Curtain Call

by Graham Hurley

  ‘You’re talking about people like me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So what are you trying to say?’

  Mitch won’t answer the question. I know he has a name on his lips and I’m praying it gets no further. Sayid. Sayid Abdulrahman. Is this why Mitch has stolen aboard? To exact a little revenge for what happened at the foot of the railway embankment in Hither Green?

  H has had exactly the same thought. I can see it on his face. The way his eyes have narrowed. The set of his jaw beneath the three-day stubble.

  ‘You want to sort it out now, son? Up there? On deck?’ He nods towards the doghouse as the boat takes yet another lurch. The fiction that is Larry Elliott hasn’t fooled him for a moment.

  Mitch holds his stare, then permits himself the faintest smile.

  ‘No, thanks,’ he murmurs. ‘Not yet.’

  We’re on watch from two o’clock in the morning. The waves are beam-on now, exactly as Suranne predicted, and walls of water loom out of the darkness. We huddle on a bench on the lee side of the boat, sheltered by the doghouse from the worst of the weather, not really knowing what we’re supposed to do. Georgie and Jack share turns at the wheel, trying to keep the heavy old boat on course, hanging on for dear life as Persephone lurches sideways. Conversation has died. Ruth sits beside Mitch, her hands dug between her thighs, her eyes shut tight.

  Between me and Mitch is H. Despite my carefully laid plans he’s refused to stay below but so far, to my immense relief, both men seem to have forgotten their earlier conversation. Maybe the sheer force of the storm has blunted their appetite for a helping of extra violence. Maybe there’s some prospect of getting them both home in working order. Either way I’m not sure I care that much any more. Wet through, freezing cold, all I’m counting are the minutes between now and the moment when I can struggle below and get warm again.

  Relief comes earlier than we expect. Suranne, bless her, steps around the corner of the doghouse with a flask of hot coffee. She says she’s worried about our welfare. She doesn’t want any of us to end up with hypothermia. We nod, too numb to say anything. Ruth is the first to get carefully to her feet. She doesn’t want the coffee. She’s clipped on to the safety line and when yet another wave nearly tosses her towards the boiling ocean it’s Mitch who grabs her flailing arm and hauls her back. A glimpse of her face tells me everything. She’s terrified.

  I watch Mitch hauling her towards the doghouse, reaching out for the sliding door, making sure she gets safely inside. Then he turns again and heads back towards us, fighting the pitch and heave of the boat, and for the first time I realize that he isn’t clipped on to the safety line. Another huge wave rolls the old trawler sideways. The deck on our side is awash, practically underwater, and there’s nothing Mitch can do about it. He’s on his knees now, half submerged, and the wire guard rail saves him from going overboard but I know that one more wave will pitch him into the darkness.

  H is watching him carefully, still motionless, but the moment I lunge towards Mitch, both arms outstretched to try and help him, H is on his feet.

  ‘Sit down, gal,’ he shouts. ‘Fucking leave this to me.’

  Leave what? Leave my son’s gangster dad to finish the job? To wait a second or two for the next wave? To toss this upstart journalist into oblivion?

  I turn on H. No way will I let this happen. I’m trying to push him. I’m trying to fight him. I’m trying to get him back to the safety of the bench we’ve all been sharing. H’s face is inches from mine. I swear he’s grinning at me. Not because I amuse him. But because he is, in some unfathomable way, impressed.

  ‘Leave it out, gal,’ he growls. ‘I’m going to save his fucking life. Not that he deserves it.’

  And that’s exactly what happens.

  Moments later, after I’ve helped H wrestle Mitch back across the deck, I leave them both on the bench. Mitch, his head in his hands, is throwing up. H even has his arm around him. I watch this little tableau, still trying to make sense of what’s just happened, but then decide to leave them to it. One day I might understand men but not tonight, and certainly not here.

  With great difficulty, one step at a time, I make my way back to the doghouse, fighting the chaos around me. Suranne, as ever, is concentrating on the GPS read-out on one of the screens. We’re twenty-one miles south of the Isle of Wight. Thanks to the sheer force of the wind, progress has been faster than she’d anticipated. Soon we should pick up the lighthouse on St Catherine’s Point.

  St Catherine’s Point, I think. England.

