‘… Yes. But how could you…’ She shook her head. ‘Yes, you do remind me of Daffy. Very much.’
‘I thought that was it,’ I said. Then I continued on my way.
My Lost Shit
Mister Duck was waiting for me at the look-out post, as he had done every morning since the shark attack.
I’d had a shock the first time I found him up there, and we’d promptly had an argument. I felt it had been reasonable for him to appear while I’d been helping Christo in the caves. With or without the phosphorescence, the caves had the qualities of a nightmare – exactly where you’d imagine Mister Duck might show up. But to see him in crisp sunshine, sitting with an unlit joint clamped between his teeth like a cowboy’s cheroot, was hard to take.
For as long as the initial bewilderment gripped me, I stood gawping while he grinned and tilted his head from side to side. Then I’d said, ‘It’s broad daylight, Mister Duck!’
I said it angrily because I felt obscurely insulted by the brazen nature of his apparition.
‘Broad daylight,’ he replied evenly, ‘is what it is.’
I paused. ‘… I’m not dreaming.’
‘True.’
‘Then I’m going insane.’
‘Do you want an honest answer?’
‘Yes.’
He shrugged. ‘I’d only query the tense. But I’m not a professional, so, you know, seek out a second opinion.’
I threw up my arms, threw them down again, and sat heavily on the ground. Then I reached out and touched his shoulder. It was as dry and warm and solid as my own.
Mister Duck frowned when I shuddered. ‘You have a problem?’
I shook my head. ‘Yes, I have a problem. I’m mad.’
‘So? Are you complaining?’
‘Complaining?’
‘Is that what you’re doing? Complaining?’
‘I’m…’
He cut me off. ‘If you’re complaining, buddy, I’m going to tell you right now, I don’t want to hear it.’
‘I’m just…’
‘I’m just, I’m just,’ he mimicked. ‘You’re just what?’
‘I’m very fucking shocked! Seeing you and… being mad!’
Mister Duck’s face screwed up in disgust. ‘Where’s the shock in being mad?’
‘Everywhere!’ I said furiously. ‘I don’t want to be mad!’
‘You don’t want to be mad? Well, well. Mind if I pick you up on that?’
I pulled out a cigarette with slightly shaking hands, then put it back, remembering I couldn’t smoke on the island. ‘Yes. I mind. I want you to go away.’
‘Tough. Answer this. Where are you?’
‘Leave me alone!’
‘Where are you?’ he repeated.
I covered my face with my hands. ‘I’m in Thailand.’
‘Where?’
‘Thaila…’
‘Where?’
Through the cracks between my fingers, I stole a glance down to the DMZ. My shoulders slumped as I got the gist. ‘… Vietnam.’
‘Vietnam!’ A great crowing grin spread across his features. ‘You said it! You wanted it! And now these are the breaks! In Country, losing your shit comes with the territory!’ He whooped and slapped his thigh. ‘Fuck it, man, you should be welcoming me! I’m the proof you made it! Rich, I am your lost shit! Viet-fuckin’-nam!’
By the end of that day, I was already feeling pretty comfortable with Mister Duck’s presence. And by the end of the second, I realized I was quite pleased about it. He was good company, in his way, and he knew how to make me laugh. Also, as we were spending hours with each other, a lot of our conversation was about commonplace stuff, like places we’d both been to or films we’d both seen. It was hard to stay shocked by someone while you were talking about Star Wars.
After the burial I was very keen to get to the look-out post. I had lots of questions for Mister Duck about Tet and I wanted to tell him about Sal’s speech to the camp, so I jogged almost all the way up to the pass.
I found him with Jed’s binoculars clamped to his eyes.
‘I’ve got loads to tell you,’ I panted, as I sat down beside him, breathless from my haste. ‘We buried Sten and Sal made a long speech to the camp. She talked about Tet. You haven’t told me about Tet. And she talked about you too.’
An odd look passed over Mister Duck’s face. ‘Sal talked about me? What did she say?’
‘She said Tet would be different this year because you were gone.’
‘… Is that all she said?’
