by Meg Mundell
This made no sense to Billie. They’d been at sea almost three weeks. The superscreen had guaranteed them clean, zero risk, and they’d been dosed up on immune-boosters before departure. How could a bug have come aboard? An image flashed across her mind: an empty bunk in her dorm. The berth vacant several nights now, the woman who’d slept there gone. She’d assumed an onboard romance.
‘This is all for a fact?’ asked Robbie. ‘It’s not just blather?’
‘Horse’s mouth,’ said Len. ‘My mate had to kit up and swab the passageway outside sick bay – walls, doors, bloody ceiling. Highly contagious, they’re saying.’
Brass were working hard to keep it under wraps, said Juliette, but were plainly shitting themselves. The crew’s outbound comms were in lockdown, their mail now vetted before sending. Any mention of illness or trouble on board and the message would be dumped, the sender fined and locked up. Whatever this sickness was, brass were desperate to keep a lid on it.
Robbie frowned. ‘Right, no devices. But why block the staff’s outbounds?’
‘Bad for business if this got out,’ said Juliette. ‘Hurt the company name.’
‘Big money in these routes,’ said Len. ‘Competition’s fierce. You lot are valuable cargo.’ Then he leant in, his presence suddenly heavier. ‘But you didn’t hear any of this from me. Right?’
‘Mum’s the word,’ said Robbie. ‘Loose lips …’ He trailed off, that ready grin nowhere in evidence.
‘How does it manifest?’ asked Billie. The tattooed man looked blank. ‘The sick ones – what are their symptoms?’
Len hadn’t got that close, and didn’t plan to. Bad omens had been racking up, he said. They’d departed on a Thursday – Thor’s day, the thunder god – which was just asking for trouble. Brass had cited orders from on high, but this ill-chosen date had made the crew uneasy. Some were alarmed to see so many bereaved passengers boarding in black mourning garb. Others had remarked on the high number of redheads amongst the human cargo, which also boded ill.
‘No getting round that one,’ said Juliette. ‘Scots and Irish blood’s riddled with the red gene. Did you see the dock when we left? Gingers everywhere.’
And then there was the ship’s name. ‘Steadfast?’ said Robbie. ‘Sounds solid. Reliable.’
‘Yeah,’ said Len. ‘But that’s not her original name. When Red Star bought her she was the Albatross.’ The huge seabirds were once a lucky omen, he explained, and killing one was said to bring misfortune. But that portent had shifted with the times. Now, with the species nudging up against extinction, the bird had lost its lucky connotations.
‘Couldn’t get crew to sign on,’ said the sailor. ‘Company had to change her name.’
‘Bloody tragic,’ put in Juliette. ‘What idiot names a ship after a bird that’s going extinct?’
‘But she’s not the Albatross now,’ said Billie. ‘Surely that’s no black mark.’ Then, hesitant, ‘Do you believe all that stuff?’ Her seafaring dad had always rubbished these superstitions.
‘Course not,’ replied the sailor, studying his hands, the skin inked with swallows, stars and dice, a compass rose. Juliette remained silent.
The rabble swelled as people drained glasses and ordered last drinks. Billie saw wet mouths on glass rims, wristbands swiping credit screens, the barman dragging a dirty rag across the counter. Envisaged all that wasn’t visible: saliva traces, microbes, lungfuls of used air filtered through damp human interiors, infusing system after system. The atmosphere felt close, over-breathed.
‘What about that murderer, then?’ asked Robbie brightly, angling for a shift in mood. ‘Nabbed the bastard, haven’t they?’
A bulletin had aired a few days back, Captain Lewis’ smooth voice issuing from unseen speakers. Identified and detained, he’d said.
‘That’s what they want you to think,’ said Len.
But the crime was solved, Robbie insisted: the culprit captured, the death declared an accident. A fight that got out of hand, some argument over black trading.
‘A fight with who?’ asked Len. ‘The brig’s empty. No killer locked away down there.’ He changed the subject, and soon excused himself.
