Only the Ocean

by Natasha Carthew

  ‘I swear this int what I had planned,’ she whispered, her feet slipping on the oily ground. ‘It int even near to anythin I thought up.’

  She took her time to approach the building and her eyes were peeled to pins for light and shadow and her ears were satellites for listening. Her one chance and the only chance left to get Rose and return her to the beginning of things. Whatever it took she would do it, get things sorted once and for all.

  Kel stood against the granite cylinder wall of the lighthouse and the eternal cold residing there permeated her shirt and stuck to her skin.

  She felt her way around each block of stone and her fingers scratched and dug into the crevices as if she were hanging over some deep water ravine, with life and death and everything that was body dangling in the balance. And this was how she worked her way to the door at the front of the lighthouse.

  She stood with an ear pressed into the iron and listened out for the sound of banter boys and girls but nothing but the big-bully ocean shouted back. So she held her breath and slowed her heartbeat down to a tick and took a moment to look through the window that was a circle in the door. She heard nothing and she saw nothing, and that could be good or it could be bad. Kel held her chest a moment more before reaching out a hand and putting it to the doorknob and gripping it tight. The silence meant one of two things. Either the feral kids with the bad running riot in their veins were wasted, clumped together in a heap somewhere, or they had seen her approach the shore and were lying in wait in the cold-cut shadows.

  She turned the screw that held the door shut and pushed forward and stepped into the place that was freedom to the kids and prison to Rose and she did not stop. She went slow past a room with the breath of sleeping children circling and on toward the stairs and she negotiated them in the sticky soot of pitch black night.

  She wondered if there was still a way to execute her plan. The thought that she was risking her life for Rose just to have her saved confused Kel. To give the girl back her life because she had been the one to take it, had snatched it from her without asking. Maybe there was something close to remorse residing within Kel, but even still, her actions confused her. Why was she risking her own life just to save Rose from the fate that she herself had planned for the rich tower girl?

  She stabbed a toe to each step and bent her knees to take the noise out of her movement and she kept her head up because there would be a guard at Rose’s door and a guard meant giveaway light.

  It wasn’t long before the dark of vertical tunnelling gave way to grey and Kel saw the end to the climb at last. She slowed to a creep and kept her eyes on the circle of light that grew and swung before her and on the hand that held the gas lamp because that was the hand of foe. This was it, this was the moment when her heart must not fail her. The one-stop breath where things would come good. A split-reed second where she would disarm the boy that guarded her and save Rose and the baby and get gone and running without anyone knowing otherwise.

  As she crept closer she could see it was the pushover boy and she smiled to herself because she knew this would be easy.

  She could see by the half-tipped bottle of contraband settled in his lap and the way his head tilted sideways that this would take no time at all. She stepped into the light with battle on her mind and in her hands and she flexed her fingertips and snapped them ready.

  ‘You,’ said the boy and he blinked and rubbed his eyes to see good the thing he was seeing. ‘You int sposed to be here.’

  Kel shrugged and thought it a funny thing for him to say. She stepped forward and the boy was slow to move, blade blinking and turning over in his hands and Kel could see it was her knife. The one decent possession she had to her name and the only possession just about.

  ‘That’s mine,’ she said.

  ‘Not any more,’ said the boy. He raised it to her face and Kel started to smile. ‘What you grinnin at?’ He narrowed his eyes.

  ‘You, what’s with the attitude?’ She stepped forward.

  ‘Stop,’ he shouted. ‘Stay where you are.’

  ‘Or what?

  He flashed the knife and told her she should have listened to him.

  ‘Bout what?’

  ‘About everythin.’ He passed the knife from his left hand to his right and Kel nodded and prepared herself for the smash.

  ‘What you noddin at, donkey is you?’

  He expected an answer but Kel didn’t bother with the kind of talk boys liked, bravado and huff-puff smoke without fire. She swung her left arm into the hand with the sweeping knife and she caught it by the shank and pulled the boy to the ground. When he started to shout she tugged at his hoody and stuck it into his mouth for the shut-up.

