Close to the Wind

by Jon Walter

  ‘Watch this.’ Oskar ran and dropped onto his knees in a long slide.

  Malik turned full circle as he walked. He had images in his head of dancing couples twirling past him, and he thought of Papa’s parties and Mama being asked to dance, but even Papa’s parties were never anywhere as grand as this.

  ‘What’s in there?’ Oskar pointed to a second set of double doors at the end of the ballroom, and they pushed them open and went inside.

  The room was a casino, much smaller than the ballroom but with a lush red carpet and several smaller chandeliers. There were round tables with green baize tops, and each of them had a small wooden box in the centre.

  Oskar lifted the lid of one to reveal two sets of playing cards and a set of five white dice. ‘I’m having them.’ He took the box from the table and went back into the ballroom in search of his holdall.

  Steffan nodded toward the door. ‘He’s still in shock. At least, I think that’s what it is – he only came to us the other day and I’m looking after him.’

  ‘I thought he was looking after you.’

  ‘We look after each other. He does things I’m not good at and vice versa.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Malik. ‘You make a good team.’

  Steffan seemed pleased with that.

  ‘Where were you before the ship?’

  Steffan didn’t mind being asked. He said simply, ‘At the orphanage. Most of us have lived there for a while.’

  ‘Is that where the keys came from?’

  Steffan blew his nose. ‘I found them after the housekeeper left. They opened the pantry and the store cupboard there, and they opened Matron’s office, only they don’t seem to work on the ship.’

  Oskar came back carrying his bag. He went straight to the roulette wheels over by the window. ‘You do it like this.’ He spun the wheel, tossed the white ball around the inside of the rim and they watched it spin and rattle on the pockets till it rested in red seven. ‘You put your bets on the number you think it will be – you can choose more than one – and if it’s right then you get twice as many back.’ He took a look under the table and pulled up a tray with different coloured discs. ‘Look! We can play properly. But we have to use real money.’ He pulled the banknotes that Malik had given him from his pocket and put them on the table.

  ‘Where did you get that?’ asked Steffan.

  Malik brought his own money out. ‘Here, you have some as well.’ He split the handful in two and gave one of them to Steffan.

  Oskar slapped the sides of the wooden tray, making the plastic discs shake. ‘I’ll be the banker,’ he announced. ‘Winner takes all.’

  They cashed their money in for discs. Steffan put a yellow on number six and two reds on number twenty-two. Malik watched him do it and then he put a yellow of his own on fifteen because it was the date of his birthday. Oskar spun the ball and it rolled fast around the outer edge and dropped into eleven. He raked in the plastic counters with a long stick. ‘You can bet on red or black too,’ he pointed out. Malik tried that on the next turn and he won. Oskar paid out twice the number of discs he had put down, flicking them over the table to Malik with his thumb.

  They played on the roulette table for over an hour. Sometimes Malik or Steffan won and they danced around, shouting with their arms in the air, but more often they lost to the bank and by the end Oskar had all of the discs and the money lay in a single pile at his left hand.

  ‘Are you going to keep it?’ asked Steffan.

  Oskar took hold of the notes and neatened the pile on the top of the table. ‘I won it, didn’t I? Fair and square.’

  Malik shrugged. ‘I don’t mind.’

  Steffan shrugged. ‘I suppose it’s up to you, Malik. It was your money.’

  Oskar relented. He counted out three notes for them both. ‘This is a down payment on your earnings.’ He pocketed the rest of the money. ‘From now on you work for me. And there’ll be lots more where that came from – I’ve got plans for this journey.’

  When they left the ballroom, the boys found the public deck had been divided up by makeshift washing lines, strung up by the dormitory passengers so they could dry damp clothes that had been scrubbed clean in the bathrooms below. Shirts and underpants hung like semaphore and two lines of dripping blankets divided the walkway from the benches, obscuring the view out to sea. The boys made their way between them, stepping over the legs of women who sat with folded arms and guarded their washing.

  ‘Oskar! Steffan!’ Miss Price appeared at the end of the line of blankets. She waved at them. ‘I need to have a word.’

