Shall I get to the point? Okay, I'll get to the point. Listen. Clarence had a plan and his plan was this. Clarence was from the coast, up around Monterey. Which is Steinbeck country. Now there was a guy could write for the movies. Anyhow, Clarence was going to get himself a yacht. No, Clarence already had a yacht. Sitting on sleepers in dry dock. Clarence's plan was to get the thing sea-worthy then charter it for tourists, fishermen, divers. Whoever. Just up and down the coast. Maybe an occasional trip down to Mexican waters. This is a dream which Frank decides immediately he's going to take seriously. Frank doesn't know Clarence from Adam but that doesn't matter. They hit it off pretty much straight away and in any case they'd of both been shot at by the same or similar VC, burned the same or similar villages, had the same or similar stories to tell. It's a brotherhood of a kind. You can call it that.
Frank's mother had died of cancer while Frank was in Nam. He never did get on with his old man. There was a brother, a love-hate thing with not enough of the former. Which means that Frank doesn't give a shit whether he goes home or not. In fact he'd prefer not to. Besides, some time on the coast - and at this time in his life Frank's never set foot on an American shore - the sea … all that open water after that goddamned jungle. This seems to Frank exactly what he needs. So Frank throws in his lot with Clarence.
The boat isn't in bad shape. It's mostly just cosmetic stuff that needs doing. Sanding and varnishing. Some paint on the hull. Overhaul the engine.
They work hard for a month or so. Clarence's old lady had shacked up with a guy was a car-wrecker in his absence, which Clarence isn't sore about. Christ, who could blame her, was the way Clarence saw it. Anyhow, Frank and Clarence, they camp out at the boat all the time they work on it. They'd go into town for a beer now and then but mostly they stayed down at the boat. At night there'd be a drift-wood fire on the beach. They'd cook beans and hot-dogs. Clarence could play guitar and Frank would sing if he was drunk enough, which, more often than not, he was. They were like a couple of kids that month. And you know what? There were no dreams of the war. No talk of the war. It was all boats and cars and women and fishing. It was all sun and stars.
They sleep in the boat on foggy nights, which can get damned cold even in California. The boat's got a little gas heater and everything is fine and cosy. Mornings they'd be woken by the gulls up on deck.
Finally they get the boat in the water. Despite the fact that Clarence has advertised the enterprise, business doesn't really take off. There's something about Frank, something about Clarence, which puts people off. Call it the war. Whatever. It doesn't much matter to Frank. Frank's just along for the ride. He'd got some vague plan about enrolling at film school, but he knows he's not ready for that yet. So what else is Frank going to do? This is a great summer for Frank. This is one of the best times of his life.
So what the hell has this got to with anything? What the hell has this got to do with ghosts? I'll tell you.
Years later. Decades later. Frank needs a boat to take him up the Canadian coastline. Frank's made it into movies now. Films is Frank's preferred word, but we'll let that pass. What Frank does is make straight-to-video horror nasties. Which make money. Which keep Frank in whiskey, a roof over his head. Frank's friends and associates are mostly in the soft-porn game. This is an area which Frank avoids, by which I mean he doesn't make those kinds of films. Frank's got his self-respect. Funny thing is though he gets on well with these guys. They put up money. And money, finance - this is about nine tenths of getting a movie made. Some of their actors are competent enough and Frank's happy to use them. This is mostly in Europe. Mostly in Spain. This is something which Frank just drifted into. This - what's the damn word? - this milieu. Anyhow, Frank's trying to break out. Make a serious piece of work. He's got a script. It's a kind of western but it's set on the coast - which is something Frank hasn't seen before. Outside of a couple of scenes in One-eyed Jacks, that is. He thinks north BC will be a good place to film it. There are certain logistical difficulties to overcome, what with budget constraints, but he's seen this coastline in the fishing brochures and this is a coastline he likes the look of. It's a long way from anywhere up there and he thinks this will come across on film, come across in the actors' faces.
