Jelly, page 11
‘Oh, Martha, don’t go,’ said Kate. ‘Lana will say sorry.’
‘No, I won’t,’ Lana said, ‘because it’s true.’ But she said it quietly, because she normally does say sorry eventually.
I gave Kate a quick happy wave to show that I was fine, but I didn’t turn round, because I wasn’t happy and I did think I was probably going to cry.
As I walked away, my head down, I kept seeing those dark patches beneath the surface of the Jellyfish, and they seemed already smaller; there were parts of them already being digested. We’d been avoiding looking in that direction, and nobody else was standing over at that end. I felt that rush of sadness again, but also fear. And then just loads of tiredness.
I couldn’t be properly angry at Lana. Not just because she was right, I suppose: I can be boring a lot of the time. But also because there’s something about staring out across the heaving, wide, endless ocean, that makes any argument feel ridiculous and pointless, like you’re so insignificant in the world that your petty squabbles don’t matter.
20
In the murky light of early evening two people were lying on top of each other grunting and groaning, just twenty metres away from the Big House. Because – like most of us – they both had such matted dirty brown hair, it was impossible to tell who they were, or even if they were male or female. It was impossible to tell what way up they were, or even to tell for definite what they were doing. Inside the Big House, there was only the light from the pitiful fire, so it was also difficult to see who was missing. There’re a lot of dark corners in here at night-time and I’ve never thought about dodgy stuff going on in them, but maybe that’s because I’ve been young. Or stupid.
It’s not that we’ve never had a ‘no sex’ rule explicitly – or maybe if there has been one, nobody’s talked about it in front of us. It’s just that nobody . . . well, you know. You wouldn’t want to get pregnant. And you wouldn’t want everybody to see you having sex, would you?
‘Right,’ said Soldier John loudly, ‘I think we need to start looking at other strategies for tomorrow.’
There were murmurs of agreement from the rest of the room. The murmurs were also loud. Most people had moved so that they had their backs to the door, but even still, you could see them quickly stealing a glance now and again.
James gave a snigger next to me. Kate had covered her mouth with her hand and was looking determinedly ahead.
‘I think we should spend at least a couple of hours practising the attack moves that we saw being used on the shore.’ Loud murmurs of approval again. ‘We’ll repair the rope and make a raft out of the remaining pieces of the boat.’
‘Yes, yes . . .’ People were also talking deliberately quickly to avoid hearing the grunts.
‘And then at least we’ll be doing something useful, rather than some people I could mention,’ said Dr Jones. She made her voice go really loud on the ‘some people’ bit.
There were a lot of tuts and the vigorous nodding of heads.
‘It’s the breakdown of society, that’s what it is,’ she said. ‘Everything’s going bad.’
‘Yes. If everybody can just focus, though,’ said Soldier John. He still looked tired, and in the firelight he looked thinner, and less powerful than I remembered. Probably because he was now missing his plastic-bag coat.
‘I don’t get it,’ whispered Lana. ‘How did they decide to do it? How do you talk about that?’
‘You just ask the person you fancy, I guess,’ I whispered back.
‘No, I mean, how do you go from not being couply and kissing and stuff, to just suddenly having sex in the open? I feel like they’ve missed out some stages. Did any of you notice anybody kissing or being couply today?’
We shook our heads. It was a proper mystery. There were a few sort-of couples on board, but they didn’t go round humping each other and grunting instead of coming to the evening meetings. I’d never noticed them doing anything except being extra nice to each other.
‘Listen to what fun they’re having, Martha,’ whispered James. He gave me a grin.
‘Uggh,’ I said.
He laughed. ‘They sound like two cows mooing. And what about all that hair? Do you think they’re accidently getting each other’s hair clumps caught in their mouths?’
‘James!’
‘Mwh, mwh, mwh.’ He pretended to kiss his hand and then lolled his tongue around.
‘James!’ I said again. Kate and Lana were laughing hysterically, so much so that Kate was struggling to breathe.
