Then, quite out of character, Johnny found himself ripping off his clothes and running in. ‘Emergency services are here! Worry not!’ he shouted, splashing into the icy water. ‘Holy shit!’ he yelled as the water hit his nuts. The thrill of the chill, the suck and the pull of the current made him whelp. Clemmie was swimming towards him, faking struggle, and he grabbed her hand and pulled her manfully into his arms, picking her up like a damsel in distress.
‘I’ve got you. You’re safe! Now where’s that naughty shark?’ he said, flexing a bicep.
She gave a throaty chuckle – he’d noticed that laugh of hers – and wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. He could feel her nakedness against his stomach, the coolness of flesh on flesh. She turned her face to his. They were inches apart, locked together, not laughing any more but serious, intense, staring into each other’s moon-shining eyes, and a strange sensation went through Johnny: a warm rush seemed to flood through his entire being as if a void he had never known existed was being filled up and it struck him that he had been waiting for this moment for all of his fourteen years; whatever it was, this was it! This was the essence of life! He wanted time to stop just for a moment until he had fully grasped it but already she was slipping out of his arms. She had let the water pull her away and was lying on her back looking up at the stars.
For she had felt it too; she lay there, floating, eyes to the heavens, surrendering herself to the waves, pleasantly startled by what had just occurred, this new sensation in her body, all slippery and buzzing. She felt alive. Something had shifted inside her, away from childish things. She let the waves wash over her and carry her back to the shore, suddenly aware of her own nakedness as she stood up and ran back through the surf to the dry sand.
A little while later they sat in silence watching the sea, wet, dripping and newly intimate. She was wearing his jumper; it hung gigantically around her small frame. She’d tucked her knees up to her chin inside it to keep herself warm, drops of seawater running down her cheek.
‘Do you believe there are monsters out there?’ she asked him, squinting out at the dark horizon.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Why not?’
She liked that. She believed in monsters. She believed in everything.
‘That red dot could be an eye,’ she said, pointing far out to sea.
‘Or a fishing boat.’
‘Look! There’s a green one!’
‘Same boat. She’s turning.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Red light’s left side of the boat – port. Green’s right – starboard. It’s white now, that’s the stern. She’s heading out. West.’
‘Where’s it going?’
‘Fishing.’
‘I know that, Johnny. I meant if it carried on going straight, where would it end up?’
‘America, I suppose. No, Canada even.’
‘Wow.’ She sucked the end of a piece of salty hair. ‘Have you been to America?’ she asked.
‘No. Not yet. But I will one day. I’ll sail there.’ He liked it when she looked at him like that, shining her light at him; he didn’t want her to look away.
‘Really?’
‘Yup. I’m going to build my own boat, mono-hull, ketch – wooden, of course. Teak decks, double-ended. She’ll be the most beautiful boat on the ocean. And then I’m going to sail her single-handedly around the world.’ He couldn’t help showing off a bit. But it was true, that was exactly what he was going to do.
She was staring at him. Whatever it was that had shifted earlier on inside her, she could feel it starting again and it most definitely came from him. It was as if he knew her; it was as if they were connected. He was everything she wanted to be – chiefly, an adventurer. ‘Johnny, can I come? Can I sail round the world with you?’
He laughed. ‘Then it wouldn’t be single-handed.’
‘Who cares? We could do it double-handed.’
He smiled, getting out his tobacco. ‘Well, perhaps we could.’ He started rolling a cigarette.
‘Roll us a ciggie!’ she said, all excited now that they had some sort of arrangement. ‘A nice big fat one like you were smoking on the dunes.’
‘Do you smoke?’ he asked, pleased that she’d been watching him.
‘Not yet. Johnny? Why did you call a boat a “her”?’
He turned in towards her, away from the wind, to roll the cigarette. ‘Because of the shape – all curves and elegance, like a woman.’
‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Am I curved and elegant?’
‘Well, you’re only eleven.’
‘Yes,’ she said, annoyed with herself; eleven seemed a ridiculous age to be, neither one thing nor the other. ‘And three-quarters.’
