‘Well at least we’ve got one thing in common. Just one, mind.’
Kel shrugged, she could see in the girl’s run-rabbit eyes that she had questions jumping all over, ready to be asked.
‘So fresh out of the bogs are you?’
‘You know that already,’ said Kel.
‘And your mum? I’m sure she’s no stranger to the swamp.’
Kel shrugged. ‘My life int for tellin.’
‘That’s stupid, everyone’s got a backstory, family and all that jazz.’ Rose did the stupid laugh thing that she seemed to like and then asked for more detail.
‘Well I got folks, that’s all you need to know.’
‘Oh the same folks who told you you’re going to die because of your heart, which is probably just bullshit? What are they like other than liars?’
‘I int tellin more un that.’
Kel thought about her life spent in the shack in the swamp woods and how funny it would be to tell the dumb-spoilt daddy’s girl the truth. Funny and strange and painful in a way that made her heart stop almost complete because she had never once told her story out loud. To put the words up and out on to the wind would be like waving a blood-stained flag all around. Holding up her sins and the sins of others to an unsuspecting world.
She looked at Rose and told her not to worry in any case, but the girl was in the mood to press Kel further in regards to her life. Kel was or wasn’t guilty of the things Rose thought, but she knew guilt was what was written on her face: over fifteen years of living it had become her expression, and no matter how hard she worked it calm, a recognisable evil crawled out of the mirror. She had her father’s eyes. Beautiful eyes, dark and haunted with the memory of what she had seen and what she might see in coming years.
She sat up and stretched to look deep down into the ocean and wondered what she must have looked like to the eyes and minds of the things that lived there. Another world entirely watching as the orange boat pitched and rolled above it. Then she turned her attention to the blisters on the palms of her hands, the skin had rubbed and slid and re-stuck wrong and the wounds wept for stop.
‘How are they?’ asked Rose.
‘Skinned,’ said Kel and she took off her shirt and pulled the knife from her belt to slice the cuffs into strips and she wrapped two around her hands and gave Rose the others and it was like this that they took turns to row west, to row out the cold, damp day down into a night puddle.
Out there somewhere and not too far from reach was the Cornish coast, Kel told herself not to forget this. She told herself if her plan was gone she would have to construct another. If they could just get to land and make it back to her swamp district, back to the river bar and the man. Wouldn’t he know what was going on? He would be expecting her to turn up better late than never, didn’t he say she was good for her word?
She pulled her notebook from her pocket, waited for inspiration to come. When it didn’t she sighed and put it back.
A few hours drifting and sleeping in the rockaby boat and then onwards towards the fading light as they traced the absent sun’s hidden rays like deadbeat dogs sniffing out a kill. To go at something was to have it eventually, no matter the exhaustion that had them salted with burning blisters and their tongues wiggle from their lips like desert worms. They were heading somewhere whether they liked it or not; wherever the tidal shift and the passing change in wind fronts decided for them.
More passing hours and no sight of land, and Kel realised that if they stopped to think and search for a conclusion to their ocean existence they would find nothing close to resembling reason. They were alone. Alone and adrift at sea with nothing but the occasional splash of waves against the side of the boat. Alone and tired and for the girl perhaps a little confused. Rose’s high life had been one thing and that great height thing had fallen and fallen hard. One minute you’re someone with money and a house full of stuff and the next you’re nobody with nothing and a boat full of empty.
Kel’s life on the other hand had always been empty and now was just as empty but for the needy baby and the useless girl and the useless bouncing boat. Empty as before when she might have died from beatings or the stupid faulty heart. Only difference was now she was a hundred times more likely to die. Die and be dead in the supping sea with the girl on her dead-soul conscience forever.
A day and a night and a day again they went at the one thing and the only thing that would save them and keep them sane. Hope. Kel said it over in her head and she put it into the wind like a rescue flag flapping for all to see and all to hear. Hope for living and for the safety of. It was the thing that had them in the morning when light came peeping and at night when the stars appeared again to point Kel right. Land was out there somewhere, if she just knew in which direction to point them.
In the early mornings Kel gathered the inch of rainwater collected in the creases of the boat and tipped it into her tin canteen and checked the line she set for chancer fish but there were none. Soon they would eat the last of what was edible from the bottom of her saddle bag; a bit of something but mostly a bit of nothing much at all.
At night she took the steering shift for her knowing of stars and some time she spent rowing but mostly she lay with an oar dipped in the water to act as rudder and let all of which she could not control carry them forward, the boat a nothing floating thing with kids aboard rocking out a makeshift idea of rescue and hope.
Kel supposed she should feel something about what it was to still be alive, to be breathing was one good. Sitting and breathing and looking to the come again go again stars was all in all right.
On one late night or was it early morning Kel looked at the stars a long time. They told her where to go and there was comfort in that too, to know what it was to be the right way up when sky and ocean mirrored each other so perfectly. The thin cotton line of the horizon that stitched the two together was black on black, but it had shadow enough in its ether that Kel could still place it. To have that perspective was to know that land still existed somewhere. They would get to the destination fate had planned eventually. They had to, they had come this far.