  Malik turned to the boys and saw the back of Steffan’s heel as he ducked under a pair of brown trousers and disappeared. Miss Price hurried up to Malik. ‘Where are those boys? Did you see where they went?’

  Malik was bewildered. ‘They just disappeared.’

  She pursed her lips. ‘When you see them, tell them I want a word. There have been complaints from the first-class passengers regarding Steffan and a set of keys.’ She looked at Booty, who was held in Malik’s arms. ‘I found a collar for your cat.’ She took an old blue velvet collar from her pocket and fastened it round the cat’s neck so that the little brass ring hung below his chin. ‘You will need some string if you are to tie him up.’

  ‘I have some in my rucksack.’

  Miss Price nodded. ‘Very well.’ She parted the washing with her hand and left in search of the boys.

  It was then that Malik caught sight of Angelo Vex.

  He was standing at the railings, some distance away, his face held up to the late-afternoon sun. He was smoking a cigar, or rather, he held a lit cigar between his fingers and smelled the thin line of smoke that drifted across his face and up into his nose. Malik caught his breath and jumped behind a red and blue blanket that hung close by.

  What would he say if Vex saw him?

  He should hurry away below deck before he was spotted. But Malik didn’t move; some fascination made him want to stay and look, and he put his face round the blanket to check if he’d been seen. Vex had turned his back and was now looking out to sea. Malik recognized his wife in the deckchair to the left of him. She had her head back with her eyes closed, and her lips were red and glossy where she had applied fresh lipstick.

  The deck was crowded. People walked past and others loitered, catching the last of the sun, so Malik thought it was probably possible to watch them and still be unobtrusive. He caught the eye of the woman who owned the blanket he was using to hide behind and realized she was watching him suspiciously. He tried a smile, then ducked between the washing and sauntered out a little way across the deck, still keeping his eye on Vex and his family.

  He spotted Vex’s older son, slouched in a deckchair to the left of his mother. He wore a pair of slacks with a sharp crease down the front, a polo shirt and a woollen tank top. An open book rested across the top of his thigh and he was watching his younger brother as he ran past holding a model aeroplane in the air above his head. Malik knew it was a Mustang, with its tail fin and propeller painted post box red, as Mama had promised to buy Malik the same one to hang from his bedroom ceiling at home. He wondered if Vex had bought it using the money from the diamond. Perhaps he had. Perhaps everything this family owned – the smart clothes, the cigar, the first-class cabin – perhaps it had all come from the jewel in Papa’s mouth.

  Malik walked towards them. He no longer cared whether he could be seen. He hated Vex, hated all of them, the little boy included. He wanted to grab the plane and smash it underfoot, wanted to see their horrified faces as the child burst into tears. Malik took a step closer, staring at the back of Vex’s head, and Vex suddenly turned round and looked out in his direction.

  Malik turned and walked behind a white cotton shirt that hung on the line, his heart beating like an engine, but when he looked again, Vex had walked a few steps along the rail, completely unaware of him.

  That made Malik even angrier. Was he so unimportant to Vex that he was invisible? Did he
have to jump up and down with his arms in the air before Vex even noticed him?

  A couple walked across his line of vision and Malik stepped out from behind the shirt. He watched Vex put the fat cigar to his lips, blow a light cloud of smoke up into the air and turn again toward the sea. Malik thought how when they had first met, Vex had told them he had sent his family away, so he’d been lying to them even before he had known about the diamond.

  Malik should walk right up to him. He should point his finger at Vex and shout, ‘Thief!’ That would wipe the satisfied smile from his lips.

  Malik did walk forward, but with each step he lost a little bit of anger and felt a bit more fear. There were fewer people between the two of them and the line of washing was a good two metres behind him. Vex’s son ran past with the aeroplane in the air, making the sound of squealing engines and gunfire. ‘Whoooaagh! Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!’

  Malik couldn’t even think what he would say if he got as far as Vex. He could point a finger and accuse him of theft. Yes, that much was easy. He could tell the whole world what he knew about Angelo Vex. He could even go to the purser and tell him what had happened.

