by Ali Ahearn
Frances took a step towards him but was halted by Joni’s gasp.
‘Oh my God! Are they … are they actually holding hands?’
She turned and looked in the direction of Joni’s outstretched finger.
Carter and Lizzie. Hand in hand.
Before either sister could say anything, their mother spotted them. She was dressed in a flowing tropical kaftan that would have done Demis Roussos proud and a matching tribal-patterned headscarf. She dropped their father’s hand and, in what was a good impression of an over-excited octopus, flapped her arms as she ran towards them.
‘Daaarrrlings!’
Frances blinked as her mother swept them to her, mashing their cheeks together.
‘You’ve been so brave, my darlings. We’ve been glued to the telly. All the Greenham women have been voting for you and you know how much they detest those radioactive phones.’
Frances tried to imagine the hairy hippy women who had shunned all modern conveniences trying to master a phone-pad around the camp fire after too much elderberry wine. It was a wonder she and Joni hadn’t been voted off the first night!
‘Even Carter’s men have been voting for you,’ said Lizzie, releasing the sisters from her death grip. She placed her hand on her ex-husband’s sleeve. ‘Haven’t they, darling?’
Joni looked at Frances and raised an eyebrow. Darling?
‘Quite,’ Carter boomed, giving his daughters an awkward peck on the cheek. ‘Should have taught you how to use a compass. That was remiss of me.’
Frances opened her mouth to say damn right but then Sally called everyone to order. She suppressed a wellspring of frustration, as her gaze sought Nick like an oestrogen-fuelled guided missile. She located him with stunning accuracy and he winked at her. It made her hot all over, just when she thought she couldn’t get any hotter. The urge to drag him into the jungle and have her way with him was almost overwhelming.
But The Stapler was saying something and there was still a game to win.
Frances dragged her gaze away from the promise in Nick’s eyes to Endurance Island’s own evil dictator. When Sally wasn’t torturing contestants, she really cleaned up her act. As she briefed everyone on the evening’s proceedings, she didn’t let fooker slip once. If Frances hadn’t known The Stapler’s true colours, she might have thought she’d attended the Pollyanna College for Perfect Hostesses.
‘So, eat first.’ Sally smiled at the special guests. ‘Enjoy the food, and don’t mind the cameras or Darryl, who will be doing spot interviews. After the meal we’ll start filming for the final vote, which will go to air in,’ she checked her watch, ‘eight hours’ time.’
Sally finishing her speech was obviously the signal for the food to be brought out, as several trailer doors opened in unison and crew members trooped out carrying silver-domed trays. It was a bit too reminiscent of the treasure hunt challenge for Frances’s liking but, as each lid was removed to reveal the bounty underneath, the memory faded.
Platters of carved stuffed goose and succulent roast pork wafted into the kilojoule-starved atmosphere, adding a carnivorous pulse to what had been essentially vegetarian surroundings. Glazed ham. Chipolatas. Roast vegetables. Mince pies. Christmas pudding. Platters of exotic tropical fruits. Bowls of nuts and gaily wrapped chocolates. Jugs of eggnog and mulled wine added spice to the already laden atmosphere. Not a wasabi-dipped scorpion or scratchy deep-fried rat leg in sight.
Chuffing Nora! Maybe they had been hiding bloody Jamie Oliver in that trailer all along? She knew the crew ate well, with access to a seemingly endless supply of regular, non-indigenous food. But this?
No wonder The Stapler had so much energy for screaming.
‘Bloody hell,’ Joni whispered. ‘I think I’m about to drown in my own saliva.’
Frances put a cautionary hand on her arm. ‘Careful, JoJo, pace yourself. Our stomachs will have shrunk. They probably aren’t up to such a feast.’
Joni licked her lips and swallowed. ‘That’s a risk I’m prepared to take,’ she murmured. ‘C’mon, Des, let’s pig out.’ Her bruised forehead puckered in concentration, she limped away on her sprained ankle and headed straight for the mince pies.
