The Boat (40 page)

Smooth-faced and paler beneath the beard, Johnny looked inside the forepeak locker again and found Frank’s suit, black and creased. He put it on with a white shirt and the dicky bow and stared at himself in the mirror. He looked ridiculous, as though he was getting married or something. He rolled up the trouser legs and the sleeves and tied a belt around the waist. He put on his old trainers but his feet felt strange in shoes, he’d been barefoot for so long.

‘OK, my lady,’ he said to her as he put the pasta in the pot. ‘Before we eat we must have a toast!’

She was enjoying the game, or perhaps was just enjoying some attention for a change. He could see her stripy legs banging against the cockpit seat as she waited impatiently for him to come up and join her. Inside the silver medicine box, he found the bottle of sleeping medicine that Annie had used, which he took out and brought up along with two tumblers and a bottle of wine. She laughed with delight when she saw him dressed up like that. He paused, listening to that crackly little laugh that he hadn’t heard for a long while.
She’s five years old, for Christ’s sake. Five years old.

He placed the tumblers between them on the seat and poured her a shot of the sleeping medicine and himself a tumbler full of wine. They chinked glasses. He noticed how she mimicked the way her mother held her glass, with her little finger raised.

‘To you, Smudge!’ he said, a lump in his throat, and they both knocked it back. He refilled the tumblers and they repeated the toast several times until the medicine bottle was nearly empty and he thought to himself surely that had to be enough. He watched her eat her salty pasta in silence. She was ravenous; she couldn’t get it into her mouth fast enough. He took courage from that. She would be all right, he thought. She was a survivor.

An hour later, the moon beaming down on them, Smudge sound asleep on his lap, he gently rubbed her little fingers in his hand and stared out at the silver water with his vacant eyes. There were no other options. He looked up at the stars; they were trying to tell him where they were, trillions of them splashed about the heavens like arrows, but he didn’t want to know.

The time had come. He pressed her little hand to his lips, looking at the grubby long nails, the dimples on her hands. In her sleep she gave his hand a little squeeze in response. He closed his eyes and kissed her fingers. He prised himself out from under her sleeping body and laid her flat on the cockpit seat. She was wearing a jumper of Clem’s now, the small blue one with holes at the elbows and the sleeves rolled up.

He went down into the saloon and clicked the light on. He opened the portside seat and pulled out their big maroon sail bag. For a moment he stood there holding it, unable to move, filled with an intense but fleeting anger towards Clem for leaving him in this situation. Then he hurriedly unzipped it and glanced inside. It was full of all her bits of crap: papers, tickets, pear drops, pebbles and stuff that she’d been dragging round for months. He couldn’t bear to look at it. Instead he turned it inside out and shook out all the contents on to the floor. He folded a blanket and laid it out on the base of the bag like a mattress, putting in a few clothes at the sides to pad it out.

He took it up into the cockpit and picked up Smudge’s drugged little body, carefully placing her inside the bag on to the blanket, fitting her in as snugly as he could. He wrapped the sides of the blanket around her and folded her arms across her body. He picked up Gilla, with his shining button eyes, and tucked him under her arm and did up the zip to her chest. He went down into the saloon and filled one of her beakers with water and put it in the bag with her. Then he clicked off the lights and shut the cockpit door behind him.

He pulled the inflatable life raft from the deck, wondering how old it was, hoping it would still work. He chucked it in the water. He’d never opened one of these before but it did exactly what it said it would. He pulled the rope and it unfolded into air-filled life like that blow-up doll Rob had once bought. He tied it to the cleat and then carefully leant overboard and lowered Smudge into the raft, surprised at how small and light she was: the bag was no heavier than it had been with all Clem’s stuff. He climbed into the boat after her and undid the painter.

He began to paddle shorewards. The moon was so bright he felt extremely visible but was pretty sure he was safe from prying eyes; there was nothing habitable on this side. Once on the shore, he pulled the raft up high on to the sand behind a small rock and lifted the bag over his shoulder and carried little Smudge like a piece of luggage. He trudged across the sand and clambered up over the rocks towards the path, noticing the shells that were embedded in the volcanic rock as if artfully placed and he couldn’t help but wonder where he was. He became aware of a cacophony of noise ahead of him, birds or frogs, he wasn’t quite sure.