  She left him tied with his own clothes knotted and his belt she buckled to blood around his mouth to keep his shouting buried deep within his belly.

  Silence. Kel closed her eyes and listened out for the kids at the bottom of the lighthouse. Were they waking up? She wasn’t sure, a few mumbled words perhaps, were they getting louder? She stood and looked at the two doors that the boy had been guarding and went to them. ‘Rose,’ she whispered. ‘Rose, where the hell are you?’ She tried the handle of each door and found them locked.

  Behind the fourth door she could hear shouting and it hammered into her when she heard Rose call out her name. Kel knew there were no more than three free minutes available to them. A small window of opportunity in which to crawl before somebody heard the lad’s muffled shouts and saw the two girls creeping about their stronghold. With this knowledge she kicked the boy shut to buy them a moment’s grace and she bent to pick her knife off the floor and sheathed it and found a key in his jeans pocket and went to the door.

  ‘Rose?’ she whispered as she put the key into the lock and twisted.

  ‘What took you so long?’ the girl asked.

  ‘Shush, you gotta be quiet.’ She opened the door and when the girl hugged her suddenly she pushed back the brief moment of affection, confusing, surprising. ‘We got to get goin.’ She picked up the baby and when the baby smiled at her she put it quick into Rose’s arms and turned and the girl followed.

  They took their time to negotiate the thin-tip steps and Kel kept one hand to the curved wall to steady herself and the other she kept gripped tight around her knife. She could hear the heavy in-out of Rose’s breathing behind her and the rise and fall of her own and she swallowed hard to get the buzz of concentrated silence out of her ears. They were nearly there. She could see the smear of moonlight as it reflected through the window in the door and could smell the stench of putrid kids pickled in booze and heard their open-mouthed snores and snoring was good. She was going to get away with it, finally things were heading toward right.

  When they reached the front door she put a finger to her mouth and felt for the doorknob and turned it slowly.

  ‘Shit,’ she whispered, ‘somebody’s locked it.’

  ‘There’s got to be another way out,’ said Rose, ‘at the back, maybe, come on.’ She passed the baby to Kel and they retraced their footsteps back through the lighthouse.

  Kel could hear voices, they were definitely louder now, two and then three. She hoped the boy didn’t come to, if he did it was game over. She followed Rose further on toward the back of the lighthouse and all the while she could hear more voices behind them.

  ‘No turnin back,’ said Kel. ‘Em kids are up.’

  ‘There’s a window,’ whispered Rose, ‘and I can see a crack in it.’

  They both held their breath as Rose pushed at the glass until it fell on to the ground outside and together they climbed through the gap, passing the baby as they went.

  ‘Go slow,’ said Kel, but when the baby started to cry they ran for their lives.

  Outside the lighthouse Kel took a minute to take stock of her surroundings. She could see the dinghy was where she had left it, but she needed to find the oars, quickly. She closed her eyes and told herself to believe in fate, it had brought her this far.

  �
��Please,’ she shispered, ‘I’ll never ask for nothin, but I’m askin for this.’

  They needed to get away from the lighthouse.

  Kel shouted for Rose to get into the dinghy and as she skidded down the slipway she spied a rack stuffed with wood, junk and two day-glo oars poking from underneath, and she was quick to pull them free and run as fast as she could toward the boat and jumped in.

  They left the island under a sky full of star-light bullets and nothing but pure stupid luck kept them alive long enough to row toward a slipstream undercurrent pull that dragged them cheering from the lighthouse.

  The two girls lay a long time beneath the true-blood stars of forever night, and when Rose asked if she thought the kids might give chase Kel had no puff left in her to answer yes or no or otherwise.

  For that one moment they were free of all the wrong things. Maybe now Kel could think about saving herself.

  She sat up in the boat and looked at the girl and she looked at her a long time.

  ‘What?’ said Rose.

