The Boat

by Clara Salaman

  ‘Here,’ he said, offering the tea, but she didn’t take it. ‘Let me help.’ He put the cup in the holder and gently lifted her up, propping her up with pillows. She offered no resistance. He sat beside her and fed her the tea.

  ‘Clem and I are going, Annie. You must get better for Smudge. You must.’ He tucked some of her hair behind her ears in a feeble attempt at normality. The tea seemed to spill right through her, its hot sweetness loosening something: the tears began to pour from her eyes. She didn’t make another sound, nor did she wipe her eyes. She just turned away from him and tucked herself into the hull. He didn’t know what he had expected but he felt bad leaving her like this. She made him feel treacherous. Yet he had to. He paused, his hand resting on her side; then he left her.

  The village was small, twenty houses or so. There was a café right on the water’s edge built of painted red wood with vines hanging from the beams. To Johnny, looking through the binoculars, it was the most wonderful place he had ever seen. There was a road going up into the mountains. There would be people with cars, lifts out of here, options. A small group of men had gathered on the shore to watch the Little Utopia sail in.

  They dropped the anchor fifty yards out and got themselves ready to go ashore. It felt peculiar preparing for departure, for civilization, getting washed and clothed, brushing hair and teeth, putting shoes on their feet. They looked and felt like strangers to each other. Smudge had dressed up too as if she was coming with them. She was wearing a dress beneath her Captain Hook coat and had put on a pair of socks to go ashore in because she couldn’t find her shoes. She sat in the saloon watching them pack and when she began to cry Frank came and took her up on deck.

  Johnny chucked his few belongings into the red sail bag, Clem neatly rolling up the prayer mat and folding up the sleeping bags and stuffing them in, bending over to pick up a hair clip, suddenly remembering her flannel. She was looking for all her matchboxes with her collections of beach debris to put in the side panels, slipping pebbles into various pockets and compartments before going through to say goodbye to Annie. There was a certain quiet sadness in the air. Now that they were leaving Johnny allowed himself to indulge in a fondness for the tubby old bucket of a boat and the peculiar adventure they had had in it, accompanied all the while by his heart singing with delight.

  They left Annie in the boat and the four of them climbed down into the tender and despite the corks plugging up the holes the water still seeped in. Johnny rowed towards the shore; he felt as strong as an ox, as if he could row for ever. Though his eyes were fixed on the retreating spectacle of the Little Utopia the rest of him was concentrated on the land over his shoulder. Clem sat in front of him. She was so brown and her hair bleached so fair, she appeared to have been dunked in the sunshine. She had the red sail bag in her lap and was holding Smudge’s hand, trying to cheer her up, saying how they would all meet up again, maybe in Africa. Smudge did not seem cheered by this, she did not want to go to Africa, she wanted to stay here with them. She was suddenly inconsolable at the prospect of their departure and Clem hugged her and she started crying too and Johnny felt bad for not breaking it more gently.

  The café was set slightly in the cliff, raised from the beach, in the shade of several trees. There were five or six wooden tables and benches with a bar running along one side and the obligatory portrait of Atatürk hanging on the wall. They were robustly welcomed by the large proprietor with much gesticulating and hand-crushing and squeezing of Smudge’s cheeks; the smell of frying garlic and fish almost overwhelmed them. He helped them up the rocky steps and into the bar towards a table. Frank made it clear he wasn’t staying but needed to find a few provisions while Johnny went straight to the bar to try and organize a lift. The barman, without being asked, got out several long, tall glasses and a bottle of raki, gesturing for Johnny to go and sit down with Clem and Smudge at a table. Johnny looked about the place. Men seemed to have appeared from every cranny and the other tables were filling up as if their arrival was a curiosity, an excuse to celebrate. Two small boys were staring at Smudge. He hadn’t seen her with other children before; she was surprisingly shy, clutching Gilla to her chest as if they might nick him off her. He let his eyes survey the room – there was so much more to take in on land, there were clangings going on in the kitchen and savoury cooking smells in the air and so many close-up things in the room. It was all so intense. His senses would need time to adjust to the immediacy of land life.

