Opening a coconut was a lot harder than he'd imagined. He smashed it against a rock until his arms ached. Then the husk broke apart and he was left with the hard inner nutshell with its incorrigible monkey face, mocking him. He imagined it winking and spent a long time tracing the image of the winking coconut back to a cartoon that featured an ambitious squirrel. As far as he could recall, that squirrel, when it finally succeeded in breaking the shell, found only another shell inside. He needed better luck.

He slammed the nut down on the rock again and again, the percussion shuddering up his arm and into his shoulder. On the fourth or maybe fifth go he heard a crack and when he twisted the shell between his hands, it began to give. He held it with the break horizontal and peeled the two pieces apart. Cupped inside was the coconut juice. He tipped it, wanting to drink without spilling, but his hands shook and it leaked down the sides of his face. What he finally tasted was sweet and wonderful and he wished there was more. He nibbled the meat from around the edges, only wishing he could eat it more quickly because he was so hungry. The rainbow ear of an abalone shell shone at his feet. He picked it up and broke it against the rock so that it left a flat blade that he dug under the coconut meat, prising a lump of it out. Man the tool user. There was a primordial feel to that thought, he'd studied this, he knew about this. Al could tell him more, but he remembered some of it; the love of discovery. As if he'd been the one who struck the first flint, been the first to use a lever to move a rock. He could survive on this island. He could get this guy rescued. That had to be what it was all about.

Grey clouds were massing in the sky. They'd covered all the blue and the wind that had been a warm breath in the night had come about, raising the waves up and slamming them into the reef. He walked away from the beach. There were other fruit trees on the island: banana, breadfruit, mango. Al had said he was the first person ever to get there but it seemed unlikely. All these trees had probably been brought by whalers who left plants and animals on islands so they'd have something to eat in case they were ever shipwrecked and stranded there themselves. Often there were chickens and pigs as well, but he didn't think so in this case. He'd have heard the roosters crowing if there were chickens.

He wasn't sure what ripe breadfruit looked like, but some were bigger and softer than others and he pulled one of those down. The fruit was a little astringent. It would have gone better cooked, but he didn't fancy spending all day rubbing two sticks together to make a fire. Not until he really had to. He wondered what had happened to the box he'd floated in on. It had smashed on the reef, but surely its contents, or at least some of them, had washed onto the shore.

It would have been nice to see footprints in the sand, to have had some reassurance of other inhabitants on the island. The sound of the wind and surf were already driving him a little crazy.

'Hey. How's it going?'

All too often Al's arrival startled him. He jumped and the breadfruit fell out of his hand. He kicked at the sandy lump. 'That was my breakfast.'

'Sorry about that.' Al was wearing a Hawaiian shirt covered in pineapples and hula girls, underneath he had on white cotton pants and bright yellow sandals. 'Wow. Will you look at all this.' Al stopped and gazed out at the smashing waves, the wind-tossed trees, a lone seabird stalking along the waterline, poking its beak into the sand. 'Untouched wilderness. Throw in a few island girls and you'd have paradise.'

Sam frowned at him. So predictable.

'What?'

Sam, in his baggy, ragged underpants, hunched against the sting of sand that threatened to remove every hair from his legs and chest. The sky was bulked with thunderclouds; the sea was dark and dirty, churned with sand dragged up from its bottom. Some of the bird's feathers folded back in the wind, making it look scruffy and unkempt. 'I was hoping paradise would be a little more inviting than this.'

Al punched at Ziggy's link and blew out a stream of cigar smoke. 'It's August eight, nineteen fifty five and you're probably Abel.' He stared in confusion at the link, bashed it with his hand and took another puff of the cigar. 'Able seaman Roy Edwards.'

'Probably?'

Al nodded. 'The freighter Dromedary went down with all hands lost. The guy we've got in the waiting room fits Edwards' profile.'

'Why don't you just ask him?'

Al gazed up. 'Sam, the guy's, not good. He's been unconscious since the leap. Docs've got him on drips and saline and whatever the hell else you give someone, but…' He shook his head.

What happens to the leaper when the person he leaps into dies? Sam had come too close on one occasion. He did not want to know. 'They can fix him. They have to.'