So Frank wants to scout for a location. This is still wild country we're talking about and much of it you can't reach by car. You got to fly, or you got to take a boat. Which is where Clarence comes back into the picture.
They've stayed in touch these two, though they haven't actually seen each other since the summer of seventy-four. Letters, phone calls. All fairly sporadic but enough for Frank to know that Clarence never did make a success of the charter-skipper business. What Clarence did do, however, was to move up to Vancouver and make a fortune in the vending-machine line - he's rich enough he's got a yacht moored up in harbour in Greenwich, which is a little town a ways north of Vancouver. Frank calls him. Turns out that Clarence is game. He's close to retiring and he's got any number of people can manage the business in his absence. Which is an enviable position. In short, Clarence can just drop everything. Which he does. Come on up Frank, he says, the water's fine. So Frank flies up to Vancouver from LA, which is where he's been living on and off for a couple of decades. Shit, he's in movies. Where else is he going to live? Frank picks up a car at Van airport, drives straight up to see Clarence. There's some fuck-assing around with ferries and stuff which Frank hasn't allowed for but he makes the trip in not much more than six hours. A finer little town Frank's never seen. Frank isn't much for hunting but he's always enjoyed to fish and there's a sock-eye river makes Frank curse himself for not visiting Clarence sooner. There's a tackle shop and a grocery store with a cigar Indian and a bear carved out of sequoia sitting either side of the entrance. A little restaurant where everyone knows everyone else. This is a weekend thing, a vacation thing, that Clarence has got going on, but Frank can see he's been up there enough everyone knows him. This is a fine retirement that Clarence is making for himself.
But what about Frank at this point? What about Frank's life? This is a long stretch of time that's elapsed. We've mentioned that Frank's in movies. Films. He's also been married twice. First time lasted a little over eighteen months. This is a situation both parties agree to be a mistake. No hard feelings. See you around. Second marriage Frank has a couple of kids. Which makes the divorce a little messier. Frank hasn't seen his kids in, oh, three years or so at this point, by which time they're not kids anymore. No. At this point in time Jane is about to qualify as a veterinary surgeon and Jesse is a surfer who spends his time hunting the waves in a clapped out VW van. Which is where he lives. All tan and no brains. Jane hates Frank's guts, which is his mother's doing. Jesse, when he calls, it's usually to ask for money. Which Frank gives him because it's easier this way.
Anyhow. Frank and Clarence. They spend a couple of days discussing the trip, looking at maps and charts. Clarence has lost most of his hair but he's still wiry, he's still wired. He's not going to die anytime soon. This is something Frank feels in his enthusiasm for the trip, which is something that rubs off on Frank. Energises him. Frank's recently finished another piece of shit called Caged Animals, and he's started working on a script for a project called Trams. He has a feeling Animals will do better than average business and he needs a follow-up quick. He also wants to make a start on pre-production of this other project, this break-out movie, which is why, if you recall, he's travelled up to Canada. All of which is taking its toll. Frank works hard and fast when he's working. And Frank isn't a kid anymore. Plus he's in a relationship with a younger woman. Maria. This is someone that Frank cares about. She lives here, in Madrid. This is something which is also wearing Frank down.
But he is, as I say, energised by Clarence's attitude. They lay in provisions for the trip, spend another couple of days looking for crew. Frank's forgotten most of what he learned about sailing. Plus, he's older, heavier, and slower than in the long-lost summer of seventy-four. Which makes him less than id
eal as a crew member. It takes three minimum to crew the boat, and they finally settle on a couple of kids, Owen and Eric. They're both fit, pleasant, bright. Both familiar with boats. Plus they come cheap. Which sounds cheap putting it this way. But this trip, you understand, comes out of the budget for the project which is a budget Frank hasn't even got yet. There's talk and pledges from Sidney and Marcos in Madrid. Another guy, Frenchy, in Canada - though Frenchy is in some kind of trouble over a snuff movie so his interest at this time is not something Frank can take to the bank. There are the Walker brothers, Ed and Bert. They can go either way. Any financial wind will blow those fuckers and if it blows wrong it blows wrong. All of which is to say that Frank has to be careful with money.
