by Meg Mundell
She squinted into the wind: a ship was materialising from the distance, making straight for them. As it drew closer a crowd gathered to watch. A Spanish fishing vessel, by the looks of it, green hull streaked with rust, the name Sombra Nocturna picked out in white paint. On the Steadfast, crew converged along the rail, gesturing across to the Spanish sailors.
The Spanish ship drew alongside, close enough to make out the smiles of the crew, and the two vessels rode the swells in unison, dipping and rising like dolphins. Kids waved to the Spanish sailors, and they waved back. A Steadfast officer began bellowing orders, and his crew shot lines out over the gunwale, connecting the two ships. Slowly they winched a wooden crate across from the fishing vessel. Once the crate was safely deposited on the Steadfast’s deck, two sailors heaved it aloft, staggering under the weight, and carried it below decks.
As the mooring lines were reeled in, the Spanish ship sent out a farewell blast over its PA. Billie knew the melody, an old bossa nova tune: ‘The Girl from Ipanema’. People cheered as the two ships drew apart, the Spanish sailors shimmying to the music, hamming it up for the kids.
When the horizon had consumed the fishing vessel, Billie rolled another ciggie. She was burning through tobacco at an alarming rate. Ship at sea: the term failed to capture the full absurdity of their situation, the blind foolish faith of human beings. A herd of land mammals crammed into this flimsy capsule, lost in a great expanse of liquid emptiness. A speck afloat on a vast, forbidding ocean. Did your head in, if you were mad enough to dwell on it.
Billie flicked her lighter: dead. Cursing, she set off for the kiosk on the foredeck. The crewman on duty grinned, revealing a gold incisor, and slid a red lighter across the counter.
‘Keep it,’ he said. ‘I collect ’em. Might be yours, for all I know.’
She thanked him, sparked the wheel and drew deep.
‘Heard you singing,’ offered the crewman. ‘Back at the depot. That’s some voice. Don’t overdo the smokes.’
She ducked her head, awkward in the face of praise. ‘Just roughens the edges. Makes it easier to hit the low notes.’
The man laughed, gold tooth gleaming in his sun-tanned face. ‘Ah, the things we tell ourselves.’
Back at the rail she sidestepped a queasy passenger, a patchwork of mediplasts stuck to his neck, gulping air as he fought to quell the nausea. Billie was grateful she didn’t get seasick. Her dad’s vocation had saved her from that particular hell. Out in his old boat she’d adjusted to the constant sway, but these ocean swells were an entirely different beast – less a rocking motion than a violent bodily displacement, snatching you metres through space in an eye-blink.
Earlier she’d passed a woman slumped in a passageway, a greenish pallor to her skin, pupils blown out to the size of grapes. ‘You need to up the dose a bit,’ Billie had advised. ‘That should take the edge off.’ Too ill to speak, the woman had groped her way along the passageway towards sick bay.
Rules were posted everywhere, their barking tone ensuring no-one mistook this for a pleasure cruise. No smoking indoors or below decks. No alcohol outside the two designated bars, rudimentary boxes that opened at noon and closed at midnight. No fraternising in the dorms at night. Rules for mealtime procedures and water rationing, returning used cutlery and storing personal effects; a rubbish regime, a laundry roster, strict hygiene protocols for sanning your hands and washing your body. The orders posted in the loo came dangerously close to telling you how to wipe your arse.
It wore you down, all that hectoring, and fresh air was a welcome antidote. As long as you set your sights ahead, avoided staring down the ship’s wake. That was a recipe for melancholy and nostalgia, sentiments sure to muddle your head.
Billie’s final visit home had stirred feelings of that sort. The landscape she’d grown up in had forgotten her; life rolled on, not registering her absence. Stripped of its childhood enchantments, her parents’ small fishing village had become a place of sagging houses and paint-flaked boats, of poverty and scraped-together pride, governed by set routines and a wariness of outsiders.
