A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters (15 page)

‘I mean you’re offloading a lot on to the boat. So that you can avoid thinking about what happened before the boat. Do you think that’s what you might be doing?’

‘How would I know?
You
’re meant to be the expert.’ This was
very sarcastic of me, I know, but I couldn’t resist it. I was angry with him. As if I was ignoring what had happened before I took the boat. I was one of the few people that noticed, after all. The rest of the world behaved like Greg.

‘Well, I think we seem to be making some progress.’

‘Go away.’

*

I knew he’d be back. In a way I was sort of waiting for him to return. Just to get it over with, I suppose. And he had me intrigued, I’ll admit that. I mean, I know exactly what’s happened, and more or less why and more or less how. But I wanted to see how clever his – well, my own, really – explanation would be.

‘So you think you might be ready to talk about Greg.’

‘
Greg
? What’s it got to do with Greg?’

‘Well, it seems to us, and we’d like your confirmation on this one, that your … your break-up with Greg has a lot to do with your present … problems.’

‘You really are a very ignorant man.’ I liked saying that.

‘Then help cure me of my ignorance, Kath. Explain things to me. When did you first notice things were going wrong with Greg?’

‘Greg, Greg. There’s been a bloody nuclear war and all you want to talk about is
Greg.
’

‘Yes, the war, of course. But I thought we’d better take one thing at a time.’

‘And Greg is more important than the war? You certainly have an odd system of priorities. Perhaps Greg caused the war. You know he’s got a baseball cap that says MAKE WAR NOT LOVE on it? Perhaps he sat there drinking beer and pressed the button just for something to do.

‘That’s an interesting approach. I think we could get somewhere with that.’ I didn’t respond. He went on, ‘Would we be right in thinking that with Greg you sort of were putting all your eggs in one basket? You thought he was your last chance? Perhaps you were laying too many expectations on him?’

I’d had enough of this. ‘My name is Kathleen Ferris,’ I said, as much to myself as to anybody else. ‘I’m thirty-eight years old. I left the north and came to the south because I could see what was happening. But the war pursued me. It came anyway. I got in the boat, I let the winds carry me. I took two cats, Paul and Linda. I found this island. I am living here. I don’t know what will happen to me, but I know it’s the duty of those of us who care about the planet to go on living.’ When I stopped I found I’d burst into tears without realizing. The tears ran down the sides of my face and into my ears. I couldn’t see, I couldn’t hear. I felt I was swimming, drowning.

Eventually, very quietly – or was it just that my ears were full of water? – the man said, ‘Yes, we thought you might be seeing things like that.’

‘I have been through the bad winds. My skin is falling off. I am thirsty all the time. I don’t know how serious it is, but I know I have to go on. If only for the cats. They might need me.’

‘Yes.’

‘What do you
mean
, Yes?’

‘Well, psychosomatic symptoms can be very convincing.’

‘Can’t you get it into your head? There’s been a bloody nuclear war.’

‘Hmmm,’ said the man. He was being deliberately provocative.

‘All right,’ I replied. ‘I may as well listen to your version. I can feel you wanting to tell me.’

‘Well, we think it goes back to your break-up with Greg. And to your relationship of course. The possessiveness, the violence. But the break-up …’

Though I’d been meaning to play along with him, I couldn’t help interrupting. ‘It wasn’t really a break-up. I just took the boat when the war started.’

‘Yes, of course. But things between you … you wouldn’t say they were going well?’

‘No worse than with other blokes. He’s just a bloke, Greg. He’s normal for a bloke.’

‘Precisely.’

‘What do you mean,
precisely
?’

‘Well, we called in your files from the north, you see. There does seem to be a pattern. You like putting all your eggs in one basket. With the same type of man. And that’s always a bit dangerous, isn’t it?’ When I didn’t reply, he went on, ‘We call it the persistent victim syndrome. PVS.’

I decided to ignore that too. For a start, I didn’t know what he was talking about. Spinning some tale or other.

‘There’s a lot of denial in your life, isn’t there? You … deny a lot of things.’

‘Oh no I don’t,’ I said. This was ridiculous. I made up my mind to force him out into the open. ‘Are you telling me, are you telling me there hasn’t been a war?’