'Sure.' Al shrugged, unconvinced.

'Tell me what you know about him. About Edwards.'

'Not much to know. Forty eight, never married, lived with his mother until she died eighteen months ago.' Al gestured, open handed, towards Sam. 'I mean that's eighteen months ago from where you are.'

'No wife, no kids, no girl, no best friend?' Sam looked helpless.

Al shook his head. 'Nada.'

'There has to be something I can do.' Sam headed down the beach. The wind was coming hard off the waves and he was starting to feel cold. He hoped the crate he'd been riding had washed up, had brought clothes that he could wear and matches and real food with it.

'Just hang in there, kid. That's all.' They rounded a rock spit and found a sandy cove, its beach littered with debris. 'Oh, now will you look at that?' Al's brow wrinkled in disgust. 'You couldn't get any further from anywhere than this and look. That's just rubbish washed up.'

'It's what I was looking for.' Sam was delighted. He ran down the beach towards the clutter of objects and broken wood. There had to be something. Matches, food, a radio, anything. Al appeared beside him. Yes, there were clothes washed up.

'Very tasteful,' Al said. 'Just your colour.'

Sam was not amused. Scattered about him was underwear. Enormous silk bloomers, structurally sound foundation garments created for women of hippopotamic proportions. There were bras that might have been useful for carrying food or small children, their cups voluminous. Maybe he could use one of the bras to slingshot himself into orbit. The wind slammed salt spray into him and he wrapped his arms around him against the chill. Even if he put all of those things on they wouldn't keep out the wind or threatening rain, and he'd probably die of terminal embarrassment if anyone caught him wearing them.

'Hey, look at this.' Al was crouched down over a small suitcase, partly torn open.

Sam pulled the lid of it open. 'It's full of books.' Pulp fiction. Pulp romance fiction. Illusion of Love. There on the cover a smeary-eyed woman and the back of a man's head. Finding Forever. A man and woman locked in either a passionate grapple or a life and death struggle, it was hard to tell which because the artwork was bad and the book had got wet, its cover warped.

'Well, at least you won't get bored,' Al said.

'At least I'll have something to make a fire with. If I had something to start a fire with.'

'You could rub two sticks together.' Al plugged his cigar into his mouth and rubbed his open palms together for a moment. He took the cigar out and stared at the lit end of it. Sam shared his thought. If only. 'Maybe there's matches or something in that box over there.'

There was a hatbox half hidden under a clump of seaweed. Sam wasn't holding his breath over that one. What good was a hatbox? It probably had a hat in it and he didn't even need to keep the sun off. So different from yesterday, he was almost grateful for his sunburn because the back of his neck was the only part of him that was warm.

The lid of the hatbox was clipped down, so at least its contents were still intact. Inside, yes. A hat. It was one of those awful floral numbers that Sam's mother had always yearned after when they'd gone to state fairs. He remembered her standing in front of the millinery exhibitions gazing at them. She loved the ones with roses on them and a spray of feathers. This monstrosity had everything. Flowers, fake fruit and not just feathers but an entire dead bird, a little one, staring at him with crystal eyes. There was absolutely nothing you could do with that except…

Sam plunked it on his head. 'Well? What do you think?'

Al sucked slowly on the cigar and nodded. 'Oh, very you, Sam. Very you. Kind of reminds me of the Carmen Mirandah number you did in the talent show.'

Maybe he'd sing to keep warm. He was on a cold tropical island with nothing to wear but a ridiculous hat and a bunch of old lady underwear and nothing to do but read trash magazines that might have interested his grandmother. He tossed the hat back onto the sand.

'Now what?'

Al shrugged. 'Maybe there's more?'

There wasn't. Side by side the two of them walked the circumference of the island. On the other beaches they found seaweed and a dead turtle with fishing line twisted around one rotting flipper. Al tutted and shook his head in disgust, but Sam crouched on the sand and untangled the hard nylon line from the turtle's body. There was no telling how long he was going to be here. Mabye it would come in handy. There was a Coke bottle that had been in the water so long that its glass body had been sandblasted to opacity. It was no good for focussing light and creating fire, but it could carry liquid. Sam picked it up. He gathered wood washed up from his broken crate. He even picked up a rubber thong. Anything might come in handy.

