Shipwrecked

At first, it is just a matter of surviving.

 When the heat and the seafood made him feel sick, and the strangeness of the shack they give to him at night threatens to overwhelm – the roaring, noise-filled silence of it! How could the relentless sweep of the ocean and the endless percussive cacophony of the jungle be so quiet?

How could such flimsy walls press in so hard?

And then, it was a matter of becoming accustomed. Growing used, in a fashion, to the sight of the small, ridiculous hut at the end of the day; a home, of a kind, even when chickens invade in the night and lay eggs in his slippers. Putting his own mark on things. Clearing away all evidence of the past inhabitant; his clothes and his posters and his terrible CDs. Organizing the bathroom how he likes it. He buys some new soap and puts it on the tiny, rusted tray. He finds himself pleased at the sight of it.

Finally getting the recommended 8 hours of sleep, letting the noise of the life-ridden jungle fade into almost nothing – not the same way the hum of London in his ears had been like his own breath through his lungs, but getting there.

He stays, and stays, and stays, and misses his home. It is like a constant headache. But it’s a headache that he grows accustomed to, just like everything else. Like the psoriasis on his hand, or the bitterness of the tea.
 
-
 
The inspector has always been one to grow into a place, put his feet firmly on the ground and let himself take roots.

It wouldn’t happen here though. Not in this crazy, light-filled, colour-bursting hell. Not in this place of rum burning his stomach and sun burning his tender fleshy skin. And people, animals, flowers- living violently, brightly, incoherently everywhere he turned to look. Even away from the sand of the beach, where the soil becomes rich and dark, he has no stability. The very plants are strange to him.

Even so. Even so. He grows to love – not the island. Not the sand or the salt or the sea. The island is his purgatory. But he grows-  to appreciate small parts of it. Tiny pieces, like a jigsaw puzzle that’s only been half done. An apt metaphor. He likes puzzles. It happens slowly, in the same way the hot days blur gently into the hot nights, and the lights come out one by one.

He grows to like:

Harry. 
 
Harry. At least he has someone to come home to, even if it is a very impudent lizard. He wonders sometimes if Harry should be off in the wild instead, with a lizard wife and children, or finding the alpha lizard so he can kill him and establish dominance, or something like that. It's actually rather nice that he chooses to stay in his hut instead. It’s probably all the grapes he feeds him.

The officers’ laugh, unapologetic –the sergeant’s quiet chuckle. The two of them sitting with beer bottles in their hands, solid and reliable and friendly. The inspector has never gotten on very well with colleagues. Or other men. Or women, for that matter. Or anyone, really. He likes to think he has had several very sensible and uneventful friendships in his life, certainly with much fewer bawdy jokes and sarcastic jabs (followed by his officer’s wide-eyed ‘Who, me, Chief?’ look which has become as familiar as the inspectors’ own hand), but looking back on them, he thinks that perhaps those relationships were simply a matter of mutual tolerance, and it is the officer’s mocking laughter and the sergeant’s stifled smirk that are the real thing, so to speak. He’s not sure, and it is not in his nature to look inwards, so he does not.
-

Beer, cold on his tongue.

The sea-breeze that comes through every now and then, cooling the sweat on his skin.

The small, chipped teacup he buys in the market one morning on the way to work. He washes it and wonders exactly why he bought it. It’s not like he could get decent tea here anyway. There was something about the flowers on it that he liked.

The lack of light pollution. Good God, how he loves the night sky here. Yes. That is one thing that he loves, and he is willing to admit it to himself. The constellations are clear and sharp like the ancient maps of the heavens, and the stars go on forever. It makes his breath catch on occasion. He is not romantic about it, but there are so many, and they are so bright.

The lights of the local bar. The place is an abominable mess of noise, but the lights are nice in the evenings, yellow and soft.

He comes to appreciate the lights of the bar, and the way they nestle and gleam in her hair.

Privately, he comes to like a great many things about her. It is something of a torture. He is not entirely sure what to do about it. There is one thing he knows he can do, and that is his job, so he does it.  She pushes boundaries and makes it very hard to keep it together, every now and then.

Comes too close, dances near like a butterfly, and then flits away. She smells of sandalwood and sometimes he wonders how his hands might fit around her waist. One night he is lying awake, looking up at the whiteness of his mosquito net, and he realises with a sinking feeling in his stomach that she is probably a good deal of what keeps him here.

It is a frightening realisation, and he resolves to do absolutely nothing about the hands-on-waist situation. That hypothesis shall remain untested. For now.

He sighs.
 
-
 
The next morning, he awakes, and steps out, and looks at the sun rise over the ocean. It is like a postcard, only it is not something flimsy and bendable in his hand. It is all around him, in his hair, pushing against his skin, rushing in his ears and his chest. He breathes in the salt. Everything about this place astounds him, and it still does, but this morning the bright hyacinth-pink in the sky does not feel like as much of an indecent assault as it might have once. His pores fill with it. His elbows hurt where he leans against the railing, splintery wood pressing hard through the flannel of his pyjamas. He does not mind it.

He will never have the symbiosis with this place that he has with London. London, whose streets he can still call up in his mind – the buses, roaring, and the thin cold rain on his face. He will always be an outsider. He’ll never feel like he belongs to the island and its dizzy nonsensical world.

But it’s the details that are important. The small things. They make or break the case. This the inspector knows.

“You know, if I was ordered to go back to London right now, at this very moment, I’m not entirely sure what I would do,” he tells Harry, who is perched on the railing near his elbow.

Harry blinks.

“Shouldn’t have said that” he continues, half to himself, half to the lizard. “Some higher power has heard me, and I’ll end up dying here.”

Harry blinks again.

“Quite,” the inspector says in response, and watches the sun come up.