by Steven Hall
“Right.”
“Go on then.”
“Okay. It wasn’t just for this, was it? I mean, what happened with us?”
Scout leaned away from my chest and looked up at me.
“I said it wasn’t.”
“You say all sorts of things.”
She tucked her head back against me and we sat quietly like that for a few minutes.
“Do you remember yesterday when we woke up; you said something really embarrassing about knowing in your heart that there was something, something right about what was happening with us?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“And you asked me if I felt that too.”
“I remember. You called me a stalker.”
“Yeah, well, anyhoo. What I’m trying to say is that, yeah, I think I do.”
“The heart thing, not the stalker thing?”
“The heart thing.”
“Wow.”
“Hmmm,” Scout said. “I feel like I’ve known you for years and years. I mean, a lot of this stuff, feelings or whatever, it’s like they’ve been in me all along. Does that sound crazy?”
“Feelings or whatever?”
“Don’t make me say it, Sanderson.”
I smiled. “No, it doesn’t sound crazy. I know exactly what you mean.”
“Good,” she said, and she kissed me, gently on the lips.
The taste of her then, the touch and the warmth and the movement, all of it perfect, like the sweetest, saddest remembered note coming back through years of silence.
When she pulled away she gave me a look as though there had been something, something amazing she couldn’t quite get a handle on.
“I know,” I said, sort of helpless.
We kissed again.
When I opened my eyes, the cool blue morning was already being warmed by a fresh, enthusiastic new sun. My back and sides ached from sleeping on the deck and my knee seemed to have seized. A warm numbness filled my right arm where Scout slept curled into my shoulder. Some of her fine black hair had velcroed itself to my stubble and I pulled my head back to untangle us.
“Hmmm?” she said into my chest.
“Hey, it’s morning.”
“Ouch,” she mumbled. “Somebody’s superglued my joints.”
We were under our coats and, I noticed, a thick green blanket that hadn’t been there when we went to sleep the night before.
“Hey, we’ve developed a blanket.”
Scout giggled. “You still sans pants?”
“Yeah, you?”
“Yep.”
“You probably made his year.”
“Awww, he was probably worried we’d be cold.”
“Well, it worked. I’m sore, aching and exhausted, but I’m not cold.”
Scout kissed my cheek. She pushed back our covers, climbed out of our makeshift bed and stood naked on the deck. Her legs, a band around her belly, her arms and her face, had all turned pink from yesterday’s sun, but the ghost outlines of her vest top and shorts meant her ribs and breasts, her hips and the very tops of her thighs were still the same marble white. She put down a hand to cover the stripe of black hair between her legs and raised an eyebrow at me.
“What?” I said.
“You’re staring.”
“When a girl wanders around naked in front of a guy it usually means something.”
She grinned and did a slow and very intentional stretch, both arms in the air, then both arms behind her head, twisting left and right at the waist.
“Blatant,” I said.
“I ache,” she said by way of an explanation, gave me a sideways little smirk and wandered over to the prow. “You should try it actually, it’s very–”
“Liberating?”
“Something like that. It might help with your emotional stunting.”
“Damage. We settled on damage.”
“Awww,” she said, staring out to sea.
I sat up, blanket covering my crotch and legs. The last few days had left me with a livid inventory of scrapes and bruises. Every joint in my body ached, especially my knee, but still I was swollen up inside with happiness. This moment–the early morning, me, Scout–it was absolutely perfect.
“Do you think it’s going to come up again?”
I watched her poke a loose and frayed twist of rope over the side of the boat with her big toe.
“Fidorous thinks so.”
She turned. “Yeah, for whatever that’s worth. I’m going to check on Nobody’s laptop.”
“Listen, I’m sorry this isn’t going to plan.”
“Why, what did you do?”
I managed half a shrug before she broke out in a smile. “Hey,” she said, finding her pants and pulling them on. “If it doesn’t happen this time, we’ll cope. We’ll find something else, some other way to sort all this. It’d be best if you tried not to fall in the sea today though.”
“Yeah, I was thinking that too.” I passed her shorts to her. “Thanks, Scout.”
“Well, it’s true. And I am sorry, about what happened.”
“Me too.”
She knelt to collect her top but I reached my arms around her, pulled her down on top of me and kissed her.
“Hey,” she laughed, breaking away and sitting up on top of me. We stayed like that for a moment, me looking up at her, her looking down at me. Scout’s expression settled, became still, serious. She leaned in and kissed me once, twice, gently on the lips.
“You’re amazing,” I whispered.
She smiled an almost bashful little smile then leaned in close, face down into my neck. “You too,” she said and the words were barely-shaped breath in my ear.
I wrapped my arms around her but she stretched herself free, her face full of that sharper, more familiar smile. “Come on,” she patted me on the chest and clambered up to her feet. “We’ve got things to do.”
“Awww.”
She laughed. “Why don’t you go and find us something to eat? Use up some of that excess energy.”
“What do you want?”
“Hmmm, something light. And maybe, beer?”
I nodded. “Good plan.”
When we were both dressed we walked together around the cabin side to the rear deck. Scout stopped and I almost bumped into her.