‘What are you looking at?’ asked Rose suddenly.
‘The horizon just.’
‘You see anything other than black?’
Kel shook her head. ‘Nope,’ she said.
‘You catch anything worth eating?’
‘Nope again.’
Rose sighed and she put the baby she had been petting into its makeshift cradle that was nothing more than a burlap twist of sack and she sat up and lit the lamp and then set about rinsing through the nappy rags as something to busy herself with.
‘Don’t tell me we need to save the oil,’ she said.
‘I won’t.’
They sat in silence, nothing to do and nothing to be done except sit and wait for the night to end, but at that moment Kel wondered if daylight would ever return.
Chapter Six
‘Hey,’ shouted Rose suddenly, ‘I see something.’
Kel jumped to her feet, making the boat rock. ‘What?’ She steadied herself to look to where the girl was pointing.
‘Over there, just keep looking and you’ll see it.’ Rose blew out the lamp. ‘It’s a light flashing on and off.’
Kel stared into the night and she kept her eyes from blinking until she spotted it.
‘What do you think?’ asked Rose. ‘It’s something isn’t it?’
Kel nodded and then she said yes, it was something.
‘What?’
‘A trawler I reckon.’ It was hard to make it out through the rain.
‘Doesn’t look much like a trawler to me.’
Kel about turned the boat so she could have a better look ‘It’s on its side, that’s what you can see, its light’s in-out the water.’
‘Are you sure?’
Kel was sure and she started to row toward the arch of hull and all the time she wished its crew dead long and short enough that they could find food, and after
food all the things that might make their life at sea more bearable.
She took her time to row the boat close to the trawler and she told Rose to be quiet and swaddle the baby the same until they knew for sure that they were alone. Something had happened to the vessel and it had happened recently, the mast light shining bright meant the battery was still charged and running.
‘What do you reckon?’ whispered Rose.
‘I reckon I don’t know more un you.’
‘About the boat I mean, what happened.’
‘Ran into somethin. Relight that lamp and put it forward so we don’t do the same.’
‘Like what? It isn’t like there’s any rocks about.’
‘Just do it.’
Rose lay forward of the dinghy with the lamp outstretched to the water and both girls held their breath.
‘I wouldn’t like to think what’s down there,’ said Rose suddenly. ‘Wouldn’t like to think what’s at the bottom of the ocean at all.’
Neither did Kel but she kept her thoughts to herself.
‘Do we have sharks around here?’
‘Don’t worry they int the type to tip boats.’
‘But we do have sharks.’
Kel ignored her and told her to keep looking for signs of life and she dug the oars into the water in order to circle the trawler. She called out to anyone that might have been half-sunk along with it that they were here to help if help was what was needed, but nothing but the sound of water in all its guises called back.
‘I swear if I see another dead body I’m going to swing,’ said Rose.
‘Swing for who?’
‘You, I’m going to swing for you.’
They circled the boat three times and there was nothing for it then but to pull in and climb aboard. Go seek and find something more than the nothing they had in hand.
‘I’ll climb up,’ said Kel as she brought the boat up into bumping distance. ‘I’ll climb and you steady and secure the boat.’ She threw Rose the rope.
‘And then what? Am I just supposed to sit and wait?’
Kel nodded and said that was near enough it.
‘What if I paddled off, what then?’
‘You wouldn’t.’
‘You know me well enough to know that, do you?’
Kel stood and looked at the girl and the girl stood the same. They were becoming more connected than two girls at war. Somehow and without warning the gap between them had shortened and they were growing close to equal in the battle. It was something Kel had not reckoned on. ‘Well?’ asked the girl, her blue eyes flotsam floating somewhere in the ocean.
‘Well what?’
‘Are you going to let me on board or are you going to risk my running off?’
Kel knew the girl didn’t have it in her to run, but maybe she had as much right as any to do what she pleased. Until things got back on track, that was, or Kel could see enough of the track to pursue it.
‘Come on then,’ she said finally, ‘but don’t forget, I’m still in charge.’
They secured the boat with the one coil rope that came with the dinghy and Kel was the first to climb. She took her time to navigate the near vertical deck for anything worthy of a finger or toe for climbing and then told Rose to watch what she was doing if she was coming and to bring the lamp and tie the baby to her back. Kel opened the door with the glass still in it and lowered it sideways to the deck and she crouched before entering and flicked on her lighter so she could take in her surroundings.
The control panel and everything that was useful was useful no more and it formed a wall in front of her. What had been navigationally useful was either stop-clocked or on the ground. Kel put her boot to the floor that once was a clapperboard wall. Everything was broken at just about every angle.
‘Nothin,’ she said to herself and she bent to the cupboards and every door was padlocked shut. She stood and kicked about some more and looked down at their orange bubble boat and saw that Rose was gone.
Kel sighed and climbed back out from the upturned box of nothing and hung on to its frame to look for the girl.
‘Rose?’ she shouted. ‘You better not be dead in the water cus that int the plan.’
