The memory twisted her face and her monologue stopped. After a couple of minutes Cady gently asked:
“What happened?”
She was rubbing her hands together, as though washing them. She looked up at him.
“Of course I didn’t believe it. What mother would? It’s what children always say.” She drew a breath and coughed and suddenly she was crying. She pulled her knees up and rested her forehead on them. Cady remained still. He felt like he was a catalyst in collusion with a catharsis. After a while she lifted her head and wiped a hand across her eyes.
“Cady, that was my mistake. He was almost eighteen and I treated him like a child.” Her voice rose. “A goddam child! He was a man and knew it and felt it. God, when I think now! What he went through. Lost his father when he really was a child. Had to face the prospect of being a medical freak . . . and did face up to it . . . like a man. Like his father would have. And a mother who treated him like an invalid infant!”
She lowered her head again to her knees. There was a long silence, then Cady said,
“So, Kirsty, you committed the crime of lovin’ him too much. You can’t penalise yourself for that. You gotta understand somethin’ . . . . Love can’t be measured out. Specially a mother’s love. Specially after what happened to your husband. You just did what you thought was right.”
She snorted. “What I did was drive him away.”
“So what happened?”
She raised her head again; her eyes were clear of tears but clouded with memory.
“Oh, we had one final flaming row a month before his birthday. I forget what about. After that he hardly left his room. He played records – mostly the Beatles hits . . . God how I hated the Beatles!” She smiled wanly at the association then her face turned serious again.
“Then on the morning of his eighteenth birthday he started packing his case . . . I just didn’t believe it. I stood in the doorway watching. Asked him what he was doing. Where he was going. He wouldn’t talk to me . . . wouldn’t even look at me. I was a stranger . . . No, not even that. I was someone he hated. Maybe like a prisoner hates a warder.”
“You couldn’t stop him?”
There was nothing she could do. The money was legally his, and with interest had grown to over $10,000. He was going to India. He would go and seek the truth.
He went and she was left with tears and a guilt growing like cancer inside her. She heard nothing for four months and then a letter came postmarked Delhi. It was short but not unfriendly. He was all right and she should not worry.
She did, until the next one came six weeks later from Hyderabad. It was a little longer. Another month of worry until the next letter from Bangalore – again a little longer. On a map she followed his progress south through the Indian subcontinent. She could not reply. There was never a return address. Finally the letter had arrived from Sri Lanka. The long letter telling her that he was coming home, that he understood things better. Above all that he loved her.
She had started crying again, but not sobbing, and her voice remained clear. On instinct Cady moved and sat next to her and took her hand in his. She rested her shoulder against him. Her voice dropped almost to a whisper.
“Cady, have you ever had moments in your life? Moments of such joy that it feels like the world began? Like the first time the sun rose in a million years?”
He squeezed her hand; saw the tears still forming and sliding down over her high cheekbones.
“Cady, I had that feeling three times. First when I married. I was a virgin. Don’t laugh . . . very old-fashioned. I adored Kevin but I was terrified. My mother was dead already and my father too shy to tell me anything. What little I had heard sounded really sordid. The petting I had done as a teenager felt sordid. Guess I went along with it just to conform. I was terrified. We went up to a little hotel in the mountains for our honeymoon. Cady, know what I was doing when I lost my virginity?”
Intrigued, he looked down into her wet eyes. “What?”
“Laughing! I was laughing. Kevin knew and understood. It took hours. He took away every sordid thought I ever had and it was beautiful. The second moment was when Garret was born. Kevin with me. Husbands didn’t do that in those days. The doctor was appalled, but Kevin insisted . . . threatening to break up the hospital. It was hard . . . He was a big baby.”
She looked down at Cady’s hand twisted in her own.
“Ten hours and Kevin held my hand right through it. Put Garret into my arms.” Her whispered voice dropped away at the memory. She kept twisting Cady’s hand in hers. Then: “And the third moment – when I got Garret’s letter from Ceylon. I was right at the bottom, Cady, living a lie. Trapped in tedium. That letter started the world again. All the guilt was stripped away. My son loved me. Was coming home. The days that followed I never let that letter more than a yard away from me. I read it before I slept at night and when I woke in the morning.”
Now she was gripping his hand, surprising him with her strength.
“Cady, I was free, the guilt was gone. That was the moment of all moments.”
And then Captain Buckley and the guilt being clamped on again. It was her fault, she had driven her son out to his death.
She was talking through sobs now. Cady remained motionless, his eyes never leaving her face as she spoke of the sudden, positive belief that Garret was alive and that nothing in the world mattered except that she find him.
She had talked for hours and when she finished he stood up and looked out of the porthole at the lightening sky.
She watched his face: brooding eyes half-closed in thought, long blond hair parted in the middle and falling back behind his ears like sheaves of straw. He turned his head and gave her a half smile.
“Let’s go on deck and watch the dawn.”
“You don’t think I’m mad?”
“I think what you’re doing is the most wonderful goddam thing I ever heard. As of now you’ve got an assistant. When you talk to that bastard Lascelles I’ll be right next to you.”
“What about the sailfish?”
He smiled. “Kirsty, forgive me, but fuck the goddam sailfish!”
