You see, Ty, I paid attention, and I did my research. I knew all along where it was; I knew better than you. But it’ll take hours to get to the next turn-off, where the land will be denser with vegetation, the sands softer, more difficult for the car. I don’t know if I’ve got the skills to drive there, or if this car is up to it. But by then we’ll be back in your country, and surely then you’ll be tempted to help.
When the sandy track begins, it’s impossible to drive above forty kilometres, although is it in better condition than I’d assumed. Someone has been down it with a grader recently. I always thought nobody went anywhere near your den, not even miners; I thought it was the most remote place on earth. Things have changed in the years we’ve been away, more mine sites, more prospectors.
By sunset, I can’t stop blinking and yawning, and I’m starting to swerve. I’ve got a headache. Sometimes I peer out, hoping to find camels, but, for hours, I’ve only seen roos, waiting on the side of the track, watching us curiously, like hitchhikers waiting for a ride. We haven’t passed a single vehicle, of course, and no cattle either.
‘Just mine sites,’ I murmur aloud, because the silence is getting to me, especially yours. ‘No one to find us.’
I feel as if I’m spinning, as if I’m on drugs too. My hands are shaking again, although that could be from gripping the steering wheel as the car judders over the uneven ground. Everything inside me feels shaken and fragile. I glance over at the sleeping fox; she’s juddering too, water spilt in her box.
Before it gets dark, I pull over, not that it matters out here if I park in the middle of the track. I get out and go around to the other side of the car, fling open the door, push down the rugand pull off the gaffer tape. I press another tablet to your gums before you can say anything.
‘How you feeling?’ I say brightly, as if I’m some sort of nurse and I didn’t just run you over.
You spit at me and the pill pops straight out.
I hand you a bottle of water, calculating how much we have left. It’s only enough for us both for a few days, which isn’t smart, but I also remember the water pipe that you rigged to your den, and that there is fresh water in the middle of those strange golden rocks you called the Separates. Soon, we could bathe in that freshwater spring. I smile as I realise how close it all is. You strain against the ropes I’ve tied around you.
‘It’s strange you being the one tied up, isn’t it?’ I say. ‘This time around.’
You glare, daggers in your eyes.
‘Do you want to come out of the car?’
Nothing.
‘Don’t want a pee?’
Before I loosen your ropes, I stroke the blond hairs on your arms. They look the same as before now, your skin browner like before, too. All these tiny pieces of you, returning. We just have to keep finding more, keep looking. But, unlike you, I’m not being put together out here: I’m shedding a skin. Here, I’m peeling away cold London and finding bone underneath, muscle too. I’m becoming less of a victim, as you become more of one. I untie the rope around your chest so that you can sit up, but I keep the one around your legs wound firm.
Leaving you and the fox in the car, I lie on the hot sand in the middle of the orange track, staring at the stars. The constellations are upside down, and there are so many more than inLondon. I gaze at the ones I recognise. There are more stars here than there are streetlights, candles or flickers of flames in the wotld. More stars than the thoughts in my head, or in yours, or in our heads combined. It’s all becoming more familiar: the dusty lemon scent of the plants, the sand stirred by night-time breezes. It’s all seeping inside me.