The Boat

by Clara Salaman

  ‘You were right, by the way,’ he said eventually.

  ‘Right about what?’

  ‘About the signs.’

  ‘What signs?’

  ‘I should have listened to you,’ he said. ‘Even that song about the bad moon rising. The green shirt, leaving port on a Friday, the whistling… we should never ever have come on to this boat.’

  She stared at him. That all seemed like such a long time ago now. So much had happened since then, she’d forgotten all about signs. But you don’t believe in signs, Johnny, she wanted to say and then it struck her that maybe she was wrong. Maybe he had changed without her noticing. Perhaps they’d been changing in opposite ways.

  Later, she got up and went back down below deck to sleep and Johnny watched her go. He saw the way she turned around as she shut the cockpit doors, the way she looked at him, trying to pretend that everything was all right. She seemed unfamiliar to him. Her dark eyes had shadows the size of saucers underneath them. He saw then how incredibly unhappy she was. But there was nothing he could do about that now. They were all unhappy.

  He was glad to be on his own, just him and that sickness in his stomach. He was wide awake. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to sleep again. He sailed through the night, looking up at the stars, the empty horizon, the moonlight on the sails. Every so often he glanced down at the compass. The wind was almost on the nose now, still gentle and light, but it felt faster close hauling. He reckoned they were doing a steady three knots. He’d checked the chart; he’d stay on this tack, out into the open sea, and let the wind be his guide. The elements would lead him. The waning moon was in its old guise and he was glad of that: he preferred it white. Earlier, alone at the helm, when he saw it rise out of the darkness, he had known it was an omen. He had watched amazed as it slipped over the horizon, huge and red, like a planet set on a collision course with Earth, like the eye of some monstrous beast on his back. It had spoken to him, that big, bad, blood-red moon – it had told him that it was time for action.

  When Clem awoke, it was just before first light. She was still lying on the saloon seat with Smudge head to toe. Without moving she watched the action in the sky swinging about over the cockpit: the day waking up. The yawn of dawn seemed to take for ever, the stretch between first light and the sun’s actual appearance was a matter of hours rather than minutes. The sun didn’t care what was going on, what decisions had to be made, what towns had to be reached. It was in no hurry. She watched the stars dwindling and the moon slip down the sky. She could see Johnny’s shoulder, snatches of him getting up every now and then to see to the sails. She’d watched as he came down and made himself some coffee. His eyes were bloodshot; he’d been at the helm all night. She’d pretended she was sleeping but she needn’t have bothered, he hadn’t even looked her way.

  A little while later, when the night had truly gone and the sun’s red light was turning to pink, she had watched amazed as Annie came through from the forepeak in a big woolly jumper, looking pale and fragile, making her way straight up the companionway steps to Johnny. She saw him take her arm and help her up into the cockpit. She could hear the rumble of their voices and she noticed how tenderly he rebandaged her wrist and came down and got her a glass of water and broke a pill in two and pulled out a sleeping bag from the chart-table berth and took it back out into the cockpit for her, not once looking over at herself as she lay pretending to sleep. She felt a sad, swooping kind of envy go through her; all his loving had been redirected. She thought of Frank lying in the forepeak; he wouldn’t be envious. No, he would say that Annie needed Johnny’s tenderness more than she did right now. She felt in such a muddle and it was all of her own doing.

  Smudge was next to wake. She went from sleeping to wide-awake within seconds. She stepped out of her bed, climbed up the galley steps and snuggled under her mother’s sleeping bag, like a puppy looking for milk. Clem sat up next and slowly swung her legs over the seat. She looked towards the forecabin. Annie had left the door open; she could see Frank sleeping, lying on his back, his chest rising and falling, and a part of her wanted to go through, shut the door and crawl in with him so he could tell her what to do. Instead she got up, made coffee and joined the others in the cockpit.

