After the Storm (13 page)

Kim nodded.

‘You see such large families out here and so much poverty,’ she said.

‘Yes.’

Anna stretched her arms above her head.

‘I want to have children,’ she said. ‘And so does Rob, one day.’

Kim said nothing.

‘Do you want children?’

‘No, definitely not…’

‘Really?’

‘Owen and I are agreed on that.’

‘Why is that?’

Rob had told her not to inquire too closely about intimate things, but she wanted to know because Kimberly had been so emphatic in her response.

‘We feel the same way about it. Too many kids have miserable lives. We just wanna be responsible for ourselves and our own happiness.’

Kim got to her feet.

‘I’m gonna go check on Owen,’ she said.

She went over to Owen who was bent over the sail and she kissed him on the top of his head. Then she headed down to the edge of the sea and a great wave of sadness washed over her. She remembered a close friend asking her if she ever regretted committing to Owen. It hadn’t made for an easy life had it, her friend had said. Kim had replied that her relationship with Owen was not like other folks’. They were completely for each other. She had loved and admired him since childhood and she felt that her purpose in life was to look after him. Yes, she had given up a lot to be with him. Their coming together had caused much conflict in her family and Jared’s deep estrangement from Owen. Her parents were also anxious about Kim being with him. It was her deep intuitive feeling that she and Owen should never have children. Her hands were full enough looking after him and she accepted it. Now she was thirty-one though, she found herself thinking about this life choice more often than she used to. Her thoughts turned to Anna. She didn’t really get Anna and she envied her calm assertion that she would have a family with Rob one day. How could she know that? How could she feel so secure? Did Anna know how lucky she was to be with such a relaxed kind man as Rob? In every relationship Kim believed there was one person who was the adorer and one who was the adored. She was the adorer and Owen the adored. And Rob was the adorer and Anna the adored. She felt that Anna took his devotion for granted. And a bite of doubt she hadn’t felt before started to gnaw at her. Did Owen take her devotion for granted too?

That evening they ate their main meal in the cockpit of the boat. They hadn’t eaten much all day and Kim had made them spicy vegetable chilli with beans and rice. She went down into the saloon to get the rum and limes for their usual evening drinks and Rob suggested they go back to their base on the Cay. They could have their rums there he said, and he would light the fire he had built that afternoon. They rowed back in the dinghy and sat under Rob’s shelter. The evening was mild but he felt a fire would complete the day somehow. He held a match to the twigs at the base and the flames crackled into life. They sat around watching the flames consuming the dry wood and enjoying the attendant sounds and smells while they shared in the ritual of their evening rums.

‘I do like your roof,’ Kim said looking up at Rob’s handiwork.

‘I may extend it tomorrow. And I want to go fishing too. You’ve got a fishing rod haven’t you, Owen?’

‘A very basic one and a rather meagre tackle box. Are you into fishing?’

‘I used to be. When I was in my teens I’d go to Southend with a mate and we’d fish off the pier there. We’d catch mackerel. Then we’d make a fire on the shingle and eat them, lovely fish, mackerel.’

Owen passed the rum bottle to Anna.

‘Thanks.’

She poured more into her glass and handed the bottle back to him. Owen wore his hair quite long, not shoulder length but beneath his jaw line and he had pushed his hair behind his ears. This emphasised the leanness of his face and she watched how the flames of the fire lit up his cheekbones. He was staring into the fire as if lost in thought.

‘How’s the sail stitching going?’ she said.

‘It’s going fine but it’s slow work. I’m gonna try to get it finished tomorrow. We need to get to Roatán.’

‘Does it hurt your fingers?’

He looked at his hands, stretched out his long fingers.

‘It can get crampy when you’ve been doing it a while. I like the work though.’

He had always found the task of sewing a sail to be calming. He liked to retreat from people into a world of objects. Physical objects had a reassuring solidity and predictability about them that attracted him. He liked thinking about the shape and design of boats, about the different types of rope you could use, about the intricacies of a sail.

It was their second day stranded on the Cay. When Anna woke up next to Rob in the cabin she noticed how he had sweat salt deposits under his eyebrows and she leaned over him and licked these off. He laughed in delight and kissed the mole between her eyebrows.

