Vane Pursuit

by Charlotte MacLeod

  “ ‘Do you see what I see? Do you see what I see?’” Helen crooned the words of the Christmas carol softly, urgently.

  “I don’t know that—” Catriona stopped short. “Holy cow!” she croaked, “we’ve conjured spirits from the vasty deep. Speak! Speak, thou fearful guest!”

  “Damned if I know what to say.” The voice came low and trembling. The specter took another step forward and reached its shaking hands out to the fire. “Feels real.”

  “Cripes, I—” The apparition licked its pallid lips and seemed to fumble for words. “I thought you was them Lorelei like they got in the Rhine River tryin’ to lure me to my doom. That really you, Cat?”

  “Eustace! You’re alive!”

  “Guess it’s kind o’ beginnin’ to look that way, though I sure as hell don’t feel it. You ain’t got a slug o’ somethin’ to warm a feller up, by any chance? I’m so cold my tonsils are froze to my windpipe.”

  Iduna, who’d been sitting stock still, her eyes as big and round as butter chips, heard the call to action. She whipped into the hamper, poured out a little of the hot coffee they’d been saving for breakfast, and added a sizable tot of the spiced rum Catriona had decided they might as well take along after all.

  “Here, come around where it’s warmer and drink this.”

  The boatman’s hands were so numb she had to help him hold the cup, but once he’d got a couple of swallows inside him he began to steady down.

  “By God, I needed that.”

  “How about a sandwich? We’ve got ham and—”

  “Whatever you got, I’ll take it. You sure you ain’t a Lorelei?”

  Iduna turned pink as a giant peony. “My husband calls me one sometimes. He can be quite poetical when he takes the notion.”

  “Husband, eh? I might o’ known.”

  Eustace had taken a wolfish snap at his sandwich before he’d got it fairly out of its baggie. He took another before he’d quite finished dealing with the first and spoke with a full mouth and perhaps a full heart. “How come he lets a fine figure of a woman like you run around gettin’ into trouble?”

  “He had to go off and read a paper at a hog breeders’ convention, so I came along with Mrs. Shandy to visit our old friend Cat. My husband’s Professor Daniel Stott. She’s Helen and I’m Iduna. Another sandwich?”

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  “Eustace, for God’s sake!” howled Catriona. “Will you quit the small talk and tell us how you got here?”

  He chewed ham for a while, then shook his head. “No sense me tellin’. You wouldn’t believe it anyways.”

  “Try us.”

  “You got any more o’ that rum?”

  “Oh, all right, you maddening old critter.” Catriona slopped another inch or so into his cup. “There, that ought to be good for what ails you. Now what won’t we believe?”

  “What’s happened to my boat?”

  “Eustace!”

  “Quit yellin’, can’t you? I got a right to know, ain’t I? Is she here?”

  “We don’t know where she is,” Helen took it upon herself to explain since Catriona had turned stubborn and preferred to fume in silence. “What happened was something we don’t quite believe, either, but here’s how it was.”

  She told it, every bit, while he sat gawking at her over his sandwich. “So that’s how we got here. Now how about you? Surely you haven’t been in that freezing cold water all this time?”

  Eustace remembered the sandwich and took a bite. “Well, I have an’ I haven’t, as you might say. Now that I know I got hit over the head, it begins to make some kind o’ sense, if you can call it that. Best I can tell you is, I was standin’ at the wheel like you seen me doin’ when you went into the cabin. Next thing I know, I was underwater fixin’ to drown. Then I felt somethin’ solid under me an’ the water sunk, or else I riz up. Don’t ask me which.”

  He masticated for a moment in silence. “Anyways, there I was, clear o’ the water an’ ridin’ flat on my back lookin’ up at the sky. One minute I was thinkin’ it don’t look so good, an’ then I was thinkin’ the hell it don’t. I thought I was back aboard the Ethelbert Nevin, see? I figgered I’d been drug up onto the foredeck an’ laid out to dry like a split mackerel. Then I knew I wasn’t because we was travelin’ at a pretty good clip but wasn’t makin’ any noise. So finally, by gorry, I got it figgered out. Like I said, you’re not goin’ to believe this, but—”

  “A whale had come up under you and was carrying you along on its back,” Catriona finished impatiently. “What’s so remarkable about that? It happens all the time.”

