Sea Over Bow

by Linda Kenyon

  Chris was worried about Dad getting cold, so he worked away at starting the diesel furnace, which we hadn’t used in a couple of years, while I put supper on.

  “This,” I said, as I set Dad’s plate down in front of him, “is the official gorp of MonArk. A can of mushroom soup, a handful of rice, a can of tuna, and a can of green beans.”

  It actually tastes a lot better than it sounds, and in no time, we’d cleaned our plates and were sprawled comfortably around the cabin, mugs of coffee in hand. Above our heads, the rain beat against the deck and the wind rocked the boat gently, making the oil lantern swing from side to side. But we were warm and dry.

  “My dad used to make gorp,” Dad began, putting his feet up.

  I knew we were in for a long one, but I listened with interest. I didn’t know his father ever cooked. In all the stories I’d heard, he was either off trying to find work or sitting at the kitchen table with a bottle in front of him. But it turns out that he and Dad spent a couple of summers together at Wasaga Beach building cottages. Grandpa had built a wooden platform and pitched a tent on it, and that’s where the two of them lived for the summer. They had a little stove in the tent, and when they came home at the end of the day, Grandpa would heat up some gorp.

  “He’d put whatever food we had into the pot. One night he put half a jar of pickled beets in. I don’t know why he did that. We both hated beets, but Mom had sent them along, and he couldn’t stand to see food go to waste. She knew we both hated beets.”

  Dad didn’t offer to take the helm on the second day. He made himself comfortable on the bench in the cockpit and assumed the duties of navigator. But more than once he got confused about where we were.

  “We’ll be coming up on a bridge around the next bend,” he’d say, but there would be nothing there. We had passed that bridge fifteen minutes ago. Chris and I took to checking the charts when Dad wasn’t looking.

  It was a long day, but by evening we made it to Fairport, just outside Rochester, where Dad would catch his train in the morning. I think being in the canal made him think about my brother John. Towards the end, Dad used to take him to the Welland Canal whenever he could. He’d tell Mom he was taking John to a doctor’s appointment or out to get groceries, but the two of them would always end up at their favourite spot just below one of the locks. (Mom didn’t like it when they went there. Not safe. Dad could stumble and fall in. John could roll over the edge.) They’d sip their coffee and wait for a boat to come through. When Dad saw the lock opening, he’d edge John’s wheelchair to the side of the canal and John would lean forward and put his hand out to feel the rush of air as the wall of steel passed by him.

  While I cleared away the plates and made a pot of coffee, he started telling Chris about the time he and John went sailing in Hamilton Harbour. Oh, this is a good one, I thought.

  John had arranged the whole thing with the help of the social worker at the hospital. The first challenge was getting John on board. While Dad and the captain tried to figure out some way to rig a bosun’s chair, John wheeled his chair as close to the boat as he could get, grabbed the gunwales, and heaved himself over the side. John was pretty tall, and without legs, a little top-heavy. He teetered on the gunwales for a minute, then landed on the cockpit floor with a heavy thud.

  “I meant to do that,” he said with a grin, pulling himself up onto the bench.

  Once they were clear of the docks, the captain handed John the tiller and told him to aim for the bridge, then went forward to raise the sails. He didn’t know that John was almost blind. Before long, the boat was veering towards the breakwall. The captain didn’t blink an eye.

  “More to starboard,” he said calmly.

  John eased the boat to the left.

  “The other starboard.”

  John eased the boat to the right, and the sails caught the wind.

  “Now just keep the sails full.”

  That was something John could do. He could feel the wind on his face, feel the boat surge ahead when he got it right. I can just see the two of them — the boat racing across the harbour, Dad hanging onto his Tilley hat, John at the helm, one hand on the tiller, the other resting casually on the back of the bench, sun on his face, wind ruffling his hair, mirrored sunglasses hiding the fact that he can’t really see where he’s going. I think it’s as close to free as he ever got. As either of them ever got.

