Lifeboat

by Zacharey Jane

  He looked at my downcast face. ‘Sorry to disappoint you.’

  I swallowed the last of my cake and said: ‘You can’t have been that bad.’

  ‘Maybe not, but I felt I was.’

  ‘What did your patients think?’

  ‘I didn’t ask them. More coffee?’

  ‘No thank you.’

  He put his mug and plate back on the tray.

  ‘So I don’t know if I can help you.’

  ‘Do you think they can be helped?’

  ‘Oh, yes, undoubtedly.’

  He stood, holding out his hand for my crockery, which he stacked neatly with his own.

  ‘Let us assume,’ he said, as he stacked, ‘that something has happened. Something bad, which one can safely assume, as they were found in a lifeboat. Probably the sinking of their own vessel, because few people set out to sea in a lifeboat without a very good reason.

  ‘This bad thing was traumatic – bad things usually are. But let’s say that it was so traumatic that they have both blocked the memory. This is not uncommon; it happening to both people, however, is. But the memory is only blocked, not removed. It can be – could be recovered with therapy. It takes some time though.’

  ‘Could you do it?’

  ‘I was trained to.’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘I haven’t practised for almost ten years. I could do more harm than good.’

  ‘They have nothing to lose.’

  ‘Wrong,’ he said, frowning, ‘they have everything to lose. Can you imagine something so terrible that it makes you want to forget who you are?

  ‘Imagine what might be the result if I attempt to retrieve this experience for them and I mishandle it. It could send them further from help, irretrievably.’

  ‘You are my only chance.’

  ‘You’re very direct. And who are you to take this risk for them? You are not their family,’ he said.

  ‘No. But I’m all they have.

  ‘What are they to you? You have a family of your own – leave these people in peace.’

  ‘I have no family – my father was killed in the war and my mother gave me away. And these castaways are not in peace. They are handcuffed to their beds, under arrest in a strange land. It was entrusted to me to find out who they are, and I mean to do it, properly.’

  He sat down, like he was deflating. ‘I see; another casualty,’ he said, as he smiled at me with sad eyes.

  ‘But I’m lucky compared with these two. I know my name. I know where I come from and I’m confident that there is no one looking for me; no one whose life has been devastated by my disappearance. But if I thought for one moment that my father was alive, or that my mother was looking for me, I would do anything to find them. So I think it’s a risk I’m qualified to take.

  ‘Will you help me?’ I asked.

  He stared out at his beautiful view and continued as if I had not spoken.

  ‘I saw so many cases like yours, after the war, people I couldn’t help, who’d lost loved ones I couldn’t bring back from the dead.’

  ‘Will you help me?’

  ‘You don’t give up easily, do you?’ he said, smiling. ‘Yes, I’ll help you.’

  ‘Thank you, doctor.’

  I stood, holding out my hand. He took it and squeezed it firmly.

  ‘Now,’ he said briskly, his expression lightening. ‘Do you realise there’s no return ferry tonight?’

  My expression of dismay made him laugh.

  ‘But don’t worry,’ he assured me. ‘I have a very comfortable guest room. You are welcome to stay the night – you’ll be well looked after.’

  ‘But I must get back – no one knows I’m here,’ I said, a slight note of panic in my voice, which he misconstrued.

  ‘Is that a problem? Please use the telephone and ring someone. And my housekeeper can stay here overnight, so you’ll be well chaperoned.’

  ‘Oh no, it’s not that,’ I said, although I did feel uncomfortable at the idea of staying with a strange man, even if he was a doctor. And no one would be at the office now to take my call, so telephoning would be useless. ‘I haven’t brought anything: clothes … a toothbrush—’

  ‘That’s fine,’ he interrupted. ‘I have everything. As coincidence would have it, I’m expecting a visitor any day now. The guestroom is ready and I took the precaution of getting in a few necessities, in case hers are worse for wear after the voyage. You can use those. And, if you will graciously accept my hospitality for this evening, I’ll come with you tomorrow to meet your castaways.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. It sounds like we should get started straight away.’