  “Like hell it does! I been puttin’ out o’ Hocasquam Cove ever since I was old enough to cut bait an’ I ain’t never heard o’ nobody hitchin’ a ride on a whale’s back before like I done. You tryin’ to take the wind out o’ my sails?”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it. Actually, after we three went overboard, we were hoping to board a whale ourselves, but we weren’t lucky enough. So you’ve been on top of that whale all this time?”

  “Far’s I know. Seem’s like I must o’ kept passin’ out. I’d get my bearin’s best I could, then I’d be someplace different. Then the fog come in an’ I couldn’t tell where I was an’ didn’t see’s it mattered because I knew I was a goner anyhow. Sooner or later that whale was goin’ to sound an’ that’d be the end o’ me. Only it never did, I don’t know why. You’d o’ thought it would o’ wanted its supper. I sure as hell wanted mine, I can tell you.”

  “How did you get off the whale?” said Iduna.

  “Got throwed. We was cruisin’ along slow an’ easy, not makin’ more’n mebbe half a knot. That whale wasn’t one to overwork itself, I got to admit, not that I’m runnin’ it down nor nothin’, ‘cause it sure done right by me. But anyways the sky got darker an’ darker an’ foggier an’ foggier an’ the suspense was gettin’ me down. I got to thinkin’ what am I prolongin’ the agony for?”

  “Another cookie?” suggested Iduna.

  “Thanks. So anyways, there I was. Might’s well just slide off an’ let the ocean have me, I says to myself. It’ll get me sooner or later anyways, like as not. But I dunno. Seemed as if it was just too much bother. An’ then be cussed an’ be blowed if I didn’t see this glimmer o’ light off the port bow. I guess maybe the whale seen ‘er, too, ‘cause it sort o’ rolled over an’ threw me in the water. I says to myself this is it, an’ I started to sink.”

  He stuffed the rest of the cookie into his mouth. “But cripes, first thing I knew I was touchin’ bottom, an’ I could hear singin’. So I thought to myself, here I am at the pearly gates an’ I might’s well go sign up for my harp lessons. So I kept walkin’ shoreward an’ here I am. An’ mighty glad to be here, I don’t mind sayin’. I might eat another couple or three o’ them cookies if you got ‘em to spare, Iduner.”

  “There’s only one left, but you’re welcome to it. Do you think this fog will burn off in the morning?”

  “Might,” Eustace conceded. “Then again, it mightn’t.”

  “It’s just that we’ll be down to mighty slim pickings by tomorrow afternoon if it doesn’t,” Iduna apologized.

  “Oh hell, we ain’t goin’ to starve. We could scrape mussels off’n the rock an’ roast ‘em in the embers, long’s we kin keep the fire goin’. Eat seaweed if we have to. Fresh water’s the real sticker. Don’t ‘s’pose you thought to bring any?”

  “No, it never entered my head. We have half a thermos of lemonade, about a swallow of coffee apiece for breakfast, three oranges, and a fairly good-sized bunch of grapes. Those ought to help some. And I stuck in a box of wash-and-dry tissues in case anybody wants to clean themselves up a little.”

  “You also got the rest o’ that rum,” Eustace reminded her.

  “Of which you’re not going to get any more for a while, if that’s what you’re hinting at. From the way you described yourself going in and out of consciousness while you were riding the whale, it sounds to me as if you might have a
mild concussion from that whack on the head those villains gave you. Alcohol’s the worst thing in the world for a brain injury.”

  “Huh. Think I’m a sissy? I got a skull like a rock.”

  “With brains to match if you think you can con Iduna into giving you another drink,” Catriona snorted. “You’d better wait and see how you feel in the morning before you go trying to make yourself any worse. We’re not exactly geared to take care of invalids here. I wish we had a blanket or pillow to make you comfortable, but we don’t.”

  “Hunh.” For a wonder, Eustace managed to produce the ghost of a snicker. “ ‘Member when you come aboard this mornin’, Cat? I says was that all you had for dunnage an’ you says you wasn’t fixin’ to stay the night. Don’t pay to go jumpin’ to conclusions, does it?”

  “Thanks for reminding me. I think I’ll go hunt for some more firewood.”

  “Cat, please don’t go wandering off by yourself in this fog,” Iduna begged. “We have enough to last till morning.”

  Actually they did. As soon as they’d got themselves thawed out and fed after their escape from being drowned, Helen and Catriona had gone scrounging. They’d amassed a sizable woodpile, partly because they needed the fire for survival, partly because the exercise got their blood pumping again, partly because having something to do made their plight seem less dire. Things had begun to look a shade brighter now; Catriona gave in with a fairly good grace.

