A Trick of the Mind

by Penny Hancock

  I peered through the kitchen window, out across the windblown grass, trying to see whether the white clouds that stippled the blue sky were moving, and if so, how fast.

  ‘Of course it is. It’s beautiful. Sunny, a light breeze, perfect, a little dull for me but what the fuck. I need to get out there, I’m going stir-crazy, Ellie, and I need you to help me.’

  OK, so there was no choice. I would show Patrick, if I had to, that I was indeed the woman he believed I was, who liked sailing even though she wasn’t as good at it as she might have given him the impression of being, and who loved the sea as much as he did.

  And so I followed him out of the house and down to the harbour.

  They looked small and easy to control, these sailing dinghies going about on the estuary, when you were standing on the esplanade. They looked no more than toy boats. What you didn’t bargain for standing dry on the land was the force of the wind and the waves, the lack of regard the sea and the elements have for human frailty or fear.

  And here, on the jetty, in the mouth of the estuary, a vague memory came to me, something long ago happening in this very place, or somewhere very similar. The swirling green beneath the duckboards, a child with a crabbing net, of screaming to no avail ‘no, no, no!’ into the silence of the vast indifferent flatlands up towards Blythburgh, where the river lay silent and broad reflecting the grey sky. No one answering.

  A couple of old seafaring locals – going by the weather-beaten look of their skin – looked on.

  ‘There are storms forecast,’ one of them said, watching me struggle as we got the boat in the water. ‘You don’t want to be out too long.’ Patrick ignored him, his face hardening at the man’s words. He issued orders. Although I didn’t know what the hell he was referring to when he asked me to untie the painter or tighten the shackle key, I tried to look as though I was distracted by this talk of the weather rather than ignorant.

  ‘Are you sure it’s OK to go out in this weather?’ I asked.

  The wind had got up as I tugged randomly at various bits and pieces, things that screwed in and things that you had to wedge between cleats, with the boom and the centre-board.

  ‘Of course it’s OK. We’re not wimps, are we, Ellie? Now, we’re ready to launch. Get in.’

  The minute I stepped aboard I felt small, the boat unwieldy as it bucked on the water that was hardly rough here in the estuary yet already made me feel as if I was riding a rodeo. I did my best, holding onto the side of the jetty with one hand as Patrick got in and shuffled to the stern to take the tiller. I could hear the water slap against the bows, the sails flap in the wind. Out beyond the estuary, the sea looked deep and dark and forboding.

  ‘You know what to do, don’t you?’ Patrick shouted as he steered the boat out into the middle of the estuary.

  ‘Yes,’ I answered, but my voice was carried off in the wind.

  The sails snapped rigid, straining, and the boat leapt forward, as the wind shifted so it was behind us. Spray hit my face hard and sharp as gravel and stung. I wanted to hold onto something stable. I didn’t want to be on this boat at all. I wanted firm ground under my feet. I held tight to the rope that Patrick shouted at me to hold onto, the boat thrusting and rearing with the strength of a wild horse. I thought of Patrick’s mottos, telling me every problem was a challenge, that you couldn’t live life within tight, restrictive boundaries – how inspiring I’d found them at first. You have to step outside your comfort zone. I was definitely stepping outside my comfort zone.

  ‘Christ, concentrate, Ellie! Pull that jib sheet in tight,’ Patrick yelled above the flapping of the sail and the clanking of something against the mast. ‘Or we’ll be over and I don’t fancy capsizing in this.’

  In seconds we were out of the estuary and heading out to sea.

  We turned about and the boat slowed down, and I relaxed a little. It was exhilarating, the wind in my face, the water slapping up on the sides of the boat, as we sailed out of the relative calm of the estuary onto the wild North Sea. The seagulls mewled above as the salt stung my face.

  I began to understand the appeal of this total immersion in and interaction with nature. But then the boat keeled over and I was in the grip of new fear.

