by Louise Beech
‘No need to say anything,’ smiled Fowler. ‘I know it. We went through a shocking time, mate, but we’re over the worst now. You’ve got a bit to get through yet though. You have to wake up.’
Colin didn’t want to wake. This felt like home now. It would be easy to surrender and stay here, among friends. He looked down at his hands and they were smooth, not blackened or burnt or calloused. He touched his stomach and it was muscled, firm and well fed. His clothes were the day-to-day uniform he’d worn on the ship. And he was not hungry or thirsty.
You have to wake up, Grandad.
Colin turned around.
On the foredeck sat the girl. She wore a strange kind of one-piece suit made of fur-like material, with a zip up the front. It was the colour of his mother’s garden lilacs and had purple hearts all over it. She squinted in the sun and pointed out across a sea so calm he leaned over and looked at his face in its mirror. No beard, no sunburn, no shrunken skull. He was a young man again.
‘You have to wake up, Grandad,’ she said again.
‘Am I really your great grandfather?’ Colin smiled at her and there was no pain in the action.
‘Yes, you will be, but only if you wake up and see the ship.’
‘I don’t want to wake up.’ Colin’s voice was strong. ‘It’s good here.’
‘It is good here.’ She smiled, her hazel eyes flecked with gold. ‘But you’re not supposed to stay. You’ve still got stuff to do.’
She jumped up then and came to him. ‘I wanted to stay asleep one time,’ she said. ‘But then there was this amazing story that I just had to get up for and it’s about to end now and if you don’t wake up it won’t end right.’
Colin wanted to pat her head but felt shy. He’d never had much to do with children, especially girls. Boys he knew. Brothers he’d plenty of.
‘Let’s get to ten,’ she said, tugging on his sleeve.
‘Ten?’
‘The waves,’ she said. ‘You said if you could just get to ten…’
She led him to the foredeck, her small hand around his larger one. Colin sat next to her and she began counting waves. Behind them the crew began singing a sailor’s hymn that Colin knew well. Young Fowler whistled and Officer Scown ruffled his flat hair.
‘One…’ said the girl. ‘Two … three…’
‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
‘Rose,’ she said. ‘Four … five…’
‘Like my mother,’ he said.
‘Is it?’ She seemed surprised.
‘Yes. Six … seven … eight …’ He paused.
‘No, you finish,’ she said.
‘Nine…’
Colin woke. Pain again. Raw skin. Dry eyes. Tight bones. Empty belly. Burnt hand. No girl. No Fowler. Just the sun beating down and the waves moving the boat. Waves. He opened his eyes. Watched one break at the bow.
‘Ten,’ he croaked.
Then he looked to the horizon, at the shimmering heat. Nothing. That’s what he had woken for. Nothing. He sat up with difficulty. Saw Ken sitting opposite him, staring morosely out to sea. Had he died sitting there, eyes forever open? Was he going to have to put his friend to sea? He could not do it.
Behind Ken, far away: something.
Something.
Colin got to his knees, shaded his eyes and lo oked harder. Grey against blue.
‘A ship.’
Colin realised his voice had failed altogether.
‘A ship.’
Excitement had killed his words.
‘A ship,’ he managed to croak.
Ken turned. He was not gone. He looked at Colin and then towards the horizon. His face broke into a gash of a smile. With the aid of the mast, Colin got halfway to his feet. It surely was a ship. It could not be a vision like all the others he’d seen on the lifeboat, not when Ken had seen it too. It could not be a cruel mind trick. If it was then the dream and the girl – Rose, her name was Rose – had lied, and that was more than he could bear.
No, it was a ship, on the horizon. Today a ship. Today a magnificent white ship cutting through the water, heading their way.
Colin had won the game.
‘A ship,’ he cried. ‘A ship, Ken, a ship!’
‘She’s heading this way.’ Ken crawled to the mast. ‘She must have seen us. She knows we’re here.’
‘Isn’t she the most beautiful sight?’ Colin grinned. ‘Can you really believe it? Is it really and truly a ship?’
‘See the white ensign,’ cried Ken. ‘She’s British Navy!’