They detoured through the middle of the island, but there wasn't much middle. The island was a volcanic outcrop, its centre a lake from which the single creek emerged. There was no sign that it had ever been inhabited in any way, and aside from crabs and seabirds, nothing lived there. They finished up at the spot by the creek where Sam had slept the night before. Already he'd come to think of it as kind of his home. He put his collection of found objects at the base of the palm tree and looked up into the forest. Trees hung with mangoes and bananas, breadfruit and coconut. 'I'm going to have my lunch, Al. Why don't you go get something to eat too?' He could see that Al was reluctant to leave him, but there was nothing to do here, and maybe he could scare some sense out of Ziggy.

'Yeah. Sure, okay. I'll see if Ziggy's got anything new for us. Don't go anywhere, will ya, kid?'

The wind picked up and the clouds got blacker. Sam could see the dark shadow of rain on the western horizon. This really wasn't good. He was already cold and the thought of a storm worried him. He had to do something, make a shelter, build a fire, something to protect himself.

He went back down to the beach and gathered together all of the wood from the broken crate and the books in the suitcase. He made several trips, carrying them back to the creek. Not that there was anything, really, at the creek, just trees and a bit of a sandbank. There were no caves or rocky shelters on the island, it was mostly worn down by the weather, but he needed somewhere to call home. On the last trip back the the beach he even picked up the old lady underwear and stuck it into the hatbox. He looked at the hat, lying in the sand. If nothing else, it was reassuring evidence that he was not alone in the world, that other life existed somewhere. Besides, it made him laugh. He picked it up and put it back on his head.

'Home sweet home, huh? Al was standing by the collection of wood and books. His brow creased when he looked at Sam. 'How you doing, kid?'

'I'm okay.' Sam tossed the hatbox down. The lid came off and the hat spilled out and rolled on its roses. 'Just a bit cold, that's all.'

'Think warm thoughts.'

'Yeah.' Sam bent down to pick up the hat. Goosebumps stood out on his arm and the wind whipped sand into his eyes. He dropped the box. A smaller box fell out of it.

Sam wiped at his face, trying to get the sand off. He and Al both bent over the smaller box. Sam opened it. He knew that, like him, Al was hoping for matches or some wonderful expensive lighter, fuelled up and ready to burn. He couldn't hide his disappointment when all he found was a collection of jewellery. Rubies, pearls, diamonds. Al met his gaze and shrugged, his expression bland, apologetic.

'Too bad it's not sunny.' Sam held the diamond brooch up and peered through the crystals.

'Well at least you'd be warm.'

'I think I could focus the sunlight through this big one and use it to make a fire.'

'I guess. Can't do it without sunlight though, MacGyver.'

Sam put the brooch back into its box. 'Maybe tomorrow. Uh, who's MacGyver?' He looked up through the tossing heads of the trees and into the black overhead.

Al looked up from the handlink. 'Another TV show. You used to watch it.'

'Did I?'

'He was a real good guy. Bit like the Professor out of Gilligan's Island. He was always making things out of…stuff.'

'Oh yeah?' Sam looked at him, doubtful.

'Like he could construct a bomb out of two paperclips, a bent straw and half a bar of soap. Always thinking on his feet. You loved that show.'

'He always had his Swiss Army Knife with him.'

'That's it.' Al nodded.

'Wonder how he'd get a fire started.' Sam wrapped his arms around himself, trying to rub away the goosebumps. A raindrop smacked into his forehead.

Al hid his dismay, punching the keyboard to Ziggy's link, slapping it with the broadside of his hand and making it squawk and then howl. Smacking it again and again. 'It can't be right.' He stared at someone invisible to Sam and chewed on his cigar. 'Well check it again, it just can't, that's all.' He swung the link, pointing at it, angry. 'It's the wrong time of year. Cheez.'

'What is it?'

Al's shoulders drooped, defeated. 'Cheez.'

Sam peered at the handlink. 'It can't be that bad.'

'It's worse than bad. It's - real bad.'

'What?' Raindrops spattered onto Sam's bare shoulders. He tried to ignore them.

Al's eyes were full of apology when they finally met Sam's. 'This storm's going to get worse.'