‘What’s going on?’ Honor breathes.
Milo, still holding me close, looks conflicted. He wants to stay with me but a bigger part of him wants to find out what Jeffers is doing in the boat.
‘Try the pulse in his neck,’ Meg says as she leans over the side of the boat.
‘I’ve tried that.’ Jefferson’s disembodied voice floats back towards us. ‘I’ve tried both his wrists too. I can’t… I can’t find a pulse.’
‘Let me try.’
‘I’m telling you, there’s no pulse!’
‘So we do CPR. We… we…’ Meg’s voice cracks. ‘Jeffers, stop staring at me like that! We’ve got to do something. We’ve got to try.’
‘It’s too late.’
‘No it’s not. It’s not. Do CPR! For God’s sake, Jeffers. We can’t let him die.’
There’s a pause that seems to last a lifetime then Jefferson says, ‘It’s too late, Meg. Anuman is dead.’
‘No,’ I murmur. ‘No. No. No. No.’
‘Jessie?’ Milo says as I pull away from him. ‘Jessie, wait!’
My bare feet pound the sand and my lungs burn as I speed down the beach. I don’t stop when I reach the rocks at the far end. I clamber up them, the sharp planes scratching my palms and the soles of my feet. This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening. The chant plays out in my head as I continue to climb. I reach the edge of the rocks and stare down at the sea, crashing and splashing below me. There’s nowhere left to run. My chest’s burning with the scream that’s been building since Anuman’s face drooped on one side but, when I open my lips, nothing comes out.
I sit on the rocks, staring out to sea until my breathing slows and my hands stop shaking then I scrabble to my feet and walk back along the sand to the boat. Someone’s put a tarpaulin over Anuman but it’s not big enough to completely cover him. The sight of his brown, worn boots, sticking out of the bottom, almost makes me turn back but I force myself to keep walking closer. Honor is sitting on the sand, her knees gathered to her chest, her head in her hands, sobbing quietly. Danny is beside her, his arm around her shoulders, his face chalky. Our eyes meet as he turns to look at me and something passes between us – shock, pain, disbelief – before he turns back and nestles his head against Honor’s.
‘Honor,’ I say softly. ‘Are you OK?’
She shakes her head mutely.
My gaze drifts back to the boat and the boots sticking out from the tarpaulin. I want to believe that Jefferson was wrong, that Anuman is just unconscious and in a second, a minute, an hour, he’ll throw back his waterproof covering and ask us why we’ve abandoned the fire. But that’s not going to happen. We’re never going to hear his soft lilting voice again.
‘It must. It must be so hard…’ Honor looks up at me, her face streaked with tears. ‘For you, Jessie. To see… to see what happened to Anuman, I mean… because…’ she tails off, unsure how to finish her sentence. I’m grateful for her awkwardness. The last thing I want to talk about right now is Tom.
‘I liked him,’ Danny says and for a second I don’t know if he’s talking about our guide or my brother. ‘He was really patient with me yesterday, when I was trying to start the fire. And he… he put up with all Jefferson’s know-it-all shit too.’
The smallest of smiles creeps onto Honor’s face. ‘He was so nice. He was telling me yesterday about his wife Boonsri and how her name means beautiful and how, even at sixty-three years old, she’s still the most beautiful woman he’s ever met and—’ her voice breaks and she presses her face into Danny’s shoulder again, her body shaking as she sobs. I press a hand to my chest. I feel as though someone just slid a piece of glass into my heart.
As Danny hugs her close I wander over to Meg, Milo and Jefferson, huddled together beside the boat, up to their knees in seawater, talking softly. Jefferson turns as I approach.
‘Are you OK, Jessie?’
‘Yeah,’ I lie.
‘We think it was a stroke,’ Meg says. The sun is beating down on us but she’s got her arms wrapped around her body like we’re in the Arctic.
‘It happened so quickly,’ Milo says. ‘He seemed fine yesterday. He was whacking down trees and hoisting them onto his shoulder; he was fitter than all of us put together. It just… it doesn’t make sense. How can someone like that just… just die?’ He swallows and turns away, lightly shaking his head. He can’t believe what’s happened. None of us can.
‘A man his age shouldn’t have been chopping down trees and sleeping on the ground with a bunch of teenagers,’ I say. ‘He should have been at home, with his family, he should have been retired, enjoying life—’ The word catches in my throat and I take a steadying breath.
Meg rests her hand on my shoulder and gives it a squeeze. ‘You know there was nothing we could have done. Don’t you, Jessie?’
She means well but her words send a shiver through me. I’ve heard that phrase before.
‘Wasn’t there?’ I ask.
‘If anyone should feel guilty it should be me,’ Jefferson says. ‘This was my birthday present. It was—’
‘Stop it,’ Meg says. ‘Guys, please. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. It was a stroke. It could have happened anywhere, at any time.’
‘We should bury him,’ Jefferson says. ‘It’s the respectful thing to do.’
‘No.’ Meg shakes her head firmly. ‘His family… they’ll want to pay their respects.’
‘Meg’s right,’ I say. ‘He’s got a big family – a wife, three children and seven grandchildren. We can’t bury him, that’s not our decision to make. We need to take him back with us.’
‘My dad will help,’ Jefferson says. ‘He’ll make sure his family are well looked after.’
‘We’ll all ask our parents to contribute,’ Milo says.
Everyone nods and then we lapse into silence, lost in our own thoughts.
‘Can we go then?’ Meg asks.
‘Go?’ Jefferson looks confused.
‘Back to the mainland. You can drive the boat, can’t you?’
He shakes his head.
‘’Course you can,’ Milo says. ‘You just pull the starter cord and steer with the handle thing.’
‘It’s called a…’ Jeffers shakes his head sharply. ‘Doesn’t matter. We’re not taking the boat anywhere.’
‘But why not?’ I say. ‘Do you think it’s too dangerous? Or—’
‘Jessie,’ Jeffers says. ‘We can’t start the engine because the starter cord is gone.’
We’ve all been sitting around the fire for a good hour or so now: Danny and Honor locked together as they stare listlessly into the flames, Milo and Meg talking softly and Jefferson and I discussing what we do now. With no starter cord the boat’s as good as useless. There are no paddles and, even if there were, this island is so remote it could take hours and hours for us to get back to the mainland, and that’s assuming we didn’t drift off course.