Of Song and Water (11 page)

“I'm telling you,” says his father, “if you found H.M. on the street, you wouldn't know it was him.”

The words drift and disappear, leaving a blank space. The emptiness makes him uneasy. Wanting to fill it, he opens the floodgate, calls to mind all the old pictures and songs, the old colors and conversations – almost everything that he's seen and heard.

H.M. likes to say that there's nothing to believe in but wood. He calls a boat made of plastic a white whale. When he returns after days on Lake Huron, he speaks of being in irons, of ghosting, and of sailing free.

One story gives way to the next.

 

“ON THE lake,” says Havelock, “there can be no dreaming about the man you'd like to be. Whoever you think you are, you lose.” He checks the telltales. “Wind and sun'll wear you down until only the smallest part, the most essential, remains. But even that you leave behind, giving yourself to the boat – skin, hair, teeth, nails, the roots of the flesh – until the hull becomes your body.”

Dorian looks out across the port bow.

Havelock tells himself to stop preaching. The boy has become a man, he thinks. He's grown up fast.

Dorian trims the main and it sets properly.

“That's fine,” says Havelock. “You're a natural. We named you right – Dorian means ‘from the sea.' We may not be on salt water, but this lake's as big as an ocean.”

Dorian nods and manages a smile.

“All right,” says Havelock. “Take the tiller.”

Dorian moves into position.

“Remember, you can scuttle the boat, but a Moore never sinks.”

The sails luff.

“For the love of Christ, don't be so weak in the knees. Watch what you're doing. You're spilling wind.”

H.M. is too tall for the boat, thinks Dorian. He sticks up like a second mast. What keeps him planted on deck? What keeps him from going over?

Havelock leans on the taffrail. The sound of his voice follows the wind. It fills the sail's belly. “You don't know yourself or the boat until you're a singlehander,” he says. “It isn't done easily, but there's freedom in it. The surface of things – wood, canvas, skin – falls away, and you can set yourself on a breeze, feel yourself moving through day and night, sound and silence. No person comes for you here. No one asks for your time or labor. You serve the boat and the weather. You choose your course or find a dark harbor. But it's your choice. As much as you'll ever have.”

Dorian has stopped listening. He feels comfortable on the water. Free of hard ground, almost free of his father, he moves with an easy rhythm. He believes in the heavens, knows that the stars will make themselves apparent through the mists overhead. He finds no fear in capes or haunting inlets. He steers by clouds and the hunches of birds, every slippery, gliding, breathing thing.

His feet grip the deck and the sloop stretches and yawns beneath his hand.

Nothing suits him but the lake. At home, he feels cramped, cowed by the heaviness of his father's rooms. He hates the creaking floor and the cracked ceiling. He keeps to his bedroom and the kitchen, putters in the yard on nice days. Too long on land and he feels nauseous, a nervousness in his stomach and bowel that dissipates only when he casts off.

 

AT HALYARD & MAST, Dorian finds no relief. He takes inventory and prepares the store for new products, but he often fouls up, makes deliberate mistakes, a quiet protest that he hopes will disrupt business or at least break the monotony. If no mistake can be made, then he neglects his assigned duties, happy to put things off and slip away.

He follows the seawall until he has a good view of Saginaw Bay. The movement of boats and gulls calms his stomach. Still, he cannot escape the feeling that the store is built on quicksand, that the floor is dissolving, turning to fine gravel, and that the next step he makes will drag him silently down.

“Was your break long enough?” says Havelock.

Dorian doesn't answer.

Havelock checks off several items on a list. “Finish the sorting,” he says.

“It's done.”

“I saw it,” says Havelock. “It's a mess. Hardware's spilling from one bin to the next and you left different sizes in the same bins. Most of 'em are too full.”

“Do you want me to do it again?” says Dorian.

“If you're not too busy.”

“Thought I'd go over and check the sloop. Clean up the topsides.”

