Cristelle Comby - Alone Together

On the fifteenth day, we stayed in bed until mid-morning, planning on not doing anything more than gather up much-needed fresh water and food. I thought it would been the best day of our week, but I should have known better.

Whatever peace of mind Killian had found in our routine was gone by the time he got up. The old man was back to his old grumpy self, all spurts of happiness replaced by displeasure and disdain. When it was apparent that all he was going to do was brood, I decided it would be best for us to split up for the day.

I gave him my spear and motioned a fish swimming in the water with my hands. Though it was my usual job to get the fish and his to pick the berries, he took it without protest. Eyebrows coming together to form a scowl, he stormed out of the shack with grim purpose.

I sighed. That man , I thought in despair. It really couldn’t be helped though. Nor was it my business or prerogative to. Even so, since we were stuck on a deserted island together, there was nothing else to do but go pick more berries.

I started walking down the path—and off it a little—back to the spot where I had first found the berry bushes. It didn’t take long for me to get there. Once I did, I got right to picking.

I couldn’t keep my thoughts off from my companion, trying to guess at what was going on through that thick skull of his. Building the shelter together had brought me new perspectives and the realisation that things were easier when we shifted our focus to being constructive rather than destructive.

But I hadn’t anticipated that losing the daily schedule we’d gotten used to would affect him so. Must it always be one step forward, two steps backwards with that man?

The morning passed as I bathed and then washed my clothes before hanging them to dry on a branch. When Killian hadn’t returned to the shelter three hours later, I started to worry something might have happened to him. Maybe I was being irrational, but I couldn’t help it. Half a dozen scenarios worthy of Hollywood Z movies flooded my brain.

What if he had drowned? What if he became stranded on the very same rocks that I had fished at before by a fast tide? Were there sharks this far north? If so, what if one had got to him?

Worrying for the worst was a quality I hated to admit that I had, but had it I did. It was something I’d inherited from my mother. I remember her worrying about my father and me many times as we worked the family business. It’s not as if growing grapes was dangerous in itself, but the mountaineering that was involved with some of our higher elevation vineyards was enough to make my mother shudder at the thought of one of us losing our grip.

Deciding to do more than worry, I began walking along the water, feet digging deep into the sand. I should have shied away from the cold feeling of the water, but I’d somehow got used to it. It wasn’t that I couldn’t feel it anymore, it was just that my mind had found the ability to file away that particular piece of information and discard it as unimportant. Besides, with no bath or shower on this island, daily dips in the waves had become part of our routine to wash away the day’s sweat. They also did wonders for numbing the pain caused by a hard day’s work, and the occasional bout of rain washed away the remaining salt.

Reaching the boulders, I climbed up them and started jumping from one to the next, helping my body get my blood pumping.

It turned to be pretty easy to find Killian. I could make out his frustrated shouts at the water and fish themselves from a mile away. That man…

By the time I reached him, he was all but slapping the water with his spear. What he hoped to accomplish by doing that, I had no idea. I giggled to myself as I hopped over to the tide pool. Three hours he’d been at it, with no food to show for it.

All levity aside, this was a problem. We had no overstuffed larder waiting for us back home, which meant we relied on the daily catch to keep us fed. Killian’s attitude was a liability we couldn’t afford any more than we could have his architectural fancies. If I let it, his anger would end up being the death of him, me or both. That was something I refuse to let happen.

He looked up at me, his face beet red and bushy eyebrows set low. I held my hand out. He all but slapped the spear into my hand before moving to sit down on a nearby boulder, like a scolded child.

I returned my attention to the water at my feet. Any fish that’d be in the tide pool had been scared away by all the splashing and shouting. It was going to take time to coax them out of their hiding spot. But then, fishing was a game of patience. Spear firmly in hand, I heaved in a deep breath as I centred myself, moving to find a comfortable, balanced position. Focusing on the water below and what was within it, I relaxed as I let go of everything. All my focus was on the glistening pool at my feet, basking in the light of my diligence and dutiful actions through non-action. Sometimes, there wasn’t anything more to do but wait.

After about an hour, a couple of medium-sized fish made their way into the tide pool, coming in from a small tributary leading to the sea. Smiling, I tightened my grip on the spear but otherwise remained motionless.

These twin codfish, whom I nicknamed Mine and His, were minding their own business, clueless of the danger looming above them. I breathed in, aimed, locked on, then exhaled and shot the spear downward—a direct hit on Mine.

Predictably, that scarred the bejesus out of His, making him scurry away. Turning on my heel faster than you can say bouillabaisse , I readied myself for another shot, eyes locked onto the mouth of the tributary. One breath, two breaths, and His was right in my sights. I threw the spear again and His was reunited with Mine.

When I looked up at Killian with a victory smile on my lips, his face was unreadable. There were so many emotions wearing for dominance on his drawn features, it was hard to tell them apart.

On the walk back, his silence and cold shoulder continued while we hopped barefoot across the large boulders. At least he wasn’t mumbling any hate spew or letting negativity build up within himself. Surely that counted as a win, didn’t it?

When we made it to the sand, Killian had something that he had wanted to show me. He began writing in the sand, a cross-stitch pattern, like the game tic-tac-toe, but with many more rows and columns. Was that… a net?

I smiled at him. That was a great idea. Attracting prey worked much better than chasing them. I’d love for us to work on creating something to catch the fish in, rather than having to go out and hunt them every day.

When we returned to the shelter, Killian took the fish off the spear and insisted that he cook them. I let him. Any way that he wanted to help was fine with me, so long as we survived, thrived, and eventually got to go home.

The next day, I awoke to see Anne-Marie tying what looked like some wild fibres together, along with the occasional strand of thin wire we hadn’t used on the shelter. Dressed in a beige T-Shirt that proclaimed “Life is better with Chocolate,” she had installed herself outside, sitting on a folded blanket against a fallen log.

She seemed to be repeating the same motions over and over again. First making a loop and then entering it with the tip of a second rope from the front. Then she’d wrap that rope around the right outer side of the loop, pull the tip across the front and around the outer edge on the other side before slipping it underneath itself on the back. By the looks of it, she’d used one of the woollen jumpers we’d gotten out the first suitcase as core material, unmaking it and braiding several different fibres and wires together to make them thicker.