‘That’s right. I mean, it was very worrying. It looked as if there might well be one. But they sorted something out.’

‘They sorted something out!’
I said it in a sarcastic shout, because this proved everything. My mind had been remembering that phrase of Greg’s which I’d found so complacent. I enjoyed shouting, I wanted to shout something else, so I did. ‘Until you’ve ate at BJ’s you ain’t shit!” I yelled. I was feeling triumphant, but the man didn’t seem to understand, and he laid a hand on my arm as if I needed comforting.

‘Yes, they really sorted something out. It never happened.’

‘I see,’ I replied, still victorious. ‘So of course I’m not on the island?’

‘Oh no.’

‘I imagined it.’

‘Yes.’

‘And so of course the boat doesn’t exist either?’

‘Oh yes, you went on the boat.’

‘But there weren’t any cats on it.’

‘Yes, you had two cats with you when they found you. They were terribly thin. They only just survived.’

It was cunning of him not to contradict me entirely. Cunning, but predictable. I decided on a switch of tactics. I’d be puzzled, and a bit pathetic. ‘I don’t understand,’ I said,
reaching out and taking his hand. ‘If there wasn’t any war, why was I in the boat?’

‘Greg,’ he said, with a sort of nasty confidence, as if I’d finally admitted something. ‘You were running away. We find that those with persistent victim syndrome often experience acute guilt when they finally take flight. Then there was the bad news from the north. That was your excuse. You were exteriorizing things, transferring your confusion and anxiety on to the world. It’s normal,’ he added patronizingly, though it was obvious he didn’t think so. ‘Quite normal.’

‘I’m not the only persistent victim around here,’ I replied. ‘The whole bloody world’s a persistent victim.’

‘Of course.’ He agreed without really listening.

‘They said there was going to be a war. They said the war had started.’

‘They’re always saying that. But they sorted something out.’

‘So you keep saying. Well. So, in your
version
– I stressed the word – ‘where did they find me?’

‘About a hundred miles east of Darwin. Going round in circles.’

‘Going round in circles,’ I repeated. ‘That’s what the world does.’ First he tells me I’m projecting myself on to the world, then he tells me I’m doing what we all know the world does all the time. This really wasn’t very impressive.

‘And how do you explain my hair falling out?’

‘You’ve been pulling it out, I’m afraid.’

‘And my skin falling off?’

‘It’s been a bad time for you. You’ve been under severe stress. It’s not unusual. But it’ll get better.’

‘And how do you explain that I remember very clearly everything that’s happened from the news of the war breaking out in the north to my time here on the island?’

‘Well, the technical term is fabulation. You make up a story to cover the facts you don’t know or can’t accept. You keep a few true facts and spin a new story round them. Particularly in cases of double stress.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Severe stress in the private life coupled with a political crisis in the world outside. We always get an increase in admissions when things are going badly in the north.’

‘You’ll be telling me next there were dozens of crazy people going round in circles in the sea.’

‘A few. Four or five maybe. Most of the admissions didn’t make it as far as a boat, though.’ He sounded as if he was impressed by my tenacity.

‘And how many … admissions have you had this time?’

‘A couple of dozen.’

‘Well, I admire your fabulation,’ I said, using the technical term back to him. That put him in his place. ‘I really think it’s quite clever.’ He’d given himself away, of course.
You keep a few true facts and spin a new story round them –
exactly what he’d done.

‘I’m glad we’re making some progress, Kath.’

‘Go away and sort something out,’ I said. ‘By the way, is there any news of the reindeer?’

‘What sort of news did you want?’

‘Good news!’ I shouted. ‘Good news!’

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

*

She felt tired when the nightmare left; tired but victorious. She had drawn out the worst the tempter had to offer. She would be safe now. Of course, he’d made a whole series of blunders.
I’m glad we’re making some progress
: he should never have said that. Nobody likes to be patronized by their own mind. The one that really gave him away was about the cats getting thin. That had been the most noticeable thing about the whole voyage, the way the cats got fatter, the way they loved the fish she caught.