“Do it later,” says Havelock.

Dorian walks down the long aisle and dumps a bin of washers on the floor. On top of that pile, he dumps a larger bin of nuts and bolts.

I'm a sailor, he thinks, and not much else. He can feel his father's contempt when they're together at Halyard & Mast. But on clear and blustery days when they leave the store behind and go sailing, he senses a change – a strange calm or satisfaction. When this happens, the preaching and the intimidation fall away. What remains is an old man talking mostly to himself. “Small craft live or die by their wits,” he says. “That's our pride. The way we earn our solitude.”

 

DORIAN notices, perhaps for the first time, the gray in Havelock's beard.

Faya rinses her hands at the sink. “It might rain,” she says.

The floor creaks as Havelock leans over the counter and looks out at the sky. Something in the kitchen shifts.

The bread can't possibly rise, thinks Dorian. A hard weight, an undeniable pressure, fills the room. He imagines standing in a hole while a stranger fills it with gravel. At first, he can't move his feet, then his legs. He feels buried up to the waist when a hand drops on his shoulder.

“You okay?” says Havelock.

“Fine,” says Dorian. His father's face is a cloudy and distorted mirror. He thinks of it as something quite separate from himself.

He looks forward to clear skies and the old man heading out on Lake Huron alone, disappearing for days at a time, running long races, practicing the duties, the religion, of a singlehander.

More than this, he anticipates the coming weeks when he'll drive by himself to Bay City and park in H.M.'s space. In the interest of avoiding extra work, he'll suspend all acts of sabotage and sort the mail, answer the phone, receive deliveries, and ring up customers with newfound precision. He'll take less than an hour for lunch and spend most of it at the marina talking with likely customers. But none of this will happen until his father leaves, until the singlehanded sailing begins.

Faya, still at the sink, says again that it feels like rain.

“I wish this weather would move through in a hurry,” says Havelock. Nothing will calm him now except wind and sail, except running straight out from shore, alone on the water. A singlehander sleeps in short bursts, a necessity that leaves no time for dreaming, for the memories that persist in dreams.

When the time is right, he'll lock all the windows and doors, hand over the keys, and repeat his directive to keep everything closed both day and night. “Don't answer the door,” he'll say. “If a stranger calls, let 'im rot.” No one asks why he despises and berates solicitors, why he runs off drummers when he can, all of them terrified as they scamper down the front walk dropping brushes, hair tonic, and Bibles.

Dorian worries that H.M. will never leave, that something will occur, an accident or an injury, that'll tie his father to the house. Dorian's plan is to get a sailboat of his own. He'll go if his father stays. He'll slip out quietly with or without a fair breeze.

 

STANDING in the cockpit, alone on Lake Huron, Havelock feels something – a log or an old plank – bumping the port bow.

He steers into the wind and the boat stalls.

He puts on a harness. He frees a lanyard and clips one end to the harness and the other to a jackstay. Then he goes forward.

Lying on the deck, he thrusts his head and shoulders over the bow and inspects the hull for damage.

The boat bobs and swings like a cork in a rippling pond.

“She'll pitch me over,” he whispers, his body beginning to slide. He grabs a stanchion.

Never forget, he thinks, harness and jack lines always serve better than a crew. And don't leave the cockpit – don't make a move – unless it's carefully planned. A singlehander's mistake is impatience, thinking a harness is too much fuss, believing a tether is foolishness, except for goons and wobbly guests.

 

DORIAN likes the smell of fresh biscuits. He likes talking to his mother, especially when H.M. is out of the house. He sits on the kitchen counter and watches a flurry of baking powder rise into the air.

“I saw a purple flower today,” he says.

“Large or small petals?” says his mother.

“Small. Growing in a pile of rocks.”

“Where was it?”

“Next to the road.”

“Must be stubborn,” she says.

“It looked lost,” he says. “One flower with nothing around it. Just rocks and gravel in all directions. Why would it grow there?”

