CHAPTER SIX

Woman

JOHNNY KICKED A pebble by the shoreline; it skidded over a fresh wave and disappeared into the maya. The boy stood with his feet in the morning laps and tried to find it with his eyes, but the stone teased him, blended in with the shallow mosaic. When the next wave flowed over his toes he seemed to be moving backwards…

He shifted his gaze to the scribbly coral a mile away. Waves broke over its crest and made a constant, shimmering line of white between the island and the horizon; half the encompassed lagoon shone cyan before deep azure resumed to the frothy beach. Today a spot of white lay over the coral and did not move, as if a breaker had stopped in its tracks. Johnny stared at the curious ridge but thought little of it, and returned to the beds of fern to lie down again. There the other two were dozing in the shade of palms, while the sun beat rapturously everywhere else.

Eventually they stirred together and Ralph, who by now had a persistent sense of protectiveness, got up quickly to stretch himself. The beach yawned away on either side of him, white and cruelly luxurious. He stepped out onto the sand and surveyed the hazy mirages in the distance. Suddenly he frowned and espied what Johnny had seen.

'Hey, you two! There's a boat out there!'

The younger ones sat up, tousled and grumped. Johnny ran out to stand by Ralph. 'It's a boat?'

'You've already seen it?'

'I got up early this morning. I thought it was a wave.'

Ralph was incredulous but excited. 'That's no wave. It's a boat all right.' He stared unblinkingly at the distant shape. 'It must have got caught on the coral. We have to get out there.'

Johnny was dubious. 'But you'd drown, Ralph. It's miles away.'

Ralph was charged by adventure. 'Nonsense! It's a mile, if that.' He remembered swimming in a lake in Dartmoor, and instinctively raised his hands to unbutton his shirt – but he was a savage now, forever in greasy trunks. Wordless, with his heart rising into his head, he sploshed out into the lagoon and paddled twenty feet while Johnny and Percival watched dumbly from the scorching sand.

The water was luke, heavy, surprisingly choppy; waves beat with violence around the boy's ears as he swam. He changed his technique to a front crawl and moved with determination, then stopped abruptly to evaluate his gain. The coral was thrillingly near; looking back Ralph was shocked at how far away the beach was. Percival and Johnny were distant spots of anxiety.

Still buoyed by excitement, Ralph resumed his confident crawl and soon reached the froth of the coral. The ridge was a shout of white, a warning from the ocean. The stationary wave was indeed a boat: a small staggered sloop, painted white with a blue stripe on the hull. Its stern was tucked into the sea, and constantly showered by spray; the bow pointed up into the sky.

The content of this vessel was a mystery. Ralph became pragmatic: if there was nobody inside at least there might be provisions. Excited by thoughts of chocolate and lemonade – a picnic on the beach? – he swam up to the exposed belly and put his hands on the splintered wood. The boat had no visible damage, and its mast was intact, but the two sails had been ripped and drenched by a gale. Ralph remembered the storm from two nights before. The sloop must have been battered about on the open sea before the coral caught it.

With the close tug of shallow water at his feet, the boy swam around to the starboard side, put his hands on the edge of the hull, and hauled himself up. The boat had a small cabin with a slim window on either side. Ralph inched leftward and peered in.

At first the interior was gloomed by outer blares of sun, but then he made out the unmistakeable contours of a supine human. Around it was fallout from the storm: water lapped at the entrance and containers and sheets littered the floor. Ralph saw electronic equipment and boxes. Frightened by the motionless body but pained by hunger, he hoisted himself into the boat then rested against the gunwale. The motor behind him was dead, flapped in the water.

Ralph looked into the cabin. The body was lying in an S against the wall, propped up furtherly by domestic debris, and raincoated by a navy smocksy garment. It was a young woman – the watcher saw auburn hair tied back with a bow.

After weeks of delinquence and clandestine men, Ralph's heart dissolved in joy; he pushed himself up to the cabin entrance and put a hand on the unconscious arm. With a twinge he saw a patch of crusty blood on the hair, but it seemed to be a minor wound. The face was young, symmetrical, pained.

