After the Storm (7 page)

‘I heard a deep thump out at sea Owen. What was that?’

‘Probably thunder,’ he said.

‘No, it was right out in the ocean, maybe even under the ocean.’

‘It might have been turbulence caused by the impact of water on something below. There’s a landscape under the sea, mountains and cliffs and valleys. People think the land ends where it rises above the sea but of course it doesn’t, there’s a whole world down there.’

The boat rode down another deep wave and Anna clung to the side of the cockpit, her face pale and her knuckles white. He could see that he was frightening her even more with his explanation. He was not good at comforting people. He could never find the right words.

‘We’ll be OK. It seems scary when you’re not used to being on a boat, but it would take a bigger storm than this to give us any real trouble.’

She wished she could believe him. She knew they were completely alone, no-one would find them here. In their safety drill Owen had shown them the rocket flares that you let off when in trouble. It was like those stupid whistles on an aeroplane, to draw attention to yourself if the plane ever came down in the sea. What nonsense it was. Who would ever see their flares above this black boiling sea?

‘I’m a terrible coward, Owen. Rob always says I’m a “great girl’s blouse” and he’s right.’

He laughed out loud.

‘What a great saying.’

Her eyes were large and fearful and the mole between her eyebrows was somehow touching to him, it made her look vulnerable. It was unfortunate the storm had happened so early into their trip. This was not the initiation he had hoped for them.

‘I promise you it’s gonna be all right.’

She asked him for the rum bottle again and took another long swig. Why had she ever agreed to get on this bloody boat? It was entirely possible that the boat would capsize and they would all drown.

When their three hours were up Anna went below with Owen and they lay down on the berths in the saloon. He stretched out with his eyes open. She felt slightly drunk from the rum and closed her eyes to stop the sensation of the saloon pulsating around her.

Kim and Rob took over the watch. Rob was looking pale. Lying below while the boat was rolling and pitching so violently had made him feel queasy and he was glad to get out into the air even though the relentless battering of the waves had not let up. His eyes were sore from the constant spray and all he could see ahead were more implacable rolling waves. He spat over the side of the boat a couple of times and kept swallowing down his feeling of nausea.

‘Anna told me your sister’s a model?’ Kim said.

‘She is. Weird isn’t it, my kid sister earning a fortune for having her picture taken and for walking up and down a catwalk.’

‘How did she get into that?’

‘She was scouted when she was fifteen.’

‘Scouted?’

‘Yes, she was at Glastonbury Festival with my mum and a model scout took some Polaroids of her and told her to ring the agency. When they got back to London my mum followed up. And now you see her everywhere.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Savannah Hunt…’

‘I’ll look out for her. So you’re Rob Hunt?’

‘No, I kept my mum’s name; Sherburn. Savannah’s my half-sister.’

‘And you’re close?’

‘We’re very close, but she’ll always be a daft kid to me.’

The boat lurched down a big wave and he shivered. The feeling of nausea that had been building in him threatened to overwhelm him.

‘Are you cold?’ Kim asked.

She offered the rum bottle to him. He shook his head.

‘No ta, I’m feeling too queasy for rum.’

‘Bummer… I should have picked up some Dramamine when we were in Belize City.’

He started to feel very sick and crouched miserably in the cockpit as Kim managed the tiller. He felt useless as waves of nausea assaulted him. Around midnight he was sick over the side of the boat. He kept throwing up for the next hour until his stomach was empty and still he retched.

Kim was having a bad night too. She had sailed through many storms with Owen. Tonight felt different. Why had they put themselves through this again with the boat in such poor shape? And to make matters worse Owen had forgotten to replace the batteries in his GPS, so they couldn’t work out their position. That was unforgiveable. Was Owen getting more reckless?

Three hours later Owen and Anna returned for their watch and Kim helped a weakened Rob down to the saloon and back onto the berth. She gave him some water which he sipped, his face a greenish white.

‘You may be able to sleep now you’ve been sick,’ she said.

She left a bucket by the side of his berth which she tied to the legs of the table.

‘You’re kind Kim and I appreciate it,’ he said closing his eyes.

