The Boat

by Clara Salaman

  Slowly Johnny sat back against the inside of the hull, letting the photograph fall from his fingers.

  Well, now she knew.

  It was a still, hot night. They were moored amongst a cluster of small islands north of Sicily; they avoided the big places these days, they only moored in harbours or marinas when they had to fill up with diesel and water, otherwise they would find a small bay and avoid authorities and crowds. Even so, there was always someone there to remind them, some garment of clothing, some gait or limp, the sound of a laugh, or a song, or sometimes just a word that would send a flutter to their hearts. Smudge had been prone to run up to total strangers and ask them if they’d seen her mummy or daddy with Clem and Johnny standing right there beside her. But she hadn’t done that in a while, not since Johnny had told her that they weren’t coming back, they were staying in Turkey, and Clem and Johnny were her new guardians. He’d made it as matter-of-fact as he could and to his surprise she had seemed to take it on board without too much apparent dismay. Yet she still saw them everywhere; they haunted her just as they haunted him and Clem. He understood that this was the cross he had to bear: he would always need eyes in the back of his head, he would never be free of them, he would forever be waiting for that tap on the shoulder, to turn and see the big bear man standing there ready to claim his life back. Clem was the same; he saw the way she jumped at the sight of a particular shirt, or the size of a particular man, how she cowered, how everything seemed to startle her, how her free spirit had been contained and crushed, her confidence shot. She never spoke of him. She barely spoke at all.

  For Frank had killed a part of her; it sat inside her, a dead, heavy thing sunk into her gut. She could feel it, cold and solid. She had bared herself to him and given of herself and all the time he had been doing those unspeakable things. She felt like she was drowning in shame, it clung to her, it was in her hair, in her eyes and her nose, she would never escape it. And to think that she had thought herself in love with him – she was a stupid, stupid girl. It made her skin crawl and her stomach twist into knots: those hands that had touched her were the same hands on that bedpost. Everything he’d said had been a lie. All those wondrous feelings she had felt were now negated. No wonder he didn’t want judgements – he was a charlatan, a sham, a monster. She had been duped. And now she had lost Johnny’s love. Oh, he loved her, she knew that, but he would never love in the way he had, with such unconditional totality; from now on there would always be shadows, lesions in their love. She could see it in his eyes when he looked at her, the light had gone out. She had treated their love with callous disregard and above everything else she hated Frank for that the most. She was getting everything she deserved, she was unworthy of Johnny. She vowed never to mention Frank’s name again.

  Her silence suited Johnny, for the time being. The damage Frank had done was irrevocable and ever-present. There was nowhere to run to, he was always there, wherever they went. He was on the boat, in the wind, in every port, on every horizon. And so the silence and the gulf between Clem and Johnny grew and grew and he watched as she retreated further and further into herself. She didn’t paint any more, or read. She just sat there staring out at the water when they sailed, a shadow of her former self. When they were on dry land, she pulled her hat down and put her glasses on and barely raised her head. She looked different too. Her hair had grown thin and long over the months. It had lost its curl, as if depression had reached the very tips of her. At least she’s still there. She hasn’t left. Johnny liked to imagine that she was getting better, that her old self would re-emerge, that they would get through it. He didn’t like to admit that he was playing a part in her unhappiness but some proud and crooked part of him couldn’t help but feel that she deserved to be suffering. She should have to pay for her blindness, for her treachery. Yet he still wanted her back to how she used to be; he wanted everything to go back to how it once had been; only he didn’t know how it was going to happen for not once had she reached out for him. And if he thought about it, not once had he reached out for her.

  ‘Johnny,’ she whispered. He opened his eyes; he had been fast asleep. It was the dead of night. Clem was crouching by the bedside. ‘Wake up!’

  Usually when he awoke, it was to her back and he would have to remember afresh the void between them. But here she was: her face right beside his, her eyes with that old spark in them. He thought she might have slipped into his dream, for in his dreams their love was untainted. He sat up. ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Come up into the cockpit!’