  He moved over to talk to a young lad with bad skin and a T-shirt that said Banana Cool on the front. The café swayed about him as he went; his body not yet in harmony with the land. The boy was probably the same age as he was but seemed much younger. Johnny gesticulated and pointed, mimed driving a car, repeating the word ‘Datca’ and tried as hard as he could to negotiate a lift out of there. The boy kept pointing at the Little Utopia repeating something until Johnny eventually worked out that he was trying to tell him that it would be much quicker to go by boat. Johnny laughed and shook his head. No way, Banana Cool. The boy shrugged and said his brother could give him a lift to Datca this afternoon, if he really wanted, dismissing Johnny’s offer of lira. Johnny grabbed the boy’s hand and shook it heartily, sealing the deal. They were sorted, tthey were on their way! They had come to the right place.

  He strolled merrily back over to the table where Frank was involved in a conversation with some of the Turks on the adjacent table. The barman had brought the raki over and was pouring out three generous glasses. Clem sat there watching him pour it, her eyes hidden by shades, Smudge sitting close at her side, her eyes watching the boys.

  ‘Come on, Johnny,’ Frank said. ‘One for the road!’ Smudge got up cautiously to go and investigate where the boys had disappeared to.

  He hadn’t planned on celebrating their departure but this seemed right, a farewell drink, a proper goodbye to their adventure. How apt that the beverage should be raki – the circle of their journey on the Little Utopia was being completed. It seemed such a very long time ago that first night in the thunderstorm, Clem and he scared for their lives, stumbling about on the rocks. He sat down, picked up a glass and chinked it against Frank’s.

  ‘To thunderstorms,’ he said.

  ‘To thunderstorms,’ both Frank and Clem echoed.

  The raki burnt pleasantly down his throat.

  ‘They say the mountain road is slow and dangerous,’ Frank said. ‘By sea it’s only a hundred odd miles round the headland, you know…’

  Johnny knew this. He didn’t care. He smiled and raised his glass to Banana Cool over there at the bar. ‘Ah well, we’re all sorted now.’ He stretched out his legs and let the sounds of the bar wash around his head: plates landing on tables, mint tea being stirred, a gabble of Turkish. It sounded heavenly to his ears. The next stage of their adventure was about to begin. He knocked back some more firewater.

  Over Frank’s shoulder, he caught sight of the boat rocking about in the waves and he thought of Annie lying there, staring or sleeping, and he wondered whether he would always think of her that way: deadened and glazy-eyed, or whether he would think of her under that tree with the cicadas chirruping around them, drinking water from the bottle, taking his hand and placing it on her breast. He looked over at Smudge in her funny dress and socks. She was playing with the boys, hanging upside down from the wooden railing. He would miss her. What a fascinating life she was having and would continue to have, once Annie was well again, back on her medication; Smudge’s childhood was exactly what he’d wish for his own children. He looked at Clem – she too was looking over at the boat with nostalgia in her eyes.

  As he crossed the room to go to the gents, the bar seemed to sway a little more and this time he couldn’t entirely blame his sea legs. He was pretty pissed. So was Frank. When he returned to the table, Frank was holding court. He was talking about where the Little Utopia would be going after Turkey – Syria, Lebanon, round to Africa, to Egypt; he wanted Smudge to see the empire of Alexander the Great,
the greatest general that ever lived. One of the old men muttered something about Atatürk and some of the men laughed. Frank talked about Libya and Morocco and how eventually they would one day get to Tangiers and back to Spain and Johnny thought that perhaps, one day, they’d cross paths again, maybe in Africa, or some other continent. As the bottle of raki was coming to an end Banana Cool appeared at the table with an even spottier version of himself. Johnny leapt up and shook the brothers’ hands heartily. They were ready to head off to Datca. The moment had come.

  ‘Time to go!’ Johnny said, standing up, fumbling about in his pockets for some money for the raki. ‘Clem, we’re off.’

  She was still seated, looking down at the red sail bag on her lap. ‘But, Johnny,’ she said. ‘If it’s quicker and easier by boat I think we should just go on the boat.’

  Johnny held her eye. ‘But that’s not the plan, Clem,’ he said.

