by Peter Benson
Odette, Jimmie and Albert left the shop and walked out of Arsenal, past graffiti that read, ‘Gunners are the greatest!’ and, ‘FA Cup for Gunners and all our friends’.
Albert carried the rod and thought it throbbed. Unfamiliar hands disturbed it. Soft hands. He felt awkward but gave it to Odette and held Jimmie’s hand instead. It was late afternoon when they got back to the shack.
Leonard wasn’t there. The place was as they’d left it. A dog was nosing around the fire. ‘Shoo!’ Jimmie shouted and chased it away while Odette sat down and Albert rested the rod against a tree.
‘Maybe the man was right,’ he said. ‘He’s probably sleeping the drink off.’
‘No.’ Odette wasn’t convinced. She tuned the gift her mother had given her and imagined him confused and frightened, wandering through sugar-cane fields, chased by angry landlords and their dogs.
‘I’ll look again later.’
‘No. You’ve got the hotel. There’s your guests.’ She pointed to some.
‘They can look after themselves.’
‘But…’
‘No! I’ll come!’ Albert was firm. Leonard might have let him down once, and he’d been angry for a good reason but he liked the man, the woman more. ‘Later. I’ll meet you here.’
25
That evening, a policeman visited the hotel. He asked to speak to Odette.
‘Why?’ said Albert.
‘I’ll speak to her first.’
‘She’ll be on the beach.’
The day before, Leonard had left the shack and walked along the shore. He carried his rod like a flower, and cast from rocks. Black rocks, white sand and a clear warm sea. But the pools were empty, he didn’t catch anything all morning, and lay down to rest when the sun got too hot.
When he closed his eyes, Diego Garcia’s jungles whispered to him across the ocean. They talked about how no one cared for them any more. They were neglected and the ducks and chickens Ilois had been forced to leave behind roamed the undergrowth, wild and anxious. The sun was hot; Leonard shook himself awake and stood up.
He walked as far as the estuary, the limit of his fishing area. He stood on the furthest rock and balanced for an hour, casting and re-casting, dropping the line and waiting for a bite.
No bite. He chose another rock, and fished until the sun began to sink. A breeze blew off the ocean. The sky turned pink and he began to feel hungry. He thought he smelt Odette’s cooking. He shook his head. She was a mile away. He reeled in and decided to go for a beer. Arsenal village wasn’t far, and he knew people there.
He walked along the beach, thinking about nothing, and was about to climb onto the road when he noticed a blue boat, open-decked, sail furled, bobbing at its mooring. It was a beautiful sight and took him back again. When he half-closed his eyes it was Paul’s from Peros Banhos in calm weather, waiting in the lagoon for a day’s work. Real work, real fishing – Leonard needed a beer, shook his head and climbed up to the road.
He had enough money for one bottle. He drank slowly, watching men talk and women sit, and was about to leave the shop when someone said, ‘Hey! You going?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘I…’ Leonard put his hand in his pocket and jangled nothing. He shrugged.
‘Come here,’ the man said, and put his arm around Leonard’s shoulder. ‘I’ll buy you one.’
Other people bought him more beer, and someone cooked him a meal when he said he hadn’t eaten all day. ‘You must eat,’ they said. ‘You’ll waste away!’
Leonard wanted to tell them he’d wasted away already but didn’t know how to explain himself. He was overwhelmed, his tongue glued to the roof of his mouth and the drink gave his sadness a frozen crust. He just nodded, whispered, ‘Thank you,’ and accepted another.
The shopkeeper offered Leonard a blanket and a bed. In his sleep he had a dream. (In it he found himself flying home. Maude and Raphael were waiting for him, Odette wanted to play in the lagoon. Friends brought him presents.
A radio, a basket of bananas, bottles of wine and rum, a new set of hooks.
‘You deserve them,’ they said.
He was surprised. ‘Why?’
‘The man’s a hero and he says, “Why?” Leonard! You’re too modest! Why!’
A feast was prepared, laid and eaten, toasts were drunk and the tropical day turned into tropical night. The stars came out and Leonard was fêted.
