Lifeboat (16 page)

‘Our child,' she said, as he hauled her on board, her head lolling, showing them her face.

‘Why weren't you there?' she asked of him, as he stood with the girl's body in his arms. ‘Why weren't you there when she died, our child, our hope.'

‘Iam here now.'

‘Now is too late.'

‘No. She's still alive.'

The woman cradled the girl in her arms as he sailed for the island under full sail.

When they reached the mooring they waved to the men standing on the shoreline, thinking: here is help. But their greeting was returned by gunshots. He crouched, covering the girl's body with his own. Bullets splintered the deck either side of him. He heard the woman say: ‘They will not shoot me.'

He heard the splash as the woman fell.

He stood, looking for where she had fallen, looking for blood-red rising from the storm-brown sea.

Instead he saw her swimming towards the shore and felt happy, like he was watching her in the summertime of a holiday. He picked up the unconscious girl and said into her ear: ‘We are going to be alright.'

DAY FOURTEEN

That is how I survived the storm.

Tied to my lifeboat, I let go and the craft ferried me through the waves. I have since learnt that one should never try to fight such forces of nature, that I should have turned my boat about and gone with the waves, as the boat did once I was unconscious.

I have no memory of those minutes, hours, lifetimes I spent, strung across the upturned dinghy until rescued.

‘How did you find me?'

They spoke in unison: ‘By chance.' ‘Good luck.'

‘So why did you turn back? You sailed back into the storm.'

‘We didn't mean to, but it was the only way,' she said.

‘Why?'

The man smiled at me as I lay in the hospital bed, his eyes clear and untroubled, a horizon swept clean. He looked different; younger, with his beard gone and his hair trimmed short and brushed back from his face.

‘I knew you'd understand what we did,' he said. ‘But you once said you were sure someone would be looking for us. On board as we fled, those words kept coming back to me and I realised I did not want that someone to be you.'

He smiled and put his arm around the woman. ‘My wife agreed, so we turned the boat about.'

‘Your wife?' I sat up, dismissing their pleas that I lay still. He took a pillow from the shelf and slipped it behind my shoulders.

‘There,' he said. ‘At least lie back or they'll accuse us of upsetting you.'

‘Which they have already, of course,' said the woman, laughing. ‘We are no longer in chains, but we're not their favourite tourists either.'

‘Tourists?'

‘Yes,' she said, smiling. ‘Thanks to the doctor we discovered we are nothing more dangerous than common tourists. The simplest answer is usually the truth, is it not?'

‘You've seen him?' I asked. ‘How long have I been in hospital?'

‘Two days,' she said. ‘And yes we've seen the doctor -he met us at your mooring, with the police. And we've seen your boss and several of your colleagues, your young man and his aunt – quite a network of people you had looking out for us.'

I looked at her, startled. It took me a moment to realise that when she said ‘my young man', she meant the librarian.

‘And your neighbour – a lovely woman,' she continued. ‘She seems to think that we're your parents and, I hope you'll forgive us, we haven't corrected her.'

I put my arms around her and hugged her.

‘Of course, I wish it were true,' I said as we embraced. I leant back into the pillows, feeling tired.

‘But you said “wife”,' I demanded, turning to him. ‘Your wife?'

He smiled proudly. ‘Yes, she is my wife, I am her husband.'

‘Congratulations,' I said. ‘I never believed that you were a pirate.'

‘I know. Thank you for your note by the way, and the flowers.' He dug in his pocket and pulled out my handkerchief. ‘May I keep it?'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘Thank you for rescuing me.'

‘No, it's us who must thank you,' said she.

‘Why?'

‘Your work, your care,' she said. ‘Your boss has explained the extraordinary lengths you went to and the way you stood up to her in our defence. The doctor has told us how you found him and bullied him into helping us. And thanks to your wire, our solicitor has confirmed the identity of my companion.'

Something that had been bothering me could now be resolved. ‘But tell me, how did you know he was your husband – before this – when they arrested you?'

She frowned, recalling the scene.

‘Seeing him attacked I knew I could not bear to lose him.'

‘I can understand that,' I said. ‘You had become so close.'

‘It's not just that,' she replied. ‘It was more. I found I could not bear to lose him – again. It was the same feeling as in my dream, but for the first time it came to me outside sleep. I realised who he was only as I said the words.'