“Oh, come on,” she said, “where the fuck did that come from?”
There was an island a dozen miles to stern.
I hobbled down the three steps from the deck to the cabin. As I came in, Fidorous was closing a wooden hatch in the floor.
“There’s an island outside,” I said.
“Hmmm?”
“Outside, there’s an island.” Then, looking at the hatch. “What you doing?”
“Routine maintenance. She’s an old concept, you know, not as young as she used to be but–island, yes, I’ve seen it.”
“Any idea how it got there?”
“None at all. Was the anchor lowered correctly?”
“Yeah, we checked it.”
“Then maybe it hit sand. We may’ve been drifting all night.”
“All night? Then we could be miles from the Ludovician.”
“Don’t worry about that. I have equipment which will sound an alarm as soon as that barrel breaks the surface. Once it’s out of the water we can track it.”
“He’s been down a long time.”
“He’s a strong one, but he can’t stay down forever. Don’t worry, Eric, we’re still ahead of the game. I’m glad the two of you sorted things out.”
“Yeah.” I found myself looking at the knots in the wooden floor. “Thanks for the blanket.”
“Well, it looked like you were going to need it.”
I felt my face purpling up.
“And now,” Fidorous smiled. “You’re probably wanting some breakfast, aren’t you?”
Scout was sitting near Nobody’s laptop at the back of the boat when I came up from the cabin with a couple of cans and a packet of chocolate digestives.
; “Connection’s still running,” she said and I nodded, slowly sitting down next to her and passing her a can. “Did he have any ideas where that might have come from?”
I looked out across the water. The island rose up like a huge weathered bone, olive and tan, the colour of plastic soldiers. There was something else about it too, some sort of idea itch caused by the look of the place, the shape, something I couldn’t quite–
“Hey,” Scout said.
“Sorry,” I cleared my head, tried to let the feeling go. “Yeah, I asked him about it and he thinks we might have drifted.”
“Drifted?” She reached across me to grab her sunglasses. “What, in this weather?”
I looked at her, confused.
“Haven’t you seen the sea?”
I looked out. The water was as clear and still as glass.
“Right,” I said. “So maybe there are currents or something?”
“Maybe, but you’d see that thing for miles, wouldn’t you?”
“Yeah,” I said, staring out at the island again. “Yeah, you would.”
Then two cogs deep inside my head meshed together and my brain identified the strange feeling. It was familiarity. I’d seen that island before. But how could I have? I wasn’t the backpacking, island-hopping First Eric Sanderson. I’d never even left the country. I’d never seen any islands apart from maybe on TV, and why would I remember something like that? Then, from somewhere, that phrase again–the view becomes the reflection, and the reflection, the view.
The flipped-over coin, the hidden face. It felt like something huge was happening all around me but I couldn’t quite set my mind to see it.
Scout, sunglasses on now, sipped her beer and stared out over the water. I did the same, leaning against her, lost in thoughts about the strange feeling, about the night before, about the shark still out there somewhere in the blue.
After a few minutes I put down my beer and pulled myself up onto my feet, planning to go and look for a new hat or something to cover my head. As I did, my toe caught the edge of my can and knocked it over. It rolled away, spilling foaming spits of beer as it went, and hit the railings on the other side of the boat with a hollow metallic tunk.
Scout looked up at me.
“What?”
She looked out at the calm flat sea, then over at my can of beer, then back to me again.
“We’re not level,” I said.
“It’s listing. We’re listing.”
Scout got to her feet and the two of us walked across to the edge of deck where the can lay spilling out beer against the rails.
She bent to pick it up, stopped halfway down and straightened up again slowly.
“Did you hear that?” she said.
“What?”
“Listen.”
The noise was faint and muffled, but it was there.
Burr burr, burr burr.
The barrel broke the surface a hundred yards off the port side.
32
Farewell and Adieu to You, Ladies of Spain
Fidorous marched out onto the deck with a ringing something in his hand that looked like an alarm clock with dials.
“He’s up. The barrel’s up.”
“We know,” Scout said. “It’s right there.”
The doctor clicked a button and the ringing stopped. The three of us stood together by the rails. The barrel floated motionless on the still ocean. Burr burr, burr burr.
“What’s it doing?”
“Doing?” The doctor looked across at me. “He’s not doing anything. He’s spent the night trying to stay underwater and the barrel’s finally dragged him up. He’s exhausted.”
“So why is he here?”
“Hmmm?”
“Of everywhere that shark could be in the whole ocean, why is he right here?”
“Maybe he isn’t,” Scout said. “Maybe he’s ditched the barrel.”
Fidorous tried to sound patient. “That barrel isn’t floating there because the Ludovician is clever, it’s floating there because he’s stupid. Scout, can you get us alongside? Eric, it’s time for you to get that spear ready.”
“And,” Scout said, not moving, “we’re listing.”