Massive lobsters were boiled in massive pots; rice was boiled and laced with rum. Musicians arrived, tuned their instruments and played traditional songs. People with masks and hats sang and danced in circles and chains; girls and boys disappeared into the jungle.
A woman came to him and asked a question. The noise of the party prevented him from hearing what she said, but his answer was the right one, so she took his hand and led him to a hut. She was very beautiful, and willing, and was about to show him something when a foot stepped out of the sky and ended the dream. The foot was clean and tattooed with the word ‘WELCOME’.)
Leonard woke up with sweat streaming down his face and the blanket in a heap on the other side of the shack. The night was flushed with dawn and the first song birds began to chatter.
‘Welcome,’ he whispered. ‘Where?’ He wanted to go home. He sat in the doorway and watched the empty road.
Two hours later, he drank a glass of water and the shopkeeper offered him a banana.
‘No thank you…’
‘You must. It’s good for you!’
‘I don’t want it.’
‘Look! You have to eat something. You need food. You’ll feel better.’
Leonard wouldn’t argue. He ate, and the man was right. He did feel better and when he was offered a beer he didn’t say, ‘No’. Why not? he thought, and drank it all. He didn’t care any more.
It was strong beer, and made him feel stronger.
‘Better?’ said the shopkeeper, and drank one himself.
‘Yes. Thank you.’ Leonard smiled. The first smile to crack his face in months. ‘Thank you!’ he said again, and he set off down the road, and headed for the shore.
Beer in the morning fuzzed him but gave him purpose. It swept away reason too, and gave everything a glow. Something he’d not noticed before, and a shine.
This bounced off the trees and covered the beach. He walked along it and looked across the bay. The blue boat was still there. In daylight it was even more remarkable to see. It was painted the same shade as Paul’s had been and the rig was familiar. A simple thing to sail. The beer tipped him over the edge and he walked into the sea towards it, and then swam when it got too deep.
The water was warm and as calm as settled dust. He reached the boat, hauled himself over the gunwale, sat down and put one hand on the tiller, the other on the sail.
He only wanted to sit in it; to feel the boards holding him, listen to the rig creaking and smell the varnish and paint, but when he rubbed the sail and tapped the deck his mind flipped gears and he thought, Home. He moved the rudder and heard the ocean sing. ‘I,’ he said aloud, ‘am Leonard…’ He coughed. He felt beer force words. ‘… and going home now.’
So he cast the mooring rope, hauled the sail, trimmed the rigging and smiled as the boat’s owner came running down the beach, shouting and waving.
‘Hey! Thief! Come back!’
Leonard shook his head. He wouldn’t listen.
‘STOP THIEF! THIEF!’
Leonard wasn’t a thief. No one could call him that. He pointed the boat to sea and the owner splashed into the water. ‘COME BACK!’
No.
‘HEY!’
It would take him a long time to reach Diego Garcia, but the sea was his brother. The currents were his friends and the wind would be kind all the way. He had a strong feeling that he had not made a mistake.
‘STOP THIEF!’
Leonard didn’t stop. He didn’t look back. He didn’t think about Odette or Jimmie or Albert or Tombeau Bay or anything to do with Ma
uritius as he steered the boat away. He tuned into his instincts and trimmed the sail. He watched the bow cut the ocean and felt the boards on the water. An old and powerful excitement filled him; he licked his lips and narrowed his eyes at the line of foam that broke over the distant reef.
As he sailed closer to this line, it roared. It warned and crashed before calming into the lagoon. Beyond the reef lay open sea and a deeper blue, higher waves and the Chagos Archipelago. ‘Home,’ he said aloud. He punched the air and steered towards a passage through the reef.
From the shore – even from fifty yards away – the waves breaking over the reef deceived by looking insignificant, but when the wind picked up out of nowhere and Leonard found himself having to trim the sail and control a suddenly bucking boat, any insignificance was gone.
The sea became a rage of foam and noise and shards of flying coral. He heaved on the tiller, wrapped two ropes around his hands and tried to turn the boat into the wind.
