Where Men Once Walked
Page 34
“Continuer à rester dans vos maisons et attendre les instructions”
He listened to the automated message fade in and out and it gave him hope that there were people there, close to them, who were helping and there was sanctum and salvation and that the seemingly endless trial may indeed end and he thought again of Abi and he thought of Saalbach.
He tuned through the dial and at the highest frequency he heard something more.
A violin.
It strained on its own, solo in its sound and for a second and not more it was perfectly clear and his heart soared but it went again like it had come, into static.
He set the radio back on the control deck and poured another whiskey into the cup and walked back along the boat to the cabin and went down the little steps and sat down on the damp bed. He drank some of the whiskey, though it had taken on sea water, and put the cup on the shelf alongside the old books and lay back.
He couldn’t shake the thoughts of a rendezvous with Abi. He thought about what may await him on the other side of the water when they reached Greece or wherever they would reach and he thought about how far they could sail and whether they could make it to Italy and he thought about the American and the Dutchman and he felt altogether happy and sad and before he knew it he was asleep.
tin mug of salty whiskey rattled and slid along the bookshelf and fell from the end and spilled the remainder of its contents onto the bedsheet.
The kid stirred.
An old book, unreadable, its pages bound forever with wet and mould, followed the mug from the shelf onto the saltmarked duvet.
He rolled on to his side and opened his eyes and looked out of the tiny plastic window. The sky faded from deep sapphire in the west to ferocious pink in the east, across the shimmering black and silver water. Yellow clouds struck endlessly along the horizon like rotten claw marks on soft skin.
The kid rubbed his face and stood up without opening his eyes and walked across the small cabin and climbed the metal steps onto the deck and out into the spray. He had been sleeping still wearing his boots.
Everything was drenched and as the boat bounced against the easterly tide, the spray cascaded up over the deck.
The Pole still stood at the wheel, also drenched.
He glanced round at him but didn’t respond, his eyes wide and unfocussed and slightly mad and his hair wet and in every direction.
The kid reached down and grabbed the waterproof jacket from where it was blowing on the beam and pulled it on and set out across the edge of the deck, holding the steel railing for support as the boat tipped desperately on the waves.
The air was already hot and the spray from the sea was cooling.
He pulled himself into the driver’s cabin at the front of the boat through the open door, hanging on its last hinge, and wiped the water from his face with the back of his hand.
The Pole looked round again, a cigarette only just hanging from his bottom lip.
He nodded at the kid.
“Sleep well?”
He laughed as he said it.
“How’s your arm?” the kid said smiling and sarcastic.
The Pole frowned at him and turned away and inhaled the cigarette smoke.
The kid groaned and sat down on the battered wooden chest and wiped the spray from his face again. He let his head fall into his hands and stretched his face with his palms and then gazed back out over the ocean.
“Are we much closer?”
The Pole looked down at the wheel and the wet map and unstuck the cigarette from his lip and flicked it into the wind. It shot backwards, out of the door and into the oceanic abyss.
“I reckon so” he said, heaving the wheel against a wave, “look”
He nodded out of the far side of the cabin through the battered plastic screen.
In the distance, little flecks of black land silhouetted against the pink sky, though they were barely visible without squinting.
“Where do you think that is?”
The Pole shrugged again.
“Greece somewhere?”
He spun the wheel round and took the boat into a slow turn towards the islets. The wind was dying down and it had finally stopped raining and the warm early morning was going to turn into another lethally hot day.
The kid said it in his head for the thousandth time.
Saalbach.
The word was etched into his mind like a carving on an old tree in some place where it could never be lost.
Saalbach.
It was salvation and safety and some ideal nearly lost to the world but for the glimmer of hope he held in his heart and nothing more.
He watched the jagged black points on the horizon inch closer.
The thought of dry land was sobering and he sat up and watched out of the front screen though there was nothing more to see and the distant islets were yet featureless in all but their own presence there.
The kid stood up off the chest and flicked the buckle open and took out the radio. He couldn’t believe the thing still worked given the water damage and the salt and the sand that had dried into every one of its many cracks.
He smiled and shook his head softly and spun the tuning dial down to the very bottom of its setting. He scrolled up the frequency bar carefully, making sure to listen for any broadcast and leaned into the cabin to shelter from the wind.
A faint crackle of some distant and ancient music of pipes and strings flittered in and out of transmission and he turned further through the static. The articulate voice of the automated recording started to creep through and whisper out from the radio.
“Continuer à rester dans vos maisons et attendre les instructions. En cas d'urgence s'il vous plaît consulter votre bureau de réponse en cas de catastrophe locale”
It was the same broadcast from the French gunboat he’d heard before.
“si vous laissez vous risquez de vous retrouver sans eau ni nourriture suffisante”
Other than that it was only static.
He put it down on the chest and walked onto the front of the boat and stepped up onto the beam and held the metal support to his side.
The spray kicked up as the little boat bounced across the waves.
Saalbach.
Epilogue
The dog was pacing around in the room and its nails were tapping the wooden floor and the tag on its collar clinked as it walked.
The kid laid still and squeezed his eyes closed and tried to ignore it.
It stopped at the side of the bed and scratched its neck and the tag on the collar rattled as it did so and the dog coughed and resumed its pacing.
The kid sat up in bed.
“For crying out loud Bella, just go out”
He stood and opened the door into the hallway and the dog excitedly ran out through the door, panting loudly.
He laid back down and his eyes closed. It was so warm.
The door opened and she was there again like the dream he had so many times before.
“Morning”
He smiled.
“Morning”
She was only in her tracksuit but she was so beautiful. She took some things from the drawer and went to the door again.
“I’m going to be down in the office with Dad and Antoine sorting the maps, just come over when you’re up. There’s coffee in the kitchen”
He sat in the bed a few minutes longer and then rose and showered quickly and pulled on the clean clothes from Abi’s dad and went barefoot along the hallway and down the stairs and into the kitchen and poured himself the black coffee and took it to the veranda and stood.
It was steaming in the cold air. The mountains were still white but the ground had long thawed and flowers were coming through.
He could see down the main street where a man led cattle, bucking and honking, and a young mother held her son by the hand and watched.
For a moment it seemed nothing had ever happened to their world. An idyll almost untouched. Almost.
He drank
the coffee and glanced up at the huge clock on the kitchen wall.
09:46
He’d told the Dutchman they’d be in Dresden by sundown.
He drank the end of the coffee and went inside and poured himself more and went back to the veranda again and sat on the pinewood chair with one foot up on the balustrade.
He always welcomed the cold.
Bella came trotting out of the open door and sidled up next to him, her big white tail batting the side of the chair.
“Where are we going girl?”
Her tail beat the chair quicker.
She seemed to be smiling.
So did he.
He watched the mountains and he watched the sky beyond.
He couldn’t wait to get back out there.