The Boat

by Clara Salaman

  ‘Is it me? Is it all the mess I make? My collecting boxes? Don’t go to Somerset! I can stop collecting things…’

  His eyes had gone all watery in the wind and his voice sounded different. ‘No, darlin’. It’s not that. You keep collecting things.’

  His hand wasn’t responding to hers, it felt all clammy and lifeless and the wind whipped the smoke out of his trembling lips. Then he looked straight at her and she didn’t like it because in his eyes she could see the ending of things. She got it then. All the dots suddenly joined up to form a monstrous unrecognizable shape. ‘You’re leaving us,’ she said.

  He didn’t deny it. He just stood there, looking down at the road, his fingers still curled around hers. Then when he looked at her again she could see, just for a second, that he was afraid of her. But that was it. That was all the power she had. Whatever else she said or did meant nothing and would have no effect: her opinion, her needs, her feelings were not relevant. He had already decided. They had already decided. She dropped his hand.

  ‘It’s going to be all right, Clemmie,’ he said, going down on a bended knee as if he was a prince about to ask her to marry him. She stepped back, away from him. He was not a prince at all.

  ‘I hate you.’ She spat the words at him and then turned and ran away as fast as she could, her shoes click-clicking like mad on the Tarmac of the road. She could hear him coming after her, walking, then starting to run as she darted off into the cornfield on her right, the rough green leaves towering over her head, not caring if the giant lived there or not. She could feel the wetness of her tears running down her face. Deeper and deeper she ran into the watery darkness still clutching Monkey in the petrol can, darting through the stalks as swift as a little bird, the mud cloying on her Start-rites, slowing her down. She could hear him calling. ‘Clemmie! Clemmie! Come back!’

  The man from the RAC spent ages looking at the engine and twisting things and taking lids off and putting them back on again. Then after all that he couldn’t fix it anyway and he had to tow them back to London. Clemmie could tell that he didn’t want them in the van. He kept looking at the state of their clothes. She had managed to get the red mud from the cornfields all over herself and her father. The RAC man gave them his newspaper to lay out on the floor and seats of the Cortina so Clemmie had her Start-rites on a naked lady’s bosoms all the way home.

  Her dad was sitting in the driving seat, his hands on the wheel, but he wasn’t driving. It looked as if he was pretending to drive. Just as he’d been pretending to be happily married to her mother and pretending to be having a wonderful time with her at the seaside when all the time he had wanted to be in Somerset.

  She sat back and stared out of the passenger window, watching the raindrops squiggle this way and that, joining up, forming fatter drops, when a thought suddenly struck her: what if everything was pretend? What if a great big trick was being played on her and everyone else was in on it? She pressed her face to the cold window pane, looking through the droplets out into the darkening sky. She started to watch the people in the cars overtaking them. Yes, all the drivers were staring at her in a strange way. She could see their lips moving, making comments about her. They all seemed to know something about her. In the back of a red car a little boy stuck out his tongue and laughed. He knew too. It was all a set-up. What if the trees weren’t real and the road wasn’t real and what if it was all there purely for her benefit, for the big trick against her? She shut her eyes and opened them very quickly, hoping to catch the world out. She blinked quickly but everything remained in place. It was a good trick. The organizers would have planned for this – she thought the best time to check might be in the middle of the night when they took everything down or were doing repairs.

  By the time they passed the building with the pouring Lucozade bottle on it another thought was dawning on her: on the journey to the seaside she had forgotten to do the breathing task with the lamp-posts and sure enough, something terrible had happened and what was more, today was Friday the thirteenth, just like the lady with the man-voice had said.

  ‘Wake up, Clemmie. We’re nearly home.’

  ‘I’m not asleep,’ she said, forgetting her promise of never speaking to him again. But she had been asleep. All that crying had made her tired.

