March 2nd
I stand beside the bed, surveying you.
‘Well, if you’re well enough to try the car…’ I say.
The sheet-shroud isn’t the most practical of outfits for clambering over rocks, and the suit I bought you is still lying in the dirt, so I dig out more of my old clothes from the drawers. You’ve lost weight since you’ve been here; your belly is now taut skin; even so, the biggest T-shirt is still small on you and none of the shorts fit. I remember you put skirts for me in the other bedroom, so I get those and we each pull one on. Now you don’t look like Ty the kidnapper; now you are me when I was sixteen. As I step towards you and brush dust from the T-shirt, I feel as if I’m brushing it off me.
We wait until evening before we set off across the sand, which is still warm from the day. I watch you from the corner of my eye and reach out to grab you when it looks like you might stumble. You are hot and clammy and I wonder how muchbetter you really are. Soon, we are in the shadows below the Separates. It’s cooler, and quieter too, as if the desert has gone silent at our approach.
‘Are the rocks like you remember?’ I ask, as we start on the uneven path.
‘I don’t remember.’
You step ahead of me, walking more confidently, your hands outstretched to balance on the rocks. You still know the route.
‘I thought you’d die in prison without this.’
‘I thought I’d die in the hole you dug for me!’
We’re both quiet as we navigate the boulder section. The moon is rising, illuminating the smooth giant rocks around us, making them glow like huge salt lamps. The heat hasn’t gone from them yet either. When I leant against the boulders at Malgi Rocks, after burning your papers and clothes, the heat disappeared quickly. How many nights ago was that? Time has become something strange: maybe it’s stopped, maybe we’ve found a bubble we can live inside and not grow any older.
‘Do you think we eventually get used to whatever place we’re in?’ I say. ‘Even prison?’
Once, I got used to being out here with you. I got used to thinking I was never going back to England, or to my parents. I got used to you. Maybe you got used to jail, and now everything else seems wrong. Your feet slide out from under you, and you hiss with pain as you reach to right yourself, your fingers scraping rock.
‘Want to stop?’ I say.
‘What do you reckon?’
Despite your dirty look, I hold your right elbow as you steady yourself. I can tell you are feeling something, now you’reback here. I can see memories hiding inside you. As we walk on, I hear the flap of wings above: bats emerging from their roosts, or perhaps an elusive night parrot, flying home.
‘I’ve been wondering something, Ty,’ I say. ‘Do you think it’s possible to have Stockholm syndrome for a place, like the psychs say you can have it for a person?’
The psychiatrists told me that Stockholm syndrome was a survival mechanism, a tool to help someone adapt to their circumstances. A strategy that allows a person to feel safer, satisfied, even happy. Did jail change you, make you forget all that was once so important to you? Did you get too used to those bars because you had to survive inside them?
‘Stockholm whatsit’s a pile of quacks’ nonsense. Something they pulled out of their arses to use against me in court. It’s made-up bullshit!’
I shrug. I don’t disagree with you. Even so, I’ve often wondered if it was this place that changed me more than you did, shaped our relationship. Maybe the desert is changing me again, making me want to be nice. My toes curl around pebbles on the path as I study your face in the moonlight. I want to touch it. Is it only because I’m back here, in this place, that I want that?
At the pool, you stop and stare into its depths. Does it feel like you’re seeing an old friend, the way it felt for me? Tonight, our inky-black pool has its party clothes on, glimmering, a whole galaxy of upside-down stars pinned to its cape. When we slip inside, we’ll be stepping into the sky.
‘You still want to swim?’ I say. ‘It’ll be soothing on your burns.’
An antidote for that pain I inflicted. You nod, your backstill to me. I could be reaching for a rock, plotting even now to inflict more pain. So maybe you do trust me. Or else you think this is as good a place as any to die.
‘It looks shallower,’ you murmur.
Can you see the rock ledge? The cave beneath?
‘The plants are still here,’ I say. ‘More of them now, and plenty of wildlife.’
As if on cue, the frogs start up. You smile. They do sound ridiculous, like a chorus of rusty car brakes. You struggle to take the T-shirt off, so I move closer and help pull it over your head.
‘Thanks,’ you mutter.
‘I’ll come with you,’ I say, ‘into the pool.’
‘Free country.’