The Boat

by Clara Salaman

  ‘I’m glad none of you are out sailing in this.’ The wind howled louder as if responding to her. ‘When’s Rob off?’

  ‘October.’

  ‘You’ve got to take your dad sailing, Jonts. He misses it. He needs a change of scene.’

  She leant forwards and picked up one of the guinea pigs but it scuttled off her lap and landed with a scratch on the tiles. Johnny spied his dad’s rolling tobacco that was sitting amongst bits of motorbike on the shelf in front of him. He picked it up.

  ‘Why did Dad sell The Gull?’ he asked, rolling himself a cigarette with already-experienced fingers. ‘I loved that boat.’

  ‘I’m surprised you can remember it – you were very little.’ She smiled; the memory of the boat was clearly a good one. She ran her hand through her hair and sighed. ‘It got too difficult with all you kids. Sarah was on the way. You and Rob kept chucking things overboard like it was going out of fashion. I’d had enough….’

  ‘Nothing to do with Uncle Tim then?’

  She stopped looking up at the glass roof and turned to her son. ‘Maybe.’

  They sat in the rain-lashing silence. ‘What a way to go,’ Johnny said eventually. ‘On a night like this.’

  ‘They say drowning’s not so bad, you know.’

  ‘And how the hell would they know that?’ he said and the wind rattled the glass. ‘Pass the matches, Mum.’

  ‘Jonathan, you’re fifteen,’ she scolded half-heartedly, bending forward and chucking him the matches.

  ‘Does he talk about it, with you?’

  ‘About Tim? No,’ she said and crossed her legs in the chair, smoothing the blanket with her hands. ‘But still waters run deep.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Every now and then he wakes me up in the night, shouting out for Tim in a voice I don’t recognise.’

  Johnny stared at her. He didn’t want to know this; his dad was a man who never showed any fear. In fact he was a man who allayed other people’s fears. Patrick Love could be guaranteed to find a solution for any problem.

  Johnny struck a match into the darkness and lit his ciggie. ‘What was Tim like?’ he asked.

  ‘They were like you two, your dad and his brother,’ she said fondly. ‘They were great friends, really good brothers. They were fanatical climbers; they’d climb anything. One night they climbed right to the top of Albert Bridge. Have a look when you’re next there – Tim’s tie is still up there. And they got all the way back that night to his flat in Fulham without once touching the pavement.’

  ‘Impressive.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’ They laughed together, they had the same laughs.

  ‘Tim was rather like Rob, you know,’ she said.

  ‘Obsessed with sex?’

  She laughed again. ‘He was actually, now you come to mention it. He always had a different girlfriend. Let’s just say he wasn’t fussy.’

  There was a flurry of activity at their feet, claws scratching on the tiles as a pair of guinea pigs scuttled across the room and skidded into a corner. A flash of lightning lit up the sky and they both counted for the thunder, both imagining being out there, drowning in a storm like this. The thunder rumbled in the distance.

  When she spoke, her voice was low and quiet. ‘I just hope it was quick. I hope he died quickly.’

  Johnny sucked on his cigarette. ‘I don’t know… he probably died of hypothermia.’

  ‘Do you think?’

  ‘And I don’t think it’s quick. It’s meant to be a bit surreal, you start seeing things that aren’t there.’

  ‘Or maybe they are there, Johnny,’ she said. ‘Maybe they’re there to comfort us.’

  ‘You’re such an old hippie.’

  She smiled and the wind howled. It seemed to have woken up the gerbils now; one of them was going berserk on its wheel. He watched it spinning round like a lunatic in the shadows.

  ‘Unless he panicked – they say that panic is what kills you,’ his mother said. And then almost to herself, ‘God, I hope I meet death without a panic.’

  Johnny watched her. He wanted to ask her what was going on, what she wasn’t telling him. He sucked on his cigarette, held the smoke inside himself before blowing it out slowly into the room.

  ‘I’ve heard you be sick before, Mum,’ he said quietly but her expression didn’t change, she was still looking upwards. He waited for her to say something and the seconds began to feel rather long.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘I’ve got a sensitive stomach.’

  ‘And your back? Why does your back keep hurting?’

  ‘It’s nothing, Jonts. Arthritis.’

  ‘You’ve got arthritis? You’re only thirty-seven.’