Chapter 9
“But Mr Patel, she is not your responsibility,” the lawyer said.
Ramesh shrugged. “I feel responsible.”
“Why? She admits to being a stowaway.”
Ramesh sighed. It was difficult to explain. It was not that the girl was vulnerable. She had a toughness in some ways stronger than his. What disconcerted him was her fatalistic acceptance of what would happen to her. Although she was a stowaway she had, in a sense, entrusted herself to him.
He remembered his astonishment when, on the second day out from the Maldives, running before a steady force three, he had opened the chain locker to store an empty jerry can. Small as she was she still filled that space, crouched uncomfortably on the coils of anchor chain, her black almond eyes looking up at him in a mixture of defiance and trepidation.
Later, drinking a cold beer in the saloon and between mouthfuls of stew she explained her actions quite simply. She had been looking for an opportunity to get away for months. She told him of her life in the Maldives; about the increasing attentions of her cousin’s husband; of the lack of any future; the insignificance of the people. She had decided that Ramesh was a kind man and would not abuse her. He was travelling far and maybe somewhere on his route she would find a place to live and make a future. She would not be a passenger. She had a little money saved – not much, but she could pay for her food. Also she would cook for him and wash his clothes and keep the boat clean. He could teach her a little and then she could take her turn on watch.
It was eminently sensible but he was profoundly fearful of the prospect. He was an inherently shy man and one who had never had to shoulder responsibility for another. Now he was presented with the inevitability of living in close proximity to what was a very beautiful young girl. In addition he was responsible for her very life.
He explained a
ll this to her. It was one thing to brave the elements foolishly with only his own life at stake. Something again when another was involved.
She had brushed this aside. She knew the dangers. That day in the store he had talked at length about his inexperience. As to the other matter he need not worry.
She had utterly shocked him by saying that although a virgin she had accepted the possibility that he might wish to sleep with her. So be it. He was taking her away from a life she hated, albeit reluctantly; and if he insisted she would submit to him. She trusted him – he was a kind man.
He had been dumbfounded and highly embarrassed and assured her sternly that no such thing would ever happen. It was impossible. Her honour would never be even remotely threatened: and so on and so forth.
At that point he thought he noticed a vague twinkle in her eve. Perhaps she was well aware that this man was incapable of forcing unwanted attention on anyone.
He had considered turning back to the Maldives, but they had already covered nearly four hundred miles and with the monsoon dead on the nose it would have been a long and uncomfortable journey. He also doubted he had the resolution to return the girl to a life she hated.
So it was a fait accompli. The first thing she did was clean out the chain locker. She had been sick in the confined space during the first night. Also she had brought fruit with her. Bananas and papaya and oranges for the juice. The peels were in a neat pile in the corner. It made him realise the extent of her courage and determination. It must have been hell cooped up in the tiny hole without light and with the boat pitching and rolling. Later she had washed his dirty clothes and then while he sat at the helm and watched his much-mended underpants flapping from the boom, she cleaned the inside of the boat from end to end.
Within two days a routine had been established. He taught her to read a compass and steer a course, and she stood watch for four hours up to midnight while he slept and then again at dawn. She produced all the meals, working minor miracles with sparse and unexciting ingredients. She kept the interior spotlessly clean and he took responsibility for everything on deck. She was unobtrusive, sensing when he did not want to talk. After a while he realised that it was the best of both worlds. He had, or very nearly, the peace and solitude of the single-handed sailor and yet company and conversation when he wanted it.
For the next ten days they sailed steadily south-west seeing nothing but flying fish and dolphins. It was idyllic and they slowly came to know each other and the bare details of each other’s lives. He felt the bond slowly uniting them; sensed the growing respect and affection she felt for him. The way she watched while he took his dawn and noon sights and plotted their position on the chart. She was in awe of such skills, not realising that sometimes the triangle covered by such sightings could contain an area of several hundred square miles; or that if there was cloud cover for more than a day or two Ramesh would have to rely on dead reckoning from the old log line spinning behind the stern. She did notice his agitation when that disappeared one morning, presumably taken in mistake by a shark. After that Ramesh spent a long time reading his tattered ‘bible’ and then co-opted her help. She threw bits of cardboard into the water at right angles to the bow. He stood at the stern with a stop-watch calculating how long they took to reach the end of the boat.
This procedure was repeated several times a day and Ramesh would then cover a sheet of paper with calculations and then with a positive air note the boat’s speed into the log.
Lani was mightily impressed, but then she did not see Ramesh every morning offering up a prayer that the sky would remain clear until they spotted the peak of Mahé Island.
As Ramesh noted Lani’s increasing affection he assiduously tried to promote within himself a paternal or at best avuncular reaction. To an extent he succeeded but on occasions he mentally had to reprimand himself. With the wind astern it got very hot below decks and Lani would often come up in a pair of wispy pants and a bra – she owned no bikini – and switch on the seawater pump and hose herself down on the foredeck.