  They were heading southwest with the wind behind them. No land was visible. Smudge was brushing her mother’s hair, rubbing her shoulders, tickling her back, serving her pretend cups of tea, and it seemed perfectly obvious that she was used to this version of a mother. Her diligence paid off; something in Annie must have felt the power of her daughter’s love because after a while she wrapped her arms around her and kissed the top of her head again and again.

  By the time Frank appeared, looking fresh and clean, clutching some history book, still no shore was visible. Clem was surprised he didn’t ask where they were heading, how little interest he had in the charts, how much faith everyone had in Johnny. Johnny seemed different today, aloof from her, and she had no idea what was going on inside his head any more. His face gave nothing away. She herself felt quiet and removed; she sat at the bows with her own book, the Krishnamurti one, which she was struggling with; however interested she was one moment, her mind kept wandering off and she’d have to read each sentence twice. She looked up every now and then wondering when the land would appear, how long they had before they got to Datca, to the place of decision-making.

  They all remained in their own separate worlds pretty much the whole day, reading and dozing, making sandwiches, sleeping and playing with Smudge. Later in the afternoon Clem gave Johnny a break at the helm; he was so lost in thought she had to repeat herself before he heard her. He’d got up, told her to stay on this course, taken off his jumper and lain down on the deck on his front and fallen asleep almost immediately. She watched his familiar tanned back, the mole on his right shoulder, the body that had once felt as much hers as his now felt very much his. She could no longer reach out and rest her hand on him. She sailed the boat, lost in her own turbulent thoughts, watching the sun sink lower in the sky; far away she thought she saw land but it could have been clouds. They passed no islands, no boats, nothing at all and she thought of the sea as a kind of wilderness. Annie sat at her side, silent but present. She was sewing, working her way through a pile of clothes that needed mending; sewing for a future with no holes in it.

  At the bows Smudge and Frank were playing clapping singing games. ‘A sailor went to sea sea sea,’ she sang in her cheery little voice. His was low and rumbling next to hers.

  ‘To see what he could see see see,

  But all that he could see see see…’

  Clap, clap, clap, salute, salute, salute. ‘… Was the bottom of the deep blue sea sea sea.’ Clem’s mind wandered as she listened; she tried to imagine the children she might have some day. She had always pictured them fair and skinny with Johnny’s green eyes and her copper hair but now she wondered whether they might be dark and strong with brown inscrutable eyes. She didn’t know any more.

  Later, she watched as Johnny woke up with a jolt, as if from a bad dream. The first thing he did was look up at the sails, checking the wind, then the compass bearing. Then he looked around himself, taking in the empty scenery. Then he looked around the boat, at Annie, at Smudge and Frank and lastly at her. She smiled, but it wasn’t a real smile. He smiled back and neither was his; there was an ocean between them now and she was nervous about crossing it. He wandered down the deck into the cockpit and went below without saying anything. He put the kettle on and ate a banana standing there looking out, both she and Annie watching him, both of them wanting something from him.

  She noticed the way Annie stopped sewing when Johnny was there, how she looked up at him, with her heavy, sad eyes, how Johnny looked at her with a kind of determination, how he pressed her shoulder as he leant forward to sheet in the genoa and Clem realized then that something was going on between them that she was not party to. He turned on the companionway step and looked down the deck at Frank, who was reading out lo
ud from a book to Smudge. He seemed to watch them for ages, his eyes flicking up at the sails every so often. Clem followed his gaze.

  The sails shone like two great golden handkerchiefs billowing out to the starboardside of the boat, the sun slinking down the mint-green sky behind them, the day moon already out. Another day had passed. Where the hell was Datca? She noticed the way Johnny looked around the horizon almost as if he was expecting someone to appear. It was as though he was checking the boat, she thought, as he leant over the stern and then opened the cockpit seat, briefly glancing in. She caught a glimpse of her prayer mat; someone had stuffed it in there. She saw the way Annie’s eyes didn’t leave Johnny’s; she was watching his every move. Yes, something was most definitely going on between them, Clem was sure of that.