‘And maybe bits of beard are getting stuck in their teeth. Dirty beard hairs, with old fish scales attached. Yum. Salty. Just imagine, Martha, their hands creeping up underneath their rags . . .’
‘Uggggh, stop!’ I said.
James was laughing now as well. ‘And his tentacle . . . in the muscle ring . . .’ He wiped a tear of laughter away.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Please, no! I feel sick.’
‘Are you sure you don’t fancy joining them? We could find a spot a few metres away. Maybe over by the Small House?’ he said. ‘Go on, Martha.’
I did a being-sick face.
‘Yeah, no, don’t worry about it,’ said James. ‘Seeing that has set me back about ten years. I’m happy to die a virgin now.’
‘Really? Are you happy to die?’ I said.
He gave a sigh. ‘No. Don’t remind me. I forgot for a minute there. Not really.’
‘Then what are we going to do?’ I said. ‘We have to try something else to get off this thing.’
Lana and Kate had stopped laughing so much now, though Kate was still hiccoughing. Reminding them about our future deaths was a bit of a mood kill, and we sat for a few minutes thinking, or at least pretending to think. In the centre of the Big House, Soldier John and some of the others had now moved on to talking loudly about combat techniques for killing kriks.
‘I think we should say something to Soldier John. There’s no point in learning to kill kriks if we’re never getting off here,’ said Kate.
‘There aren’t even any on the shore at the moment,’ said Lana.
Suddenly there was a particularly loud grunt. A few of the people in front of us flinched, and immediately we four started laughing again.
‘Uh, uh!’ said James, doing an impression and putting his arms out as though he was going to grab Lana. She slid backwards to try and get away from him, whilst the four of us laughed even harder. I had to hold on to Kate just to keep myself upright. There were tears rolling down our cheeks, it was so funny.
‘Children!’ shouted Soldier John suddenly. We all jumped. I took a quick gasp of breath. The funniness went immediately. John’s shout makes the walls feel like they’re shaking, and makes you feel your blood pulsing so hotly round your skin that it blurs the edges of your vision. The room rustled as everyone turned to stare at us.
‘We’re not children,’ said James.
‘You’re certainly behaving like children. And you are a child, my boy. You are the youngest four on board, and in the old days you’d have just been worrying about exams at your age, and playing computer games. Or doing flute practice.’ James frowned and opened his mouth to argue. I nudged him and he shut it again. ‘I’m sorry that this has happened to you. But you are here, and you’re not dead. You need to be thinking about how to save yourselves . . .’
Soldier John paused for a second. Were we supposed to reply to this, or say something? There was an expectant silence in the room that was uncomfortable, and not just for us. Other people were shuffling awkwardly too. Soldier John never spoke like this.
For a minute, I wasn’t sure that he knew how to finish what he was saying, or whether he’d maybe even forgotten that he was speaking. He was no longer really looking at us, but more at the darkness of the walls behind us.
But then he seemed to shake himself out of it. Fiercely, he glanced round the room. ‘And there’s no reason for behavin’ like idiots,’ he said. It was exactly the sort of thing he normally said, several times a day, and there was a sigh of relief from all around the room. It wasn’t clear if he was still talking to us, to the rest of the people in the room, to the people outside, or whether it was just general life advice. We all looked at each other, but seriously this time, covering up our smiles.
There was another pause in the room, because most people didn’t want to risk saying anything. Or maybe because there wasn’t much to say. That was the advantage of Dr Jones’s evening lectures. They gave you something to do when you couldn’t be trying to escape.
And it was into that silence that Old Albert came rushing.
‘You’ll all want to know this,’ he said, as he entered the doorway.
There were quite a few things we wanted to know. You could see that the entire room was shocked. We should have realized it was Old Albert who was missing, because the evening’s discussion had been strangely rational. Next to me, Lana started shaking with silent laughter, so much that there was a ring of wibbling mesoglea all around her. Which was making Kate giggle even more.
‘The dirty dog,’ whispered James with exaggerated disgust.