  I couldn’t help thinking of the two of them when the gates swung open and we motored out of the last lock in the Erie Canal. There was nothing between us and the ocean but a long stretch of river. As I stood at the bow, coiling our docklines, I found myself scanning the side of the canal. I knew they weren’t there, but in my mind I could see them, watching me, Dad with one hand on the back of John’s chair, John peering in the wrong direction. Dad raises his arm, waves his hat, and I wave back, with a heavy heart.

  Sometimes the weight of being the one who got away is almost unbearable.

  June 10

  Day 20

  That’s pretty much the last we see of the sun. The morning of my second birthday dawns overcast and cool, but the sailing is still good. I spot a big container ship on the horizon, keep my eye on it as it approaches. They’re unwieldy-looking things when they’re fully loaded. We saw them at anchor in the outer harbour at New York City, waiting their turn to unload. At sea they’re even more ungainly, but pretty from a distance, with their stacks of multicoloured containers. They look like toy boats carrying Lego. Until they get closer.

  I watch nervously. It’s really moving, but clearly it’s seen us. It’s going to pass well off our bow.

  “Are you sleeping, little sailboat?”

  I jump. The radio has been silent for days, weeks maybe. And I’m not sure what to say. We’ve never been hailed by a commercial ship, at least not in a friendly sort of way. I assure the captain that I’m awake, and he asks me where we’re headed. I say the Azores, and he tells me it’s one of his favourite places, though he seldom stops there. He’s hauling cargo from the Med to New York City; he comes from Albany himself.

  “Cataplana,” he says. “You gotta try cataplana.” He describes it in great detail — rice, prawns, clams, and spicy sausage, cooked with tomatoes and lots of paprika. Sounds like he’s tired of ship’s rations.

  “And those little custard tarts.” He can’t remember what they’re called, but they have crisp, flaky pastry and a sweet, creamy filling.

  My mouth is watering. I want a custard tart for breakfast.

  I assure him we will try both. We chat for a while longer, then say goodbye before he’s out of radio range. I watch the ship disappear over the horizon. At that speed, he’ll be in New York long before we reach the Azores.

  There’s been a heavy dew, so I take the opportunity to wipe the salt off the windows with a towel, then I clean them properly for the first time since we left Antigua. When I’m done, we can actually see out of them — we don’t have to unzip the plastic to scan for ships. Might as well clean the hatches and portholes too, while I’m at it. I have to sneak down to wipe the insides of them, which I do as quietly as possible so I don’t wake Chris. By the time I’m done, all the windows sparkle — as much as they can on such a grey day.

  I think of getting myself a pail of seawater and going forward to scrub the bottom of the dinghy, which still has gunge on it from our long stay in English Harbour in Antigua, but I’m beat. We’re both working through a haze of fatigue these days, which is dangerous. We’ve sworn to start sticking strictly to our watch schedule, so when Chris gets up at 8:00 am (oops! I was supposed to wake him at 6:00), we have a quick bowl of cereal together before I go down for my morning nap.

  When I get up at noon, I make us toast and peanut butter (this qualifies as a hot lunch when I just don’t feel like cooking). Then Chris goes down for his afternoon nap, and I make myself comfortable in the cockpit with a cup of tea and my new book.
Before long I have to close up. A band of light showers is passing over us. If April showers bring May flowers, what do June showers bring?

  The snowdrops and tulips and daffodils will be done by now, but the bleeding heart around the well at the farm might still be out, rows of deep pink hearts with a little white tear falling from each one, and the lily of the valley, and the grape hyacinth. I don’t think there’s anything prettier than a bouquet of bleeding heart, lily of the valley, and grape hyacinth, in that low, green fluted glass vase that was my grandmother’s. Where did that go?

  For sure the lilacs will be starting, light purple ones beside the rhubarb patch, white ones on the north side of the wood shed, pale purple-blue ones towering over the greenhouse, deep purple ones on the other side of the laneway. But best of all, the lacy purple ones beside the sheep barn — French lilacs, Brad’s grandmother called them. I used to pick great bunches of lilacs, put them in jars in the middle of the kitchen table, on my dresser, on my writing table.

