Close to the Wind (13 page)

Malik looked back at the Port Authority building. ‘When will Papa be here?’

‘I don’t know,’ said the woman. She had creases in the skin around the edge her mouth. ‘I’m sure he won’t be long.’ The dark blue hull towered up above them and the engines droned and throbbed. She held his hand tightly and they stepped toward the gangplank. ‘My goodness,’ she said in a breathless voice. ‘What a big ship.’

When Malik looked behind him, the soldiers had closed the barrier and linked arms. Another shot was fired into the air.

‘Tickets.’ The collector put out his hand and Mariam’s husband handed him two blue tickets that he took from the back of a calfskin wallet. The inspector checked them and handed them back. ‘What about the boy?’ he asked.

Malik unbuttoned his pocket, took out the folded yellow ticket and gave it to the man who opened it out and checked the number and the name. ‘You’re in the wrong line, but I can’t see that it matters. The ticket’s all in order.’ He handed back the ticket and stood aside. Mariam’s husband walked up the first steps of the gangplank and Mariam let go of Malik’s hand to take hold of the white rail.

Malik took a step onto the gangplank and then another. He looked behind him at the crowd pressing around the barriers. There was surely no way Papa could get through now. He hesitated, wondering if he should turn back, but another man was already coming up behind him and he nudged Malik forward up the steps. ‘Go on, son. Move it.’

Malik turned and walked up the stairs. He would go and see if Mama was with the purser. But he had to be quick.

He decided to run.

He ran past Mariam and on up the steps, pushing past her husband who cursed and dropped a bag. He ran till he had reached the end of the gangplank and stepped onto the deck of the ship, the great blue funnel rising up ahead of him. He ran along the edge of the white railings, past the cabin doors and the
portholes, under the lifeboats hanging in their harnesses above the deck. He stopped and tugged at the sleeve of a passenger. ‘Please, sir? Where’s the purser’s cabin?’ The man shrugged and Malik took off again, his mind racing, trying to remember what his Papa had told him.

He found some stairs that took him down inside the ship. A sign on the wall showed the direction of the toilets and the first-class cabins. Malik ran down the stairs and came to another passenger deck, then ran down another flight of stairs to a deck that didn’t have windows and he saw a sign which read ‘Crew only’, and he ran along the thin corridor, past doors that said ‘Private’, past a small kitchen where a woman was filling a teapot from a stainless steel urn.

A man came out into the corridor ahead of him and Malik shouted at him, ‘I’m looking for the purser’s cabin.’

The man pointed back the way he had come. ‘Next floor up. Second corridor along.’

Malik turned back along the corridor and the ship’s horn sounded loudly from somewhere above him.

The purser’s door was closed. Malik knocked hard
and the door was opened by a man with a large black beard, who stared down at Malik. He looked very like the man in the Imperial Stout advert.

‘I’m looking for my mother. Her name is Maria Kusak.’

The man looked blank. ‘There’s no one here. Who did you say again?’

Malik pushed past the man into the room, banging the rucksack against the frame of the door so that the cat whined. The purser followed Malik into the empty room, his head tilted slightly as he looked at the boy in the green Wellington boots, but Malik turned and ran back past him and out along the corridor. He ran up to the next deck, pushing past the passengers who were struggling with luggage on the stairs. A voice called out ‘Malik,’ and he turned to see Mariam waving from the other side of the landing, but he ignored her and ran on, up the next flight of stairs until he reached the door to the passenger deck, and he waited to let a man through before he put his shoulder down and barged against the legs of the next man coming in, forcing his way through and out into the open air, across the open deck at the stern, till he reached the back of the crowd that stood along
the railings, waving at those who remained on the dock.

The deck of the ship trembled under Malik’s feet and the red door of the warehouse was moving steadily to the right. Malik pushed forward till he reached the railings. On the quayside, the
gangplanks
had been withdrawn and Malik saw the strip of water between the dock and the hull of the ship widening. The horn sounded loudly and the crowd cheered. The engines laboured and groaned and the water churned and frothed against the concrete dock.

‘No!’ Malik shouted. ‘I have to get off!’ He barged his way back along the railings, past passengers who grumbled at him, dipping under the waving arms of those saying farewell to friends who had not got tickets, and the crowd on the dock shouted and held up their hands and some of them still fought with the soldiers.

The boat moved further away from the crowded dock. Malik heard a splash and saw a man in the water, who must have jumped or fallen. His hat bobbed beside him, calm as a duck, while he thrashed his arms and legs, struggling to keep himself afloat as his suitcase sank beneath him.

And then Malik saw Papa, on the very edge of the crowd, his hands in the pockets of his coat, watching the same man struggling in the water.

