Song of the Sound

by Jeff Gulvin

  ‘Just some trash,’ he said. ‘Passes the time, though.’ He looked beyond her to the computer screen. ‘Still working on that then?’

  She nodded. ‘I’m not finding anything though. Well, I am, but not as quickly as we need to.’

  ‘Pole.’

  She nodded.

  ‘I’m not holding my breath either.’

  She looked out of half-closed eyes at him. ‘That doesn’t sound like you.’

  He didn’t say anything.

  ‘Tell me if I’m wrong but I thought I heard a hint of resignation in your voice.’

  ‘Realism, not resignation.’

  ‘You don’t think you’ll win the hearing, do you?’

  He made a face. ‘I don’t even know when the hearing is.’

  He went upstairs where he spread himself on the bench seat behind the table and tried to bury himself in the cheap detective novel he had picked up in Invercargill. Jonah had the galley shut down, the gas turned off, and they were using the electric kettle to make tea and coffee. Tom was drinking tea-tree oil and hot water as it was supposed to calm the nerves: not that he suffered from them overly. He liked the taste when it was mixed with honey and what was good enough for Captain James Cook had always been good enough for him.

  The day dragged on, hour after hour with the roll of the sea their constant companion. Libby came up top again and took her favoured position by the starboard door, watching the ever-dimming line of the horizon through spray-spattered front windows already dulled by perspex. She looked sideways and saw a Gibson’s wandering albatross riding the air currents in and out of the wave troughs. He was alone and he used no wing-beat as he disappeared and reappeared steering expertly on the wind, now close to the boat and, a matter of moments later, far in the distance.

  The swell deepened as Stewart Island was left behind and the Southern Ocean current began to bite. John-Cody told her it didn’t really kick in till they were south of the Snares, but this far east they could feel it. The wind was still from the north and hit them straight up the stern, causing the jib to luff so much John-Cody considered taking it in again, but just when he thought he would the breeze shifted and the sail billowed from head to clew.

  He went below as darkness fell, and lay down in his cabin. They had agreed on two-hour watches, which gave them six hours’ sleep at a time, and John-Cody closed his eyes and slept. That was rare, but he was taken by a weariness he had not felt since those first few days after Mahina died, and with Tom on board he felt easier about the boat. Tom was arguably a better skipper than he was though his Sub-Antarctic experience was not so great. He had sailed in many different seas, however, and was steeped in marine lore. He took the first watch.

  Libby stood part of it with him; the saloon was dull with the side windows blocked out and the atmosphere rarefied with condensation. He told her of the time he had been fishing off Banks Peninsula when he saw a boat called the Jailer suddenly take definition in the mist. It was Friday 13 May and a bitterly cold day. He was on a trawler, the youngest member of a crew of seven, and he had been on watch when the boat appeared. They sailed by very close, too close, and he had not seen them come up on the radar, which had jarred his nerves to begin with. He rushed on deck and yelled at the hands he could see working, who seemed oblivious to the near collision. They ignored him and the boats steamed apart, then the Jailer was lost in the fog.

  They hit port two weeks later and he sat drinking beer at the bar reading an old copy of the Otago Times. The drink stuck in his throat and the hairs crawled on his scalp when he read about the loss of the Jailer, sunk with all hands on Tuesday 10 May.

  Libby was silent after that, watching Tom’s eyes in their wrinkled pockets of flesh as he saw that ghost ship again.

  ‘You always keep your eye on the radar at night,’ he told her before she went below. ‘And watch the horizon. It’s dark out there, but the sky is a lighter grey than the sea. You watch the radar and the horizon. Open the door if you want to see better.’

  Libby went down to her cabin, weary all at once after her semi-sleepless night and the constant wallowing of the boat. The diesel hummed in her head, its rhythm punctuated every now and again by the sound of waves slapping the steel hull. John-Cody’s light was off and his head turned towards her. His eyes were closed and one naked arm hung over the edge of the bed; his jeans were crumpled on the floor together with his sweater and she could see his T-shirt at the shoulder. She stood a moment and watched him by the pale light from the bridge, the edge of his bunk propped up by spare pillows as there were no straps on the double berths. His features looked ravaged and again she wondered about him: something had changed, but he hadn’t said what it was and she didn’t want to question him. She glanced at the chart table where his briefcase stood, securely closed; it was made of leather and very old, the sort of thing a college lecturer might carry. She looked down at him again and the light cast shadows on his face so she could no longer see his eyes and she was filled with the desire to cup that face in her hands and very gently kiss it.

  Amazed at her feelings, she stepped into her cabin in sudden embarrassment: for all she knew, he had been watching her then. But he did not stir, and the only sounds she heard were those of the engine and the sea. Leaving her door hooked back, she peeled off her jeans and sat down on the bunk. The boat rolled harshly, almost tipping her onto the floor. The next thing she knew, John-Cody was up on the bridge wearing just his underpants and T-shirt. Libby moved to the bottom of the steps and heard Tom telling him that everything was fine; the current had shifted, that was all.

