Page 72 of Totally Wrecked
Harvey shoots me a look, but I ignore it. Gray doesn’t, he picks up on it straight away. “What’s your beef, Harvey?”
After a beat Harvey gives a dramatic sigh. “I just didn’t see any democratic action, appointing Rex as our ‘leader’.” He actually makes air quotes.
Whatever. I’m ready to move on, but Gray puts his hand on Harvey’s shoulder. “You watchThe Walking Dead, Harv? Rex is Rick Grimes. You got it?”
Harvey throws his hands in the air. “I’m surrounded by imbeciles.”
“So, let's head to the beach,” I say again in a very measured voice. “And then make a plan.”
“You get my vote, Rick,” Killian says. “I’d do what he says, Harvey, or you’ll be the first to get their brains eaten.”
I appreciate Killian’s support, but I really fucking hope we’re not going to resort to cannibalism!
LEANDER
All night long the storm rages, and all night long I hold the girls in my arms. At one point I drop off, but wake again to Daisy singing as she cuddles a snuffling Keyara.
“If all the little raindrops were lemondrops and lollipops, oh, what a rain that would be…”
That was one of my favorite songs as a kid.
“Oh, if all the little sunbeams were bubblegum and ice cream, oh, what a sun that would be…” I join in.
What I wouldn’t give for some lemondrops or ice cream right now.
“Standing outside, with my mouth open wide, singing a la la la, la la la.”
After that, she’d recited the story of Timmy Tiptoes, another story I knew from childhood. It felt like we were the little squirrel, imprisoned in a hollow tree. We just needed our Chippy Hackee to bring us some nuts to eat.
“It was a storm that saved Timmy in the end, Keyara, so don’t be afraid of storms,” I tell her.
Me, my little bro Jasper, and my big bro Malcolm had a British nanny, so we obviously got a lot of Beatrix Potter read to us at bedtime.Peter Rabbitand all that stuff.
She was great, Nanny Clark. Our own regularMary Poppins.
Made up for the lack of parents in our life. Mom and Dad were always off skiing or at Martha’s Vineyard. The Westhall family fortune had been set up by our grandfather; my dad had nothing to do but sit back and let the CFO and CEO do their jobs while he chaired the board (which was max of two meetings a year).
It’s a weird thing, growing up having no one setting an example about how to work hard.
That’s why I joined the wilderness fire service. Up until then I was a complete waste of space. I took to drinking absinthe and smoking clove cigarettes at the age of fourteen. By eighteen I had gone through my emo phase and decided to become an actor. Malcolm had gone to LA to invest money in TV shows as a producer, so set me up with some auditions, but that involved turning up on time and being prepared, so I bombed that shit. Jasper was working on his polo career, but horses made me sneeze. I had no idea what to do with my life.
On my twentieth birthday I’d woken up in our huge mansion, a girl passed out in my bed and lines of cocaine on the nightstand, and just…felt nothing. Like it didn’t matter if I existed or not. I realized I wanted to matter, to do something that mattered.
I put the girl in an Uber, then spent the morning looking for jobs. My criteria was that they were immediate hire, and also looked challenging. A week later I pulled up to camp and met my crew boss Rex—the rest, as they say, is history.
As I hug the girls to my body, I look down at them and vow to bring them through this whole ordeal safe and sound. I am a man they can rely on—not something I could have said four years ago. I matter now.
At some point, we all fall asleep. When I wake again, the rain has stopped. Maybe seventy-five percent of the roofing material is still in place, so it could be worse.
Shafts of sunlight are coming through the broken branches, warming our bodies. The air is muggy and humid. I kiss Keyara’s head and Daisy’s cheek, then barrel-roll myself out from beneath the branches.
Water.
I’d stood the wet wipe box upright in the sand last night, and it’s full of rainwater. I gulp down some for myself, then carefully pour it into the soda cans and leave them next to the entrance for the girls.
The lychees we’d collected the day before are nowhere to be seen. Same with the coconuts. I run through the forest along the sticky mud path towards the lychee tree, then throw as many fruit in the wet wipe container as I can. A lot of the berries have disappeared. Harvested by forest creatures or blown off by the storm?
Filling the Tushy Tickle box with fruit has me cracking up again. The Westhall Family ass-wipe empire.“These wipes pay for your lavish lifestyle, Leander!”My dad would snap if he heard me making turd jokes. Of course, it’s not all butt wipes. The Westhalls have a huge range of wet-naps. For make-up, for babies, for counter tops, even for washing your fruit and veggies, which I think is very weird.