As the drinkers trailed out into the night, Billie spotted an image on a screen above the bar. A smiling sailor, the Red Star logo on his cap, a gleam of gold tooth giving his grin a rakish air. Davy Whelan, read the text. Then a span of dates. Billie took a sharp breath: she knew that face. Squeezed the red cigarette lighter in her pocket, the one he’d slid across the counter to her. Did a quick calculation: he’d been thirty-three, just five years older than her. Rest in peace, old mate, she read.
~
Sleep that night was fitful, marred by uneasy dreams. Stretchers hurtled down long white passageways, and at her feet coloured lines snaked off in the direction of the death wards.
Next morning she made for a private spot, a guano-spattered alcove she’d discovered, open to the air and just big enough for one. Tucked behind some loud machine, the clamour of its motor loud enough to mask her voice from passers-by, it was the perfect place to run through scales, to practise old songs or make up new ones.
Sun warmed her skin. A container ship ploughed across the middle distance and seabirds flapped in the rigging above, seeking a solid perch to rest their wings.
Fear would solve nothing: cautious vigilance was the best defence. San thoroughly and often, hands off your face, beware of body fluids, avoid second-hand air. Be alert for any sign of illness: the person dishing your dinner or replenishing cutlery. A cough, a sniffle, the telling flush of fever. Vomiting – well, that was no useful clue out here.
She’d left her mask in her bunk. The few passengers now wearing them again were drawing attention, facing demands about what they knew, even outright anger at the idea such measures might be warranted. A stomach bug, it had to be. Fear tended to skew talk towards disaster. As for the rumoured deaths, perhaps there’d been a heart attack, an aneurysm. Some buried physical fault not picked up by the superscreens.
Soon they’d round the Cape of Good Hope, then head south towards the Roaring Forties. The vessel moved with the inbuilt urge of a migratory bird. Not an albatross: some common seabird, light-boned but hardy, built to go the distance. She tracked the lonely bulk of the container ship, its grafted-on sails – no elegance there, just pure function, an old vessel retrofitted for maximum fuel efficiency, its container stacks a monument to the needs and wants of far-off populations. In rough weather those metal boxes could tumble into the sea, wallowing just below the surface, a booby trap awaiting some hapless ship.
Lost buckets were a common sight. The flotsam was a parade of clues, evidence of remote mishaps, and Billie passed the time by speculating on its origins: an algae-ridden mattress, dumped on some Spanish beach when a relationship soured. A basketball, bobbing like an oversized orange, kicked off an Angolan pier by kids too young to dive in and retrieve it; a plastic washing-basket, tossed from a Brazilian balcony by a drunken maid. Fence palings and broken tents, wrecked kites and lost shoes: human souvenirs torn loose by floods and hurricanes.
Your eyes played tricks on you out here, the whole vista lending itself to hallucinations.
Billie took a full breath and sent a run of notes into the wind, a rising chain of melody that filled her chest and vibrated through her blood, her very cells alive with it. Her voice drowned out the static: the yammering machine, the slap of wind, the white noise of her thoughts. Her single gift and talent, it rang from deep inside her body and flew out to meet the vastness of the sea.
TOM
One balmy Saturday morning I was up on the main deck, trying to soothe my scrambled neurons with an ancient paperback I’d found in the saloon, when shouts rang out – a male voice, raised in clear distress.
A commotion down the deck, a glimpse of flailing arms. When I arrived the crowd was swelling, but standing well clear.
Against the rail, his back to the sea, was a man in his early thirties – Liverpool accent, British Bangladeshi guy – swinging what appeared to be a broomstick. He looked possessed: eyes like black holes, hair wild, sweat streaming off him. Voice hoarse, a broken half-scream: ‘Get back! Don’t let it touch me!’
Crew were trying to calm the distressed man: it’s alright, mate, take it easy. Put that down, you’ll hurt yourself.
But the passenger was past listening or reason. Kept screaming, in that pitiful rasp: ‘No no no, don’t let it near me!’ Slashing the air like he was fighting an invisible dragon: ‘Get it away from me!’
When the delusional man began to clamber over the ship’s rail, a group of crewmen leapt forward and tackled him to the deck.
He thrashed and bellowed, voice cracking mid-scream, a terrible sound: ‘Noooooo! Get away from me!’
