Bottles. Dozens of them. Dark glass, dusty, with chunky corks and battered labels.
‘Rum!’ Lockie announces proudly.
Without missing a beat, Ozzy grabs a bottle, rips the cork out with his teeth and takes three big gulps, like it’s water.
‘It’s a natural painkiller,’ he says when he finally breathes again.
‘What pain are you in?’ Lockie asks.
‘Long story,’ I say. ‘I’ll tell you later.’
Lockie wipes his hands on his shorts.
‘I got the hatch door open. Looks like the next delivery was booze – probably a reward for some challenge we never got to.’
Tony picks up a bottle and examines it.
‘May as well drink it then,’ he says. ‘Make a night of it.’
‘The show must go on, right?’ Lockie replies.
‘Great idea,’ Honey says. ‘Let’s eat and drink and, I dunno, play some island games or something.’
Lockie takes the open bottle from Ozzy and raises it.
‘To surviving,’ he says. ‘And to whatever happens next.’
We all toast.
I look around the fire, at our weird little group, and smile. It’s about time we had some fun, somewhere, in all this stress.
What’s one night off from the end of the world?
27
As the night draws in and we all gather around the firepit, things seem a lot calmer. Maybe it’s because we feel like we have a plan for survival, maybe it’s just a healthy dose of optimism – probably, though, it’s the rum. We’ve all had a lot of rum.
Well, if the cameras are off, if no one’s watching, if the show’s gone dark… what’s the point in pretending any more? We may as well let our hair down.
‘If we’re stuck here, we may as well have fun,’ Honey suggests.
‘I thought we were having fun?’ I reply with a laugh.
‘More fun,’ she adds. ‘Let’s play some games. We do what the show would make us do. Only we get to make up our own rules.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ Tony says. ‘Let’s ’ave a laugh.’
Well, she’s got a point. If we were on-air, show bosses would have us playing games like this. It will be more fun without the cameras, everyone can be themselves.
So that’s what we do. We feed the firepit with wood before taking our seats around it, each of us with our own cocktail. Turns out all those coconuts came in handy, we’re drinking a mixture of rum and coconut water – like we’re on a fancy holiday – and it’s glorious.
This is the closest we’ve come to feeling like we’re at a resort rather than in a nightmare. The air smells like salt and smoke and booze, and when the breeze shifts, I catch the scent of Lockie’s skin. It must be the sun cream he’s wearing – thankfully we still have our bottles of factor fifty – it smells delicious.
‘They always have contestants play something meaningful, and something horny,’ Honey muses.
‘Meaningful?’ Tony repeats. ‘Can’t we skip to horny?’
‘Let’s build up to that,’ Lockie says with a laugh.
