by Louise Beech
‘Yes,’ I agreed. ‘But they were all special to someone, remember.’
‘They’re not all going to get home are they?’
‘We’ll find out,’ I said.
‘They’re not. I know it.’ Rose switched off then. Like Marilyn Monroe assuming her famous persona, Rose stripped off her bright, interested coat and revealed the familiar alien beneath. She disappeared to her bedroom and I sat for a while in the book nook, clinging to the remnants of our words.
It felt at times like the ocean was more real than my everyday life. I remembered the way I’d written stories as a child, how I’d always picked words that matched (as I’d called it) so that when they were all in a row I could quite literally see them bounce. Now they didn’t just bounce, they jumped into life.
On Wednesday, from page twenty-five of Colin’s diary, I read another segment.
I miss the colours. Now I’ve been home a few weeks I can’t picture them anymore. There are no colours like that here. I don’t miss much else. I don’t talk about it to anyone. It hurts. My throat closes up like it did on the boat. I just write it here. There are no colours like those at sea. I can write colour names like cobalt and teal and cerulean and turquoise but none of those terms do any justice to what I saw.
‘I saw colours like that when I fell down,’ said Rose.
‘When you fell down where?’ I asked, concerned.
‘In the kitchen, silly. When we went to the hospital. When I was feeling like all weird, I saw these crazy colours. They weren’t blue though, more reds and orange.’
‘That’s because you weren’t well,’ I said, sadly.
‘Like Grandad Colin.’
‘Yes, like him I suppose.’
She opened the diary again, at the front. ‘What do you think these buttons mean?’ she asked me, stroking them. ‘Why did Colin stick them in here?’
‘Who knows,’ I said.
‘Which do you like best? I like the gold cos it’s so pretty.’
I put my hand over hers, expecting to be pushed away. But for a moment she kept it there. ‘I like the brown one,’ I said.
‘Why? It’s totally boring.’
‘Maybe that’s why,’ I said. ‘It looks so small and insignificant. But what if it’s a big part of the story?’
On Thursday, due to her first low blood sugar reading – three-point-nine – Rose ate some fried chicken before her teatime injection instead of after it. It wasn’t dangerously low and she’d had no hypo symptoms but I knew she must eat first. I fussed a little, reread my manual, but Rose wrinkled her nose at me and said it was fine; she was just hungrier than usual.
So I told her about day four on the lifeboat.
One of the hardest things as time went on, aside from the increasing thirst and hunger, was the boredom. The abundance of time and nothing to do except look for a ship and think was torture. And thinking was no good because home occupied so much of Colin’s mind. He dreamt of his mother’s living room at night, and while lolling about on the deck in the daytime. He could almost put out a hand and run it along the walnut cabinet, sniff the air, smell his mother’s stew simmering, see dust dancing by the net curtain and a glimpse of the garden beyond.
In the afternoon Ken tried again to catch a fish and after ten minutes of effort realised with joy that he’d plunged his weapon into the side of a wriggling blue creature. The crew whooped with delight as he raised it from the water. Hungry hands reached out to pull it in and the fish – perhaps sensing it was his last chance – writhed ferociously, freed itself from the spike and swam away.
This time no one mocked Ken. No one had any words, any heart. Colin returned to his spot under the canvas. He didn’t speak for the rest of the day. None of them did. Even John Arnold’s now daily prayer was said with little hope or enthusiasm and night fell on a desolate crew.
‘Poor Grandad,’ said Rose afterwards.
‘I know,’ I said, emotion high in my throat.
She pushed a last piece of chicken around her plate. ‘I feel bad that I can eat this.’
‘You need to,’ I said.
‘Wish I could somehow take it to him on the boat.’
‘You’d have to travel seventy years backwards,’ I said. I found it profound that while Colin had dreamed of home, we told stories about the sea and escaped there.
‘I bet I could do that,’ Rose said softly.
Our week at home continued. Shelley did what she had promised during our phone conversation; she went into school and sat with Mrs White for an hour and explained how Rose’s unstable blood sugars could result in changes in behaviour, in severe and sudden hunger, and in mood swings.
