Long Voyage Back

by Luke Rhinehart

  `Do you think about where we're going to end up?' Jeanne asked him unexpectedly. Neil did think about it, frequently. It made for depressing thinking.

  `Yes,' he answered.

  `Will we be able to settle in Puerto Rico or the Virgin Islands?' Jeanne asked after she saw he wasn't going to go on.

  `Perhaps,' Neil replied, doubting it very much. As he looked at her he wished he could share his fears but wanted to spare her the burden. Even with the mostly overcast sky the nearly full moon gave light to Vagabond's decks and allowed Neil to see the outline of Jeanne's face and body. She was very still, her teacup held in her lap. The afternoon squalls had dampened the seas and, for a change, Vagabond wasn't pounding but rolling gently through the water.

  Ì suppose, ultimately, it has to be South America, doesn't it?' she went on. 'Some place untouched, where the . . . infrastructure of civilization is still solid.'

  Neil sipped at his tea. He'd heard a report that half a dozen South American countries - all of whom had by now declared their neutrality - had set up internment camps for American

  refugees. The threat of-the mysterious plague-like disease which was spreading from the western US was increasing their fear of and resentment of Americans.

  `Yes, I guess it will,' he said, without elaborating.

  `That was a strange time we had that other night, wasn't it?' she said unexpectedly in her low, intense voice. Neil became aware of Jim at the wheel eight feet away, able to hear. Of Lisa too not far away. 'That other night' in the side cockpit had been . . . my God, almost a week before.

  Ìt was a lot more than that,' Neil answered.

  `Yes . . .' she replied in a soft voice.

  For half a minute, as Neil stared at Jeanne's indistinct face, neither of them spoke.

  `There aren't any rules any more, are there?' she said after a while. 'We have to create our own.'

  `There are rules,' Neil said. 'Blowing up the world doesn't end rules.'

  Ì mean . . . some of the old ones can't be applied any more.'

  Like what? Neil wondered. Like widows and a period of mourning? Love leading to marriage? Love leading to bed?

  `Like what?' he asked. He noticed Lisa coming in from the port cockpit to talk to Jim.

  `The old rule that you could go to bed with a man for enjoyment,' Jeanne said in a low voice.

  Startled, he waited for her to go on. It wasn't an old rule he had expected her to come up with.

  Ìn the new world,' she continued softly, glancing towards where Jim and Lisa were also talking in low voices. 'In our new world, in this small world of Vagabond, that rule won't work. My sleeping with . . . a man would transform our universe.'

  `Yes, it would,' Neil said.

  `Frank wants me to sleep with him,' she announced.

  Ì see,' he said in a voice so low he wasn't sure she could hear it. Then, louder 'Rather popular, aren't you?'

  For a moment the only sound was of the water rushing past Vagabonds three hulls. In the darkness Jeanne was only a vague silhouette.

  . . Neil . .

  The sound of anguish in her soft voice made Neil move to the edge of his seat and, leaning towards her, he started to speak, but knew that even whispers would be heard by Jim and Lisa. He slowly lifted his right hand in the darkness to touch her unseen face. When it reached her cheek, she held it against her face with both hands, turning to kiss his palm with her lips.

  Ì see,' Neil said in a normal voice. '

  Ì hope you see,' she answered in a low voice, but still one that Jim and Lisa could hear.

  `What I see,' Neil said slowly, smiling in the darkness, caressing her face with his hand, and aware of the absurdity of the conversation, 'is that you are still temporarily insane. Am I correct?'

  'Yes,' she said softly.

  Ànd you see that I am still temporarily insane. Correct?' `Yes. I hope so, yes.'

  Ànd now you're telling me,' he went on in a low voice, barely able to contain his joy and laughter, 'that Frank has become temporarily insane, too. Is that right?'

  `Yes.' She giggled softly.

  `How about Jim? Is he insane?'

  She laughed again. 'I don't think so,' she said.

  `Well, / think so,' said Jim suddenly from the wheel. 'I can't tell what you two are talking about. You sound nuts.'

  `Mother, you are being silly,' Lisa added with a childlike primness that Jeanne thought she'd lost since the war began.

  As Neil and Jeanne stopped laughing, Neil could feel Jeanne tense, her hands still gripping his.