  I know I should stay on deck. For whatever reason peace appears to have broken out, but I know I should try and make sure that neither H nor Mitch or even both of them end up in the sea, unmissed for minutes, maybe longer, and almost certainly lost. But I’m simply too cold to think straight.

  Down below looks like a scene from a war movie. There are bodies everywhere, pale-faced, slack-mouthed, grimly hanging on to anything solid. Mbaye is the only exception. He’s wedged in a corner of the banquette and he appears to be asleep. Still cocooned in Sadie’s anorak, he has a smile on his face. Remarkable.

  I stay as long as I can. I make it to the cabin and towel my face dry. I’m tempted to get out of my wet-weather gear but if anything happens I know it would take me forever to put it on again. And so I slip on to the bottom bunk and close my eyes but it’s impossible to sleep. Every next wave throws me against the side of the hull. Water is pouring through cracks in the deck, soaking the top bunk and then dripping on to my face. The pillow is wet. The bedding is wet. My whole world has surrendered to an eternity of wetness.

  By now, I’ve run out of tablets. After a while, I’ve no idea how long, I know with a terrible certainty that the fish pie was a huge mistake. Either I get back out on deck or this slum of a cabin will be awash with vomit. I make it to the door. It takes forever to lay a course towards the steps up to the doghouse. I climb them one by one, taking advantage of those tiny moments between the boat’s recovery and the next roll. Suranne is where I last saw her: squinting up at the GPS screen, making notes on a pad on the desk.

  ‘Two miles off Ventnor,’ she murmurs. ‘Past Shanklin it might ease off.’

  Ventnor? Shanklin? Ease off? I’ve no idea what she’s talking about and now is no time to find out. I throw myself towards the door and wrestle it open in time to vomit into the darkness beyond. Slowly, a figure at the wheel swims into focus. It looks like Jack but I can’t be sure. Then I feel a comforting pressure on my arm. It’s Georgie, the first mate. She’s looking concerned.

  ‘You have to clip on,’ she says.

  I bend and try but I’m useless. My fingers, already stiff with cold, won’t work. She drops to her knees and does it for me. Then she takes me by the arm again and begins to lead me into the shelter of the lee side. Sweet, sweet girl.

  My stomach half-empty, I’m feeling a whole lot better. I’m trying to thank her when I hear a shout from the wheel. Definitely Jack.

  ‘Starboard forrard,’ he yells. ‘Big container.’

  A second or two later the boat shudders from a huge impact. Over the shriek of the wind I hear a splintering of wood. Instinctively I reach for the grab rail around the doghouse and peer into the teeth of the wind. Our precious Persephone seems immobile a moment and then slowly rises to the next wave as the enormous metal box disappears into the darkness.

  Georgie tells me to hang on. Moments later she’s back in the doghouse. The windows are streaming with water but I can see her and Suranne heading down the steps into the saloon. Jack is still on the wheel but he seems to be having trouble holding course. I want, very badly, to do something to help. The other end of the safety line runs to the wheel. Judging my moment, I lunge towards him, just make it.

  ‘Take the wheel,’ he yells. ‘Steer three hundred and twenty-two.’

  I do my best, peering at the compass. Three hundred and twenty-two degrees. We need four pairs of hands, I tell myself. But then Jack has gone, swerving nimbly towards t
he doghouse. The door open, I can see that Suranne’s back from the saloon. She has the VHF radio in her hand. I’ve no idea what’s happening but the very pit of my stomach tells me that this is a real disaster. Not just a stowaway. Something infinitely worse.

  I fight the wheel and the weather for what seems an eternity. The course I’ve been given, 322, quickly becomes a joke. With every wave the compass swings wildly left and right, and with every slow recovery, the boat feels heavier. Every few seconds, off to port, I can see the long white finger of what I presume is a lighthouse. It stabs into the darkness, slowly revolving, bathing us in a brief moment of clarity before moving on. Then, lurching out of the doghouse, comes another figure.

  It turns out to be Rhys. He’s come to relieve me at the wheel. When I ask him what’s happening he says there’s water pouring into the forepeak. Georgie and Jack will be back on deck in a moment to try and rig a spare sail over the damage in the hull, a kind of Band-Aid solution that just might work. For now, though, they’re sorting out a pump.

  ‘Pump?’

  ‘The bilges are filling.’ Rhys nods down at his feet. ‘Technically we call that sinking.’

  Shit. I’m staring at the compass: 354, then 350. Then, very, very slowly, 346. Rhys is right. We must be carrying tons of water already.

