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“I do,” Santana said. She pointed at the front pocket of her suitcase, and I rummaged inside and came out with a lined notebook, and a pencil. I handed them to Zana.
“I think you need to do this, Zana. Yours is the account people are most likely to believe. What day was the storm again?”
There was silence while everyone tried to remember.
“I think it was the fourteenth,” Zana said at last. “Didn’t someone mention Valentine’s Day?”
“Yes, it was,” Santana said. “I remember Dan making a joke out of it. But I can’t remember what day of the week, if that’s what you meant.”
“It was a Wednesday,” Zana said. “I got my period. I remember thinking it was a day out, that I must be stressed.”
“Okay, then let’s start the day after the storm,” I said slowly. “Dear Diary, today is Thursday, fifteenth of February. Something like that.”
“But why?” Zana asked helplessly. “Why would I do this? We’re stuck on a bloody desert island, for God’s sake. Am I really going to start keeping a diary? What would’ve been the point when we thought we were all going to die?”
“To keep track of time?” Santana suggested.
“For mental health,” Angel said, a little sarcastically.
“Maybe that’s the point,” I said in a low voice. “Maybe the fact that we all thought we were going to die is the point—you’re writing this to leave a record of what happened. In case we didn’t make it off the island alive.”
Zana nodded at that. Her face was somber.
“Okay. Yes, you’re right, I could imagine doing that. All of it, but particularly the last one, but maybe I shouldn’t say that yet. I mean, we were still hoping to be rescued at that point. Okay… so…” She began to write, slowly, reading the words out as she did. “?‘Today is Thursday, fifteenth February, and I have decided to write a diary—my head is so full of everything that’s happened since the storm last night, and I needed some way to make sense of it all.’ Is that okay?” She looked up at the rest of us and we nodded.
“What else happened that day?” Santana asked. “I don’t remember much from those first couple of days, just how much my leg hurt, and how scared I was of dying.” She put her hand to the scar on her thigh, as if reliving those first few days of pain and confusion.
“We buried Romi,” I said. “That first day— That was the day we buried Romi. And the producer.”
Zana rubbed her eyes.
“God, of course.” Her voice cracked. “I can’t believe I didn’t remember that. It seems like a lifetime ago.”
It did. It was only a fortnight, but it seemed like something that had happened on another planet, to a distant set of people only slightly related to us, and much more innocent.
“?‘We are all reeling,’?” Zana said aloud, writing the words as she did. “?‘From the storm, which seems to have blown our boat off course, but also from the terrible shock of poor Romi’s death—she was killed when a palm tree came down on her villa, crushing it to bits.’?”
“You should put something in about Joel,” I said slowly. “About how upset he was. But you should make it sound like Conor was the one who took care of him. The camera up at Joel and Romi’s villa was destroyed, so there’s no evidence who dug her out. You should make it Conor. Set it up so he’s starting to be a hero from the beginning.”
Zana nodded and carried on, writing slowly, pausing sometimes to consider a word, and then she got to the end of the first page, where she stopped, as if stumped.
“I should put something to finish up the day,” she said, looking up. “Some kind of conclusion. I’m just not sure what.”
“It should be something positive,” Angel said. “Something that makes it sound like we were all united.”
Even though the cracks had already started to show, I thought, though I didn’t say the words aloud. I knew we were all thinking it.
“You should say how many of us were left,” Santana said softly. “And that we were injured.”
“You should say that we were looking after each other,” Angel said.
“?‘Eight of us,’?” Zana said, as she wrote. “?‘Just eight. And two injured.’?” She looked up, and then swallowed, and I saw there were tears in her eyes. “?‘It feels more vital than ever that we take care of each other until the boat gets back for us…. We just have to stay strong.’?”
I’m not sure what day it is anymore. 27th? 28th? I’ve lost count, I don’t care. Because the worst thing in the world has happened, and now I’m not even sure if I want to be rescued anymore.
Conor is gone.
It happened so fast. It was late, and we were out at the water villa. Santana was there, and Lyla. Angel wasn’t well and they’d come over to ask whether I had any painkillers left.