‘Oh well, I guess we’re going to have to get through another day in paradise,’ he said with a theatrical sigh and she laughed.

Anna, Rob and Kim put on their swimming things and dived into the sea while the sun was rising above the horizon. Owen watched them splashing at each other and laughing. He was planning to work on the sail straightaway because he was feeling the pressure of Money Joe’s package weighing him down. At the last moment he decided to join them in the water. He dived into the sea in his shorts and T-shirt and swam out strongly, leaving them behind. They were light-hearted, playing chasing games until the three of them tired and let the waves wash them onto the shore. They lay on the wet beach looking up at the bright sky and planning their day. Kim was going to sort through all the papers, books, bills and maps on the boat once and for all. She always did like to de-clutter she said. Anna was planning on snorkelling and collecting more firewood. Rob was going fishing.

Owen loved being in the sea. He was a strong swimmer and could swim for hours. He swam along the shoreline of the Cay getting a sense of its size and geography. It had been a good place to moor the boat. The Cay had a sandy beach except at the far end where a rocky outcrop extended from the land. He swam to these rocks, climbed up and made his way along them. The ocean surged in and out of the black rocks and looking down he saw brilliant translucent plants clinging to the sides of the boulders. He lay on his stomach and watched the tender green filigree plants moving with the rhythm of the waves. It was a calming sight and he lay there for a while. Then he scrambled to the farthest rock and sat and watched the sun moving up the sky. After a while, rather reluctantly, he dived back into the sea and swam back to his post by the palm tree. He waded out, shook himself and sat down, letting his wet clothes dry on his body as he took up his sewing needle.

It was even hotter than the day before and Anna and Kim stayed in their bikinis all day. Kim was already tanned and Anna’s tan was deepening. Rob had stripped to his waist but Owen kept his T-shirt on. They had both given up on shaving and were sporting a two-day shadow. A sexy, relaxed atmosphere was growing between the four of them. Sitting cross legged under Rob’s shelter they had a lunch of crackers and sardines followed by dates. By early afternoon Owen had completed his repair job on the mainsail. He had also reinforced every one of its seams against future rips. He put his needle and thread away with a feeling of satisfaction at a good job completed. He asked the others to help him roll and bag the sail and they rowed it back to the
El Tiempo Pasa
. It took them a while to re-attach the sail to the mast and boom. Then they stood back and looked at his handiwork.

‘You did a fine job there,’ Rob said.

‘Thanks. And now,’ Owen said ‘I’m going on a long swim to celebrate. See you later.’

It was two hours later when Owen came walking out of the sea in his T-shirt and shorts carrying his fins and mask.

‘Why does Owen always keep his T-shirt on? Even when he’s swimming? Anna asked.

‘Don’t know, maybe to stop the sunburn?’ Rob said.

‘He’s never stripped off once.’

Rob laughed and kissed her bare shoulder.

‘You want to see his naked chest, don’t you?’

She laughed back.

‘No. It’s kind of strange though isn’t it?’

‘Well I want to see your naked chest right now,’ he said.

They both had the same thing on their minds. They walked until they were out of sight of Owen and Kim, shielded by some palm trees and a dune. They hadn’t been able to have sex for nine days, constrained as they were by the proximity of their cabin to the others. They lay down by the edge of the sea and Rob kissed the mole between Anna’s eyebrows, which was often the prelude to their having sex. He pulled her bikini bottoms off and threw them back up the beach. She took his trunks off and he had a big erection already. They made love half in and half out of the water. He lay on top of her and licked her breasts and her stomach saying she was lovely and salty. For Anna it was a kind of sensory overload, his warm sweaty body on top of hers, the feel of the sand under her body, warm and dry on her shoulders and back and cool and wet on her bottom as the small waves came rolling in. He got up on his knees to get inside her and she felt pleasurable intermittent shocks as the seawater touched her skin, the waves with their own rhythm alongside the rhythm of Rob’s thrusting. As she reached a brilliant orgasm she could feel sea water tickling her bottom again. It was intense. And then Rob came and as well as his sperm she felt some sand get inside her, but it was good. It was the best sex they’d had for ages.

