"Deirdre, dear," she heard Cornelius say in the wheelhouse, "why don't you bring up another bottle of wine? Jack will show you where they are."
Oh, great. Sailing under the influence. Liz had declined a glass, and she hadn't seen Jack take anything; that left the daddy and the nanny responsible for any empties.
She felt so trapped. How did you get off a boat? You could walk out of a party, step off at a train station; even airplane flights could only last so long. But a boat! This could go on until Ireland.
She almost jumped for joy when she saw Jack come out from the wheelhouse with the wicker basket. He put the basket down on the low round table and said simply, "C'mon, kids, have something to eat."
He began spreading out the contents. Just as Liz feared: everything was way too fancy to stick to the stomach. Marinated mushrooms; an assortment of cheeses; pâté de foie; caviar (naturally); thin, thin crackers; and last but not least, the predictable smoked salmon.
"Whaddya think of that?" Jack said proudly to Susy, who was eyeing it all with intense dismay.
I was right the first time, Liz decided. The man knows nothing about being a parent.
Jack was peering into the picnic basket. "Oops, how did that stuff get in here? Cookies? Peanut butter and jelly sandwich? Netta must've put that in for the sea gulls."
Susy's eyes got wider. "No, I'll eat the sandwich — if no one wants it, I mean."
She looked at Caroline, who said loftily, "I'd rather have the pâté."
Jack glanced at Liz with easy humor and then handed Susy the sandwich. "Here you go," he said to her, "if you're sure you don't mind eating something so boring. Actually, you'd be doing me a big favor."
He tucked a napkin under each of the girls' chins, and in that simple, nurturing gesture, Liz was lost completely and forever to the possibility of loving any other man. She could've watched him with the children all the way to Ireland.
Caroline spread the goose-liver pâté on a wafer, which broke in half. She said quickly, "I did that on purpose."
Liz watched, impressed, as Caroline popped one of the halves into her mouth, took one chew of the goose liver, narrowed her eyes, stifled a look of surprise and disgust, glanced around in a bored fashion, got up, wandered over to the rail, and spat out the mess when she thought no one was looking.
As for Susy, she was in love. Jack could do no wrong. Once he found out that Susy liked riddles, he kept them coming one after another — surprising Liz yet again — and seemed genuinely eager to add Susy's own repertoire to his collection.
Eventually Caroline sat back down, and Susy offered her half of the peanut butter sandwich, making Liz absurdly proud of her. Caroline actually accepted it, making Liz absurdly proud of her, too.
In the meantime the Déjà Vu had passed through most of the fleet of boats and yachts that were returning to their home port. Cornelius put the boat on autopilot, and he and Deirdre joined the others in what was turning out to be, after all, a very nice boat ride.
The problem was the wine. It was flowing too freely. The fairly innocent gaiety between Cornelius and Deirdre was escalating into something else. They were taking over the show, and nobody much wanted to watch the performance. Not Liz: she began to wish they'd go back into the wheelhouse.
And not Jack. He was becoming quieter and angrier by the minute. When Deirdre, laughing hysterically at something unfunny, spilled wine over herself and Cornelius rushed to her bosom with a napkin, it was the last straw for Jack.
"Dad, I need to talk to you in private," he said through gritted teeth. "Can we go below for a minute?"
"Heck, no," said his dad jovially. "We're all friends. Say it on deck."
"Oblige me this once, please."
"Oh, all right."
Jack scanned the horizon for boats, then turned to Liz and said, "Keep an eye out, would you'?"
Cornelius stood up unsteadily — though the sea was flat as a mirror — and followed his son into the wheelhouse and then down the ladder steps to the cabin. That left four nonsailing females alone in deepening twilight on the afterdeck of a sixty-foot boat that no one was steering.
To Liz it seemed downright surreal. Torn between Susy and the assignment, she said to her daughter, "Sit right here, and don't you dare move from this place. You, too, Caroline."
Deirdre, not so drunk that she couldn't feel repentant, said, "I'll watch them, don't worry."