‘Papa!’ Malik shouted down to him. ‘Papa!’ He waved wildly. He was frantic. He climbed up onto the railings, trying make himself bigger and he shouted again, ‘Papa!’

The water below him was dark and deep, but Malik thought he could jump and swim to the quayside and he stepped higher up the railings until a hand gripped his collar and held on. ‘Whoa there!’ The man pulled Malik back down to the deck. ‘Careful or you’ll go over.’

Papa lifted his bruised and swollen face up to the ship.

Malik shouted again. He was sure Papa could hear him. He must have seen him. ‘Papa!’

Malik thought he saw a smile, but then Papa turned and walked away from the edge of the quay, moving back into the crowd.

Malik struggled to free himself from the man behind him. ‘Let me go! I need to get off the ship!’

The ship swung in a wide arc away from the quayside and Malik’s view of the dock was replaced by open sea. He pushed his way back through the
passengers, looking for a steward or a sailor who might be able to stop the ship leaving. But he could see no one. The ship gave one last cry of the horn as it left the port and Malik ran round to the railings on the far side, so he could still see the quayside. Was that Papa? Walking back along the edge of the dock in the direction of the cottages, his hands in his pockets and his head bowed? Malik knew that it was.

He turned and ran again, moving back along the ship towards the funnel, past the rows of wooden seating, towards the narrow stairs that would take him to the deck below.

He would demand to see the captain. He would make such a fuss that they would have no choice but to bring the ship back to the port.

And then he suddenly stopped, his eyes fixed on a family thirty metres ahead of him, climbing the stairs to the first-class cabins. He stepped to one side where a large metal winch would hide him, and then he looked again at the family who were already halfway up the staircase.

The mother guided her children with a hand on the shoulder of the youngest boy. She wore a large black hat with white feathers in one side and she
had two sons, one older than Malik and one much younger. They were dressed in expensive clothes like her, with collars that were stiff and starched and hair that was washed and neatly parted. A valet in a crisp black uniform led the way with two bags of luggage in each hand, and at the rear of the party came the father, dressed as smartly as the rest, a thick fur collar on his winter coat.

And the father of the family was Angelo Vex.

T
he purser’s beard was thick and black and, being untrimmed, it made him look a proper sailor, with deep-set eyes that stared at the boy who stood before him in the blue short trousers and green Wellington boots.

Malik said, ‘You have to take me back.’

‘That’s impossible,’ said the purser. ‘I have no intention of taking you back. Do you expect me to tell the captain he has to turn the ship around?’

Malik folded his arms across his chest. It was obvious that he did. ‘My grandfather has been left behind. And Mama too.’ He glared at the purser. ‘I shouldn’t be here on my own.’

The purser reached across the desk for the passenger list. ‘Show me your ticket.’

Malik took the folded yellow ticket from the pocket of his shorts and handed it across. The purser turned it in his fingers and read the name that was printed on the back, then traced the column of type on his list, flicked the paper to the second page and traced again.

‘Papa’s surname is Bartholomew,’ Malik helped him. ‘It’s not Kusak like Mama and me.’

‘There’s been no mistake. Neither your mother nor your grandfather have a place on the ship.
But you are listed – your name is on the register of orphans. See here?’ He turned the list round and Malik saw his name added to the bottom of the list in black pen. ‘Your ticket originates from the charity that has sponsored the allocation for orphans.’

‘But I’m not an orphan!’ Malik stamped his foot in disbelief. ‘You’re wrong. Papa told me he had a ticket.’

He
had
told him, hadn’t he? Malik thought back to their conversation on the dock and tried to remember whether he had seen Papa’s ticket. Could he remember the colour of it? The orphans all had yellow tickets, the same as Malik’s, but Papa’s would have been blue, the same as the tickets Mariam’s husband had handed to the collector. But Malik couldn’t remember seeing a blue ticket. He couldn’t recall seeing Papa with a ticket at all. Only that would mean Papa had lied to him.

The purser tapped his fingers on the desk. He looked like he was struggling with thoughts of his own. ‘How did you get on board the ship?’

‘I showed the man my ticket at the steps. Papa sent a woman with a message for me to meet Mama in the purser’s cabin. Listen, you are the purser, aren’t you?’

The purser nodded.

‘Then you must see that someone has made a mistake.’

‘There’s been no mistake, Malik.’ The purser leaned forward in his chair. ‘To be honest, if you’re not an orphan, then you’re very lucky to be on the ship – the allocation of tickets has been very strict.’

Malik clenched his hands into fists. ‘I’m
not
lucky!’ He raised his voice. ‘I don’t want to be here. I want to be back at the port.’

