‘Stupid tremor,’ she said. ‘Can’t have your bed bumping all the way outside now, can we?’
Her hand brushed at Surtsey’s ankle. She stopped to look at the angry rope marks on the skin.
‘Have you been struggling?’
Surtsey shook her head. ‘Only at the start. I realise now there’s no point.’
Donna walked round the bed, stopped at Surtsey’s left hand. She stroked her palm with her fingertips and Surtsey let her. She checked the rope was tight, peered at the marks underneath.
‘You’re going to hurt yourself doing that.’
Surtsey tried not to think of the butter knife under the mattress, six inches away from Donna’s hand.
Donna went to the top of the bed and lifted it, slid it against the wall.
‘That’s better now.’
She went to the bags and began unpacking. More clothes, fruit and veg, crisps and nuts, two large bottles of Coke.
‘That’s my one vice, I have to drink full-fat Coke, can’t stand the diet stuff.’
Surtsey waited until Donna was leaning away placing the bottles on the floor then slid her fingertips under the mattress. The knife wasn’t there. She moved her hand down along the edge of the frame but came up against nothing. The she moved it the other way, felt the metal handle of it and almost cried out. She flicked her fingers out and rested her hand on the mattress as Donna straightened up.
Surtsey breathed deeply a few times. ‘How did this all start?’
Donna paused with a bag of apples in her hand. ‘How do you mean?’
‘I was wondering while you were away. How long has this been going on? How long have you been…’ she tried to think of the right thing to say ‘…looking out for me?’
Donna looked at her, then out the window. She put the apples down on the table and stared at them. She looked around the table and Surtsey thought she’d spotted the missing knife. She sat on the bench and picked at the edge of the table with her fingernails.
‘You really never noticed me at school, did you?’
‘Of course I did.’
Donna gave her a sideways look, just a glance then away. ‘That’s OK, I didn’t expect you to back then. You were the year above and you always hung out with the cooler girls.’
‘I do remember you.’
‘You’re very kind, but you’ve already made it perfectly clear you don’t remember any of the times you helped me. That’s OK, I was shy and forgettable.’ She smiled. ‘You were very noticeable.’
‘I didn’t feel that way.’
‘You were. Even your name, so exotic. And the way you carried yourself around the place, down the corridors, in the lunch hall, the playground. So confident. I was jealous of your confidence.’
‘It was all show. No teenage girl really feels confident.’
‘I’m sure that’s not true.’
‘Trust me, I had all the same shit going on in my head as everyone else in that place. Confidence is an illusion.’
Donna shook her head.
Surtsey kept her eyes on Donna. ‘I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m not that person. You don’t know me.’
Donna rubbed her hands together. ‘But I do, I know you better than you know yourself.’
It was Surtsey’s turn to shake her head. ‘This isn’t about school. School was years ago. I never saw you for years until Mum went into St Columba’s.’
Donna nodded. ‘Do you believe in fate? Serendipity?’
‘You make your own fate.’
Donna pressed her lips together. ‘You’re wrong. The universe throws people together, shows you the way forward. That’s what happened the day Louise came to the hospice. My dad had just died three days before. I recognised you straight away and it all came back, how much I admired you at school. Maybe even worshipped you. I always assumed you’d moved away somewhere exotic, but here you were back in Joppa with the rest of us.’
‘So this started with Mum?’
‘I realised how much we had in common,’ Donna said. ‘I had just lost my mum and dad and you were losing your mum too. We were taking care of Louise together. You were so kind to her, so generous with your time. Not like your sister.’
‘Everyone deals with stuff differently,’ Surtsey said.
‘She’s a selfish cow and part of me hopes I gave her too big a dose back at your house.’
Surtsey waited a moment. ‘I still don’t understand. About your … interest in me.’