  ‘Well, I’m having tests. Arthritis is most likely.’

  She reached out her hand for the cigarette and Johnny passed it to her, watching her elegant fingers take it and bring it to her lips. He hadn’t seen her smoke for a long time. He watched the end of it burn like a fierce little sun in the darkness as she inhaled.

  ‘And this weather doesn’t help,’ she said.

  He didn’t understand what she meant about the weather but he said nothing.

  ‘Well if it is arthritis, I’ll wheel you around, don’t worry. I’ll strap you to the trapeze and use you as ballast on the Fireball.’

  She gave him a big smile and then she leant over and squeezed his hand. ‘Don’t mention it to the others, eh, Jonts?’

  Afterwards, he was always to wonder whether he should have mentioned it to the others, whether it would have made any difference.

  Johnny awoke to the sound of the engine running. Without moving, through the port window he could see grey sky. He turned his head and felt the thud of a hangover follow a moment behind. Clem was at his side fast asleep still wearing the dress she had been in the night before. He didn’t remember going to bed at all but they appeared to be lying lengthways where the saloon table had been last night, an unzipped sleeping bag thrown across them. Then he remembered. They were safe. They were getting a lift out of here. He watched Clem sleeping for a moment, and then reached out a hand and undid the button at the top of her dress to see her tits better. He ran his fingers over her soft brown nipple and slowly up her throat and gently stroked her lips. She opened her eyes sleepily and smiled, nuzzling in closer to him and shutting her eyes again. Then she opened them suddenly.

  ‘We’re moving!’ she said.

  He nodded. ‘See, Clem. We do get out of scrapes.’

  She smiled at him until another thought struck her. ‘What day is it?’ she whispered.

  It was Friday. ‘Is it Friday?’ she said, looking worried.

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘It is,’ she said. ‘It’s Friday.’

  ‘Clem,’ Johnny said, putting his arm around her. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  She sighed and turned on to her back. He could feel her thinking, lying there looking up through the hatch at the white blotting-paper sky. They had had to change many plans over the years in order not to leave on Fridays. Then, as if Frank knew this and was mocking her, from out in the cockpit he started a shrill operatic whistling. Clem turned her head and glared hard at Johnny, her eyes widening. He smiled at her.

  ‘It’s not funny,’ she whispered. He shouldn’t be laughing. He of all people should understand the importance of superstition. His own uncle had drowned in a storm off the Cornish coast. He’d tripped on deck whilst putting a reef in and fallen overboard in the dead of night and Johnny’s dad had tacked up and down for two whole days looking for him, calling out until he had no voice left. The body hadn’t washed up for another week. It turned out that not only had they left port on a Friday but they’d also just painted the hull green – another glaring mistake. Clem liked sailing because the superstitions were already there and she didn’t need to make them up. She’d made up lots of rules for other things, for most things in fact. If she was in a car, she had to hold her breath between lamp-posts; if she was o
n her bike, she had to wiggle the front wheel at post boxes or red buses. There were special ways for making sandwiches, running baths, drawing curtains, getting dressed. Before she met Johnny it had never occurred to her she was unusual, she reckoned everyone had their own particular ways of doing things. Johnny always put his socks on in a certain way that took for ever and he always brushed his teeth for five minutes. She never mocked him.

  ‘Clem, we’re just getting the hell out of here. We’ll get off at the next village, take a bus east. That’s all. We’re not going on a trip.’

  She stared at him for a moment and then she kissed him. She loved his straightforward thinking. Left to her own devices she got carried away in the detail. She pushed her body in closer to his and kissed him again. He put his hand up her dress to find her hotness.

  ‘Tick tock, tick tock…’

  They both lifted their heads in unison from the pillow. There was someone else in the saloon. Sitting on the end of the bed was the little girl from last night; Johnny couldn’t remember her name. She was wearing a red velvet buccaneer jacket with grubby, frilly white cuffs. But apart from that she was stark naked, her dark hair sticking up wildly from her head, a cuddly toy hanging from her hand.

  ‘Hello,’ Johnny said. ‘There’s a pirate on the bed.’

  ‘I’m not a pirate, I’m Captain Hook.’

  He didn’t correct her. ‘Where’s your hook?’ Clem asked.

  ‘I dropped it in the sea when I was hunting.’

