breathe, arms weak in the currents, head under the surface, lungs filling with water. A giant whale came and swallowed her whole, her body tumbling over the colossal tongue and down into its gut, sloshing around, the stomach acid eating at her legs. The whale’s heartbeat was thunderous making her wince in pain, her bowels shake, reverberating through her body until she thought she might break apart, her limbs floating off, her torso shredded to pieces, her head lolling around in the acrid stench of the place.
The heartbeat kept thudding away as she came round, immense throbs ricocheting from the back of her neck to her temples. Each beat made her clench her stomach and forced air out of her nose at the immediacy of the pain. She screwed her eyes tight and breathed in, concentrated on her lungs, tried to get the rhythm of them going.
Bursts of light and dark danced across her eyelids but she couldn’t get her eyes open. She tried to lift a hand to her head but her arms wouldn’t move. She flexed an ankle, found it was constrained. She badly needed to pee.
She took a few deep breaths, listening in between for any noise. A metallic creak, part of a building relaxing or contracting. A thin whisper of wind somewhere. She listened for waves but couldn’t hear any.
Her eyelids fluttered open and she blinked over and over, screwing them shut again to get the blurriness away. The thump in her head was still there, a constant beat of pain. She focussed and looked around, the movement of her neck making pain soar through her again, forcing breath from her.
She knew where she was, recognised it immediately, it was the scientific hut on the Inch. She’d been here a dozen times, warmed her beans on the stove in the corner, left rock samples in the storage drawers to her left.
She was strapped to the bed. Her wrists were tied to the frame at either side with heavily knotted ropes. She had about two inches of movement from the scratchy blanket she was lying on before the ropes dug into her skin. Her feet were tied the same, through the frame at the bottom of the bed, a little looser so that she had a few more inches to move her legs, but not enough to help any.
There was only low light from the small window behind her but it was still enough to see by. There was a large rucksack on the floor by the door, the one thing that seemed out of place. She recognised everything else, the sparse furniture, the stove, the geological map on one wall. No electricity or running water, of course, a basic bothy. The only amenity was a chemical toilet outside, a few yards down the slope away from the hut. Speaking of which, her bladder screamed at her. Her headache persisted and her arms and legs felt fizzy with numbness. She opened and closed her fists, tried to get blood flowing into her arms again, curled and uncurled her toes, tried not to think about pissing herself.
The door opened.
‘You’re awake,’ Donna said.
She looked energised, wide-eyed, small pupils. She was carrying a black canvas holdall, which she placed on the floor. She was beaming a smile as she raised her eyebrows at Surtsey.
Surtsey nodded at her wrist ties. ‘What the fuck have you done?’
Donna sat on the bench that ran along the small dining table in the middle of the room. ‘I didn’t know when you would wake up so I couldn’t take the chance.’
‘What?’
‘I wasn’t sure how long the diazepam would take to wear off. You’re only a slip of a thing and of course you were drinking a lot; that makes it harder to judge. But you’ve been out for a long time.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Almost seven hours.’
‘Christ.’
‘That’s OK,’ Donna said, crossing her legs. She nodded at the rucksack and holdall on the floor. ‘It gave me plenty of time to get back and pick up some provisions.’
‘This is insane,’ Surtsey said. ‘Let me go.’
Donna shook her head. ‘I can’t.’
‘Why are you doing this?’
‘It’s for the best,’ Donna said. ‘I don’t expect you to understand, not straight away, but you’ll come to see things my way eventually.’
‘What do you plan on doing, keeping me here forever?’
Donna got up and opened the rucksack. She began lifting out food, bags of rice and pasta, tins of sauce and beans, water bottles, chocolate bars and crisps, a carton of orange juice.
‘You actually made it much easier,’ Donna said. ‘I think subconsciously you knew all along and were trying to help me.’
‘You’ve lost your mind.’
‘When I came round to your house yesterday I was all set to take you back to my place.’ Donna reached deeper into the rucksack and pulled out salt and pepper, biscuits, a loaf of bread. ‘But this is better. You wanted to come to the Inch and now we’re here together. This place means so much to you, doesn’t it?’
‘Fuck you.’
‘Come on,’ Donna said. ‘You brought me here, when you think about it. You were drunk and you wanted to bring me, your best friend, to your favourite place. All I’m doing is making sure that happened. The state you were in, you couldn’t have steered the boat any longer so I had to take over.’
‘Because you drugged me,’ Surtsey said. ‘The wine.’
‘It was just to help you relax. You’ve been through so much recently.’
‘But you drank it too.’
Donna shook her head as she arranged food on the table. ‘Small sips, spat back into the glass when you weren’t looking. I don’t like to lose control, remember?’
Surtsey tugged at her wrist ties. ‘Let me go.’
Donna smiled and shook her head. ‘If you just realised this was for your own good, I wouldn’t have to tie you up.’
Surtsey stared at her. ‘You’re insane. This is insane.’
Donna unzipped the holdall and started taking out clothes, shirts and T-shirts, underwear, jeans. Some of it was Surtsey’s.
‘How did you get my stuff?’
Donna dug into her pocket and pulled something out, dangled it in the air. ‘I have your keys, silly.’
Surtsey’s head was pounding, the base of her neck on fire. ‘You can’t keep me here.’
Donna put the keys away and went back to unpacking the clothes. ‘It’ll be fine once you come round.’
‘Come round to what? Being kidnapped and held prisoner?’
Donna went over to the stove and opened it, threw in a couple of logs from a pile. She closed the door, poured some water into a pan from a ten-gallon plastic bottle on the floor then placed it on the stovetop.
‘Cup of tea will sort us out.’
Surtsey tried to kick her legs, twisting her ankles inwards and out, flexing her muscles against the ropes. The effort made blood thud in her ears, flashes of white across her vision. She slumped back on the bed and breathed.
‘Someone will find me,’ she said. ‘When they realise I’ve gone missing. They’re probably already trying to get in touch.’
Donna got two mugs off a shelf and placed them on the table. Pulled teabags out a box and dropped them in. She looked for a teaspoon in a drawer.
‘I don’t think so,’ she said over the rattle of cutlery.
‘Iona and Hal. If I don’t show up, they’ll come looking for me, they’ll track me down.’
Donna stopped what she was doing and turned to stare at Surtsey. She shook her head as if she was listening to a baby talk gibberish.
‘When will you realise they’re not your friends. They don’t have your best interests at heart.’
‘And you do?’ Surtsey said, lifting her tied hands as far as she could.
‘They won’t look for you, I made sure of that.’
‘What do you mean?’
Donna glanced at the water on the stove, steam starting to rise from the pan.
‘They’re probably still asleep for a start, I gave them twice the dose I gave you. A bit of a risk, but one worth taking.’
‘You drugged them?’
Donna smiled. ‘You girls really like to drink. It’s so easy, just bring a bottle of wine round, make up some excuse about looking for you, then stay and have a drink. Thank goodness for screw tops, so much easier to slip something in. The two of them were gulping the stuff down like juice. They didn’t care about finding you then and they won’t now.’
‘You were at my house with them? Where are they?’
‘It’s simple to get people to do what you want. The diazepam worked very quickly. They both crashed out, I just helped them to bed.’
‘Wait,’ Surtsey said. ‘They were in the house when we were back there?’
Donna nodded. ‘That was one thing I was worried about, that you’d check their rooms. That’s why I followed you upstairs.’
Surtsey swallowed hard. ‘They’ll come looking for me.’
‘I don’t think so. I texted from your phone, told them you were going away for a while to clear your head, they weren’t to get in touch. They’ll understand your need for space after everything you’ve been through.’
Fault Lines Page 17
