‘The guy I was travelling with, Milo,’ she said, ‘he had this word-of-the-day thing on his phone. Since we’ve been on the island, I’ve been thinking up new ones. Maybe you should take today’s.’
Gingerly he laid back and picked out a star. ‘That’s easy,’ he whispered. ‘Coward.’
Heart pumping furiously, she said, ‘I’d better have that bottle back.’
‘I’ve tried to forget that night,’ he went on, ‘no matter how ingrained. But I’m slowly coming to terms with it because I don’t have a choice. No matter how distant the light, Abbey, there is still a light.’
She looked sideways at him. ‘One of your mum’s sayings?’
‘One of mine, actually.’
Falling silent, she left her hand on his and peered into his clear blue eyes. Her tears began to well again, the tension hanging densely between them.
Neither dared look away.
They moved closer, their lips mere inches apart. He could feel the soft pulse of her breath against his mouth, the cool evening breeze gliding over them, comforting them in anticipation. As he leaned in slowly, the quiet desperation lingering over them, she glanced away embarrassed, the green of her beautiful eyes clouded with shame.
‘I’m sorry, James, I just can’t.’
‘It’s okay,’ he whispered, his lips hovering over her ear. ‘I understand.’
He could feel her warm breath against his chest. ‘Abbey, look at me,’ he insisted.
Slowly she lifted her head, fresh tears glistening on her cheeks.
‘It’s okay,’ he said again, wiping the damp marks from her face.
As silence fell weightily between them, they went back to the stars. After a while she leaned over and placed her head comfortably on his shoulder, allowing thirty minutes of serenity to linger. Finally she detached herself from him and climbed quietly to her feet. Without a word, she walked away.
*
Another hour passed uneventfully, the bottle half empty. Thankful for the lack of excitement James narrowed his eyes towards the marginally brighter horizon, the booze encouraging his shut down. He couldn’t think of anything but Abbey. The way she’d held his gaze, the feel of her breath against his chest. Never in his life had he wanted to taste another’s lips like he did hers.
Reaching for the bottle, he twisted the cap closed and set it down in the sand. ‘Room for another?’ said an unfamiliar voice.
Startled he sprang back, surprised his body still worked. Standing coyly before him was the girl, shabby brown dress torn up the middle and tied off above the thighs to make shorts.
‘Sure,’ he muttered, hiding his astonishment.
Taking Abbey’s seat timidly the girl stared at him, tired eyes brimming with wisdom.
‘My name’s Danielle,’ she said croakily, her accent broad South African. ‘If you were wondering.’
‘Danielle,’ he repeated. ‘Nice name.’
She smiled. ‘Hopefully everyone will stop calling me “The Girl” now.’
‘I think we can probably come to some arrangement,’ he smiled. ‘How come you’re up so early?’
‘Couldn’t sleep.’
‘Yeah, it's going around...'
Shuffling a little, she said unexpectedly, ‘You like Abbey, don’t you?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I’ve seen the way you look at her.’
‘Hang on,’ he said warily. ‘Am I being counselled?’
‘If we never get home, her husband could remarry or start a new family. Then what?’
‘Is there nothing else you’d rather talk about, Danielle? Seriously, first words out of your mouth and you choose to lecture me. You want to give a drunken man a break?’
Probing no further she fell mute again, James no longer finding the silence comfortable.
‘Who were you on the plane with?’ he asked quickly.
‘Nobody.’
‘Aren’t you a little young to be flying alone?’
‘Aren’t you a little old to be getting drunk alone?’
‘Last I checked...no,’ James countered and took another swig.
Danielle frowned. 'If you must know, a friend helped me through the process. I needed to get away.’
‘Away from where?’
‘Just away.’
Pushing no further, he asked, ‘What’s in New Zealand?’
‘My brother, Neil,’ she said quickly. ‘He lives in Hamilton. Probably thinks I’m dead.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that. They won’t write us off that quickly.’
‘I don’t mean the crash,’ she said. ‘He thought I was dead a long time ago. The two of us grew up in an orphanage after our parents died. They were doing the New York tourist thing on September eleventh, 2001. Never came home.
‘Anyway, Neil got out of the orphanage a few years ago, too old to stay. Legally he couldn’t take me with him, and so two years ago I ran away.’
‘For what reason?’
‘It was a Catholic orphanage. I'm not a Catholic. The place was state-run so they couldn’t kick me out. I refused to adopt Catholicism, so they treated me like garbage, a real outsider.’
‘You didn’t report the abuse?’
‘Their word against mine. Who was going to believe one kid over an entire Catholic organisation? Besides, I found a better life on the streets. They never looked for me. Probably glad I vanished, but I forgive them. They strayed from God’s path, it wasn’t their fault.’
Astounded by Danielle’s shrewd maturity, he waited for her to continue.
‘Eventually I was taken in by a family,’ she went on. ‘Well, a man named Dominick and a couple of other vagrants he’d taken in. We worked for him on his banana plantation in return for food and shelter. He was kind to us, and for the first time since my parents died, I felt truly safe again. The plantation became my haven. Nobody knew I was there, nobody cared, but that didn’t matter, I found my smile again.’
James began digesting. Danielle hadn’t talked in four days, he hadn’t even known her name, and now here she was, pouring out her soul like she’d known him for years. He needed more. ‘What happened in the orphanage that made you run?’ he probed gently. ‘Did they hit you? Was there abuse?’
‘Hit