  Kel shrugged.

  ‘Are you waiting for me to thank you? Because it’s not going to happen.’

  Kel smiled and she lay back with the happy of company coursing through her veins. Before that moment she had never known companionship enough to lose it and then to miss it; it was an incredible, unbelievable thing.

  ‘I should be sunning myself on some beach someplace hot, Miami or somewhere,’ Rose laughed and she sat forward and looked out at the ocean and then back at Kel. ‘Truth is I didnt think I’d see you again. I suppose I’m grateful for that.’

  Kel nodded and she lifted the baby from the centre of the boat for the sake of it.

  ‘The big hero come to save the day.’

  Kel shook her head and said it wasn’t like that and then she wondered what it was like. Had she honestly been thinking there was one last chance left at spearing her plan? A last-ditch attempt at stabbing a bullseye out of her future?

  She continued to look at the girl and she knew as if she was in any doubt that something else was at play. Kel wished she didn’t care about the little-miss rich girl, but the fracture that had happened in her had pulsed with pain, an ache that was all wrong and strange and maybe incredible the same. The feeling was scary new but so great that for a moment she had to put a hand to her heart in the hope that it might steady itself no matter how briefly.

  ‘You OK?’ asked Rose.

  ‘Course, why you ask?’

  ‘Your heart.’

  Kel nodded. ‘I’m just grateful for the calm.’ She picked up the baby and turned to feed it.

  ‘Did you miss him?’ asked Rose.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ha, you missed him, big softy.’

  Kel ignored her. She was enjoying the peace of nothing doing nothing needing to be done.

  ‘He missed you,’ continued Rose.

  ‘That’s cus he sees me and sees food.’

  ‘We got any left?’ asked Rose.

  Kel moved forward and opened the storage pocket where they had stored food.

  ‘Nothin,’ she said.

  ‘Not even the rice and pasta?’

  Kel gestered to the empty space.

  ‘Well that’s a shame, what about the other side?’

  ‘Just my bag, spose they dint find it much use.’

  Kel looked over the edge of the boat. ‘I could try fishin again.’

  ‘You want to?’

  Kel shrugged. ‘Maybe later.’

  She tightened the baby in its blankets and passed it to Rose. ‘You two might just as well sleep for a while.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I int tired. Besides, we might just make land by sun up.’

  Kel watched Rose make herself comfy on the floor of the boat with the baby in her arms, he looked perfect there. She told herself a few hours rowing away from the lighthouse and she would soon spot land.

  Hours passed, how many Kel didn’t know; her mind was taken up by the sky and sea and moon, everything startling and swollen in size. The wind had picked up and with it came bumping clouds the size of mountains.

  When the first drops of rain appeared through the gloom all Kel knew of them was the spirals they made out at sea and she watched them dip and pock the water into beautiful spin-top patterns. She took off her jacket and leaned to put it over Rose and the baby and sat back to let the rain soften her shoulders and arms. To feel the thing fully was to know the thing in its entirety, there was a storm out there close and closing and bigger than before and it was heading their way.

  ‘It’s raining,’ said Rose suddenly.

  Kel looked at her and said perhaps the storm wouldn’t be as bad as it looked. ‘Maybe it’ll turn back round. Go back to sleep.’

  ‘I’m awake now.’ Rose sat up and pushed into the stern of the boat. ‘You see land yet?’

  ‘Can’t be far off.’ Kel thought of all the ways to take the girl’s mind from the storm. Perhaps if she asked about her dreams they would have somewhere to start from, a little hope in which to crawl and hide from the encroaching squall, take their minds off.

  ‘You asked me backalong bout my life,’ said Kel, ‘but I never asked you bout yours, not properly.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So you must be missin home, missin things bout home.’

  Rose rubbed her eyes and yawned, ‘What do you care?’ she asked.

  ‘Cus it’s my fault, all this is my fault. Like you said.’