  Libby watched the two men in silhouette against the for’ard windows. John-Cody was tall, stiff-backed, the muscles standing out in his legs. She found herself looking up and down those legs and again desire set her senses tingling. She went back to her bunk and was swinging her own naked legs under the duvet when John-Cody slid down the steps.

  ‘Everything OK, Lib?’ He paused, leaning in her doorway as she arranged the duvet around her.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You seasick?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good on you.’

  She heard him climb back into his bunk and within seconds all was as it had been, nothing but the rumble of the engine and the hissed thrashing of the sea next to her head. Unlike his berth, she had her head to the stern, which had felt more comfortable. She had never tried to sleep with the sea crashing against the side, however, but to her surprise even the really violent swell was actually quite soothing. She found herself lying on her back and rolling from side to side, sometimes with such force that she rolled right over, but sleep crept up on her and her eyes closed with the darkness and the next thing she knew John-Cody was shaking her awake.

  ‘On deck, seaman: your watch.’ He disappeared above and Libby sat up, rubbed her eyes and looked at the luminous hands on her watch. It was midnight: she’d had four hours’ sleep. Tom would have finished his watch at ten and John-Cody would have taken his from ten until now. She was due to wake Jonah at two and then sleep until eight. She pivoted with one foot on the floor and one on the wall to John-Cody’s cabin, feeding a sweater over her head.

  All was quiet in the saloon, the only lights the one over the stove and the flickering green from the radar. By the starboard door the GPS glowed in dull white lines like the wash from the palest moon.

  John-Cody splashed boiling water into two mugs and passed her a cup of tea, which she almost spilled as the boat suddenly shifted.

  ‘Cram it into that space between the radar and the autopilot.’ John-Cody pointed to where he normally placed his own mug. ‘I’m going below,’ he said. ‘All you need to do is keep an eye on things.’ He tapped the radar. ‘This is set in eighth-of-a-mile rings so you’ll have plenty of warning of other vessels.’

  ‘What about rocks?’

  ‘There are no rocks between here and Port Ross. The sea’s a hundred and fifty metres deep; it’ll drop to six hundred and fifty when we cross the conti
nental shelf.’ He pointed to the revs and the temperature gauge. ‘Dead easy,’ he said. ‘She stays just below forty degrees and the revs are at nine fifty. Don’t touch the throttle unless you have to. If the revs drop even by one I’ll be up here. If you have to wake me, come down and call. Don’t shake me. OK?’

  Libby nodded. ‘What about our position?’

  He led her across the bridge to the GPS and indicated the rhumb-line. ‘Don’t let her drift more than half a mile either side. The wind and current combination will knock her off course now and again, so keep an eye on things. If you need to alter course, use the autopilot.’ He showed her the three settings, auto, power steering and compass. ‘She’s fine as she goes right now, but tweak her if you have to.’ He smiled at her then. ‘Can you handle that?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Good girl.’ He took tobacco from his pocket. ‘I’m going to hang out the leeward door for a smoke. She’s your boat.’

  As soon as he said that Libby concentrated. She checked the dials and the radar, then their position on the rhumb-line and stepped back to the radar again. The wind was coming across the starboard quarter nor’west now and John-Cody smoked his cigarette out of the port door. He stood with his back to her and the wind rushed in his hair, spray licking round his feet from waves which had fallen below three metres for the first time. Libby peered up at the sky and saw stars between the clouds: the greyness of the afternoon had threatened storms, but thankfully they hadn’t materialized. The last thing she needed with such tiredness in her limbs was standing watch while waves swamped the deck.

  John-Cody came back inside and checked to make sure she was all right before disappearing down to his bunk. Libby had hoped he might stay with her, but he didn’t. Whether it was fatigue or just a further indication of his distance she couldn’t say. But as soon as he was gone a strange sense of loneliness overtook her and she stared at the bow lights, where waves soaked the prow and chain locker, shattering like spurs of diamonds in the sudden incandescence.

  She put the skipper’s stool down and sat for a while, but could not see over the dashboard. It was more comfortable to stand up and lean against the back of the seat behind her. The quartz clock was set on the wall to her left along with the barometer, which indicated a change of pressure and rain in the air. Libby listened to the hiss and crackle through the otherwise silent radio speakers. The wheelhouse creaked and groaned, wood and metal and plastic all moving under the alternating pressure on the hull. Jonah and Tom were asleep up for’ard. Libby ducked her head to look down the steps and she saw the diesel heater was still and cold and the loneliness came upon her again.

  A massive wave hit as the Korimako dipped into the chasm of a trough and spray thundered across the bows. Libby was thrown against the dash so hard she had to grip the edge and she felt sure John-Cody would be standing next to her any moment. He didn’t appear though, and she smiled to herself as she figured that crashing waves must be in his repertoire of acceptable changes in the boat’s behaviour. She stood and braced herself but they rode the next one and she settled back into what Tom called the Southern Ocean roll, one leg bent, one leg straight, alternating as the swell threw them from port to starboard. She was aware of a weight in her gut that she associated with seasickness, but she didn’t actually feel nauseous and over time the responsibility of keeping watch alone was enough to banish the feeling.