Frances suppressed the urge to restrain her; that wasn’t the sort of relationship she wanted to have with her sister any more. They were both grown-ups. Besides, all those pink doughnuts Lex had slipped Joni had no doubt helped her avoid the stomach shrinkage. Frances approached a little more cautiously, oblivious to the noise and activity around her as she planned her assault on the food that must surely be testing the altar’s papier-mâché foundations.
‘Hanging back, I see.’
For a moment, every cell in Frances’s body ceased to function before going into overdrive. He was behind her, and she could feel his breath on her neck. She turned and his blue gaze dropped straight to her mouth.
‘Nick.’
She tried really hard not to sound like a horny castaway. And failed.
They looked at each other for a long time, their illicit jungle kiss a living, breathing animal between them. His gaze dropped further, roving over her body as if assessing what had changed and what had stayed the same.
‘That’s a good look,’ he murmured. ‘Is that rapper chic? I probably have a spare hoody I can loan you.’
Frances had no doubt from Nick’s very thorough inspection that he was way more interested in what was inside her clothes than in the way they were barely staying on. She was surprised he hadn’t managed to make them fall off her from sheer willpower alone.
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Now, that’s not a smart thing to say,’ she teased. ‘Women can be very sensitive about their appearance.’
Nick chuckled and rubbed his chin. ‘Many apologies.’
Frances swore she could feel the scrape of his whiskers deep inside as if he’d rubbed them against her belly.
‘Didn’t pick you as the type to care about what a woman was wearing.’
He grinned. ‘You’re right. I absolutely don’t. Actually, I think women should just forget clothes altogether.’
Frances sucked in a breath.
There was an element of caveman about Nick that offended those Greenham Common values she’d been marinated in during her childhood. But, after Edward, she was up for a bit of you Tarzan, me Jane. And, frankly, she’d fantasised so much about Nick’s hard naked body, she doubted he was going to get off the island unmolested.
‘Just women?’ she enquired, deadpan, and was satisfied when she saw Nick’s throat bob convulsively.
He sobered. ‘What are you doing after the show?’
Frances swallowed also as Nick’s intense gaze stripped her bare. And not just of clothes, but of sense and rationality and propriety.
In short, everything she’d ever believed in.
‘Straight after the show?’
‘Yep.’
‘Nick? Nick!’
Frances tensed as Cheryl’s screech cut across the general hubbub surrounding them, and returned her gaze to Nick. ‘I think I’m going to have the strangest urge to lose my clothes.’
‘Here you are, darl. Jeez, have you seen this spread? Farking lousy bastards weren’t so bloody generous while we were here.’
Cheryl pulled up beside Nick and handed him a laden plate. He took it automatically, even though his gaze never left Frances’s.
‘Your sister’s eating for England,’ she said pointedly to Frances. ‘I’d get in there, if I were you.’
There wasn’t open hostility in Cheryl’s voice but no-one could have mistaken her tone for warm. Frances dragged her eyes from Nick to regard Cheryl. She looked different now. Maybe it was having had some distance or maybe the game had changed Frances irrevocably. Suddenly she saw less of the shrieking harpy, and more of the vulnerable girl who had once been an Olympian and gave up her time to teach disabled kids to ride.
Anyway, she certainly wasn’t going to have a turf war with the woman in front of everyone. Not when she could shag Nick�
��s brains out behind her back in a couple of hours. She gave Cheryl a stiff little smile and took a step towards the table.
‘No, hang on a minute,’ Nick said, placing a hand on Frances’s arm.
She looked down at it as her skin sizzled beneath his touch. His hand looked brown against her pale arm and she couldn’t wait to see how it looked against her belly, her thighs, her breasts. She shut her mind to the delicious images. Cheryl might have been an irritation but it didn’t seem right to be fantasising about Nick, and his hands, right in front of her.
‘We wanted to let you know,’ he lowered his voice, ‘you can count on our votes.’
He looked at Cheryl and she nodded. ‘Even mine.’
Frances blinked. She supposed, suddenly, that she should have been busy trying to canvass support but her hormones had totally hijacked all reason. After weeks of having the public decide it was easy to forget that the final vote was up to the banished contestants.