Donna got up, animated. ‘We’re the same, don’t you see? We were so different at school I could never have been your friend, but people change, Sur, that’s what I’ve come to realise. People change. Some for the better, some for the worse. Some people become more confident, some less so. Some people deal with grief well, others run away and hide. But everything I saw of you at the hospice, every time you visited, I realised we were becoming closer, we were becoming so similar, dealing with your mum the way we did, looking after her as a team, really, sisters in our sadness.’
Surtsey screwed up her eyes. ‘But you never said anything, you never spoke to me about any of this.’
‘It was obvious you felt it too,’ Donna said. ‘I could tell by the little conversations we had, underneath the everyday chats about your mum.’
‘I don’t remember it like that.’
‘You were telling me all about your life,’ Donna said, pacing up and down. ‘You were inviting me in.’
‘I wasn’t.’
‘You just didn’t know it. You needed a guardian angel and I was ready to step up.’
‘I didn’t need anyone spying on me.’
‘I wasn’t spying, I was looking out for you.’
‘You spied on me with Tom.’
Donna smiled. ‘I didn’t find out about Tom initially. I used to watch you with Brendan, leaving work together, going out on dates. The time you gave him a blowjob on the beach when you thought no one was around. I saw you hanging out with Halima and Iona in the Espy. Then one day I followed you from King’s Buildings on your own and you took a detour to a hotel on Waterloo Place. I was surprised, you didn’t seem like someone with secrets and yet there you were, meeting Tom behind his family’s back.’
‘Don’t bring his family into this.’
‘You’ve destroyed them, you know that? You didn’t think of them when you were fucking Tom.’
‘I didn’t mean to hurt anyone,’ Surtsey said. ‘I didn’t want anyone to find out but you made sure they did when you killed him.’
‘I couldn’t stand to see you throw your life away on that man. You weren’t going to end it, you didn’t have the strength. And he wasn’t going to either, he was just a man following his dick around. I had to be strong, I had to end it, for both of us.’
Surtsey tried to keep her voice steady. ‘There’s no “us”.’
‘Of course there is,’ Donna said. ‘We’re here, aren’t we?’
‘Because you’ve kidnapped me and tied me up.’
Donna reached into the rucksack. ‘You’ll understand one day.’ She pulled out a bottle of clear liquid and a facecloth. She unscrewed the lid, held the cloth over the bottle and tipped it upside down for a couple of seconds then placed the bottle on the table and came over to the bed.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Surtsey said. ‘Stay away from me.’
‘You need to rest,’ Donna said. ‘Getting worked up like this isn’t good for you.’
She went to the top of the bed so that Surtsey had to arch her neck to see her. She brought the cloth down to Surtsey’s face. Surtsey twisted her neck, turned her head away, but Donna held her head against the pillow as the other hand pressed the facecloth over her nose and mouth. She struggled but felt it taking her over. Her lungs were saturated and the energy disappeared from her arms and legs. Her head slumped under Donna’s hand. She felt dizzy and sick, clouds filling her mind, then she dissolved into nothing.
44
A shooting pain in her calf woke her. C
ramp. She grunted, tried to move her hands towards her leg, felt the rope cut into her raw wrists. She turned her ankle round in slow circles, stretching the muscles in her legs, easing the tension. Gradually the cramp subsided as she breathed heavily through her nose.
She looked up. Out the window the sky was pale blue, stretching darker to the west. She guessed it was just before dawn.
She thought about her phone. Donna said she’d sent texts to Hal and Iona. Surely they wouldn’t just take one message on face value, surely they would get in touch after everything that had happened. She thought about the police, the way Donna had set her up. How she was going to finish it with the tip-offs.
She thought about Tom’s face caved in. Brendan too. Her mum’s rubbery skin in that back room at the hospice. All of it down to Donna.
She took in the room and spotted Donna lying in a sleeping bag on the floor between the door and the water bottles.
Surtsey watched her for a long time. Her chest was rising and falling slowly, a rasp from her nose as she breathed out. Her hands were placed together under her cheek and her knees were pulled up towards her chest. The skin on her face was slack and she looked carefree.