  ‘I expect Smudge is thirsty,’ Johnny said and Annie looked over to the bows, nodded and put down her sewing.

  ‘Smudge,’ Johnny called. ‘Your mum wants you.’ Annie went down the companionway steps obediently. Clem watched her go through to the bathroom. When Smudge had finished her chapter she came tripping down the deck, stooping to pick up her monster-killing spear before going down into the galley, leaving Frank up there alone.

  Johnny took the tiller from Clem, who shifted round to the port side, her back against the coachroof. She picked up her book and began to read, glancing up at Johnny every now and then, watching him letting out a little more sail. The wind had dropped a fair bit, which normally made him anxious, but he seemed unconcerned. His mind was elsewhere and she didn’t like it; she liked his mind being where she was.

  When she got up a little while later to go to the loo, she was surprised to find Annie putting a very sleepy Smudge into bed in the forepeak. It wasn’t even dark yet. Annie was rocking Smudge’s little body in her arms, kissing her head again and again, crying, whispering sweet nothings into her ear. Clem watched for a moment, then turned away and made tea for everyone and brought it back out into the cockpit. Annie joined them, pale and red-eyed and returned to her sewing without a word. Johnny was at the helm, smoking, his eyes scanning the horizon as he let the main out a little in the ever-decreasing wind. She sat down next to him, sipping at her coffee, closing her eyes. She had to trust that she would make the right decision when the moment came. When she felt the wind drop suddenly she opened her eyes to see Johnny flicking his cigarette into the water. She looked down at the compass by her side. He’d changed course by twenty degrees, bearing away from the wind.

  ‘Wind’s dropped. Frank?’ he called down the deck. ‘Wind’s dropped!’

  Frank stopped reading and looked out at the empty sea. He got to his feet, book in his hand, and came down into the companionway, looking up at the sails, the setting sun lighting him up in a golden glow. He was so familiar to her now: his body, the way he moved, the limp, the way he rubbed his beard, the way he spoke, the way he looked at her. She loved two people, she was sure of that. ‘It’s getting late. Shouldn’t we be heading in?’ Frank said. He caught her eye then and smiled as if he’d been reading her thoughts. She looked over at Johnny.

  ‘I think we could probably motor to Datca from here,’ Johnny replied. ‘We shouldn’t be that far. Or I’m happy to carry on under sail alone.’

  ‘No, we’ll motor,’ Frank said, ducking his large frame under the boom and sitting down at the tiller on the other side of her. He reached across for his cigarettes. She was overly aware of his proximity, the size and the smell of him. Next to him, Johnny looked like a young boy. Johnny altered course again, resetting the main and the genny, cleating off the sheets before stepping aside to let Frank take the helm. If the motor was going to be used, Frank liked to helm. The three of them clocked the compass. They were heading due east now, the sun on their backs.

  ‘Stick to this course,’ Johnny said, tapping the glass dome. He took his stance in the companionway, leaning against the coachroof, his back to Frank, looking straight ahead out beyond the bows. Sometimes she felt that Johnny deliberately left her alone with Frank; in some way he was wanting her to be with him, pushing her that way. Frank lit his cigarette and then leant towards her. At first she thought he was leaning down to touch her but he was starting the engine, the noise crude and invasive after the watery quiet of sailing. Annie put down her mending and glanced up at him.

  Then all of a sudden the engine gave a violent bang and stopped altogether. For a moment Clem thought they had hit something. She had always nurtured a fear of hitting a rock in the middle of nowhere and sinking fast. She clutched the guard rail nervously. ‘What the hell was that?’ she cried.

  ‘Shit!’ Frank said. He turned the key again, only for the engine to clonk into silence. ‘That’s peculiar.’

  Johnny turned around and stepped back out into the cockpit. ‘Try again!’ he said.

  Frank tried the engine once again but nothing happened, not even a clonk this time. ‘Sounds like something’s caught around the prop,’ he said, leaning over the stern.

  Johnny joined him, trying to glimpse the propeller through the streaky golden water. ‘Could be a net,’ he said.

