Migrations

by Charlotte McConaghy

He finishes his cigarette, stamps it beneath his shoe, and reaches for his tobacco pack.

  “Are you gonna leave that there?”

  His gaze follows mine to the butt. He smiles a little. “Why, you want it?”

  “Just pick it up, will you? It’s disgusting.”

  He laughs as he bends down. “Jesus, I was going to. Forgive me for being a wee bit slow at this hour.” He’s not laughing as he straightens. “I thought you were going to die tonight. And those boys.”

  Silence. I shrug, no idea what he wants me to say.

  “Do you have a death wish or something?”

  I frown because the question pisses me off. Wasn’t he also preparing to go into the water? Wouldn’t anyone? “What are you doing here, Professor?”

  Niall Lynch hands me a folder. In the dark it takes me a moment to make out the words on the front page. NUI Enrollment.

  My cheeks start to burn unpleasantly. “What is this?” Then, “How do you even know where I live?”

  “I asked your boss. He told me you’re not a student.”

  “So?”

  “So I’m going to generously invite you to continue to attend my class until you’ve properly applied and enrolled, because I’m that kind.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Why not?”

  “None of your business. And while we’re at it, this”—a hand gesture to encompass his presence—“isn’t cool. I never even told you my name.”

  I try to hand the papers back but he won’t take them. He doesn’t need to know I never finished year ten. There’ll be no university for me.

  There’s a second, pre-rolled cigarette in his pouch, and I watch him light a match and hold the flame to its end, and I watch the little round glow of the burn, and I watch him inhale deeply, his eyes drifting closed as though the act is a religious one. I imagine the foul taste of his mouth and tongue.

  “Chuck them out or burn them, or whatever,” he says. “But have a read first. And keep coming to my class.” He smiles a little. A smile too dangerous to keep. “I won’t tell.”

  As he walks away I think, Don’t ask don’t ask don’t ask, and then I ask. “Why’d you do this?”

  Niall pauses and looks over his shoulder. His hair and eyes are very black, his skin silver. He says, “Because you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives together.” Then he adds, “Seeya.”

  * * *

  Inside the Manor I can hardly breathe. I lie on my single mattress on the floor and ignore the giggles of my roommates, who have heard every word.

  I am in the sea’s grip once more: within the pages of the enrollment forms he has hidden a single black feather.

  I wait for the house to fall back to sleep and then I touch the feather’s burning tip to my lips, and I touch myself to the thought of Niall Lynch.

  8

  The Saghani, NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN MIGRATION SEASON

  A horn sounds throughout the boat and all I can think is Thank god. Even if it means we’re sinking, even if there’s another iceberg or a perfect storm, I don’t care—anything to get me out of this box. I scramble to my feet and wrench my windbreaker on over my thermals. I hop to get my boots on, always off balance on my maimed right foot, and then follow Léa at a run. The other crew members are already bolting past, headed for the stairs to the deck.

  Basil grins at me. “He’s bloody found something.”

  I return the smile, thinking it’s not Ennis who’s found something, but the birds. I follow the others up into the glaring beams of the spotlights. Two illuminate the boat, which has stopped moving, while one beam swings smoothly out over the water. We all dash to the railing to see what he’s found. The black ocean glimmers faintly silver; what look to be hundreds of fish swim just beneath the surface, and there above them are the terns, diving in and out of the water to eat their fill.

  The men’s voices roar their excitement. This is a rare thing indeed.

  “Let’s move!” Ennis booms from his balcony, and I twist my head to see the flash of his smile.

  Mal and Dae hurry to crank two levers and I realize there is a smaller skiff being lowered into the sea. Anik swings over the railing and lands gracefully in the boat, his motions those of a dancer. He descends onto the sea and disconnects the cables. I watch him maneuver the boat out into the water, and I see that there is a thick ream of net being pulled along behind him. Léa stands at the crank, making sure the net unrolls without snagging or tangling, while Anik drags it far out into the darkness, its top edge buoyed up by yellow corks I know so well, the bottom edge weighed down by the lead line. Anik pulls the net in an enormous circle around the school of fish.

