The Shape of Clouds

by Peter Benson

  ‘Aphorisms never mean enough,’ she said.

  ‘Stay,’ I said.

  ‘One word is all you need.’

  ‘Sometimes. If you need that word. Or want it.’

  ‘Want is different to can, you know that.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I make no promises.’

  ‘Good. Promises shouldn’t fail.’

  ‘I’m here this evening. Make that enough, Michael.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘It’s enough.’

  ‘You said the right thing.’

  But I hadn’t, not exactly.

  ‌16

  In 1966 the love of my life took my chin in her hand and said, ‘I’m here today, Michael. Make that enough.’ At that time in Barcelona I could not. The sun fumed on the city, fountains played and the smell of freshly baked bread floated in the air. My heart stirred in its bed, turned towards the light and opened one eye. Then the other, and I had found what I had lost, and believed I could live for ever. My life changed with one look.

  I was thirty-nine, and had taken Captain Perkins’s advice. I had lived carefully for two years. I hadn’t drunk. I hadn’t been with a woman. I earned my mate’s ticket. I grew a beard. I read more books than you could pile, novels and biographies, and the histories of places I had visited. Malagasy, Gabon, Kerguelen and the daft islands of the Flores Sea.

  The MV Katia Prelude sailed from Tilbury in September, carrying coal for Marseille. The Channel blew, Biscay was rough, and the propeller shaft wrenched in a force nine. The sound of screaming metal, forced bolts and wrenched, bleeding bearings… We limped into the Mediterranean, dry-docked for repairs in Barcelona and were stood down.

  I took a room in a quiet house in the old part of the city. My room overlooked a courtyard where a fountain played and baskets of flowers hung. Bees flew, cats slept on the cobbles, and the sound of a distant piano drifted in through my window. I sat on the balcony, poured freshly squeezed fruit juice over crushed ice and settled down to read the great novelist Zane Grey.

  Do you recognise the person you could spend a life with immediately? Does everyone do this? With one look? Is it like knowing that the sea is deep? That the sea is deep and blue? That fish swim… When she says her name is it confirmed? For ever? Doubt banished? Isabel was the landlord’s daughter. She came from a downstairs room, crossed the courtyard and stopped for a moment to dip her fingers in the fountain. She tasted the water, and dribbled some of it across her brow. Then she disappeared, and I heard her climb the stairs to my room. She knocked. I put my book down and went to open the door. She was holding a bucket and mop in one hand, and a basket of cloths and bottles in the other. She said, ‘Good morning.’ I didn’t move. ‘I’ve come to clean your room.’ My focus sharpened, and all the things I had denied myself flooded my head. I felt exact. I knew that I was in exactly the right place. It was half past ten in the morning, and birds were singing over the courtyard.

  Isabel was a tall woman. She had short black hair. Her mouth was like a fruit. She wore silver studs in her ears, and a pearl necklace. She smelt of lemons. I took a deep breath. She wore red shoes, a black skirt and a red blouse. ‘Come in,’ I said. She had brown eyes, bird eyes. I stood to one side. She smiled and walked into my room.

  It was tidy. The curtains were open and the bed was made. My clothes were neatly folded. She whistled at them, and walked through to the bathroom. She filled her bucket and washed the floor. As she worked she put her head round the door and said, ‘I was in London.’ Her voice was notes.

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘Three years.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Greenwich. My uncle has a restaurant.’ She squirted something into the bath, bent over and scrubbed. A curl of hair dropped into her eyes. She touched it away. ‘I was in the kitchen.’

  I told her I was born on the Isle of Dogs, in a house with a view across the river to Greenwich, and she told me she could do wonderful things with prawns. I said I was staying two weeks. She told me that she would show me the city of Barcelona. For the second time in my life I left a book half finished.

  She said, ‘I do not like beards.’ I shaved mine off. She said, ‘I would love to visit Besalú.’ We took the bus out of the city and into the hills. Over the old bridge and into the beautiful town. Sitting in a café with a view of the river. A bottle of wine. ‘Can I have a glass?’ I poured. Later, in the market: ‘Can I have an orange?’ I bought two kilos. Back in Barcelona: ‘I will show you how to cook zarzuela de mariscos.’ You never tasted food like it. It danced on the plate.

