Ghosting Home (Strong Winds Trilogy)

by Julia Jones

  His mother appeared completely calm. If you’d had a protractor to check her wake you wouldn’t have found a half-degree of waggle. Her woolly hat had been whirled away and wisps of hair were fighting to escape from her plaits. She was beaming at Great Aunt Ellen.

  A hook pushed its way fractionally towards the edge of the stretcher.

  It was enough. Quickly and gently they lifted her across and strapped her securely. Suddenly Gold Dragon seemed very small.

  Then the winch-man reattached his harness and made a sign to whoever was watching from above. He put his feet on either side of the stretcher and used his weight to keep it steady as they rose rapidly away from Strong Winds. He was gazing down at Skye as if he wanted to pull her upwards too.

  “I’ll call you in Vlissingen!”

  He doesn’t know she doesn’t hear, thought Donny.

  Seconds later the stretcher was inside the helicopter, the door was closed and the searchlight extinguished. With a final burst of turbulence, the black-and-gold machine lowered its head and set off like a charging bull. A bright light began to flash from its underbelly as it curved away north-westward.

  Strong Winds’ stressed and jerky motion took a long while to subside. Donny, June and Skye were left confused and breathless in the sudden night.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Gateway

  Xiamen, March 2007

  Min forced himself to walk down the path away from the apartment block in the direction that he hoped would take him towards the bridge. As soon as he’d gone a few paces he looked back, willing himself to memorise the concrete doorway. A few paces further and it disappeared behind the next tall building. The houses looked so similar it was frightening. He counted each block as he passed.

  Finally he was out of the huddle of apartments and into an empty space. He didn’t remember it from last night but it had been so dark and he had been following Kai. The earth was bare and rutted. There were some heaps of what looked like construction materials but no-one was working here. He hesitated on the edge. The buildings were grouped so close; this area was so wide. So bare. He walked a little way then turned and looked back to check he wasn’t lost.

  Now that he had moved away from the buildings he could see beyond them. There were mountains in the distance. Green wooded mountains rugged against the sky. Beyond them, many hours beyond them, in higher mountains and with small fields and streams and narrow rushing rivers, was the village they had left. Min felt a pang of longing for Grandmother and the neighbours, the chickens and his own small room.

  But this was nothing to the journey his mother had made. He turned and walked back through the houses the way he’d come, counting in reverse. Then out onto the empty space again. He could do this.

  Kai had told him on the bus last night that they were crossing between islands. If he walked in the direction of the bridge and kept straight he would surely reach the water. He could look across at that towering magical city that had bedazzled him when they arrived. Then he’d work out where to go next.

  Xiamen means Gate of China. People enter and leave by many different routes. Not all of them are legal. People who have money and all the correct papers can travel comfortably. They can go anywhere and return whenever they choose.

  People who have money but no papers can buy them from the she-tou. They do not always travel comfortably but the she-tou is well organised and has many different routes.

  People who have no papers and very little money will find that the gates are closed to them. Min couldn’t see how he was going to slip through.

  He hadn’t eaten all day. He had discovered that the wide road crossing the bridge over the harbour was a super-highway mounted on pillars. It didn’t seem to come down anywhere but he knew that it must. He had watched the tops of vehicles travelling high above him. Most of them were lorries. Container lorries. He remembered that when he and Kai had got off their bus they’d walked by the side of the highway and into the factory area. There must be an exit there.

  Once he had worked that out, he had turned away from staring at the bridge in order to move closer to the water. The road here was dotted with trees and the apartments were new and thirty storeys high. They looked expensive. The view across the river delta was like nothing that he had ever seen. Busy tugs and ferries, traditional sampans and modern yachts, enormous ships stacked high with containers. If he could get on board one of them, surely he could travel anywhere?

  Kai was late home and tired. He wanted to drink a beer, watch TV and sleep. They ate noodles and fish paste and the rest of Grandmother’s rice balls. He said Min could walk with him to the factory in the morning but he’d need to get up early. Then he relented a bit and said he had a bike that Min could use if he wanted to explore further. The bike had taken months of saving and Min had to be careful that he didn’t get picked up by the Au Gong, the city police. Children shouldn’t be out on the streets during the day. They should be in school. Or possibly at work. They’d definitely ask questions if they saw Min hanging around the railway station or in the shopping streets and the tourist areas.

