We Float Upon a Painted Sea (30 page)

Later in the day, the wind dropped and the fog returned. It was thick and encircled them. The lifeboat continued to power its way through the waves, rocking from side to side in a hypnotising manner. Andrew considered the wisdom of navigating blind through fog but he felt it was a risk worth taking. It had been a long time since he had felt land under his feet and he was itching to feel the sensation again. His mind wandered back to his Borders home, where he was raised. He imagined the aromatic smell of the golden autumn leaves as he trailed through the Ettrick Forest and the Eildon Hills. He remembered the fishing trips to the Tweed, sitting on the banks of the river with his thermos flask, eating freshly prepared sandwiches. He remembered his Grandfather telling him about the secret hollow of the Devil’s Beef Tub, where the Covenanters would hide from the dragoons in the 17
th
century. His mind was filled with visions of the waterfall at the Grey Mare’s Tail, the haunted castle of Neidpath and days out with the family at the Kelso races.

On deck Bull noticed a rope tied to a dolly and dragging behind the boat. He tried to loosen the knot by hand but eventually he gave up and returned to the cabin. He shouted to Andrew from the hatch door, asking if he could borrow his multi-tool to cut the rope. No answer came forth. Bull looked at Andrew’s lower torso, not able to see his head. He described how the rope should have been tied up and how foolish they would feel if they ended up having to repair the propellers again, if it had gotten snagged on the blades. He imagined Andrew’s moribund expression and sneering lips as he continued the more important task of piloting the vessel, leaving all the less important ship maintenance jobs to him. He shouted once more but then decided that the noise of the engine must be drowning out his voice.

Unwilling to disturb him further, he slipped his hands into the pocket of Andrew’s anorak but instead of clutching a multi-tool, he cut his hand on the hook of his fishing lure. Curiously, Bull examined the object sticking out of his thumb. He was struck with the horrifying concept that the tail of the lure appeared to be made from a lock of his hair. He cut my hair when I was asleep, he thought. Bull was gripped by fury and went to the survival pack and withdrew a signalling mirror. The first thing he noticed was the reflected background. The light didn't seem right, he thought, it shimmered unnaturally, scattering through the portholes and dancing erratically around the cabin. He turned his attention to his own reflection. Haggard eyes and the beard had aged him, but then he discovered a sheared patch of hair on his scalp. He glared back in Andrew’s direction and then back towards the fishing lure.

“My hair,” he repeated remorsefully. Bull’s eyes narrowed and he marched towards the pilot seat. He tapped Andrew on the leg. There was still no response. Bull stooped and twisted his head, taking a look up into the viewing turret. Andrew’s face was pressed against the pilot’s wheel. He was asleep. Bull shouted,

“Wake up you dopey bastard!” Andrew flinched violently. He said,

“What?” I was just resting my eyes,” Bull was now blind with anger. He had forgotten about his missing lock of hair. He shouted,

“You fell asleep at the wheel! We’re probably lost! Let’s see the compass?” Bull thrust his head up inside the viewing turret. The electronic compass displayed the word,
calibrate.
Bull hissed, “What’s going on Sherlock, why isn’t the compass calibrated.”

“I did calibrate it, but something has obviously gone wrong. I’ve never trusted electronic compasses.”

“We’ve been motoring off towards the middle of nowhere for days and there’s still no sign of land.”

“Look here, I was only cat napping. I’m perfectly aware…”

“No, you look here,” interrupted Bull, “if you were driving a bus full of school children and you fell asleep, you couldn’t say, sorry, I must have taken forty winks. Pity about all the dead tots! Well could you?”