  I snatch a look at the doghouse. Suranne has stirred the engine into life. I can feel it throbbing beneath our feet. Now, she’s talking on the radio. A life boat, I think. A real fishing boat. A passing ferry. Santa fucking Claus. Anything to get us out of this mess.

  Rhys puts me out of my misery. Suranne, he says, has a plan. She’s called a Mayday but these things take a while. There are no harbours on this bit of the Isle of Wight, nowhere to find shelter, and so she wants us to head for the nearest beach which happens to be Ventnor. There, inshallah, she’ll drive the boat up on to the pebbles.

  A plan? I nod. Then I have another thought.

  ‘Malo?’ I yell.

  Rhys has the wheel now. The new course is 299. He thinks Malo might be with his dad on the lee side. I nod, grateful. I have to be with him. I have to be with my son.

  Still clipped on to the safety line, I make my way around the doghouse. All the water down below has helped stabilize the boat. Movement is easier. Crouched together on the bench I find Malo with his dad, which is a huge relief. To my shame I don’t even ask about Mitch.

  H wants to know what’s happening. I tell him about the container, the bilges filling, and Suranne’s bid for us to end up on the beach at Ventnor.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Ventnor.’

  In the darkness I faintly detect what might be a smile on H’s face. Then, above the shriek of the wind in the rigging, I hear my name. It’s Rhys. He wants me back on the wheel. I get to my feet, steady myself, check my safety harness, and wait for that fleeting moment of steadiness when I can move again. Rhys has managed to maintain the new course. The pump is working, and so now he has to go below to help organize a chain of buckets while Georgie and Jack do their best with getting the spare sail over the hole in the hull.

  ‘Two hundred and ninety-nine.’ Rhys nods at the compass, gives me the wheel.

  By now, I’ve lost all track of time. Dimly I’m half-expecting dawn in the east but whenever I check in that direction I can see nothing but darkness. The boat is wallowing, the water almost close enough to touch, but the wind is filling the sails and with the help of the engine we’re still making progress. The lights of what I assume must be Ventnor lie directly ahead. I can just make out strings of coloured bulbs dancing on the promenade and in the throw of the streetlights I can see curls of surf pounding the beach.

  A huge wave throws the boat sideways. Ventnor now lies off to port. The wind bellies the sails again and no matter how hard I try and wrestle Persephone back on course, it doesn’t happen. The wheel seems locked. There’s nothing I can do to shift it. Fighting the tons and tons of water below is beyond my strength.

  Then, from nowhere, comes a movement. It’s Mbaye. He’s emerged from the doghouse, still wearing Sadie’s anorak, and he seems to dance towards me. He’s nimble, light as a feather. He has the experience to anticipate the boat’s every movement. He can read this mad score, recognize the music, conduct the orchestra. Unlike the rest of us, he’s totally in tune.

  Beside me now, he takes the wheel, tests it, looks up at the set of the sails, then peers out at the blackness of the night.

  ‘Vers les lumières,’ I yell, pointing at the lights of Ventnor off the port bow.

  ‘Les lumières?’

  ‘Oui.’

  He nods. Judging his moment, waiting for a particular wave, he eases the boat to port, holds tight, then manages to spin the wheel again as another wave lifts us high. His touch, his knowledge, is instinctive. He doesn’t spare the compass a second glance. His gaze is fixed on the lights in the darkness ahead. He’s even smiling. White teeth in the darkness, I think. Our salvation.

  I shout at him. I want to know how I can help. He shakes his head. Tout va bien. Everything’s going to be OK. Trust me.

  Ventnor is bang on the nose again. In the darkness up near the bow, Georgie and Jack are bent over the rail, wrestling with the spare sail. In the meantime, another figure has appeared in the open door of the doghouse. It’s Alex, our honcho from the Home Office, our expert in winnowing the genuine refugees from the chaff. He’s carrying a brimming bucket which he empties towards the lee side. Then he catches sight of Mbaye at the wheel. He pauses a moment, puts the bucket down, and then begins to applaud. It’s a gesture I’ll take with me to my grave.

  The next few minutes bring more buckets, all emptied by Alex. There must be a succession of willing hands, I think, stretching down into the saloon, my shipmates doing their best to save us from sinking. Seconds later, another figure appears.