The purser sat back quickly. ‘Please don’t shout at me. It doesn’t help.’

The floor beneath Malik’s feet shuddered gently from the strain of the engines, and he knew that with each second that passed the ship took him further from his family. This was hopeless and Malik didn’t know what he could do to change it. He began to cry. ‘You can give my place to someone else,’ he said quietly.

The purser reached for a box of tissues on his desk but found it empty. He shook his head, put a hand to his own top pocket and gave Malik a clean and folded handkerchief. Malik blew his nose. The purser looked serious. ‘You should think about the possibility that your grandfather might have lied to you.’

Malik didn’t want to hear this. He looked away.

The purser edged closer. ‘Malik? Look at me.’ Malik looked back into his eyes. ‘Think about why he might have done that. If your grandfather couldn’t afford a ticket, then the only way to get you on the ship would be as an orphan. Do you see?’ The purser sat back in his chair. He took the yellow ticket from his desk and returned it to Malik. ‘I don’t know how he managed it, but he must have pulled some strings to get you this. He would have made some sacrifices.’

Malik stuffed the ticket into the pocket of his shorts. Papa had lied to him – that’s what the purser was saying. Papa had tricked Malik onto the ship for his own good. Just the thought of it made him cry again and a tear fell from the end of his chin and landed on the rubber toe of his left boot. He lifted the handkerchief to his face and thought about all the things that Papa had told him in the last few days. Some of them had seemed true at the time and some hadn’t. Malik didn’t know what to believe any more.

But he knew one thing for certain. ‘I’m not an orphan.’ He sniffed. ‘I’m not. You have to take me back.’

The purser folded his arms. ‘I’m not taking anyone back. It’s out of the question.’

Malik had one last card to play. ‘There’s something else,’ he said. He took the rucksack from his shoulders and put it at the purser’s feet. Then he opened the flap and stood back. The cat looked out from the top of the rucksack. ‘Cats aren’t allowed on ships.’ Malik stood up straight with his arms across his chest. The two of them stared at one another, both with their arms folded. The cat stretched itself and jumped to the floor.

The purser leaned across the rucksack to take hold of Malik’s shoulder. ‘Listen carefully, Malik. A lady will be along in a moment. She is from the charity that paid for your ticket. When we get to shore they will look after you. They will make sure you’re safe, with a family that will care for you as though you are a child of their own. It would be better for you if she thought you were an orphan, do you see? If they thought you weren’t an orphan, it might cause problems. Do you understand?’

Malik shook his head. He didn’t understand and he didn’t want to. ‘Will they send me back if I tell them?’

‘No, Malik. I doubt they would do that, but it
would be complicated.’ The purser let go of Malik’s shoulder, took a deep breath and tried again. ‘Your grandfather wants you to be safe. Isn’t that what this has all been about?’ He watched Malik’s face closely. ‘This voyage will only last three days, and when we arrive someone will take you to a new house to live with them. Once you’re with them, you can think of ways to find your mother. Perhaps the family you go to live with can help you. You should think about that for the future, but for now, if I were you, I would keep quiet and be as grown-up as possible.’ He tapped his nose in a way that Papa might have done. ‘Keep quiet and keep the hope alive.’ He clenched his fist and put it to his heart. ‘In here, Malik. Do you see? You have to keep the hope alive.’

Malik was aware of his heart as a heavy weight inside his chest. But there
was
room for hope. If he had some hope, then maybe he could bear it. Only he would have to be patient. He would have to wait, and he didn’t know if he could.

He remembered Papa’s face lifted up to the ship as it had left the dock. Papa had spotted Malik on the rails and he had smiled to see him there, Malik was sure of it. If Papa was in his shoes now, he would work hard and plan and he would have reason to
hope. Malik decided he would do the same. He put his hands in the pockets of his shorts and he had a sense of what it took to be grown-up.

There was a knock at the door. The purser hesitated, looked at Malik one last time, then called, ‘Come in.’

A young woman entered. She had long fair hair tied as a ponytail. She wore a knee-length skirt and a thin beige cardigan over a clean white blouse. She reminded Malik of the teachers he’d had at school that were strict but fair.

The purser said. ‘Miss Price, this is Malik Kusak. I think he’s one of yours.’

Miss Price held her own list of passengers. She looked at Malik, found his name on her list and ticked it off. ‘You were the one added at the last minute. Am I correct? I wondered where you’d got to.’ She looked him up and down and she eventually smiled.

The cat came out from under the desk where it had been sniffing around. ‘What about my cat?’ asked Malik. ‘I want to keep it with me.’

‘It turns out Malik is a smuggler,’ the purser told Miss Price. ‘I think it’s acceptable to have a cat on board for a few days. Would you agree? There’s not much we can do about it till we arrive.’

