Mainlander

by Will Smith

  Rob let out a laugh. ‘Well, I’m going to miss this place.’

  ‘Where are you taking her?’ asked Carrière, flatly, presenting Rob with some paperwork to sign.

  ‘There’s a spare buoy in front of the Bretagne.’

  ‘Okay if you move her now?’

  ‘Right now?’ queried Rob, blowing on the glisten of his signature.

  ‘My waiting list is in double figures. Someone else will be in by sunset.’

  ‘It’s a little tricky to do it exactly now.’

  ‘Need someone to help you start the engine?’

  ‘I drove here. I’d have to leave the car.’

  ‘Well, you’ve just cancelled the berth and I need to fill it. So if you don’t move her, I will.’

  ‘Fine, I’ll move her now. And then maybe I’ll buy up some of the other buoys in my bay …’

  ‘Your bay?’ echoed Stanley, mockingly.

  ‘… maybe slap in a jetty,’ continued a stung Rob, ‘start a nice little marina of my own.’

  ‘Be my guest, son. I’m sure it’ll be as successful as your other ventures.’

  Rob left reeling, as though he’d been mugged. He’d show them, stupid old bastards. As he stomped down the gangway to the pontoons, his eye was caught by a large moored sailing boat hidden from his previous vantage-point, and by the young blonde woman in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt lounging on the deck reading the local paper. He stood in front of the stern where he could see her face hovering over the headline ‘Teacher Concerned For Missing Normandy College Pupil’. Big deal, he thought, while waiting for her to acknowledge him. He’ll turn up, nowhere to go. She was tanned, and his thoughts turned to the perfectly sized breasts that, given the right weather, she had no trouble displaying for him. He knew that behind the Ray-Bans she was perfectly aware of his presence, and that she was now probably not reading the paper but staring him down, willing him to make the first move.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, his appetite for games drained for the day.

  She put the paper down and sat up. Her sea-salt-knotted blonde hair spilt out from the back of her weathered baseball cap. Rob seethed at her capacity to appear to him so deeply fuckable, even though she was one of the people he most loathed on earth. ‘Oh, hi,’ she said. ‘You surprised me.’

  ‘And you me. How long have you been back?’

  ‘A week. We’ve been sleeping on the boat, though. Doesn’t feel right sleeping on land after so many months.’

  ‘You did the whole thing from Nice?’

  ‘Yup. Amazing.’

  ‘Well, whether you’ve been sleeping on the boat or not, you’ve been back in the Island a week, and it would have been nice to hear from you.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Have I been a bad mummy again?’

  ‘You’re not my … I’m not doing this. Is he below?’

  ‘He’s just had a shower. His second of the day.’

  Rob held her gaze, ignoring the allusion to sex. ‘Can you call him for me, please?’

  The woman smirked, stood up and walked to the bow where she called below deck, ‘Russ, we have a visitor.’

  A lithe, greying man loomed up from below and kissed her as she went down in turn. He smiled when he saw Rob, climbed on to the pontoon and extended his hand. ‘Rob, nice to see you.’

  ‘Dad.’

  ‘How are things?’

  ‘Good. I didn’t know you were back.’

  ‘Got here a couple of days ago.’

  ‘Rachel said it was a week.’

  ‘Could well be. Been so many people to catch up with, it’s all a bit of a blur.’

  ‘Were you planning to catch up with me?’

  ‘I didn’t know if you’d be around. You jet about more than I do.’

  ‘No, I’m here. Be good to have lunch or dinner. The two of us.’

  ‘Absolutely. We’re probably back for Christmas.’

  ‘What’s wrong with before then?’

  ‘We’re off to the Caymans tomorrow. Got a bit addicted to the sun.’

  Rob took a breath, but changed tack. He couldn’t bear to articulate what he knew to be true: that if he hadn’t bumped into his father he would never have known he’d been back in the Island. ‘Right,’ he stumbled.

  ‘How’s business?’ asked his father.

