X-Isle (7 page)

Ray sighed. “OK. There’s Taps, Enoch, Robbie, Amit, Cookie, Gene and Jubo. The divers are Isaac, Luke, Amos, Moko. Capos – Steiner and Hutchinson. And you. Dyson.”

“Friggin’ hell,” said Dyson. “
You’re
 good.” He turned to Baz. “Reckon you’ve got it too?”

“Yeah,” said Baz. “No problem.” But he was annoyed. He’d forgotten about the absent Cookie. “I got a couple more questions, though. What about pasta?”

“No good,” said Dyson. “You can’t buy anything with pasta here.”

“Oh. OK. One more thing – how come you’ve got electricity?”

Dyson looked up at the light bulb. “Genny,” he said. “A generator. They don’t keep it going all the time, just in the evenings. Runs on diesel, and it powers the lights and everything. Cheaper than burning candles or tilley lamps. They use it for the compressor too.”

“What’s the compressor?”

“Compressed air. To fill the divers’ air tanks. Don’t know how it works exactly, but Gene’d tell you. If Preacher John ever ran out of diesel, though, he’d be stuffed. I know that much.”

Dyson’s words faded away as he turned his head round further. The door had opened and someone was coming in. Baz leaned sideways to get a better view.

It was the fat boy in the white jacket, Cookie, followed by Hutchinson.

“OK, all of you – slob-down!” Hutchinson remained in the doorway, his hand on the light switch. “Dyson and Amit to pick crews in the morning. Four on the jetty, four in the sort room. One newbie apiece. Cookie, stop fannying about and get yourself sorted.”

“But I need to go to the washroom.” Cookie’s voice was a whine of complaint. He was down on all fours, looking through his belongings.

“Do it in the dark then, ya big lump.” The light went out and the door closed.

There was silence for a few moments, and then a low mocking chorus of voices began.

“Coo-kie... Coo-kie...”

“Yo! Sir Plus!”

“Cook-cook-cookeeee...”

Baz propped himself up on one elbow. The darkness wasn’t quite total, and he could see movement, the shadowy bulk of a figure stumbling closer. Cookie was making his way blindly down through the room, ducking to avoid the lines of washing. Baz heard the flat thump of bare feet on the carpet tiles, and wheezy labored breathing. The washroom curtain was drawn aside, and Cookie disappeared.

The mocking voices dissolved into general chatter.

“Amit – get out of Enoch’s bed. I know you’re in there.”

“Yeah, leave her alone, you homo.”

“But she likes it!”

“Ha, ha!”

“Naff off.”

Baz wasn’t yet familiar enough with the voices to know exactly who was speaking. He peered into the darkness and listened.

“God, my hands are killing me from hauling that rubble about.”

“Get Amit to kiss ’em better.”

“Yeah, yeah. Very funny.”

“Hey – did any of you see that packet of cornflakes that came in today? I couldn’t believe it.”

“Yeah. Came in with the newbies. Oi – newbies! Whose were the cornflakes?”

Baz waited for Ray to reply, but there was no sound from the next bed and so he said, “They were Ray’s. He brought them.”

“Can’t he speak for himself, then? What – he asleep already?”

But then the curtain was drawn aside and Cookie reappeared, the sound of his breathing heavy and asthmatic. He ran the gauntlet of jeers and hoots once again as he headed back towards his bed.

“Hey, Sir Plus, mind where you’re going.”

“
God
, yeah. Please don’t fall on us, Cookie! We’re too young to die!”

Cookie made no reply that Baz could hear. Eventually he must have got to his bed. At any rate the voices died away, and all became silent again.

Baz lay back and stared up into the darkness. He was tired, but there was too much going on in his head for him to be able to sleep just yet.

X-Isle. This had been his goal for the last year, and yet he hadn’t imagined that it would be anything like this. He’d thought that it would be a refuge. A safe haven. And he’d expected there to be a lot more than just ten boys here. He must have seen at least ten or twelve get on the boat from his area of the mainland alone. How could that be? And what would his dad do, or say, or think, if he could see this place? 
Dad. I miss you already...

“Uh-oh!”

“
Uh-oh
!”

“Blue angel alert!”

“Look out, lads, she’s flying tonight!”

“
Uh-oh
!”

