Lifeboat (2 page)

‘What's that, dear?' asked the sister, looking up from her desk where she was sorting the Christmas mail.

I gave her my card. ‘For my mother,' I said.

She read the inscription. ‘Lovely, dear. I am going to put it here, so all the other girls can see how to spell “affectionate” correctly.'

She lifted the card up to the shelf, the position of honour for children's work. But I wanted it mailed with the other cards.

‘What is it, dear?' she asked again when I did not resume my seat. ‘Go and sit down and wait for the others to finish.'

I didn't want to ask. I wanted her to take one of those beautiful white envelopes from the pile and pass it to me. She followed my eyes, moon big over the horizon line of her desk to the envelopes. A shadow blew across her round white face, dismissed with a blink. She looked sad and I wondered what I had done amiss. She pushed the mail aside and reached into her desk, withdrawing one sheet of stiff white paper.

‘There's no mail for you, dear,' she said kindly. ‘But,' said she, lifting her voice to a trumpet tone, ‘you have come top of the class this year and this is your certificate of achievement. Congratulations, dear, we are very proud of you.'

I returned to my desk, certificate clutched in my hand. I hated that certificate; when no one was looking I stamped on it, I tore it up, I threw it out the window into the snow; I hoped I hurt it.

Ten years later I left the convent to take up a scholarship at Oxford, studying languages. By then I had transferred my energies from coveting beautiful white envelopes to collecting a perfect set of certificates of achievement. That was the only year missing.

The position of interpreter had been created to cope with increasing international trade. Being a department of one, I was placed with the clerical staff in Immigration, mostly women. Although they welcomed me, I think that, given my nationality and education, they expected someone more cosmopolitan. However, they were not unkind and would often invite me on their onslaughts to bars and parties. But I always declined and they never pressed, thinking me disinterested. They were wrong, I wasn't disinterested. I just didn't know how to do it and was too scared.

I have heard it said that some people ‘lose themselves in their work'; I found myself. I took on as many extra duties as I could and was soon labelled a career girl by the typists and secretaries. This was a modern term, gleaned from the occasional glossy magazine left behind by a summer tourist; it held an alien mystique that added to my separation. So I hid amongst my books and languages; when one speaks so many different tongues it's easy to find one not to be understood in.

But not everything was work, for the journey to the island revealed in me a secret passion: the sea. Its voluptuous folds and heady perfume. The promise of discovery beyond the horizon and in the dark, hidden depths. To send myself to sleep at night I imagined myself floating alone in the middle of the ocean, out of sight of land, quiet, rocked by the swell. The image comforted me. I know now that the ocean is not always so benign, but in those days I had only experienced a storm from the safety of a warm house on land. In light of this fantasy, I suppose my attachment to the lifeboat pair was not surprising; maybe I even envied them.

Each day, on board the ship that carried me away from England, my passion shook free of its landlocked past, moved within me and grew. Each morning I awoke at dawn to walk the decks, revelling in the grey nothing to either side of the boat. The books I brought with me, measured out carefully to see me through the long journey, were left in the cabin.

This discovery of mine seemed appropriate, in keeping with a unique characteristic of my own. I have never suffered from seasickness, but am affected by a stranger physiological phenomenon which began at puberty: I can predict the weather. Or, more specifically, I know when a storm is approaching. Long before the weathermen broadcast warnings, my stomach begins to cramp and ache, a feeling not unlike indigestion, increasing relative to the size of the storm. It has proved useful many times; one twinge tells me rain is on the way and I can bring in the washing or cancel a day out. After I learnt to sail, that feeling in my stomach saw me turning about for the safety of the nearest harbour.

One afternoon on board I strayed past the bridge and was invited in by the cadet on duty. The mate was kind enough to point out our position on the map and even allowed me to take the helm for a few minutes. They made a great game of saluting me and calling me captain.

It was a clear day, with only the occasional cloud in the sky, but my stomach was cramping. Caught unawares, I winced and put my hand to the area.

‘Are you sick?' asked the mate with concern.

He took my elbow and led me to a chair, encouraging me to sit down.

‘Come on now, captain,' said the cadet, trying to joke me out of it. ‘Can't have our best sailor getting seasick.'