  “What happens now?” I ask.

  Mal, who’s beside me, points to the net. “When Nik’s done and Skipper gives the go-ahead, we’ll sync those weights together—like pursing ’em—to stop the fish swimming out the bottom. Then the block’ll lift the net up onto the deck. Get ready, Franny-girl. You thought it was tough before? This is when the work really starts. We’re gonna have fish to pack.”

  Anik makes the circle and joins the ends. I’m amazed at how swiftly he’s done it, maneuvering that tiny skiff through the water like he was born to it. A kilometer and a half of netting. Malachai said all skiff men are outlaws; they have to be to set out on their own like they do. I can see what he means now, watching the solitary passage of that small boat.

  The cables pull taut.

  “Pursing,” Ennis calls.

  We all watch as the cables begin to pull the weights. I can’t see what’s happening underwater, but the corks jerk and twist as though the net below is moving. Silver scales grow frantic, cresting the surface and churning in panic. There is something monstrous about it, as though a mighty sea beast has been caught and dragged out of the depths.

  The birds rear up and away, their feast interrupted.

  I’m filled with sudden anxiety.

  The crank stops. “Ready to lift!” Léa calls.

  Mal and Dae haul Anik and his skiff back up onto the deck, then all three hurry to pull on plastic overalls and big rubber gloves. They signal their readiness and wait on deck for the net.

  Ennis is controlling the power block, and yells down for everyone to stand by before the crane gives a jerk, slowly lifting the heavy net from the ocean. Water gushes out with a roar and I see the fish take shape—hundreds, maybe thousands—those on top flapping helplessly as they’re lifted out. I wasn’t expecting the volume, even after having seen the size of the net.

  I don’t want to watch this. I can’t look away. I have to stop it somehow. Of course I can’t stop it.

  Basil gives a whoop of victory and I could throw up. Am I really going to stand here and watch as these creatures are slaughtered? How are they different from the birds, whose lives I might very well give my own to protect?

  My eyes alight on something inside the net, a different texture from the rest. I frown and lean closer. It’s hard to see through the darkness, but it’s not a fish, I’m sure of it.

  “What’s that?”

  Mal and Dae follow my pointed finger and frown.

  “Light!” Dae yells.

  Samuel, who is up with Ennis, swings the spotlight around to where Dae’s pointing, and we all see it, clear as day. A huge sea turtle, caught in the net.

  “Stop!” Dae and Mal both yell at once. “Skip!”

  Ennis hears them and stops the crane. The net swings above the ocean, its magnificent weight swaying the boat. Ennis thunders down from the balcony and runs to the railing. “Loosen the purse!” he orders Basil.

  “What? Boss, that’s a big catch!”

  “Loosen it.”

  Shock makes me grip the railing so hard one of my hands cramps. I work it quickly with the other while watching the poor creature, its flippers moving only very slightly beneath the suffocating weight of fish. Half of it protrudes out of the net and I’m frightened it will be too entangled to get free again.

  The purse line b
egins to loosen, opening the gap at the bottom to let the fish flood out. They slap back into the water, thousands of them at once, creating a swell that rocks the boat. Many get caught in the net, wriggling uselessly. And along with them is the turtle, unable to work its way free.

  “Bring it in, Sam!” Ennis calls. “Gently!”

  The giant claw is swung slowly around and then lowered onto the deck. The net pools around the turtle and everyone rushes to help until Ennis roars at us to stop.

  He picks his way to where the turtle is buried in reams of netting, and he lifts the spools away until the creature is revealed. My heart is in my mouth as I watch Ennis sink to its side and ever so carefully untangle the turtle’s limbs and head. She snaps at him, but he is so gentle, so wary of damaging her. I see his hand rest once on her enormous shell, stroking tenderly.

  “What are you doing so far north, my girl?” he asks softly.