  “Though it’s very beautiful in the city on the other side. There are gardens and sports grounds. Historic buildings. I’ll take you when I get a day off – if I’m not too tired.”

  Min couldn’t come into the factory. Not unless he wanted to work there. Maybe he should think about it? He could lie about his age and try and find something on the assembly line? Kai could ask the boss. The work was hard and boring but it was a start. He could eat in the cafeteria, which was cheap, maybe move into one of the dormitories and start sending a bit of money home.

  This crazy idea about getting to England – it wasn’t going to happen. No-one would lend a kid like Min any money – certainly not enough for a she-tou’s deposit. Maybe in a few years when he’d grown a bit and got some work experience. Meanwhile Kai couldn’t afford to feed them both full-time until he’d got next month’s pay packet. The money in Grandmother’s red envelopes wasn’t going to last long. Old people didn’t understand how expensive everything was in the city.

  “I have my own life to think of, little cousin.”

  “Please don’t worry about me, Chen Kai. I hope I won’t trouble you for long and I have a small appetite. I’m very grateful for your kindness. And for lending me your bike.”

  When Kai was in the village he always laughed a lot, played jokes, made the old people laugh as well. Kai Xin, they called him – happy heart. He was different here. As they walked to the factory in the morning he didn’t speak to Min at all. There were many other people walking in the same direction. They were queuing to check in. You could lose half a day’s pay if you were a few moments late in the morning.

  Kai’s factory made sport equipment. Its products were packed onto pallets and sent over the bridge to Xiamen port. There they were loaded into containers and lifted onto ships. Some of those ships would deliver their cargo to the Country of the Ghosts.

  “You can’t get into the port,” Kai told Min. “There is a fence all round and strict security at the gate. Too many people have tried to leave that way. They have equipment to scan the containers before they are loaded onto the ships. To check there is no-one hidden. Better to wait until you’re older and you have some money. Then you buy fake papers and a tourist visa.”

  Min had found the entrance to the port. The men in uniform looked like police. They stared at him. One of them stepped forwards.

  Min pedalled away in a panic. He took a wrong turning and found himself cycling past a school. Everyone was inside. They would be studying.

  That’s what his mother thought he was doing. His father had died because he wanted Min to have a good education. His mother had left home to earn the money for him to learn. His grandparents had paid for his textbooks and the uniform. The prices had gone up and their earnings had gone down. Some of their land had been taken. But they hadn’t told him to leave school: they had borrowed from the money-lender to make it possible f
or him to continue and to take extra lessons.

  Grandmother couldn’t keep up the repayments after Grandfather had died so his mother had borrowed from the English gong-tou to help her. Then she was afraid and couldn’t ring them any more. But still no one had said he should go to work in the factory.

  Min began to wonder whether he had deserved so much. His teacher had said that if he continued to work diligently he would pass the exam to High School. High School would be more expensive and he would have to study every moment he was there because if he did not get a high score in the exam for university, all his family’s sacrifice would be for nothing. There was sure to be a good university here in Xiamen, somewhere among the beautiful gardens and the sports grounds that Kai had talked about.

  “If there is no dark and dogged will, there will be no shining accomplishment,” his grandfather used to say. “If there is no dull and determined effort, there will be no brilliant achievement.”

  University wasn’t free. What good would it do to win a place at university if there was still no money to pay for it? But if he ever reached his mother, would she be angry that he hadn’t stayed at school?

  It was foggy in Xiamen next morning. A thick wet fog. Everything was dripping. Even the container lorries on the super-highway were driving slowly. So slowly that Min could follow them on his cousin’s bike. This was his chance to get closer to the security gate.

  He chose one. He couldn’t tell if it was grey or blue. The colour faded as soon as he dropped a few metres behind. The fog was so thick that there was no chance the driver would see him in his mirror. They were over the bridge, curving round and down to the port. The lorry stopped at the barrier and Min moved back but not too far. He wanted to see exactly who came to check.

