The Reef (48 page)

Manolin felt like he’d become enlightened over night. None of these words mattered. None of it effected him the slightest. ‘Do you realise how pathetic you sound?’

‘About as pathetic as you fucking a girl? You’re not even a man, you’re still a boy, aren’t you?’ Yana and Jefry pulled Becq away then walked her past the raft and along the beach. ‘You never did get Yana, did you? Is that why you’re jealous?’

‘Why would I be jealous? Your wife slept with other men -doesn’t that say something? Men, not
boys.’

Manolin looked away.

‘Ah, touching a nerve.’

‘Why would I care anyway? Look what I’ve got for the rest of my life-’ Manolin indicated back towards Myranda’s hut, the forest, the sea. ‘Don’t think you can get anything as wonderful as Myranda at your age, can you? At least not without paying.’

‘Think you’re so clever, staying here, don’t you?’ Santiago said.

‘Not at all. I just want to get away from everything, permanently. Anyway, I care for nature. There’s no point me studying it through books. I need to stay. Here, I have a role, I have something that I can call mine. Forb’s work wasn’t complete.’ Then, ‘And there’s something about you, Santiago DeBrelt, that I don’t entirely trust.’

Santiago looked out to the horizon, towards the reef. ‘No, I don’t suppose you can trust anyone if you’re such a weak boy.’

‘Why am I weak?’ Manolin said.

‘For bailing out of life.’

‘You think that’s easy? The easy thing is to go back. Go back to the fucking city, chasing a career till I die. Go back to an empty life and carry on as if nothing has happened. That’s what everyone else does-just carry on, doing whatever they think they have to, until they get like you. Old and desperate. No, the hard thing to do is to break my mind away from that way of thinking and adopt whatever I’ll find here.’

‘And just what is that going to be?’

Manolin shrugged. ‘That’s the part I’m looking forward to. Whatever Arya has to offer me. It’s about how you live life. Here I can actually grow up. I can work with good, honest folk. I can feel the sun on my skin. I can feel the warm waters every time I swim. I can eat wholesome food. I can breathe clean air. This place is more hands on, you know.’

‘Aren’t you just escaping things at home, really? Escaping real life?’ Santiago said.

‘Nah, escaping’s what some people do when they spend all their time reading bad books, watching bad plays. Or, when they work so hard they find that they’ve forgotten to live. The thing is, I’m still with real stuff. You can’t break everything into components. Like what you do when you work and rationalise everything; rationalise yourself into an early grave. You can only break things down so small ‘til you realise you’re not seeing the real world anymore. You treat everything as if it were a problem, a puzzle.’

Santiago grunted a laugh. ‘And what would you know? You’re only young; you’ve not old enough to know how to go about life.’

‘The world can’t be solved, San. That’s not the point. You’re not meant to solve everything.’ Manolin could see something fade in the old man. A light went out, somewhere deep within.

‘Nonsense,’ Santiago said. He was looking past Manolin now, at nothing in particular.
Perhaps,
Manolin thought,
there’s no longer anything for him to look at.

‘Anyway, this isn’t escaping. It’s how I always saw science going. Less rational, more holistic. Hands on. Everything is connected in some way-you told me that once, although I’m not sure you believed it. And I’m studying things here for me, not anyone else, not for the sake of academia. What’s the point of that, really?’

Santiago shrugged, shook his head. ‘So, what are you going to do about your house back in Escha? And all your belongings?’

‘You take ‘em. Buy another wife.’

Slowly, Santiago gave a tight nod, placing his hands on his hips. ‘Might just do that.’

Manolin smiled. The tensions had faded. There was nothing but talk on philosophy, and that could have gone on for days. Nothing remained to be said.

‘So, this is it then?’ Santiago said.

‘Yep.’ Manolin stretched out his hand. ‘This is it.’

Santiago looked down at the offered hand and back up at Manolin’s face, and his expression suggested he was surprised to see such a sure person behind Manolin’s eyes.

The two men shook hands.

‘I didn’t mean any of that malarkey,’ Santiago said.

‘I know,’ Manolin said.

‘Since when did you get so wise?’