‘You’ll all want to know this,’ said Albert again. ‘That other boat is here. The yacht.’
21
‘Pull!’ shouted Soldier John. ‘Steady now . . . ease her in . . .’
The yacht edged slowly forward, its bow turning to one side.
‘Gently, gently . . .’
The boat crept through the mass of tangling tentacles feeling and stroking it.
‘Now . . . wait for it . . . wait . . .’ Soldier John held his arm up until the bow was just inches from the edge of the creature. ‘Now . . . cut!’
With a jagged piece of wood, Dr Jones started to quickly saw through the edge of the mesoglea, leaving a mooring space for the boat. As it came right up, a sudden mass of jelly bubbled out of the creature, gathering round the bow of the boat and pulling it in.
‘Get it through that,’ said Soldier John. ‘Into the cut.’
Both teams pulled hard, guiding the hull through the sticky fluid.
‘Now ’old ’er there – ’old. We need a few minutes to make sure it’s secure.’
Already the jelly around the bow was starting to change from a viscous, colourless liquid to a translucent solid.
The yacht was around fifteen metres long and it was very damaged, in a much worse state than it had looked from a distance. Along the full length of the deck there ran a mighty crack, and the mast now tilted at a dangerous angle. Right in the centre of the deck was a metre-wide area that was smashed completely, where something had obviously hit it once before.
‘OK,’ said Soldier John. ‘Do I ’ave a volunteer?’
He looked around the crowd and it was one of those ‘wobble in time’ moments, where a split second seems to last an hour, and an hour seems to last five minutes. I think we all probably felt that excitement and tension and fear and worry. Just climbing on board felt like the possibility of death. But then . . . so did staying put.
‘Yes.’ Kate stepped forward. ‘I’d like to go.’
‘Right,’ said Soldier John. ‘Somebody who’s not a child.’
‘Oh,’ said Kate. ‘I can still—’
‘If there are no other volunteers then I’ll go,’ added Soldier John. Kate stepped back again.
Half the people on board put their hands up immediately.
‘You,’ said Soldier John, pointing to Old Albert. His hand hadn’t been up, but I think we all felt it was a good choice.
‘What do you want me to do? Up there?’ he asked.
‘Tell us exactly what’s in there, and don’t do anything else. Leave everything exactly as it is and don’t touch anything.’
Old Albert nodded, though his eyes went all squinty. He put his hands on the bow rail and pulled himself up, heading straight for the hold. He peered in for a few minutes. ‘There are dead in here. Two girlies and three men.’
‘By “girlies”, do you mean they’re children? Or are they women?’
Old Albert squinted. ‘Women.’
‘Thanks,’ Soldier John remained expressionless. ‘Can you give us more info’mation?’
‘They’re in a room that’s all benches nailed down. But there is a brown carpet and cushions which we could take off.’
‘Thanks. Now go into the ’old.’
There were relieved smiles from the crowd now, and a few people raised their eyebrows at the exciting news about the cushions.
‘He didn’t say if they were wearing clothes. But Old Albert would have mentioned it if they weren’t, wouldn’t he?’ said Lana. ‘I want a jumper. I want whatever one of those women is wearing on their tops.’
‘I’d love a pair of socks. Do you think there are socks?’ said Kate.
‘Socks? What about shoes?’
‘I like feeling what mood the Jellyfish is in, though,’ said Kate. ‘I like to feel its vibrations under my feet.’
‘I like to be friggin’ warm, you idiot,’ said Lana.
Old Albert’s head appeared back out of the hatch. He was chewing on something.
‘What the hell?’ muttered James. ‘Kate should have gone. You’d never have helped yourself to snacks, would you?’
Kate smiled.
‘Yeah, then we’d have had half a bite each of whatever gone-off thing it was,’ said Lana. ‘Great.’
‘’Ave you finished?’ said Soldier John.
‘Yes,’ said Old Albert. ‘Shall I just chuck the bodies over the side?’