  ‘What were you hunting?’ Johnny asked her.

  ‘Sea monsters,’ she said as if everybody knew that.

  ‘Of course! Have you caught any?’

  ‘I can see your bosom,’ she said. The dress had slipped off Clem’s shoulder. She pulled it up.

  ‘And I can see yours,’ Clem replied.

  ‘But I’m a man,’ the little girl replied, frowning. ‘Men’s bosoms don’t work.’

  ‘And who’s this?’ Clem asked, looking at the mauled and chewed monkey thing she was holding in her arms.

  ‘Gilla,’ she said. ‘He’s a grilla. Sea monsters don’t like grillas.’

  ‘I used to have a little monkey like Gilla,’ Clem said, looking at its lopsided face, remembering how passionately she had once loved her own toy.

  ‘It’s my birthday soon,’ the little girl said.

  ‘Is it?’ Johnny asked. ‘How old will you be?’

  ‘Five and a half. My real name’s Imogen. Imogen means “It’s not my fault” in Irishness.’

  ‘Smudge?’ The bear man’s voice boomed down from the cockpit. ‘I said not to disturb them. Let them sleep! I want you up here.’

  Through the hatch Johnny caught a flash of Frank. He must have been doing it on purpose – he was wearing a green shirt. Johnny couldn’t even remember why green was unlucky; something to do with sailors missing home and homesick sailors making for an unhappy ship. Clem would know.

  Smudge jumped off the bed and scrabbled up the companionway steps like a little feral beast dragging her Gilla. This boat was evidently her playground; she was as nimble as a weasel as she scuttled into the cockpit. Johnny got up on his knees and peered out of the saloon windows. On their port side they were passing the outskirts of Bodrum: the castle in the distance behind them, white houses dotted along the bay. On the starboard bow about a hundred yards away was a small speedboat. There were a couple of men on board looking at the Little Utopia through binoculars. Johnny ducked.

  Frank appeared in the companionway leaning on the hatch, eyes on the horizon ahead. ‘Yeah, you might want to wait down there,’ he said to Johnny. ‘That boat’s been hanging round for a while. You didn’t bring any drugs on board, did you?’

  ‘No,’ Johnny said.

  ‘Wave at them, Smudge! There’s a good girl.’

  Clem came up beside Johnny. ‘They’re not still looking for us, are they?’ she said.

  ‘I doubt it. Still want to hang around till Saturday?’ he asked her, his eyes watching the speedboat. There weren’t any other boats about apart from the odd fishing boat heading out from the harbour behind them. The tourists were only just discovering Turkey – no doubt one day Bodrum would have its own airport.

  ‘Get yourselves some coffee, it’s on the hob,’ Frank said, standing there in the cockpit, displaying the full extent of his greenness. He was wearing khaki shorts.

  ‘We’ll be getting off in a few hours,’ Johnny said, turning to Clem. He got off the bed and made some coffee and Clem packed away their bed and turned it back into the kitchen table. They sat down and waited until eventually Frank stuck his head down.

  ‘Coast is clear,’ he said. Johnny came out on deck and looked around him, taking in the grey sky and the lack of wind. The coast was quite literally clear: there was nothing there at all. It was utterly deserted as far as the eye could see: a barren mountainous scrubland punctuated by the occasional shack. They were barely a mile out off the shore, motoring at a steady four knots, dragging a tender behind them, a little wooden rowing boat that had seen better days.

  It was hard to believe there had been a storm raging last night; save for the swell in the water and the crisp cleanness of the air there was no evidence of it; there wasn’t a breath of wind now and the low cloud was beginning to melt away leaving a thin, watery blue in its place, the sun nothing more than a dull white ball shining hazily on to the slate grey sea. There were no other sailing boats, no other boats at all.

  In the unforgiving daylight, both Frank and Annie looked older than they had last night – he might even be forty. Unlike Johnny, Frank seemed unhampered by a hangover. He had a fag on and looked like he hadn’t bothered with bed at all. Annie on the other hand did look hampered; she was in the corner with her knees up drinking coffee, her eyes shielded by large sunglasses, trying to ignore Captain Hook who was climbing over her shoulders. ‘Stop it, Smudge!’ she said wearily, gently wrestling her daughter off her.

  ‘I don’t think anyone’s going to find you now,’ Frank said.

