‘My jeans pocket,’ I mutter, wriggling my hips to check I can still feel its outline. ‘I can’t reach, I’m kind of stuck here. Can you try? On my right side.’
He reaches across me, sucking in a shocked breath as he does. Broken rib kicking some ass. It’s awkward, having a stranger crushed against me, rooting around in my pocket, and he is mumbling apologies as he does it.
‘It’s all right,’ I reply. ‘I think the etiquette book goes out the window in a situation like this.’
He nods, his thick hair in my face, and then finally manages to tug it clear. He lies back, breathing heavily, before offering it to me.
‘You do it,’ I say. ‘Broken arm and all.’
His fingers fumble along the edge of the phone, turning it this way and that until he finds the on switch. The screensaver bursts into life; even that low level of light dazzles my eyes. The glass is criss-crossed with a spiderweb of cracks, but it seems to be working.
We both study the screen, and let out a joint sigh of disappointment. No bars. He tries to dial anyway, in case the telephonic gods are smiling on us. They are not.
‘No signal,’ he says, sounding frustrated. ‘Which I suppose is to be expected when you’re buried alive.’
‘Don’t say that! We’re not buried! We’ll be all right … we’ll get out …’
I hear the terror in my own voice, as though it belongs to somebody else. He has unintentionally pressed a panic button, painted a picture that has triggered borderline hysteria. I feel my heart rate zoom up, my skin go moist and clammy, my breath fast and shallow. Buried alive. Trapped here, until we starve or dehydrate or run out of oxygen or get obliterated by falling earth …
‘No,’ he says quickly, his fingertips touching mine. ‘You’re right. It was just a silly expression. I’m sorry. We need to focus on the alive bit. We’ve had one miracle, I’m sure we’ll get more. Let’s see … at least we have some light now …’
‘There’s a torch thingy on it,’ I say, glad to have something else to focus on, trying to steady myself by thinking about practicalities. ‘See if you can find that.’
It’s a flashy phone, one of the new ones that is basically like a little computer and uses the internet, and way more than I need. It was a gift from Harry, who is always quick to adopt a new gadget. Right now I’m super-thankful for it. As soon as he turns on the torch, I feel better.
He holds up the phone and moves it around us. There’s not a lot to see, but at least we can see it – dirt and bricks and random bits of smashed pottery, and a gnarled fork sticking out of it all. There are tangled tree roots and a chair leg and a mishmash of crumbled plasterwork.
The gap we’re lying in is as small as it felt, and above us is a smooth slab of stone that’s forming a kind of roof.
I refuse to let my mind go where it wants to – to the word ‘tomb’ – and instead look at the man holding the phone. A man I’ve never really spoken to before tonight, and now a man I might be spending my last moments with.
His blonde hair is tangled, streaked with earth and dust, and his face is filthy with both. He senses my stare, and turns towards me, so close our noses are almost touching.
‘You have lovely eyes,’ I say. ‘I especially like the black streaks around them. Makes you look a bit like a panda. Ha. I’m buried alive beneath a Mexican village with a Swedish panda.’
‘Well,’ he replies, an echo of amusement in his voice, ‘you said you wanted to expand your horizons. And I didn’t want to be alone. So I guess in a very weird way we both got what we wanted. One day you can look back on all of this and it’ll seem funny.’
‘It seems pretty funny right now, to be honest, which is worrying. Maybe I’ve got oxygen deprivation. And I’d kill for a drink of water. Or Guinness. I’d quite like a Guinness, strangely enough.’
‘I tried Guinness once, on a trip to Dublin with Anna. I wasn’t quite sure. But we do need water …’
‘I grabbed some,’ I say, remembering. ‘Before we fell. I don’t know why, I just saw it rolling past and snaffled it. But I don’t know where it is – maybe nearby?’
He twists around to search, and I see him wince and bite his lip, his pain illuminated by the phone. I also see the skin of his shoulders, where his T-shirt has torn, raw with scrapes and cuts.
‘Oh God!’ I say, once I notice. ‘You look like you’ve been … grated! Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ he says. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
Of course, I do – because the reason he was grated is because he was shielding me from the worst of the debris that was tumbling around us. Every cut, every graze, every bloody scratch on his skin, is one that could have been mine. I am awash with awe at his simple bravery, but know he won’t welcome me saying it.
He shines the phone around in a searching sweep, and finally makes an ‘a-ha!’ noise.
‘How good are you with your toes?’ he asks.
‘At what?’ I reply, following the ray of light downwards. ‘Ah. I see. Another miracle.’
Down near our feet, crumpled but hopefully intact, lies the plastic water bottle.