They sail on the Monday morning. September. Franks stays out of the way as much as he can. Owen and Eric turn out to be an able pair of kids so there's not a whole lot for Frank to do. He works on the dialogue he and Maria have written for Trams. Curses himself for not bringing his fishing tackle. Makes some notes for the Canada project. But the pitch and roll of the boat makes his head spin when he reads and he can't work for more than a minute or two at a time.
Up the coast they go, tacking on the wind. Sometimes they pull close enough to the shore-line that Frank can see seals and sea otters through Clarence's binoculars. One morning, first light, he sees a grizzly bear ambling along the shore.
At night they anchor. Frank gets so used to the flap of the sail that when the sails are furled he feels the silence fall like a great silk shroud.
Then come the hoots and screeches, the roars and barks from the shore. All kinds of sounds, some of which Frank has never heard before. Funny kind of way it takes him back to the jungle. This is something he feels in Clarence too (and maybe it's only because of Clarence that Frank feels it) but they don't say anything. They don't have to.
One night there are whales. Far, far out to sea. The four of them stand on deck and listen and it's the goddamndest thing Frank has ever heard. He can hear them clearing their blow-holes when they breach, can hear them pounding the water with their flukes. He sees a spout in the moonlight where the moon's setting right out there on the edge of the world. This is a night filled with mystery. This is the night, drinking whiskey, that Clarence tells him about a missing person. A writer named Moira Craft who'd come up here to work on a novel. The way Clarence told it - and he only knew what had been in the papers - she'd been staying in some clapped-out fishing lodge. When her sea-plane arrived to pick her up on the appointed day, she had simply vanished from the world. The Rangers made searches of course, but they never found a goddamned thing. It was odd the way this story put a hook into Frank. He didn't sleep well that night. He lay awake for a long time, listening to the whales pounding their flukes, trying not to disappear.
The coast-line up there: it's full of inlets, rivers, fjords - whatever the hell you want to call them. When they decide that they're far enough north for the kind of distance Frank wants, Clarence suggests that they investigate one of the inlets. He's got all the charts and the sonar and the radar and all of this other whatever-the-fuck-you-call-it - GPS - so he knows how deep it is and where the rocks are etc etc and all. It's early evening but Clarence says he doesn't mind to run it in the dark. The truth is that Clarence has brought his deer rifle along and he's thinking that if he can get inland tonight then he can bag a deer in the morning. Which means fresh meat.
Clarence has never been this far north himself - he usually sails out around Vancouver Island - but he's a confident and able pilot. So up the inlet they go. Clarence hasn't given Frank much detail because he's already concentrating on what he's doing. This isn't a game after all. Something goes wrong, they're all in big fucking trouble. Pretty soon it's obvious to Frank that there's a river somewhere up ahead. Owen's out there on the prow swinging a spotlight he's got rigged up on a tripod, calling debris left and debris right. One time a whole damn tree comes floating past. (I should mention here that the sails are furled now, and Clarence is piloting the boat off the engine, just slipping along not much faster than walking pace.) You got to remember that this is a place thick with forest. The trees come right down to the water's edge - just a thin ribbon of shale and rock between the woods and the water. A couple of times they hear the great blubbery flopping of seals crashing down the shale and hitting the water where they've been startled by the spotlight.
It's a cold night. There's been a little rain, some thunder, the previous two days but now it's a clear sky with mist peeling off the water. By and by they round a great sweeping bend and way way off they see a light, flickering through the rafts of mist - so that it's there, gone, there again. This is on the south shore.