  No-one came. The driver got impatient and sounded his horn. He got out and walked across to the cabin by the gate. Or where it would be if Min could see anything. Then there were shapes thickening the gloom. Voices.

  Min stepped back hastily and felt himself pressing against twigs and wet leaves. Ornamental bushes clustered round the base of the port entry sign. He pushed Kai’s bike behind the bushes so he could move more easily. Hide if he had to. There were two men walking to the back of the container. He could hear one of them coughing in the damp air. Couldn’t tell what they were doing.

  The dull slam of the cab door closing, then a red rear light blurred by mist. The lorry was about to move.

  Min ran to the back of the lorry and jumped up. There were toeholds at the base of the container and he clung to the metal rods that locked its doors. He felt the engine starting and flattened himself against the cold surface. The lorry jolted into life and moved ponderously through the gates. Min was wearing faded jeans and an old grey anorak. He kept his face turned inwards. Nobody shouted and the lorry didn’t stop.

  It was a long road from the entrance. His hands felt as numb and cold as the metal rods on the back of the container. His arms ached as he held himself still and close, bracing his back against the lorry’s movement.

  Then the lorry stopped. The fog swirled and steadied. He could hear another engine. Rumbling. Heavy. Coming closer. It was a mobile crane. Min didn’t wait to discover what it was going to do. He slid clumsily to the ground and ran away. Couldn’t see properly. Cannoned into the corner of a stack of metal containers. Fell to the ground gasping. Crawled away to hide between them.

  Time passed. The fog didn’t lift. Min picked himself up and began moving through the lines of containers. He was bruised and cold. He was only moving because he was too miserable to stay still. Out of habit he continued to count the stacks. The metal containers were different colours, travel-stained and faded. They had different logos painted on their sides.

  Min started to look for patterns, as if he were within the walls of a giant Mah-Jong game. Three containers of the same colour and logo, pung; a three-colour, same-logo sequence, chow. Unusual logos were flower and season tiles. His grandfather had loved Mah-Jong; he had loved his grandfather.

  He began to think that there was something cooking nearby. Was that the hiss and sizzle of fish balls? Perhaps he was hallucinating. The warm smell of geng tinged the grey air golden. There were men talking. Were they actual or imagined? Were they playing Mah-Jong or bending forward to spoon soup into their mouths? Thick tangy soup. They would chase around for noodles, savour each last succulent morsel of meat or fish. They would wipe the bowls clean. Nothing would be wasted. If this was a hallucination, Min wanted to be in it.

  He finished making patterns. Four sets and a pair. Mah-Jong! He declared to himself. Then he chose the nearest gap in the walls of parked containers and walked through the fog towards the smell.

  It was a gamble that should never have paid off. One of the containers had been converted into a snack bar for the workers. The soup was rou-geng, viscous and shining, with a world of delicious fragments suspended in its translucent depths. There were a few chairs and a table in the narrow space but Min wasn’t looking anywhere except at the big man in a crumpled chef’s outfit ladling the soup into bowls. There was a wok beside him, steaming sweaty and fragrant; dumplings warmed on the side of a griddle, fish balls sizzling in the heat.

  Min’s lucky money was next to his skin. His hands felt big and awkward as he fumbled under his clothes, opened the zip, took out the red envelope and extracted one crisp new note. He didn’t look at the other customers. He thanked his grandmother, silently and held out his money to the chef.

  For a moment he didn’t think the man would take it. No-one spoke. Min knew he shouldn’t be there. All he wanted was some soup before they called the port officials and had him thrown out. Or worse. The chef’s face was violently scarred. Min saw knife handles protruding from the pocket of his apron and a cleaver on the chopping board. Could you get such injuries from a kitchen accident?

  “Please, sir, may I buy some soup?”

  The chef stared. Min wanted to run. But he wanted the soup more. He stood there, looking down politely, still holding out his grandmother’s note.