‘I tried to make it clear,’ Shelley told me, ‘that this didn’t mean they should overlook bad behaviour because obviously there may be times when Rose has genuinely done something she shouldn’t …’
‘Of course,’ I interrupted, knowing my daughter well.
‘But if, say, during a hypo she did things she normally wouldn’t, they should look on it with a bit of compassion. I explained more specifically all the signs of hypo so they know to encourage her to drink some Lucozade.’
‘I did explain all this when Rose went back to school after the diagnosis,’ I said, exhausted by it.
‘Look, pet,’ said Shelley. ‘We may have to explain it a few times more. And then she’ll go to high school and you’ll have to do it all again. It’s a complex condition and there’s lots of misinformation out there. But you’re doing everything right. You really are.’
‘Doesn’t always feel like I am,’ I said. I was glad Colin’s diary entry had made me reach out to Shelley, but I still found it difficult to thank her, to admit I had needed help.
‘Remember you can ring me anytime,’ said Shelley.
Mrs White called me on Wednesday and said that if Rose really wanted to return to school the next day, she could. But I suggested perhaps we would take this time to master Rose’s condition even further and the headmistress agreed that it might be helpful to all of us. She never apologised but I didn’t mind. That she had called was enough, and I never found apologies easy either.
But I’d lied a little when I said I’d kept Rose home to master the diabetes. Yes, I supposed that was the reason, but really I wanted her with me. Even in her difficult mood, with a foreign-to-me-at-times personality, her presence stopped me feeling so utterly alone.
It was almost two weeks since I’d spoken to Jake. When he’d been gone this long I often found it hard to picture him, perhaps the way Colin had forgotten the sea’s colours. I’d think of specific moments during our relationship to recapture him. But his face was always hazy, like when photographers blur faces of interviewees to keep their identities secret.
I remembered the first time I knew Jake and I were really going to be together. I closed my eyes and saw the memory clearly.
We’d only known each other a few weeks. He lived with his grandfather then and I lived alone, twenty miles separating us. Funnily enough, it was December, like now. Snow had fallen heavily, blanketing everything in fresh white, and we were looking forward to Christmas.
Jake had always stayed at my place on a Wednesday and Saturday. But this was a Friday. I’d finished work, eaten tea, had a bath and decided to go to bed early. As I turned out the lights, there came a soft knock on the back door. Nervously I’d opened it with the safety chain attached. There stood Jake, covered in snow, his thick coat disguised by the flakes and his red hair so wet it looked black. His bike stood by the shed.
‘What…’ I wasn’t sure how to finish the sentence. I found a question. ‘Did we plan something tonight and I’ve forgotten?’
‘No,’ he said, smiling.
‘What is it? Is everything okay?’
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Honest.’
‘Do you want to come in?’
He shook his head, sending snowflakes scattering like white confetti. ‘No, I can’t stop. I was in the bath. Hopefully it’ll still be warm.�
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‘In the bath?’ I couldn’t help but laugh. ‘So you got out and came here?’
‘I had to tell you something.’ Now Jake looked serious.
‘I’m worried,’ I admitted, wrapping my dressing gown more tightly about my body. I’d had a hard time starting a relationship with Jake. Hurt previously by a man who’d ended things by simply leaving, with no word, letter or phone call, I’d built a protective barrier around myself. So I began to think Jake had come to break it off, that I’d done something to cause it. Perhaps it was my coolness or my stubborn nature. I supposed that at least he had come to tell me and not decided to slink off into the night and disappear without trace.
I prepared to fight. I planned my response; that I didn’t care (I did) and I didn’t want him anyway (I did) and I’d cope on my own again (I would but with a heavier heart this time).
‘It’s nothing bad,’ Jake said, tenderly touching my arm. ‘No, I just … well, I was in the bath, like I said. Just lying there and thinking. And I realised something. I mean it came to me so clearly and I was so excited that I had to come and tell you.’
‘What?’ I still thought he was going to end it.
‘That I love you,’ said Jake.