  ‘That would be wonderful. Thank you so much.’

  ‘You gave me very little choice, but don’t mention it. Now, if you will be so good as to follow me, I will show you to your room.’

  The guestroom overlooked the bay. I sat on the bed, watching the swell break and dabble about the rocks at the foot of the cliff. An empty buoy bobbed in the water, fifty feet out. My view was fringed by the green of an immense fig tree, planted far too close to the house. I marvelled at its tenacity, seeming to grow out of the bare rock of the cliff top. Snug sounds of nesting birds floated in with the sea air, as dusk leant towards night.

  In twenty-one years of life I had never been a guest in the home of a friend, or stranger, but there I was, invited by an interesting man, in a beautiful house by the sea.

  The dark of evening spread out behind the moon, which rose into the night sky. In their rooms my castaways lay and waited.

  I slipped my hand into my briefcase and retrieved the note she’d written to me the day before. I unfolded it carefully and read it again:

  Dearest child, Please dine with us tonight, as our guest. We have missed you today. All our love, Yourfriends

  I stared at the woman’s distinctive, curling longhand, velvet black against the plain white office paper which had a luminous quality in the dwindling light. I held it briefly to my cheek, before refolding it carefully and slipping it into the pocket of my jacket. Tonight I would carry it with me for luck.

  *

  He set the dinner table on a verandah overlooking the garden.

  ‘I usually eat out here, weather permitting,’ said the doctor, holding out a chair for me. ‘I’m a land lover, as I explained. For me, food and the restless ocean do not mix. Also, I like to view the garden from where the food has come.’ He smiled and waved his hand with a flourish towards the vegetable patch.

  ‘Why do you live so close to the ocean then?’

  ‘I love the horizon, the emptiness, the storms. I am a voyeur of adventure from the safety of my analyst’s chair. I take a perverse satisfaction in being up here, safe from it all.’

  ‘The house is very close to the cliff,’ I said, wondering how safe he actually was. Surely one big storm would be all it took to topple it from its eyrie.

  ‘And has been for many years before I was here and, I hope, will still be for many years after.’

  He poured some wine from a decanter.

  ‘Here’s to our project,’ he said, raising his glass in a toast. I clinked, although I baulked at his choice of words, but attributed it to professional detachment.

  ‘Do you like music?’ he asked.

  ‘I do,’ I replied, ‘though I have little experience of it.’

  ‘But you must have a good ear, given your skill with languages. Let me play you something.’

  He disappeared into the house without waiting for an answer. I sat, sipping my wine, the garden quiet in my expectation. As I waited, I heard the ever-present sound of the sea, slipping softly past the house with the evening breeze, permeating the air about me. The first notes of music arrived on that same breeze, entwined with the sea sounds like a disturbance in the undercurrent too soft to notice. Then the notes rose like the tide, washing over me, swelling into waves. I closed my eyes and leant back in my chair, feeling each rushing chord pass through my body.

&n
bsp; ‘Beautiful, isn’t it,’ the doctor said as he resumed his seat quietly.

  ‘What’s it called?’

  ‘The Mouldau, by a composer called Smetana. You’ve never heard of him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘There was no music in your education?’

  ‘Church music,’ I replied, pulling my mouth down.

  The housekeeper arrived and served dinner. The doctor seemed to have an informal relationship with his staff. She and her husband lived in a cottage nearby, he told me, but she had agreed to stay at the doctor’s house for the night.

  Dinner was a simple meal of fish and vegetables, traditional to the island. He apologised for not serving goat.

  ‘We serve a lovely goat casserole, given notice. However, I can promise you some fine home-made goat cheese later.’

  ‘You breed your goats for meat?’ I asked, relieved to be missing out. I was no less suspicious of goats when dead.

  ‘Oh no,’ he replied, shaking his head. ‘I’ll occasionally trade one with a neighbour, but my goats are for milk.’