  He heard it then, a kind of snarling, sighing, monstrous noise, a dragon’s breath, a distant rumbling war, gunshot and explosion. He threw off the covers and rushed up the galley steps out into the night.

  ‘Oh my God!’ he cried, blown backwards by the sight.

  They had anchored beside an active volcano. The mountain right in front of them, that yesterday had been smoking, tonight turned out to be alive. The earth was spewing red fire from its belly into the night, angry jets of white and orange molten rock bursting high up into the night sky, belching jets of fire that landed softly and rolled back down the mountain top like liquid jewels disappearing into blackness before another burst of activity. They watched in awe, climbing up on to the decks as high as they could, their own private spectacular. They gazed in utter wonderment as the earth groaned and heaved before them. Then something quite extraordinary happened. Moved by the earth itself, he felt Clem slip her hand into his and his heart nearly bubbled over with its own fire for he had waited so long for this. And it felt so good. It felt like being home again.

  It would have been easy then to squeeze that hand in his, for his fingers to have responded to her gentle touch, to have pressed his palm against hers and made the peace that he had been so craving. But he couldn’t do it. He needed to punish her; she had to be rejected, to understand the hurt. He needed to make her suffer just a little more, as she had made him suffer. He wanted her to beg for forgiveness, to make amends for all the damage she had done before they could become whole again. And so he didn’t respond to that small warm hand that had sought his out. He let it sit there for just a moment before he punished her. Then he let it go. He dropped it from his own, hating himself as he did so, turning away, saying, ‘Smudge needs to see this,’ before disappearing below deck to get her.

  When he came back out, he could see that she had been crying: there were wet golden tracks on her cheeks glinting with reflected volcanic light and he felt the full cruelty of this new Johnny. Miserable, he sat down and watched the earth pour out its guts for the rest for the night but it wasn’t the same. It had lost its magic.

  The following day they chugged into the marina of a neighbouring island. They had to buy diesel and do a supermarket shop: they were running low on everything they would need before they sailed north. Johnny checked out the other boats, as he always did, his eyes not missing a thing, every name of every boat, every laundered shirt hanging on every line, every size of every shoe sitting on the decks. He moored them on the end of a pontoon with no immediate neighbours and they got themselves together to go down to customs. They hadn’t been on land for a week or so and it felt strange underfoot as it often did, swaying and rolling beneath them as they wandered down the pontoon, Smudge swinging on their hands, looking to all intents and purposes like a perfect little family.

  This island was another volcanic one, towering mountains and black sand; it was lush and green, a beautiful, unspoilt place for unspoilt people; he wouldn’t be here long. He paid their dues at the customs house, handed over their false documentation with his heart beating fast as it always did, his eyes as ever on the move, Smudge as usual bribed into silence, this time with the promise of climbing to the top of the hill where she could see people leaning over a wall.

  She took Johnny’s hand as they climbed the hill, Clem lagging behind. They went up the steep streets, their hats tucked low over their heads, their dark glasses impenetrable. They wander
ed down shaded alleyways, past tall, coloured houses with high balconies, washing waving like bunting crisp in the harsh sunlight, at the end of every alley a view of sea and sky, a high, dark line sorting blue from blue, Smudge darting here and there chasing manky dogs and scrawny kittens. A while ago he’d cut her hair short and as she wore her dungarees whenever they were on land she looked like exactly like a boy. She didn’t mind this. She’d spent ages practising peeing standing up like Johnny did over the edge of the boat.

  ‘I prefer it just you and me,’ she whispered as they neared the top of the hill and found themselves in an old Greek amphitheatre with a few fellow tourists. He’d looked down at her then and back at Clem who was on a lower level leaning on a wall, looking far out to sea as if the answers all lay out there. He tried to see things from Smudge’s point of view. Clem had not been good company. Her depression infected everything; it sucked the pleasure out of life and Smudge was such a creature of pleasure. He had been so preoccupied by the state of play between himself and Clem he had not really taken her into account. The atmosphere was bad. It was strange how easily they had slipped into a functional animosity, how the war had become the norm and the little moments of peace had become memorable. He had been offered a moment of peace last night and he had spurned it – his own foolish pride.