  It’s Suranne. She’s animated, full of life. She makes it across from the doghouse and gives Mbaye a hug. Then she has the wheel. She’s looking up. She’s cursing the set of the sails, how untidy everything is.

  Untidy? Shit.

  She’s yelling at Alex and Georgie. No more buckets. Forget the spare sail. We’re minutes from beaching. She wants everyone up in the bow, ready to jump.

  The boat is corkscrewing again but very slowly. If this was an animal, I think, we’d be talking death throes. I find Malo and his dad where I left them.

  ‘You OK?’ I shout.

  H is studying his phone. Malo nods.

  ‘And Mitch?’

  Malo shrugs, gestures back at the doghouse. Maybe he’s below. Maybe. Then I feel a tug on my arm. It’s Rhys again. He wants us all in the bow.

  We make our way forward and join the tight little knot of crew and passengers crouched against the wind and the curtains of spray. The beach is very close now, yellow pebbles, steeply shelving. It must be high tide, I think vaguely, which might or might not be good news. There’s no sign of police or an ambulance but in the distance, shredded by the wind, I can make out the howl of a siren.

  I look at the faces around me. Amit appears to be talking to himself. Ruth is tight-lipped, a coil ready to spring. Alex and Cassie are holding hands. Then Mitch, to my huge relief, joins us. We swap glances. I’m glad he’s still alive.

  A hundred metres to go, maybe fewer. Jack is standing in the bow, ready to jump. Georgie is beside him. She’ll be handing us up on to the lip of the bow. Her instructions, as ever, are very clear. We’ll jump on her command, not before, not after.

  ‘Land and roll on the pebbles,’ she says. ‘Make like a paratrooper.’

  Amit, I can tell, isn’t convinced. Suranne is driving the boat as hard as she can, riding a huge roller. I can feel the deck lifting beneath my feet. Then, very suddenly, the beach is upon us and there comes a grinding noise from deep in the hull as the old trawler spears into the pebbles, pushed to safety by the breaking wave.

  On board, there’s a moment of silence. All we can hear is the thunder of the surf astern. Jack must have jumpe
d because he’s gone. Georgie is looking over the bow. She steadies Amit and then – when he refuses to jump – gives him a push. Next is Ruth. Then Cassie and Alex. Malo, Mitch, H and I are looking at each other. Rhys has just disappeared over the bow. A big wave lifts the stern and then the boat settles at an angle. Georgie isn’t pleased. Time is precious.

  ‘For fuck’s sake.’ She’s looking at me. ‘Just do it.’

  I clamber up on to the bow. See the ring of white faces beneath me. Shut my eyes. Brace myself. Then, without waiting for her command, I jump.

  I hit the pebbles hard. Coldness. Wetness. And the enveloping roar of the surf. Unseen hands pull me up the beach. Then come more bodies jumping out of the darkness until we’re all on our feet, still swaying slightly, orphans from the storm.

  Suranne is doing a head count. Georgie goes from face to face, asking, checking, making sure we’re OK. Then Suranne tallies up the numbers a second time before calling us all to order. We stare at her, still numb, still in shock.

  ‘Mbaye?’ she asks.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Dawn has broken. It’s nearly eight o’clock. Suranne has notified the police about our missing stowaway and while coastguards begin to search the rocky foreshore beyond the beach at Ventnor, a lifeboat is en route from neighbouring Shanklin. The assumption, I suspect, is that Mbaye jumped from the boat and probably drowned but everyone is hoping against hope that he made some kind of landfall. In no time at all, this young asylum seeker has acquired an almost mythical status. A handful of us saw him at the wheel – assured, fearless, immensely competent – and when Alex wonders whether he might have helped save our lives, I find myself nodding.

  As the tide recedes down the beach, Suranne organizes the offload of our gear from the boat. Now, dry at last and nearly warm, we take it in turns to inspect the damage to the hull.

  The wound is ugly. According to Rhys, a corner of the container must have ripped into the hull just below the waterline. The planking is stove in, the wood splintered around the edges of the gash. The impact of the beaching shifted the mattress that the crew had used to try and plug the hole and if you stand on tiptoes at a certain angle you can see into the saloon. Had the hole been even ten per cent bigger, says Rhys, we would have been history because neither a pump nor all those buckets would have coped. As it was, we dug ourselves out of an early grave and this knowledge has produced a real bond. We did it. We survived.