Dark Places

24. The PIllars Of Hercules

Three days later Crown Air flew us from Luton airport, a little strip of a runway some distance north of London, to Gibraltar. It was the only flight that got us to the area for a reasonable price, and there was no need to pay two thousand pounds more to fly to Casablanca. We had plenty of time. Morgan had bought the special offer hook, line, sinker, and rod, and in two days' time he would fly into the country. Two days after that, if all went according to plan, he would arrive in Todra Gorge.
   It had all been surprisingly easy to arrange. It helped that Nicole worked in a travel agency. We had put together a travel package that consisted of return airfare to Marrakesh, one night in Marrakesh, two nights in Todra Gorge, two days of camel-trekking in the desert, and two nights in Essouaira on the Atlantic coast. As far as the hotels knew, or Morgan for that matter, we were a new package-tour company called "Marrakesh Express Holidays" which specialized in Moroccan packages for solo travellers or couples. I spent a few hours in a London copy shop using their computers to create official-looking documentation, using samples from real companies as a guide. It was Nicole's friend Rebecca, thinking that we were arranging a surprise birthday party, who called Morgan and gave him the last-minute cancellation story. He accepted on the spot.
   Hallam, Nicole, Steve, and Lawrence had all managed to get one of the four weeks of vacation allotted to British employees despite their minimal notice. We were due to fly back from Gibraltar one week from today. If all went even remotely according to plan that gave us ample time and opportunity.
   Once in Gibraltar we got off the plane, picked up our bags, and hiked across the enormous military-sized runway, which actually had an traffic light on it to indicate when it was safe to cross. The Rock of Gibraltar loomed above us, taking up a good third of the sky.
   "Remember the last time we got here?" Hallam asked.
   "I remember being bloody happy to get here," Nicole said. "First place that wasn't bloody freezing. I'd had enough of sleeping in car parks for one life, thank you."
   "Sleeping in Dover car park because of Steve's minor oversight," Lawrence added.
   "Come on now, I think I've heard enough about that for one life," Steve objected. "How was I supposed to know that Australians need to get their visas in advance for bloody France?"
   "That's true, how was he supposed to know?" Lawrence asked. "Nation of penal convicts, you can't expect them to be able to read."
   "Well, at least we don't bloody well abuse our sheep for unnatural sexual practices the way you Kiwis do —"
   The usual Anzac bickering continued well into town. We were in no rush; the ferry didn't leave for a good six hours yet. None of us wanted to climb up the Rock, we'd done it last time and it didn't seem worth a repeat. We made a few last-minute purchases, found a pub near the waterfront, and whiled away the afternoon with cigarettes and beer and a truckload of nostalgia.
   I had met the Big Yellow Truck and its inhabitants for the first time within sight of the pub in which we now waited. The truck had set out from London but Rick and Michelle and myself had bypassed the first week and flown to Gibraltar. Rick and I did this in order to gain an extra week's worth of pay. Michelle, typically, had missed the rendezvous in London and had to scramble to catch up.
   I had mixed emotions at first. The truck was older and creakier than I had expected. Its denizens had already bonded into a group, with their in-jokes and their newly formed couples, and I felt very much an outsider at first. But everyone seemed nice enough. Hallam and Nicole were friendly and easy-going and self-assured, and you could tell that there was steel beneath their laid-back exterior. Steve seemed like a stereotypical loud, boisterous, jovial Aussie lager lout at first. It took me some time to realize that that was only half his story. And Lawrence and I got on famously from the start, when I climbed onto the truck and he wordlessly offered me a beer. We fell into a conversation about the merits of San Miguel versus Kronenbourg. Then a dark-haired girl came over, draped an arm around Lawrence’s shoulder, and smiled at me.
   "Hi," she said. "My name's Laura."