Her parents seldom asked about her life in the city, a place they mistrusted and feared. The daily rituals of survival consumed all their attention: her mother tending the garden and bottling preserves, her dad trawling the tides and lugging his catch home to the smokehouse, selling whatever they didn’t eat. And Jamie – twenty-five and still a child, delighting in the antics of the chickens, entranced by a caterpillar or a coloured leaf, his chores defining the simple shape of his life. Thinking of them, left behind, sparked a guilt-tinged tenderness.
Enough. She’d speak home once she reached land, send them a cut of her wages. Get her mother’s teeth fixed, pay some bills. And remember to say the words out loud. They knew she loved them, but reminders never hurt.
‘Will you be coming back?’ her mother had asked, skiddling in the sink while Billie dried the dishes.
‘Mam! I’m going for the work, not for eternity. We’ll talk every week.’
No further word about her leaving. Her mother just said to stick the kettle on, and take a biscuit, anyone would think they had a scarecrow visiting. Her parents had said little on the subject, but she sensed their dismay – their only daughter disappearing to the far side of the globe. A decision that had its critics. Not just the germophobe nutters who wanted to ban all travel, all migration, as if that was any kind of solution, but a deeper sentiment: the mutterings about traitors deserting the homeland in its time of need, abandoning dear old Scotland to its Dark Days.
As for Billie, she’d had a gutful of scrubbing floors and toilets for dirt rates, scoring the occasional gig in some backstreet dive for a pittance, all to barely make the rent on a bedsit with a single power-point and one cold tap. Sick of scraping by on toast and hot Bovril, the odd charity food parcel, bootleg tobacco and paint-stripper booze.
When she’d lost her hospital job, a part of her had been thankful – you didn’t admit to trauma, not if you wanted to stay employed, but all that death and suffering left its mark. The relief had been short-lived: despite the clean reference, a solid wage had proven elusive. She’d tried Gartnavel and Royal Alexandra, but evidently neither was hiring. She even interviewed for an outfit that tracked quarantine violators, but was soon reduced to casual shifts of grunt work, cleaning office blocks downtown. She wasn’t fool enough to be sucked in completely by the BIM recruitment ads, their eternally blue skies and beaming workers. But she’d endured her fill of dark days. Sunlight, at least, would be a blessing.
‘Wet out there,’ said a voice. Edinburgh accent, that upward inflection: the older Scot she’d sung with at the depot, the fiddler who’d shared his whiskey. Built short and solid, his bristled face creased into well-worn smile lines, the grey eyes sharp and canny, pale as ash. ‘Robbie’s the name.’
Reminding her before she had to ask, nodding as she offered her own again.
‘Got a niece called Billie, coming up for twelve,’ he said. ‘Mona’s missing her already, keeps forgetting there’s no outbound comms. Stupid rule, I’d argue, but ours is not to etcetera.’ He pulled out a tobacco pouch, rolled a smoke and offered Billie the bundle. She hesitated, force of habit, then took it: remembered they were clear, a bug-free zone.
‘Has your wife been seasick?’ Billie recalled an older woman: olive skin, white hair pulled back in a bun, singing along to the music. A gentle demeanour, at least one missing tooth.
‘She’s had a spell,’ Robbie said. ‘But it’s passing. Rotten thing.’
‘It’s a misery,’ Billie agreed. ‘We’re lucky to escape it.’ The wind tore their smoke away. The tobacco was strong and malty, like pipe-smokers’ stuff.
‘Do miss being in touch with home,’ he said. ‘They say it’s down to germs, the ban – devices being grubby.’
‘Aye, right. They also told us it was for privacy, to keep the howlers at bay.’
/> Robbie snorted. ‘Privacy! Avoid bad publicity, more like. Pics of the food, then clips of people having a boak over the side.’
It wasn’t just Red Star: all the shippers had the no-devices rule. Billie had always leant towards the dry end of the spectrum, but she missed it too, the daily chatter of the outside world, the babble of the stream. Her family’s faces.
‘At least they let us smoke. Some don’t.’
‘True,’ he granted. ‘And they’re not so nosy, this lot. Willing to turn a blind eye to a vice or two.’ He peered up into the overcast sky, the sun a muffled white glare. ‘Wouldn’t know the whereabouts of the yardarm, would you?’
Billie searched her memory for nautical terms, came up blank. ‘Wouldn’t recognise one if it bit me on the arse,’ she admitted.