With a pang of tenderness Ralph shook the figure gently, and asked 'Are you alright?' The woman responded quickly, as if she had been asleep rather than concussed. Two eyes, naturally serene, opened and saw the interior wreckage, then the head shifted rightwards and up to find a young face expectant and sunburnt. The globes refracted this confusion, then blinked.

'Who are you? Where am I?'

Faintly foreign, her voice had a mellow quality that reminded Ralph of the word 'detailed'. He smiled at her and she relaxed a little.

'I'm Ralph,' he informed, retracting his hand shyly and scratching his wave-plastered head. 'We're near an island… somewhere. I don't know the exact location.'

The woman sat up with difficulty, and a small shower of culinary objects followed her into the lapping water. Ralph helped her to a sitting position. The woman stared beyond the boat to the open sea. Big blue waves rocked gently the craft. Then she stood and craned over the cabin roof to look at the distant shore.

'You swam all this way? How brave!'

Ralph blushed and looked at the sea. 'To be honest I didn't know anyone was inside. I was thinking about food, you see.'

The woman surveyed the boy's emaciation, stern but kindly. 'You look like you haven't eaten in weeks,' she said.

Ralph perked up, as if reassuring his mother. 'Oh no, we've been fine,' he said lightly. 'There's nuts, and berries, and spring water.'

The woman nodded receptively. 'How many of you are there?'

'Only a few,' said Ralph, looking back at the sea, still cradling a curious distrust of adults from his nightime encounter. 'Do you think you can swim to the shore?'

The woman leant against the rooftop and examined the remains of her cargo. 'Probably,' she said. 'But if you're short on rations we should bring some of this with us.'

'How?'

'Well,' began the woman, suddenly focussed, 'we could tie a rope around a box of provisions then float it behind us. This one's watertight.' She picked up a dripping tin container, then opened smaller ones to reveal shining packages of food.

Ralph's mouth watered instantly and his stomach rumbled. Logotype blinked silver in the sun. He saw sardines, biscuits, tomatoes. The woman saw his hunger and handed him a bar of new chocolate. 'Here.'

Wordless, grateful beyond language, the boy tore open the foil and devoured the dark, metallic confection. His tongue burned with new sensations, his mouth was a sea of saliva. 'This is incredible…'

The woman watched him with a smile, then after he had finished became more serious: 'Let's get started,' she said with an encouraging pat. The task was begun by filling the tin box with as many packages as they could; after five minutes of cramming the container was full, and the woman tied a rope around it to keep it shut, then knotted it through the handle. Ralph lifted it over the side of the boat and lowered it into the ocean, where it bobbed jigfully and stayed afloat. Buzzing from the chocolate, he jumped in himself and tied the rope around his stomach. 'Will you follow me?'

'I'll prepare the next one,' said the woman, so Ralph began the slow, arduous crawl towards the azure. The box tugged at his tummy and he had to rest thrice, but eventually he was nearing the shoreline. The two littluns greeted him with wild enthusiasm, delighted to find a boxful of food to excite over. The older boy gave them a chocolate bar to share. 'Now don't eat any more than that,' he said with an admonishing finger. 'We'll have to make plans about how to share it with the others.' The younger boys ate like savages. Ralph looked back at the coral and saw the woman at the halfway point; he swam out to meet her and assist with the weight.

Finally the two swimmers and their flotsam were ashore, and the littluns were again amazed – this woman was the first female they had seen since their mothers, weeks if not months before. They sat shyly a way off, licking their chops as the woman caught her breath, but Ralph sat nearer, and as his pants relented he looked afresh at the latest visitor.

Her countenance was strong, distinctive: opal eyes, sturdy chin, rotund nose, and a mauve pout that suggested a willful intelligence. Frizzled by seawater, chocolate hair fell over her forehead and teased around her neck where it wasn't tied. Around five and six, she was dressed in robust sailing clothes, but underneath she was demure: a scarlet pullover and a half-hidden necklace. Her feet were pinked raw from the elements; she had taken off her boots to swim to the beach.

She ran a hand through the white powder and returned Ralph's stare with a friendly smile. 'Just you three?'