‘That’s all she said about you. But she also talked about Tet and camp morale.’
Mister Duck nodded. ‘Very nice,’ he muttered disinterestedly.
‘Don’t you want to hear about it? It was really impressive the way she spoke. I think she had a real effect on…’
‘No,’ he interrupted. ‘I don’t.’
‘… You don’t want to hear about it?’
‘Nope.’
‘Oh… Why not?’
‘Because, Rich… Because…’
He seemed to drift off for a moment, lowering the binoculars, raising them to have another look, and then lowering them again.
‘Because I want to talk about Airfix models.’
To Those Who Wait
‘Airfix models.’
‘Or Matchbox models. Either.’
‘Any particular reason?’
‘Curiosity.’
‘Mister Duck, we just buried Sten today. Sal made an amazing speech. There ‘s some celebration called Tet coming up, which you’ve never mentioned, and…’
‘Spitfires,’ he said patiently, sliding himself round to face me. ‘Messerschmitts. Did you ever make them?’
I looked at him. ‘… Yes.’
‘Hurricanes?’
‘Hurricanes too.’
‘Lancaster bombers? Lysanders? Mosquitoes?’
‘… I think I made a Lysander once.’
‘Hmm. Any jets?’
I resigned myself to the unlikely topic. ‘No. I never liked making jets.’
‘Me neither. How about that? No jets… Or boats, tanks, trucks…’
‘Or helicopters. They were such a pain, which was a shame because I loved the way they looked.’
‘Naturally.’
‘It was the rotor blades…’
‘Those bloody rotor blades. They’d keep falling off before the glue was dry.’
I didn’t reply for a moment. A gentle tickling had alerted me to an ant that had found its way on to my stomach. After a couple of seconds I found it, trapped in the line of hair that ran from my belly button. I picked it up by licking my finger so the ant stuck to the spit. ‘Very difficult,’ I finally said, and blew the ant away.
Mister Duck’s eyes gleamed mischievously. ‘So you weren’t very good at making models then.’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Well, were you any good?’
‘Uh…’ I hesitated. ‘I was OK.’
‘You didn’t use to mess them up? Too much polyester cement, the pieces not fitting together properly, annoying gaps where the wings met the body, or where the two halves of the undercarriage met. Be honest now.’
‘Oh, well… Yeah. That used to happen all the time.’
‘Same. It used to drive me nuts. I’d start the model with the best intentions, trying so hard to do a perfect job, but it would almost never work out.’ Mister Duck chuckled. ‘And at the end, I always got left with the same problem.’
‘Which was?’
‘What to do with the messed-up model once it was finished. I knew a guy who made perfect models and he’d hang them from his ceiling with bits of thread. But I didn’t want to do that with the planes I made. Not with their gluey fingerprints all over the place. It would have been embarrassing.’
‘I know what you mean.’
‘I thought you would.’
Mister Duck lay back on the grass contentedly, using his folded arms as a pillow. As he did so a b
utterfly passed near him. A big one, with long strips on each wing that ended in a bright blue circle, like tiny peacock feathers. He reached up a finger, hoping for the butterfly to land, but it ignored him and fluttered off down the slope towards the DMZ.
‘So, Rich,’ he said lazily. ‘Tell me what you used to do with the messed-up models.’
I smiled. ‘Oh, I used to have the best laugh with them.’
‘Yeah? It didn’t drive you nuts then.’
‘Sure. At first I’d be kicking chairs around and swearing. But then I’d go out and buy some lighter fuel and I’d drop them out of windows. And also I’d cut holes in the bodies and slide in a firecracker to blow them up.’
‘Good fun.’
‘Great fun.’
‘Burning the bad models.’
‘So you used to do the same thing?’
‘Sort of.’ Mister Duck closed his eyes against the hot sun. ‘I burned the good ones too.’
It must have gone midday before I checked on Zeph and Sammy. Our chat had distracted me from the job at hand, which may have been its intent. I’d sunbathed and dozed for a couple of hours, remembering melting Focke-Wulfs and plastic burns from being careless. I might have forgotten about them altogether if Mister Duck, with careful timing, hadn’t reminded me.