He swore. The passage he thought he’d seen turned out to be no passage at all, as he steered along the edge of the reef, steadying himself and the boat and shouting at the waves. He didn’t want to bother them. He wondered why they wanted to hurt him. ‘Don’t!’ he yelled, and turned the boat into their path.
He was soaked and licked his lips. They stung. The effect of the beer was wearing off, and he was beginning to doubt his wisdom. He turned to his rod for comfort. A friend that never let him down; he looked all over the boat and panicked when he couldn’t find it.
He panicked as another wave smashed into the boat. He thought. He pulled on the tiller and wrapped ropes around his hand again. He remembered the beer shop in Arsenal, and saw his rod leaning against a wall there. He cursed as he forgot what he was doing and another wave picked the boat up and dumped it onto a shelf of fisted coral.
Wood splintered. The decks yelled and cracked, and the boat spun like a top. Wind filled the sail and pulled the rig sideways, towards the open sea and deep ocean.
‘Wait!’ Leonard yelled. ‘My rod.’
The reef split the deck and wrenched the rudder off its hinges. Water spouted, and the boat bucked out of control. Leonard yelled ‘Don’t!’ again, and his blood flushed with sweat.
‘No!’
The boat filled with water. The rigging was ripped apart and the mast began to topple. Slowly at first, then quick and final, splintering in the air and falling into the sea as another wave picked the wreck and flung it across the reef.
The noise was deafening. Swords of wood and lengths of rope flayed around, the corals snarled and chided.
‘What you doing here?’ they said. ‘There’s no passage. We’re the princes here.’
No passage. The wreck was lifted again, and tossed up with Leonard still clinging, to land, miraculously, on the other side of the reef.
The streak of foam and pounded coral was behind him, open ocean ahead, the deepest blue sky above, a few shattered planks of wood beneath. He looked at them, listened to the ocean, and stood on the remains of a deck seat before he sank, and the waves smoothed the spot where he had been.
He didn’t care as he sank. Reason had filtered through beer, and told him he’d never reach the Chagos. It was too far, too rough, too deep. It told him to cut his losses and go home. But home wasn’t home if it wasn’t Diego Garcia, so he silenced reason and garbled, ‘No!’
Under water it was warm and fuzzy, and the currents put their arms around his body and dragged him down. He joined fish and drifting weed, took water into his lungs, filled up and held his stomach, winced and closed his eyes, and saw his family and other people he’d known asking him what he thought he was doing. Georges carried a bottle of rum and put it to his mother’s lips, or were they Odette’s? His father smiled and the sun split open and leaked all over the sea.
His tongue flipped back and tried to find his throat. He swallowed and choked. He thrashed his arms and the currents laughed as they pulled, and pieces of the boat floated down around him like rain. Lumps of timber, hinges and metal runners.
He thought he heard a shout and an arm come to hold him. He tried to grab a piece of sinking mast before he felt a rush of warmth leave his body, and icy fingers feel their way over him. He opened his eyes for the last time before going limp and the currents let him go, so he could die alone, which is what he did in the sea beyond Tombeau reef.
‘It didn’t take us long to find him,’ the policeman said. ‘A crowd watched the whole thing from the beach. I’m surprised you didn’t hear them.’
Odette shook her head. She’d been washing Leonard’s other shirt as he had died.
‘Where is he now?’ said Albert.
‘Port Louis.’
‘Can I do anything?’
The policeman looked at him. He fingered his uniform and rubbed one of his buttons. He wasn’t used to dealing with this sort of thing. ‘You could stay with her.’
‘Of course.’
‘And there’ll be some forms. She can’t write.’
‘I know.’
‘If you could help with them I’d be…’
‘Yes,’ said Albert. He knelt beside Odette and took her hand. She was sobbing and held tight. He gave her a handkerchief.
The policeman opened his mouth. Words stuck in them, so he nodded and then he left.
26
Odette took Jimmie to bed, put her arms around him and squeezed. ‘Jimmie…’ She was scared. Albert stood in the doorway.
Calm night, soft water, the wreckage of the boat Leonard had stolen was washed up along the beach. Mynahs chattered. Jimmie sucked his thumb.