  Isabel… She took me to a bar, ordered beer and paid a guitarist to play a song. I was in a trance. I had been waiting for her. I asked her if she had been waiting for me. I had known her a week. ‘Maybe,’ she said. It was all I needed. I took her hand and told her that I would leave the sea for her. I took off my cap and showed it to her. I showed her my mother’s stitching, and the frayed peak. I told her about my father, and Captain Perkins. She shook her head but I nodded mine.

  ‘You cannot leave the sea.’

  ‘I can. I’ve money saved.’

  ‘Keep it.’

  ‘I don’t want to. Not while you’re living.’

  ‘The sea is your home.’

  ‘It’s my bed, that’s all.’ I took her hand and promised her anything she wanted. She turned her face away.

  How can a face catch a man? How can a look take him to the edge of his feelings and make him think the impossible? Why can eyes be that deep?

  ‘Please,’ she said. ‘I cannot play games.’

  ‘You think this is a game?’ I slapped my forehead.

  ‘What do you call it?’

  I wanted to say that I called it the most important thing I had ever decided. If you deny your life the gifts it is due then you can only blame yourself. I wanted to tell Isabel Morago that I would, at her command, rip my heart from my chest and show her its swollen chambers. I would spread my fingers and display the cuts in the palms of my hands. If you don’t acknowledge your desires you will live in a swamp of dead wishes, vague memories and imagined pleasures. Nothing but regret. I said, ‘I mean it.’

  ‘I’m here today, Michael. Make that enough.’

  ‘How can I?’

  ‘It’s what I want. You promised me what I wanted.’ Isabel was quick. She missed nothing. ‘I want you to be with me now, and I want you to write to me.’ She patted my hand. ‘I cannot say what will happen.’

  I made those six words a talisman. I threaded them in my head and hung them in my heart. I took them to mean whatever I wanted, so when I was in despair I knew they meant we would never meet again, but when I was gay they were her invitation to a lifetime of love. It could happen. We could open a restaurant in the old town, we could have children, we could take holidays in Besalú. ‘I cannot say what will happen.’ Every promise I ever wanted to hear was locked in those words.

  The MV Katia Prelude sailed from Barcelona in the second week of October. Isabel waved to me from the dock, and I stood on the bridge wing until Spain smudged, its lights came on and the place failed beneath the horizon. I went below and wrote my first letter to her. I told her that I was a lonely man, that I would learn to be a waiter. I would learn about wine. I wrote about the ship, the captain, the crew and our cargo. I repeated that the sea was not my home, it never could be. I was a sailor by chance. I had been born watching ships; I never gave another life a second thought. Believe me.

  I imagined her opening the letter in her room, taking it to the fountain in the courtyard and reading it while the water played and bees came to the flowers that hung from the walls of her father’s house. ‘How,’ I wrote, ‘can one memory of you be enough?’, and as the words bled from my pen a storm blew off the old country, ripped the sea and took the MV Katia Prelude by surprise.

  ‘I cannot say what will happen…’, around and around in my head as the ship was lifted one early morning and spun like a top, first port to starboard, then starboard to po
rt. I was in my bunk, I was thinking hard about Isabel, and how much I wanted that café, the one she thought I could never manage. I was thrown out of bed, the door burst open and the mate ordered me up and out. A hatch had loosened. We were shipping water. We had to move.

  I remember thinking, and that was my mistake. I thought I’m afraid as four of us buckled up. Afraid of that boiling sea but mostly afraid that I would never see Isabel again. I saw her face, I smelt her in the brine, I stuffed my cap inside my shirt and slid along the deck, bounced off the generator vents and into the legs of the man in front of me. He grabbed my collar, pulled me up and said, ‘We’re not losing you. Lucky,’ and when the ship settled between waves, we made a dash for the hatch, roped ourselves to the rail and went to work.