‘Sal’s not going to be happy,’ he said.
I sat up. ‘Huh?’
‘Sal’s not going to be happy. In fact, she’s going to be seriously pissed off. She’ll do her funny little frown… You ever notice her funny little frown?’
‘No. But how come she isn’t going to be happy?’
‘I can’t believe you’ve never noticed her frown. I always used to think she looked so pretty when she was pissed off. Her eyes would glow and… Do you think Sal’s pretty?’
‘Uh…’
‘I think she is.’
I looked at him for a couple of moments, then burst out laughing. ‘Well, well! You had a crush on her, didn’t you?’
‘A crush?’ He went red. ‘I wouldn’t call it a crush. We were very close, that’s all.’
‘You mean she didn’t fancy you.’
‘I just told you, we were very close.’
I laughed harder. ‘Nothing ever happened, did it?’
Mister Duck shot me an annoyed look. Then he said, ‘Nothing physical happened. But some relationships, close relationships, don’t need a physical connection. A spiritual bond can be more than enough.’
‘Unrequited love.’ I groaned, wiping tears from my eyes. ‘Now I understand why you put up with Bugs all that time.’
‘Well, you’d be the expert on unrequited love.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Does the name Françoise ring a bell?’
I stopped laughing.
‘Ding dong!’ Mister Duck chimed. ‘How’s that for a fucking bell?’
‘Do me a favour. It’s completely different. For a start, Françoise actually does fancy me. And whereas Bugs is a prick, Étienne is a great guy. Which, I should point out, is the only reason nothing happens. Neither of us wants to hurt his feelings.’
‘Mmm.’
I glowered at him. ‘Anyway. Do you think we could get back to the point?’
‘What point?’
‘You said Sal was going to be seriously pissed off about something.’
‘Oh… Yeah.’ Mister Duck chucked me the binoculars. ‘Because of the raft.’
‘… Raft?’ I scrambled over to the edge of the look-out point and slammed the binoculars to my face. Quickly, I scanned along their beach. It was empty. ‘I don’t see anything,’ I said. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Where are you looking?’ Mister Duck replied languidly.
‘Their beach!’
‘Find the split palm.’
‘…Got it.’
‘OK. Now go to six o’clock. Six or seven.’
I eased the binoculars downwards, leaving the sand behind, moving into the blue water.
‘There yet?’
‘Where yet? I still can’t see anythi…’ I gulped. ‘… Oh fuck.’
‘Impressive, huh? They may have taken their time, but they sure put it to good use.’ He sighed while I hyperventilated. ‘Tell the truth, Rich. No bullshit. Do you think Sal ever thinks about me?’
Fine Thanks
Discovering that Zeph and Sammy were on their way left me a lot more anxious and a lot less excited than I’d expected. I found this confusing, and was still trying to make sense of my reaction by the time I arrived back at camp. Whereupon, immediately, I became even more confused.
There was nothing in the clearing to suggest we’d buried Sten that morning. The atmosphere was more like a Sunday than a wake. A few people were kicking a football beside the longhouse, Jesse and Cassie were whistling as they laid out some washing to dry, Unhygienix was playing the Gameboy with Keaty watching over his shoulder. Françoise was the biggest surprise. She was sitting with Étienne and Gregorio in the spot occupied by the Bugs faction until only yesterday. I’d expected her to be keeping an eye on Karl until sundown, as she had every day since the attack. In fact, a quick look around didn’t show up any missing faces, so I guessed Karl had been left alone.
In a way, it was reassuring to learn that, whatever my own state of mind, I was sane enough to recognize this as abnormal behaviour. And to make sure that my companions’ behaviour was as inappropriate as it appeared, when I passed Cassie I asked her how she was feeling. I chose her partly because she was on my route, but also because this was the question she’d nagged me with in the days following the food poisoning. ‘Um,’ she said, not pausing from hanging up the washing. ‘I’ve been worse.’
‘…You aren’t feeling sad?’
