We Float Upon a Painted Sea (9 page)

“What are you doing?” said Bull.

“I’m making bandages for the waiter,” replied Andrew.

“He has a name, it’s Malcolm.”

“Well whoever he is, there’s a nasty head wound that needs tending.”

Bull removed his life jacket and wrapped a shawl around his torso. He made a makeshift sarong for the lower half of his body and draped himself in a white fur coat, held in place by the use of a belt hooked around two button holes. An impromptu turban was created from a scarf and finally, he stuffed other smaller garments under the coat to further insulate the top half of his body. He was warmer now but the water collecting on the floor of the raft made his body feel perpetually wet. He separated the brazier into two and used one of the cups to bail water out the bottom of the raft. “We’re in luck,” he said, looking up in mock delight, “she was a D cup.” Andrew cast Bull a disapproving look but he was gladdened that he was at least able to contribute.

They had come across some food and drink in the suitcase - there was a bag of soft prunes, a bannock cake, a bottle of mineral water and a bottle of Talisker single malt whisky. Andrew had also come upon a pair of opera glasses. He used them to survey the sea for signs of life or more floating luggage.  In the distance, he watched as the Andrea Starlight finally sunk.  It was getting dark but for a short time the grey patchwork quilt of cloud fractured, allowing the setting sun to cast its rays across the sea. The last embers of sunlight flickered behind the clouds on the horizon and with the ship’s protruding hull now gone. He knew there was no going back to the vessel but the sight of the ship sinking left him feeling vulnerable, as if the last link to civilisation had been removed.

The wind shifted the raft, bringing the setting sun into view. Andrew wondered why they were travelling west, further out to sea when the prevailing winds would be expected to blow them back towards the mainland. It dawned on him that the ocean currents would be at work and bemoaned the absence of a sea anchor and then he stopped, frozen with a stark realisation. His eyes darted towards Bull. He was no longer wearing the hood they believed to be a rain catch.

“The plastic cone you had on your head? Where is it?” he said.

“It must have fallen off when I was hanging over the side of the raft paddling. Was it important?”

“It was a drogue. A type of anchor to stop the raft drifting. And where's your foil blanket?” Andrew reminded himself that mistakes in a survival situation can be fatal and imagined his sorrowful tale being retold in a melodramatic documentary. He attempted to draw inspiration from the books he had read by Roy Beer on survival techniques and conjured up pictures in his mind of what he would do in this situation. Both men stared out of the aperture in silence. Bull contemplated the sunset and how he and Saffron would watch from the Necropolis as the changing light signalled the end of the day. In her arms he felt the most content.

The indiscernible sun slipped below the horizon and their world was plunged into darkness. Andrew zipped up the flap. He bailed some water using the brazier cup and when he was finished he rested his head against the inflated pontoon. He closed his eyes.  The only noises were the sounds of the sea slapping against the raft and the distant songs from a pod of passing humpback whales returning to the warm tropical waters of the Equator. Their close proximity unnerved him at first, fearing that a whale could easily capsize the raft, but eventually the songs die away. Andrew savoured the silence until Bull’s nasal symphony piped up, playing long into the night.

Chapter 6: Subject of desire

2034 Two years earlier

Saffron was sitting on the moorings at Maryhill Locks, admiring the myriad of bright colours she had used to repaint the narrowboat. Her friends had just finished installing solar panels, a wind turbine and a water butt. Earlier, she had planted some herbs and vegetables in pots and scattered them around the deck. To her delight, Bull’s boat was now a carbon neutral home. She studied the new moniker

“I hereby name thee, the Wangari Muta Maathai,” she stated.

“I hope he likes it,” said Aisha. Saffron took a step back and viewed her work with a critical eye. She smiled at her and said,

“What’s not to like? It’s beautiful, if I don’t say so myself. I think he’ll love it and if he doesn’t, he’ll learn to love it.” Aisha’s face was wracked with ambiguity. She joined Saffron on the moorings, standing by her side to share her view.