  He felt some explanation was due: ‘I can’t stomach the killing part, you see. But for special occasions, visitors and such, we will slaughter a beast. I’ve prepared one for my guest, whenever she arrives.’

  ‘When do you expect her?’

  ‘Any day this month. She’s sailing here, so it’s hard to say.’

  ‘Where’s she coming from?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said, laughing to himself. ‘She didn’t say. I suppose it sounds odd, but she was always that way.’

  ‘An old friend?’ I asked, smiling politely but wondering at such a casual arrangement.

  ‘She was a patient of mine. I’ve heard nothing from her since I left the clinic.’

  ‘She knows you’ve retired?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Not that it would make any difference to this woman, she’s used to getting her own way.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, thinking that she sounded like rather an unpleasant houseguest.

  ‘But charming,’ he said, catching my sour intonation and smiling. ‘And very interesting.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘She had a tragic life. I treated her for quite a common condition caused by hormone imbalance after childbirth. That, and the trauma of losing her husband and her child to the war. She was regarded, unjustly, as psychologically unbalanced. We know so much more about such matters now.’

  ‘A quite common condition?’ I asked, thinking of my own mother.

  ‘Yes. Luckily for her, she was wealthy enough to afford my clinic. So many other women with her problem were confined in public asylums, often against their will.’

  ‘You must have helped this woman; if she’s coming to see you again.’

  ‘Thank you, you’re very kind. But her letter was a surprise, although it’s typical of her contrariness that she’d choose me, whether I’d helped her or not.’

  ‘You must have done something right; it can’t be such a surprise.’

  ‘It was, or is. But so are you, and a very pleasant one. So let’s drink to unexpected surprises.’

  ‘This fish is delicious,’ I said, to cover my embarrassment.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Where is your family?’ I asked after a pause.

  ‘Let’s see … I have some distant cousins here – you met one of them at the library. My parents died eleven years ago, and I lost my brother to the war. I think that’s all.’ His tone was light-hearted but it gave the impression that he would prefer not to answer questions on the subject.

  ‘You never married?’

  ‘You are very nosy for someone of your youth,’ he answered, but took the sting from his words by smiling.

  ‘I beg your pardon.’

  ‘I was married, but, yet again, it was a casualty of war.’

  ‘She was killed?’

  ‘No, it was more like I was.’ He gave a short dry laugh. ‘If you speak to anyone who survived, you’ll find that there was damage done that can’t be measured in injuries or repaired with stitches.

  ‘I worked very hard when I returned; I hoped to do good, to save someone. During the war I’d been in active service as a medical doctor and had managed to save some. I thought I could do the same with the injuries to people’s minds. This seemed of paramount importance to me, like a calling if you will, more important than my marriage. My wife left and I wondered what I had been fighting for. That was the beginning of the end for my work as a psychiatrist.’

  ‘Oh, how sad,’ I said, quite sorry for this man and all he’d lost.

  ‘Don’t feel sorry for me. I fell into the classic trap of psychiatry: trying to avoid my own problems by fixing the problems of others. But I see you have your briefcase here. Have you any material you want me to look at?’

  He stood and moved some dishes out of my way while I lifted my briefcase onto the table. I took out the files, and the novel the librarian’s aunt had given me. He accepted the papers I handed to him, then reached for the book.

  ‘You know this author?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ I replied, looking up from where I was flipping through pages, ‘not really. But we think he may be the female castaway’s father.’

  The doctor looked at me, his mouth slightly opened, as if he were frozen mid-sentence.

  ‘Oh my god,’ he said quietly.

  I stopped and frowned.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ I said.

  He shook his head.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘This book,’ said the doctor. ‘I know this book, I own a copy. It was written by the father of my friend – the friend who is sailing here to see me – the friend who has not turned up yet. It’s her.’

  ‘Your friend … you know her?’

  He nodded.

  ‘She is a small woman?’ I asked. ‘Fine, but strong, with wild, wild hair and big eyes, green, heavy lidded.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, smiling broadly.