  ‘We’ve got wind now,’ she said. There was a nervousness in her eye. Smudge had appeared at Clem’s side and was tugging at her sleeve.

  ‘Yes, yes, please stay with us, please stay.’

  Johnny didn’t look at the others at all. He stared at Clem, unable to fathom how she could betray him like that when she knew how badly he needed to get off the boat, how claustrophobic he had become, how their trip had run its course. ‘Well, it’s all fixed now. We’re going by car,’ he said, reaching to take the bag out of her hands. He had always decided what they were going to do, where they were going to go, and she had always willingly followed. That was just the way it worked.

  ‘I don’t want to,’ she said. ‘Why can’t I meet you in Datca?’

  Johnny stood there, frozen to the spot, quite astonished by what she had just said – the idea that they might split up even for a day. He became suddenly aware of everyone in the bar watching them, Banana Cool and his brother hovering at his side. He stood and waited for her to get up until his pride could take it no longer. He turned and walked out of the restaurant, tripping fast down the steps. He walked along the beach as fast as he could, his feet making squeaking noises in the fine sand. He didn’t turn back and when he got to the privacy of some rocks he slid down into the shade, muttering obscenities under his breath. It was Frank. It was fucking Frank. She didn’t want to leave him. She had chosen Frank over him. He hated her. He hated Frank. He fucking despised the pair of them. He rolled himself a cigarette but his hands were shaking with anger. He tore the roach from the Rizla packet as he always did, rammed it into the end and lit the fag and he sat there sucking in the bitter smoke, blowing it out like a missile in a line of fire towards the ugly tub of a boat out there in the water. He hung his head and stared at the sand as if the answers might lie there. A shadow darkened the sand and he looked up.

  Clem was standing there, holding her shoes in one hand. She was out of breath: she’d been running. Johnny looked away from her, glad she was upset. She should be upset: she had done wrong. ‘I’m sorry, Johnny,’ she said and slowly she slid down the rock and sat at his side. There was nothing to see but sea, sky and the boat, so they both looked out and waited while she got her breath back. Even now when he hated her like this he couldn’t help but want her. He was totally at her mercy.

  ‘What’s happening to us, Clem?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, shaking her head as if she had no idea.

  ‘Is this about him?’

  She kept her eyes on the sunlight bouncing off the water. ‘It’s not just him,’ she said sadly, unaccustomed to being the cause of such cruelty. ‘It’s Smudge too. And Annie.’

  But he wasn’t interested in Smudge and Annie. ‘Are you in love with him?’ he asked and she left a pause long enough for it to speak volumes and for his stomach to curl up into a ball.

  ‘Oh, Johnny, it’s not about that,’ she said eventually, irritated because he was always trying to put everything into boxes when surely if they’d learnt anything on this trip it was about taking things out of boxes.

  ‘What is it about then?’

  She shook her head, trying to find the right words. It was about not letting people down in life, not deserting them when they needed you most, not when their mother or wife was lying comatose in bed; it wasn’t right to be there one moment and gone the next. No warning. It just wasn’t fair. People couldn’t be abandoned like that. They had to give Smudge warning. It was about Frank too, of course it was. Maybe she did love him, but it wasn’t how Johnny thought, it wasn’t in a sordid, exclusive kind of way. They owed him some loyalty for his kindness. But she didn’t say any of these things to Johnny. She didn’t know how to explain herself any more. He wouldn’t understand. Recently she had found herself tiptoeing around his feelings; she had to censor herself and the things she said. She had to keep her thoughts locked up. Sometimes, like now, it felt as if she was being smothered by him. She tucked her knees up to her chest and hugged herself tightly.

  Johnny looked beyond her out to sea, at the white diamonds of shining light, almost deliberately blinding himself. He understood that this was one of those pivotal moments that needed acknowledging; the rest of life would hang on it.

  ‘OK, you win,’ he said. ‘But we leave at Datca.’