‘Well, I’d say the sun’s just over it. Fancy a bevvy? My shout. There’s a few of us been meeting for a post-noon medicinal.’
She weighed up her customary caution with strangers. Judged the man harmless, recalled that musically they’d been an effortless click. Noon had safely come and gone.
‘Why not. Just one or three.’
‘Good lass,’ he said, flicking away his butt. ‘Proceed this way.’ He set off on bandy cockatoo legs at a surprisingly quick pace.
‘Hang on,’ she called, ‘isn’t the bar down that end?’
Robbie turned, gave a corny wink. ‘Shhh,’ he said in an exaggerated whisper. ‘Got ourselves a private boozer.’ He beckoned, casting shifty glances at a couple who were plainly listening in. ‘Scots only. Birds of a feather. Crew privileges.’ Tapped the side of his nose like some movie gangster. She hesitated.
‘Flock together,’ he instructed, scuttling off. ‘Follow me, Songbird.’
TOM
Despite my paranoia, our lessons got off to a decent start. The kids were not the menaces I’d feared. A mixed lot, but no obvious bad eggs.
We had close to full attendance that first day, thanks to the diligent crewmen who combed the ship, rounding up anyone underage and marching them into class. Seasickness kept a few in bed at first, but there was a zero-tolerance policy on truancy – a contractual obligation, according to Delaney, the cheerful old sailor in charge of the muster (so chosen, I suspect, for his resemblance to Santa Claus). A tight ship, as the saying goes.
One poor kid vomited on the floor and was escorted off to sick bay. A crewman mopped up the mess and sprayed air freshener everywhere, managing to squirt himself in the eye in the process, swearing like the proverbial – ‘Bastard fucken cunt of a thing!’ – much to the kids’ delight.
Finding ourselves on unfamiliar ground – no ground at all, in fact – we bonded as a group with relative ease. I hoped it might knock the edge off any potential troublemakers, that sense of being all at sea. Yes, the maritime clichés were coming thick and fast.
‘Remember,’ I told the kids, ‘we’re all in the same boat.’ Groan. Crossed my fingers we’d avoid a mutiny.
Resources were primitive, although management preferred the term ‘analogue’: an old vidscreen, a limited clip library, an antiquated whiteboard. The kids cawed in disbelief when I handed out exercise books and pens. ‘No linked devices,’ I reminded them. ‘We’re going unplugged. Like time travel. Pretend we’re back in the twentieth century.’
They played along: ‘Hey, Teach, Teach! Wossiss fing, some kinda laser?’ said one of the English kids, waving a pen.
On that first day an air of goodwill pervaded the room: it was an adventure, having classes inside a rolling ship, and the old-school gear was part of the novelty. The age range posed a challenge, so I’d split them into two groups, youngsters in the morning session. Eased in with the usual routine – ice-breakers, rollcall, matching names to faces – then ran some aptitude tests disguised as quizzes. Divided them into subgroups, ostensibly by age, adjusting up or down for ability.
Their handwriting was a mess, especially the English kids, who’d grown up almost entirely onscreen. As expected, literacy and numeracy were low across the board. Had their families not been borderline destitute, those kids would never have been on that vessel.
Nor would I, but for the crashes. Family money only cushions you while it lasts.
A few bright sparks had clearly hoovered up whatever education they’d been offered. You soon learnt not to rely on appearances: the snot-nosed kid with perfect grammar, the dull-eyed maths whiz, the silent girl who churned out five articulate paragraphs in as many minutes. One deaf kid too, as per my briefing notes, although you wouldn’t pick it. Reluctant to speak, but could lip-read a bit, and smart as a whip. Had the most beautiful handwriting, verging on calligraphy.
Alliances would soon form along the usual lines, I knew: nationality, blood, skin-tone and ethnicity, football team. And religion, especially the Irish kids; anyone raised to think that Jesus was the only game in town. I always discouraged segregation, but kids pick up that clique stuff early, that stick-to-your-own-kind dogma that flourishes in fearful times. Drummed in from birth, it masquerades as natural.