  There was too much to deal with to give anything else that much thought, however – a moment’s loss of concentration and we’d be over, and the water was not looking too hospitable. I felt tense like the ropes I was clinging onto. I wasn’t a strong swimmer and I prayed we wouldn’t have to test my strength out here, where the waves were looking increasingly massive. Overwhelming. How capable would we be of righting the boat were it to capsize, me with my lack of experience, Patrick with his leg?

  I couldn’t think about it, must focus on keeping the boat upright. I tried not to think of what I knew about Stef, Patrick’s dead wife.

  Of course the more you try not to think the more a vision insists on filling your mind. I saw, though I tried not to, the white horses on the waves turning pink with blood, and I shut my eyes tightly. A vision of his wife in her wedding dress, the orbs of the power station behind her.

  Patrick telling me that she had died in a power-boat incident, because she hadn’t listened to his warning, his strange tone of voice as he’d recalled the tragic event. His outburst that she had let him down. The time he’d taunted me with talk of her corpse floating head up – or was it down – why had he done that? Was it just bravado? Or something else? NO. I mustn’t think.

  When I looked up, the shore had shrunk to a jagged line of pan-tiled rooftops, with the white lighthouse just poking up above them – a tiny group when seen from this perspective against the heath to one side and the long strip of sandy beach to the other, each building etched in a white outline of light. I felt the breath catch in my throat. The boat was keeling over, I was inches from the water. Patrick yelled at me that we must change tack and we went about, meaning I had to duck the boom as it swung across and shift myself to the other side of the boat.

  Then the wind dropped and the sun caught my face, bright and warm through the blue sails.

  The sea calmed and we were buffeted gently over the waves as we moved towards the shore.

  My heart swelled. With relief, with triumph that I’d managed not to panic, and with something strong and as difficult to rein in as the boat on the waves.

  Earlier, I had had a kind of out-of-control feeling, as if I’d relinquished my will to someone else and no longer had a handle on my own life. Now we were in sight of land, I was beginning to feel I could do this. I was feeling strong. If I could hold my own out on the sea in a boat when I’d never sailed before, I could handle Patrick’s moods as well. If I played it right, Patrick would never upset me again. I could do it! I could handle him. If I stayed by him, I might, by healing him, change him too. His mood swings would stop.

  We would be so good for one another, he would help me take new risks with my life and my work, I would soothe away his fear of being abandoned, show him I loved him and wouldn’t let him down.

  And then we were there, approaching land, the wind behind us, the beautiful blue sails perpendicular now to the mast, like wings spread to either side of the boat, the sun on them.

  Patrick pointed up at the cliffs.

  ‘That’s where the cemetery has crumbled into the sea, due to erosion. This was a city lost to the sea. Some people say you can see the bones from family vaults in the old churchyard, jutting from the cliff ledge as if they were begging for mercy. Broken legs and arms all exposed by the relentless onslaught of the elements.’

  ‘Amazing.’

  ‘Yes, this was once the biggest market town in East Anglia. Not much left of it now as you’ll soon see. Now, chuck the painter, I’ll moor us to the jetty.’

  I helped Patrick out of the boat and he used his crutches to walk the short distance up the track to the Ship pub.

  The lunch tasted better, I thought, than any lunch I’d eaten in my life. Something to do with the energy burnt out on the sea
, as we’d trapped the wind, using all the strength in our arm muscles, confronting those waves, the invigoration of sea air in my lungs. It had all given us an appetite and we ate ravenously, both of us.

  We had great crispy orange slabs of fish in beer batter and chunky hand-cut chips, and peas, and tartare sauce from a little bowl. We drank cider. We didn’t talk. We didn’t need to talk. Patrick ate as if his life depended on it, shovelling food into his mouth. The world began to look soft and muzzy.

  We were scraping the last crumbs off our plates when a shadow fell over the table and I looked up into a face that sent a chill through me.

  Patrick seemed to flinch too, a split second’s doubt clouding his face.

  The man had wide-set eyes, a broad nose, pale skin.

  ‘I thought I’d seen the back of you,’ he said, his eyes fixed on Patrick. ‘I thought we had scared you off – a coward like you.’

