A box of clothes, a hairbrush, a bottle of aspirin. A blanket, a mirror. Odette looked at her possessions and did not believe it. She had begun to think of Peros Banhos as home. Maude wouldn’t talk and Georges had done nothing but drink, but her vegetable garden was blooming. Leonard was being a fisherman. Someone yelled, ‘All aboard! Move along quietly!’
They shouldered their mother up the gangplank. She was as light as a feather and unaware of what was happening. She rolled her eyes and listened to the sea lapping against the ship. She counted the number of times a wave broke. ‘One, one, one, one…’
‘Mother?’
‘You’ll earn more in a day in Mauritius than you got in a month there,’ someone told everyone. ‘And there’ll be houses. Proper ones, not like those.’ The person pointed at a row of thatched huts that nestled beneath breadfruit and coconut trees. An abandoned bicycle lay on the sand. The person cast a bow-line and went to stow some coconuts. The hold was full of them. ‘So don’t worry.’
‘She’s worried.’ Odette propped her mother against a hatch. ‘Look at her. She needs a doctor.’
‘She’ll have one in…’ the person coughed, ‘Mauritius.’
The Nordvaer was not built to carry more than a few passengers. The Ilois were squashed on deck and told to sit beneath tarpaulins. The sea was rough, the food they were given was off, the ship rolled badly. Women held their children to prevent them sliding overboard. Old people wailed and turned green. Georges began to curse and shake without a drink. Odette and Leonard comforted their mother and wiped her chin with a cloth as coconuts rolled across the deck and dropped through the rails.
The Ilois were surprised to find themselves dumped in the Seychelles, but the cargo of coconuts had to be unloaded so they were ordered off, counted, vaccinated and shown through customs and immigration. No one told them what to do or where to go.
In desperation, they walked to the offices of the uncle of the last plantation manager on Diego Garcia. This man tried to find somewhere for them to say. He phoned and sent runners to local hostels, and asked officials from the Seychelles Government to help.
‘But Ilois are British subjects,’ they said. ‘They’re the responsibility of BIOT.’
A BIOT administrator was called. He suggested that the Ilois could stay in a local prison.
Odette and the others bedded down in cells. Some prisoners served them their first proper meal in days. The place stank of piss and rotten eggs.
‘What you in for?’ said a thief.
‘Me?’ said Georges.
‘Yes.’
‘Nothing. I haven’t done anything.’
The prisoner grinned. ‘No. Neither have I!’ He laughed and ladelled some rice onto his plate.
‘No. I mean it.’
‘So do I! Really! Ask anyone. I wasn’t anywhere near the house. The bloke that did it’s living on Praslin. I was nowhere near.’
‘No?’
‘But I got five years! I ask you.’ The man crouched down and whispered. ‘When I get out my first stop’s that bastard. He thinks Praslin far enough away!’ He clenched his fist. ‘See that?’
Georges nodded.
The man stood up and laughed. ‘Good for you!’
The sound of doors slamming and orders ringing down corridors interrupted them.
‘HEY!’
‘SIR!’
‘SWEEP THAT UP!’
‘SIR!’
‘AND WHEN YOU’VE FINISHED, WASH THE BROOM AND REPORT TO ME! BRING A SHOVEL!’
‘SIR!’
‘I’VE GOT ANOTHER LITTLE JOB FOR YOU! SOMETHING YOU’LL ENJOY VERY MUCH.’
‘SIR!’
‘YOU LIKE WORKING HERE, DON’T YOU?’
‘OH YES SIR.’
A door slammed. Keys jangled.
‘How about a drink?’ said Georges.
‘Sure!’ The prisoner left.
Georges waited. A drink. He bit a fingernail as he waited. The prisoner came back with a jug of water.
‘No,’ said Georges. ‘A real drink!’
The prisoner laughed again. ‘Oh sure,’ he said, and left the jug on the floor. ‘Sure!’
‘I thought you…’
‘Go to sleep.’
Odette screwed her eyes tight and refused to listen. They were locked in at nine o’clock but lights and noise from the streets kept them awake. The sound of cars and people meeting each other, talking about the usual things people talk about on warm streets in the evening. Bars were open.
Nine days later, the Ilois were taken from their cells and counted back onto The Nordvaer. Her cargo had been unloaded. The weather was hot, palm trees nodded over sweeps of blinding sand. The sun stung the roads and the air filled with the smell of melting tar as she nudged her way out of harbour and set course for Mauritius.