  He’d carried her back to the car on his shoulders through the cornfield. How different the view had been from up there, the air had felt fresher, the world much bigger. She could see other fields and the patterns the wind was making through the corn. She could even see the shiny blue roof of the Cortina, which was disappointingly close; she thought she’d run a lot further than that. It had certainly taken him ages to find her; she’d run right through this field, through another and on to a steep road. Then she’d stopped crying and got more involved in her own lostness. It was a surprising feeling, being lost. It was her first real taste of freedom and she had liked it very much. She’d looked up at the puffy white clouds whizzing through the sky, the trees shimmering and shaking around her, and she had felt the thrill of the wild as she wondered which way she should go. She tried to imagine what Jesus might have done in her position and decided he would have turned right because he was right-handed. She didn’t know that for certain but it seemed most likely because in the painting at church heaven and the angels were all on the right of him, presumably so he could shake hands and sign fan-mail, and hell and the devils were all on the left. She thought Jesus might wander down into that village she could see at the bottom of the hill, where kindly people would wash his feet and praise him. She wasn’t expecting that exactly but perhaps a nice old lady might take her in as a mysterious orphan. She didn’t think Joseph would have gone to Somerset. Joseph probably liked to be with Jesus and Mary when he got home from a hard day’s carpenting; they probably played Scrabble with wooden pieces that he’d made especially. Just then her father had ruined her chances of being orphaned by shouting her name loudly from the field. Then the next thing she knew he was on the road behind her waving frantically. She legged it down the hill as fast as she could, clickety-click-click, but she didn’t stand a chance, he was a really fast runner – he’d won the fathers’ race at Sports Day. He’d caught her up and grabbed her, scooping her up into his arms from behind, whether she liked it or not. She made her body go rigid but still he clung on to her, not minding the mud she was getting all over his suit and the thumps she was giving him.

  When they got back to Putney Clemmie scuttled into the house past her mother, who was standing in the hall looking anxious. ‘Look at the state of her, Jim!’ she heard her say as she ran up the stairs and into the loo, bolting the door behind her. It was the only safe place, the only room in the house with a lock on it.

  She listened to their conversation. Her mum had been deathly worried about them. Her father started talking about the Cortina and the journey and her mum said, ‘I take it you told her then?’ And the strange thing was she still gave a little laugh at the end of her question. They were both traitors; they were both in on it. She was the only idiot.

  She couldn’t make out what her father said and then they went into the kitchen and closed the door so she had to stand on the loo and open the little window and stick her head out. Her mother was asking whether Clemmie had had any tea and what the food was like in the hotel. They were chatting about avocado and prawns as if this was just an ordinary day. Perhaps she had got it all wrong and this was part of the trick. She stayed in the loo though; she wasn’t going to risk looking any more stupid unless she heard her dad laughing.

  A little while later she heard her dad calling for her. But she didn’t move. She carried on sitting on the toilet seat without the light on. The hall light went on and she heard his footsteps coming up the stairs, past the loo and up into her bedroom. ‘Clemmie?’ he called and she knew that he was checking all the cupboards. She heard him go into their room and open the sliding door of their wardrobe, calling her name. When he came down the stairs again he stopped outside th
e loo. She could see his trousers through the great big hole he once made sawing off the handle when she’d got locked inside years ago.

  He turned the door knob and then gave a little knock on the door. ‘Clemmie?’ He sounded tired. Maybe he was going to change his mind. ‘I’ve got to go, darlin’. Aren’t you going to say goodbye?’

  She shook her head.

  He knocked again. ‘Clembo? You coming out?’

  She shook her head again and waited. She wanted him to bash the door down and beg her forgiveness.

  ‘OK, love. Well, I’ll see you soon.’ She stared through the hole, willing him not to go. The blue of his suit trousers was there and then it wasn’t.

  That night, Clemmie was awoken by a peculiar sound. She lay in bed listening, blinking up at the ceiling. It was a creaking, dragging sort of a noise that came in short bursts. She sat bolt upright. She knew what it was. It had to be the sound of the pretend world going up. As quietly as she could, she pulled back the bed covers and crept out of bed, tiptoeing across the floorboards towards the curtains where she stood very still. Gingerly she reached out and touched the fabric with her fingertips. Then quite suddenly she whisked back the curtain, fully expecting to catch them red-handed putting up the scenery, lots of men in boiler suits looking round at her guiltily, scurrying down ladders. But the orange London sky and the backs of the gardens were all in the right places. Even the rain had been turned on; she watched it falling in streaks across the glare of the far streetlight. Then she heard the noise again and turned around: it was coming from her parents’ room.