  “All right, Iduna, I won’t if it’s going to upset you. I guess I’m just having a case of the fidgets. Why the heck didn’t I think to bring my typewriter? And a battery to plug it into? That’s the trouble with Western civilization, we’re too bloody technologized. Look at me, I’m a keyboard junkie. If I were Abraham Lincoln, I’d just take a charred stick from the fire and scrawl algebra problems on the rocks.”

  “Why ever would you want to scrawl algebra problems?” Helen asked her. “You can’t even balance your checkbook. At least you never could back in South Dakota. Besides, this fog’s so thick it would wash them off before you got them solved. Shouldn’t we be trying to catch some of the moisture for drinking water? We could set out all the plastic cups.”

  “How ‘bout if we stick out our tongues?” Eustace grunted. “How long do you think Wedgwood Munce is goin’ to leave us perched out here like a gaggle o’ shags? Soon as Wedge notices the Ethelbert Nevin didn’t come in overnight, he’ll be out lookin’, you kin lay to that. He won’t quit till he finds us, neither.”

  “What makes you so sure?” Catriona grumbled. “Wedgwood Munce never impressed me as being any great ball of fire. The way I heard it, his brothers only finagled him the job as harbor master because they were sick and tired of having to support him.”

  “I ain’t sayin’ they didn’t. What I am sayin’ is that I borried fifty dollars off’n Wedge a ways back an’ he’s bound an’ determined I’m goin’ to pay ‘im back this week, come hell or high water. He knew I was aimin’ to take you three out whale watchin’ today. Or yesterday or whenever ‘twas. I told ‘im so right after you called up to make the reservation. That meant I’d have your money on me by the time I got back, so it’d prob’ly be safe to say Wedge’s been settin’ in the dock ever since high tide with ‘is cussed paw stretched out, waitin’ to grab me by the pocket before I even got tied up. Cussin’ me out by now, I shouldn’t wonder, ‘cause he’s scairt the Ethelbert Nevin’s gone down with all hands an’ he’s out his fifty.”

  “Are you trying to be funny, Eustace? If so, I feel constrained to inform you that the humor of your remark eludes me,” Catriona remarked coldly.

  Iduna was more sympathetic. “Surely Mr. Munce won’t want to take your money when he finds out you’ve lost your boat.”

  Eustace refused to be consoled by any false hopes. “Don’t take no scholar to figure out you never met Wedge Munce, Iduner. Wedge is the meanest cuss from Kittery to Calais, bar none. I told ‘im so to ‘is face last time he tried to hit me up for the fifty. Wedge, I says, if there was two o’ you, I’d kill one of ‘em so’s they wouldn’t breed.”

  Eustace spat, turning his head genteelly aside in deference to the sensibilities of his feminine companions. “I never met only one other person who c’n get me riled up worse’n Wedge Munce, an’ she’s that woman Woody Fingal went an’ got tied up with. What the hell’s she call ‘erself, Cat? Ambrosia somethin’ or other?”

  “Elisa Alicia Quatrefages, but don’t ask me why. What have you got against Elisa Alicia, Eustace? I wasn’t even aware you knew her.”

  “ ‘Tain’t my fault if I do. She’s always down around the waterfront lately, gettin’ in the way an’ askin’ fool questions. Last time I seen ‘er, she had a camera slung around ‘er neck like a goddamn tourist. I swear she must o’ took fifteen or twenty pitchers o’ the Ethelbert Nevin alone. I was settin’ on the dock fixin’ a lobster trap, an’ she wanted me to pose for ‘er. I says gimme ten bucks an’ I’ll pose for you standin’ on my head play in’ the harmonicker.”

  “Did she go for it?”

  “Nan, just teeheed an’ says she wasn’t that int’rested, she was just tryin’ to soak up the atmosphere. I had a bucket o’ fishheads under the bench that I’d been kind of ripenin’ for a week or two to see if they’d attract the lobsters any better’n the bait I’d been usin’. Cussed critters are gettin’ so scarce these days you practic’ly have to swim down an’ hand ‘em a gilt-edged invitation to lure ‘em into the trap. So I took off the lid an’ slid the bucket under ‘er nose. Here, I says, if it’s atmosphere you want, take a whiff o’ this.”

  “Eustace, what a rotten thing to do!” Catriona crowed. “Why the heck didn’t you wait till I was around? What did Elisa Alicia say?”