‘You would know if I was,’ shouted the girl and Kel couldn’t help but smile. Rose was so annoying it sometimes reflected back as a form of entertainment and she wasn’t used to that.
‘Where are you?’ Kel shouted.
‘Below board.’
Kel looked for the hatch and it was in the middle of the boat and she took her time to swing from the starboard railings one and then two toward the opening.
‘Are you coming?’ shouted Rose. ‘I’ve got food if you’re interested, real food.’
Kel climbed through the hole and slid past the wooden steps.
‘So what do you reckon?’ asked Rose and she sat on what used to be the side of the counter with the lamp settled in amongst packets of dried food.
‘Looks like you found somethin worth findin.’
‘It does, doesn’t it? If we could find something to cook them on and in that would be even better.’
Kel stepped closer so she could see what the pokey room had to offer and there was something there in the detail that had her think they weren’t the only ones to have bothered the place recently.
‘Did you find anything for us upstairs?’ asked Rose.
Kel shook her head and something odd went through her that she wasn’t sure was good or bad, she’d never been part of an us except as a gang and that was the Crows and that wasn’t good. She watched Rose pile up the food and she put it all into categories and it mostly went savoury, sweet, other.
‘We should pack that lot up,’ said Kel, ‘pack it up and whatever else and head out.’
‘Out where?’ asked Rose. ‘I’m staying put.’
‘Out and on, keep tryin to get back to the mainland.’
‘I don’t know about you but right now my place is right here. The bigger the boat the better the rescue.’
‘I got a bad feelin bout this, better to get out and get gone.’
Well it might be bad for you, but it’s the better option for me wouldn’t you say?’ Rose jumped from the counter and set about upturning stools for sitting and making good.
‘We int stoppin here tonight,’ said Kel and then she said it again to put a bit of authority back into the situation.
‘If you want to know I’m looking for a gas stove or something similar,’ Rose continued. ‘You can look too if you want, if you’re not too busy, and a pan would be great, we need a pan.’
Kel looked around at the nothing much of anything that cluttered the room. ‘Can’t we just eat whatever that int rot and go?’
Rose sat down on one of the stools and everything about her looked normal everyday in a world that was three-quarters turned. ‘Don’t you want cooked food?’ she asked. ‘Perhaps you really were born of savages, perhaps that’s it.’
Kel sat down and she kept her mouth shut because the girl knew the answer well enough.
‘We could make a fire,’ continued Rose. ‘If we had a fire we would be halfway to eating something good.’
Kel looked around and saw a cupboard with its door tented at the side and she went and pulled the pots that lived there to the floor.
‘What size you want?’ she asked Rose.
‘Depends what size fire you’re willing to make.’
‘Not too big.’
‘Maybe we shouldn’t. Maybe it’s too dangerous seeing the boat has run aground or whatever, isn’t it likely it leaked diesel everywhere?’
‘Good point, but we should collect up as much fuel as we can find anyway,’ said Kel. ‘For the lamp or whatever.’
‘And what about the fire?’
‘What bout it?’
‘Dangerous?’
Kel thought for a moment. ‘Wait, I saw somethin outside.’
She passed Rose the biggest pan and dragged a stool to stand on so she could climb back out of the
hatch.
‘Where are you going now?’ shouted Rose.
‘I seen somethin worth havin.’ She kicked off the side-swipe stairs and pulled herself back up on to the slippery deck.
The night sky remained full of stars and they studded the black with a billion blunt bullets. Kel clipped her heels to the edge of the hatch and lay back on to the deck to contemplate a minute for one minute’s sake and she noted the stars in relation to the boat so if morning came upon them suddenly she would be able to work some kind of journey into the thing from there. Out there in the core of the nowhere ocean it was as if the world and all its worries and wars had fallen away and what was left was the yawning cavity where nothing existed accept silver-bell stars. Space for thinking and counting out time that no longer bore relevance. Life had clocked off, stopped.
Kel sighed and her breath let off something akin to a loaded gun. The things that didn’t matter to her in normal circumstance mattered to her now and she knew this was because of the girl. The girl who was a nobody had in a scattering of days become somebody, proof that the solitary life Kel’d had settled in her mind’s eye for so long was the right one and she knew she couldn’t look after the girl much longer. That she needed to get rid as soon as possible.
What if her plan was not going to work? She would have to find someone with enough kindness in them to take the girl until things softened down, get her back home to her mum in Cornwall and her tower life. Maybe the girl would keep the baby, she seemed to like it well enough.
Kel could start over then, head to America in any case and find a job running drugs, save enough for the operation or die trying, it was a coin flip but at least her destiny was hers alone.
She pushed off from the deck when she heard Rose calling and clambered and crawled the best she could until she reached the steel pail she’d noticed earlier and she tossed it into the hole. Then she went about pulling and prying the planks of wood aboard the boat that were loose and coming up and these she threw below deck too.
‘You could have had me knocked to the ground with a nail shot through my skull,’ shouted Rose. ‘Or my foot. Haven’t you noticed I don’t have shoes?’
Only the Ocean Page 7