  ‘She’ll be her old self again soon,’ he said and something about standing there on top of the world looking down on the sea, at the town, at the islands, at the beauty of this place gave him a fresh perspective. He had to try and make things right again. He would surprise her. He would cook her favourite supper; he would get the ingredients at the supermarket and a bottle of wine and he would play ‘These Arms of Mine’ again and again on the loop. He would fix them. But the trouble was, no sooner than he had had the thought, the nagging doubt was back: how could he fix things when every time he felt love he felt betrayal and sickness. His head would fill with twisted images. When he looked at her he could only see him. And he wondered how on earth that was ever going to change. Or if not change, at least be repaired, for he already knew that they could never be what they were. He sighed and closed his eyes and asked her God that he might be a better, stronger man. He would bring out the prayer mat again.

  They wandered back down the hill, Smudge chasing a cat all the way down from the ruins to the ice-cream shop, Clem walking ahead of him, in flip flops and her old ripped jeans. She was thin; the jeans sagged on her now. She turned and asked for the cockpit key, she wanted to get a cardigan from the boat before they went to the supermarket. It wasn’t even cold. He bought Smudge an ice cream as they waited at the marina entrance. He watched Clem walking back towards them down the pontoon, the green shopping bag flung across her shoulder, heavy with all her bits and bobs, her hat low on her head, a cigarette dangling from her lips. There was something different about the way she looked that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. It was hard to tell through her sunglasses whether she was looking at him but he smiled anyway when she reached the gate. ‘Ready for the supermarket?’ he said, trying to sound like a man full of new beginnings, and she stood and stared at him as if she couldn’t take his kindness. He saw her lips quiver. Then, to his surprise, she leant forwards and kissed him lightly on the lips as she gave him back the key. Even then, with forgiveness stirring in his heart, he was unable to kiss her back.

  It was an ordinary-looking small supermarket: bright fluorescent lights, bargains written in thick felt tip on cardboard hanging from the cheap white panels above the aisles of shelves. Johnny surveyed the occupants as a matter of procedure and then he and Smudge went up and down the aisles filling the trolley. He’d promised her sherbet sweets so she was really just pushing the trolley as fast as she could until she found the sweet shelf. They got to the end of the third aisle and she found them; they were deliberating over which packets to buy when he spotted some pear drops. He hid them in the trolley beneath the alcohol and the biscuits, peering down the aisle as he did so. Clem was standing there, the bag over her shoulder, one strap slipped down, doing absolutely nothing, staring at a shelf, gone, in another world. A large man was trying to get past her and she didn’t move; she didn’t even notice him.

  ‘Clem?’ Johnny said, but she didn’t hear him. He looked down; Smudge was tugging at his wrist, talking about sweets, and he let her drag him away, turning back just as he reached the end of the aisle, but Clem had disappeared and the large man was now trying to push past him. He looked out for her down the next aisle, loading up cereals and pasta as he went, but she had moved elsewhere.

  When he got to the checkout he was surprised she hadn’t joined them and he left Smudge with the trolley and wandered the width of the supermarket but he couldn’t see her. The girl at the till began totting up his wares so he sent Smudge off to look for her. It took the girl a while to put everything into bags; he’d bought food enough for the trip to Corsica where his plan was to stop for a while, to get their lives back on track.

  He was paying with Frank’s cash when Smudge came sliding down the aisle saying she couldn’t find Clem anywhere. He left her with the bags and went to look again himself, walking up and down the aisles, this time a little quicker, but to no avail. He and Smudge picked up the bags and went outside. She wasn’t there either. He looked up and down the main street but there was no sign of her anywhere so he presumed that she must have returned to the boat. Between them they carried the heavy bags all the way back to the marina, with much complaining and stopping from Smudge. When they got to the gate and entered the marina they could see from the end of the pontoon that the boat was still locked up, that she wasn’t on it. He walked down the decking, eyes scanning the place – she might be sitting down somewhere, staring into the water, taking a look at the other yachts. But she wasn’t there. He checked the boat. She was not on the decks and the door was still locked. He had the only key. He thought of the last moment he had seen her in the supermarket staring into space. His heart started to beat fast as a terrible idea took hold in him: she had gone.