Liz took up a position just inside the wheelhouse where she could see both the horizon and her daughter, and yet stay out of earshot of the conversation below.
That, it turned out, was hard to do. Jack was angry and his father was high. Every loud word funneled up the cabin stairs into the wheelhouse.
"Goddammit, Dad, the older you get, the bigger the fool! What's wrong, the last one wasn't young enough? Deirdre's a kid, for chrissake!"
"You bet. And a damned good-looking one."
"You're embarrassing everyone! You're embarrassing yourself!"
"No-o-o, not me, son. I feel just fine."
"Don't push it, Dad!"
"Well, well, this is new. Since when do you give a damn what I do and who I do it with?"
"Knock it off, I said!"
"Or else what? You're going to tell your mother? You think she cares?"
"Yeah, I think she cares! You're the only one who can't see that!"
"Where've you been all your life? She hasn't cared since you were born."
"What the hell are you talking about? She's always loved you, God only knows why."
"Get with it, Jack. Why do you think you're an only child? She's ignored me for years."
"That's a goddamned lie!"
"Maybe an exaggeration. Not a lie. I bore her."
"Your running around bores her. And hurts her. Don't you see that? You're rationalizing your idiotic behavior!"
"You see it your way. I see it mine."
"Divorce her, then! Why make a mockery of your marriage with kids like Deirdre?"
"Oh-h, come on ... Deirdre's nothing ... we're just horsing around."
"I'm warning you, Dad: If you go up there and pick up where you left off—"
"—you'll what? Lock me below? Keelhaul me? Come on, son. We're both adults."
"One of us, maybe!"
"Don't pull that bullshit! You're the one who's made it to the halfway point of his life alone. At least I gave marriage a shot. I had you. I had Caroline. It may not be a perfect family, but at least I was willing to step up to the plate. Now let me pass. I'm your father. I deserve more respect than you're giving me."
Whether Jack was going to let his father pass or not, nobody ever found out, because at that moment an alarm went off on the instrument panel, and Jack came flying up the companionway steps.
"Now what?" he muttered, scanning the gauges. "Damn! Overheating! Dad! Get up here!"
No need to tell Cornelius; he was right behind his son.
"Let me look over the engine quick," Jack said to him. "You shut it off when I tell you."
Jack dropped down the steps in one leap and disappeared into the cabin below. Over the dramatic pulsing of the alarm, Cornelius said sheepishly, "I never went in for that engine stuff. That's why God invented mechanics."
They waited an agonizing number of seconds and then heard Jack's voice from the belly of the boat: "Okay! Shut it off!"
Cornelius did. The boat fell strangely, perilously silent. There they were, well offshore, floating as aimlessly as a sixty-foot piece of driftwood. It was confirmation of Liz's deepest dread.
Susy and Caroline were standing on the semicircle of cushioned seats, noses pressed against the aft windows of the wheelhouse, as curious as two bear cubs eyeing a cherry pie. Deirdre was standing behind them, looking oddly tentative. Liz motioned the girls to sit back down — they ignored her — and then she waited, with all the others, for Jack to reappear with a diagnosis of the problem.
Liz knew little about engines, even less about boats, but she had absolutely no doubt that
Jack could fix whatever it was that needed fixing. It was an act of pure blind faith, an homage to her regard for him — and it surprised the heck out of her. Here she was, despite a lifetime of warnings by her mother — allowing herself to get her hopes up.
At last Jack emerged, holding what even Liz knew was a broken fan belt in his hand.
"It's been cut," he said without preamble. "Three-quarters of the belt's diameter is razor-smooth," he said, showing it to his father. "Only the last quarter shows signs of fatigue. Obviously the uncut portion couldn't carry the load, and it broke apart. As it was meant to do."
Cornelius looked as guilty as if he'd cut the belt himself. "Jesus. This time they've gone too far. What're they trying to do? Get someone killed?"
"Think about it," his son said tersely.
"Well, put on a spare and let's get out of here," Cornelius said, casting a wary eye to the west. "Who knows what other booby traps they've set? What if—?"