‘God bless the British Navy!’
‘A bloody ship, lad!’
‘We’re saved,’ said Colin.
Nearer and nearer she steamed, until they could plainly see the numbers on her bow – H32 – and recognised her for a destroyer. She blasted several whoops of greeting and Ken and Colin whooped back. Across the water came the wonderful sound of her engine telegraph, and screaming as her forefoot lessened so she could slow down.
‘Let’s stand,’ said Colin, gripping the mast harder.
‘I don’t know if I can, chum,’ admitted Ken.
‘You can.’
‘I really can’t.’
‘You will. We’ll do it together.’ Colin put an arm about Ken’s waist and, much as he had fifty days earlier when pulling him from the water, helped him stand. ‘We’ll be standing when she meets us, by God we will.’
And so they were standing when HMS Rapid pulled up alongside their small lifeboat. They heard orders being shouted aboard, saw cheery, smart, well-fed sailors rushing around, following commands. Nets were dropped and heaving line thrown.
A gentle, well-spoken voice came from above. ‘Are you alright there, chaps? Can you make it up here by yourselves?’
Ken waved cheerily and began to climb but fell back into the boat’s well. Colin tried and failed too. But there was nothing more to worry about. No more fight needed. Agile sailors climbed down the netting and carried them both onto the ship, to the robust cheers of its crew.
‘Come on up,’ grinned one of them. ‘Nice little craft you have there. Shouldn’t fancy crossing the Atlantic in it myself mind.’
‘Never did see owt like it,’ said another.
‘Blimey, me old China,’ said another. ‘I’ve heard they starve you blokes in the merchant navy but I never knew they did it as proper as that.’
Colin wanted to say thank you to the blond-haired baby-faced sailor who carried him, but could find nothing. He looked back at the ocean as he was lifted over the railing; their lifeboat seemed so tiny.
How had they lived so long on it? Was this ship a dream and he’d wake up, asleep next to Ken? Ken. Where was Ken? He tried to see where he’d been taken but he was so tired he could barely stop his eyes closing, afraid if did he’d wake back on the lifeboat, alone.
One last look back at it and there was Rose, waving, her hair bouncing in the gentle breeze. He tried to whistle but nothing emerged. Yet even from so far he heard her singing, some song he didn’t know. But it didn’t matter because the ocean did and her words merged with its endless sonata.
In his log that day, Ken wrote – The greatest day of all my life and the day I shall never forget. We were rescued this day by HMS Rapid. To our Lord we can only say Thank You.
29
HOME
It was with great pleasure that we were able to wire you today that it has been reported that your son was landed aboard yesterday from one of HM ships, which has rescued two members of the crew, and no doubt your boy had had a very trying time.
In the book nook, bathed in the candle’s playful light, Rose and I danced around the cushions as though a gleaming white vessel had picked us up too.
Rose cried, ‘A ship, a ship, a ship, today a ship!’ Then she clapped her hands, sang it again and danced anti-clockwise, her shadow flickering ghostlike.
I flopped onto a cushion and laughed at her joy; eventually she tired and sat opposite me. Excitement submitted to sadness. We were done; it was ov
er.
But I didn’t want the blackout to end, the lights to come on and reality to hit.
‘I’m so glad Ken was there too,’ Rose said, still breathless.
‘Me too,’ I said, ‘Neither of them would have survived without the other.’
‘Even though I knew Grandad Colin would live, I felt dead nervous,’ she admitted. ‘But that’s what happens in ace stories. Like when I read the last Harry Potter book and everyone had told me what would happen. It didn’t matter, because you can never really be sure until you get to the end.’
She was right; even with a true story, there are different versions and there are parts that get exaggerated or left out. In the end all you can do is believe the parts that sound right to you.
‘Did you name me after Colin’s mum?’ asked Rose.
‘No,’ I said. ‘That truly is some strange coincidence.’
‘No such thing.’
‘Maybe. But we named you after the lovely colour of your face.’
She pulled a scornful expression. ‘Why do parents have to be so stupid over names?’
‘Rose!’