  He dropped the bags on the wooden pontoon decking, told Smudge to wait on the boat for Clem while he ran back out of the marina and along the road towards the supermarket. He ran as fast as he could, his chest aching. He knocked a woman out of his way as he ran inside, double-checking the aisles – running up and down. He paused at the very place where he had last seen her and turned to see what she had been staring at. Cereals. Cornflakes. Home, she was trying to get home. But he was her home. There was nothing at home for her. But maybe nothing was preferable to this.

  He ran out into the street and down the road into town, his legs shaking beneath him. It was late afternoon now and the shops were all opening, the streets filling up. He wove his way between the people. He was looking out for the green bag, looking left and right, inside shops, down side streets. He came to a crossroads, looked up and down all ways and ran towards the sea. Eventually he found himself at the port, where ferries were coming and going, people were embarking and disembarking, going to Sicily and the other islands. He ran through a queue, crying out, ‘Chica, bolsa verde,’ useless Spanish words coming into his head. He jumped on to a small ferry, knocking people out of his way.

  ‘Clem!’ he was calling, ‘Clemency!’ his voice rising with increasing panic.

  People were looking at him as though he was mad and the ticket man asked for his ticket and ushered him off the boat. He jumped on to another one and ran up and down, calling out her name, searching the faces, banging on the toilet door. People were shouting back at him now, shuffling about around him, out of his way. ‘Mi femme,’ he kept saying. He was causing such chaos a policeman on the quayside stepped down on to the pontoon. He couldn’t have the police involved – he jumped off the boat, darted back down the main street, calling out, crying, running until his legs could move no more.

  Night was falling by the time he hobbled breathlessly back to the boat, his last hope extinguished as he got to the edge of the pontoon and saw Smudge
alone on the cockpit sole surrounded by sweetie wrappers – Clem was long gone now. Smudge was looking up at him expectantly. He hadn’t even opened the cockpit doors for her. He looked down at her, shaking his head, the dreadful reality sinking in.

  ‘Oh dear, Johnny,’ she said. ‘Why do we keep losing people?’

  He found the key and opened the cockpit doors. ‘Clem?’ he called forlornly, knowing full well there would be no response.

  It was a few hours later, he was at the kitchen table, his head in his hands, when he looked up and saw the matchbox sitting right in front of him. It was a Swan Vestas matchbox, one from her collection. He reached out and took it in his hands. His name was written in tiny writing along the edge. He stared at it and then slid it open. Inside there were tiny pieces of broken shells and lying on them was the heart necklace, the heart he had given her all those years ago when she was just a child. That was it – that’s what he had noticed when he saw her walking down the pontoon – she’d taken off his heart. That was why she had kissed him. A kiss goodbye. He took it out and smoothed the slate in his fingers, just as he had done on the beach when he’d first fallen in love with her. There was something else in the box, beneath the broken shells: a tiny scrap of paper. He took it out and unfolded it. In tiny lettering she had written: I can’t do this anymore, J. I can’t wait until the stars have all gone out for you to forgive me. Very slowly he put the matchbox back down on the table. He stood up, turned around and pulled open the chart-table drawer – at least she’d taken some money with her. Her passport was missing. He shut the drawer again and climbed the companionway, stepping out into the cockpit. She wasn’t coming back. Their love was broken; he knew it as well as she did. She was right: he would never forgive her, not properly, not entirely. He didn’t have it in him. Tears welled up in his eyes as he looked out at the watery night sky and for a moment he thought the sun had flung itself out of orbit for he hadn’t noticed it getting dark. It seemed quite natural that Time itself should have stumbled to a halt – he could see no reason for the Earth to spin right now.