‘Like a hidden reef,' I said, tracing a line in the sheet with my finger. ‘It's like a reef that's hidden under the water – you can't see it, but as soon as you hit it you know what you've hit.'

‘Yes indeed,' he agreed. ‘Spoken like a true sailor. And we had lost our maps.'

‘Maps? What a way to put it,' she said, laughing with him. ‘I must tell the doctor that one. Does that make him a cartographer?'

‘Of the human condition – I think he'd like that. So,' I said, turning to him. ‘Was that you on board the pirate ship?'

‘Yes, we think so,' he replied. ‘But I was a prisoner, not a pirate. According to the sailor who saw me, I jumped overboard before the second explosion – the one that sank the vessel. He saw me carrying something – I think it was my wife, too precious to be left behind.'

‘And the pirate captain?'

‘I killed him.'

‘We do not know that as a certainty,' the woman said hurriedly. ‘We can only surmise.'

‘But it would explain many things,' he said. ‘Our escape, my amnesia. Such a violent event, combined with the physical impact of the second explosion, could have led to what the doctor calls dissociative amnesia. He has done a good deal of study on the effects of trauma on the mind. We hope, between us, to be able to retrieve the truth.'

‘So,' I said, working it out as I spoke, ‘you ended up where you were going all along.'

‘We just took a different route and met you on the way,' he said.

‘And you were never dead?'

He shook his head, holding his arms out from his side as if to say ‘Here I am'.

‘I am happy to say no, it was all a mistake.'

‘Nor was he trying to kill me,' she said. ‘I have discussed that dream with the doctor, who said it represents some unresolved anger between us. He is requesting copies of my case notes from the clinic in England where he first treated me. He wants us to stay and work with him – he believes that with time and treatment he can restore our pasts to us.'

The truth seemed more confusing than my imaginings.

‘We learn something new about ourselves every day,' he said. ‘For us, the past unfolds like the future. Would you like to hear more of what we have discovered?'

Theirs would be a strange tale, but no stranger than they deserved and I wanted to hear it.

‘First,' said she, opening the drawer of the bedside table. ‘These are from your friends. We thought you'd like to open them yourself.'

She held out a small stack of white envelopes, of the sort that contain greeting cards. I took them. A slow smile spread across my face, like the glow of the afternoon sun.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to the editor of this book, Rob Cullinan, for discovering
The Lifeboat
manuscript and supporting it all the way to publication, with great skill, understanding and constant encouragement. Thanks also to Madonna Duffy for her faith and enthusiasm, and all the staff at UQP for their care and expertise.

So many family and friends helped me along my way, with critiques and kind words, not all literary. I would like to thank: Sian Newey, Robyn Williams, Roley Nuske, Louise Newey, Geoff Winestock, Miriam Van Lith, John Gowing, Carol Scott, Justin O'Leary, Jennifer Wright, Louise Shaw, Deborah Soukup, John Donoghue, Amy Kludas, Shawn Stevenson, Paddy Newey, Eva Knopke, Neil Steffens, Ashley Knopke, Kate Newey, Helen Peacock, Tim Ingleton, Angela Knight, Nick Newey, Lisa Newey, Brett Knopke, Victoria Broecker, Terese Fiedler and Yoshi Kobayashi. Thanks to Brock Elbank for the beautiful photographs and Arts Queensland for the grant.

My thanks to my two children, Mila and Sam, created along with the book, for unknowingly forcing me to get it finished, and lastly to my husband Chris, for love, financial security, and laughing at housework left undone.

First published 2008 by University of Queensland Press
PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia
This digital edition published 2016

www.uqp.com.au

© Zacharey Jane

This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any foram or by any means without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to the publisher.

Typeset in 12/17pt Garamond Premier Pro by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane Printed in Australia by McPherson's Printing Group

This project has been assisted by the Commonwealth Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

Cataloguing in Publication Data
National Library of Australia

Jane, Zacharey.
The lifeboat

I. Title.

A823.4

ISBN 978 0 7022 3642 6 (pbk)
ISBN 978 0 7022 5853 4 (pdf)
ISBN 978 0 7022 5854 1 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7022 5855 8 (kindle)