  But he had no proof. The diamond was gone. It had been sold or bartered and Papa wasn’t here to back him up.

  And now that he was closer, Vex seemed bigger than Malik remembered.

  He would only just be able to point a finger in his face. And what would a man like Vex do if someone accused him of stealing? Papa had said he was one of the richest men in the city, and it would be his word against that of a child.

  Malik took a step back and turned round toward the washing. Accusing Vex wouldn’t get the diamond back. It wouldn’t find Mama or get Papa on the ship. He was sure about that. Vex would probably just laugh at him. Yes, that was how it would be. Malik would be brushed aside and Vex would get away with it. He had already gotten away with it and there was nothing Malik could do except stay out of his way and hope that Vex didn’t see him and cause trouble.

  He shifted the rucksack on his shoulder and walked away. The boy ran past him and saw Booty in his arms, and Malik heard him shout, ‘Cat!’, but Malik didn’t even glance back and when he reached the steps to the hold, no one had followed him.

  He descended down into the gloom. A queue of women stood outside the bathroom, clutching dirty laundry to their chests. In the family rooms, parents had pulled their beds together and hung up shawls to screen themselves from the sight of others. Malik caught glimpses of them keeping their luggage and their children close.

  He walked along the line of bunks in the dormitory till he reached his own bed. In the bunk opposite, the young boy with the comic was waiting for him. He smiled at Malik and held up a silver ball he’d made from paperclips. ‘I did it for the cat.’

  Malik put Booty down on the floor and the boy rolled the ball under the next bunk to his. Booty crouched and then sprang after it.

  ‘He likes it,’ said Malik. ‘But he won’t do it for long. He’s not a dog.’

  The boy offered Malik his hand. ‘I’m Alex.’

  They shook on it.

  ‘My name’s Malik and my cat is called Booty.’

  Steffan and Oskar returned to the dormitory, bringing an apple with them.

  ‘Where did you get to?’ Oskar asked Malik, as he put his bag back on the top bunk.

  ‘It was you who disappeared,’ Malik objected. ‘Miss Price was looking for you.’

  ‘She found us.’ Steffan sat down next to Malik. ‘She confiscated my keys.’

  ‘They didn’t work anyway.’ Oskar bent down below the top bunk. He had a knife in his hand, and he offered Malik a slice of the apple. ‘You should eat this. We won’t get much else.’ He nodded at the group of four boys kneeling with Booty on the floor. ‘You could charge them for playing with that cat.’

  Malik took the slice of apple and bit it. ‘You’re wrong, Oskar. We’re getting supper at six. Miss Price will come down to fetch us.’

  Oskar looked at Malik as though he pitied him. ‘We saw the cooks making dinner. We’ll be lucky if it’s edible.’

  ‘It’s true,’ said Steffan. ‘They were boiling up bones in a pot. It smelled disgusting.’

  Malik thought of the food he’d eaten in the past few days. Bits of bread and fruit and tuna from a tin. If supper was hot, it couldn’t be that bad.

  When Miss Price arrived, she made the boys line up in pairs. She put Oskar and Steffan at the front where she could keep an eye on them, and she made sure that Booty was left behind – Malik had cut a length of twine and he tied one end to Booty’s collar and the other to a foot of the bunk, making sure it was long enough for the cat to walk a metre or so from the bed or to jump up and sleep on the mattress.

  There were to be two meals each day, after the first-class passengers had finished breakfast and before the same guests went to supper, although today everyone was eating later because of the delay in boarding the ship.

  Miss Price marched the children up the stairs and out onto the deck. At the door of the canteen they had to wait in line and shuffle in behind the boys from the other dormitory and the families who were already there. When they got inside the door, the room was stifling and smelled of stewed cabbage, but Malik didn’t mind. He’d forgotten how hungry he was.

  One of the dinner ladies served stew from a large stainless steel pot, a single spoonful per person. Another added two boiled potatoes and a forkful of greens. Malik could see the steam rise from the pots as he edged forward, could see the thick brown stew. He took a set of cutlery from the box at the front of the serving table and he held up his plate – he’d seen better food in his school canteen, but it smelled quite good once it was on his plate. He found a place at a table next to Oskar, who was already on his last spoonful.