Baz sat up again. What was going on now? He heard the faint click of a cigarette lighter from about halfway down the room... saw flickering shapes in sudden illumination... a confusion of shadows, hard to make out. A body? Yes, but strangely contorted, legs pointing up towards the ceiling...

It was Robbie, lying upside down in nothing but his shorts, his backside raised into the air, knees up around his ears. Baz caught a glimpse of bare ankles waving about before the lighter flame was abruptly extinguished and the room went black.

“Ohh...” Groans of disappointment. But then the lighter wheel sparked up again, throwing bright asterisks into the darkness, and 
whoomff...

A burgeoning sheet of blue flame appeared from Robbie’s bum, springing forth like an un bottled genie, a fiery will o’ the wisp that leaped and danced in brief abandon before swallowing itself, disappearing into its own vacuum. There and gone.

“Yay! Good one, Robbie!”

“The blue angel!”

“How come I can never do ’em as good as that?”

Baz remained leaning on one elbow, staring into the shadows in amazement. Lighting your own farts! He’d heard of such a thing, but had never actually seen it done before. Wow.

“Hey! I got one! It’s coming... it’s coming...”

“Uh-oh.”

“
Uh-oh.”

Another lighter sparked up – from the far side of the room this time. Someone else was having a go. Jubo. He too had propped himself into an upside-down bicycling position, buttocks in the air, and as the lighter flame steadied, he said, “Ey! Here we go... here we go...”

Jubo’s effort was even more spectacular than Robbie’s had been – a flaring jet of blue and yellow that roared out of him like a bunsen burner, a blowtorch, a fire-eater’s incandescent belch. 
Whurrffff...
the flame launched itself into the darkness and disappeared. Absolutely amazing. And amazing that Jubo hadn’t blown his insides apart in the process, thought Baz. Wasn’t it supposed to be really dangerous?

“Christ, Jubo! Were those 
curried
 beans you got tonight?”

“Ha! Blue angel or 
what
, man? Respec’ to the champ!”

“Yeah, yeah. I got one brewing make that look like a fairy fart.”

“Ey – newbies! See what it does to your guts living here? Got anything for us yet? You soon will.”

Baz considered the state of his own inner workings, but decided that any rumbles he felt down there were merely hunger. He peered towards Ray’s bed.

“Ray – you awake?”

There was a pause before Ray replied. “What do you think?”

“You been watching this?”

“Yeah, sure. Like I’d be interested. Go to sleep.”

Baz bit his tongue for what seemed like the umpteenth time today. There was just no talking to the guy sometimes.

“Uh-oh!”

“
Uh-oh!”

Another lighter flared into life... and then another...

And now it seemed that they were all at it. Demon shadows chased each other up the walls and across the ceiling as boy after boy attempted to ignite his own body gas. It was like some weird firework display or Halloween thing – the rasping flick of lighter wheels, the twisted shapes and shadows of the boys, and the occasional ballooning bursts of flame.

Some efforts were more successful than others, and there were accompanying hoots of mockery or approval.

“Hey – good one, Dyse! Woo-ee!”

“Yah! You call that a fart, guy? Me little sister do better than that.”

“Hey – watch this! I’m going for the rocket!”

“The rocket! The rocket! Come on, Amit. Countdown! Ten! Nine...”

“Eight... seven...” Other voices chimed in.

Amit was upright, standing on one leg and bouncing gently up and down on his mattress in time to the loud chanting around him. With his other leg hugged close to his chest and his cigarette lighter waving around his backside, he looked more like a demented stork than a rocket.

“... four... three... two... one...”

“Lift-off!”

Frrrr-rrr-rrrt
. The high-pitched sound of escaping rocket fuel was audible enough, but Amit had got his timing wrong somehow. The lighter simply went out and Amit could be heard collapsing onto his mattress with a thump, cursing in the darkness.

“Damn! No way!”

“Ha, ha! Amit blew it!”

“Blew it out, you mean! Amit, you’re friggin’ useless!”

“Er... Houston, we have a problem...”

“Ha, ha... yeah—”

The chatter came to a sudden halt. A pause – a rapid shuffle of bedclothes – and then silence. Instant breathless silence. Some signal, some squeak of the door handle perhaps, must have given the boys warning, for the light that came streaming in from the far corridor fell upon rows of bodies that now lay stiff and still as those in a morgue.

Baz was still sitting up – hadn’t had time to react. A huge swaying bulk filled the doorway, throwing a shadow down the center of the room, so long that it reached the foot of his bed.