‘I stand corrected.’
‘I’ve got a boyfriend,’ she said, as if that might make her a bit older.
‘Yeh?’
‘Yup. Roger Benson. We’ve touched tongues and every-thing.’
Johnny whistled. ‘Go for it, Roger.’
He cupped his hands and struck the match, the red flame of the phosphorus briefly blinding him. He felt her watching him and he liked it. He inhaled and blew the smoke out into the air and then passed her the cigarette. Their fingers were clammy with dampness and the cigarette stuck so he held it to her mouth as she tentatively leant forwards. He could feel the softness of her lips against his fingertips.
She coughed. ‘Yuck,’ she said, spitting out a strand of tobacco.
‘It’s disgusting at first. You have to get used to it.’
‘Do I? Oh, I will.’ She was determined to get it right; her lips sought out the cigarette again. He fed her another drag. This time she breathed in without coughing but clearly not enjoying it.
‘Good girl,’ he said and she smiled proudly. He noticed for the first time how her two front teeth crossed a little and he thought that one day a boy might get obsessed with teeth like that.
‘Johnny? Have you got a girlfriend?’
He leant back on his elbows and watched the fishing boat. ‘Not exactly,’ he said.
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means not exactly.’
She twisted around and lay on her front, looking at him. ‘OK. I’ll decide,’ she said. ‘Have you touched tongues?’
He looked her in the eye, straight-faced. ‘Yes, we have.’
‘Then yes, you’ve got a girlfriend,’ she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. She sat up again and went back to watching the fishing boat winking out in the Atlantic. Of course he had a girlfriend: looking like he did, smoking like he did, being an adventurer like he was.
‘Are you going to marry her?’ she asked.
Johnny laughed. ‘No.’
‘Why not?’
He took a long, slow drag of the cigarette. ‘Because she’s already married.’
She turned to him slowly, her jaw dropping, her eyes widening, her lungs filling. ‘Wow! How old is she?’
‘Thirty-five,’ he said, watching the thrill dart about her lovely face.
‘Oh my God!’ she cried, delighted. ‘She’s an old woman, Johnny! You’re only fourteen.’
A couple of months ago Johnny had been babysitting for a friend of his mum’s when she’d come home unexpectedly early, smelling sweetly of red wine. She’d stopped him in the hall, slipped some cash into his breast pocket, told him he was the sexiest young man she’d ever come across and then, to his immense surprise, pressed her blue lips against his. One thing had led to another and she’d whisked away his virginity on a Superman blanket on the sofa, minutes before her husband came home. He’d been doing a fair amount of babysitting since then.
‘Don’t tell Sarah, Clemmie.’
‘I won’t,’ she said, zipping her mouth and leaning back on her hands. She liked secrets. But she didn’t quite know what to do with this one. She let it churn about her head for a bit but whichever way she looked at it, it kept making her feel peculiar.
The fishing vessel ha
d turned south now, only its port light visible. They were sitting very close, watching it progress, the warm westerly wind blowing the hair off their faces.
‘Johnny,’ she said quietly, her dark eyes looking up at his. ‘Will you marry me one day? When your girlfriend dies?’
He laughed.
‘I’m serious,’ she said.
His laughter ebbed away and he became serious too – she was exactly the kind of girl he would marry some day. ‘OK, ’ he said.
‘Promise?’ she said.
He nodded.
‘You have to give me something, so it’s a real promise.’ She seemed to know, even then, that time needed to be marked.
‘I haven’t got anything.’
Then he remembered. He put his hand in his pocket and brought out the little heart-shaped piece of slate he’d been smoothing on the beach.
‘Jonathan Love, will you marry me?’
Johnny was standing in the hall by the kitchen where the phone was. She’d rung during supper and his dad, Rob and Sarah were all listening in case it was for them.
‘It is Johnny, isn’t it?’ she said.
‘Speaking.’
‘It’s Clem.’ He must have paused. ‘Clemency Bailey. Remember me?’