  ‘Could be. Could be anything, damn it.’

  Frank tried one more time, determined to get it going, but no joy. ‘Something’s definitely caught,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll go in,’ Johnny said, taking off his shirt. ‘Take the tiller, Clem.’

  Clem moved over, heading the Little Utopia up into the wind, the sails flapping wildly. ‘Careful, Johnny,’ she said. He was rummaging around under the cockpit seat looking for a mask. She always hated him swimming in deep water; she thought he might drift away or some creature might grab him from underneath. It was cold and deep in there.

  ‘You’ll need a knife,’ Frank said, ‘It may be a net or a bit of old rope.’ Annie went down into the galley and came back out with the very knife she had hacked at her wrist with, this fact escaping nobody as she passed it to him. Johnny put on the mask, took the knife in his right hand and climbed over the guard rail, catching eyes with Clem before he did so. Both of them were anxious now.

  She glanced up at the pink and red sky and the sinking orange sun; the light would be gone soon. The water was as black as oil between the streaks of colour.

  ‘Whatever you do, don’t turn the engine on!’ Johnny said to Frank, smiling through the mask, his brown toes gripping the edge of the stern. ‘Clem, keep her head to wind.’ She nodded.

  Johnny stepped on to the transom step, knelt down and put one hand on the tender for balance as he slipped into the water. He gasped with the cold. He resurfaced, gripping on to the tender. He put his face in the water and looked down at the prop with the three of them on the boat all leaning over the stern trying to get a view of it.

  Johnny took a deep breath and dived underneath the hull for a good ten seconds, the others silent as they waited looking down into the darkness beneath. It was impossible to see anything except their own broken reflections and a shimmer of flesh. Johnny resurfaced, panting for breath, grabbing the transom and looking up at their faces, adjusting the mask as he did so. ‘Hang on,’ he said and dived again. To Clem the seconds felt like minutes, but this time he came up shouting.

  ‘It’s a rope caught right round the blades. I can’t see it properly – it’s too dark down there. Can someone shine a torch from the tender? And I need a screwdriver.’

  Frank rummaged around in the cockpit seat, found the torch and a screwdriver, pulled the tender close to the boat and climbed in to get a better view of the propeller. He turned on the torch, placed it in the water and shone it at the prop. Johnny dived again and disappeared, resurfacing not long later, gripping the transom, his back to Frank. Annie was leaning over the stern, as was Clem, with one hand on the tiller, keeping the boat heading into wind.

  ‘OK, Frank,’ Johnny shouted above the noise of the sails, turning round to him in the tender. ‘Shine it on this side of the prop if you can.’

  Clem looked down into the darkness as Johnny dived down again. She could
see bits of frayed rope rising to the surface as Johnny hacked away at it.

  ‘He’s doing it!’ she cried, keeping her eyes focused on the beam of light from the torch. ‘Go on, Johnny!’ He was underwater for ages; surely he had to be out of breath. Then up he came bursting into the air holding a short piece of frayed rope.

  ‘Any luck?’ Frank asked. Clem looked up at the tender. The sunset behind Frank had begun to shine a rich red; his hair burned as if on fire. He was kneeling, trying to angle the torch correctly through the waves. ‘Do you need the screwdriver?’ He held it out towards Johnny.

  She noticed how Johnny ignored Frank’s outstretched arm and slowly pulled himself up on to the transom and out of the water and stood up, wet and dripping in the red light, his face expressionless as he pulled off the mask.

  ‘Have you done it?’ Frank asked.

  And still Johnny said nothing.

  ‘Have you, Johnny?’ she said. She looked over at Frank. The tender had drifted a good ten feet away from the Little Utopia and Frank began pulling in the slack rope. Only it wasn’t slack: it was loose, no longer tied to the boat at all. He stood there looking confused, holding the wet, frayed end in his hand, the tender drifting further away with each passing second, rising and falling in the tiger-striped swell.