* * *

   The trip was supposed to go straight across Africa to Kenya, but we separated in Cameroon. War had broken out in the Congo, the border to Chad was reportedly closed, but those were side issues. Laura's death had been shattering for everyone. Me most of all, of course, but it took the spirit, the joy of adventure, out of everyone. We stayed together only long enough to arrange our flights out of Cameroon. Most of the rest of the group flew to Kenya. A few gave up and went back to Europe. I alone flew to Zimbabwe. Partly to visit my family there. Mostly to escape the memories of Laura that crowded around every corner of the truck, every familiar face, like an army of ghosts. I was drinking heavily, every night. It didn't help.
   On our last night, camped beside a dirt road just outside Douala, after a while it was just me,  Hallam, Nicole, Steve, and Lawrence. Everyone else had said their tearful goodbyes and climbed into their tents for the last time. My mood was black despair, and when Nicole told me, gently, that it would eventually get better, I flared up angrily.
   "How would you know?" I demanded. "How the fuck would you know?"
   "You're not the only person to have a terrible thing happen to them," she said quietly.
   "Yeah? What happened to you?"
   There was a moment of silence as Nicole considered my challenge. She exchanged glances with Hallam, and then she spoke.
   "I had an older sister," she said. "Four years older than me. She had cystic fibrosis. You know what that is? It's when fibres grow in your lungs and slowly, over a period of many years, choke you to death. It starts young. Usually you're dead by twenty-one. But Helen was a fighter. She lasted until twenty-three. The last three years, the way she breathed, it was like living with Darth Vader. And she knew, of course, she knew all along that she was going to die soon. So she was angry. Furious. And sick, and weak, and demanding, and manipulative. And who could blame her? You know? Who could blame her? I'll tell you who. Her little sister. Try living in the same room as your dying sister for three years, trying not to hate her for dying and for being the center of everyone's life, especially yours. Will that do? Is that terrible enough for you?"
   I had never seen Nicole lose control of her emotions, never seen her even faintly aggressive before. "I'm sorry," I muttered, looking down. "I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."
   "I am too," she said, immediately contrite. "Paul. That didn't come out right. I'm not angry at you. I'm not. I'm sorry."
   There was a moment of silence.
   "The worst thing that ever happened to me was in Bosnia," Hallam said. "Peacekeeping. A little town, I still can't pronounce it, one of those names that don't have any vowels. There was a woman there, about fifty years old. She was Serbian, but it didn't matter to her. She was the only one there who didn't go crazy, absolutely bugfuck crazy, about whether you were Serb or Croat or Bosnian. She lived all alone in this little house outside the village. I never really found out her story. I always had business to talk to her about. She'd spent a year in London, so she could translate. And we were busy. We were very busy. And one day she says that she thinks she knows where this local warlord is hiding. War criminal. Pretty penny-ante by Bosnian standards, we're not talking Srebrenica here, a little monster, but still a monster. She says she'll find out from her nephew, the next day." He paused. "We found her about a week later, about five miles from town. Her and her nephew both. What was left to them. Tied to a tree. It was… " Again he hesitated. "I'll spare you the details. It was ugly. It was extremely ugly." Another pause. "We never got the fucker either."
   We all stared silently into the guttering embers of the fire.
   "Lawrence?" Nicole asked, her voice barely audible.
   "Sorry," Lawrence said, shaking his head. "I've been lucky. Never had anything that bad happen to me. Not even close."
   "Steve?"
   Steve shook his head. "I don't know, mate," he said. I didn't think I had ever heard him sound serious before. "I just don't know. There was this one time… "
   He hesitated.
   "What happened?" Lawrence asked.
   "Well," Steve said. "There was this bit of a bloody misunderstanding, see? So I spent a couple years up in Darwin. And this one time, about midway through, there was another bloody cock-up and they went and blamed me for it, so I went and spent a few weeks helping build this road across the arse end of the world up there. Bloody hot it was. And the flies, Christ. But I'd gotten to be mates, a bit like, with one of the overseers, see? Fixed up his bike for him on the side. Old Triumph, it was, classic piece of work. So this one time, I got him to take me out, before dawn like, and bring this eskie full of ice cream to where they picked us up at the end of the day. Just as a treat for all the mates I was working with. And the whole day, I reckon it was the hottest fucking day of my life, I was telling them all about it this bloody big eskie full of ice cream waiting at the end of the day." He sighed and looked forlorn. "But I'd forgotten to lock down the eskie, hadn't I? And something got in there. Roos or camels or I don't know what. And when we got there, all excited like, the eskie was open and all the ice cream had melted."
   He fell silent.
   After a moment Nicole said, incredulously, "That's the worst thing that ever happened to you?"
   Steve nodded tragically.
   "Losing your ice cream? That was your worst moment? Didn't you get stabbed once in prison? Didn't you tell me once that your father left you when you were eight?"
   "Oh, sure," Steve said. "I've been in my share of scraps, and I took a shiv once, and my dad left me young, and my mum drank too much. But she was a good mum still, and he probably wouldn't have been much of a bloody father so I reckon that all worked out all right. No, that wasn't so bad. But when I saw that empty eskie, after telling all my mates about the treat I had for them. Well." He sighed. "Bit of a disappointment, that was. Bit of a bloody big — what?"
   For we had all started laughing. Once we started we couldn't stop, and eventually Steve joined in, and we all laughed until we had tears in our eyes.  Looking back I guess it was the first time I had laughed since Laura's death. And the last for months thereafter.