‘No, it's not that,' I replied, looking up at him. ‘I really am alright. Just a little discomfort.'

‘Should I get the doctor?' asked the mate.

‘I can take her down to him, sir,' offered the cadet.

‘Really, I'm fine,' I insisted, standing.

‘Sit back down, miss, please,' said the mate firmly. ‘I'll get the doctor to you.'

He was determined, so I thought it best to explain.

‘It's the weather,' I said. ‘There's a storm coming.'

They both looked nonplussed.

‘No storms that we know of, miss,' said the cadet finally, looking out to the horizon as if one might suddenly appear from nowhere.

‘No, it won't be here until later tonight – probably just some rain and wind, nothing very severe,' I replied, feeling only a slight pain in my stomach. The cramps would accelerate as the storm grew closer.

They looked at me politely, too well-mannered to reveal what they were thinking.

‘I can feel approaching storms – tell when they're on their way – by the pains in my stomach,' I explained.

‘Really?' said the mate, looking closely at me. ‘How interesting.'

‘Do you have a weather office or something?' I asked, hearing his disbelief. ‘They may have a forecast.'

‘I can radio in, sir, back to the last port, see what they've heard?' suggested the cadet, who seemed quite taken with the idea. ‘I've heard of it before, I think: a cadet on my last vessel had a brother like that, he said. Family of sailors they were, all of them in the service. I never believed him, sir, but I don't think this young lady would lead us on.'

The mate looked at me again.

‘Go on then, cadet, go on,' he said, not taking his eyes off me. It made me feel embarrassed, like a child prodigy singled out during school assembly.

The cadet radioed in, and received a positive response. We heard back over the radio: light storms expected late that evening, with winds of up to thirty knots and showers. The mate smiled at me.

‘Well, miss, I must apologise. I doubted you but have been proved wrong. Please accept my apology.'

I smiled in return; the cadet stared at me without speaking.

‘Was your father a sailor?' asked the mate.

I shook my head.

‘Are you?' he asked.

‘This is my first voyage. And only the second time I've seen the sea in my entire life.'

‘Well, you should be – that is a remarkable gift. I have heard of fishermen developing it over the years, but to have been born that way is outstanding.'

‘Thank you,' I replied, although it was nothing I could be called responsible for. I wondered where it had come from. From my parents, perhaps? My father had been an officer, that much I knew, but not in the navy.

Word of my talent soon spread amongst the crew and lighthearted enquiries about the weather were made with every greeting. I didn't mind and found myself half wishing for a storm, just so I might prove myself further by raising the alarm.

It was during this voyage that I decided to learn to sail, a decision I pursued with enthusiasm as soon as I settled into my new job.

From my rented house on the hill I had a magnificent view of the harbour, and an even closer view from the office windows. As I watched the boats come and go I decided that if I were to be a sailor, I would be a proper sailor, of a yacht, a sleek, swan-like vessel and not a motorboat, which required only steering.

I borrowed books on sailing from the library and took weekend lessons from the man who hired out dinghies to the summer tourists. He tried to sell me one, a wooden bathtub with a sail, but I knew my yacht had to be much better, much bigger. He muttered something about oceangoing not being for girls; I ignored him.

I bought maps too, spending my evenings plotting voyages of exploration. The seas around the island were rich with maritime history. The French, the English and the Spanish had all fought in those waters, and traded there when not fighting. Pirates, descended from the ancient corsairs, still sailed the waters to the north. From dry land it all seemed so romantic.

Eventually I found my dream boat. She was a canoe-stern ketch rig, about thirty feet long, with a gleaming, curved white hull that played in the waves like a porpoise, catching the sun with an exuberant gleam. I watched her lucky owners take her out on weekends. Each Monday morning from the office window, I checked to see her safely home again, resting at her mooring.

One morning I arrived at work to find the mooring empty. Nor was she out on the bay. I dithered through my work until lunchtime freed me to hurry to the docks and enquire at the marina.

‘Being de-fouled and overhauled,' a woman told me over the top of her newspaper. ‘They're selling.'

I hurried to the slips and found her, high and dry with a ‘For Sale' sign attached to her prow rail. Enquiries lead me to her owner, and in my anxiety not to miss out, I'm sure I paid too much. But she became mine. I thought it was meant to be.