  She crossed her bedroom and stopped at the door, opening it in that special pushing-pulling way that meant no one could hear. Peering out, she could see that her parents’ bedroom door was ajar. She heard the noise again, louder and clearer, so she crept out of her room on to the carpet in the hall, avoiding the squeaky bit. She hovered by their door and then pushed it a little wider. There was a shape in the bed on her mother’s side. The other side was empty. Her dad had gone. The strange noise was coming from her mum, a smothered hiccoughing sound.

  Quietly she tiptoed into the room up to the side of the bed where her mother was curled up, facing out, only Clemmie couldn’t see her face because it was pressed into a pillow that she was hugging tightly, her body shaking as though she might be laughing. But she wasn’t laughing; Clemmie knew that. She had never seen her mother cry before and she stood and watched her for a bit. Slowly it began to dawn on her that this wasn’t pretend, it was all real. She pulled back the cover and climbed into the bed, forcing herself into the pillow’s place, her mother’s sobs all loudened without it, its wetness dampening her neck. She put her arms around her mother as far as she could reach and she felt her mum hold on to her so tightly that on another occasion it might have hurt.

  ‘We’ll be all right. We’ll be all right,’ Clemmie said, wondering whether it was true and slipping her thumb into her mouth. Most alarming of all was that her mother didn’t even try to pull it out.

  9

  Departure

  The north-easterly blew a steady six and the boat sped through the water. They were running from the wind, the waves hitting them from behind; they were surfing down them at a fair old speed, goosewinging, the mainsail out to the starboard side, the genoa to port. Johnny’d had the spinnaker out earlier, a massive canvas of red and green, ballooning out at the bows. But now the sun had swung across the sky, dipped beneath the waves and left the stars on patrol. Clouds sped by, low and fast, obscuring and revealing them. Johnny was at the helm, standing up, his body balancing, dancing almost, as if he were riding a horse while the boat bucked and kicked in the waves, his eyes fixed on either the compass or the sails, for there was nothing else to see, only the soupy darkness lit by the smudge of the moon, just enough to steer by. All he had to do was keep on sailing, get the maximum out of the boat. He’d been standing there for four hours straight. He was quiet and focused; his only concern the wind and Clem who had been sitting at his side for hours. She knew everything now; she knew everything he knew.

  She had stood leaning against the cockpit doors as he tried to explain things that he didn’t understand, how Annie was not all that she seemed, how unbalanced her mind was, the accusations she had made against Frank. He’d used Frank’s words: pathological liar, criminally insane; he spoke of medication and institutions. He told her not to worry, said they would be gone soon, away from these people. All the while she had stood there listening, pale and shocked, and he fancied that he saw something leave her then, something subtle that he couldn’t put his finger on. It was as if she had been dimmed, some of her light stolen.

  For an hour or so she took herself off to sit at the bows, watching the sun set, trying to make sense of things. Madness scared her. She’d seen the madness in Annie’s eyes; she’d stared it in the face. She’d been reading to Smudge in the saloon, just as Frank had asked, trying to keep her out of the forepeak where Annie was sleeping. She’d brushed Smudge’s hair and done her best to comfort her after the loss of Granny on the rocks but just as she was leaning over the table to reach for another book, the saloon door had swung open and what she had glimpsed she couldn’t unglimpse: a semi-naked comatose Annie sprawled uncaring on the bed, her great doleful, unblinking eyes staring straight through Clem’s, not recognizing her, gone into some distant and private world, her arms outstretched, her wrist red and raw, slashed open, glistening in the hideous intimacy of the side light. Clem had frozen to the spot. Frank was in the heads cutting up a bandage, a packet of pills clamped in his teeth. He’d caught her staring and he had shut the door on her, gently blocking her out.