Especially with Nick oozing testosterone all over her.
‘Th … thank you,’ Frances murmured, stunned by Cheryl’s support.
She shrugged. ‘Can’t have the Japs win. My grandfather fought them in World War Two, you know. Kokoda.’
Frances smiled automatically, not really knowing at all. ‘I really appreciate it.’
She looked down at Nick’s hand, deliciously warm and heavy. His thumb, a little rough from manual labour, stroked the underside of her arm – once twice, three times – before letting go.
Frances’s brain was still scrambled when she sidled up to Lex and Joni a moment later. They were feeding Des morsels of pudding.
‘What’s good?’ she asked, absently picking up a mince pie.
Joni opened her mouth to reply but Lizzie and Carter descended upon them again.
‘Oh my God, darlings, they have HobNobs as well! It’s a feast!’ Lizzie proclaimed. She breathed cinnamon and cloves over them in her excitement, having obviously found the mulled wine. Frances had no idea how she could drink the hot, sickly brew in the middle of the steaming jungle. But then, for someone who’d cut her teeth on dubious wines of unknown flowery origin, mulled wine – proper wine from authentic vintners – must have seemed like nectar from the gods.
‘Carter, be a darling and get me more of those divine chocolates,’ she threw over her shoulder. He departed to do her bidding.
The sisters looked at each other. Frances didn’t need a PhD in non-verbal communication to know that Joni was thinking the same thing she was.
What the hell was going on?
Lizzie and Carter did not touch. They did not hold hands.
It was plain weird to see a re-emergence of the screwed up co-dependency that had kept them together for too long.
It seemed Joni was right. Addiction came in many forms.
‘All right, what the fuck is going on with you two?’ Joni demanded.
Lizzie looked momentarily confused.
‘What? Don’t be silly, it’s nothing. Just a one-time thing,’ she said dismissively with a wave of her hand.
‘A one-time thing?’ Frances asked.
Lizzie shrugged. ‘They put us up in Cairns overnight. We … you know … Joni. How do you young people put it? “Hooked up”?’
Joni choked on her orange juice and France almost inhaled a sultana from her mince pie. Lex extracted Des from Joni then manfully bashed them both on the back.
‘You what?’ Joni hissed.
‘Oh relax, darlings. Don’t be such fuddy-duddies, we only did it once.’
‘Oh, God, kill me now,’ Joni groaned.
‘Well, your father could only manage it once. He left his little blue pills back in London.’
They both gave their mother a horrified look and Joni stuck her fingers in her ear and la, la, la-ed out loud.
‘Please don’t say anything else,’ Frances begged. The thought of her long-divorced parents having sex last night was more than enough, without the knowledge her father needed the aid of Viagra.
‘Don’t be babies,’ Lizzie scolded. ‘It’s not what you think.’
Joni dropped her fingers from her ears and leaned forward. So did Frances. This was surely the bit where their mother told them it was all a joke and gobbled some more HobNobs. ‘Your father has a bend in his penis. The pills help with that.’
Frances gaped. ‘Mother!’
‘Oh, darling, you always were too uptight,’ Lizzie said, patting her cheek. ‘I have needs too, you know. A woman only gets more sexual with age.’
Frances shook her head vigorously. It was way too much information. Even if she did have first-hand knowledge of a woman’s burgeoning sexuality, she did not want to hear about her mother’s.
‘Oh God.’ Joni looked at Frances. ‘Do you think if I cut off my ears, she’ll stop?’
‘Although, you know what,’ Lizzie said, looking at the wild press of vegetation around them, ‘there’s something kind of primal about this place, isn’t there?’
Frances watched as her mother eyed her father predatorily as he walked towards them, his hands full of pretty, bright wrappers.
Looked like he was next on her menu.
‘Something quite … sssexual.’
Her mother said ‘sexual’ like no-one she knew. She rolled it around her tongue, like it was ripe and juicy; like the word had been created especially for her. Then she was gone in a blur of colour, their father squarely in her sights. And Joni and Frances were left to contemplate a life which would forever be haunted by the knowledge of their father’s bendy penis.