Flung aside, his weapon landed at my feet, and I wedged it safely out of the way beneath a bench. A pointless act, but I felt embarrassed for doing nothing to help.
Crewmen herded us away. Looking back at the deranged passenger, now pinned beneath half a tonne of seafaring muscle, I recognised the man on the top of the pile: my beautiful sailor, the man whose skin now occupied my daydreams. Body braced, features half obscured, but still recognisable.
That’s when I first noticed it. At the time I dismissed it as protocol, a routine measure for handling unspecified insanity at close quarters: the crew struggling with the crazed passenger were all wearing masks and gloves.
Later, over lunch, one of the dads remarked that at least this awful incident cleared up a mystery: the crazy fella, well, surely, he was the murderer. I bit my tongue, resisted asking: the same murderer who’s locked up somewhere in the bowels of the ship? There’s no end to the creative explanations that will flourish in a vacuum.
Fronting my class the next day – unmedicated, nerves a-jitter, my membranes raw – I fielded a question from eight-year-old Tamila: ‘Teach, are bad people allowed on ships? Murderers and that?’
‘There are no bad people on this ship,’ I said, taking care to face the deaf boy, speak slowly, catch his eye. In big letters I wrote on the board: This is a safe place. You’re all safe here.
Mia, eleven, raised a hesitant hand: ‘But what about the crazy man? The one who tried to drown himself?’
‘He’s not a bad person,’ I replied. ‘Just muddled up. Maybe he stayed out in the sun too long without a hat. Now, who can tell me what the equator is?’
Talk travelled fast, and I wished I’d gotten out in front of it, not improvised some half-baked tale of sunstroke. But what should I have said? The old euphemisms for mental breakdown were too foreboding: unwell, sick, ill. There were already rumours on that front. I just prayed that’s all they were – groundless rumours.
People had noticed: the masks, the gloves, the empty bunks.
Since Davy Whelan’s violent death, parents had been seeking me out for private chats, asking about emotional containment and support measures, anxious for news, checking their kids were in safe hands.
Now a new strand of disquiet was surfacing: were the stories true? Had sickness come aboard?
5
CLEARY
Floating out his bedroom window, Cleary paddled a slow breaststroke over the Pearse Street flats, skimming the lichen-mottled roofs. He soared over the washing lines, the car park and basketball court, across Hanover Street where a burning car belched acrid smoke, and on towards the green-black sleekness of the Liffey.
But when he reached the river he began to doubt his powers, his ability to stay aloft and steer. Dead ahead loomed the rigging of the boat restaurant, waiting to ensnare him. Helpless, drifting, he willed himself higher, but it was no use. The web slowly reeled him in.
He woke with a jerk and lay in his bunk, trying to quell a lingering dread as the ship rolled gently beneath him. The cabin lights were on and people were stirring, heading off to breakfast.
In the bunk below, his ma’s curtain was shut tight. Strange: normally she left it open for him. He unzipped it, but as the light spilt in she turned her back. Her bedcovers lay twisted at her feet and the air in her compartment had a sour smell. He shook her bare leg, but she raised one hand and waved him away, her face sunk in the pillow.
Need more sleep, she signed. You go on without me.
Setting off in slippers and pyjama pants, he found Declan finishing breakfast with his parents in the mess-room. Cleary accepted two scoops of porridge, made himself a mug of sugary tea, which he wasn’t strictly allowed, and took a seat beside his friend. Declan’s mum had a good gawk at his pyjama pants and gave a thin smile, just to show she didn’t like the cut of him, so he got busy constructing an angry face with raisins on the surface of his porridge, Declan squirming in appreciation. As he left with his parents Declan shot Cleary a grin: See you in class.
Returning to the dorm with a jam sandwich for his ma, he found her bunk zipped tight again, but now the lock was activated too. He sniffed, checking for her scent, her presence, but could tell the sealed-up space was empty. He drummed his palms on the taut fabric, feeling an involuntary sound escape his throat. A woman poked her head out of a nearby bunk, face rumpled with sleep, a finger pressed to her lips.