  ‘What’s it like?’ he asked Steffan.

  ‘Rubbish,’ said Oskar, with his mouth full. ‘I told you it would be.’

  Malik ate his supper. It wasn’t as good as Mama used to make but it was still the first real meal he’d had in days. He finished everything on his plate and none of the boys had food left to scrape into the slops bucket as they were ushered out to make room for the first-class passengers.

  Miss Price sent Malik to the kitchens for a plate of scraps for Booty. He knocked and asked for the cook, then waited outside the swing doors till they brought him a tin plate wrapped in silver foil and a small empty bowl for him to fill with water. He carried them back along the corridor and down into the dormitory, where he found Alex squatting on the floor with Booty on his knee.

  ‘Do you want to feed him?’ Malik folded back the foil to reveal some ends of cooked liver, chopped up small with a spoonful of gravy. Booty would like that. He gave the plate to Alex. ‘Here. Put it in a corner where it’s nice and quiet. Animals don’t like to be disturbed while they’re eating.’

  Alex put the plate down just under the bed, then he went to fetch some water for the bowl.

  Later, when Miss Price was sending them off to the bathroom in groups of six, Alex came and took hold of Malik’s hand. ‘Can Booty sleep on my bed tonight?’

  Malik panicked. ‘No,’ he said quickly, and he shook the other boy’s hand free, then immediately regretted it. He touched the boy’s shoulder. ‘Look. He’s in a new place with new people and he has to know that I’m here to look after him. Think how you’d feel if it was you.’ Then he added, ‘I’ll put him on the outside of the mattress, so you can see him from your bed.’

  Oskar shook his head as he climbed up onto his bunk with a toothbrush still in his mouth. ‘All this fuss over an animal. It’s just a cat, for heaven’s sake.’

  Malik tied Booty to the bunk bed again. When Miss Price put out the lights, there was only the glow of a single lamp by the door to see by, but some of the boys took out torches and read books or comics in their bunks. Malik lay on his back, listening to the hum of the engines that drove them on across the water. He had never been on a ship as big as this before. The wind had got up and the s
hip was rockier than it had been since leaving port. He imagined waves hitting the big steel hull and sending spray across the large white letters that spelled Samaritan on the stern.

  What would Papa be doing now? Would he be back at the cottage, imagining Malik asleep on the ship? And what about Mama? Malik didn’t want to think too hard where she might be, so he thought of her with Papa, the two of them together in the upstairs room of the cottage or, better still, back at home, back in her own bed, with Papa downstairs at the kitchen table, drinking coffee.

  Booty settled himself down on the edge of the mattress, flicking his tail when Malik scratched at the scabs of old flea-bites which ran along his spine. His purr was louder than the hum of the engines as Malik tickled behind his ears, and the cat stretched out and arched his back. Malik put his nose into his fur and breathed deeply.

  In one of the other dormitories, a mother began to sing a lullaby and her voice lifted up above the partition walls. Malik listened to her singing and he remembered the sound of Mama’s voice from the times when she had sung to him. He could see her leaning over his bed, wearing her pretty blue dress with the white flowers on the hem, the same as she was wearing the last time he had seen her. She’d be wearing that same dress when he saw her next; he knew she would. Just thinking of Mama made him feel warmer and happier than he had been for a long time. He felt tired as he listened to the sweet, sad song and the boys around him put out their torches, one by one.

  Once the singing had stopped, Malik heard a child crying quietly in the darkness. He looked across the aisle to the opposite bunk, thinking it must be Alex, but Alex was asleep, Malik was sure he was. And then he realized the crying came from the bunk above his head and it could be no one but Oskar.

  When Malik woke up, Booty was gone. He knew it as soon as he opened his eyes. He felt behind his back with one hand, twisted round to double-check his bunk, then looked out across the other beds in the dormitory. The lights were on and there were boys on the move, some already dressed and some still in pyjamas.