an instant, in the beam then was gone. 'Hello, who's that?'
Silence.
A hiss of static. A crackle. Then, only a few feet to his right, he heard the voice again. 'Hello? Hello? Hello?'
Something glinted in a bush. He knelt down. It was a radio, with
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an aerial. Inspecting it closer, with some excitement he realized it was a walkietalkie.
He held the beam on it, studying it for a little while, almost nervous of touching it. Then he picked it up. It was heavier than it looked, cold, wet. Beneath a large green button he could see the word talk.
He pressed it and said, 'Hello!'
A voice jumped straight back at him. 'Who's that?'
Then another voice called out, from some distance away. 'Davey!'
His dad.
'OK, coming!' he yelled back.
Walking on to the road he pressed the green button again. 'This is Davey!' he said. 'Who are you?'
'DAVWEEEEEYYYY!'
His dad again.
In his panic, Davey dropped the radio. It hit the road hard, the casing cracked and the batteries spilled out.
'COMING!' he shouted. He knelt, picked up the walkie-talkie and crammed it furtively into his jacket pocket. Then he scooped up the batteries and put them in another pocket.
'COMING, DAD!' he shouted again. 'JUST HAD TO TAKE ME A PISS!'
Keeping his hand in his pocket so the bulge wouldn't show, he hurried back towards the truck.
Michael pressed the talk button. 'Davey?'
Silence.
He pressed the button again. 'Davey? Hello? Davey?'
White-satin silence. Complete and utter silence, coming down from above, rising up beneath him, pressing in from each side. He tried to move his arms, but as hard as he pushed them out, walls pressed back against them. He also tried to spread out his legs, but they met the same, unyielding walls. Resting the walkie-talkie on his chest, he pushed up against the satin roof inches from his eyes. It was like pushing against concrete.
Then, raising himself up as much as he could, he took hold of the red rubber tube, squinted down it, but could see nothing. Curling his hand over it, he brought it to his lips and tried to whistle down it; but the sound was pathetic.
He sank back down. His head pounded and he badly needed to urinate. He pressed the button again. 'Davey! Davey, I need to pee. Davey!'
Silence again.
From years of sailing, he'd had plenty of experience with two-way radios. Try a different channel, he thought. He found the channel selector, but it wouldn't move. He pushed harder, but it still wouldn't move. Then he saw the reason why - it had been superglued, so that he couldn't change channels - couldn't get to Channel 16, the international emergency channel.
'Hey! Enough you bastards, come on, I'm desperate!'
With only the most local of movements possible, he held the walkie-talkie close to his ear and listened.
Nothing.
He laid the radio down on his chest, then slowly, with great difficulty, worked his right hand down and into his leather jacket pocket and pulled out the rugged waterproof mobile Ashley had given him for sailing. He liked it because it was different to the common mobiles everyone else had. He pressed a button on it and the display lit up. His hopes rose - then fell again. No signal.
'Shit.'
He scrolled through the directory until he came to his business partner Mark's name.
Mark Mob.
Despite the lack of a signal he pressed the dial button.
Nothing happened.
He tried Robbo, Pete, Luke, Josh in turn, his desperation increasing. Then he pressed the walkie-talkie button again. 'Guys! Can you hear me? I know you can fucking hear me!'
Nothing.
On the Ericsson display the time showed 11.13.
He raised his left hand until he could see his watch: 11.14.
He tried to remember the last time he'd looked at it. A good two hours had passed. He closed his eyes. Thought for some moments, trying to figure out exactly what was going on. In the bright, almost dazzling light
