CHAPTER NINETEEN
‘Gerry! Wake up!’
She sat up abruptly. The sun was just beginning to raise a red rim on the eastern horizon. She groaned and rubbed her eyes.
‘Why did you wake me up?’ She yawned widely.
‘It’s nearly dawn, time for us to have some water.’
She saw him grimacing as he spoke to her. ‘Are you ok?’ she asked. She stretched her arms up, gazed across the sea to the east where the sky was brightening and yawned again.
‘Yes I’m alright, I think.’ He frowned. ‘It’s just my head.’ He struggled to a sitting position and the sudden effort sent a pulse of pain through his head. He put his hand on the place where his hair was still matted with dried blood and moaned.
‘Ali what’s wrong?’
‘It’s my head; it really hurts.’
Gerry stared at him and saw the right side of his mouth drooping and his right eye closing. ‘Oh shit you’re stroking. Oh hell Ali. Lie down.’ She eased him back against the side. ‘Talk to me!’
His breathing had taken on an awful rasping quality. What could she do? She staggered over to the corner and snatched up the remaining water.
‘Drink this; come on.’ She tilted the bottle to his mouth and encouraged him to drink. After drinking half of it he pushed the bottle away.
‘I haven’t told you about Gilgamesh yet.’ His voice was slurred but she could just make out his meaning.
‘Oh fuck Gilgamesh,’ she said. ‘Come on, drink some more.’
She offered him some more of the water and he drank it gratefully. His breathing became less stressed.
‘How do you feel,’ she asked.
‘My head still aches,’ he mumbled. ‘I can’t feel my arm.’
Gerry looked all around the raft, seeking inspiration from she knew not what. ‘Ok, maybe the worst is over. You must have had a blood clot where you were hit on the head.’
‘I’ll tell you about Gilgamesh now. Tabitha knows where it is. It’s hidden in my house back in Baghdad.’
‘What? You have a copy?’
He managed a crooked smile. ‘That photocopy of the original, which Mansour made. I kept it. I never got the chance to give it back. It’s signed by all those people.’
‘Whose signatures?’ she asked, ‘who signed it?’
‘And seals. Official seals. I kept it hidden away. At my house in Baghdad. It’s been there all these years.’
‘Where is it hidden Ali?’
‘But first promise me you’ll find my son. And Tabitha… they know.’ He began to cough.
‘I’ll get you the rest of the water. Hold on.’ She retrieved the bottle from where she had dropped it, unscrewed the cap and supported his head with her other hand. ‘Here drink this.’ Then she realized his head was sinking down on to his chest, his breathing became more labored, slowed down further, then he gave one last sighing, groaning breath. She lifted his chin and immediately saw his right eye was closed and his left had a fixed stare. She placed her fingers under his jaw and tried to feel for a pulse, but she had seen enough death to know his life had ended.
She lifted up the water bottle and inspected the contents. She ran her tongue over her dry lips and drank what little remained. Then she slumped back against the other side of the raft and stared at him, turning over in her mind what he had told her. There was a Gilgamesh document; it was signed by a list of people who would not want its contents revealed; it was hidden at his house in Baghdad and his wife Tabitha or son Rashid would know where it was.
‘Now all I need to do is get safely off this raft,’ she muttered, ‘then I have to avoid the bastards trying to kill me; find my way to Baghdad; identify your house; befriend your wife and son; locate this document and bring it safely home. Should be a piece of piss really.’
Then suddenly she felt a sense of rage and outrage flooding through her. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ she shrieked. ‘I want to get those bloody bastards!’ She slammed her hands on the side of the raft. ‘I want to kill the bloody fuckers.’ She hit the side with alternate hammer blows of her fists, ‘I want to beat their bloody brains out, rip their hearts out, they killed Phil; they locked me up for fucking years; took away my baby; oh shit, shit, shit!’ she collapsed onto the floor and howled in rage and frustration until the emotion slowly drained away from her.
Gerry pulled Ali’s body into the meagre shade given by the edge of the raft and pulled his eyelids down. ‘Ali, I’m going to try and survive,’ she said quietly, ‘and if I do… well they’ll get what’s coming to them.’ She tugged off his sweater, arranged his arms across his stomach and draped the sweater over his face in a forlorn gesture of respect.
She shaded her eyes and stared overhead. Apart from a thin layer of cloud out to the west the sky was clear and the sun was climbing above the horizon. She looked at the sea. This morning there were no white capped waves, just an even swell over which the life raft steadily swooped up and dived down. She had become so accustomed to the rhythm she barely noticed it. She decided to set up the canopy again. If it looked like it was likely to become splashed by spray she would take it down and wrap it up so as to keep it salt free.
‘Ali, I’ve got nothing to drink and nothing to eat,’ she announced to the dead man. ‘I just have to do what I can to stop dehydrating, and hope your prayer for rain is answered. Although it looks like it’s going to be a beautifully sunny today. And hot.’ She pulled off her blouse and sweater, still damp and clammy from their soaking and spread them over the top of the canopy to dry. Then she thought they might get blown off by a gust and spread them out on the side of the raft with one of the straps tucked through a sleeve.
Maybe she would live three more days before she became so severely dehydrated that her organs would fail and she would die. Until then she had to do her utmost to reduce sweating, she had to protect herself from the sun and keep still as much as possible and hope for a miracle. She realised she was getting hot and perspiring so she stripped off the rest of her clothes.
For hour after hour under the shadow of the canopy Gerry sat very still. Every now and again she gazed at Ali, nursing a crazy idea that he would suddenly wake up and pull the sweater clear of his face. If he did, she would revise her opinion of ghosts, zombies and life after death generally. She kept her breathing as shallow as possible and only moved to relieve aches in her limbs and vary the pressure points on her buttocks and back. A sheen of moisture covered her upper body and she gazed resentfully at the rivulets of sweat that dribbled slowly down her front. She used the bailer to scoop some seawater back into the raft and she sat against the side with a tepid pool swilling around her legs and then every few minutes she would pick some up and pour it over her head and shoulders.
From time to time she looked at the tainted rain water that she had collected off the roof sloshing gently about in the bottle and wondered if she would be better or worse off if she drank it. She suspected that in another couple of days she would be desperate enough to take the risk. Otherwise she would become more dehydrated and she would feel increasingly lethargic. Next would follow dizziness, loss of concentration and thereafter she hoped that she would just slip into unconsciousness.
For the moment she was thoroughly bored. She had nothing to do except scan the horizon with slow careful movements of her head. She passed the time by going back over her memories, trying to concentrate on the pleasant ones, but her mind insisted on recalling her more troubled times.