The Writers' Circle

ONE MAN'S ISLAND	

By

Scott Ballantyne


CHAPTER ONE

THE ENGLISHMAN
	

	Tony's ears woke before his eyes did. They were the first evidence, the first witness, that it was not some dragging dream. The screeching siren songs of the myriad of insects - crickets, he assumed - made him think of highly-strung helicopters, enough to buzz any enemy. All day. All night. Never stopped.
	He opened both of his eyes at the same time. He stared for a moment. No dream. The bleached mosquito net, curtaining him in, said, 'You are not in England.' 
	Before he even found conscious thought, his left hand went to the back of his left thigh. His finger-nails scratched furiously.
	'Bastards.'
	Despite precaution after precaution, one female still managed to get through to him, take his blood and leave him irritated.
	'Bastards.'  
	He arched his back, stretched and groaned. The wooden bed, with the thin mattress, gave him sleep only fit for the guilty and dreams of no coherence.  
	'Bastards.' This time, it was a shout. He had found another area of work for his finger-nails. His left heel.
	The nails then found some employment on his face. Not a mosquito bite but a three day beard. With fingers and palms he rubbed his face. 'Think I'll have a shave today.' He then scratched his head, his fingers finding no problems combing their way through the thinning hair. Too thin and too long. 'And I'll wash my hair.'  Shampoo and shave, sir? 
	He sat up. Looked out of the window. The same weather. Hot and sunny. Hot and humid. It had been the same every day for the past three months. Or was it four? No, it was three. He was sure of it. 
	He looked at his left wrist. What time was it? It was a habit he had created over many years. Waking and looking at his watch. Now there was no watch. He had stopped wearing it after his first month. He didn't need one. Useless there.
	The room was the next thing to be examined. The walls, the floor, then the ceiling. A new habit. Nothing suspicious. No animal life to be seen. Even the friendly lizard - the one that is supposed to eat mosquitoes - was not there. He hoped that it was having breakfast. He hoped it had caught the one full of his blood. 
	It was safe to get out of bed.
	He parted the mesh net and swung his feet out of the bed. Another glance at the floor for spiders. All clear. His backless sandals were more than one stride away from the bed. He meant to put them closer but always forgot.
	He stepped into the sandals and stretched his whole body for a whole minute. He then examined his naked front. He patted his flat stomach. It was the flattest it had been in the past ten years. 'Not bad for thirty-eight, Tony,' he praised himself. In fact, his whole body was sleeker, fitter and healthier than it had been at any time since his early twenties. He had determined to improve this over the past three months and was satisfied with his progress. Never before had he had so much time in which to give his body the caring attention it had so badly needed. Those past three months had given him the opportunity. To prove his success he punched himself on his tensed stomach muscles. He smiled at his own resistance.
	'Seven.' 
	He looked again at the window, out beyond the insect mesh that substituted glass. He studied the light. 
	'Maybe seven-thirty.' He thought for a moment, staring at the light.  'Yes.' And nodded at the same time.
	Time for his morning swim. A habit he had got into in the last few months of his normal life. Good morning. Your swim, sir? Shall I bring the car round? 
	He walked through the doorless door into the next - only other - room. It was less bare than the bedroom - just. Two windows this time. One to the front and one to the back. It was the one at the front that served the light. The rear one just reflected the foliage green that the sun was playing with. It gave the room a snake-pit zoo effect. Or a working class fish-tank frieze. But he liked it. Especially at seven in the morning. Or seven-thirty.
	Something moved. His eyes caught it. Light grey with an azure blue tail and a black stripe. Ok. Lizard. Small. Friendly. 
	'Where the fuck were you last night?' 
	It didn't answer. He scratched his thigh again. The lizard didn't care.
	'Bastards.'
	Maybe the lizard didn't know if he was talking about lizards or mosquitoes. The lizard didn't care.
	There was another movement. Just a shimmer, but he saw it. If he was an eagle, he reckoned, he would never starve. The spider was brown, all over. No danger. Big, but not dangerous. It was in a corner, in a web. There was something caught there. He hoped it was a mosquito. He dragged the bamboo chair from the bamboo table. In the corner, unafraid of his nakedness, he got closer to the web. It was a fly. 
	'Mosquitoes not on the menu?' 
	The spider wasn't too fussy about menus. It didn't care.
	'Christ, what's the matter with you guys? Ten thousand fucking mosquitoes round here and you worry about bloodless fucking flies. You're bloody lucky you're not on my payroll. I'd fire the fucking lot of you.'
	Maybe they had a Union. No mosquitoes on Mondays, Wednesdays or Fridays unless the temperature gets above ... It wasn't Monday, Wednesday or Friday and it was too early to be above ... Or perhaps it was Monday, or Wed ... He didn't know.
	The bamboo chair creaked. He checked again to make sure the fly was not a mosquito.
 	'Damn.'