“Its one thing potting up herbs and fitting a few solar panels, but are ye sure he disnae mind you renaming his boat?”

“Oh, he’ll be fine, just fine. If he isn’t, he can paint it back to that dull brown colour,” said Saffron laughing, her head feeling light with the paint fumes.

Earlier, Bull had called to say his flight from Reykjavik had been grounded by a storm and he wouldn’t be home for the vernal equinox. This was a special occasion of renewal and rebirth for Saffron. Normally, she would set aside some time to meditate and evaluate her life, but instead of feeling reinvigorated, she had become upset. She was consumed with a feeling of losing her sense of focus, but more than that, her independence and femininity had been compromised by her feelings for her new
subject of desire
. She had let her guard down, she felt, she had told him she loved him. Bull had initially panicked, smiled, panicked again and after settling down, said he loved her too. She had discussed her alienation from her
causes
and he had described her as a small cog in a bigger machine, turning the flow against those who tried to destroy what she believed in. Lately, she felt more like a hamster, treading a wheel, for no other reason than to keep moving. She yearned to be back amongst her activist comrades, casting off doubt and fighting for what she believed in.

The following morning Saffron fed Boris before calling her mother. There was no response. She felt the need to talk to someone that viewed her life from the outside looking in. She brooded for a while and then visited Maurice, a new friend from a photography course she had taken. Saffron pressed the buzzer on Maurice’s entry COM system. She listened to the hypnotic ringing until the screen lit up. Maurice’s face appeared. “Hi Maurice, hope I wasn’t disturbing you?” Maurice ran his manicured hands through his hair.

“No, it is ok.” Saffron watched him turn his back and shut his living room door. He came back and smiled. “What can I do for you Saffron?” She felt awkward for reasons she barely understood.

“Everything is fine Maurice,” she said, “I just wanted to talk to you about illustrations for a book I’m thinking about writing, but it can wait if you’re busy.”

“No, I understand. Why don’t we meet and we can talk. Is the Organic Café on the opposite side of the street ok? Two minutes?”

The Arctic storm had passed and Bull managed to secure a seat on a flight back to Glasgow. When he arrived at the moorings he walked by the narrowboat and then stopped. His head darted around, at first wondering where it had gone and why another narrowboat had taken its place at Maryhill Locks. Suddenly, it dawned on him that this was his boat, but it had been repainted, embellished with solar panels and plant pots. Bull glared at the new name on the boat, mouthing the words. He sighed, thinking that it was bad luck to change the original name of a boat. He exercised a familiar ritual by accidentally banging his head on the companionway before stepping inside the hatch - nothing new here.

He called Saffron’s name, but there was no reply. He collapsed onto the sofa, put his feet up on the Jali coffee table and lit a cigarette. At his feet lay a notepad covered in Saffron’s handwriting. On the first page she had penned a title – a
ten point plan for wellbeing and happiness
. He flicked through the rest of the notebook, throwing it back on the table when he had finished. He went into the study, located a false drawer under Saffron’s writing desk and withdrew a bundle of letters. He glanced out of the porthole, searching up and down the moorings for signs of Saffron – the coast was clear. He sat down and read.

Later that night Saffron returned to find Bull asleep on the sofa. Beside him, on the coffee table lay an empty bottle of Chinese red wine and a glass. Saffron kissed the lump on his forehead and went to bed alone.  In the morning Bull was still sleeping. She went up onto the top deck and finished potting the rest of the herbs. A honey bee landed on one of the painted flowers she had drawn onto the boat. Dizzy with delight she went below to wake Bull with news of the rare sighting. Bull was already awake. He was unimpressed with the honey bee story and asked to her whereabouts the previous day.

“I asked Aisha to leave a message on your Shackle,” said Saffron, didn’t you get it?”

“Obviously not,” said Bull peevishly. Saffron hugged him.