‘About Sten? Oh yes, I am, of course. But I believe the burial helped. It puts it in the past, I think. In perspective, wouldn’t you say?’
‘… Sure.’
‘It was so difficult to find perspective while his body was lying around.’ She laughed, looking puzzled. ‘What an awful thing to say.’
‘But it’s true.’
‘Yes. I think the burial was the release we needed. Just look how it relieved the tension around here… Shorts, Jesse.’
Jesse handed her a pair of shorts.
‘And Sal’s speech was a great help too. We needed her to bring us together. We’ve been talking a lot about Sal’s speech. We thought it was very good, didn’t we?’
Jesse’s face was hidden by the heap of damp T-shirts he held in his arms, but I saw his scalp nod.
‘Yes,’ Cassie continued, in her vague and cheerful monologue. ‘She’s good at that kind of thing… Charisma and… And what about you, Richard? How are you feeling?’
‘I’m feeling fine.’
‘Mmm,’ she said absently. ‘Of course. You always are, aren’t you?’
I left Cassie and Jesse a few minutes later, after some small talk that wouldn’t bear mentioning if it wasn’t that the small talk was another reason why everything felt so strange. The only time I got close to unsettling Cassie was when I asked after Karl and Christo. She dropped the T-shirt she was holding at the time – not the dramatic response it might seem but an inconsequential slip of the hand. Less inconsequential was her reaction. ‘Fuck it!’ she snapped, which was unusual in itself because Cassie rarely swore, and her face darkened with a sudden flush. Then she held the shirt up, glowering at where the dirt had stuck to the damp material, and threw it back at the ground. ‘Fuck it!’ she said again. A strand of spit that had been linking her lips broke with the force of the words, and the top half swung upwards and clung to her cheek. I didn’t bother to repeat the question.
Cabin Fever
On my way across the clearing, I briefly debated who I should tell about the raft first – Jed or Sal. Going by the book, it should have been Sal. But we didn’t have a book so I went with my instincts and told Jed.
I noticed the bad smell as soon as I climbed into the hospital tent. It was sweet and sour; vo
mit for the sour and something less distinct for the sweet.
You get used to it,’ said Jed quickly. He hadn’t even turned round so he couldn’t have seen me wince. Maybe he’d heard me cut my breathing. ‘In a couple of minutes you won’t smell a thing. Don’t go.’
I pulled up the neck of my T-shirt to cover my nose and mouth. ‘I wasn’t going to go.’
‘Not one person has come in all day. Can you believe it? Not one person.’ Now he did turn to look at me, and I frowned with concern when I saw his face. Spending almost all his time in the tent had taken a toll. Although his tan was still deep – it would have needed more than five days to wash that out – it seemed underlain by grey, as if his blood had lost its colour. ‘I’ve been listening to them out there since two,’ he muttered. ‘They came back at two. Even the carpenters. They’ve been playing football.’
‘I saw.’
‘Playing football! None of them thinking to check up on Christo!’
‘Well, I think after Sal’s speech everyone’s trying to get back to…’
‘Even before Sal’s speech they were staying away… But if it was Sal in here… if it was anyone else… Apart from me…’ He hesitated, looking blankly at Christo, then laughed. ‘I don’t know. Maybe I’m being paranoid… It’s just it’s so weird. Hearing them outside, wondering why they don’t come to check up…’
I nodded, although actually I was only half listening. His confinement with Christo was obviously getting to him and he clearly wanted to talk about it, but I had to bring up the subject of the raft. Sammy and Zeph would have covered the sea between the two islands before nightfall – a conservative estimate I’d worked out with Mister Duck by halving the time it had taken us to make the swim. At the earliest, that meant they could start the journey across the island tomorrow morning, and could conceivably reach the beach by tomorrow afternoon.
Christo stirred, distracting us both. For a second his eyes opened, clearly focusing on nothing, and a line of dark bile ran out of the corner of his mouth. Then his chest heaved and he appeared to slip back into unconsciousness.
Jed wiped away the line with Christo’s sheet. ‘I try to keep him on his side but he always rolls back… It’s impossible. I can’t tell what I should be doing.’