The church was up high on the left of the bay, he’d noticed that as they’d passed, and he headed up towards it, the moon lighting up every cranny in the rocks as he carried her gently on to the path. He must have disturbed whatever was making the noise for it stopped abruptly as he got there and in the silence he could hear faint sounds of a guitar; it took him by surprise, he hadn’t been near other humans for ages. He paused on the rocks and listened but the warmth of the music made him ache for Clem and his old life so acutely he bit his lip until he could taste blood. He could hear laughter and applause from the same direction as the guitar music. The laughter sounded displaced, utterly alien to him; the idea that there could be joy and happiness in the world when she was gone confirmed to him that he had no place here any more.

He stood stock-still, taking in his surroundings. He was on the westerly edge of the bay; there were barely a dozen houses dotted about it and, to his left, the highest point of the village was the church. The music was coming from one of the houses nearer the water, a bar perhaps. A single frog ribbited from close by; he must have been near a pool, but he couldn’t see it. Then the lot of them joined in, he had never heard frogs en masse before and the noise was deafening. He peered at Smudge under his arm, sleeping peacefully despite the racket, her mouth open, her cherubic lips a little parted, and he set off up the sandy path towards the church.

The church was a small building with an arch and a bell at the top, its rusty tongue hanging out above him. The door was ajar and he pushed it wide open. It creaked loudly and he stepped inside. The space was functional and to the point, Christ on a cross at the pulpit and ten or so rows of chairs. Moonlight flooded in through an arched window at the back of the church casting Christ’s shadow across the stone floor in the aisle, his left hand almost brushing Johnny’s trainer. He looked around carefully, trying to fix it in his memory; he didn’t know why, but it seemed important. And then he turned briskly and stepped out. Not a soul was about. He carefully took the bag off his shoulder and placed it gently on the ground in the porch with only the moonlight looking on. He undid the zip a smidgeon and tucked Gilla in close under Smudge’s arm.

He bent over her and kissed her soft, smooth cheek and squeezed her little fingers. The tightness in his throat came out as a stifled sob. ‘God, you bastard,’ he said. ‘If you have any mercy at all, look after her.’

Then he crept off stealthily back towards the boat with no name without looking back, just glad that she hadn’t cried out. He ran down on to the beach and dragged the life-raft back into the water and rowed as fast as he could back to the boat. He tied it up, got on board, pulled up the anchor, got the main up and set off at a lick. He didn’t look back once, he didn’t want to know where he was, what island this was, what bay he was in. It didn’t matter to him. Nothing mattered to him at all any more. He had no attachments; he was just ghosting now.

He sailed out into the night, over the water into the nothingness, and didn’t stop until the sun had set and risen again and crossed the sky and set and risen and he was sure that he had no chance of being rescued.

Drowning

There had to be worse ways of dying. This was unbelievably good. He hadn’t envisaged this at all. He had never imagined death to be such a peaceful affair. What was all the fuss about? Death had had a bad press. Death was nothing but a refuge for the tired, a pillow at the end of an exhausting day. And now that the pillow was so tangible, so plumped and comfortable, all the pain inside him had subsided. He was a man with absolutely nothing left to lose. He was a free man.

The surface of the water was flickering silver and black ribbons in the moonlight. The waves had abated a little; they were his friends again. He hadn’t noticed when everything had stopped hurting. He must have been too busy dying. It couldn’t be long now; he felt as though he’d been drowning for days. He wanted to roll over face down into the water and slip away. But even that felt like too much effort. He turned his head slightly, or maybe he didn’t but his eye looked up at the moon, which was so bright and so beautiful that he had to squint a little. His salted lips cracked as he smiled up at her. He must have turned again for now he seemed to be lying on his back looking up at the stars. They took his breath away, sparkling like jewels in the dark blanket of the night: Orion’s belt pointing to the west, the plough, the North Star, Betelgeuse. There they all were, eternally glittering and dancing, regardless of anything, all for nothing, all for no one. It was so fucking beautiful he wanted to weep.

