There is a shift in the whirring, a self-pitying whine from the drone’s motor. It dips above us as we spin like a playground roundabout. A new motor kicks in. The deadly beetle whirrs up in a smooth arc again.
Near the bow, Shikorina sits up carelessly, staggers to her feet.
‘Shikorina!’ Andride shouts.
Shikorina is climbing up the railing, her legs a dark red. The sun creeps up gently on this war scene. It catches her legs from the front, turns them orange. The colour of emergency.
‘Get down!’ Andride screams.
Shikorina’s legs buckle and sway but she clings to the railing. She shakes her fist at the toy machine. ‘My children! My children!’
Beyond the drone, the sky is a gigantic flower blossoming. Shikorina jerks as a laser rips into her chest. She slides slowly from the railing, as if exhausted by her furious gesturing. Shikorina curls up on the ledge, tucks her hands beneath her cheek. She sleeps.
Lolie lets seven bullets fly in succession, shreds the drone’s steel skin. A return strike splinters the bench behind me. I feel a blast in my calf muscle. A quantum delay.
How strange. Like thunder and lightning. Then, the pain.
‘Malachi! Are you hit?’
I shake my head, lie to Vicki. But my blood makes clouds in the water beneath us. I roll onto my back but the red floods my throat, suffocates me. I cough, but more blood shoots up.
Vicki struggles from under me, throws herself across my knees. She grabs my jaw, wrenches it to the side. ‘Malachi! Breathe!’
I gag on the liquid, find a thread of oxygen. More precious air streams in.
This is what Hamri was doing! He was trying to turn my head.
He was trying to save my life, not shut me up.
Father.
There is a pause in the deadly hum above us.
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, stare at it. No blood, silly.
I watch the pink sky flowering above me. Vicki prods my calf, tries to feel the extent of my injury.
‘Aah,’ I grunt. ‘It’s nothing, Malachi. It’s just a shallow cut.’
I want to giggle. Nothing compared to the wounds she received in the medical wing. As the boat spins, the blood from my shallow cut gathers around us. I shut my eyes. It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s just raspberry juice.
The drone spins again, whirrs towards us once more. I crawl back onto my Cleopatra, cover her carefully, bathe her not in milk but red raspberry juice.
The sound of a huge engine hacks up the morning sky.
A black craft charges towards us, short blades thrashing inside a wheel on the roof. The front is tattooed with a pirate’s face, grinning with white teeth. A dark-skinned pilot sits inside the pirate’s good eye. Inside the red eye patch a woman with long black hair aims a huge camera at our broken, spinning planet.
Angelika.
Her shining lens throws a shield of truth around blood, water, buckets. The dead among us.
The rotorcraft sinks closer, visits a gale force on us. A pirate galleon sails across the body and tail. Brave Heart Rum, it says in white lettering. Rescue SB6. Silhouettes press against the tinted glass, their seeing eyes our precious, wonderful protection. The scarred metal beetle hovers in the distance, paralysed by the camera’s eye. It swivels in the sky, drifts towards where Saint Helena might be. I roll off Vicki’s body, crawl to the engines. Lolie is crouched between them, nothing more than two traumatised eyes. The sky paints their dark mirrors with pink streaks. I flick the switches. Cut the engine. The spinning slows.
Our world stands still, rocking with the rhythm of the sea. Lolie seems unharmed. The only wound I can see is the one made by Tamba’s father or one of his clumsy team. It has torn apart a little more, so blood streaks from the stitches like red eyelashes. I crawl between the engines. Kiss her on the forehead.
Angelika’s camera is still rolling, enforcing the ceasefire, recording this atrocity of human nature.
Not love. But a cry for it.
The priest killer stumbles from the bow to find Lolie among the engines. He clutches her hands with his melted fingers, kisses them.
‘Thank you.’
Madame Sophie’s mind snaps loose from reality. ‘Smile!’ She fixes her hair, fluffs it out.
Vicki laughs with an unfettered, rare happiness.
I make my way over the benches to sit next to Shikorina. I don’t care about the colour red. I stroke her head like she is my daughter in a deep, deep sleep. She is cold already.
I love you, Shikorina, I tell her spirit.
There is an explosion far away on the rig. Two, three massive blasts. Have they sprayed their benzene, flung a spark into it?
Oh, God, Tamba! Did his father find him?
And the three deserters?
Eulalie struggles to her feet, raises her face to the breeze. She lets the rising sun drench her withered skin. She waves a silken hand at me, smiles like we are all at a cocktail party.
I shut my eyes. Tamba is fine. Dead or alive.
Another detonation from the rig. But it is too late for secrecy. The prisoners are here. They still have their teeth. And I have a mouth to speak.
I smile to myself. No one can silence me and my Glossia.
A loving presence visits my heart suddenly. It expands and aches like Tamba’s cocaine high. Grace, I think it is.
Vicki is sitting on the bench, her thighs slightly apart. The flames from the far-away rig flicker in her purple eyes. She is watching me now with unbelievable tenderness.
She will get asylum, I know this in my heart. And Grace will be the name of our first daughter.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to David for floating our boat while I was on the rig, and to all my beautiful children for always, always calling me back to land.
Thank you to my