“So you’re not interested in my honey bee? They’re on the endangered species list you know. I do miss real honey, don’t you?”

Bull showed scant interest in Saffron’s discovery and said,

“I miss real beef, real pork and real lamb. I miss real food.” She examined him, standing there in his wrinkled suit, creased from a night spent on the sofa. He was scratching the back of his head.

“I know, it’s a shame you meat eaters are forced to gorge yourself on laboratory processed proteins, but you are where you are.”

“You’re hardly immune from eating processed food yourself. Where do you think your vegetables come from?”

“Not the one’s I choose to eat, but this brings me back to my bee – without them there’s little natural pollination so science has had to come up with an alternative.” Bull said laconically,

“Don’t like bees.” Saffron approached him and placed her hands on his face, pushing his cheeks together so his lips pursed.

“What’s wrong Faerrleah? Why are you scratching – has your little rash come back?” Saffron was now gently shaking his head from side to side. Bull mumbled through contorted lips,

“It would have been nice to surprise you. It’s so horrible to come back to an empty home, particularly when I didn’t recognise it. Who is Wangamamma mafia anyway?” 

“Wangari Muta Maathai,” she said correcting him, “she was a Kenyan environmentalist.” Bull mumbled,

“Where were you anyway, and what’s that?” he said pointing to the far side of the room. Saffron’s face beamed. She said,

“It’s a totem pole I bought from the market. It’s amazing isn’t it?”

“I nearly shat myself when I saw that. I tried to call you.”  Saffron released her grip on Bull’s face. She told him about her meeting with Maurice to discuss a book she was thinking about writing. Bull said, “Is Maurice in your group?”

“You mean what’s left of my campaign group –most of them have been arrested or in hiding or fleeing the country.”

“I haven’t heard Maurice’s name before.”

“He’s not an activist. He’s a photographer I know.”

“If you had a Shackle I could have tracked you.” Saffron looked horrified. She said,

“I’m not a whale, I don’t need to be tracked. For the last time, I’m not wearing a Shackle. I don’t like wearing them. I don’t need constant access to GPS, credit facilities, cyberspace, social networking or gaming. I live in the real world, not a transnational corporation’s virtualised Hades.”

“Jesus Christ,” exclaimed Bull, “if they introduce a curfew and you don’t own a Shackle, you’ll get needlessly detained and questioned by the
pigs,
until they can verify who you are by other means.”

“I’ll take my chances. I’m not wearing one because it sits nicely with the Government’s neo-feudalist system. So they can profile me and analyse what I buy, where I go and who I meet. Once upon a time we lived in a democratic society – what happened? When did we become so marginalised by the fucks that govern us?”

“The last time I checked we were still a democracy.”

“You’re sweet Faerrleah, but incredibly naive – democracy is the greatest illusion of our time. This country's financial assets are owned by a non tax paying oligarchy, who send their children to non-tax paying private schools where elitist values are re-enforced, while the retrograde class gets tossed on the scrapheap. Our corrupt politicians are in the pockets of corporations, and illegal wars are waged in the Developing World to control energy production, manipulate food prices and prop up the weapons manufacturing industry; all facilitated by a compliant media whose job is to act as vassals for the rich and distract a gullible populace with fabrications and unqualified opinion dressed up as news. How is that fair? How is that practising the principles of social equity or democracy?”

Bull was dumbfounded. He looked at the Shackle on his wrist, and for the first time he saw the symbolism of being tied to a corporate machine, but he had no sage words to offer. He flicked a button on the shackle and a 3D projected image of a newsreader appeared. The voice said, “...riots are now spreading outside London to Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool...” Saffron barked,

“Turn that propaganda shit off. If most of you men averted your eyes from her breasts and thighs and listened to what she was saying, you would realise that only lies come out of those painted lips. She isn't real, she's a computer generated animation. Look, I'm not wearing a shackle. You believe what
big tits
on your Shackle is feeding you if you want, I'd rather think for myself.”