‘You want me to stay?’ Albert said.
Odette didn’t say anything.
‘I will,’ he said. ‘And I’ll take care of things in Port Louis. Don’t worry.’
‘Thank you.’ She wiped her eyes.
He shook his head. ‘Anyone would do it,’ he said.
She shook her head. She said, ‘I met men who wouldn’t.’ It was late and she wanted to lie down.
She lay with Jimmie, Albert lay on an air-bed by the door. A slight moon cast soft light into the shack, spreading and outlining the Ilois’s possessions. A saucepan. A mirror. A tea chest. A photograph of Queen Elizabeth the Second and the Duke of Edinburgh. A jar of rice and three eggs. Two bananas. A dead fishing rod.
She sniffed. She didn’t sleep for an hour, but when she did she was restless. Jimmie made sucking noises. Albert stared at the moon before falling asleep. The sea breathed.
He woke up a few hours later. Everything was quiet. Nothing moved. He looked across at Odette. She’d flayed in sleep and the blanket had exposed her legs. They were smooth and shone in the moonlight. He stood up, walked over to her and covered them.
The policeman came back in the morning. He was carrying a black briefcase, and asked Albert to sign some forms. These were official, and sad to read.
‘Where’s he being buried?’ said Albert.
‘Port Louis. You’ll be at the funeral?’
‘Yes. But I wondered…’ Albert hesitated.
‘What?’ said the policeman.
‘There’s a cemetery,’ said Albert, ‘at Souillac.’
‘Yes.’
‘A seamen’s cemetery.’
‘So?’
‘Could we bury him there?’
‘At Souillac? Why?’
Albert shrugged.
The policeman thought. It would involve re-organising, and more forms, but he said, ‘Why not? If you can pay…’
‘I can pay.’ Albert showed him some money.
The policeman looked at the cash. ‘I’ll find out. You’re M. Burnier?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I’ll come back later. You’ll be here?’
‘Yes.’
Leonard was buried according to Christian ritual, at Souillac. No spirit-seeker came and chased around with a switch. Nobody mentioned Minni-Minni. Jimmie said, ‘Taxi?’
‘Ssh and sit in the back.’
The grave was dug as close to the ocean as a grave could be. Albert paid the undertakers, the priest and the diggers. Odette thanked him, and promised to make it up.
They squinted as they stood at the grave. The smoke from a rubbish tip blew around and two children carried battered tin cans through the cemetery. Their clothes were torn and dirty, and they lived under seven sheets of galvanised iron. They watched the funeral party.
Odette, Jimmie, Albert, a priest, four pallbearers. The service was solemn as the wind blew and the sea roared all around them. It pounded into a frenzy on the shore. Souillac is Mauritius’s southernmost village, and no reef protects that stretch of coast from waves born in the Antarctic. A strong wind blew clouds of sand into the sky and whirled them into the trees that bordered the cemetery. Sad words, a hymn and some verses from the Bible about fishermen waiting for storms to pass.
The cemetery stretched in every direction, the blocks of graves sectioned according to religion. Old vaults were open to the sky, their black blocks carted for a wall somewhere else. The tops of crosses were missing.
Leonard’s coffin was lowered into the ground, and handfuls of sand were tossed. Sand and tears. The priest was kind and said that he was always available. He wanted to minister to his flock, and prove that Christ died so that men like Leonard could live. No one argued, and no one waited for the grave-diggers to fill the hole.
27
Albert bought a table and put it in the hotel’s reception. It was large enough to take a display of places to visit in Mauritius, a locked case of Sega cassettes and a spread of newspapers for guests to borrow.
He was pleased to be able to offer a better service. One day he would be able to afford flowers to arrange on the food and lamps on every dining-room table; he smacked his stomach, went to the veranda and chatted to some guests.
Smoking and accepting a drink from one of them, he looked down and across the beach to where the watchman’s shack stood. A corner of its roof flapped in an unseasonal wind. He reminded himself to fetch some nails and a hammer to it.
When he’d drunk, he looked at his watch and said, ‘I give myself an hour off now.’ He picked up a newspaper.