What the fuck is that? Frank wants to know. Far as he's concerned he's found his location and he's pretty excited about it. He hadn't bargained on having to deal with any local population.
That Frank? Clarence says. I'd say that was a light. Clarence can be kind of dry.
I know it's a fucking light you idjit, Frank says. What kind of light?
Looks like a lantern, Clarence says. Maybe a small fire.
That isn't a fire, Frank says.
You want to take a look? Clarence says.
Yeah Clarence, Frank says, I want to take a look.
This is the biggest mistake of Frank's life.
They draw as close to the light as they can get. Clarence calls halt about a quarter mile off shore. He's safe in a channel there but if he gets out of it there's less draught and there are rocks and drifting debris between here and the shore. Clarence of course is mindful that one single accident will dip them all in deep shit. And never mind that this is his very expensive retirement toy that they're playing with. He has Owen set the anchor and they swing and settle in the current. Meanwhile Frank puts on a life vest, hunts out his cigarettes, a flare, a flashlight. Frank has made up his mind that this unexpected light is his business, so naturally enough he's going to be the one to go and investigate. By the time he's readied himself Frank can feel a kind of high excitement surging around in his blood. This is something akin to adventure now and he's starting to relish it. Clarence, he wants Frank to take one of the boys with him. This is what Clarence calls "good procedure". Frank tells him not to be such a goddamned pussy. What the hell can go wrong in a quarter mile of calm water within hailing distance of the yacht? Frank lacks Clarence's skills as a yachtsman, true. But he's an angler, which means he knows how to pilot a dinghy well enough.
So Frank sets out in the little dinghy - cuts across that distance in no time at all. He aims for the light but he keeps losing it in the rafts of mist. The outboard makes a flat dull throb on the water. He gets close enough he can see the light again and he does a slow, close pass of it, shining the flashlight, looking for a safe place to beach the boat. He sees that the light is a lantern hanging from the porch of a cabin. The door is open and there's another light inside. Hunters? Fishermen? There are no boats visible, no sign of anyone at all bar the lanterns themselves.
When he's past the cabin he sees a wider stretch of beach where there are no rocks and he aims the boat at it and powers into the shore. When he cuts the outboard he hears the echo of it running around the mountains and he suddenly gets an impression of how vast this wilderness, how alone they are out here. And you know what else? The minute the echo quits, a whole damn pack of wolves commence to howl up there in the woods. The shock of it, the sheer unexpectedness of it, freezes Frank for a moment at the prow of the boat - so for a minute there he can't bring himself to jump ashore. Which is stupid. Even so, he wishes he'd bought Clarence's rifle.
But he does get out of the boat and he runs the prow line over the shore and makes fast to a deadfall. Then he starts to walk towards the cabin, which he can no longer see because he's rounded a bend of the shore.
It's misty. Unfamiliar and dark. He walks carefully, the flashlight beam just a cone of mist. The wolves have stopped howling but to tell you the truth they've thrown a spook into Frank. He l
ooks out to the yacht for reassurance. He glimpses the green and red running lights which are above the mist. The swinging cut of Owen's flashlight catches him straight in the eye at one point so that he has to blink and pause until his eyes readjust to the darkness.
He rounds the bend. The cabin looks very old. The lantern hung on the porch washes a pale yellow light over the shore. There is a complete lack of comfort in the light.
Frank stops at the edge of the porch.
"Hello," he calls into the open door.
No answer.
He steps up onto the porch. This time he hears a kind of whimpering sound from inside. Slowly, cautiously, Frank enters.
In a corner of the room, balled up in fear, her arms locked over her head, is a woman. She's filthy and dishevelled. There's vomit on the floor and there's vomit on her clothes. She's pissed herself more than once.
Frank kneels close.
His hand is shaking when he reaches out to touch her.
She jumps and he snatches his hand back.
"It's okay," Frank says. "It's okay."
She lifts her head a little.
Suzerain: a ghost story Page 14