  It won’t be long now until the irises and peonies below the kitchen window begin to bloom. I forget which peonies open first — the pink ones, I think — but soon they will all be out: the white ones, the red ones, the white ones with red streaks. I liked to put peonies and irises together in a jar. The irises would stand so stiff and proper, bloom slowly, last a long time, while the peonies, tight little balls at first, would burst into flower quickly, then scatter their petals on the table. I wonder sometimes which way is better.

  There will be flowers in the Azores, I remind myself. We’re planning to make landfall on Flores — I’m sure it’s called the Isle of Flowers for a reason.

  The rain has stopped and it’s getting a little brighter. I unzip the side panels, go back to my book. Then I hear a splash behind the boat. I get up and look.

  “Chris!” I shout. “There’s something big under the boat!”

  He’s up in an instant. “What?”

  I tell him that I heard a splash, saw a big swirl in the water just off our stern. He looks skeptical, is about to go back down, I think, when a killer whale surfaces beside us, not six feet away from the boat.

  I should be scared, I guess. I’m sure they’re called killer whales for a reason. But it’s just beautiful, its dark back glistening as it breaks the water, a flash of white before it dives again. It has a funny fin on its back, maybe two feet tall, that stands straight up. Wait, not it — she! Next time the whale breaks the surface, there is a calf beside her. They swim beside us for a good half hour, the mother always careful to keep herself between her calf and us. She tips her head sometimes as she surfaces beside us, watching us with one dark eye. She has a stark white chin, and a white patch just above her eye, in sharp contrast to her jet black back. I wish Brenda could see this. Then they disappear as suddenly as they arrived.

  “Okay, that was a great second birthday present,” I say.

  The show’s over, but we sit on the cabin house for a while, watching the sails breathe in and out. The wind has dropped and the seas are as smooth as glass now, and an impossibly dark blue. We’re in the deepest part of the North Atlantic, over 10,000 feet, though we have to take the chart’s word for it: the depth sounder stopped registering a long time ago. I think of what they say on Jack’s ship when they can’t get a sounding: No bottom with this line.

  “Better check the weather,” Chris says at last.

  We’re reluctant to go back to the cockpit, but we do. I check our course, adjust the sheets a little to try to make better use of what little wind there is, and Chris goes below.

  “A mild frontline is going to pass over us in the next day or two,” he says, “but nothing we can’t handle.”

  June 11

  Day 21

  The good sailing doesn’t last. It never does. The next day, the winds die altogether and before long, we’re motoring over flat seas. By noon, we have just 549 miles to go, five and a half days, if we can hold this course and speed. Five and a half days.

  We spend the afternoon doing chores — Chris empties a jerrycan of diesel fuel into the starboard tank, and I tackle several days’ worth of dishes. As I fill the sink, I hear the water pump whine — we’ve emptied our first water tank, not bad after two weeks at sea. I switch to the other tank, take a quick look in the V-berth. Yep, still lots of four-litre jugs of water left, and we haven’t touched any of the twenty-litre jugs lashed along the deck. We’re fine.

  When I’ve finished the dishes, I fill the stove, straighten the sea berth, and just generally put the cabin back in order. But I’m keeping an eye on the barometer, which is dropping fast.

  Chris is above deck, seeing what he can do about the mainsheet becket, which let go in the night and set the boom loose, taking out the SSB antenna before we could secure it.

  “I have good news and bad news. I can’t fix the becket,” Chris reports. “But I’ve rigged something up that will do for now.”

  That’s the good news. What’s the bad?

  “The SSB antenna is beyond repair. It wasn’t really working anyway.”

  Somehow this does little to reassure me. No more weather information. No more email. We’re really on our own now.

  We’ve been at sea for twenty-one days now. Three weeks. That’s how long it took my great-grandmother to make the crossing from Sweden. In 1880. If she could do it, travelling in steerage, in the bottom of a ship that had once hauled cattle, surely I can.