  Her hooked mouth opens and closes, her head lifting as much as she can. Once Ennis has her untangled we drag the netting away, clearing a path to the railing. She’s a big thing, and it takes Ennis, Basil, Mal, and Dae to lift her.

  I laugh in relief as she goes overboard, diving into the water with a huge splash. With the back of my hand I dash the tears from my cheeks and watch her disappear into the depths. I imagine going with her, down into the dark.

  The men are freeing the stray fish from the net and throwing them back, too.

  Ennis watches the ocean quietly. Anik rests a hand on his shoulder. It’s the first kindness I’ve seen him offer.

  “Just the way it goes,” Ennis says with a shrug, and Anik nods. “Let’s get the net done,” he tells the rest, who move tirelessly back to the task of untangling and recoiling the huge net.

  Ennis glances at me. “Why so surprised?”

  I open my mouth but no words come. Because you’re a fisherman, I want to say. I didn’t know there were limits to your hunger.

  “Get some rest,” Ennis responds to my silence.

  “I can help. I’ve been training.”

  “You’re in the way, love. Get some rest.” He barely spares me a glance as he dismisses me.

  I stand on the deck, embarrassed. I am also relieved, though, I’m so relieved for the fish, which have swum away beyond our reach, and for the birds who have already moved off to hunt the next school. And for the turtle. I think about her as I ignore the captain and join the rest of the crew. It’s her eyes I think of as I coil the corks, round and round. The look in her eyes as she hung there, trapped in the net and assuming her end had come for her.

  * * *

  There is grease caught under the flaps of my blisters, and nothing to be done about it, for today the engine needs my hands. Léa’s doing something with the bilge pump, whatever that is. “Pumps any excess water out of the boat,” she grunts, bent over something greasy as she always seems to be.

  “And what are you doing to it?” I ask, lifting my voice over the low roar of the engine.

  “Unclogging it. All kinds of rubbish gets stuck in the impeller. Pass me the wrench.”

  I do so, and watch her open up the pump and shove her hand deep into it. She pulls out a mess of greasy debris that smells like crap and lumps it straight onto my lap.

  “Oh. Cool.”

  “Put it in the bucket and throw it overboard.”

  The bucket’s right next to her; she could have dumped it straight there instead of onto me, but hey, sure. I catch her smirking as I head off to do as I’m told. I have to carry several more buckets of ripe fishy-smelling muck up to the main deck before we’re finished and with each intake of breath my stomach churns. As Léa cleans the mechanisms of the pump I watch her muscular arms work and feel envious of her strength.

  “Have you always been a sailor?” I ask her.

  She shrugs. “Been fixing boats for a decade. Been a mechanic longer.”

  “What drew you to it?”

  Another shrug.

  “Where in France are you from?”

  “Les Ulis, in Paris. My family moved there for my brother’s football career,” she adds.

  “He’s a footballer? That’s cool.”

  She shakes her head, but doesn’t elaborate.

  “Where were you before there?”

  “Guadeloupe.”

  “What was that like?”

  Léa shrugs again.

  “How chatty you are.” I sigh, but actually it’s kind of nice. I’ve had Malachai in my ear for the last few days, and he could talk the hind legs off a donkey.

  He grew up in Brixton with three sisters after his single mother moved them from Jamaica to London. He was obsessed with girls, and got into fishing boats in order to chase after one in particular, who was ten years older than he was and totally un-gettable, but he boasts he’s never turned down a challenge. This was obviously long before he fell for Dae and they were kicked off their last boat for wanting to be together. Daeshim’s parents left a small village in South Korea for the most bustling, liberal place they could think of: San Francisco. Dae says they had no idea what they were getting themselves into, but went with the flow and were soon encouraging him to become an experimental performance artist or a feminist philosopher if he wanted to be. He did not. In his rebellion he became a marine engineer and hopped his way onto the first shrimp trawler he could find, despite suffering horrendous seasickness, and, much to his dismay, his parents were ecstatic. Malachai’s not the only one who likes to talk—if Samuel gets even a whiff of drink you can’t shut him up, and he weeps all the time. He’s from Newfoundland and no, he doesn’t have children in every port but he does have an unreasonable number in one house. As he puts it, he has a lot of love to go around. Basil’s story is less amorous: he spent his childhood on boats and was determined not to wind up a sailor like his dad. I suspect that Dad was a hard man. Basil really was on a cooking show in Sydney but after he lost his temper he got fired and pretty much fled the country to avoid the scandal, returning to the inevitable course his life was always set on. Seafolk are always drawn back to the sea, whether they want to be or not. As for Anik, the others have filled me in on a couple of snippets here and there—he’s been on the Saghani with Ennis longer than anyone, and there’s definitely something mysterious about how they came to be working together, only no one will tell me what it is. They will say that Anik’s mother used to lecture in physics in Anchorage, while his elderly father, fabulously, still takes people on sled dog tours, and loves huskies more than he loves any humans.