He certainly did.
‘Clemmie,’ she said. ‘Only I’m Clem now.’
‘Well, hello there!’ he said. ‘Of course I remember you.’
She sounded different to how he remembered: her voice was deeper. Then again she was probably just grown up. If he was seventeen now, she would have to be fifteen. Her family had moved out of Putney years ago but had recently returned and presumably she’d rung up to speak to his sister.
‘Has your girlfriend died yet?’ she asked.
He didn’t know what she was referring to but he didn’t fancy being overheard so he shut the hall door with his body, spinning the flex around his finger. It was pure chance that it was he who’d answered the phone rather than Rob or Sarah. He’d only just got back from crewing on a delivery to the Caribbean and was shortly off to take another boat over so he felt lucky to have caught her.
‘What are you talking about? I haven’t got a girlfriend,’ he said.
‘You said you’d marry me when your girlfriend died.’
‘Did I?’ He was smiling. ‘What girlfriend was that then?’
‘The married one.’
The affair with his mother’s friend was long over. Her husband had found Johnny’s sock under the bed with his name tape on it and had gone a bit mental.
‘Well?’ she asked.
‘I am indeed available for marriage,’ he replied. ‘How about meeting up first though, just to go through dates and times?’
He met her in the Blue Anchor by the river in Hammersmith just as the sun was setting. The tide was high and the ducks were swimming in the trees. He’d come on his bike, a Triumph Tiger Cub he’d bought for a song in Loot which he was now doing up. Although he’d put brand-spanking-new spark plugs in, she’d stalled on the bridge and he’d had to push her to the pub, so he was a bit late.
He recognized Clemency Bailey straight away. She was sitting at a table outside, smoking a cigarette – like a pro, he noticed. She stood up when she saw him and waved. He was dazzled by her as he had hoped he might be. In some way she seemed responsible for, or at least a part of, the magnificent pink altostratus cloud display behind her. She was wearing jeans and a loose white top and he could see her cleavage, the soft roundness of her little tits, and he remembered with a pang how he had once held her naked body in the sea. Only she had been a child then. ‘Hi,’ she said.
He ran a hand through his helmet-flattened hair. ‘Well hello, Clemency Bailey,’ he said, putting his bike helmet down on the table. He leant forward and kissed her cheek. She smelt musky, like linseed oil, like freshly laid teak decking.
‘Hello, Jonathan Love. You’re looking well.’
So was she. She looked bloody amazing but he wasn’t going to tell her that – you had to keep girls like her on their toes. ‘I make an effort,’ he said. He meant it sarcastically; his T-shirt was streaked with engine oil. But she wasn’t looking at his T-shirt, she was staring him straight in the eye.
‘I’m sorry to hear about your mum,’ she said.
His mum had died the year before – from cancer. It had spread everywhere by the end. The only good thing about it was that no one had commented on him failing all his exams and dropping out. ‘You saw my sister?’
She nodded.
He didn’t want to talk about his mum. ‘What are you drinking?’ he asked.
‘I’ll have whatever you’re having.’
She was underage of course, but so was he come to that – landlords never seemed to give a toss. He went in and got two Ram and Specials, brought them outside and sat down opposite her. She watched as he poured them both out and pushed one glass towards her. They chinked their drinks.
‘So,’ he said, looking into her lovely eyes. ‘Down to business… will you be wearing white?’
Later, when a few drops of rain had turned into a torrent, they went inside and sat in the corner. There was a telly on at the bar with the sound down showing the cricket, the first Test match at Edgbaston and the West Indies were making mincemeat of England. Johnny hadn’t met a girl who liked cricket before; he even felt faintly jealous when her attention truly switched from him to the telly. And he loved cricket. She told him how she preferred to listen to it on the radio, how she loved the commentary, how she could lie in bed for hours listening to the plummy tones of Henry Blofeld. While she spoke, Johnny’s mind wandered; he pictured her lying in bed listening to the cricket, with him lying next to her caressing those little tits of hers, admiring that smooth, taut stomach, running his hands over her body.