  ‘Good, really good. Long-term, things are looking like they’ll explode.’ He took a breath. He had faith in Rick, but it would be good to add a belt to his braces. ‘Medium-term I could maybe do with a bridging loan—’

  ‘That’s great to hear,’ interjected his father, cutting him off mid-hint. ‘I’m happy it’s working out. Glad you’re taking the place to new heights.’

  ‘Yes, although, since you brought it up …’ Rob tailed off as Rachel came back on deck, this time in a camisole with her hoodie draped over her shoulders. He could see she wasn’t wearing a bra. As she settled back with the paper, he drew his father aside. ‘Why don’t you walk with me? I’m moving the boat.’

  His father fell in beside him. ‘Why the move?’

  ‘Easier to have it moored in front of the Bretagne – I’m there more than here. Plus, between us, I’m making economies, talking of which—’

  ‘I’m not giving you any money, Rob.’

  ‘I don’t want you to give it to me. It would be a loan.’

  ‘I made my way, you can make yours.’

  ‘I am making my way. I’ve got plans. Big plans. You know the Queen’s coming?’

  ‘Yes, I heard.’

  ‘Well, if you won’t help financially, maybe you could get Henry to put in a word—’

  ‘Rob, I told you, I’m off tomorrow.’

  ‘It would just be a phone call.’

  ‘I’m not calling the Bailiff to sort your business problems out. You shouldn’t rely on gimmicks. Stick to what works.’

  ‘I know you still think I shouldn’t have got rid of Sammy Dee …’

  ‘This isn’t about Sammy, although I hear he’s hitting the sauce now he doesn’t have a regular gig. It’s about change for change’s sake.’

  ‘The world is changing, don’t you know that?’

  ‘I know I started with nothing and that I ended up with some hotels. I gave you one, and you’ve decided to turn it back into nothing.’

  ‘That’s not true. And how would you know that anyway?’

  ‘An Islander doesn’t have to be in the Island to hear the news, you know.’

  ‘Please – have you been listening to those old farts in the clubhouse? I mean, maybe I overstretched at the start, but I’ve adjusted my business plan. I’ll be fine, but any help would be welcome. It would just get me there quicker.’

  ‘Sorry. I’ve helped enough.’

  ‘You’d help Rachel. You were going to buy her that stupid café.’

  ‘She’s my wife.’

  ‘I’m your son.’

  ‘You’re not a little boy any more. When I was your age—’

  ‘Don’t bring up age, okay? I’m going to end up saying something I’ll regret.’

  ‘Your attitude towards Rachel doesn’t help. It’s been five years.’

  ‘So she’s twenty-seven now. Still younger than Mum was when she had me.’

  ‘She’s very mature.’

  ‘And I’m not?’

  ‘I didn’t say that. Is this you?’

  They had arrived at Rob’s boat, and both men saw fit to change the subject.

  ‘Yeah. Have you not seen her before?’

  ‘No, don’t think I have. She’s new, is she?’

  ‘Got her last year. Traded in the old one. Like to update the model.’

  ‘Hm.’ Neither man could decide whether Rob had just made a crack at his father’s third marriage.

  ‘If you fancy taking her out, you could help me move her.’

  ‘Love to, but you know me. More into wind-power.’

  ‘Well, maybe drive the car back for me. Make it a race, winner buys drinks.’

  ‘We’re due to have tea wit
h Rachel’s parents. Good to see you, though, love to Sally.’

  A brief handshake and Rob was abruptly left to untie the boat and cast off alone. He had a humiliating thirty-minute wait till the tide came in enough to allow him to pass the sill, which resulted in some jeers from above that he declined to acknowledge. Ten minutes after that he arrived at his new mooring, then rowed ashore in the cruiser’s dinghy to be met by Christophe, blaming his tear streaks and reddened eyes on the wind and spray.

  10

  COLIN

  Thursday, 15 October 1987

  Colin stared silently at the staffroom carpet, willing himself to become engrossed in calculating the total number of tiles, anything to distract from the isolation he was feeling from his colleagues. The downcast eyes, the wide berths, the lack of conversation with each other, let alone with him, made him feel they were waiting for something. Whether it was for him to break the silence with an apology or the signal for some preordained attack was impossible for him to determine from his addled cocoon.