  Even though they are as varied as a group of people can be, I can tell they are the same, all of these sailors. Something was missing in their lives on land, and they went seeking the answer. Whatever it was, I don’t doubt for a second that they each found it. They are migrants of land, and they love it out here on an ocean that offered them a different way of life, they love this boat, and, as much as they may bicker and fight, they love each other.

  In their own private ways they are all grieving the end of this life, knowing it must come to an end, not knowing how they’ll survive that.

  I can no longer ignore my seasickness. The smells and sounds of the engine room have done me over. Léa snorts as I head to the toilet to heave my guts up. The growing swell knocks me sideways into the wall of the cubicle and I have to grab onto the toilet bowl. Throughout the night the waves grow crueler and I find myself fighting Dae for the toilet, much to the crew’s hilarity. Everything inside me is painfully expelled over and over again; vomiting is a singular hell. I guess Ennis was right about the approaching storm after all.

  Samuel takes pity on me with a motion sickness tablet that knocks me out for a few hours, and when I wake it’s still night but the sea is calmer. I find my way up onto the deck. Anik is standing in the prow but I don’t think he’d welcome my presence.

  “He doesn’t like coming south,” Basil says, and I notice him sitting in the dark, rolling a joint. “He never does.”

  I’m not in the mood for Basil, but I
never am, and maybe irritation will do to keep me company. I sit beside him and we listen to the ocean. “Why?”

  “The north’s his home.”

  Basil offers me the spliff and I take a drag. The warmth touches me quickly, blurring me.

  “So why does he leave, then?” I ask.

  “Dunno, really, except it’s something with him and Ennis. They have some deal or pact that goes way back, and it’s why Anik sails with the skipper no matter what.”

  Curious.

  “Did I sleep through the storm?” I ask, smelling the air for rain, but it still just smells of salt and grease.

  “Hasn’t even started yet,” Basil says.

  I gaze up into the clear sky. Stars abound.

  “It’s getting ready,” Basil adds, recognizing my skepticism.

  “Should I be worried?”

  “Have another toke instead.” After a while, he says, “My family’s Irish. Way back.”

  “Convicts?”

  He grins. “Couple of generations after that. They were just people looking for a better life.”

  “Than what?”

  “Than poverty. Isn’t that the way of all migrations? Poverty or war. Which half of you is Australian?” he asks.

  “My dad’s side.”

  “How’d your parents meet?”

  “No idea.”

  “You never asked?”

  I shake my head.

  “But your mum, she’s Irish, right?” Basil presses.

  “Aye.”

  I watch him exhale a heavy plume of smoke. He sounds very stoned. “I knew a woman who lived and died by the slate-gray stones of County Clare. You could have carted her body across the ocean but you’d never be able to take her soul from that stretch of coast.” Basil looks at his hands, tracing the lifelines as though searching for something. “I’ve never felt that. I love Australia and it’s my home, but I’ve never felt like I could die for the place, you know?”

  “That’s because it’s not yours.”

  He frowns, affronted by that.

  “It’s not mine, either,” I add. “We don’t belong there—we came from someplace else and we put our ugly flag in the ground and we slaughtered and stole and called it ours.”