Surtsey felt with her left hand for the knife under the mattress, keeping her eyes on Donna. She got her fingers on the handle and lifted it out. Holding it upside down in her palm, with the handle at the inside of her knuckle and the blade pointing down towards her wrist, she placed it against the rope there and began a gentle sawing motion. The rope wasn’t thick, standard camping cord, but it was probably strong. The knife started making inroads into the material.
Donna made a snuffling noise like a pig at a trough.
Surtsey stopped and waited.
The knife was hidden in her palm, so even if Donna woke she might not notice it unless Surtsey was caught in the act of cutting. She felt sweat on her brow as she moved the knife against the rope. The edge of the material had frayed, it was working. She kept going, propelled by the idea that she could free herself.
Then what? Look for her phone or run for it? The boat had to be somewhere. She’d glimpsed the jetty out of the door when Donna left before and it seemed empty. Wherever the boat was she would find it, the island wasn’t that big. She would find the boat, get back to shore and this would be over.
Donna coughed and rubbed at her nose with the back of her hand. Surtsey froze. Donna’s hand went under her cheek and she moaned, wriggled her shoulders into the sleeping bag.
Surtsey breathed three times, slow and easy, then began sawing again. More frayed ends of material came away, tiny yellow strands. She stopped and put pressure on the rope, tried to push her wrist through it. Didn’t budge.
She went back to cutting, methodical, up and down, concentrating, her eyes on Donna, glancing down at the rope at her wrist and seeing more strands come away.
She stopped and pushed against the material again. It strained but didn’t break. She tried again. Same.
Back to cutting. Come on you stupid fucking knife, do your work.
Donna shifted her hips inside the sleeping bag and Surtsey heard a fart.
She closed her eyes for a moment, felt her heart thump in her rib cage, as loud as thunder in her ears.
She opened her eyes and slid the knife against the rope again. Slow, methodical, then faster, more frantic as threads spiralled away from the knot. She stopped and tensed her arm, pulled it towards her, felt the burn of the rope against her skin, blood where it was raw.
She pulled again and her hand jerked a few inches as she felt the rope slacken. She heaved her arm again. The rope was looser now but there was still resistance. She examined it. It was cut through in one place but still tangled. If she could get her fingers into the frayed ends maybe she could separate the strands and free her arm. She placed the knife under the mattress, keeping watch on Donna across the room. Then she dug her fingers in to the half-knot at the inside of her wrist. She tugged and pulled but it was awkward, her fingers doubled back to her wrist, pain across the sinews of her hand as she strained. But it was loosening. She dug her forefinger into a gap that had widened between strands and hooked the top strand clear, and the rest fell away leaving just a pile of rope around the bed frame, her arm completely free.
She raised her hand in the air, flexed her fingers to shake the cramp away, twisted and stretched her arm about.
Then a noise. The plate on the table rattled, the water bottles juddered on the floor. Another fucking earthquake, Jesus. The bed shook, vibrations through her spine and legs. Donna shuffled in her sleeping bag. Surtsey grabbed the loose rope and draped a strand over her wrist, leaving her arm on the bed as if it was still tied up. This was a bigger quake, more than a tremor. Donna’s eyes opened and she clambered to her hands and knees. The walls seemed to breathe in and out, the table shuddered towards Donna, bumping into the bench. The bed inched away from the wall again as the water pan clattered from the stove onto the floor.
Donna stared at Surtsey the whole time. It took everything for Surtsey not to lift her arm up and cover her face as masonry dust fell from a crack in the wall to her right. The corrugated iron roof bent and flexed like a squeezebox, everything about the bothy suddenly transient, transforming from stable shelter to death trap.
And it kept going. Christ, this was big. A clatter and thud outside sounded like rock fall and Surtsey wondered how close it was to the hut. She imagined being crushed by a tumbling volcanic plug, all evidence of everything Donna had done flattened to nothing, the two of them included.