  When they returned to the boat, all was quiet from the forepeak. Johnny went below deck and dropped the bag on the saloon seat and looked about at the clutter: the books, the sextant, the hairbrush and clips strewn about the place, the coffee cups in the sink, the utter familiarity of it all. He felt like a criminal returning to the scene of the crime. The other Johnny, the one who made the right decisions, the one who Clem adored, the one without self-doubt, was up in Banana Cool’s car somewhere in the mountains on a bumpy road. He’d got the hell out of here. Whereas this Johnny was moving to the rhythm of a different drum – Frank’s drum which Clem seemed bound to follow. This Johnny was at Frank’s mercy for a little longer, stuck on the Little Utopia for another twenty-four hours.

  When he pushed open the bathroom door and looked in on Annie, his heart lifted a little. She was sitting upright, her legs crossed, her eyes open, and when she saw him, she looked surprised. He thought the corners of her mouth twitched a little as if she was trying to smile. He had not deserted her after all, that’s what her face said. He remembered suddenly how much he had loved to see her face transform with happiness, how her eyes would crease up and the light would fill her. There was just a faint glimmer of that, but at least he could see that she was still connected to the source. He looked away and left, shutting the door behind him. I’m going, Annie, but just not today.

  He stood in the galley looking around him. Up on deck he could see Frank through the Perspex windows on his knees scrubbing, whistling as he worked. Clem was unperturbed by this; she seemed to have forgotten all about bad luck and omens; it seemed that there was nothing that Frank could do that would meet with her disapproval. She and Smudge were tidying up the decks as if everything was just perfectly normal, she was behaving as if she belonged here, as if they were never going to leave. Smudge was coiling the ropes, completely wrongly, singing as she worked. It was only Johnny and Annie whose hearts had sunk and shrunk; the rest of them were whistling and merrily going about their businesses without a care in the world. He took a deep breath, sat down on the saloon seat and rubbed his head. He had no choice but to accept it. He could see the sense in sailing the last leg and not taking the road. He had been stubborn and had lost the battle. Of course he could put up with Frank for another day, knowing that from Datca they would take a bus east, get to Cappadocia or Göreme and then hitch onwards. It was only twenty-four hours.

  They left in the late afternoon, a gentle wind blowing on the beam. Johnny didn’t talk; he had nothing to say. He helmed the boat, glad that everyone was in their own private worlds, snoozing, reading and drinking coffee as the boat slipped through the water, no one expecting anything of him but to sail. Johnny listened as Frank and Clem talked of Annie, how Frank was lessening the sedatives, how he’d order more dru
gs, get them delivered to various Postes Restantes along the way. He had no doubt she was getting better; it usually took about a fortnight. All the while as they talked, Johnny sailed the boat, getting the most out of every breath of wind, never letting the sail luff, tacking up the coast, getting on with business of getting to Datca. This wouldn’t take long. At some stage Clem got up and took her sketch book down to the bows and Frank immersed himself in a book.

  Fifty miles later, the moon had risen and was shining silver streaks on to the water, the boat doing a steady four knots in the gentle breeze, Johnny left Frank and Clem for a moment as he went down below deck to try and sort out the spinnaker which had jammed in the forepeak locker. He knocked gently before going in, expecting to find Annie sleeping like Frank had said. Instead, she was still sitting cross-legged, her hands curled together in her lap, looking up through the open hatch, a light spray from the waves coming in. She was covered in a watery ethereal light.

  ‘Sorry, Annie, I thought you’d be sleeping. I need to get to the locker.’

  Slowly she dragged her eyes away from the hatch and looked at him; underneath the layers of unhappiness she was definitely more present. She even moved out of his way a little so that he could crawl across the bed and open the locker. He talked to her as he did so, not expecting a reply. ‘We probably won’t even use it but I want to be prepared. When we round the headland we should get a nice run on the way in to Datca…’

  As he sat back up, he felt something hard pressing into his knees. He felt underneath and pulled out a couple of yellow and red pills. He held them out in his hand towards Annie and she took them from him. He watched her slip her hand behind her back and push them underneath the mattress, flashing a glance at the door.

  ‘What are you saving them for?’ he asked. She looked at him as if she had been found out. Then she opened her mouth as if to say something but the words wouldn’t come out, it seemed like too much effort. Johnny moved closer to her.