  One of the catches had sheared and the others had loosened, so as the sea washed over the deck the hatch was forced wider. We waited for another lull, then jumped on it and began to screw the good catches down. Mine was stiff, the others were easy. I braced myself with my feet, leant back and pulled. It moved an inch, then another inch, the lull broke and the ship began to climb. I looked up and saw the bows rising, and beyond them the top of the wave twenty-five feet above me. I knew what was going to happen. I shouted to the others. Their catches were tight now and they yelled, ‘Let’s go!’

  ‘Lucky!’

  ‘Go!’

  They untied and ran without looking back, up the deck to the generator house. I saw them go inside, and stand to watch me struggle with my rope. It wouldn’t untie; the ship reached the apex and all I saw was sky. I felt for my cap, I crushed it against my skin and closed my eyes. The air wailed around me, we lurched madly, hung for seconds… and dropped. I covered my head, curled as tightly as I could and waited. I heard the other men shout, I heard the wave burst over the bridge, and a groan of steel. A rail buckled, snapped and clattered across the deck and then I was hit, smashed down by a ton of water and balled against the edge of the hatch.

  I remember thinking again, thinking as I filled with water, I am not going to die, but I’ll lose an arm. Or a leg. Or my sense. My sense of colour. My sight. Everything was black. I yelled, spat, felt blood in my mouth and the taste of steel. The lull came and a moment of silence I must have imagined, and then the others were coming back for me, sliding down the deck. I opened my eyes and they looked as though they were moving in a dream. Their faces were grey. The ship slewed and began to climb the next wave.

  The deck moaned, I stood up, the men were with me. The ocean rose behind them, building walls and floors, adding a roof, steaming from every edge. The men, they looked too small. I tried to speak but blood bubbled the words. I saw a hand move in front of my face. It was holding a knife. The knife came down behind me, the rope was cut and arms were lifting me up. I was pulled, dragged, I held my head and yelled. Blood flew. ‘Shut it!’ one shouted, and I did. I clutched inside my shirt, I crushed my cap, I pinched my skin. The ship began to crest and lurch. I heard ‘Got him?’ and then I was up and into a dark place, the generator house, and into the companionway that ran to the galley, and a dry floor. A dry floor, a warm place by the ovens, the love of my life and bruised ribs. I was a strong man. I would live, but how?

  I asked Elizabeth, ‘Who was the love of your life? Did you have one?’

  ‘The love of my life… You’re meant to have one, aren’t you?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘The love of my life… You had one?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Who was she?’

  ‘Isabel Morago.’

  We were driving to Zennack to see if Jacob had stayed the night at Mrs Bell’s, or if Dan had heard something in the pub, or if Mr Boundy had overheard an agitated telephone conversation. Elizabeth sat on the wheel arch, one foot on the back of the seat, the other on the link-box. We had to shout. ‘Jim Vesala was the love of my life. Poor guy…’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He didn’t make it.’

  ‘Make what?’

  She laughed. ‘God, I love the way you talk!’

  ‘I can’t help it.’

  ‘He didn’t make it as an actor…’

  ‘I never heard of him.’

  ‘Heard of The Black Stones?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He was in that.’

  ‘I think I saw it…’

  ‘It bombed, but he was a good man. That was his problem. Too good for the business. A beautiful man. He had healing hands. A child’s hands… A child’s mind.’ She looked towards the sea and sighed. ‘He shot himself.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Why?’

  The day was high and blue, no clouds, spring. The curtains along the road twitched, and the larks rose. The air was sweet; lambs ran to their mothers. ‘People shouldn’t deny themselves this.’

  ‘I agree,’ she said.

  ‘Why did he do it?’

  ‘Because he couldn’t stand failing.’

  ‘But he made you happy?’

  ‘Yeah. That was the tragedy. He didn’t realise that he did one thing so well, that he hadn’t failed. Or maybe he did and just needed telling. I should have told him. I was so dumb.’ She tapped my shoulder. ‘One thing’s all you need, but you have to recognise it. Love it and use it, Michael. We’ve got that in common.’

  ‘Have we?’

  ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘We don’t need to have anything in common.’

  ‘That’s a strange thing to say.’

  ‘What did you have in common with Jim Vesala?’

  ‘Need.’