She made a decision not to speak to the men again. She couldn’t stop them coming – and she was sure they would visit her for many more nights – but she wouldn’t speak to them. She had learnt how to shut her eyes in her nightmares; now she would learn to stop her ears and her mouth. She wouldn’t be tempted. She wouldn’t.

If she had to die then she would. They must have come
through some very bad winds; how bad she would only find out when she either recovered or died. She worried about the cats, but believed they’d be able to fend for themselves. They would return to nature. They already had. When the food from the boat ran out they took to hunting. Or rather Paul did: Linda was too fat to hunt. Paul brought back small creatures for her, things like voles and mice. Tears bubbled into Kath’s eyes when he did so.

It was all about her mind being afraid of its own death, that’s what she finally decided. When her skin got bad and her hair started falling out, her mind tried to think up an alternative explanation. She even knew the technical term for it now: fabulation. Where had she picked that up from? She must have read it in a magazine somewhere. Fabulation. You keep a few true facts and spin a new story round them.

She remembered an exchange she’d had the previous night. The man in the dream said you deny a lot of things in your life don’t you, and she’d answered oh no I don’t. That was funny, looking back; but it was also serious. You mustn’t fool yourself. That’s what Greg did, that’s what most people did. We’ve got to look at things how they are; we can’t rely on fabulation any more. It’s the only way we’ll survive.

*

The next day, on a small, scrubby island in the Torres Strait, Kath Ferris woke up to find that Linda had given birth. Five tortoiseshell kittens, all huddling together, helpless and blind, yet quite without defect. She felt such love. The cat wouldn’t let her touch the kittens, of course, but that was all right, that was normal. She felt such happiness! Such hope!

5
SHIPWRECK

I

I
T BEGAN WITH
a portent.

They had doubled Cape Finisterre and were sailing south before a fresh wind when a school of porpoises surrounded the frigate. Those on board crowded the poop and the breastwork, marvelling at the animals’ ability to circle a vessel already gaily proceeding at nine or ten knots. As they were admiring the sports of the porpoises, a cry was raised. A cabin boy had fallen through one of the fore portholes on the larboard side. A signal gun was fired, a life-raft thrown out, and the vessel hove to. But these manoeuvres were cumbrously done, and by the time the six-oared barge was let down, it was in vain. They could not find the raft, let alone the boy. He was only fifteen years old, and those who knew him maintained that he was a strong swimmer; they conjectured that he would most probably have reached the raft. If so, he doubtless perished upon it, after having experienced the most cruel sufferings.

The expedition for Senegal consisted of four vessels: a frigate, a corvette, a flute and a brig. It had set sail from the Island of Aix on 17th June 1816 with 365 people on board. Now it continued south with its complement reduced by one. They provisioned at Tenerife, taking on precious wines, oranges, lemons, banian figs and vegetables of all kinds. Here they noted the depravity of the local inhabitants: the women of Saint Croix stood at their doors and urged the Frenchmen to enter, confident that their husbands’ jealousies would be cured by the monks of the Inquisition who would speak disapprovingly of conjugal mania as the blinding gift of Satan. Reflective passengers ascribed such behaviour to the southern sun, whose power, it is known, weakens both natural and moral bonds.

From Tenerife they sailed south-south-west. Fresh winds and navigational ineptitude scattered the flotilla. Alone, the frigate passed the tropic and rounded Cape Barbas. It was running close to the shore, at times no more than half a cannon shot away. The sea was strewn with rocks; brigantines could not frequent these seas at low water. They had doubled Cape Blanco, or so they believed, when they found themselves in shallows; the lead was cast every half-hour. At daybreak Mr Maudet, ensign of the watch, made out the reckoning upon a chicken coop, and judged that they were on the edge of the Arguin reef. His advice was discounted. But even those unschooled in the sea could observe that the water had changed colour; weed was apparent at the ship’s side, and a great many fish were being taken. In calm seas and clear weather, they were running aground. The lead announced eighteen fathoms, then shortly afterwards six fathoms. The frigate luffing, almost immediately gave a heel; a second and third, then stopped. The sounding line showed a depth of five metres and sixty centimetres.