‘They saw you coming,' said the shipwright dryly when I came to collect her.

DEATH

Hands upon her, hands on her hair, her arms, hands holding her hand, passing her food, pressed to lips to invoke silence; this is what she remembers. And a photo, shimmering in sunlight, of her parents beneath the crazy tree, drinks in hand, her father with his rifle. Ironic that she should remember him with a gun, not a pen.

Forgotten were the tumbling years of childhood as she rode upon his shoulders into the world. He called her his huntress and dazzled her with poems and stories for her ears only.

His death is recorded, the gun taken as evidence, then released to the son of the police sergeant's sister, when her guardians turned it down.

The sky stretched overhead, dry and silent – no tears, no rain, no forgiveness, no memories, no happiness ever again for a childish heart. Hot sun fingers stabbing her skin, pinning her to the dusty earth, pinning her to the fallen body, to the river of blood that trickled between the scrub-grass clumps and rocks and dirt and insects.

Then hands, black hands, pulling her away, searching in her eyes to sing away the sorrow. Hands wiping her brow, wiping her feet, taking her away from the shady grave beneath the crazy tree where she knew her father would make room for her if she asked.

DAY TWO

The old couple and I began a routine that was to continue for some days to come. Winter, such as it was in that country's tropical clime, was a quiet time at work for me. Few vessels braved the fierce storms that swept clean the large ocean between us and the outside world. I was allowed to spend as much time as I deemed fit with the castaways, as long as I kept all my other paperwork up to date. I saw them as a fascinating problem to be solved; it surprised me when I found myself enjoying our conversations.

Their first night passed peacefully, although neither slept much. She said she missed the rocking of the boat; he said nothing at all, so we sat in silence as the morning sun warmed the grey linoleum floor of the interview room. A bee buzzed in frustration against the glass of the large windows that looked out to the harbour. I had tried to open them, but painters long before my time ensured my efforts would be in vain; the bee would buzz until it died or found an alternate escape route.

I read the harbourmaster's report on their lifeboat. The man was right; there were no markings to reveal the mother ship of the lifeboat. I perused the harbourmaster's brief surmises as to the possible origin of the castaways. As no notice of missing persons had been received he rejected any notion that they had come from a registered vessel. Unregistered vessels belonged to pirates, illegal fishermen and smugglers, a possibility he ruled out owing to their age and their obvious disorientation. With regret, he wrote, his department could be of no use to me and he wished me luck.

As I acknowledged this setback in what should have been a routine investigation, I was conscious of a selfish surge of excitement – it was now up to me and me alone to discover who they were.

The bee buzzed on. After a few moments the man pushed back his chair with an uncharacteristically quick movement and strode to the window. He gave a great heave, but the window would not give, no matter how hard he strained.

‘It's painted shut,' I remarked, without looking up from my paperwork.

The room was silent for a few moments until I heard the woman give a sharp intake of breath. Her gaze led me to where the man stood, fist about to swing through the window pane. I gave a shout and rose to my feet. But I needn't have been scared. He brought his fist up short of the glass and I realised he had actually caught the bee in mid-flight. It was an incongruously delicate move for a man of his size. I could hear a faint buzzing from inside his immense hand, and wondered that he didn't seem at all worried about being stung.

‘Where can I release it?' he asked.

I motioned for him to follow me from the room to a window in the hallway. As he gently encouraged the insect from his hand, I noticed the long sinewy muscles of his arms and wrists and the calluses on his ill-kept fingers. They were the hands of a working man, used to hard physical labour. His size and fitness suggested an ominous strength that his gentle capture of the bee belied. He released it and we returned to the interview room without saying a word.

Although we had been gone only minutes, the woman was curled up fast asleep on the bench. He walked over and checked on her, and came back to sit down in front of my desk.

‘She slept a lot on board,' he remarked.

‘The harbourmaster found no markings on the boat.'

He didn't reply. I tried another tack.

‘Now you have been rescued and slept safely, do any memories return?'

He looked at me so stolidly I wondered what I'd said that was wrong. I felt a flicker of annoyance tap through my fingertips.