“Why doesn't matter,” she says. “It's something beautiful.”

“It's not pretty,” he says. “I wanted to pull it up.”

“Did you?”

“No. I left it.”

“Good. Better it should fend for itself.”

“But it can't fend for itself.”

“It's there, isn't it? Who are you to decide?”

“It's just a flower,” he says. He slips off the counter, opens the refrigerator, and takes out a pitcher of iced tea.

“Pour me a glass, too,” says his mother.

He fills two glasses and cuts a lemon. “I bet it won't last long,” he says.

 

THE STORE is almost tolerable, he thinks, with Benny Goodman on the radio and the morning sun, hard and flat, filling the street. The cash in the register drawer matches the receipts.

He cleans the display cases and sweeps. He raises a few windows, opens the front and back doors and the door to his father's office. A breeze comes up from the bay. It moves through the aisles like a mountain stream.

Into the store walks a tall young woman with auburn hair. She glances down the aisles but takes no interest in the merchandise.

“Can I help you?” he says.

“Not really,” she says. “I'm waiting for my family to finish breakfast. I saw the open door. It looked cool and peaceful in here. The air is lovely.”

“It's a fair breeze,” he says.

“My name is Meredith,” she says. “Is this your place?”

Dorian almost laughs and shakes his head. “My father owns it.”

“I see. So you're the manager?”

“No. He's the man in charge.”

“Is he here?”

“He's out sailing.”

“You're the boss, then. At least for now.”

“I suppose.”

“Sounds to me like you should be sailing, too.”

“Sure.”

“Do you ever go with him?”

“Sometimes. Mostly he's a singlehander.”

Meredith looks surprised. “Is that possible?”

“Of course.”

“I don't know anything about boats or bays or the Great Lakes.”

“There's a lot to know.”

“Is there?”

He moves a stack of paper on the counter and, seeing the balance sheet, starts going over a few figures.

“I'm sorry,” she says. “You're busy. I'm taking too much of your time.”

“There's always work to do,” he says.

Meredith leans on the counter. “But the work bothers you.”

The words catch him off guard. “Is that a question?”

“It's in your face,” she says. “You look gloomy.”

“What are you doing for lunch?” he says.

She smiles. “I just ate. I don't think I'll be hungry by noon.”

“I could take a late lunch – get some work done before we go.”

“But you don't like the work.”

“I know.”

“It's sad. You're the boss, but you don't like it.”

“Maybe you should take over,” he says.

“If your father offered me the job, I'd accept.”

He looks around the store and then at Meredith. “Fine with me,” he says.

“I could do it,” she says.

“I imagine so.”

“Will you tell him I can do it?”

“Sure.”

“Why do you dislike him?” says Meredith.

“ – I don't.”

“That's not true,” she says.

“It's not that exactly,” he says.

“What is it then?”

“He makes me nervous. I'm under his thumb.”

“When will he be back?” she says.

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“Wind. Weather.”

She nods.

He looks at the curve of her neck and the perfect line of her shoulders. “Where are you from?”

“Bloomfield Hills,” she says. “I'm only here for the weekend.”

“Are you free for lunch?” he says.

“There's a customer,” she says. “Ask him what he wants.”

 

IT'S GOOD wood, thinks Havelock. No damage.

He stands and feels the tether pulling on his harness.

Almost smiling, he remembers the last time he fell overboard. He'd somehow managed to ignore a frayed painter, lowering a dinghy into the current. Snap went the line and he plunged into port, the water closing over. But a Moore never sinks.

He kicked to the surface, saw the clouds making way for sunbeams, the water in all directions glinting like a field of diamonds. How could he drown surrounded by such beauty? How could he give up? He felt no urgency, despite wet gear and heavy shoes, to lift his body out of the bay. Instead, he floated and breathed steadily. He accepted his fall as a matter of hard use, as something unavoidable.