'Well, I think there are a few others about…' stammered Ralph with a grimace. He wondered how they would share their load with the others now that Jack thought he was dead – feeding them would mean giving up his freedom to roam the island. Or would the woman be strong enough to unite the hunters? Perhaps Roger's ignorance of Jack's intentions could be used in Ralph's favour…

The woman asked them for their names and they told her. She was called Rachel, she was a school teacher on another island many miles away. Travelling to the mainland two nights before, she had been caught in a storm and knocked unconscious before nearly capsizing on the coral. She had been unaware of the island until Ralph had woken her. Now she tentatively touched the browning blood on her head as she looked at the children before her. 'What's your story?'

So Ralph told her of the plane crash, the survivors, the divisions, the hunts – but left out the deaths, the duel, the strange man on the mountain. The woman listened in amazement. 'You've done well to keep yourself alive,' she complemented, but Ralph's heart murmured sorrow. If only she knew…

He got to his feet, keen to move. 'I'll show you where the spring is.' The four trotted past the palms and into the forest, where water bubbled invitingly; the woman knelt down and drank, then bathed her face and arms in the sparkling transparence. The boys did likewise, and refreshed they returned to the beach.

The afternoon was established. Ralph remembered the hunters, felt vulnerable again. 'There's something you should know,' he shied with a groundstare, then told the woman of Jack's psychosis and consequent imperatives, still omitting the messiahs and the duel.

Rachel was grave. 'And you're sure there's no way of making friends again?'

The boy was a clumsy acrobat with words. 'I was banished. I mean, I want to be out here, with these two, but…'

The young woman nodded, unconvinced but unhurrying. The three kids before her looked younger than they inwardly felt. 'Well, perhaps I should look for them, tell them I've brought food.'

'No,' snapped Ralph, thinking of the feral hunters, who would sooner take Rachel hostage than treat her as a curious queen. 'I've got an idea. Leave it to me.' And he got to his feet and walked off, turning once to make sure the other three were not following.

THE BOY APPROACHED the thicket. Through stark branches overhead he could glimpse Castle Rock. This afternoon the mount was guarded by Sam and Eric, so Ralph assumed that the others were out hunting. He wanted to find Roger, alone. Uncertain and anxious, he turned back into the forest and found the start of the pig run, then stayed between parallel trees until he heard the snapping of twigs and saw slivers of painted bodies. Their spears looked like walking trees. The clean blond squatted, close to the hunt; another figure walked past five metres away and Ralph hoped he would not be mistaken for an animal. He could feel the old sweaty energy of this ancient process: honed by the hunters, still appealing to the crouching outcast. At least he had his own death on his side. He was the one thing the hunters wouldn't expect…

Someone shouted in the distance, then came a flurry of leaves under hard feet. A sow rushed past where Ralph was hiding and frightened him; he froze as an anonymous hunter dashed in pursuit. Another followed, then another farther away. The forest was quiet again. Ralph looked past trees and ferns – and he saw Roger, spear in hand, unmistakable. Thoughtless and rash, Ralph bolted from behind his tree and ran up to the astonished hunter.

'Roger! Jack gave me his knife so I could kill you.'

The deputy was bewildered, then his instinct for violence kicked in and he leveled his spear at Ralph. 'Bollocks,' he said viciously.

'It's true. When I got to the beach a hunter followed me and gave me the knife. Do you actually think Jack would lose it by himself?'

Roger was pensive, torn. He stayed still, allowing Ralph to drive home his point.

'He likes me and he hates you!'

Another shout from the distance. Ralph looked behind him and saw several slivers approaching. He leapt behind a tree and looked at Roger. 'Well?' he hissed.

Roger remained perplexed and stationary, then he found Ralph's eyes and gave a shallow nod.

The figures were nearing. 'Distract them!' yearned Ralph, and the deputy did as he was told. He went off, dazed, and gathered the shadows together. The hunt was over.

After a few minutes the forest was quiet again, so Ralph dashed back to the beach, leaping onto the sand in his momentum and startling the waiting trio. They had formed a triangle around the pile of provisions.

'Any news?' asked the latest innocent.

'Hide the stuff,' said Ralph, curt and organised. 'I did what I could. Now we wait.'