Andrew was speechless. His eyes sparked back into life. He said,

“I can’t see how that is relevant considering I’m not driving a bus but piloting a boat although there is a passenger acting likes a child onboard. I haven’t got us lost, as you put it. I know roughly our location and for you to criticise me for sleeping is a wee bit rich.” Bull sniffed Andrew, as if alcohol had been the cause of his doziness at the wheel. A look of confusion flashed across his face. Finally, he said,

“You’re talking shit Sherlock. If I sleep, it’s on my own time, not when I’m on duty and responsible for the safety of the boat and its crew. I don’t pretend to know much about marine safety, but I’m pretty sure that travelling in the fog with no navigation instruments and a pilot sleeping at the wheel is classified as fucking reckless.”

“You’re being melodramatic my friend, I could only have nodded off for a few seconds and why did you sniff me. Its not the first time...”

Bull stretched his hand up inside the viewing turret and switched off the engine. Andrew grunted in annoyance. He climbed down from the pilot’s seat. Bull stood firm and said,

“This isn’t some regatta Sherlock. If we had been sharing the driving we might have found land by now, but you have to be leader, you have to be captain, and you always have to be in charge. You’re enjoying this aren’t you?”

“Enjoying
this? Do you actually think I enjoy being imprisoned on this boat with you? Now, give me back the keys,” growled Andrew.

“Not until you explain what you are up to. I don’t think you even want to be rescued. Not when you can be out here playing your survival games and pretending to know what you’re doing, when all the time you’re proper clueless. But you’re too proud or stupid to admit it. You never really knew what you were doing but all the same I trusted you, and it takes a great deal for someone to earn my trust. But now I find out that you’ve been falling asleep at the wheel and leading us around in circles. And another thing, you’ve been cutting my hair while I was sleeping! What a creepy thing to do.”

Bull held the fishing lure aloft. Andrew raised his eyebrows and said,

“Have you been going through my pockets?  You’re no better than a thief. Are there no acceptable boundaries that you will not cross?

“Boundaries! Boundaries?” repeated Bull.

“Going through someone’s pockets without their permission is crossing a boundary. Well it is where I come from.”

“You have the nerve to talk about thieving and boundaries after you cut my hair, without my permission?”

“You’re overreacting. You liked that raw fish I caught. I couldn’t have done that without your unmanageable hair.”

“My hair is not unmanageable.”

“It’s thick and greasy. It’s full of split ends and frayed at the tips like deer hair or buck tail. I wouldn’t get so precious about it.” Bull’s lower jaw dropped in disbelief. He took a deep breath then said,

“Don’t you know salt water can wreak havoc with your hair and my diet of late can’t have helped?” He pointed to the supplies saying, “Not likely to be any avocado or buttermilk in there?”

“If there were, we wouldn’t be conditioning your hair with it.”

“It’s a pity there isn’t any strong coffee in the supplies, it might have kept you awake.”

“Coffee is a diuretic you fool, why would you need that in a survival situation when dehydration is of paramount concern.”

“Just off the top of my head, but to keep the dopey pilot from falling asleep and getting us lost?”

“I told you, I nodded off for just a few seconds…”

“Liar! For all I know you’ve been sleeping all the while, ever since we set off for God only knows where. ” Andrew flushed viciously and looking towards the centre bench where Malcolm’s bag lay, he snarled,

“Ok, I might have nodded off but it was an honest mistake. We all make mistakes. Fortunately, my mistake didn’t lead to a death.”

Bull’s facial expression changed from bewilderment to hurt and then to anger. Andrew waited on Bull’s response like a military general who had served off a volley of cannon fire and then anticipated the enemy’s response. He stared into Bull’s crimson face. Bull’s lips trembled and small amounts of white foam seeped from the corners of his mouth. Andrew’s own lips curled into an involuntarily and withering sneer. Bull turned his head and stabbed a glance at Malcolm’s bag. He breathed sharply through his clenched teeth.

“It wasn’t like that. You said yourself he would have died anyway and I only took the bag off him because the strap got tangled around his neck.” Andrew shook his head sorrowfully,

“It’s clear to me that you were only thinking about yourself but I suppose that this is a characteristic you readily portray in life.”