‘Oh.’ It was all that came out. My fears fell away like melting snow.
‘That’s all.’ He retrieved his bike and climbed on.
‘That’s all?’ I repeated dumbly.
‘Yes.’ He grinned. ‘I just had to tell you. So you knew. I hope you don’t mind? And I don’t want you to say anything back to me. I didn’t tell you for that, I just thought … well, you should know. I’m really happy.’
And then he rode off into the night, leaving me cold and warm and speechless and full of silent words. I closed the door and stood in the dark, my safe place.
Now when I worried that his absence would kill my love I thought of that night. I’d told Rose the story before she was ill and she’d said it was like one of those princess stories (which she’d never liked) but much nicer because it was real and Dad sounded cool.
And so it came to Friday, the end of Rose’s week off, and we reached day five on the lifeboat. At breakfast Rose came to the book nook with her diabetes box and half a bottle of water. Nothing changed in our story corner, only the shape of the cinnamon cushions after we’d sat in them. The many books remained on the shelves, still ignored by Rose.
‘Are you thirsty?’ I asked, concerned.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I just want it with me.’
‘Oh.’ I looked at it, felt guilt at remembering when Rose told me she was thirsty over and over, and I’d suggested she carry one around.
As I prepared the finger-pricker, she asked, ‘Do you think the rocking boat would have been nice at night? I do. I wish my bed rocked.’
‘Sadly, the bouncing boat just hurt their burnt skin and broken bones.’
I knelt at her feet to prick her finger end. She barely flinched now, just squeezed her eyes shut. Her blood read nine-point-two so I prepared the injection and continued the story.
‘The men slept very little,’ I said. ‘Was it any wonder? Imagine being starving hungry and desperately thirsty, and sleeping half sitting up on a cramped wooden floor?’
‘You’re asking me?’ Rose shook her head, held up the water bottle. ‘You forget I know what it’s like to be that thirsty! It’s totally crap. And I told you that bed at the hospital was too hard.’
‘Of course. I’m sorry.’
‘I used to dream about big jugs of icy water,’ she said. ‘I used to get up in the night and drink your Fanta. But it didn’t work. Nothing did. I was so so so thirsty. Would Colin have felt like that?’
‘Yes, like that,’ I said. So softly, yes, like that.
‘Fanta must be like how seawater is,’ said Rose. ‘Just makes you want more but not feel no better.’
‘Any better,’ I corrected gently.
I’d explained yesterday how drinking seawater was lethal; that the excess salt made you urinate more than the water gained from drinking it, so increasing dehydration. ‘Like the sugar in my blood making me wee so much,’ Rose had said, excited that she understood.
‘So how long would I live on a boat like that?’ she asked now. ‘Like without my insulin and stuff?’
There were various answers, none of them optimistic. In as little as twenty-four hours diabetic ketoacidosis would occur without insulin. Vomitting would follow, then dehydration, breathlessness, and confusion. Coma would eventually result. It might take hours, days, even weeks with the little food that the men on Grandad Colin’s boat had. But – as with all humans – the lack of water would be most dangerous, leaving Rose’s blood even thicker with sugars.
I wouldn’t sing the lines that answered her question. I wouldn’t give my daughter that hopeless story.
‘Tell me,’ she insisted.
‘But we don’t need to know,’ I said. ‘You’re never going to be in such a situation. Now, let’s do your injection and we can get on with the chapter.’
‘You don’t know that I won’t end up there.’
She was right; I didn’t. But I couldn’t spend my life imagining such scenarios. I felt sick now at the thought of her wasting away again, lost at sea. This week the colour had returned to her cheeks. She was the Little Pink that we’d almost called her when she was born. I wasn’t sure if it was her body returning to a more normal state or that she so loved Colin’s story.
Was he bringing her back to life as much as the insulin?
‘You’re a coward then, Natalie,’ said Rose.
‘Stop calling me that,’ I snapped. ‘I’m not Natalie, I’m your mum.’ I paused. ‘I suppose, I am a coward. I’m not as brave as you, but I’m trying. Now the injection and then your Bran Flakes.’