  “She said the smell was prime evil, which was lay in’ it on pretty thick for a few stinkin’ fishheads, if you ask me. I smelt plenty worse. Anyways, she didn’t stick around for another sniff, but be cussed an’ be blowed if she wasn’t back the next day wantin’ to know if I’d like to charter my boat. I says who to, an’ she says a friend o’ hers. I says with me runnin’ ‘er, an’ she says no, the friend wanted to run ‘er hisself. So I says forget it, an’ she left agin an’ that’s the last I seen o’ ‘er. Maybe you noticed I been kind o’ peakin’ and pinin’ the last few days?”

  He expected a laugh on that sally, so they all three gave him one. “Next time I see Elisa Alicia, I’ll tell her how much you miss her,” Catriona promised.

  “Ayuh, you do that. ‘Bout as much as I miss them gurry boils I used to git on my wrists when I fished the Grand Banks on the schooner Rudy Vallee with my cousin Tramwell. You’d of enjoyed Tramwell, Iduner. Ever meet ‘im, Cat?”

  “No, I can’t say that I ever did.”

  “Well, you ain’t missed a hell of a lot. Tramwell used to play the saxophone. When he wasn’t playin’, he was singin’ through ‘is nose like Rudy only a damn sight worse. God, Tram was awful! An’ the hell of it was, on a boat there wasn’t no way you could git away from ‘im. Even out in the dories, you know how sound carries over water. He’d set there whinin’ ‘My Time Is Your Time’ till you’d want to row over an’ clout ‘im one with an oar.”

  “What finally happened to your cousin?” As usual, Helen was after the facts. “Did he go on the radio?”

  “Nope. He went overboard from the Rudy Vallee one night when the deck was iced up three inches thick. I always kind o’ wondered who was behind ‘im when he slipped but I never said nothin’ to nobody. ‘Twouldn’t o’ done no good an’ I wouldn’t o’ blamed ‘em much anyways. We put ‘is saxophone in a gunny sack weighted down with a bowl o’ cherries an’ buried it over the side. Had to use canned ones but we figured it was the thought that counted. We all stood around to watch it go down, singin’ ‘Rocked in the Cradle o’ the Deep’ through our noses so’s we’d have somethin’ solemn an’ reverent to tell ‘is mother when we went ashore.”

  “That was kind of you,” said Iduna. “These things mean a lot to a bereaved mother.”<
br />
  “Ayuh. I dunno how much it meant to Aunt Penelope. She was worse’n Tramwell about gettin’ into vodvill. That was what she called it when they still had it. All she could think about was a herd o’ fleas she was trainin’ to start ‘er own flea circus. She got Uncle Brockley so mad one day yakkin’ about them fleas while he was waitin’ for her to fry the fishcakes that he grabbed the Flit gun an’ wiped out ‘er whole act with one big squoosh. So Aunt Penelope snatched off ‘er apron, left the salt codfish soakin’ on the drainboard an’ the pork scraps fryin’ in the skillet, an’ thumbed a ride to Old Orchard Beach. She got a job pullin’ saltwater taffy an’ shacked up with a feller who slung hamburgers in the next booth, an’ they all three lived happy ever after. ‘Specially Uncle Brockley.”

  Catriona was amused. “Why don’t you tell that story to Guthrie Fingal next time you see him? What did Elisa Alicia’s friend want to charter the Ethelbert Nevin for?”

  “She never said an’ I didn’t feel like askin’. Say, you know, I just thought o’ somethin’. Dunno why it didn’t come to me sooner. Anyways, after I talked to you on the phone, Cat, I thought mebbe I better go down an’ get rid o’ them fishheads an’ sort o’ redd up the cockpit so’s you wouldn’t be ashamed o’ me in front o’ your friends from away. So I puttered around awhile, then it got dark an’ I couldn’t see to do no more, an’ it wouldn’t o’ done much good anyways. But it was kind o’ pleasant down there, so I just went into the cabin an’ set—you know how you do.”

  “Why inside the cabin?” Helen asked him.

  “I dunno. Felt like it, I guess. Anyways, I set there an’ pretty soon I heard a bunch o’ men come down on the dock. I thought maybe they was comin’ to find out about the whale-watchin’ trips an’ I ought to give ‘em a hail, but I didn’t. They might o’ been tourists just soakin’ up the atmosphere like Elisa Alicia an’ I’d had enough o’ them kind already. ‘Twasn’t anybody I knew, that was for sure. An’ now I’m willin’ to swear it was them.”

  He didn’t have to tell the three women whom he meant by them.