‘At least it means I’m like Scarface,’ she said. ‘We both got names because of our face. The best reason. So what happened to him?’
I sat closer to her, wrapped the blanket around us both.
‘It was actually said – by Ken afterwards – that HMS Rapid gunned Scarface down when he attacked the lifeboat one last time. But I just couldn’t bring myself to kill him like that. Even if it happened – and we can never truly know – I prefer to think of him still swimming out there in the Atlantic Sea. Don’t you? Isn’t that how it should be?’
Rose nodded. ‘Will he still be there? How old do sharks get to?’
‘Not sure. Maybe twenty? So, no, he won’t be.’
‘At least he maybe got to be an old man.’ She paused. ‘Did Colin?’
‘No more story right now,’ I said, getting up. ‘I’ll have to find more candles and ring and find out what’s going on with the electricity.’
‘Because the story’s not over,’ Rose said, more urgently. ‘There’s always the end and then what happened after the end.’
‘We can maybe do that tomorrow.’
‘In bed,’ she insisted. ‘Soon.’
‘We’ll see.’
‘We’ll see!’ she mocked.
‘Rose, you said you’d be able to let it go,’ I said.
‘This isn’t me not letting it go,’ she said. ‘I just want to know about the medals and stuff.’
‘I know,’ I said softly.
I understood her needing those final threads to be tied up neatly. I could feel Colin fading already, leaving us, returning not to the lifeboat but perhaps home. Even though I hated them, I also felt there should be one last goodbye.
‘I know,’ I said. ‘We can do that, but the house is cold and dark and I need to warm and light it.’
‘When I’m in bed, please?’
‘Maybe,’ I sighed. ‘We cou…’
A knock on the door finished my sentence. I remembered April earlier on, promising lemon cake if the lights didn’t come back up. Such treats only reminded me that Rose would need extra insulin to enjoy it or she’d have to wait until her blood sugars were low. Perhaps I’d just hide the cake away so she didn’t nag for the smallest piece, as she so often did, breaking my heart.
How fast the reality of injections and blood readings and power cuts replaced our visit to the lifeboat. I was almost afraid of the lights coming on again. When they did, like those in the theatre after a play is done, I felt like the magic would die altogether. It would be like none of it had happened.
A knock on the door again. An impatient April, with cake.
‘Don’t go too near that candle,’ I warned Rose, ‘and when I come back I’ll guide you upstairs so you can clean your teeth and get ready for bed.’
‘Not bedtime,’ she moaned. ‘Can’t I …’
‘No,’ I snapped, and went to the door.
In the shadow I could barely make April out. What was it Colin had written in his diary? That at sea it wasn’t the darkest before dawn but when the sun had just gone. Yet it seemed blacker now than when April had called earlier, even though my eyes had had time to grow accustomed to it.
‘April,’ I said.
Then the lights flickered, came on, went off, and came on again.
‘I’m not April,’ he said.
No, it wasn’t. It was a ghost.
It was Jake.
Jake with his two oversized bags. His thick red hair was cut short for the tour, his freckled skin was sunburnt and his hazel eyes so like Rose’s, full somehow of both mischief and sadness. He dropped the two bags. I put a hand out and drew it back, afraid that my touch would make him disappear again. He held my face and I closed my eyes, smiled.
He was real. He was home. He kissed me.
‘But … how?’ I managed to ask, still afraid to believe.
‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’ he said.
‘Oh, yes.’ I shivered in the wintry draught. ‘Of course, yes.’
‘What did you do with all the light?’ Jake picked up his bags. ‘The house was dark as I approached. Did you forget to pay the bills in my absence?’
‘Oh, no. It was a power cut. But you … when did …how…’ I could hardly talk; I was Colin when he saw the ship.
‘I only found out yesterday,’ Jake said, still bright in the new light, so sudden, so real. He stamped his feet on the mat. ‘There wasn’t time. Anyway I thought it would be like that night in the snow. Remember? Me showing up when you didn’t expect.’
‘Of course I remember.’
I had thought of it so many times while he was away. Now Jake had given me another moment to save for dark times alone – the night he arrived with the light.