‘NO!’ shouted everybody.
‘What else is there?’ said Soldier John.
‘There’s more cushions and carpet. There’s five lifejackets, some empty bottles and cans, some toilet roll—’ He was interrupted by loud whoops from the crowd. ‘Some string, some books . . .’
There was a sigh from a number of the people on board. Staring Crone clasped her hands to her chest in joy.
‘Which books?’ shouted somebody.
Old Albert gave a shrug. ‘Books. And six spoons, a bottle opener, a tin opener, six forks and six knives.’
‘Knives?’ Soldier John interrupted. ‘’ow sharp?’
‘Just the normal eating sort. Not for slicing things.’
‘What else?’
‘Ar . . . that’s it.’
Lana rolled her eyes. ‘He is so repellent.’
‘Mwa, mwa, mwa!’ James put his arms out as though he was going to kiss her.
‘James, stop. It’s not funny,’ said Lana.
‘It is. Imagine his tongue in your mouth. And seriously, who was it who was actually having real sex with him?’ We all recoiled in horror while James laughed.
Old Albert was starting to unload the boat now, and people were surging forward to help. I suspected the cushion covers would be the main attraction, as the jelly surface of the creature was already soft enough for sitting on. But new cloth? For clothes? That’d be something we didn’t have.
‘What’re the bodies like, Albert?’ said Soldier John.
‘Dead.’
‘But ’ow decayed? Right down to the bones?’
‘. . . no . . .’ Albert’s reply was delayed. He didn’t look happy about going back to examine the bodies more closely. Especially now that most of the people on board were dividing up the materials, and were no longer watching him. ‘The meat is all shrivelled up and dried out. It’s still on the bones.’
‘The flesh?’
‘Aye.’
‘If we take off their clothes, will the bodies fall apart?’
‘Maybe. Maybe not.’
‘Do not remove their clothes, then.’
It didn’t take long to divide up the objects that had been in the hold. Anything sharp would be kept in the Big House, probably for gutting fish, and the people who needed a new addition to their wardrobe were obvious. Some were already wearing their ‘cushion cover jumpers’, or were busy ripping seams apart to create head and arm holes.
‘Throw one of the bodies over the side,’ said Soldier John. ‘As far past the tentacles as you can, but where we can watch what happens.’
Old Albert disappeared for a minute, and then reemerged, staggering, and carrying one of the women. Her hair still hung in a tight, neat ponytail, and it brushed loosely against the side of Old Albert’s leg as he clambered up to the rail of the boat. Her shrunken, wasted legs and arms were unnaturally yellow, whether from the effects of the sun, or some kind of dye in the carpet. Her limbs protruded awkwardly, stuck now in the angle in which she’d been lying. She did still look human, but it was more like the impression of being human, like a scarecrow, or a cardboard cut-out of a woman.
She was almost past the stage of being repulsive, and more into the stage where it would be OK to put her in a museum like they did sometimes in the olden days. And I think people would have been interested because I know I found it difficult to stop myself from staring at her. I did feel sad, and wondered what sort of person she’d been. But I sort of had to force myself to feel that, because she just didn’t look like a real person any more.
‘Wait!’ Carol shouted. ‘A prayer!’
She muttered a few quiet words while Old Albert rested the body on the railings. Even he looked unusually respectful, and not too obviously impatient.
But when it was over, he tipped the body straight into the sea towards the stern of the boat. She bobbed immediately upwards, resting on the swarming, writhing short tentacles. They seethed below her, stroking and feeling in blubbering waves. Then with a hiss, they seemed to relax, releasing her, and disappearing again, far below the surface.
We watched, breathless, as she slowly floated out away from the Jellyfish. One of the longer tentacles emerged, slowly stroking and touching her. It stuck to her for a few seconds, lifting her by her torso, but then it, too, let go and disappeared back beneath the surface.
‘What do you think?’ said James.
‘I think it can tell that she’s human,’ I said. ‘But I think she’s too dead. I don’t think it likes her very much.’