  She had stood there wondering how on earth something like this could have happened, how on earth everything had gone so wrong, what had been going on in Annie’s mind to do such a thing. But mostly she had wondered why no one had thought to tell her, why no one wanted her help, why she was always to be the last person to know anything.

  She and Johnny sat in silence in the cockpit, the blanket of night enveloping them. The only sounds were the thumping of the boat on the waves and the steady rush of movement through the water. She watched him sail the boat, his eyes constantly checking to the port side, into the darkness. She knew he was searching for signs of civilization and she looked too. ‘It’s not our problem, Clem,’ he kept saying as if she’d been asking him. He sat at her side, lit a cigarette and it occurred to her how awful it must have been for him to find Annie lying in a pool of blood.

  ‘We’re just getting out of here. We’re getting off as soon as we can. The moment I see the lights of a village we’re heading in.’ Even as he spoke he was looking out for those village lights but there were none, just the hazy blur of the moon up above and the dark shoreline.

  ‘Is that the right thing to do, Johnny?’

  ‘What do you mean is that the right thing to do?’

  ‘Should we leave them right now?’ she said.

  ‘What?’ The clouds briefly parted and his face was lit with a sharp silver glow; the furrow etched on his brow was deep. He looked different, older.

  ‘Shouldn’t we wait until Annie’s a bit better? It’s not really fair on Frank and Smudge.’

  ‘Clem,’ he said, looking her in the eye. ‘We’re leaving.’ That was final. He didn’t even ask her what she wanted, what she thought. Her opinions meant nothing. She looked away and up at the moon.

  Shortly Frank came out. He opened the cockpit doors bearing oilskins and jumpers. He too looked tired. She didn’t know what to say. She put on a jumper and an oilskin. He sat down opposite her, blinking a little as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. ‘She’s out,’ he said.

  After a while Johnny asked Clem to take the helm, to stay on this course, to keep a lookout; he wanted to check the charts. She felt the chill of his hand as he passed her the tiller. He was freezing; his teeth were chattering. She watched him go below deck, his movements smoothly counterbalancing the sway as he shut the cockpit doors behind
him.

  She hadn’t been alone with Frank since the beach and was wondering what she was meant to say to a man whose wife had just tried to kill herself. ‘I’m so sorry, Frank,’ was all she could muster and then wasn’t quite sure whether he had heard her. He didn’t move; his eyes were fixed on the horizon.

  ‘Yes…’ he said eventually as if he were still trying to make sense of it. ‘She doesn’t normally cut quite that deep.’

  Clem wanted to ask what it was that Annie normally did but it sounded morbid. She could think of nothing to say; her mind kept returning to the gash, the blood shining in the side light, those dazed eyes looking into that different world. ‘I just don’t understand why she would do that…’

  He turned and looked at her and she felt better under his gaze; things made more sense when he looked at her. ‘The irony is that cutting herself makes her feel alive.’

  Clem tried to understand this, but it was nonsense. ‘She has so much to live for. She’s so lucky… She’s got what other people would die for…’ She stopped herself short, realizing how insensitive was her turn of phrase.

  He was looking at the water, the fuzzy white ribbon leading back to the moon. ‘It’s not about what you’ve got on the outside though, is it,’ he said and stretched his legs a little.

  She glanced up at the sails. She wanted to believe him. ‘It is a bit though,’ she said because surely it was just a little bit. She’d made him smile and it gave her hope. ‘If she really thinks you and Smudge are better off without her that’s just mad.’

  ‘Well…that’s what they say.’

  ‘But she’s wrong.’

  He smiled, but it was half-hearted. ‘There you go again, Clem, with your rights and wrongs.’

  She pulled in the mainsail a little, not quite sure whether she needed to; she was copying Johnny really, but it was a useful means of punctuating her sentiments. Annie was wrong. Smudge and Frank were not better off without her. He should just admit it. Sometimes judgements were necessary.