Yes, Mrs Hitleress.
I knock on the metal door. Meirong ducks away, darts past the tower towards the management wing. I unlock the padlocks, turn the copper key. I pick up my tray, nudge the door open with the toe of my sneaker.
* * *
The girl lies uncovered on a metal bed, her body as thin as a torn sheet of canvas. Her eyes are open, the luminous green of underwater algae. She tries to spy past my body.
‘Why does she run from me?’ Her voice is cracked by sea salt.
The small room is bare, except for her bed and a plastic crate, upended to create a table. On the floor, a scattering of rusted nails and a trampled Texan cigarette packet lie like ghostly remains of the oil-drilling days. I step over a torn weightlifter’s magazine. Go closer with my tray. The girl’s hair is as white as Madame Sophie’s, but it is frayed by deluges of rain and blistering winds. The sun has peeled her nose and cheeks to a deep raw pink; burnt bands of blisters on her forearms and shins. She wears loose boxer shorts that must have belonged to her father. A dirty white shirt hangs open at her neck. The girl has no sign of breasts, as if her fight for survival might have frightened them away. A huge white tooth hangs on a leather strip against her blistered chest.
I put the tray on the crate, kneel next to the bed.
Frances sits up slowly. ‘Thanks.’ She sounds American. A relative of William, my digital voicebox. ‘Are you going to talk to me?’
I stare at her sheepishly.
‘Oh no. Not you, too. Romano’s very kind, but everything I ask him he says, “I’m sorry I can’t say.”’
Romano said sorry to this little girl who looks like driftwood? I point at my mouth, shake my head stupidly. There is no point in trying to mime, Tongue. Cut.
‘That Chinese woman, what is she going to do with me?’
I sigh, get to my feet. She grabs my thumb, pulls at it feebly. ‘Do you have a satellite phone?’
Oh no. Not another plea for rescue.
‘My black box is under the navigation table.’ The sun has polished her eyes to the thickness of a magnifying glass. ‘Can you get it from my yacht?’
I point towards the door. The lady who ran away? I wag my finger to and fro, mime to Frances: She’s the boss. Sorry.
‘Do you have a cell phone, maybe?’ she persists desperately.
I shake my head, deny the thousands of luxurious words hanging in my pocket.
‘What about a pen?’ She pulls on my hand with her measly strength. ‘Please.’
I have no choice but to sink to my knees. Frances drags her leather string through her knotted hair. She writes on the skin of my forearm. 0845691233. The numbers come up pale from the huge incisor.
‘This is my mother’s number. Please call her for me.’ Frances squeezes my wrist with the little strength she has left. ‘Will you?’
I can’t bring myself to pull away from her feeble grip. I make a rolling action with my free hand. Tomorrow, they will call her. Surely.
Frances tries to smile. ‘Tomorrow might not come.’
What does she mean?
She holds out her palm, shows me the serrated tooth. ‘It was my father’s,’ she croaks. ‘He got it from a great white.’
I’m afraid I can’t share her love for the evil-looking thing.
‘I took it off him.’ She loops the necklace clumsily over her head. ‘I had to roll him into the sea. He was so heavy.’ Her arms fall limply, as if remembering the weight of her dead father.
I force myself to my feet, allow myself a small, sorry grunt. My own arms hang from the weight of her mother’s phone number. The poor woman must be frantic, her prayers fluttering from her lips like torn strips of spinnaker over thousands of sea miles.
A hoarse, hollow sound issues from the girl’s mouth.
‘I need my mother, please.’
I don’t think the sailor girl can cry. It looks like her tear ducts are too dry. I hunt around, find an empty glass beneath the bed. This child needs water so she can at least weep for her own mother! This is thoroughly inhumane. This ancient rig is not exactly a five-class hotel, but the least they can do is see to her basic needs.
Damn you, Meirong.
I sign for the girl to lift up her torn shirt.
Fear radiates from her glassy eyes. ‘Take it off?’
I shake my head, mortified. Show me your bellybutton, is all I want to say. I lift my purple shirt and pinch the skin on my stomach, show her how it snaps back.
Frances gets my meaning. She lifts up her shirt, pulls at the skin near her bellybutton. It sinks back very, very slowly. Definite dehydration. The girl needs a drip.
I utter a worried, ‘Aah,’ like there’s going to be trouble unless we fix this. But right now, my only remedy is fake raspberry juice. I put the polystyrene cup in her hands, close her fingers around it. She takes a tiny sip of the syrup. Then she sucks it greedily, leaves a stain of red around her raw lips. Good.
Leek soup? I gesture like an insensitive butler.
Frances turns her face away.
Just try.
I press the soup bowl into her hands, insistent. Frances takes a little sip, then slugs back the glutinous liquid. She closes her eyes with the ecstasy of eating slimy white scraps of a far-fetched vegetable in the middle of the sea. Suddenly she doubles over, convulsing. I grab for a red bucket someone has left for her to do her ablutions in. She retches into it, a pinkish fluid. I shut my eyes, fight the sea-sickness kicking at my oesophagus.
I search the room. The child doesn’t even have toilet paper, for goodness’ sake. I tear a strip of cloth from the edge of her sheet and wipe her