‘I like her.’ Lex nodded, petting Des as he watched Lizzie home in on her prey. ‘She’s got gumption.’
Frances glanced at him. The fact that he didn’t seem to have been put off by a conversation that would leave both sisters permanently scarred, made her like him that much more. That he obviously adored Joni sealed the deal.
‘Rightio,’ The Stapler screeched. Frances waited for you fookers but, again, as she was on her best behaviour, the words never came. ‘Ten minutes till you have to take your places.’
Chapter 19
Frances
Thirty minutes later, everyone was seated and knew their roles. The eight banished contestants sat on two rows of logs to one side of the fireplace. Their job was to listen to the last-minute statements of the finalists and then vote according to their consciences. The result would decide who would win the money and who would go home empty-handed.
The finalists’ guests sat on one log on the other side. They were there for moral support and dram-cam opportunities only.
At the top end, with the altar behind them, also sharing one log, sat Joni and Frances, Takahiro and Kazuki.
At the other compass point, a large screen had been pulled into place. Frances eyed it nervously. God alone knew what means of torture The Stapler had dreamed up using this particular object. Maybe they were all going to be reminded of the highlights – and the lowlights – of their time on the show? She grimaced. There wasn’t one moment on this godforsaken island she ever wanted to be reminded of.
Well … she glanced at Nick, who hadn’t taken his eyes off her all evening.
All but one.
Sally, Lex and the rest of the crew stood by the nearest trailer and watched.
Darryl, looking ridiculously English in a sarong and tank top, stood in front of the screen, waggled his weaves, and the farce began.
‘Welcome to the finale of Endurance Island. Who will leave the island two hundred thousand pounds richer and who will leave with nothing? Will it be our lovely Feuding Heiresses, who have overcome all odds and reconciled? Or will it be the Game Show Samurais, who have found honour out here in the wilds and can go back to Japan with their heads held high?’
The screen flicked on. ‘But, first, a montage of their time on Endurance Island.’
Frances could barely watch. The scenes of Joni and her at each other’s throats were too painful to witness now. Watching her sister being zapped was gut-wrench
ing. Watching the ‘landmine’ exploding under her foot was unbearable. Listening to Joni confess the whole Edward debacle again, as she’d sat stony-faced and impassive, was too awful.
The montage came to an end, and Darryl and his weaves were back.
‘Soon the votes will be cast,’ he intoned. Frances got the mental picture of a kid around a camp fire, shining a torch in his face to look more scary.
‘But, first, each couple gets to make a statement justifying why they deserve to win. Why they deserve to take home untold riches.’
He turned to face the remaining contestants.
‘Takahiro Miyagi. You will speak for your team.’
Frances tensed. Joni’s hand wiggled into hers and they both held their breaths.
Takahiro stood and puffed out his chest.
Frances really wanted him to fail. He was, after all, a sick little fucker – mean and calculating. He’d let his injured team mate become bait and had deliberately left two defenceless women facing down a massive crocodile. She prayed he’d be his usual short-guy-with-a-Napoleon-complex self and come across as a complete twat.
And he was and he did.
Lots of hai, hai, hai and yelling, punctuated by fierce gesticulation towards Joni and Frankie. But there was something poignantly indomitable about the little man that, despite everything, Frances related to and she felt sure would win him supporters.
This mattered to him. It was battle, it was honour at stake.
Then it was their turn. Her turn.
She’d prevaricated about this for the last two days after Joni had let her know in no uncertain terms that the speech was her baby.
Public speaking had always come easily to Frances so it wasn’t about that. But what tack to take? Everything depended on this speech – this moment.
So, when she opened her mouth, she talked about journeys – both literal and spiritual. And, although she never mentioned the rift between her and Joni, there wasn’t one person listening who didn’t get the metaphor.
Frances was gracious as well, taking a moment to reflect on the strengths of each of her fellow competitors, and even the crew, and what she had learned from them. It would have been easy to disparage people, to point out everyone’s weaknesses and, particularly, Takahiro’s megalomaniac bent, but now was the time to be magnanimous.