  The chef laughed. “You youngsters have all the luck at this time of year. You’re Feng Gui’s boy aren’t you? I haven’t seen your father for a while. Still with the police I suppose?”

  Min kept his head bowed. Should he tell the chef that he’d made a mistake? That his father was a rural farmer who tried to work in the city? That he had died when Min was three?

  “My father says little in my hearing, honoured sir, but I’m sure he would wish me to pay my respects. I try to follow his example as closely as I am able.”

  “A little copper, eh? You must be older than you look. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if you were about his business now. Good thing I’ve got my licence stamped and none of my customers has anything to conceal.”

  Min could feel the other men slipping away. He stood where he was, head down, hooked by his hunger and the chef’s strange lies.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Oostende

  Gallister High School, Suffolk, Wednesday 18 April 2007

  June had refused to take Strong Winds any further that night. It was very late and they were exhausted. Strong Winds was low on diesel and they wouldn’t be doing Gold Dragon any favours if they put her boat at further risk.

  She had automatically assumed that she was Strong Winds’ skipper. Donny wondered whether he should mutiny. He tried claiming that he’d been to Vlissengen / Flushing before – but he hadn’t, only John-in-the-book had. Whereas June and Joshua had actually taken Snow Goose into Oostende as recently as last summer. It was the nearest port and that was where they were going. June wanted to make sure that whoever had been on board the Pride of Macao was arrested and charged as soon as possible. Donny couldn’t see that happening. He thought they should follow the helicopter.

  “There’s also a regular ferry service from Oostende back to England,” June added, in the same firm tone he’d heard her use to Xanthe.

  “But Gold Dragon’s been lifted off to hos
pital in Rotterdam, and that guy said he’d call us in Vlissingen. He’ll have news. Anyway, he’ll want to see Mum.”

  It had been churny seeing that unknown guy gazing at his mother like she was totally amazing. Which she was, of course, only he’d never seen anyone else see it before.

  “Mum,” he’d asked, trying to keep the crazy hope out of his signing “Was that Hermann? Was that ... my dad?”

  But it wasn’t. The man who came down from the helicopter had said he was the child of the Houdalinqua. That was the name of Skye’s parents’ boat. Was he a friend of theirs? Some sort of relative? Yet he obviously didn’t know Skye all that well because he hadn’t known she was deaf.

  “Who was he, Mum? He said he’d dreamed you.”

  “Ojibwa. Of my father’s people. They know much in dreams.”

  “Had you dreamed him?”

  “Maybe.”

  “My mum needs to see that guy again,” Donny said to June. “And he thinks we’re going to Vlissingen. He said he’d call us there. Gold Dragon would have carried on.”

  “Your great-aunt just nearly died, in case you hadn’t noticed,” said June. “Partly, I suspect, because she was already at the end of her tether before that ... pirate tried to ram us. Oostende is part of the continent of Europe. It has a telecommunications service. And trains – which we will use if you’re allowed to travel any further without ID. If you’re not, we will have to decide whether you’re sufficiently mature to be allowed to return to England on your own, or whether your mother or I have to escort you back. To make sure you don’t do anything else unbelievably stupid.”

  “Oh.” Donny had forgotten all that stuff about how he came to be on board Strong Winds in the first place. “Um, Mrs Ribiero ... er ... June ... you saved Great Aunt Ellen’s life. If you hadn’t been here, she really would be dead.”

  They had spent the rest of that first exhausted night alongside a pontoon belonging to the North Sea Yacht Club in Oostende. June was so efficient that she even had a few Euros with her to buy fresh bread and milk the following morning. She said they always kept a supply of currency on board Snow Goose in case of emergency landfalls. She would have sent Donny to the shops but the immigration authorities were already on his case for arriving with no passport. Apparently Gold Dragon should have been carrying some official crew list and he wasn’t on that either. They accepted June’s explanation that the reason for Strong Winds’ arrival in Belgium was that she was on passage for Rotterdam where her owner had intended to clarify her paperwork but that still didn’t excuse Donny’s presence on board. June didn’t even try explaining that he’d jumped over the side of her husband’s yacht and had refused to be rescued.