Jack looked quickly at Liz. "No need for hysteria," he said, cutting his father's speculations short. "If the pattern holds true, then this is all the wake-up call we'll be getting tonight."
If. Liz didn't like that if. She waited with Cornelius in the wheelhouse, saying little, reluctant to move an inch farther away from news of a repair than she had to. The yacht sat uneasily on the calm water, rising and falling gradually with the swell. In the meantime Susy and Caroline, tired of waiting for something to happen, decided to try on each other's shoes.
Deirdre began repacking the wicker basket with unsteady hands and then, halfway through her task, suddenly dropped everything and made a sprint for the stern rail. The wrenching, wracking sounds of her seasickness sent a surge of queasiness through Liz. But she couldn't get sick; she didn't dare get sick.
Caroline, watching Deirdre furtively, looked a little green around the gills as well. Susy seemed to be holding up fine, which hardly surprised Liz. The child was so clearly in her element out here.
Half of us are sailors, thought Liz with an edgy sigh. But half of us are not.
At last Jack came back up the companionway, but the black look on his face told Liz that once again she had placed her trust where it didn't belong.
"There are no fan belts — not a one — in the spare-parts locker or anywhere else," he said with unnerving calm. He looked at his father and said, "So it looks as if I was wrong: this one's a two-parter."
"What do we do now?"
It was Liz, trying to keep the fear out of her voice but not succeeding. Maybe no one else was watching out to the west, but she sure was. And what she saw was hardly reassuring: a black line of clouds, with some depressingly vertical buildup among them.
Jack said, "One of the pulleys has a double fan belt on it. I'm going to try refitting the second one as a replacement; I may have enough adjustability — but enough with the gory details," he said to Liz with a flash of humor. "The short answer is, I'm going to try a jury rig."
He glanced out at the sky impassively, which made Liz feel better, and then said to his father, "Flip on the running lights, Dad. It's getting dark," which made her feel worse.
"Won't we run down our charge?" asked Cornelius. "We don't have much choice," Jack said, and went back below.
A couple of minutes later, he was back in the wheelhouse.
"The nuts on the pulley are frozen; it's going to take a little while." For some reason, he looked to the east, not to the west, this time. "We're going to have to anchor."
He went up to the bow of the boat and undid the lashings of a big Popeye-style anchor that was secured to the rail. He worked some mechanism that released the anchor, which fell into the sea with a thunk, and what seemed like miles of chain went roaring out behind it. So now they were no longer a piece of floating driftwood. They were a sitting duck.
Jack went back below, and Liz, tired herself of waiting, brought Susy and Caroline inside the wheelhouse where it was warm. She sat on the settee with Susy in her lap and an arm around Caroline, who was propped up sleepily against her side. Deirdre collapsed on the cushioned semicircle of the afterdeck, and Cornelius joined his son below, to hold a flashlight for Jack to work by.
So this is yachting, Liz mused, watching the spooky red sky with its dull red glow and distant, pulsating flashes of lightning. All in all, I guess I can live without it.
She had a moment of hope. About twenty minutes later, Jack's father came up and started the engine again. It rumbled to life and she thought, Finally. We're on our way again.
And then Jack's voice, up from the cabin: "No good! Shut it down, Dad!"
He came back up, looking disheartened now, and said, "The belt's too big; it keeps slipping. We can wait to flag down someone for a tow, but with the kids on board — I'm going to call the Coast Guard."
It was obvious to Liz that he hated to have to do it. "Don't worry about us," she said quickly. "Everyone's fine."
"Baloney," he said, and picked up the transmitter to his marine radio. "This is the Déjà Vu, Déjà Vu, Déjà Vu, whiskey-yankee-sierra-one-zero-zero calling the Point Judith Coast Guard, Point Judith Coast Guard."
"Déjà Vu, this is the Point Judith Coast Guard; switch and answer twenty-two."
"Switching two-two."
Jack punched in the digits on his radio and then calmly, but with some embarrassment, explained the plight they were in.