Donna was crouching on her knees, narrow eyes on Surtsey. No point in trying to stand up, she would only fall. Surtsey glanced at the rope over her left wrist, prayed it wouldn’t shake loose and drop. The bed was still vibrating, its legs chattering on the floor. One of the water bottles tumbled over followed by another, as the pile of clothes on the table flopped to the ground too.
Then stillness. The walls back to being walls, the roof still over their heads, the ground solid again.
Donna stood. ‘Wow.’
Surtsey puffed her cheeks and raised her eyebrows.
Donna went to the window and looked out.
‘That sounded like a landslide,’ she said, turning back.
She looked around the room at the stuff on the floor, the spread of water from the pan turned on its side next to the stove.
‘I’ll sort this in a minute,’ she said. ‘Better look outside first, check the building.’
She strode over to the door and left, letting it clatter behind her.
Surtsey pulled at the knots on her right wrist with her left hand, digging her nails between the strands, loosening them, but it was tight, several knots at once and her fingers and arm muscles ached. Blood ran down her forearm from her wrist as she worked. She was breathing hard, glancing at the door every few seconds. Eventually she dug a piece of rope free then the rest became easier. She whipped one strand then another up and out, until she had a last crossover to undo. She untied it and shook her hand free then sat up and began working on her legs.
Her ankles were tied separately, two knots to undo. She started on the left one first, easier now with both hands free, pulling at the ropes, unhooking the interlaced strands, fumbling for a second before getting the last knot undone and moving to her other ankle. Same again, hands trembling with the effort and exhaustion, fumbling for the free end of the rope, pushing it through, flicking the end up and away, then repeating, feeling the pressure release on her ankle as the rope fell away and she was free.
The door opened and Donna came in. She stood for a second in the doorway. Surtsey swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up. Donna ran at her, grabbing her around the waist as the pair of them tumbled to the floor between the bed and the table. Surtsey had the air knocked out of her lungs, her chest crushed under Donna’s weight. She tried to prise Donna off but her arms were weak, so she heaved and rolled the pair of them together until Donna bumped against a table leg. She got an arm free and
grabbed Donna’s hair, yanked it up and slammed her head against the floor, a spray of saliva from Donna’s mouth into Surtsey’s face. Donna surged upward, smashing her forehead into Surtsey’s teeth and nose, blood spurting from her face. Surtsey lifted a knee into Donna’s groin then threw a fist into her stomach and felt Donna’s arms release her grip. She threw another jab at her face, felt the bone in Donna’s cheek crack, or maybe it was the bone in her own hand. She scrambled upright using the table edge as leverage and stumbled towards the door.
‘Bitch,’ Donna said behind her.
Surtsey staggered to the door and grabbed the handle, using it to keep herself up. She glanced back and saw Donna getting up, spitting on the floor, holding her face.
She flung the door open and ran.
45
She thrust one foot in front of the other, putting everything she had into it, getting up speed, increasing the distance between her and the bothy. She heard the door slam behind her as she sprinted, lungs already burning, calves and thighs straining, arms pumping as she gulped for air.
She was heading downhill, the momentum throwing her towards the jetty. She had to keep her eyes on the ground over this terrain, rocky and jagged, holes everywhere, impossible to judge it well, clambering and clattering over patches of rubble and around boulders. She glanced at the jetty a hundred yards away but couldn’t see any boat. Maybe it was tied up round the other side.
She stumbled, lost her balance as a shower of scree slid beneath her foot. She put a hand out and scraped her palm on a jutting rock. She looked behind, her pulse raging, breath wheezing. Donna was coming after her, a hundred yards away, holding a hammer.
She started off again towards the jetty.
‘Please be there,’ she said between gasps of air. ‘Please.’
She leapt over more bulbous rocks and found a stretch of level land, sand in a wide crevice, and picked up speed as she approached the jetty. The sand under her feet was more reliable than rocks but it sapped the strength from her legs, pockets of deep stuff slowing her down.
Fault Lines Page 19