I began to close the door, but paused. On the street, in a growing mist that curled like waves, another ghostly shape. Colin? I tried to focus, make him out in the silvery haze, a familiar shape, a smile. But it disappeared. Perhaps my imagination.
‘What is it?’ asked Jake.
‘No, nothing,’ I said softly, and closed the door.
Then, shy at first, I put my head on Jake’s chest. Like Rose, he smelt of things familiar, of him, and of faraway places I’d never know. I could hear his heart through the thick jacket, as rhythmic as the sea – or maybe I imagined I could.
‘I can’t believe you’re here,’ was all I could say.
‘I am.’ He squeezed me, hard.
‘I don’t want you to go away again,’ I said softly.
‘We can talk about that,’ he said.
‘We can?’ I looked up at him.
He nodded. ‘It might be time.’
I remembered Rose, waiting by the candle. As though reading my mind, Jake said, ‘So where’s my girl?’
‘She’s going to be so happy.’ I pulled free, wanting to share this wonderful surprise. ‘Rose,’ I called. ‘Can you blow that candle out and come here?’
Come and see what happens after the end, I thought.
30
BACK TO THE SEA
Two of us left. We will stick it to the end.
K.C.
‘I don’t want to go to bed yet,’ Rose called from the back room.
Then she appeared in the hallway, hair all messed up from being wrapped in a blanket, and her mouth fell open and her eyes blinked three times. ‘Dad? Oh, Dad, it’s you!’ And she ran and jumped on him.
Jake picked her up and swung her the way he had since she could walk. ‘Gosh, you’ve grown,’ he said, pretending she was too heavy for him to lift.
Rose play punched him. ‘I’m light as a feather!’ She looked at me. ‘Did you know, Mum? You should have told me!’
‘She didn’t know,’ said Jake, kissing her forehead and putting her down. ‘I thought I’d surprise you both. I’d never have missed the looks on your faces now. So what have you been up to then? What’s new and what�
��s happening?’
‘Don’t say happening, Dad,’ said Rose. ‘It makes you sound ancient. We just had a power cut – it was aces. We had to light a candle to finish our story.’
Jake came into the kitchen, Rose dancing around him, and I closed the door. The radiators clanked and warmth filled the house again. We had light, we had heat, and we had Jake. I still wanted to pinch his arm, touch his face, and make sure he was real.
I switched on the kettle and fussed about how hungry he must be, but he said he was fine and he’d eat supper with Rose.
‘I’ve had it already.’ She was still dancing about. ‘Done my injection and blood and everything.’
Jake looked sad at the word injection. I remembered that I’d had two months to get accustomed to it, to her diabetes, to blood tests. This would all be new for him. It would likely be a shock to see his little girl drawing blood for the first time, to watch her pierce flesh with needle. He’d have to get used to the dark.
He sat at the table, motioned for Rose to sit on his knee.
‘I’m nearly bloody ten,’ she said.
‘Language,’ I warned.
‘You’re never too old to sit with me,’ he said.
So she did.
‘Tell me all about this here diabetes then,’ he said, his voice light but his eyes pained. I left them together, Rose talking animatedly about what she had to do and what it all meant and showing him her blood machine, and Jake listening intently. I washed the tea and supper pots and put the laundry away, and when I returned they were talking about Colin.
‘Today the ship came,’ she explained. ‘I swear, Dad, I thought my heart was going to jump right out of my mouth!’
‘Speaking of stories,’ he said, going into his holdall. ‘How about these?’ He took out a handful of new paperbacks. ‘I got them for you at the airport. If you’ve already got some of them, don’t worry.’
Rose viewed them quietly. ‘Thanks, Dad,’ she said.
Jake frowned and looked at me. The old Rose had always clapped her hands in joy at new books. This one – the one Jake had to get to know – hadn’t read a book in weeks. I shook my head to let Jake know I’d explain later.
‘I know your dad’s here, but it’s late,’ I said.
‘Do I have to go to bed?’
‘Yes,’ said Jake. ‘Come on, your mum’s right. I’ll be still here in the morning.’