	There was some oil, it smelled like all the foul medicines he'd hated as a child, which said it would stop mosquito blood-suckers from bothering delicate humans. The oil, lots of it, lived on one of the only two shelves on the room's walls. He took one of the small brown bottles, opened its screw cap, used his nose and cheek muscles to squeeze together his nostrils, failed to block out the smell, pored a little into his palm and rubbed the salve onto his thigh and heel. 'Bloody horse has bolted,' but he rubbed more in anyway. He had forgotten to rub in the oil the night before. He hated the smell - 'The Punge' he called it - and his forgetfulness of his hatred of it. But he needed it. It worked.
	'Shit.'
	'Pointless, having a swim, wasted the bloody stuff.' He kept on rubbing it in, beyond the area of the bite. Habit. Rubbed it all over his leg. Then the other one. It felt good. Massage, sir, after your sauna?
	Having put The Punge on both legs he continued up his body. No point in doing half a job.
	Now he had to decide whether to have his swim or not. He wanted it. He wanted The Punge, too. Punge is not waterproof. 'Shit.'
	Without The Punge he had never had a bite in the mornings. He knew that. He had forgotten. Mosquitoes made him forget. Other things, too. 
	He went to the bucket of water in the opposite corner to the spider and washed The Punge off his hands. The soap was lathered to at least ten times more than it needed to be. He wanted to wash the smell completely from his hands. It didn't matter that the rest of his body was covered in it. His hands had to be clean. Manicure, sir?
	He took his shorts, with the built-in briefs, from the huge wooden box that stored all his clothes, and also served as an extra seat for guests that would never come, never did, never would, and put them on. Which suit will we wear today, sir? Shorts and sandals were his daily wear. Nothing else was needed.	
	Food was needed. As usual, he had two choices: eat what he had left over from the previous night's meal or kill something. As usual, he pondered the choice for two or three minutes. As always, it was the previous meal that was selected. Cold chicken, cold vegetables and a half a fish. Today he fancied an egg. 'No, two.' He was most proud of his chicken-rearing skills. Breakfast in the dining room, sir?
	He went to the table and lifted the enamel bowl that protected his food from the animals. 'I should live under a bowl. No mosquitoes there.' A chicken leg and some slices of breast. A scrawny wing. Some diced carrots. Lettuce looking fatigued. Fish, separated from the bones, top half eaten and the head and tail still there. Fertilizer later. He threw the lettuce into the other bucket of water, which was close to the washing bucket. 'Shit.' He noticed that some of the soap lather from his enthusiastic scrub floating on top of the wrong bucket. The lather found a stem of the lettuce to attach itself to. He left both the lettuce and the lather alone. 
	A mosquito tacked its way to the bucket. He saw it, stared at it and decided to let it live. He could never catch them in flight. As soon as he got close to them they seemed to just disappear. He figured, months earlier, that they turned length-on to his eyesight and got away. Perhaps his thirty-eight-year-old eye muscles were not up to catching such things any more. When he was younger he didn't need them to catch mosquitoes - there are none in England. Now, when he needed those muscles, they collaborated with the mosquitoes. So he didn't try. He just decided to let them live. Besides, if he killed them all, what would the lizard and the spider eat? 'Not bloody mosquitoes, they wouldn't. Not last night.'
	The cold chicken tasted good. The fish and carrots were not so good. Somehow, fish never kept its taste the way chicken did. But every time he hoped he would be wrong about that. No eating tools were used - just his fingers. He ate slowly, standing and glancing around the room. Watching the mosquitoes coming and going as though they were looking around a supermarket. Watching the light play with the foliage, watching his day begin.
	He finished the food and put the single plate into the hand-washing bucket. Using the same soap, he washed the dish. Some more lather found the lettuce. He saw it but thought nothing. He would have the lettuce later, when the water (and the lather) freshened it.
	'Eggs. Forgot the eggs. Tomorrow.' Sunny side up, sir?
	There was a noise. It was one he had not heard for a long time. He stretched his neck, raising his head into the air. He fixed his eyes on one point on the wall but was not looking at it. His hearing got all the attention.
	He was right. Even above the crickets (if they were crickets) he heard it.
	He went to the mesh door, slowly. Listening. The door took him onto the balcony, ten feet above the forest floor. Trees to the left and the right and behind. In front, the beach, the sea. And, eventually, Australia.
	He squinted in the sunlight and looked to the sea. He could hear it but he couldn't see it. There was no mistake. It was an aircraft. First class, sir? It was to his left. It was coming towards him but not directly. He saw it. Small. Private jet, maybe. It was heading towards the centre. Towards the mountain he had never climbed. Never needed to. It would not come over him. It would not see him. 
	There was something strange about the sound. It was not constant. It came louder then faded, then louder. 
	He watched it until it was lost behind the trees closest to him. He ran to the end of the balcony on the left and caught one more glance. He followed it with his ears but then the sound stopped. It seemed, for a moment, as though the crickets had stopped, too. Then there was another sound. Short and loud.
	'Jesus, he's down.'
	He held his breath to listen. Nothing. The crickets had started again. His eyes brought the next witness. Smoke. Black and then grey and then grey.
	'Christ.'
	Now he would have to go up the mountain. Without a shave or shampoo.