  Òh, Lisa,' she said. 'You missed it all. We're joking about the insanity of trying to create a new world in South America; yet that's where all of us - Frank too - think we have to end up.'

  `Not me,' said Jim. think we should head for the South Pacific.'

  `See,' said Neil, grinning in the darkness. 'You were right, Jeanne. Jim at least is still sane.'

  `Thank God,' said Jeanne.

  `Right,' said Neil.

  Àround Cape Horn,' said Jim, and Neil and Jeanne's laughter burst out again into the wheelhouse, Jim and Lisa turning to stare at them in slight bewilderment.

  `Christ, how do you expect me to sleep?' Frank's voice cut into Neil's giddy world like an executioner's sword.

  Pulling away from Jeanne, he turned to see behind him Frank's gaunt body outlined in the opening of the wheelhouse. He had come up from his cabin where he'd been sleeping. Ì'm sorry, Frank,' Neil said quickly. 'We got a little silly, I guess.'

  `You sure as hell did,' Frank said, still looming in the entrance ten feet away, his face haggard. 'It sounded like a couple of loonies out here.'

  Jeanne stood up. 'It was thoughtless of us,' she said. `Forgive us, Frank.' She walked over to him and put her arms around him. Neil saw him respond stiffly at first and then put his arms around her and lower his head to the top of hers.

  `You make it kind of tough to hold a grudge,' he said. Ì hope so,' she said softly.

  `What were you doing anyway?' he asked.

  There was a brief silence. 'Flirting with Neil,' she answered. 'I'm trying to get out of even-day garbage detail.'

  `Try flirting with me,' Frank said. 'I own the damn boat.'

  Jeanne stretched up and kissed Frank on the cheek. `Goodnight again,' she whispered and moved away towards her cabin.

  `You might pay a little attention to the boat,' Frank said to Neil. 'Every now and then, for appearances.'

  Neil felt a rush of anger. 'I pay attention to this boat every second of the day and you know it,' he snapped back.

  Jeanne had stopped at her cabin entrance and Jim Lisa, withdrawn through it all, stood at the wheel.

  `Yeah,' said Frank after a strained silence. 'I guess you're right. I'm sorry, Neil.'

  Neil waited a moment before responding. 'Don't worry about it,' he said. 'I'm sorry about the noise.'

  'Yeah. Goodnight. Goodnight, Jim. You too, Lisa.'

  Frank moved away again to his cabin, sliding his hatch

  closed behind him. Neil walked over to where Jeanne was still standing at her cabin entrance.

  Ì'm sorry, Jeanne,' he said to her softly.

  She looked up at him in the darkness and then away.

  Ì . . . think I love you, Neil,' she said in a low voice. Tut it's no good. We're a family. Our . .. love would be . . . a kind of incest.'

  `You're not my sister,' he replied, almost sharply.

  Àhh, but I am,' she said softly, looking up at him. 'Don't you see, you and Frank are brothers, and Frank and I are brother and sister, so you ... . we're all too close, Neil.'

  Ì see that Frank would be hurt by our love-making,' he said after a pause. 'And I don't want to hurt him. But he'll be hurt by our love whether we . . . act on it or not.'

  She turned away her face, barely visible in the dark.

  Ìn this world . . . in our new world, no one must be alone,' she said.

  `Does than mean no two can ever be together then?' he asked, pulling her gently agai
nst him.

  She turned to look at him, then again turned away. 'Oh, Neil, I don't know,' she whispered. 'I've got to get things right with Frank. You must see that.'

  Neil stared down at her shadowed face. 'I'm not sure that's possible, Jeanne,' he suggested quietly.

  When he tried to lift her head to look at her she pressed it against his shoulder, refusing to budge. He could feel the

  wetness of tears on his bare shoulder. He held her, caressing her hair against her back, his smile fading, a sudden awareness striking him of being on a ship racing through the night away from a universe of death to the north. The image of Frank angrily looming in the wheelhouse entrance returned to him and he felt a great sadness. Ìt's no use, Neil,' Jeanne finally whispered. 'We're not free.'

  In the wheelhouse after Neil and Jeanne had parted to their separate cabins Jim and Lisa continued the task of keeping Vagabond moving on course. For many minutes neither of them spoke. Lisa left Jim to check again on the trolling rig and spent two minutes reeling in, the lure to check for seaweed. She cleaned off the lure and let it back out again, adjusting the drag. When she returned to Jim at the helm they were again silent. They didn't touch each other.