Anna went down to see how Rob was doing. He was lying on sea-soaked bedding with his eyes shut. The canvas lee-cloth kept him from falling off the berth but the boat was rolling so much that he kept being pushed up against it, and his face was getting chafed. He looked so ill and so uncomfortable and there was little she could do to help him. She found a small towel in their cabin that was still dry. She rolled this up and put it next to his face to stop the chafing. She put her hand on his forehead and stroked the wet hair away from his closed eyes. It was nearly as wet down there as it was above. Kim appeared to be asleep. Anna struggled back up into the cockpit and crouched close to Owen. It was deep into the night now and the storm was still raging around them. She had got used to the constant spray in her face, the salt on her lips. It was simply a case of endurance she told herself. This misery would come to an end sometime.

‘Go and lie down in the forecabin Anna. I can manage here alone,’ he said.

She knew she was doing nothing to help but she didn’t want to leave his side.

‘I feel safer being up here with you.’

And she did feel safer sitting with him. She watched his hands on the tiller. He had wonderful hands, long graceful fingers that gripped the wood. He wore a good diver’s watch on his right wrist. She made herself focus on his hands as she tried to shut out her importunate fears.

Rob was having a dreadful night as he was tossed on the wet bedding below. The lee-cloth kept rubbing against him and disturbing his fitful sleep. He thought he might feel better if he could only get out into the air again. The saloon seemed enclosed and fetid and he could smell his sick. He tried to sit up. He had no strength to do anything. He couldn’t even raise his head. He drifted in and out of a disturbed sleep and had vivid dreams that made his body jerk. Later, he didn’t know if he was dreaming or remembering, but a song kept going through his head, ‘Heaven is a Place on Earth’, and he lived again every detail of being at a music festival with his mum when he was eight years old.

They had camped. He saw again the dark night as he and his mum picked their way through a field of tents of all shapes and sizes. His mum used her small torch to see where to unzip the flap into their tent. Then it was morning and he was lying awake in his sleeping bag and noticing how the light coming through their red tent made everything pink. He had sat up and reached for his mum’s backpack to look for the custard creams he knew were in there. He was opening the packet when she said sleepily:

‘Eat outside sweetheart and I’ll get you an egg roll later.’

He poked his head out of the tent. There were a lot of people about. He sat at the door of their tent and ate custard creams and watched the people queuing for the cubicle showers with their wash bags and their towels over their shoulders. The toilets were always smelly at these festivals. He told his mum he didn’t like to use them. He liked the festivals though, even when he got tired because his mum stayed up late to listen to the bands. She would roll out a small mat and he’d fall asleep on the mat while she sat cross-legged listening or stood up and danced along to the music. She never left him to go to the front of the stage. People would come and talk to her, usually men. She was so beautiful.

When his mum got up he felt proud to be walking through the field with her. She would often say to him ‘it’s just the two of us darling, Robin and her Robbie, her little man.’ She didn’t look anything like his friends’ mums. Her hair fell in long curls down her back. The field was muddy and they had tucked their jeans into wellington boots. The sun was trying to burn though the clouds as they waked to a stall selling bacon, eggs and sausages and joined the queue.

‘I’d like a bacon roll today please, Mum,’ he said.

‘You sure about that? Bacon is very salty you know.’

They shared a commune in London with vegetarians and his mother was a half-hearted vegetarian.

‘I want to try it.’

She ordered a bacon roll for him and he put a lot of tomato sauce on it. She got a tea for herself. She always brought her own mug to these festivals and she took this from her backpack and poured the tea from the paper cup into her mug. This year there was a funfair and she’d promised to take him on the dodgems.

‘We need to get to the dodgems at two Robbie. I met such a nice man last night. He said he’d go on them with you.’

‘But I want to go on them with
you
.’

‘You know I don’t like them. They’re so jerky. It’ll be much more fun with him. He’s a musician.’

She got out her festival programme and showed him the listing.

‘He plays lead guitar. They’re playing the second stage at seven so we must make sure we go see them.’