Isaac.

There was a glint of light on glass – a bottle in the skipper’s fist – and as Baz shrank down onto his mattress, he saw the bottle being lifted high. It seemed to him that he was the focus of Isaac’s fearful glare.

A pause, and then Isaac flung the bottle towards the middle of the room. Baz automatically ducked. He heard the roar of Isaac’s voice above the sound of breaking glass as the missile smashed onto the floor, its broken shards bouncing and skittering along the carpet tiles.

“Graaagh! Now belt up, the lot of you – I can hear you down t’ bottom end o’ t’ corridor! You’re here to 
work
, not to sod about! Or maybe you don’t have enough to do? Is that it? Well, I’ll soon change that. You can all start an hour early in t’ morning. Aye, and you’ll stay in your ruddy beds till then – unless you fancy picking bits o’ glass out o’ your feet!”

The door slammed shut and Isaac was gone. From the carpet arose a strong smell of whisky, heady fumes that filled the darkness.

It was a long while before anyone moved. Eventually there were a few creaks and shuffles, the sounds of bodies turning over on their mattresses, bedclothes being rearranged... deep sighs... and then silence.

Baz let out his breath and curled up into a ball, his blanket wrapped protectively around his bare shoulders. But the heat was too stifling for this, and anyway the blanket reeked. It stank of mildew and old sweat, and it was unbearably itchy, the texture of it prickling against his skin. Baz scratched his neck two or three times, then his ear. God, it was driving him crazy – almost as if—

Ugh! Now he understood. The blanket was crawling with 
lice
. He threw the thing off him in disgust and scratched furiously at his head, his arms, his legs. There wasn’t a part of him that didn’t require attention. Finally he lay down again, on his back this time, spreading himself into a star shape in order to try and cool off. He must get some sleep.

But the thoughts and images that came jangling through his head were too frightening to allow him any peace. This place was dangerous. Not a factory, but a madhouse. Once again he heard Steiner’s voice, chanting at his heels: 
Dead... dead... dead
. Steiner might have carried out his threat already if Isaac hadn’t been there to stop him. And who would stop Isaac? Who was going to pull Isaac off – a man who used whatever weapons came to hand, guns and whisky bottles alike?

He should quit now. Try and get back to the mainland while he was still in one piece. But the thought of what it had cost his dad to get him here, and what it might cost to get him back again, made him feel bad. He knew how hard it was on his dad, continually trying to find enough food for the two of them. No, running away after less than twenty-four hours would be weak and stupid. He’d have to stick it out, for a while at least. Try to.

Some tiny sound caught his attention. Baz turned his head towards Ray’s bed, listening. There it was again, a brief shiver of movement, almost lost among the snores and grunts of the other sleepers. Bad dream, probably. That was some hammering Ray had taken today, poor kid. He was a tough one, though. No way was he going to give up, and you had to admire him for that...

A sniff. He’d definitely heard a sniff. Baz rolled over onto his side.

“Ray?” He kept his voice to a whisper. “You OK?” There was no reply, and after a few moments of hesitation Baz reached out in the darkness. His fingertips found the rough texture of Ray’s blanket, and for a moment he was sure he’d felt it quivering. But then there was a startled jerk of movement. Baz pulled back his hand.

“What the hell are you doing?” Ray’s voice sounded angry, suspicious. But not weepy.

“Nothing. Nothing... I just wondered if you were all right. I thought you were—”

“What? Course I’m all right. What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing. Sorry. It sounded as if you were—”

“Well, just keep your hands off me, OK?”

“Sorry...”

Baz shrank back onto his mattress. He wished he hadn’t said anything – wished he could wipe out the last few moments and start again. In fact he wished he could wipe out the whole day and start again. Not get on the boat. Not meet Ray. Not come here at all. Since saying goodbye to his dad he’d been shot at, half strangled, punched, given death threats...

And what had he done wrong? He’d tried to be friendly, tried to look out for Ray, someone smaller and weaker than himself. But he’d just ended up being slapped down and made to look stupid. Right now he could be sitting with his dad, the two of them together in their room, playing cards, sharing a bit of food, whatever his dad had managed to win...

Except that he couldn’t. There wasn’t enough food for two, and that was why he was here – alone and friendless in the dark – the smell of whisky in his nostrils and the hot sting of tears in the corners of his eyes.