  For two hours she shifted along the bridge like a crab, moving from radar to temperature gauge to rev counter, then across the gangway to the GPS. John-Cody had two of them: one doubled as a depth sounder for work in the fiords, but only one was switched on at a time. Caution and safety were his watchwords. There were two of everything, including the single-side-band radios mounted over the chart table, and three separate mast antennae above the deck. The chances of their being out of communication for very long were remote. That gave her comfort. Earlier she had spoken to Bree, who was at the office, and they had fixed on four thirty each day as the time to speak.

  Libby made herself some tea and risked half a smoke on the leeward side, but still got covered with spray. The doors were stiff from the salt and she vowed she would follow John-Cody’s example and lubricate the runners with washing-up liquid in the morning. She was due to wake Jonah at two, but he came up the steps of his own accord, his hair untied and his dark face pinched with sleep. ‘Cup of tea,’ he said to her and made a beeline for the kettle. ‘Anything happening?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘That’s the way I like it.’ He took a sandwich from the basket, stripped off the polythene and ate it in two bites before taking another. He bit into an apple at the same time and crunched and chewed in unison. He told Libby that she could go below again now, but she was not sleepy yet and fancied some company. The boat, she had discovered, could be a lonely place despite its size and the proximity of one person to another. It was partly to do with the incessant hum of the engines, which made you feel isolated when you were below decks. So she stood some of the watch with Jonah and her mood brightened as he put music on low and cracked the odd joke.

  He told her about his life, how he had grown up shifting all round the South Island with his parents and elder sister. His father had held all manner of jobs, from fisherman to tradesman to travelling salesman and Central Otago miner. They had lived part of the time where the old man lived now, in the tiny borough of Naseby. He recalled Sundays when all the pubs were shut save the one at Danseys Pass, and how the people of Naseby travelled the twenty miles or so of dirt road for a lunchtime session. If the police came the people in the last house they passed would phone the pub, which gave everyone enough time to leave and to bolt the doors. While their parents were busy socializing with their friends, he, Mahina and the other children would be left to their own devices. The pass was walled with hills and gulches, a river running through the middle of it. In summer they splashed in the water and played hide-and-seek in the bush to keep out of the heat. In winter they brought home-made sleds and ran the gauntlet of rock and tree stump and sheer drops on the hillside.

  He talked with a fondness for his childhood that Libby couldn’t remember. Hers had been much like Bree’s, being hauled round the world with her parents. She was seven years younger than her nearest sibling and had been used to her own company before she went to boarding school. She ran away three times, till her father read her the riot act and told her that unless she knuckled down to work, he would disown her as soon as she reached sixteen. For some reason that had penetrated where other threats had failed and Libby buried herself in work. She ended up taking and passing her ‘A’ levels two years before everyone else.

  Jonah told her that even at a really young age Mahina could name the birds from their calls, the trees from their seeds and the flowers from their scent. As soon as she was old enough to pilot a dinghy she persuaded Southland Tours to ship it into Deep Cove, where she had an agreement to tie up with the fishermen. He smiled broadly at the memory. ‘She was good at things like that, getting what she wanted.’

  Libby looked up at the calm presence of memory on his face. ‘You’ve got over her death,’ she said. ‘You talk with fondness and love.’

  ‘That’s how I remember her.’ Jonah leaned on his elbows and smiled through the gloom at her. ‘Mahina’s gone, Libby. She left the day John-Cody scattered her ashes.’ His eyes shone then. ‘In a rush she would have dived, down into the depths, swimming with the dolphins for a while then out to sea and the north. She wouldn’t have rested till she came to Rerenga Wairua, the most northern point of Aotearoa, which the pakeha calls Cape Reinga. The place is Tapu to all the native peoples and she would have rested there: one last look south and then gone, climbing down the promontory and into the world of our ancestors.’ He paused and a light burned in the back of his eyes. ‘She wanted to be allowed to go, to forget and not look back. Now, she doesn’t remember. We’re not even a fleeting memory. She’s gone, lost to this world and dancing her way through the nex
t.’ His features darkened then and he glanced over his shoulder at the steps aft. ‘Unless Gib hasn’t let her go yet.’

  Libby felt suddenly troubled. ‘You mean he might trap her here?’

  ‘Crowding his thoughts with her. Yes, it might trap her. She loved him so much. It might hold her back. That’s why she gave him the year to get over her, enough time to let go and get on with his life. That man has so much to do. He knows so much more than anyone else; that’s why he was left behind. In the end he knew more about this place than Mahina did herself.’

  ‘About Fiordland?’

  ‘Not just Fiordland, Aotearoa, all that is Tapu, the soul of things.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s been awful watching him this last year. That’s why I spent so much time up in Naseby. I thought the worst would come when he let her go. I thought he might fall apart then without his promise to hold him together.’ He gestured across the galley. ‘But then you and Bree came over and he was different.’

  ‘Until now.’

  Jonah nodded. ‘Yeah, until now. What happened, Lib? He’s worse than I’ve ever seen him.’

  ‘I don’t know what happened.’ Libby shook her shoulders. ‘He had a meeting with Ned Pole and then went over the hill for a week. When he came back he went to Dunedin and then this trip was suddenly on.’

  ‘What did he do in Dunedin?’