He watched as she rummaged around in her bag. It seemed to contain a mammoth amount of crap. She started dredging through it, pulling various things out and placing them on the table: bangles and chewing gum, an assortment of pens and sketches she had made on random bits of paper. Eventually she found what she was looking for: her bulging wallet. She took it out and began going through it with the same thoroughness. It was hard to believe that one person could carry around so much junk – he’d come out with a tenner and a spanner.
‘That’s him,’ she said with some awe, producing a rather tatty-looking photograph. Johnny looked at it: a tall man in stupid glasses wearing a big foppish bow tie standing underneath a palm tree in the Caribbean somewhere holding a bat. To Clemency was scrawled across the bottom of the photo. Battings of love, Henry Blofeld. Johnny, who wouldn’t have minded being the recipient of such wonder, thought he looked like a bit of a git.
‘In my opinion,’ Clem said, eyes back on the screen where Botham had just hit a six, ‘Botham has single-handedly saved England from total embarrassment.’
Johnny got up, smiling at her, tapping his pockets. He wanted to put a song on the jukebox. ‘I like your strong opinions,’ he said.
She was slightly taken aback, not quite sure whether he was criticizing her or not. ‘Well, they’re always open to change,’ she said, her voice lilting optimistically. It was true, she did have strong opinions but usually she was just trying them out, seeing how they sounded, so much so that sometimes she wondered whether she really had any opinions of her own at all. She certainly hadn’t intended to make him laugh. She watched as he wandered across the room with a smile on his face. He leant against the jukebox flicking through his choices and he looked so handsome and so familiar to her. She remembered how kind he had always been to her as a child, how mortified she had been when he’d found her in the middle of the night in the bathroom in Putney. She’d wet the bed and was trying to dry the sheet with bits of loo paper; he’d put the sheet in the laundry basket and given her a towel and told her to put it on the wet bit and just go back to sleep. She used to go home from the Loves’ house aching to have a brother of her own. But now she was glad that he wasn’t her brother.
&
nbsp; He put on a song, something she didn’t know, and came back over to the table, sitting slightly closer to her than he had been before. She liked the way he knew the words and was singing along as he drank his beer. She liked the sound of his voice. She liked the way he looked at her, with those eyes which were as green as dirty bathwater. In fact she liked everything about him. She thought that whatever happened, this song would always remind her of him.
Later, Johnny got up and ordered a couple more Ram and Specials from the bar, tapping his foot along to Aztec Camera. She’d put ‘Oblivious’ on four times in a row – he wished he’d never started it. As he turned back to the table with the drinks he caught her slipping her thumb out of her mouth and was momentarily embarrassed for her. He’d forgotten that she sucked her thumb. He remembered her down in Cornwall sucking away, the way her other hand lazily fondled herself as she did so.
It was irrelevant anyway; he was already hooked by then. He returned to the table, placing the bottle and the glass in front of her and picked up the photograph that was still lying there amongst the beer rings. ‘I sailed there last year,’ he said casually, dropping the photo back down. Beat that, Blofeld.
‘Where?’ she asked, her attention all his now, her eyes shining that wonder on to him.
‘The West Indies. Barbados.’
‘No! On your own?’
‘There were two of us. Me and the skipper.’
Her eyes widened as she took this in. She stared at him; he was actually living his dreams. Nobody did what they said they were going to do when they were fourteen. He had sailed across the Atlantic. He was the real thing. He was everything and more than she had hoped he would be.
‘Weren’t you scared?’ she asked.
He laughed. ‘Of course not.’
‘I would have been. What was it like? Travelling all that way, arriving by sea? Was it incredible? Is it paradise?’
Johnny took a sip of his beer, almost thrown by her intensity, Blofeld blown right out of the water now.
‘Well… it was something else!’ he said. It really had been. Seeing Barbados appearing on the horizon after weeks of being becalmed in the Atlantic had felt like a miracle. He’d gone a little bit mad, but he wasn’t going to tell her that.
The Boat Page 2