  The man was about fifty years old, balding, short and stocky. His face was red, but with weather, it looked like, rather than alcohol – it had that wind-roughened texture to it. He wore jeans tucked into short leather boots and a dark green fleece zipped up to his chin.

  Patrick’s fork stopped halfway to his mouth. He put it back down on his plate, wiped his hands with a napkin.

  Slow, controlled movements.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Don’t bullshit me like you think you can bullshit everyone else. I wonder whose boat you came round here on today?’ The man’s protruding eyes swivelled to look at me. ‘You can bet it wasn’t his own,’ he said.

  I’d seen him before, I knew it.

  But where?

  Patrick wiped his hands again, took a sip of cider.

  ‘If you don’t mind, I’d appreciate it if you’d leave us alone.’ He winked at me. The man took a step closer to our table.

  ‘Not until you get the message. You’re not wanted around here. I thought, everyone thought you wouldn’t have the nerve to come back.’

  ‘Give it a rest, mate.’

  ‘Don’t fucking call me mate.’ He took a step closer, so he was right behind Patrick now, his fists balled up. He didn’t look like someone who usually got into fights; there was a restraint, a nervousness about him, that reminded me oddly of my father.

  Patrick placed his napkin in front of him, and put his hands on the table, either side of his plate, as if in readiness to move quickly. But when he spoke his voice was calm.

  ‘I don’t have the foggiest what you’re on about. My girlfriend and I are just having a quiet drink. I’d appreciate a little space, thank you.’

  ‘Perhaps this will jog your memory . . .’ The man pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, a grainy photo, cut out of a newspaper. I couldn’t see it clearly, but caught a laughing woman’s face, alongside an inset of a power-boat type vessel on a rough sea.

  ‘You got away with it, but we all know the truth. You’ll pay for it. You haven’t seen the last of me.’ At that point the short man’s voice cracked. ‘You destroyed my family!’

  People at the other tables in the restaurant were putting their knives and forks down, looking round at us.

  ‘I could have you done for slander,’ Patrick said in his best city-boy voice. ‘I’d watch what you say.’

  ‘You’re lucky you’re still putting food into that hole in your face . . .’ The man’s fist went back, his face reddening as he gathered himself awkwardly for a blow he clearly wasn’t used to giving, and within a split second Patrick was standing up, his body tensed, his own arm retracting as if in preparation for a fight, his face hard, cruel, stony, the way he had looked when he caught me looking at his childhood photos.

  ‘I’ll eat where I like and with whom I like,’ Patrick said, taking a step towards the man. ‘You may think you can mess with Patrick McIntyre but you’re mistaken. No one insults Patrick McIntyre.’

  I flinched.

  ‘Patrick, stop . . .’ He was beginning to sound ridiculous now, I thought, and his face, contorted into one of menace, his teeth clamped down on his lower lip turning the flesh white, gave him a crazed look.

  ‘Hey, hey. That’s enough of that.’ The publican had come out from behind the bar, grabbed the other man’s white-knuckled hand mid-flight, stopped him from landing one on Patrick’s face.

  The other diners, realising the spectacle wasn’t coming to anything, returned to their plates of food.

  ‘This isn’t the last of it!’ the other man snarled as the publican dragged him away.

  When he’d gone, Patrick sat down. His hands were trembling.

  He stared down at the dregs of cider in his glass.

  Then he stood up and swung on his crutches to the door.

  I followed him, leaving our unfinished drinks on the table.

  ‘Patrick?’

  He didn’t reply.

  ‘What is it? What did he mean? What should you pay for?’

  He didn’t answer.

  I was beginning to think I knew.

  Of course I knew.

  Outside, the man had reached a battered red van. He climbed in and revved it hard. It sent gravel flying up as he drove it past us. Its front was battered, dented, and it was thick with dirt. He drove it away up the track. And I knew where I’d seen that van before. Parked on the roadside in the dark. The night I’d gone back to see if I’d knocked a man over. Knocked Patrick over. That man, with the wide-set eyes, was the one who had come after me as I’d got into the car. He’d looked in the window at me, and said something, and I’d driven off. What was it he had mouthed? I tried to visualise the way his lips had moved, what he might have been shouting. I’d assumed he was threatening me.