  ‘Her hands, they’re fine, with long fingers, which she uses when she speaks, like a sculptor uses tools. And she speaks quickly, but melodiously, with a voice too big to come from such a tiny frame. And when she sits, she draws her legs up, so,’ I said, demonstrating.

  ‘Yes,’ he cried with satisfaction. ‘My friend is your castaway.’

  The doctor sat down carefully, as if afraid he might fall. He ran his hand across his hair.

  ‘My goodness,’ he whispered. ‘Just imagine.’

  Then he leapt from his seat and moved quickly towards me, hands outstretched.

  ‘This is amazing,’ he said and embraced me. I rose to meet him and returned his embrace with heartfelt joy.

  ‘Where is she – tell me again?’ he asked, resuming his seat. ‘But please, take your time; tell me when you are ready. Here, drink some water.’

  He poured me a glass and pushed it across the table. I gulped a few mouthfuls, spilling some down my shirtfront.

  ‘Oh!’ I laughed and flicked the water away. Then frowned, remembering how I had left them. ‘They’re being held in custody, in hospital last I saw. Both are under arrest. He is still unconscious. I fear for what might happen to them if I can’t prove their innocence.’

  ‘What must have happened to her?’ he asked himself. ‘Shipwrecked, lost. And who is he? Not her husband, we know: he’s dead.’

  ‘But she said he was.’

  ‘I thought you said they didn’t know each other?’

  ‘That was at first. Then, when they arrested him, she claimed to be his wife.’

  ‘But I know her husband is dead and I don’t think she would have remarried. It could be that he is a pirate, as they said, simply taking advantage of her situation.

  ‘Or that she had no choice: if a lifeboat were the only means of survival, one would share it with a tiger, if necessary.’

  EXPLOSION

  There was an explosion. It jemmied open her mouth, forcing its way into her body with a noise that numbed her consc
iousness. Then, uncontainable in the body’s fragile frame, it cracked back out through her pores, shattering her like china. She fell in a pile upon the deck. Her mind, lost like the content of a jar flung against a brick wall, escaped unseen, dove down into the deep-sea peace, or maybe flew off into the black sky.

  On deck, the man scrabbled for her body, gathered it up with his cupped hands like his last drink of water and leapt into the thirsty sea.

  DAY TWELVE

  I awoke in the quiet of dawn. My abdomen cramped, driving me from the comfortable bed; the storm drew nearer.

  After climbing into yesterday’s clothes I followed the smell of coffee and found the kitchen, where the doctor was making breakfast.

  ‘Good morning, how did you sleep?’ he asked, turning briefly from the stove, a large wood burner, more common in the cold homes of Englishmen than this warm isle.

  ‘Very well, thank you.’

  ‘Do help yourself to coffee,’ he said, nodding to the pot, percolating on the stovetop.

  After breakfast, the doctor excused himself to make ready for the business of the day. I waited in the study. Looking at the horizon, I allowed myself to imagine future visits to this house, in the company of friends.

  A rumble of pain in my abdomen interrupted my daydreams. The storm would hit today, but I judged that the doctor and I would be safe in the main harbour well before it arrived. All the same, I was glad that the first ferry left early.

  ‘How do I look?’ he asked. He wore a tweed jacket, tailored brown trousers, a shirt, tie and polished brown leather shoes. His tattoo was well hidden. I laughed.

  ‘Something wrong?’ he asked anxiously, peering down at himself.

  ‘No – it’s perfect. Very respectable.’

  ‘I’ll assume that’s a good thing,’ he said, smiling as he placed a felt hat upon his head and picked up a well-worn briefcase. ‘Shall we go?’

  I took his outstretched arm, saying a silent farewell to the bay, and hoping there might be a future greeting.

  I enjoyed the return ferry trip, a brisk breeze notwithstanding. I loved this kind of weather, even though I knew it was a precursor to something much bigger. I tipped my head into the wind and smiled, enjoying the occasional salt spray on my face. I would look a mess for work, but today I didn’t care.