  A woman's muffled crying from Jeanne's cabin cut through their silence, both of them stiffening. After another minute in which every groan of a line stretching, slap of a halyard, luff of a sail, whine of wind in the rigging seemed for a brief second to be the sound of a woman moaning, Jim finally spoke: 'Are you all right, Lisa?' he asked quietly, touching her briefly on her shoulder, then letting his arm fall. Ìt's so sad,' she said in a small voice.

  Ìt's hard on my father, too,' Jim replied. `He.--.' He stopped, silent. Ì know,' she said.

  Èveryone seems so alone,' said Jim. 'It makes me feel lonely.' He had to put both hands on the wheel as Vagabond slid off the face of a swell.

  Lisa took his arm and hugged it, then put her arms around his waist and pressed her head against his shoulder. 'Don't feel lonely, Jim,' she said. 'Don't ever feel lonely.'

  Jim released one hand from the wheel to put his arm around her. Still facing forward he hugged her to him. He

  was grinning. 'Hey,' he said, looking down at her until she raised her head to return his gaze. 'I wish I could kiss you.'

  `Why can't you?' she replied, looking up at him seriously.

  Ì thought you wanted us to be the best watch team Neil has?' Jim asked. Ì do,' she said. Tut a good helmsman should be able to steer and kiss too.'

  Joy-filled, Jim bent and kissed her, Vagabond almost immediately racing slightly off course and, after fifteen seconds, slamming into a wave with a boom and shudder, effectively breaking the kiss.

  As Jim wrestled the wheel with both hands to get Vagabond back on course, Lisa clung to him, her head buried now against his chest.

  Ì love you, Jim,' Lisa whispered and, still burying her face against him, went on: 'Please love me, please love me.'

  Jim squeezed her against him, his heart pounding, his eyes forward seeing nothing. Ì do,' he whispered down at her.

  Ànd I want you to make love to me,' Lisa said. 'Before we die I want you to make love to me.'

  `We're not going to die,' Jim said.

  `Yes, we are,' Lisa said. Òh, Jim, hold me, hold me. You're the only solid thing left in the world . .

  Jim hugged her to him with his left arm and held Vagabond roughly on course with the other.

  `Make love to me, Jim,' Lisa whispered hoarsely. so want us to make love.'

  `We will,' he said. 'We will.'

  `We're so alone . .

  Frank lay on his berth staring up at the white ceiling where the reflection of sunlight off the water danced like cold white fire. He'd been sleeping since half an hour after coming off watch at six that morning and figured it must now be getting close to noon. He didn't feel rested. He felt bone-tired. His lower back had a dull ache which had bothered him off and on over the last several days. His belly ached. An occasional wave of nausea swept over him like a pestilential breeze. He wanted the voyage to be over. He loved Vagabond and was completely at home on her but his ship, like the rest of life, was slipping out of his control. As long as he had owned her - three years now - he had loved her partly because she was his, his creation and his to control. Now she was no longer his. She belonged to . . . to everyone, who needed her. If he didn't like Skippy's comic books lying about, or Jim taking over half his cabin or playing his guitar up on the foredeck, or Neil's always sitting or standing in the wheelhouse as if it were his personal command post, he was no longer free to say so. It was their boat too. If he tried to have everything run to please him everyone else would be miserable. So instead he had to be miserable.

  Vagabond was getting junky. No matter how often he and Neil spoke about it, no one ever seemed to clean the blood and fishscales from the side cockpits, never remembered to pick up the lures and leaders and line that always seemed to be lying about. The wheelhouse was cluttered every day with comic books, towels, paper cups, books, food particles, or somebody's shirt or socks. Bullet holes in the plexiglas. The aft wall now a sail. The blankets and sheets stinky. Jeanne and Katya kept the galley and dinette in good shape when they were about, but at other times, Olly, Tony and Jim left little messes. Neil and Macklin were neat, he supposed, but Neil didn't seem to be trying to control the others.