She looked away, her beautiful hazel irises dull as December evenings, her freckles like scattered red glitter.
‘Come on,’ I said, ‘you know we have to.’
Rose had to always eat a meal rich in starch and fibre, then and tomorrow and forever, or she would not last. Every day I’d have to urge her to eat. Even when she didn’t feel like it, even when she was ill. A sickness bug might mean a hospital stay again. But I wouldn’t think about that. I had to shrug off worries and open myself up to Colin’s story again.
‘Tell me then,’ she snapped. ‘Which day are we up to now?’
‘You know it’s day five,’ I said.
‘Just checking you bloody know,’ she said.
‘Language.’
‘Story.’
‘I imagine,’ I said, ‘that day five felt like the hundredth.’
I pushed Rose’s skirt up, gently squeezed her flesh and administered the injection, avoiding bruises. They’re curious, often appearing long after pinprick. Yellow the old ones, purple newer. We had to watch out for a more serious issue; lumps under the skin caused by having to have many pricked into the same spot.
‘Natalie, the story,’ urged my daughter.
I hadn’t the energy to berate her again.
‘When Colin woke that day,’ I said, ‘he felt utterly wretched, certain he couldn’t go on much longer. His tongue was swollen fat in his mouth with dehydration. It made it difficult at times to talk. Saltwater boils covered his arms and legs. But staying asleep was never an option…’
Once again I closed my eyes. I sank into the cushion and let the words wash over me. I saw the colours of the sea the way Colin had tried to describe – divine gold, vibrant green, purest blue.
And we were transported back to the lifeboat.
Back to the sea.
13
LOOKING FOR THE WRONG THING
Expect rescue anytime now.
K.C.
There was a game Colin played on the lifeboat to pass time. When looking back months later, he realised it had also prevented him jumping overboard. This game involved finishing a task or counting a certain number of things, and praying the reward was a ship on the horizon. So, if h
e managed to count sixteen blue fish while on lookout duty, say, a ship would arrive by lunchtime. Or if he saw a solitary dolphin, he’d see a ship at teatime. Or when it was his turn to hand out rations he’d decide that if he got it done without a single grumble from any of the crew, a ship would certainly arrive in minutes.
Each time Colin lost, he fought the desire to give in. Instead he decided he’d just been looking for the wrong thing. It wasn’t meant to be a dolphin but a shark. It was supposed to be eight black fish not sixteen blue ones. And the men always moaned so a day they didn’t definitely meant salvation.
In the absence of a notepad, the game replaced letter writing. It kept Colin’s thoughts in order, made him look forward. So he never stopped playing. Just one ship and he’d have won.
Sunrise on the fifth day and he whispered his game’s title – Maybe today a ship. But he was afraid to open his eyes and actually look. Nearby Ken muttered something and turned over, sleep still protecting him from reality. Colin never had the heart to wake a sleeping man from his temporary escape.
Last night, when his lookout duty ended, his partner, Officer Scown had told him to wake King for duty. The lad had looked so peaceful that Colin couldn’t do it. He chose to leave King sleep longer, yet hours earlier he’d thumped Young Fowler for spilling valuable water drops on the deck. Being on the lifeboat made the men both kind and cruel. Fatigue and dehydration drove the punch; regret filled the gap afterwards. Fowler – who reminded Colin of his brother Eric – rubbed his thin arm and turned away. Colin tried to say something but it stuck in his throat with the pieces of hard biscuit.
‘I’ll do lookout for another hour,’ Colin had told Scown last night in the dark. ‘Let’s leave King. I don’t think I’ll sleep anyway. I’m not tired.’
He felt wretched about Fowler. Also the boat had been particularly violent all night, rocking back and forth, splashing the men with water and pushing them into each other. Shrill screams dotted the black like gunfire as wood hit bones and rough material chafed bare skin. It was a miracle King had slept at all and Colin couldn’t disturb him.
Scown had looked at Platten, somehow also sleeping, and said he’d do another hour too. So he and Colin remained on the foredeck until the soft sameness lulled them to lethargy and they had to wake the other men.