“This is amazing.” The doctor stared out to sea, his hands gripping the railing knuckle-white-tight. “You’re both determined to find a crisis, aren’t you? Is it so completely inconceivable that I might know exactly what I’m doing and what is happening while we’re out here? As I said to Eric less than half an hour ago, this is an old idea and therefore it needs maintenance, as I expected. For what little it seems to be worth, I can promise you both the Orpheus is sound. So,” a big breath in, a big breath out, “stations everybody, please.”
The last thing we needed now was an argument, so we did as we were told: Scout up to the flying deck, me gathering up the spear and checking the long looped cable was still firmly attached to the back of Nobody’s laptop.
Fidorous pulled up the anchor.
The engine growled awake, shockingly loud in the still and quiet.
“Nice and slowly!” the doctor called out. “Easy does it.”
The Orpheus glided itself through the mirror sea towards the barrel. Scout cut the engine and we slid to a slow stop.
With the spear in hand, I hobbled my way back to the port railings and joined Fidorous. The barrel just floated there, about four feet from the side of the boat, bobbing a little in the few little waves we’d brought with us.
Burr burr, burr burr.
“Can you see anything? Is it down there?”
Fidorous shook his head. “I can’t see him, but he’s there.” He lifted a long pole with a hook at one end down from a bracket on the cabin wall.
“What are you going to do with that?”
“Pull the barrel line in and tie it off. Once we’ve got him attached to the boat we can winch the line up and–” the doctor leaned out over the water, stretching over the rail like a snooker player, the pole extended out in front of him “–we’ll drag him to the surface if we have to.”
I found my legs backing me towards the cabin side again.
The doctor reached and reached, one foot on tiptoes on the deck, the other in the air, one hand holding onto the boat’s railings, the other stretching out the pole. He wobbled, wavered, lunged, his hook missing the rope and clipping the barrel side with a thuunk.
“Careful,” my mouth said.
Still stretched out over the side, Fidorous turned to look back at me and was about to speak when the barrel exploded into life, kicking up a sudden blast of spray and jetting off across the water. The doctor jumped, losing the hook and almost overbalancing. I dropped the spear and leapt forward to grab him and pull him back from the edge.
“Was that–” I said. “Jesus, was he playing dead?”
Fidorous untangled himself from my arms and turned to see the barrel racing away over the flat sea.
“Scout, come down and tie off another harpoon. Eric, you’ll have to drive. Quickly, come on both of you, move, move, move. We’re going to catch Eric’s clever shark.”
I hopped around to the flying deck steps as Scout raced down them.
“Forward,” she said, miming a throttle handle pushed down, “and side to side,” she did a steering wheel with the other hand. “Got it?”
“Got it.”
“The key’s in the ignition.” She planted a quick kiss and was gone.
I took the steps as fast as I could, pain shooting in my swollen knee. I found the key, turned it. Orpheus rumbled. I pushed down on the throttle experimentally and we belched out a heave of black smoke. The boat powered forwards and I steered for the speeding barrel.
Fidorous appeared on deck with his gun, taking a harpoon from Scout who then set to work roping up another barrel. The old man climbed up onto the prow gun plank, turned and waved up at me. “Faster, Tin Man. Come on, we need to get up close.”
The air flapped and battered at me as we ploughed forwards, my shirt slapping my sunburn.
I pushed down further on the throttle and the engine made a noise like a big animal starting to panic. Ahead of the barrel, something else broke the surface, a dark triangle of fin and behind it another, thinner, the Ludovician’s tail.
“He’s coming up. Eric, he’s coming up. We need more speed. Come on.”
“I don’t–the engine. I don’t want to–”
“She’ll be fine, come on, we’ll get another barrel on him and see if he can run then.”
I pushed the throttle down a fraction further and the Orpheus grumble-screamed. Black and charred smoke poured from the exhaust pipes, but we were catching him, we were making ground on the shark.
Scout called clear! and the doctor’s gun went off with a thwap. The harpoon struck the shadow of the shark just below the waterline. A second barrel launched itself off the boat and chased the first across the flat sea.
“Yes!”
I took some of the pressure off the engine, slowing us down.
“No,” the doctor shouted up. “Keep after him, we’ll put all three on him to make sure.”
“Trey,” Scout shouting now. “He’s leading us out to sea. If–”
“We’ve almost got him. Eric, don’t you let him out of range. Scout, tie off another barrel and we’ll–”
I pushed down the throttle again. The exhausts choked on burning black smoke, we lurched forwards, then the engine’s growl split with a scream of shearing metal. A broken, thrashing clunking from below deck and then, nothing. The boat drifted forward in shocked fatal-injury silence. I turned the key in the ignition but could only call up a weak, tinny, hacking sound.
“Oh, shit,” I lifted my hands gently up from the controls and stepped back. “Oh, shit.”
Out on our slowing prow, Fidorous lowered his gun as the shark and its barrels left us behind.
I looked down to see Scout crossing the deck towards the doctor. “Oh no, don’t tell me, not a major problem? What you expected? You’ve still got all this completely under control now, have you?”
The doctor turned and climbed down from his bowplank. “A glitch in the translation. It happens occasionally, it’s normal and it can be fixed just as easily here as back in dry dock so, yes, yes, I do have everything under control. Now if you can get yourself under control I can go and solve the problem.”