Lessons were to be largely practical, as per my contract – lit and num, comp and prac, basic skills to equip them for a low-skilled future. But secretly, I hoped I might do more: get them thinking, exercise their imaginations. Draw out their individual talents, perhaps even hint at a less mediocre life.
Then doubt would strike: who was I kidding? I had an outdated screen, a bloody whiteboard and a middling track record. I wasn’t some gifted mentor to the juvenile underclass. And this lot were consigned to a career of digging up potatoes.
A familiar cycle, this: where did my responsibility end, and my ego begin? How much difference could one low-ranked teacher make? Then again, the job had its bright spots: when you saw that light blink on, that internal spark fire up; when a kid asked a clever question, wrote a poem, volunteered some unexpected insight. Then hope would creep back in: could my fits of doubt simply be nerves? Perhaps I was meant to be a teacher?
Round and around it spun, the hamster wheel of indecision.
When the classroom emptied I locked the door, stretched out on the sofa and told myself everything was going to be fine. Surely I was due some downtime, a reward for surviving the first day unscathed. Not an all-out cranial holiday – just a mini-excursion.
I’d spotted him again yesterday: that handsome young crewman. Lean but strong-looking, clean-shaven, his features distinct amongst a sea of beards and stubble. Uniforms … there’s something to be said for them.
Passing in the passageway we’d made eye contact just a split-second too long.
He stopped. ‘You’re the teacher.’
I held out my hand. ‘Tom Garnett.’
No mistaking that clasp: a fraction too firm, a reluctance to break hold. In place of his name he offered a sly smile. ‘Off-duty at the moment, though, aren’t you?’
Worth a daydream, I thought now, conjuring him up: a two-hundred-milligram occasion, with a cheeky chaser of Somatriptol. A mental aperitif, a few hours of bliss before the dinner siren went.
Lights dimmed, blinds lowered, I closed my eyes and gave myself up to the rocking motion of the ship.
Ah. Yes. That was better.
So much better.
Limbs dissolving, colours melting. That delicious alchemy of blood and pharms, that welcome reservoir of inner calm …
Neurotic git, I chided myself. All will be well.
Then: a knock at the door.
Rising unsteadily, I opened it to find my handsome daydream manifesting in the doorway. I stood there blinking, not sure if he was flesh or apparition.
‘You busy?’ he asked. I shook my head.
Keeping his voice low, his eye contact steady, he laid it out without a trace of shyness: he knew somewhere we could go. After sketching a map on the door with his finger, he tapped our invisible destination. Observed my face as I repeated his d
irections.
‘Wait five minutes,’ he said. ‘Then follow.’
Heart pounding, I wound my way through the ship to the designated door: Housekeeping. The passageway empty, I knocked.
Practically a broom cupboard: mops clanking and cleaning products sloshing, the scent of clean towels and guest soap. The light was dim, but we could see each other well enough.
‘Look at you,’ I said, admiring his sleek outline, the clean-jawed symmetry of his face, offset by that slanted smile. A picture ripe for endorsement. ‘You need an agent. You’re wasted on this sailor stuff.’
He took my hand and placed it around his wrist, encircling the cabled bracelet etched into his fair skin. ‘Do you ever shut up?’ he asked, pressing close.
And so I did.
3
CLEARY
Woken by his bladder, Cleary lay there, absorbing the ship’s pitch and roll, a movement that had begun to infiltrate his dreams. He peered down at the bunk below: his ma just a dark shape breathing there, oblivious.
Not only did he need to pee, but he was thirsty too. He groped for his water bottle: empty. You weren’t allowed to fill your own, because of bugs, and you mustn’t drink the water from the washroom taps – there was a big red sign with a shouting stick-man, and his ma had mimed vomiting – so he’d have to get a refill from the kiosk. He bundled on warm layers and crept down the ladder in a way he hoped was silent.
The bog stank, and he held his breath while he peed, watching the yellow swirl vanish down the bowl. Where did it go – straight out into the ocean? He imagined his pee drifting in the cold water, the yellow cloud briefly enveloping a passing fish, a fleeting warmth softening the ocean’s chill. Could a fish smell piss? Did fish even have noses?