‘Since last night.’

‘I bet you did,’ Santiago said. ‘Never heard you returning. She is charming, I’ll give you that. Enjoy her.’ ‘Nothing happened, and
we
will enjoy each other, thank you very much. You could be a tad less misogynistic.’

‘When have you known me not to be?’ Santiago said.

Manolin sighed. ‘You’ll never change, will you?’

‘Don’t plan on it, lad. Bit late for that. Look, the others are coming back now. I’d best get my stuff away.’ Manolin said, ‘Right. Look, San,just what is going on?’ ‘Eh?’ ‘The thing ... The thing we saw in the reef,’ Manolin said. ‘You know what it is, don’t you?’ ‘Nonsense,’ Santiago said. ‘Look, we’d better get our bags on board.’ ‘But why have there been no more attacks? Do you at least know that?’

‘Well, it’s probably from the electrocution on
Pilar.
That was probably enough to sort them out for a few weeks. Possibly months. I don’t know exactly. Maybe they’re too scared to surface again. Don’t forget, we scared them off that night. It only takes a couple of muskets.’

‘Right.’ Manolin picked up one of Santiago’s bags and placed it on the raft. He stood back as Yana, Jefry and Becq returned. Out at sea he could see the horizon clearing, and the clouds were becoming thin. The wind dropped.

‘You two friends again?’ Yana asked.

Manolin smiled. ‘Yeah. So this is it, guys. I’m staying.’

‘Rather you than me,’ she said.

‘Are you sure?’ Becq asked.

Manolin nodded.

Yana stepped over and hugged him, giving him a peck on the cheek. ‘Look after yourself, won’t you.’

He held his hand out to Jefry, who turned away to place his bag on the raft. The rumel sat on the raft, rested his arms on his knees, looked out to the ship. Yana looked at Manolin in a way that told him all he needed to know. She joined Jefry and Santiago followed.

Manolin nodded to Becq. She turned, walked away, joined the others on the raft and a group of villagers gathered there to bid farewell. He hoped she would let him go, that she wouldn’t internalise things any more than she already had. Relationships were certainly a complex thing, he considered, especially when they never had a chance to be shown physically.

Manolin noticed a small bag still on the beach. ‘Santiago, you forgot this!’ ‘Keep it, lad,’ Santiago said. ‘That’s yours. Just in case you need it.’

‘All right.’ Manolin bent over and had a quick look in the bag. There were several pistols inside. He frowned, stood up, but the raft had already pushed off for the ship.

Manolin stared at his connection with the mainland sailing away.

‘They’ve gone then?’ Myranda asked, having appeared at his side.

‘Yep.’ It was a strange sensation now that he had made the decision. Would he regret it? It was something he’d never know.

‘Why did you always fall out?’ Myranda said. ‘You were always such an unstable group. You brought so many problems to this island.’ ‘That’s human and rumel nature, Myranda. We’re not like the natural world. I’ve always thought this.’

‘How do you mean?’ she said.

‘In nature, systems move towards stability as the end point. The end point is something like a complex and stable forest. It’s the sort of thing I’ve spent most of my life studying. Humans and rumel are different. They just love to break every relationship up-in nature and within themselves. They can’t help it. Call it the powers of irrational thought.’

‘We won’t break up, will we?’ She took his hand in hers.

He looked down at her, seeing her big eyes that were rounded at the bottom, staring up at him. He looked over her gently perspiring face, and followed the lines of her nose and lips.

He said, ‘Hell, no. We can be the exception.’

Santiago, standing with his hands on his hips, looked back as the raft backed away from Arya. He could see Manolin’s white shirt standing out in the crowd of almost naked villagers. To his right he took one last look at the lagoon, the huts. Behind the villagers was the forest, and behind that was the volcano. The warm breeze escalated as the raft moved further out. He could feel it in his hair. He could see Myranda standing alongside Manolin. They were holding hands.

