Well, I wasn’t expecting that from Camilla.
‘Or,’ he says quickly, ‘we tow the raft. Secure it with vines, attach it to the back, pull it along to the mainland.’
Tony winces.
‘Can’t we all just squeeze into the boat?’ he checks.
Honey shakes her head immediately.
‘No. If it’s rated for four people and two of our people are muscly gym bros, it will buckle before we even get out to sea,’ she says, now she’s happy being smart.
‘None taken,’ Tony says, pretending to be offended that he’s not muscular enough to be a problem.
Camilla’s face goes pale. ‘Okay, but I can’t swim,’ she says. ‘So I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to go on the raft.’
‘I can’t either,’ Tony admits quietly.
Camilla doesn’t even mock him. She just wraps an arm around him in solidarity.
‘I probably could,’ Honey says. ‘But I’m not the strongest swimmer.’
‘I’ll go on the raft,’ Lockie says immediately. ‘I’m a great swimmer.’
Every eye turns to me, to see what I’ve got. To be fair, I am a strong swimmer, so it probably should be me too.
‘I’ll go on the raft too,’ I say before I can overthink it.
‘All right. I steer the boat. Camilla, Tony and Honey join me. And we secure Lockie and Cleo on the raft,’ Ozzy confirms. ‘We might actually be getting off this rock.’
‘Now?’ Camilla asks. ‘It’s getting dark…’
‘It is, so here’s the plan: we get everything tied and secured tonight. Fix the raft to the boat, test it, and make sure it’s secure. We sleep on it. At first light tomorrow, before any more storms roll in, we set off.’
Camilla exhales, long and slow.
‘One more night. I can do one more night,’ she chants.
‘We might as well make the most of it,’ Tony adds, eyeing up the leftover rum. ‘Throw ourselves a bit of a goodbye party.’
Just one more night. Food, fire, booze, and a plan for morning. I can do that too. Camilla is right, it’s just one more night.
Tomorrow we gamble our lives on a motorboat and a raft held together with vines. What could possibly go wrong? A lot. Absolutely loads. So all the more reason to make tonight count, right?
31
It feels strange, this calm – and you know what they say about calm.
Honestly though, this is the most organised and together we’ve felt since we got here, but we have a plan, and an understanding, and it’s given us this weird sense of normality. We’re just a group of friends, sitting down to have dinner together, having a lovely time.
I mean, yeah, we’re dirty, and hungry for carbs, and my God do I need some caffeine, but we’re eating fish, and roasted fruit, and polishing off the last of the rum. It’s nice. Like we’re all on holiday together.
The firelight flickers between us, making us all feel warm and cosy, and for once no one’s bickering or plotting, and it feels like a million years since the rules of the show felt like they mattered. Even the ever-present sound of the sea seems gentle tonight, like the island is giving us a little bit of a break ahead of tomorrow.
It really has felt oddly normal tonight. Honey laid out our food on big leaves, like we’re in a fancy restaurant. And Tony made us more coconut and rum cocktails – they might be the things I miss the most, when we’re back home.
‘To tomorrow,’ Tony says, raising his coconut. ‘Because tomorrow, we might actually make it off this godforsaken island.’
‘Hear, hear,’ Camilla adds.