‘What?' I asked, putting down my pen with a sharp click.

‘Rescued.'

‘You dispute that you were rescued?' I asked.

‘I cannot make that judgment yet.'

‘Surely it's better to be here than lost in the middle of an ocean?'

‘Last night I was locked into a bare room – I saw life through a barred window.'

I couldn't argue with the truth of what he had said, so I shuffled my papers instead and tried a simpler question.

‘Do you remember anything?'

‘Some things.'

‘What?'

‘I am not sure they are relevant.'

‘But they're all you remember. I do not mean to upset you, sir, but anything is something when you have nothing. What you remember could be important, no matter how insignificant it seems.'

‘And let you be the judge of that?'

His tone was sarcastic, which surprised me – sarcasm is an attack I usually equate with smaller, sharper people. Nor did I expect antagonism.

‘I'm just trying to help,' I said, sounding plaintive, even to my ears. He raised his eyebrows at me.

‘You are just a child.'

I was not going to allow him to bully me.

‘But I am the only one who speaks your language fluently, which is why they have appointed this “child” to help you. Yours is a difficult situation, but if you would prefer I can hand you back to stand in line behind the lost fishermen this department usually processes.'

He said nothing.

‘So, tell me what you remember, please, sir,' I said, opening my notebook and picking up my pen. I glared at him, daring him to push me. He met my stare and pursed his lips, then laughed.

‘Very well,' he said. ‘I suppose as all I remember seems so childish, who better to tell it to.'

I chose to ignore the barb and simply nodded, waiting for him to begin.

‘I remember a cobbled street,' he said. ‘Pumpkins drying on the roofs of whitewashed houses, bright against wide blue sky. I'm walking up this street; I am happy; the sun shines on my back. I think I am a child of six or so. In front of me a door slowly swings open. The door is blue; a different blue to the sky. The two blues jar and shimmy against each other. From inside I hear clattering; hooves, shod hooves on cobblestone, clanging with an urgency that is compelling, beating at the sunshine from inside the cool, dark interior of the house. Then a beautiful horse bursts out. A palomino; the most beautiful horse I have ever seen – proud, muscular, copper sheen shining in the sun. The horse prances about, swinging wide on stamping hooves.

‘At first I think we are alone, the horse and me, but as it turns it reveals a tiny, burly man, in shorts and sandals, clinging to a tatty lead rope. He is being dragged by the horse, tossed like a bobbing cork on a wave, but he is not unhappy. He skates along by its side, grinning, trying to hold on and close the stable door after the horse, as the horse tries to bolt. I step up to help him. He smiles and thanks me; I reply in form.

‘The horse hears my voice and swings to confront me. It steps at me, snorting and sidling. I stand still, bewitched by its beauty and coquetry, the way the muscles on its arching neck undulate, the strength of its chest, the delicacy of its legs, stamping a demand that I explain myself. The horse is large upon me, tossing and shaking its wave-cap mane, ears pricked forward, eyes rolling. But I am not scared and so my stillness interests it. It stretches its head forward elegantly to my child's face and blows softly upon me. Its breath is sweet, musky. Instinctively I blow back to it and for a still, still moment our faces touch.

‘Even now I can feel the magic of its velvety, quivering muzzle. It is our moment, the horse and I, we are in our own world washed over by the sun. Then the horse is gone, spinning around, charging up the street dragging its little man behind. I stand, holding the moment with my breath for many minutes after they have left. Why I remember this I cannot tell you. But the memory makes me happy.'

He fell silent. But he was smiling, and until that moment I hadn't noticed that he never had before. And in his happiness I saw a rock to build on, a mountainside to climb in the sun, a hill to lie on in grass amongst flowers. I longed to feel that happiness myself. Tears spiked my eyes. I looked down and blinked hard, angry to be crying, confused as to why. I took a deep breath and looked up. But the man was not watching; he'd left the table to stand at the windows again, staring out to sea across the busy dockyard. He moved quietly for someone of his size.

In my confusion I asked: ‘And do you remember in which country this was? Do you remember the nationality of the horse?'

He turned slowly and stared at me as if I were mad. My mortification saw an easy exit and hid within my annoyance:

‘Well, if we are to discover who you are I will need more than just happy memories.'