He let his head fall back until he was looking at the world upside down; he was swimming in the stars. He knew his place in the universe.

He heard it first, something coming up out of the water. At his upside down three o’clock he saw a shape looming out of the sea up into the moonlight about ten yards away. He blinked and stared, lifting his head as high as he could, trying to turn around, to spin the world back into shape. He thought it was a fish or a whale or a dolphin. Then he thought of Smudge and her sea monsters. Maybe it was a sea monster come to gobble him up.
Oh, Smudge.
But to his utter amazement he realized that it was a human being. He watched, with some wonder, as the person slowly began to swim towards him, a steady breaststroke unnaturally high in the water. How on earth had they found him?

He recognized the garment first, the old crocheted poncho. He’d forgotten all about that poncho, the one with holes in it big enough for him and Rob to put their arms through and pretend they were fish trapped in a net. He realized who it was then and his heart leapt like a flying fish and he knew for sure that he wasn’t dead yet. She swam towards him, smooth and fast, smiling at him all the while, her face silver in the moonlight.

‘Mum!’ he cried, filling up with the exquisite warmth of his mother’s love.

Her eyes were glinting in the moonlight and when she got near enough, she dipped under the water and came out as elegantly and easily as an otter up on to the fender. She was slightly out of breath, the water streaming down her pale face. He stared into her eyes, which were green with dark lashes, just like his own; she was so utterly familiar to him it was like looking at himself.

‘Mum,’ he said, overcome with happiness, and she laughed and leant forward a little, her bare elbow underneath the spider-web fabric of the poncho brushing his skin.

‘Hello, Jonty,’ she said, bending her head down and kissing his hand, her lips cool against his skin. He was burning up. If he had the energy he would like to have taken off his clothes.

‘Oh, Mum,’ he said a catch in his throat. Her eyes were full of water; he could see the moonlight dancing inside them. ‘I missed you.’

She was smiling. ‘ I told you I’d see you again,’ she said, her cold fingers against his cheek. ‘I told you so. I live in you. You came from me.’

‘That’s right,’ he said, puzzled. ‘I was born in the caul, wasn’t I?’

She nodded and smiled with those eyes that could have been his.

‘Then how can I be drowning?’ he asked, remembering then how horribly wrong everything was.

‘You mustn’t give up,’ she said, droplets of water falling down her face, little moons running down her cheeks.

‘But I
have
given up, Mum. That’s why I’m here,’ he croaked because he was crying now. ‘I lost her.’

She put her arm around him and he rested his head against her shoulder and cried. ‘Shhh,it’s not over yet,’ she said, her fingers running through his hair, the coolness of her palm pressing against his forehead, the hardness of her rings. ‘Stay awake, you’re going to be all right!’

But I don’t want to be all right
, he thought, but he was so tired, he could barely keep his eyes open. He could feel her pushing him away from her, lifting his head, her fingertips on his chin.

‘You mustn’t sleep, Jonty, my love,’ she said and he could feel her kisses on his face. He tried to focus; he opened his eyes. He’d forgotten the way her eyebrows went up like that, the little freckle on her forehead. But it was no good; his eyelids were too heavy, he was drunk with the tiredness.

He was asleep.

When he first heard the music he barely registered it as music at all, for the place he was in was so remote and beyond all sensation, a delicious worm hole of peace that he had fallen into, that it took a long time for him to realize that the music was not part of him but was a separate thing and in so being demanded something other from him, an outline perhaps, an edge or an acknowledgement.

The music, so implausibly faint, was right on the circumference of his consciousness; he had to listen with every cell of his being to be sure it was there at all. When he did recognize it as music – it wasn’t that he heard the tune, for it seemed to bypass his senses altogether, heading straight into his essence, to the dot that he had become – he felt it drag him outwards to the periphery where the rest of the world must surely be lurking. Then when he understood what the notes were doing, a flame lit up in his darkness and the vast void that he had always known existed – even as a child – was suddenly filled with
her
love again, just as he had been filled that very first time, on the beach, in the waves, holding her in his arms. It was Otis. It was Otis Redding singing ‘These Arms of Mine’.