Was there any anger inside of him? On the surface, yes, Santiago would admit that. Perhaps he felt that Manolin was brave for taking a route he never would have the guts to. Perhaps being left in paradise was something to be jealous about. Santiago had known Manolin for years, and all that was for nothing. Manolin didn’t seem that grateful about just how much Santiago had done for him. Maybe he would be unaware of that forever. It would be a loss to science, to see such a bright mind being left here, without anyone to benefit. Vaguely, Santiago wondered what would become of the young man.

As the raft rounded the corner of a sandbank, crowned with palms, he lost sight of them.

On board
DeBrelt One,
Santiago drew up by rope the last of the bags. He had spent the early morning loading food, fruit and meat, on board. The deck looked like a grocer’s market. When he had almost cleared it, he put the sails up then used the motors to push the boat out of the bay. Once it was moving, he shut the motors off, allowed the sails to snap out as wind caught them.

They drifted away from Arya.

The sun was out in its full, brutal glory. In the distance, Santiago could still see Manolin’s figure on the beach. The villagers were gone. He supposed they were either weaving baskets, gathering food, preparing fishing nets. Manolin looked small against the frame of the island-the palms, the lagoon. Birds were hovering above the forest, circling routes up the dormant volcano. The water was an intense blue and you could see fish drifting with the currents.

Santiago allowed the wind to cool his face, the bitterness he felt to Manolin slowly being blown away. He closed his eyes, inhaled the last of the island air, and could still sense the jasmine that he had become accustomed to. He felt sad, although he was not sure exactly why. He opened his eyes and placed his hands on the rail.

Ahead of him was the reef.

You could see the tiny islands of seaweed perching upon it. The water changed direction and speed through the different channels that ran through it. He frowned and could think of nothing but the reef for a long while after they had passed it.

Jefry had joined him after a mile’s sailing. The rumel stood next to Santiago, staring out at the water. Eventually he said, ‘Where to now then, boss?’

‘Huh?’ Santiago said.

‘Next stop. You mentioned other islands to look at?’

‘Oh. Right. Samekh. It’s about ten or twenty miles from Arya. In the direction we’re headed. I didn’t realise they were so close until Forb had mentioned it. The chain of islands stretches further out in one direction for over hundreds of miles. I’d visited some before for research.’

‘Tough call, the doctor getting it,’ Jefry said. ‘He was a nice chap. Little weird, but a good heart.’ ‘Yes. Yes he was, rather,’ Santiago said. ‘Now Manolin is filling his sandals.’

Jefry grunted.

‘We can station on Samekh for a few days,’ Santiago said. ‘A week, maybe, depending on what’s there. I’ve been to that island, briefly, and there wasn’t much if I remember, but we can do a survey.’ ‘What happens when we get back?’ Jefry said. ‘I overheard talk about us being wanted as the agents are dead.’ ‘Nonsense, man,’ Santiago said. ‘We’ll be fine. After all, one of them killed the other. These things happen at sea.’

‘Right. So we’ll be able to publish your findings?’

‘Possibly.’ Santiago remembered the body of the ichthyocentaur he had below deck in a barrel. He would love show the scientific community. ‘Possibly?’ Jefry said. ‘Why only possibly?’

‘Well, if I’m honest, the mayor might not appreciate his men dying. It might be best to stay undercover for a few months. It’ll be a while yet. And besides, Manolin’s set up home here. He wouldn’t want other scientists and sailors coming, would he?’

‘How altruistic of you,’ Jefry said. ‘So this was all a waste of time? All this travelling and research.’

‘Not at all. We did our studies. We know what we’ve found. The money will come eventually. Anyway, you got your marriage back, didn’t you? Wasn’t a waste from your perspective.’

Jefry did not respond.

‘And besides, we learnt a lot. We might not be able to publish yet, but in a few years ... We’ll have a good reputation when we get back, in underground circles, of course. But who says we need to go back to Escha? I reckon we can go further north. Business is better up there, they say. We don’t need Escha. Hell, who does? Jefry, the options are endless. I know of other towns and cities. I know of a place where it’s a cool, mild climate, with plenty of mountains, pine forests, and inns-proper ones-where a shilling can feed you all night, and the barmaids smile when you order the same drink again. But, for now, let’s concentrate on the second island. Who knows, we could visit others in the chain.’