He stood still, holding my gaze as a look of great pity swept the landscape of his face, like the shadow of clouds.

In hindsight, I see that what he had described was a tiny moment of perfection. The big things in life are so impressed upon us that we often forget those small perfect moments, forget how to recognise them, how to feel them. Then forget them altogether.

The woman stirred from her sleep and sat up, bright eyed and blinking.

‘I am hungry,' she announced. ‘Where can I get some food?'

I took them to the waterfront, to a small cafe that serviced the dockworkers. We ate rolls, with cheese, figs and grapes, and watched the boats go past. I didn't know if I was allowed to take them outside, but decided not to ask. I think this was the first time my association with these two prompted me to disregard the regulations.

‘You slept again,' I said, by way of starting the conversation.

‘And dreamt. I dreamt I was in Africa,' she said, smiling at both of us. ‘I was with my father, listening to the lions roar before bedtime.'

‘Your father? You're sure it was your father?' I asked.

‘Yes, I am. I can't say why I am so sure, but I see his face so clearly and I know who he is to me.'

‘Tell me what you dreamt.'

‘I am not sure it was a dream. It seemed so real – there was such detail.'

‘That's good. Maybe as you rest your memories are returning. Tell me.'

‘But if it was just a dream?'

‘It doesn't matter if it was just a dream. It is, at least, a starting point. Yesterday you had nothing.'

I didn't know this for certain, but it occurred to me that their identities had to be somewhere and that maybe something in their dreams could tempt them out.

‘You said you were with your father, listening to lions roar at bedtime.'

‘Sounds more like a fairytale,' said she, laughing.

‘But you remember?' I said, pushing her to recount it quickly; dreams could be lost by just trying to grasp them.

‘Yes, it is all in my head and it seems as clear as a film playing.'

‘Then tell us.'

With a quick movement, she pulled her knees up to her chest, as a girl would, and pushed her hair from her face. She looked away from me and her eyes lost focus.

In a storytelling voice she began: ‘Listening to the lions rather than a bedtime story. In the evening as the sun went down, he would come to me, supposedly to supervise my prayers, as my mother insisted that I not be brought up a heathen. I needed to be prepared for when we “went back” she said. I don't think I wanted to “go back”.

‘My father would stand by my bed and look down through a cloud of pipe smoke, Bible in hand. “Tonight,” he would say, “the reading will be about a lot of saints from Ecclesiastes II.” Or Genesis I or some other such nonsense. And then he'd sit down at my bedside and look at me straight-faced, but with a twinkle in his eye. I would respond accordingly, folding my hands primly as if in prayer. Then he'd say: “But you look like a girl not easily impressed by saints and their doings – I think we need something much scarier for you. Tell me, young lady, are you scared of lions?” And I'd stay quite serious and say: “No, Father, for I have God and a big stick to defend me.” He'd say: “Good girl – never forget that big stick. Let's have lions and danger rather than saints and fine doings anytime.”

‘Then he'd stride to the window and throw it wide open to the African plains. From the dusty air the sound of lions and hyenas and beasts of all kinds would wend their way in. “Never forget, child,” Father said, “that God is something living and anything else is just the opinions of people we've never met.”

‘That was my father's sermon each Sunday. After which we'd sit quietly in the dark and talk about anything until I fell asleep. My father was a writer; I do not think that there were any other children. We lived in Africa and my mother was very beautiful. He would read me his latest work and I was always dazzled by the worlds he built with words, pouring one on top of another like wet sand on a sand castle. Just for me. I always thought he wrote just for me. Imagine my surprise when one Sunday a woman came to visit us wearing a hat and neat hair, carrying my father's words all bound up in a book between her gloved hands as if she too owned them. I hated her and dropped the teacup from its wobbling saucer all over her pressed together knees. She laughed and brushed it off. My mother did not and later she and Father argued.

‘From where I'd been sent early to bed I heard talk of school and manners. That night at prayer time my father burst into my room and strode straight to the window. I could tell he was still angry and, as children always do, I thought I was solely responsible. He threw the window open wide and shouted into the night: “Come and get her, come and take my daughter away you wild beasts, she's not scared!”