  And he hated the way Neil made all the decisions without even the pretence of consulting him. He felt like a passenger on his own boat. He knew he didn't have Neil's experience or instincts but he knew his boat, had handled her more than Neil, and resented being shunted so totally aside. He felt he had the right at any time to override any of Neil's decisions, but hadn't yet found an issue that was right for reasserting his control. Neil didn't even seem to be aware of the ways he was ignoring his skills, advice and rights as owner. And Neil seemed to be starting to flirt with Jeanne. Jeanne. There was the fucking rub. Frank wanted her closeness, needed her closeness to protect him from the shocks that were bombarding him, felt that she needed his closeness and comfort, but suddenly, out of nowhere, there was Neil. He himself had known Jeanne for ten years, since the early years of her marriage, and in the past few years had .

  . . become damn fond of her. It wasn't so much sexual feelings, except occasionally, just strong feelings of warmth, affection, longing even that he found hard to express to her, but which he felt she sensed. Shit, maybe he was in love with her, and had been for a couple of years.

  And now Bob was dead, she needed a man, he needed her, and suddenly there was Neil. It wasn't fair. He rolled from his back to his stomach and wrestled angrily with the pillow.

  When he'd finally told Jeannie of his feelings two nights before, he'd felt subtly rejected. She'd admitted that she'd. sensed his affection and appreciated it, and said she admired him over the last year for not creating conflict for her by approaching her overtly and asking her to respond. She seemed to think it was okay now for him to express his feelings, but wasn't at all sure about herself. Events had moved so fast that she didn't think she could depend on any of her emotional responses. But now he wondered if it was all just bullshit to cover the fact that she was turned on by Neil.

  `Turned on': Jesus, that phrase turned him oft His feelings for Jeanne went far beyond just being turned on. So Neil was younger and had muscles like a gymnast and always stood looking like Patton in his shorts: what kind of a relationship could you have based on that?

  But what could he do about it? What could he do about anything? Vagabond hissed and plunged forward as if an independent creature fleeing for herself southwards through the sea, he and Neil her obedient servants. Would Puerto Rico solve his problems? Neil's disappearing into the wild blue yonder of the Navy again would certainly solve one problem . . . but even the idea of Neil's leaving saddened him. Although, Neil had become self-absorbed lately, normally he was the only one he'd ever sailed with that appreciated Vagabond the way he did, could communicate with a glance what a blast it was sizz
ling along at thirteen knots or swinging at anchor in a squall .. . But even sailing these last few days didn't inspire him with enthusiasm. Nothing did. A part of himself felt he was dying and he needed someone to talk to, but she always seemed too busy. He felt lonely and alone, his two best people, Jeanne and Neil, beginning to sail away from him on a different tack. He wanted to alter course, stay with them, sail with them, but in the nightmare world he was inhabiting he couldn't find the sheets, or, finding them, had no sense of whether they should be pulled in or eased. Rudderless, his life raced through the night and he, its captain, no longer knew his position or his course. He was lost. And his fucking back ached. And he wanted to puke. And it was ten: his and Tony's watch again.

  The nice thing about Neil's insisting on a tight, rigidly maintained watch schedule was that every six or eight hours it forced you to stop thinking and act. Frank pushed himself heavily up off the berth and lowered his legs to the floor. Action. Action. Slowly, painfully, he began putting on his boat shoes. That night in the forepeak Jim and Lisa finally found a place and time to make love. 01ly and Macklin were on watch, and Tony, who also had a berth forward, was talking with Katya up in the wheelhouse. The others were asleep in their various cabins. For Jim and Lisa it was the only place they could find to be alone.

  The motion of Vagabond into and over the swells alternately accented and interfered with the motions of the lovemaking in ways that made Jim and Lisa giggle. Everything - even their awkwardness - was a delight. The few couplings Jim had known, burdened with the pressure of performance and the absence of love, hadn't prepared him for the unexpected joy of being with Lisa, who, inexpert, shy and passive, made him feel that his every touch and kiss was a miracle of perfection. His first entering her had been painful for her; his first climax a disappointingly minor event soon forgotten in the midst of rising pleasure and excitement of the continuing play of their hands and lips and words. They were naked and sweating, suppressing their noises and giggles, and enraptured with the discovery of so much happiness. When Jim had climaxed a second time they lay side by side facing each other, grinning, laughing, trying half-heartedly to raise their conversation above the idiotic.