He made an effort to calm himself. In the shower, that’s where she’d be. Or the jacks. No need to be a baby about it.
A hand touched his arm: the red-haired lady, Fiona. She knelt down, her smile not quite reaching her eyes, said Cleary’s name, then held his shoulders and spoke in an exaggerated way, so it was impossible to make out the words. She waited for some sign he’d understood. But Cleary froze, distress zinging through his blood. Something was badly wrong.
With the woman stood a girl from Cleary’s class. She handed her mother a pen and a piece of card, and Fiona wrote: Morning, Cleary. Your ma’s with the doctor. Don’t worry, she’s just a bit seasick. You’re to stay with us tonight. He stared at the message until the woman plucked it from his fingers, wrote on the back and returned it with a bright smile: School now. Erin will go with you. Best change out of those PJs! She clapped her hands, like this was a game.
He climbed into his bunk, knowing full well he was being lied to. His ma would never leave him like this: she’d have waited, no matter how sick she felt. She knew how much he needed her, how worried he got. No: someone had taken her.
Blackbeard. Could he have done this? Cleary dressed quickly, and as he descended the ladder his legs felt rubbery. Dazed, he followed the girl, Erin, through the ship, stumbling like a sleepwalker, his mind locked onto a single thought: Lost your sea legs. Lost your sea legs.
Another boy had taken Cleary’s regular seat next to Declan, a heavy kid who’d once tripped him in the hallway. Declan made an apologetic face and rolled his eyes towards the interloper.
Teach was showing a nature vid, writing words up on the board: Foraging, Migration, Safety in numbers. Cleary’s thoughts were all tangled. Up on the screen fish hovered in the shadowy ocean depths, a great writhing ball of silver bodies, flashing in unison as light caught their scales. Back and forth they shivered, one undulating mass, a body without a head, lost in the inky water. Teach seemed to find this strange dance beautiful, but to Cleary it resembled panic. Kids turned to stare, and he realised he must be making a sound. He tried to steady himself.
Onscreen a barrage of seabirds broke the water’s surface one by one. Beaks sharp as arrows, they plunged into the knot of fish, the silver mass quivering and bulging in mutations of fright. Shoaling, wrote Teach. Schooling. Predators. Cleary clung to his desk as if it was a raft.
Could he fake illness, hurl on the floor? Get sent to sick bay, try to find her? But his body felt heavy, stuck to his chair. His thoughts skittered off in all directions, and beneath his confusion pulsed a low throb of dread.
A man entered the classroom: the old sailor with the white Santa beard, th
e one who rounded up the mitchers and brought them into class. He gave the children a jolly wave, then drew the teacher aside. The class began to fidget as the men huddled together.
When Teach turned back to them his expression was gentle, his movements deliberate. He held his palms out, a soothing motion. He kept repeating a phrase as the sailor opened a bag, took out a white tube-shaped object, tore off its plastic wrapper.
Teach waved to catch Cleary’s attention, then spoke his name. Nothing to worry about, he wrote on the board as the crewman walked down the aisle, handing out a familiar white shape to every kid.
A long moment of dismay as, one by one, the signals blinked out. Then Cleary lost the words his teacher was saying, lost all of them. Gone: the world retreating one step back, as if the air itself was thickening, a forcefield pushing him away from other people. Mouths concealed, speech erased, words buried by white masks.
BILLIE
The man stopped Billie as she left the dining hall after lunch. She saw the blue uniform first, the Red Star logo on the pocket. When the sailor touched her arm a jolt of panic went through her. She had feared this might be coming. It took a second to place him: Len, the heavily tattooed crewman they’d drunk with in the bar, the superstitious guy. Expression blank, he gave no sign of recognising her.
‘Billie Galloway?’ he asked as the lunch crowd trailed past them. She nodded: no point in denying her own name.
‘Come with me,’ he said. ‘Management wants you.’
He was already walking away, so she followed at a discreet distance, trying to act like they weren’t together. Denials and counter-accusations raced through her mind: no, she had no idea what they were talking about. What infraction? Hadn’t she passed all the security checks? This was ridiculous, outrageous, a mistake.