So Papa had told the truth, Malik thought. No one was so heartless they threw a cat overboard.

The cat sniffed Miss Price around the ankles and she knelt down and tickled its neck.

‘Can he keep it with him in the dormitory?’ the purser asked her. ‘Otherwise I will need to keep it locked away with me.’

Miss Price looked at Malik. ‘You will have to take full responsibility for looking after it at all times. If it gets lost, there will be nothing I can do about it. Do you understand?’ Malik nodded. ‘And you have to feed it and clear up any mess.’ Malik nodded. ‘Well then, I think we can accommodate a cat. What’s its name?’

Malik wiped his nose on the back of his hand. ‘It doesn’t have a name. I haven’t found out what it is.’

‘That won’t do,’ said the purser. ‘Everyone needs a name on board a ship. If it were mine, I’d call it Booty, seeing as how it has white feet and was smuggled on board.’

Malik picked up the cat and whispered the name into its ear. ‘Shall we call you Booty?’ The cat licked his nose. It didn’t seem to mind having a new name. Perhaps it –
he
– even liked it. Anyway, it was possible that it was his real name, because he did have
white boots and there were only so many names you could give a cat.

Malik followed Miss Price quickly along the narrow, dim corridor, passing the cabins for the crew and rest rooms that smelled of smoke. They took a thin steep staircase up onto the busy public deck and Malik looked out across the railings. They were still in sight of land, though there were no signs of cars on the roads nor trains on the railway line which he could still just see, running past the derelict buildings that were scattered on the hillside.

Passengers were sitting on the benches looking tired, or they crowded the deck, standing in loose circles, which Miss Price parted with a hand on the shoulder and a curt, ‘Excuse me.’ She was talking to Malik as she walked. ‘The other children are already settled in. Most of them are from an orphanage that was abandoned when the trouble began, but a few are new like you.’ She touched his head lightly. ‘I’m sure you will fit right in.’

When they reached the staircase where Malik had seen Angelo Vex, Miss Price pointed a finger in
the air. ‘The decks above us contain the first-class cabins and are out of bounds to you.’ She passed below the polished shoes of passengers that stood at the railings of the deck above. Malik stayed close to the wall, so that he couldn’t be seen if Angelo Vex were to step from one of the cabins.

Beyond the tall blue funnel, where the deck widened out to the full width of the ship, there were more rows of wooden benches where people sat holding luggage on their laps, their winter coats slung across their shoulders or spread over them as they dozed. A set of makeshift stairs led below deck into the rear hold. Miss Price led Malik down and he held the scaffold guardrail while his eyes adjusted to the low light.

The hold of the ship had been fitted out quickly for the voyage, using plywood walls that split the cavernous space into ten dormitories. It resembled the inside of a doll’s house, lit by a cable of bright yellow bulbs that were fastened to the top of the plywood divides. Six of the compartments had been allocated to families and four were for the orphaned children.

Malik could smell sawdust and fresh paint, mingled with the sweat from unwashed bodies and
the musk of clothes that had been slept in for too many nights. The sounds became different as he descended: babies cried like sirens in a blitz; the steel walls echoed with the scrapes of wooden beds being dragged into place across the makeshift floors; and someone would occasionally laugh too loud, interrupting the steady hum of conversation.

Miss Price brought Malik to a gap in the plywood wall, where a cardboard sign had been posted with the words D
ORMITORY
3/B
OYS
O
NLY
. They stepped inside. The room had four rows of bunk beds that wriggled with boys. She put a hand on Malik’s shoulder. ‘Find yourself a bed. If you see one without luggage or a child, then that can be yours.’ She walked away, adding, ‘I’ll be back at six to collect everyone for supper.’

Malik looked across the dormitory hoping to see an empty bed, but he could see only limbs and faces and piles of bags. He thought most of the boys were the same age as himself, perhaps a few older, but then when he looked closer he saw boys as young as four, who stared wide-eyed at him as he stood at the door. He moved the rucksack up on his back, knowing that Booty was inside, his nose pressed to the holes in the canvas.

Malik knew he would feel more comfortable when he had found a bed. He took a step further into the room and then another, so that he could see down the aisle between two rows of bunks. There was a vacant lower bunk in the corner bed at the back of the room and Malik walked toward it. On the top bunk lay a long leather sports bag, but the bottom bunk was completely empty so Malik put his rucksack on the mattress there. He noticed that his bed had no pillow and that the one above had two, but he left them where they were and sat on the edge of the bunk, one hand on his rucksack, his fingers touching the holes where the cat put his nose. He was lucky to have a bed at all and he could use the rucksack for a pillow, the way Papa had done.