  Isabel and I had our letters in common. When we wrote we were passionate, desperate. Our lives depended on the words we wrote. I would write, ‘I love the sea, but it is nothing compared to you. You are deeper than it,’ and she would reply, ‘I love all the things you say, and maybe I believe them. I sometimes think about our little restaurant. I was in the old town today and saw a place that would be perfect, and I imagined you standing by the door with a napkin over your arm. My uncle used to do that.’

  I wrote from Marseille, ‘The further I am from you the more I love you,’ and she replied, ‘Does this mean that if I am lying in your arms you will love me less than you do now?’

  I replied: ‘I love you, Isabel, I love you more than I have ever loved anyone.’

  She wrote: ‘I believe you, Michael.’

  Our tragedy: when we met again we didn’t mention the letters we had written. We behaved as though we were seeing each other for the first time, and the letters were something we had imagined. Neither of us could talk about the things we had written. We sat and drank and held hands in a bar on the waterfront; I wanted to say so much but said nothing but the banal. I watched her lips move, and the tongue inside her mouth. She wore a flower in her hair, and sandals on her feet. I had twenty-four hours ashore, then home to Tilbury. I was locked in need, but could not ask her if she felt the same.

  ‘Need,’ said Elizabeth, ‘is a terrible thing.’

  Mrs Bell told us that Jacob had passed through in the night, and stopped to book a room for Sunday. ‘Or two nights. He wasn’t sure. I told him I couldn’t reserve a bed if he wasn’t sure he wanted it, it wasn’t fair on me, so he put a deposit on two. Cash. He seemed quite charming.’ She didn’t take her eyes off Elizabeth’s clothes. She was using her scarf as a belt, her blouse as a vest and one of my check shirts as a jacket, a pair of my shrunk cord trousers tucked into a pair of boots with newspaper stuffed into the toes and a clean white handkerchief tied around her neck. She looked comfortable and chic. Her hair was tied in a bun. She laughed.

  Mrs Bell frowned and said, ‘He used my bathroom. He was in quite a state. Cut face, bleeding knees. He could hardly see out of one of his eyes. Said he’d fallen over.’

  ‘He slipped on the rocks,’ I said.

  Mrs Bell shook her head. ‘I’m not surprised. Wearing shoes like that. Leather soles.’

  ‘And you say he was charming?’ said Elizabeth.r />
  ‘Perfectly.’

  Elizabeth laughed. ‘He can be.’

  Mrs Bell was standing on the doorstep. We were standing on the garden path. She took a step towards me so she was closer to me than Elizabeth was, and said, ‘He seemed very worried.’

  ‘About what?’ said Elizabeth.

  ‘The situation.’

  ‘The situation? You make it sound like an army manoeuvre.’

  ‘I think,’ said Mrs Bell, firmly now, ‘that he was only doing what any concerned son would do.’

  ‘Concerned son?’ Elizabeth nodded. ‘Sure. Concerned about his pocket book. He doesn’t give a fuck about me…’

  Mrs Bell’s face flushed with blood, and her hands fisted. She said, ‘There’s no need for language.’

  ‘Language?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Language?’

  Mrs Bell folded her arms now, and for a moment the air snapped. I took a deep breath and said, ‘He’s coming back on Sunday?’

  ‘I’ll be happy to have him,’ said Mrs Bell. ‘More than happy…’

  Elizabeth turned away and walked down the garden path. ‘Language?’ she said, and she crossed the square to the post office.

  ‘Really,’ said Mrs Bell.

  ‘He’s not such a nice person…’

  ‘But he’s her son!’

  ‘And her problem,’ I said.

  Mrs Bell shrugged. She does not have children of her own. She said, ‘Are we still going to the cinema tomorrow?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll come over about five.’

  ‘I’m looking forward to it.’ Mrs Bell fluttered her hands, and for a moment I thought she was going to touch me, but then she turned and went back to her house. ‘Five?’ she said.

  ‘I’ll be here.’

  ‌17

  Doomed love can kill. I knew a man who died because a woman did not love him. Jack was from Brighton, a small man with curly blond hair and bulbous eyes. He always wore a shirt and tie, and worked as wireless operator on the MV Frelon Brun, a tanker. He met her in Rio de Janeiro, and he should not have done that.