At 2 p.m. they were standing by the dodgems and she waved to a tall man in jeans wearing a full length embroidered Afghan coat. He came over to them and Rob saw that he had a strange mouth, full pouty red lips that looked odd on a man. The man was staring at his mum in a way he didn’t like.

‘Robbie, this is Elliot.’

‘Hey Robbie, I hear you’re a fan of the dodgems,’ the man said.

Rob nodded doubtfully. The man was holding a long cotton scarf which had small blue roses all over it.

‘I got this for you Robin,’ he said holding the scarf out to his mum.

His mum held the scarf up looking pleased. She wound it round her long pale hair. It was his first meeting with his future stepfather and he had wanted very much to punch him in the stomach.

Rob was fully awake now. Thinking about his stepfather always made him feel bad.

Up on deck Owen gripped the tiller and looked into the darkness. He was remembering an incident from long ago when he was little, maybe seven because his mom was pregnant with Megan. Dad had taken them out on a family outing, a picnic on the beach. As they walked back to their car his mom spotted a bird of prey circling overhead and she pointed her arm up at the sky and cried out in excitement.

‘Jim, Owen, look, over there.’

They all stopped in the road and watched the bird with its wings fully spread as it swept in a wide arc as though it owned the sky. It was surveying the ground below for any signs of life among the dunes.

‘Great bird. So proud, so majestic…’ his dad said.

They got into the car. It was very hot inside because the windows had been shut for several hours. Owen liked the hotness of the car but it made him sleepy. As his mom opened her window she let out a cry of distress. She was looking at the third finger on her right hand.

‘My ring, oh my ring. It’s gone!’

Dad had bought Mom an eternity ring with a red stone and it was gone.

Her eyes filled with tears.

‘I shouldn’t have worn it to the beach.’

‘When did you last see it?’

‘I think I had it when I was packing up the picnic.’

‘So it’s somewhere between the beach and here. We’ll retrace our steps.’

They all got out of the car and Owen followed them up the hill dragging his feet because he had wanted to sleep. Mom and Dad were looking in the banks on either side of the road. He thought about the moment when his mom had pointed up at the bird in the sky. He’d seen something move in the air as she swung her arm down. He got down on his knees and started to scrabble among the verges, pushing the grasses aside.

‘This is hopeless,’ Mom wailed. ‘Best we go home, Jim.’

But Owen didn’t want to give up now because his mom loved that ring. So he kept looking in the grasses, inching up the road and running his hands through the plants. And then he saw it. Lying in the dust and the dead leaves he saw his mom’s ring. He picked it up and held it above his head and the sun struck it and it gleamed so brightly. And Mom and Dad were hugging him tight. Finding something precious that was lost felt so good.

A large wave washed over the boat and hit Owen in the face so that his eyes stung. He grimaced and shook his head vigorously thinking how much his dad had changed only a few years later. No. He wasn’t going to let himself think about that.

It was an achingly long night for them all.

At last tentative signs of morning came. The sky lightened slowly to dark purple and then to grey. The rain had stopped and they could see that the sun was obscured behind thick clouds. The sea became gradually less turbulent and the wind lessened in force. They were all tired and shaky. Kim went below to fire up the stove and make them coffee. Owen had hauled the mainsail up again and was trying to sail them back onto their original course but they were making little headway.

The day passed slowly as they sailed for hour after hour and scanned the horizon and saw no other boats or ships or any sign of a coastline. Owen could not understand why they hadn’t spotted land, which he had expected to see from about three o’clock that afternoon. He looked at his chart again and regretted that his GPS was dead.

‘I know we were blown badly off course, but where are we?’

Kim shrugged and said nothing. It was as if they had all been battered into a kind of torpid submission by the rough night, the empty sea and their own unspoken anxieties.

Rob however started to feel better. He washed his face and cleaned his teeth, changed his T-shirt and came up and sat in the cockpit. He was ashamed that he had been so sick the night before. He wanted very much to be a good sailor and Anna had managed to get through the storm without throwing up. She sat next to him now saying little. She didn’t have to, her face said it all. She looked as if she was enduring a particularly painful ordeal.