  Now it occurred to me he might have been warning me.

  Not to get involved?

  Clouds had gathered while we were eating lunch, dark over towards the horizon, threads of lightning flickering in the distance.

  ‘Is it coming this way?’ I asked Patrick. I knew better than to refer to what had just been said in the pub, Patrick had that closed-off look on his face. A look that told me to tread with care. This tiny village by the sea was full of forboding, the woodlands on one side, the sea on the other. The macabre remains of corpses waving from the cliff sides. We were marooned. But I was here with no means of getting home except on his boat.

  At last he turned, took my arm.

  ‘It’s miles away. We’ll be back by the time it presents any threat. But we’d better get going.’

  ‘Patrick. I’m afraid of going back in the boat. Isn’t there some way we could go by road?’

  ‘NO! Get in. It’ll be much quicker sailing round the coast.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Ellie, have you any idea how far it is by road? We haven’t got a car here and to walk would take you all night. Get in.’

  I stood knee-deep in water helping Patrick re-rig the boat, fumbling with the soggy ropes, not knowing what to do with them, trying to look as though I did.

  ‘Just hold the hull tight,’ Patrick said after a while, realising how useless I was. I did as he said, fighting to keep it from running off without us into the waves. I could see it was urgent that we got the boat set up so we could get back before the storm got any closer. The sails beat so hard we couldn’t hear each other. Eventually we were off, and I gave in to Patrick’s superior knowledge and experience at sea. What choice did I have?

  He was steering the boat further and further out.

  We were heading towards heavy black clouds. Thin forks of lightning touched the sea in the distance. We hurtled along until the boat no longer seemed to be riding the waves, but was leaping up and slamming into them. I went into automatic, bailing water from the boat, my eyes screwed up against the salt spray, my fingers numb. When I looked up all I could see was the dark horizon dipping and rising before us. The photo the man had waved at us, of Patrick’s wife, came in focus for a second, before fading away. We were going further and further out to sea.
/>   ‘Can we turn back now, Patrick? I’m frightened.’ I had to shout for my voice to be heard over the wind and the waves. It was as if he couldn’t hear. Wouldn’t hear. Patrick’s face was screwed up, a yellowish blur in the lowering light, and his eyes were fixed on the horizon and I knew then that the man I had believed I might have loved wasn’t there any more, this was someone I didn’t really know at all.

  Instead of fear, all I felt now was a dull sense of the inevitable. There was nothing I could do but cling to the sodden jib sheet and clutch with one hand the slippery side of the boat as the waves sloshed over.

  I don’t know how long we were out on the waves before Patrick seemed to come back into himself, pushed the tiller right over and turned the boat back towards the shore. We rounded the headland and Southwold came back into view. I was so relieved to see the lighthouse, the beach huts, the terracotta-coloured pan-tiled roofs, I wanted to cry or whoop with joy. Patrick hadn’t spoken or looked at me and I didn’t know what was more frightening.

  The storm or his silence.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  We were back on the jetty. Patrick took the sails down and unhooked the mast and was packing the boat away, glancing about, though the esplanade was deserted now the rain had set in, apart from Larry, who was wobbling along on his bike past the fishing huts. He stopped, holding the bicycle between his knees when he came in line with us. He stood for a while, watching Patrick pull the tarpaulin back over the boat, his face lit by a lurid ray of sunlight that had slipped out from beneath the storm clouds, turning it a peculiar shade of green.

  ‘That not your boat,’ Larry said. ‘Not your boat. That boat Arnie’s.’

  Patrick kept his back to him, ignoring him.

  Larry shook his head and after a while lost interest and pedalled off towards the sea.

  ‘Patrick,’ I said, before I could stop myself, ‘I just wondered why both the man in the pub and Larry seem to think this boat we were sailing doesn’t belong to you?’ The minute I’d spoken I wished I hadn’t.

  He swung round to face me, his face hard. My heart began to race. I had probed too far again.