Andrew’s derisory comment had hit the target with aplomb. He was starting to enjoy the discomfort he had dumped upon his fellow survivor when Bull leaned his head forward menacingly and said,

“I have another theory Sherlock. If you actually knew what a sea anchor was instead of using it as a paddle, we wouldn’t have been in this predicament in the first place. Malcolm would have been recovering in hospital, not lying at the bottom of the ocean.” Andrew was taken aback. The flash in his eyes revealed his secret. Bull felt like a dog unearthing a bone. He walked to the middle of the cabin and leant against a pillar to aid his balance. As the boat rocked, he said, “And how many times did you offer to cast him overboard when the situation took a turn for the worst? So, don’t lecture me on that subject. Let’s get back to the original point. I trusted you to get us out of here, to find land, to get us rescued and you cocked it all up, like you seem to cock everything up. It’s no wonder your wife left you for another man.” Andrew felt the blood rising to the follicles of his hair. The cold sneer melted from his lips and seemed to resurface on his narrowing eyebrows. Deep wrinkles formed on his eyes and forehead. Andrew hesitated and then said,

“I never said she left me for someone else. Why you really are an obnoxious, pathetic excuse for a human being.” Bull smiled wryly,

“You’re a jinx, a Joanna, a total charlatan. I just hope she has found a decent man, someone who treats her with respect and offers her a little kindness. Something you are obviously incapable of displaying.”

Andrew winced. He was not relishing the new direction the conversation was taking. He snarled,

“Just because your life is tainted with insecurity and jealousy, doesn’t mean that every other person, who has the misfortune to meet you, has the same experiences as you! As I said before, she never left me for someone else. There was no third party. It was a mutual parting.”

“Really, is that what you think? said Bull, shaking his head remorsefully. “You’re probably right. Probably.” Andrew growled,

“What do you mean by probably?” Bull sighed mockingly,

“She has
probably
always been faithful to you, and even over in Barcelona, she’s
probably
not sitting in most nights feeling lonely and vulnerable after putting the kids to bed, and there probably isn’t someone called Andre, but if there was, Andre is
probably
just a good friend who she has coffee with and
probably
doesn’t have any designs on her. Well
probably
not.”

Andrew motioned himself towards Bull in anger. Bull held his ground, snorting and sniffing the air like a wild beast. He puffed out his ample chest like a stag in the rutting season. Andrew was incensed with anger but undermining his rage was a growing apprehension that he was confronted by a huge unmoveable wall of damp fur. Andrew hadn’t given much consideration to how tall the Englishman was and as he looked up he caught the sight of Bull’s deep green eyes and for the first time, they looked feral and menacing.

The two men attempted to stand their ground, posturing towards each other, but the gesture was impossible on a rocking boat. Andrew’s fists were clenched and the pupils of his eyes narrowed like a hawk closing in on its prey. Bull relinquished his grip from the pillar to position himself for the oncoming Andrew but he lost his footing. The motion of the boat threw both men towards each other and they landed as a tangled clump on the floor. Staying on their hands and knees they stared threateningly into each other’s eyes, but even then, the swaying motion of the lifeboat made this impossible. Bull considered that outside playground scraps, he had never physically come to blows with another man, but he doubted if Andrew had either.

Finally, Andrew broke the silence of the standoff. 

“I wish I had let you drown,” he said, pronouncing each word slowly to deliver maximum effect. To Andrew’s surprise, Bull recoiled in dismay. Andrew noted a flash of pain in his eyes before he sat back against the bulkhead.

“What type of human being are you?” said Bull, stretching out his hands to find a solid media to hold on to. Andrew remained rooted to the spot like a triumphant boxer, his knees positioned to give him maximum balance. He remained still, his chin protruding in defiance of his much larger adversary. Perversely, he felt fearsome, filled with pride and antagonism. He had never stooped to the base savagery of male fighting, but he believed that in this situation his actions would be justified.