  ‘No. But where the hell’s the next village?’ Johnny looked out into the nothingness.

  ‘Have a look at the charts,’ Frank said.

  Clem joined them up on the deck, clutching her cup of coffee. ‘Morning!’ she said over-cheerily. Johnny could tell she was trying hard not to be bothered about the greenness of things and the whistling and the leaving port on a Friday. She sat down slowly on the starboard side of the cockpit, looking out at the barren surroundings.

  ‘Johnny’s good luck on board a boat,’ she said apropos of apparently nothing.

  ‘Is he?’ Frank asked, turning towards her.

  ‘He was born lucky.’

  ‘Ah, well then…’ Frank said, bending over, putting his hand on the lever adjusting the throttle slightly.

  ‘He was born in the caul. He came out in the sack. It was completely unbroken. His dad said he looked like he was covered in clingfilm.’

  ‘That’s good luck, is it?’ Frank asked, tipping his ash over the side.

  ‘Kept me fresh,’ Johnny said, stepping down the companionway steps to have a look at the chart laid out on the chart table.

  ‘It means that he’s never going to die from drowning,’ she said.

  Johnny spread the chart out on the table. It was unbelievably rudimentary, not a lot more helpful than a postcard. Villages were not marked, but now, looking out at that barren scenery, he was beginning to wonder whether there were any. The bigger towns, the ones that would have bus stations and possibly train stations were on the next bay, Datça and Marmaris, and he thought he remembered Frank saying last night that they ‘coast-hopped’. They would surely pass a village – they could get out, find a road and hitch a lift. It wouldn’t be a problem.

  ‘No. It’s true,’ Clem was saying as Johnny stepped back out into the cockpit. ‘In the olden days sailors would go to a lot of trouble to get someone like Johnny on board. It meant that as long as he was on the boat, it was never going to sink.’

&nbs
p; ‘Am I in a coal?’ Smudge looked up at her mother from her lap.

  ‘Caul. No, darling.’

  ‘You believe in luck, do you, Clem?’ Frank asked her, an amused expression on his face.

  ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘No. How’s it looking, Johnny?’

  ‘Well, villages aren’t really marked but there’s bound to be something along here soon, we’ll just get off and hitch.’

  ‘Eventually we’ll hit Datca, won’t we?’ Frank said.

  ‘We’ll be off before that, thanks, Frank.’

  ‘But some things just are lucky,’ Clem was saying to Annie. ‘And some things aren’t. Everyone knows that.’ But no one backed her up. ‘You don’t believe in luck at all?’ she asked Frank, unable to fathom the idea; even Johnny never whistled on boats.

  ‘I don’t believe in anything that aims to inspire fear in people. Good luck and bad luck, they’re just a means of control. They create fear. Religion does it. Governments do it. It’s just another form of manipulation by the authorities.’

  Clem stared at him, wondering whether he was serious.

  Johnny had forgotten quite how much he had liked this man last night and suddenly remembered how off his trolley he’d been – he had a vague embarrassing recollection of weeping. ‘Sorry about last night,’ he said to them, rolling himself the first fag of the day. ‘I think the raki got me.’

  ‘Never apologize for the way you are, Johnny,’ Frank said, flicking his cigarette overboard and looking Johnny right in the eye. ‘That’s bullshit.’

  ‘So you think that we make our own luck then, Frank?’ Clem asked, still working things out, her eyes focused far out to sea.

  ‘Indeed I do,’ he said, turning to her. ‘Cause and effect.’ And with that he started to whistle again.

  They chugged along all morning enjoying the peace and solitude, watching the blueness of the sky take hold. As the sun began to shine Annie helped Clem hang up the contents of their sail bag along the guard rail with washing pegs, their entire wardrobe hanging out for inspection. There was very little of it: a couple of shirts, a couple of pairs of trousers, two jumpers, the prayer mat and their sleeping bags drying in the weak morning sunshine. Smudge was tagging along copying them and when they’d finished they took cups of tea to the bows and spread out towels and Johnny could see Clem chatting away earnestly with Captain Hook while he and Frank sat in the cockpit smoking cigarettes and drinking milkless tea, eyes scanning the coast for signs of life. The further they got from habitation the more Johnny began to get that strange yet familiar feeling of isolation, of slipping over the edge of the world.