  ‘And you want to talk about my life now? Hello!’ Rose gestured toward the rain clouds that were closing in all around them.

  ‘That’s what we do,’ said Kel. ‘We talk to take our minds off it.’ She sat forward. ‘Tell me bout your childhood.’

  ‘You think my life is perfect, don’t you?’

  ‘I never said that.’

  ‘Well, I told you, it’s boring. Was boring. I ask for whatever I want and get whatever I want.’

  ‘Sounds OK to me.’

  ‘It seems like a lifetime ago now, anyway.’

  Kel watched Rose make a fuss of her hair, twist the blonde strands into a knot. She seemed anxious, reality had caught up with her.

  ‘Wish I knew how far out we are,’ said Kel.

  ‘I just wanted to know something more than four square walls and the sky,’ Rose continued. ‘I was sick to the gut of all the pampering and the partying, if I’m honest with you.’

  Rose looked at Kel and said people had a mind for thinking life in the towers was paradise and whilst it was close to perfect, perfection wasn’t everything.

  ‘Well you got what you wished for, dint you?’ said Kel. ‘Adventure and all that.’

  Rose nodded. ‘You know, when we saw all the horror back at Falmouth and the towers without light, I was terrified, but a part of me was excited too, because at least it was different. Now though, after everything, I hope things haven’t changed. Not too much anyway. I think maybe it’s time to head home.’

  ‘The idea you had to run, you have that a long time?’ Kel asked.

  Rose nodded.

  ‘You tell anyone?’

  Rose shrugged and said she had told her friends.

  Some friends, thought Kel, friends that had unwittingly set in motion an uncertain fate for their friend. She supposed it was the same person that had thought up the kidnap idea in the first place and it was all fate related. She wanted to press Rose for more, but when she looked starboard to where the sky was darkest she knew the storm would not be long in falling.

  Just a little teacup storm she told herself and then the calm would return.

  Kel dipped down into the boat. She told Rose to rest awhile if she could and she too closed her eyes so she might have a moment removed from fear. She thought about her heart fixed up right and went on toward her happy place of good clean country living. She painted it green and blue and framed it plain and she held on to that picture perfect for as long as she could. But soon fantasy fanned itself into tiny feathers of fingerin
g doubt and the worry about this storm transformed into the thought of a storm long past and Kel was back in the cabin in the woods. The time of thinking started as a usual night, window sitting and staring blank when the generator flooded. Silent and watching her reflection in the candlelight, listening to the creek of tree and brush of bow, everything fingers, pushing for the break.

  She sat in the bedroom that was everyone’s room and told herself that the storm was nothing to get worried about because all the flooding and the smashing of things had happened already. All the trees that could come down had done so and that was good because it meant firewood for the stove and all the broken gates and fences were fine because by morning they would be chained back good as.

  Another storm and another night left alone because Kel was the youngest and all the others sixteen and older were out on the drink. Kel didn’t mind the loneliness so much back then, and if she had known what was coming she wouldn’t have minded the lonely one tiny bit.

  Kel supposed she was nearly fourteen in her memory, nearly fourteen and not yet gone to school and not about to go to school. She must have been nearly fourteen because she remembered it as winter and whilst she wasn’t good at counting she knew her birthday was in spring and the baby came in the autumn time.

  Kel went on digging into her recollections to keep the ocean storm at bay and she tightened her eyes for detail, but that one-time thing that happened had kept on happening a hundred times until her memories of it were just patchwork snatches.

  Each time she thought she might make sense of the patching and stitching, her world unravelled all over again. The thing that happened in the lightless storm night and then kept happening and the baby that came because of it was one of those unravelling things.

  She opened her eyes to look at the baby burrowed in the centre of the boat and she kept her eyes on it until it moved and then she sighed.

  ‘You were sleeping,’ said Rose.

  ‘No I weren’t.’

  ‘You had your eyes closed.’

  ‘Had my eyes closed but weren’t sleepin.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Thinkin.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Other storms.’