"I roger that," said a young voice at the other end. "Cap'n, are you in any danger right now?"
"No, sir," said Jack. "We have an anchor down."
"Roger that. We have all boats out on an emergency call, so if you could just sit tight and monitor this station, we'll get back to you as quick as we can."
Jack acknowledged the response and signed off. He came back to where Liz sat with the sleeping kids and took a seat beside her.
"Look, I'm really sorry about this."
"It's not your fault, Jack," Liz said wearily. "It's the fault of — of whoever these monster saboteurs are," she said, trying to suppress her outrage. Still, the word monster made Susy stir in her sleep.
"Let's put these two to bed," Jack said softly. He lifted Caroline up in his arms, and Liz, carrying Susy, followed him carefully down the bronze cabin steps to a guest stateroom below. Jack tucked Caroline, life jacket and all, into a narrow berth that was secured by a beautifully carved bunk- board; Liz tucked Susy into the berth opposite.
"You just nap here for a while, honey," whispered Liz, pulling up a blue cotton blanket with a big gold anchor on it. "We'll be home before you know it."
Susy roused from her sleep enough to take it all in. "Mommy?" she said. "I like this bed."
With a bemused shake of her head, Liz went back to the wheelhouse. She was determined to monitor both the weather and the Coast Guard radio frequency. She saw Cornelius on the afterdeck with a drink in his hand, keeping his own silent vigil over demons that she, for one, would never be able to see.
The old man — right now, standing at the stern with shoulders bent, he looked very old indeed — had found a blanket and covered Deirdre with it, which made Liz melt a little toward him.
Maybe there are no real villains in his marriage, she thought. Just as there were none in mine. It was the first time since the day Keith walked out that she was able to admit it. The realization made her a little bit older, a little bit sadder, a little bit freer.
She stood in the dark wheelhouse, staring at the radio's red "22" as if it were a ghost, willing it to say something. The boat was bobbing up and down a little more now; a chill, damp breeze was blowing through the open windows of the wheelhouse. The flashes of lightning were brighter; the thunder seemed less distant. The front was coming closer.
Come and save us, she pleaded to the silent radio. Save us now.
She saw Jack's dark shadow emerge from below. He stood alongside her, staring at she didn't know what, absorbing something she didn't understand from the sea around them.
"I've got one more thing I want to try," he said in a voice more
taut than before. "Would you mind sacrificing your pantyhose for it?"
She had to laugh; how could she not? "Anything for the Déjà Vu," she said. Without asking for details, she hiked up her skirt and peeled away the hose, then handed them to him. "Good luck — Cap'n."
"I'll need every bit of it. And I'll need you, to hold the flashlight while my dad monitors things up here." He called his father in from the afterdeck and said to him, "I just listened to the weather. The watch has been upgraded to a warning. If the boat goes beam-to, yell."
"Won't be much we can do about it, son."
Here was a detail Liz preferred to know. "What does it mean if the boat goes beam-to?" she asked as they headed for the engine-room.
"It means we're dragging the anchor," Jack said tersely.
"Does that really matter out here?" Liz asked him.
"It does if you're upwind of a rocky ledge."
"A ledge, way out here?"
"Check the chart," Jack snapped.
Liz left it at that. Even she could see that the stakes were escalating with each new roll of thunder.
Ducking her head low, she followed him into the cramped and narrow area alongside the exposed engine. It was a brute of a thing, much bigger than the little mass of efficiency that powered her van. Jack flashed the light over it, focusing on an obviously unbelted pulley.
He adjusted the beam of the flashlight to spread wide and said, "Keep it aimed at my hands."
She did as she was told, watching with skeptical fascination as he measured off her pantyhose against the broken belt, then cut off one of the legs and began fitting it around the two pulleys.
"Boy, suddenly I wish my legs were an extralong," she said fervently as she hovered above him with the flashlight.
He laughed softly and said, "Your legs are perfect the way they are."
Ridiculous, to feel a thrill shoot through her at a time like this, but there it was: goosebumps.
Time After Time Page 32