  Following Tuesday’s revelations and walk-outs, he’d woken with a surprising sense of vigour and attack. He’d skipped Wednesday’s assembly to give a phone interview to a journalist at the Island News, who was delighted to feature Colin’s anony-mous concerns about an unnamed absent pupil, including his shock at the apathy of the authorities. The paper didn’t come out till four o’clock, by which time he was at home. The phone rang at ten past. Colin had supposed it might be a truce-seeking Emma, and had been taken aback to hear her father’s voice. He had expected a rebuke for the way he had treated her, knowing it was too much to expect an off-the-record acknowledgement that, while Jack had to take his daughter’s side, he had every sympathy with his son-in-law and knew exactly how she could go off at the deep end. But he had not expected to be berated for the article, or for the motives of the journalist to be so impugned.

  ‘Do you know where Paul La Cloche went to school?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ogiers – so, of course, he wants to make trouble for us. They don’t even have a uniform at that hippie coven.’

  ‘Jack, a boy is missing.’

  ‘Your wife is missing from your home and you didn’t alert the media to that unfortunate titbit.’

  ‘A missing child is not a titbit.’

  ‘You’ve made it a titbit by not giving his name. Surely you know how this Island works. Everybody will be trying to figure out who it is.’

  ‘Good, because no one’s given a damn up till now.’

  ‘And what happens when they find out he was dealing drugs in the playground? Yes, I know about that! Know his name too, but I’m not going to say it in case I’m overheard. We have fees and an entrance exam so parents can rest easy that this kind of thing doesn’t happen.’

  ‘The boy needs help.’

  ‘It’s a bloody witch-hunt, but it’s the reputation of the school that will go up in flames. Yours, too. You think Le Brocq’s not going to know it was you who spoke to the press? I worked it out in about five minutes.’

  ‘You mean Emma told you.’

  ‘That’s not all she told me. It seems your conduct with pupils and staff is unbecoming, these days. And I’m speaking to you not as Emma’s father but as a member of the board of governors.’

  ‘I’ve done nothing wrong. Emma and I are just having a little difficulty.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask to speak to her?’

  ‘I didn’t think she’d want to speak to me.’

  ‘Well, if you need prompting, I’m sure she doesn’t.’

  With that Jack had hung up, leaving Colin to another long late afternoon and evening caged in the flat, apprehensive about handling the shards of his marriage and the barbs of his colleagues.

  As he now perched alone and Jonah-like on the staffroom sofa, while his peers stood or milled at a distance, a pair of yellow cork wedge shoes entered the top of his field of vision and paused. It was Debbie – he knew from the ankle, the shape of her calves and the shoes that brought her mouth within kissing range. He knew, too, she was waiting for an upwards glance he refused to bestow. He had no wish to break the silence that hung over the room, certainly not with an argument over the row that her letter had precipitated.

  She moved off as the door opened behind him and he felt the swagger of Blampied before he heard his leer. ‘Well, if it isn’t Woodward or Bernstein.’

  Colin sat back and raised his head, but refrained from turning round. He felt like a kid at the cinema who, having been pelted with a chewed sweet, was hoping time would prove it to be an accident, despite knowing it was deliberate.

  ‘You’re awfully quiet, Bygate. Couldn’t shut up yesterday, though, could you? Blessed with uncharacteristic loquacity – “I believe that our duty of care is not limited by the boundary of the school gates,” said a “member of staff”. You may as well have given your name and bowed, had your photo taken, flash off obviously, else they might catch some flare from your halo.’

  ‘Why are you so unconcerned, Aidan? Why is it just a joke to you?’ said Colin, speaking softly, determined not to match Blampied’s antagonism.

  ‘You don’t know what you’ve done, do you?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’ve done. I’d like to find out from Duncan Labey what it was.’

  ‘There you go again, making private stuff public, adding little smears and hints. You actually want people to know what Duncan Labey is running from?’

  ‘I’d like to hear it from him.’