At the helm Ramesh would gaze studiously out to sea, but with a veritable life of their own his eyeballs would constantly swivel to the lithe figure writhing under the stream of water. Afterwards it was worse. She would come and sit next to him in the cockpit and chat for a few minutes. He decided that no artist could paint such an exquisite picture. Beads of water shimmering on her smooth brown skin; long strands of wet hair coiled up and held on to her head by a single pin; the small oval face supported by a neck graceful enough to turn a swan green with envy; and when those rebellious eyeballs had tugged his gaze lower, the twin slopes of small, perfect breasts, with the hard dark button nipples showing through her wet bra.
Ramesh would feel his heart beating faster and when she had gone below he would quickly concentrate his mind on such things as chicken tandoori, or when the oil filters on the engine should next be changed.
There were nights when the wind was gentle but steady and after dinner they would sit on the afterdeck while the self-steering gear kept Manasa easily on course.
Neither felt the obligation of conversation. The long silences were never stifling.
But sometimes they did talk. Ramesh remembered one such evening. Manasa was moving at barely two knots. Without any sense of urgency Ramesh never considered turning on the engine.
It had been dark, with no moon; the only light coming from stars and the faint glow from the navigation lights.
After clearing the dinner plates Lani came back on deck and settled herself into a canvas chair. For half an hour there was silence apart from the quiet wash of the bow wave, and the occasional creak of rigging. Then she asked:
“Were you ever married Ramesh?” “No.” ‘
A few minutes passed, then:
“Ever in love?”
“Once . . . about ten years ago.”
She was sitting only two yards away, but he could only make out the outline of her face – no details. He waited for another question but none came.
Then he found himself talking about it. About the way it had affected him, abruptly altered his view of life. Given it meaning and purpose. Somehow lightened corners that before had always been murky. He talked of the thrill of making plans; when before, only predictable routine had ruled his life. Then the numbing shock when, under pressure from her parents, she had told him that they had no future together.
“Then she did not love you,” Lani had remarked. “If she truly loved you, nothing would have stopped her.”
After a moment’s thought Ramesh conceded the possibility but pointed out that in India the strata of the society was rigid, especially for women.
“I know,” Lani answered bitterly. “It was like that for me.”
She told him a little of her life in Sumatra. Her family were wealthy traders and she had been given a good early education. But as she began to think for herself and use her new knowledge the barriers came down. The Chinese in Indonesia, and most other South-East Asian countries, maintained their customs and cultures with rigid determination. Under pressure from the Government many Chinese families adopted Indonesian names, and made other cosmetic adjustments. But they remained Chinese, in their thinking, in their tastes and in their prejudices. At school she had met an Indonesian boy and liked him. One day her eldest brother had seen them together after school drinking coffee at a street stall.
Her father had beaten her. It was not the pain that lingered but the rage in his eyes. The thought that Lani had brought shame on him by associating with someone racially inferior.
Immediately Ramesh had felt a mental bond. He told her of his early childhood. The many humiliations because he was neither British nor Indian. Both looked down on him. Mentally it was like living on a suspension bridge over a torrent. There was hostility, ridicule and scorn from both banks. It was life in limbo.
He had told her how he developed an attitude turning in on himself. Creating his own impression of what he was. His own interpretati
on of right and wrong; and what was important — or otherwise. He judged people only by their attitude to him. It made for few friends.
“So you were lonely?” she asked in the darkness.
“In some ways no. I found companions in books. In other ways yes. I had few friends . . . really only two. My mother and one other. There was not much laughter. Life was working—and, well . . . living every day in the same way-only the books took me over the horizon.”
He told her about the statuette and how it had enabled him to buy Manasa.
“How,” she had asked, “did you come to do it . . . and why?”
Without hesitation he said “The ‘how’ was extremely easy. No one else wanted poor Manasa. She sort of beckoned to me. The ‘why’ is something about which I am not sure. I think I was running away from loneliness.”
“But you went alone.”
“Yes. But escaped the loneliness of routine . . . of measuring time in minutes . . . the loneliness of a donkey circling a water well.”
“And what do you look for?”
He had chuckled. “Lani. I think I look for people. For people who will see me with fresh eyes.”
She thought about that and then said: “Ramesh, it is strange. In ways we are the same and in others different. You wish to present yourself as you are – and not how prejudice paints you. So you move out in the world for people to look in at you. For me, I don’t care what they see. I only want to look out.”
He saw the truth in it. He was sailing out to prove himself to himself and the world-whatever that was. She came from generations of instilled racial pride-and cared nothing for it. Had nothing to prove; wanted only to discover not a new life, but her first one.
He had felt stimulated by the conversation and appreciated the girl’s intelligence. He had never talked that way to anyone.
She had the same feelings and, embraced by the darkness, they both felt an affinity.
It was the engine which eventually brought the idyll to an end. About two hundred miles from Mahé the monsoon dropped away until the sails flapped forlornly. No matter. Together with Lani he dropped and secured them and turned on the Perkins. For the rest of the day and most of the night the Manasa trundled along at a steady five knots. At around four in the morning Lani, asleep in the fo’c’sle, was wakened by a clattering noise followed by a loud bang. She pulled on her shorts and made her way through the saloon to the engine room. Ramesh was already there looking with concern at the silent, smoking engine.
Blood Ties Page 9