  She was interviewed when she was 104, talked a lot about the crossing. There were many, many people in steerage, men, women, and children all huddled together. There were beds of a sort for families, but single people slept in hammocks. The toilets were up one deck — they wouldn’t work below the water line. She was allowed to go up there in the daytime to use the toilet and to play sometimes. But I doubt she ever got above deck.

  All she could see through the portholes in steerage was water. In heavy weather, she would watch warily, hoping the glass wouldn’t break. It didn’t. But they would get wet anyway — water would splash down through the fresh-air vents above their heads, soaking them and their belongings.

  She never got seasick, but most of the others did, including her mother, who was pregnant at the time. She wasn’t the only one — nine babies were born at sea.

  If the sea didn’t make you sick, my great-grandmother said, surely the food would. Great troughs of oatmeal were sent down to steerage for breakfast. For dinner, undercooked meat and hard bread were provided. Not surprisingly, many people died on the crossing and were buried at sea. I’m not sure the food didn’t do some of them in.

  I have a picture of my great-grandmother, a determined-looking woman in wire-rimmed glasses, short, curly grey hair combed back from her broad face. She’s smiling, almost, and there is a glint in her eye, as though she is about to say something you wouldn’t expect to hear from an elderly woman. Did the crossing shape her in some way, I wonder? Or is that just how she was. Bold, like my grandmother. I’d never thought about that. Maybe I come from a long line of strong women on my father’s side.

  The winds pick up in the night, catching us with too much sail up. We tie three reefs in the main and put out just a slip of genoa to balance us, but it’s still very rolly. Clearly there’s some weather moving in. The temperature and the barometer continue to drop. We’re both too tired for this. Like we have any choice.

  June 12

  Day 22

  By noon the next day, we have 360 miles to go. Three days, if all goes well. The seas have definitely picked up. I scan the water around the boat, trying to gauge the height of the waves. There’s a small bird — what’s he doing so far from shore? — skimming above the water in the trough between two waves. Must be a storm petrel — they migrate far out to sea. Sailors say a storm petrel means rough weather.

  Shortly after the incident with the shotgun, my grandma and grandpa loaded their five children and a dog into a Mo
del T touring sedan, hitched a box trailer piled high with their belongings to the back of it, and set out on the long drive from California to his parents’ farm near Washington, Ontario. A few of the roads they travelled were paved but most were gravel and some were just dirt tracks. Occasionally they would find a campground or a cabin, but most of the time they just spread their mattresses out on the ground and slept under the open sky.

  I still don’t know what they were running from. My dad wasn’t born when this happened, and his brothers and sisters don’t like to talk about it. But clearly they were running away from something.

  What are we doing, I wonder, as I look out over the slate-grey seas.

  Just after lunch the wind dies suddenly and the temperature plummets. We get out our foul-weather gear, stow for the worst, spend the afternoon taking turns sleeping as much as we can. The seas calm enough for me to make us a hot supper, nothing elaborate, just some soup and crackers, which we eat in silence. I think we’re both a little nervous about the weather. I know I am.

  The night sky is completely overcast, it has never been so dark, or at least that’s how it seems to me. I scan for signs of a storm, but I can’t see anything. So I stand at the helm, hands on the wheel (even though we’re on autopilot), ready for whatever comes up.

  But I’m not ready for the dark thoughts that come crowding in.

  Dad never could really settle at anything — he was always looking for better ways to feed his growing family, but I think the truth is he just got restless. He moved from one job to another, even if it meant uprooting us and moving to another province. Mom always followed, made the best she could of each new situation.

  Once when we were between houses, Dad arranged for us to stay at a cabin in the Laurentian hills north of Quebec City for the summer. He would drive to his job in the city each day, leaving Mom and three small children — she was pregnant with her fourth — in a rundown shack, really, clinging to the side of a hill. We looked down over a long field to the road, cultivated once, perhaps, but now just scrubby bushes. The occasional deer would wander through, and we were always on the lookout for bears. Mom wouldn’t let us play beyond the small cleared area around the cabin.