  ‘You know, some people could be mistaken for thinking you’re calling me a liar. Some people, rather than asking why I’m so laid back about the situation, might ask why you’re so uptight. Is everything all right at home?’

  Colin shot up from the sofa and turned to face Blampied, with only the furniture to stop him lunging at the man. ‘That’s below the fucking belt.’

  ‘Language. That’s not a very good example. I hope you don’t speak like that in class.’

  ‘You found drugs on him, but you took no action.’

  ‘Why are you so intent on washing dirty linen in public?’

  ‘Why are you intent on washing it behind closed doors?’

  ‘He threatened me with unfounded accusations.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘To avoid punishment.’

  ‘And now he’s God knows where.’

  ‘Are you sure your time wouldn’t be better spent trying to find your wife than your pupil?’

  From the edge of his vision he saw Debbie blanch and couldn’t stop his eyes darting to her. The flickered smirk on Blampied’s face told him he had clocked it too. Colin rounded the sofa and stood nose to nose with him, the other man annoyingly refusing to flinch.

  ‘Where are the drugs, then?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The cannabis you found on him. Where is it?’

  ‘Are you calling me a liar, just because I don’t have it in my jacket pocket? I’m not going to walk round with it. It’s illegal to possess it. Are the laws on drugs different where you come from?’

  ‘Where I come from, we tend to let the authorities deal with the laws, rather than hiding it away and fucking it up ourselves.’

  ‘Again with the inappropriate language.’

  Colin seethed with a surge of adrenalin that made him feel he could have picked up the sofa and smacked Blampied round the head with it.

  He heard the click and squeak of the door again, and Le Brocq’s voice pre-empting whatever snipe would have come next.

  ‘Mr Bygate. Please step outside.’

  Colin’s eyes remained locked with Blampied’s. He had never come this close to hitting another human being in his life.

  ‘You are not a good person.’ To Colin, this was the vilest insult he could have given, but Blampied just snorted as Colin walked off to his fate with Le Brocq. As the headmaster shut the door behind them he heard a collective release of breath, followed by the whooshing
hubbub of gossip. He walked alongside Le Brocq in silence through the milling ranks of pupils awaiting the registration bell. When they arrived in the headmaster’s office Colin saw the Island News on his desk.

  Le Brocq stood in front of his chair. ‘Don’t sit, this won’t take long. What have you got to say? Doesn’t matter, won’t change things. You’ve disobeyed my instructions three times, Mr Bygate. You contacted the police, the parents and the press. You are suspended, Mr Bygate.’

  Colin shrugged. He had expected as much. ‘For how long?’

  ‘Indefinitely. Feel free to explore other options during this period. Possibly consider a career away from teaching.’

  ‘I’m a good teacher.’

  ‘You almost attacked another member of staff just now. And I hear that you may be amorously attached to another. None of this will do. I will discuss your future with the governors at the end of the month. As I said, it is far from rosy.’

  ‘May I go?’

  ‘It would be my pleasure if you would do so.’

  Colin stopped at the door. ‘You haven’t even mentioned Duncan Labey.’

  ‘The police are confident they will locate him soon.’

  ‘Oh, they’re bothering now. Well, that’s something. Must have worked their way down the to-do list, washed all the squad cars.’

  Colin left the front door of the school, passing Mr Boucher as he rang the handbell for registration on the steps. As a final act of childish transgression he strode directly on to the out-of-bounds Conqueror’s Lawn and headed for the lower gate, elated by the intrigue among the staff and pupils this was clearly creating in his wake.

  As he reached the exit Debbie overtook him and glided to a stop on her bike, having freewheeled down one of the tree-fringed paths that ringed the lawn. He strode past her with a nod.

  ‘Colin!’

  He stopped and turned. ‘What?’

  ‘Look, what’s happened to you is completely unfair. You’re doing the right thing. But why are you angry with me? Did you get my card? I want us to be friends again.’

  ‘Yes, I got your card. Unfortunately so did Emma. Which is why she left. So thanks for that. Next time I find myself with a chip-pan fire, maybe you could come round and pour petrol on it.’