‘Let’s sleep under my shelter tonight, just you and me. It will be perfect,’ Rob said.

Later a sleepy happy Anna lay on her stomach under the shelter and wrote in her notebook:

Rob has gone out fishing in the dinghy. I like it that he’s trying to supply us with extra food. It makes me smile because I think foraging for food and building shelters and making fires are like a throwback to our primitive selves and this situation is bringing out the natural in all of us, in a good way.

She rolled onto her back and fell asleep.

As Rob rowed away from the shore in the dinghy he realised that this was the happiest he had felt for years. It had been such a good idea to get away with Anna for four weeks. He had chosen this particular time so that he could miss the wedding of his mum to that arsehole Elliot. His daft half-sister Savannah, who he loved dearly, had got it into her head that her parents should get properly married, even though they had been living together for twenty-five years. Savannah had so much money these days. She could get thousands for a single show or a shoot. She wanted to organise and pay for her parents’ wedding herself. It was going to be at The House of St Barnabas in Soho, all very fashionable and media friendly. Rob had got wind of her plans and of the proposed date for the wedding. He booked the tickets for their flight to Mexico so that they would be away. He didn’t tell Anna that this was why he had chosen these specific dates in June. She would probably have said that they should go to the wedding to support Savannah. But no way was he going to be there to witness Elliot marrying his mum. This way he was able to miss the wedding and give their regrets without causing a deeper family rift.

He rowed along the line of the shore till he spotted the outcrop of rocks which Owen had mentioned. He said he’d seen some movement of fish in the water at the base of the rocks. He rowed close and got himself into a sheltered position. Then he flicked open the lid on Owen’s tackle box and peered inside. There wasn’t a lot to choose from: some weights, some feathers, some old hooks, some steel line and a few battered lures. There was an old rapala lure striped in red and white. That might do in a while, but first he wanted to catch some smaller fish that he could use as live bait. Owen’s fishing rod was about eight foot long. He rigged it up and sat and looked intently over the side of the boat down into the water around the rocks. He cast the rod. He was a bit rusty as it had been years since he fished. And yet the rod felt comfortable in his hand and his casting had been OK. He jigged the line up and down every now and then and watched and waited.

Within the next hour he had caught three small fish, only a few inches long. They would make good bait. He was sure there were bigger fish down there in the deeper water, lurking in the vegetation. He took the feathers off the line and put a new hook in place and speared one of the fish he had caught onto this. He cast the line and this time it worked. He felt the pull on the line after a few minutes. It was quite a tug. This was a bigger fish all right. And all his fishing instincts came back to him. He remembered how long to wait and when he should reel in the fish. His heart was beating so fast as he landed it. It was a good fish, maybe four pounds in weight. He took the hook out of its mouth and it flapped on the floor of the dinghy. Was it a snapper? He didn’t care. It would be good to eat and he was euphoric.

Anna had fallen asleep on her back under the palm roof. She woke up feeling thirsty and looked out of the shelter to see Owen sitting with his back against the palm tree looking out to sea. She got to her feet and stretched and he looked over at her and said grinning:

‘You were snoring.’

‘Oh God… I always snore when I’m on my back. That’s why my mouth is so dry. I need some water.’

‘I’ve got some here.’

She sat down by his side and he handed her the bottle and she swigged at the warm water.

‘That’s better, thanks.’

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and handed the bottle to him. He took a swig.

‘No sign of Rob, I suppose?’

‘Fishing takes time,’ he said.

Kim had had a good clear out and the boat was tidy and the glass on the lockers polished, just as she liked it. She often felt frustrated by how little she could do to make the boat look nice. She longed to use her home-making skills on a house. She dived into the sea and swam to the shore. She was going to walk the length of the Cay. They would never be here again and she wanted to hold it in her memory. The last two days had been better between her and Owen. Anna was being less uptight too and Rob was in his element. He was such a positive man, always trying to help out where he could. Somehow, though, she had to convince Owen that this was their last charter trip. She couldn’t take living this way much longer because they were not masters of their own destiny. They kept being thrown off course by the failed engine, the ripped sail and their persistent lack of money. For her it had stopped feeling like an adventure some time ago, but how to persuade Owen?