I watched the water crash white over the falling metal, and I watched as the waves subsided and the sea became smooth. The strip of brown water between the ship and the land became a river, a lake, a sea. But the three women did not come to the surface. Tiny figures lined the quay; I heard far-off cries. But we were gone. The gangway was in the sea, the ship was safe, and soon the land was nothing more than a panoramic postcard pinned to the sky.
My father returned to the desk and opened the manifest.
‘Lalla,’ he said, inclining his head. He handed me the pen and I felt its unfamiliar weight between my fingers.
‘But those women …’ I said.
‘Sign your name, then go to your mother,’ he answered, and I formed my name as quickly as I could, struggling with the strange sensation of the paper against the nib, my hands trembling with gratitude and relief. But at last there it was, Lalla Paul, thick, black, indelible. A pen with ink, a paper page. Irrevocable paper, that could not be reprogrammed, hacked, crashed, deleted. No matter what happened to the power supply, my name would stand there, for ever. I wondered whether this was why my mother had been so insistent on teaching me to write without using the screen. ‘Go, quickly,’ he said. ‘Up the first staircase, third door.’
‘Aren’t you coming?’ I asked.
He waved the pen at the queue of people before him, alight with hope and adoration. He shook his head. ‘I’ve got to register the people,’ he said. ‘Tell her …’ he began, but his voice gave way and he stopped, breathing hard. ‘It’s a metal door,’ he said at last.
Behind me, I heard my father calling out names, the shuffle of feet, the ordered method of things being done properly. Hope insinuated itself into the controlled space. I glanced over my shoulder as, one by one, the people signed the manifest. Three lives had been lost, but one hung in the balance, and that was the one I cared about most. I ran. I ran as fast as I could. To the infirmary. To my mother.
It never occurred to me to wonder how we would disembark, now that the gangway was gone.
THREE
A steel door a doctor’s joy and now who is Lalla Paul?
I found the steel door and pushed it open, feeling the metal grow warm under my hands. When I took them away, there were two perfect hand shapes outlined in mist on the silver. They vanished before I had walked through. My mother lay still, her eyes closed. The doctor was there too, adjusting the valve on a bag of fluid hanging over my mother’s bed.
‘Miss Paul,’ he said, standing in the way of the bed. His eyes did not meet mine. His hair was coarse and pale and fell over his ears. He stepped aside as I approached the bed.
‘Mother?’ I said. ‘Mother?’
I reached out to stroke her face but the doctor caught my hand. ‘Wash your hands before you touch her,’ he said gently, ‘then rub them with the gel in the blue bottle. And put on a gown.’
I turned on the tap. ‘There’s water,’ I said, surprised, watching it cascading into the silver bowl. I turned off the tap, then turned it on again. ‘It’s still there.’
‘There’s electricity too,’ the doctor said. ‘All the time, apparently, although I don’t quite see …’ His voice trailed away. I unfolded the gown slowly, and I began to feel that that the change in my life was not contained in the exchange of water for land, but in the fact that the doctor could not meet my eyes, that his hands pulled restlessly at the elasticated cuffs of his own gown, that he had no words for me. He pushed his hair back and I saw that there were hairs growing from his ears, too. I didn’t like it. The gel sat cold on my skin.
‘We should wait for your father,’ he said, and his ear hair moved when he talked.
‘He’s registering the people,’ I said. ‘We’ve sailed now.’ The sound of the engines had grown fainter since the first great roar. ‘They’re signing the manifest. My father sent me here. He said …’
‘Yes?’
‘He said the infirmary had a metal door,’ I faltered, watching the doctor take down a crisp sheet of startling whiteness from a stack on a shelf. ‘Can I … ?’ I nodded at my mother and he stepped aside. I kissed her and squeezed her cold hand and then I stared and stared, looking for the rise and fall of her chest until my eyes watered. Footsteps moved past the infirmary door in little groups. I heard voices and laughter. I heard doors opening and closing and the bubbling rush of taps being turned on and off. ‘Water!’ I heard a distant voice shout, and a chorus of babbling voices took up the cry.
Water. How could there be water all the time, when time itself had stopped?
Then my mother heaved a sudden breath and an ooze of blood spread through the white cotton over her stomach.
‘Mother?’ I whispered. But she did not answer, and the doctor just watched, the white sheet folded over his arm.
In the cabins around us, the water continued to flow. Baths she had given me when I was a very little girl, when we still took water for granted, soap refusing to be caught as we chased it with slippery hands. Water cascading over her head as she washed her hair, turning it dark and shining. I forgot about the times I felt I had let her down, about never being quite clever enough, about feeling unimportant. I thought about rain making puddles on the pavement and the sudden anger with which she pulled me away when I asked why we couldn’t drink from them as the street people did. I’d never thanked her for boiling my water. I’d just complained about having to drink it when it was hot. And so she had found a stone jug to cool the water in, and filled it, and poured cool water from it, just for me. She had to live, so that I could thank her.
I thought about the stone jug.
The blood spread but the very fact that it was there made me dizzy with hope.
The steel door opened and my father walked in.
‘I’m sorry,’ the doctor said, hanging beside my father like a trailing thread, and my knees felt weak; I clung to her hand, although there was no answering pressure. My father approached the bed and the doctor did not stand in his way.
‘Can she hear me?’ my father asked.
I stepped back and leaned against the wall; I found myself sliding down it, the green gown rustling around me. I folded my arms over my knees and hid my face. I waited for my mother’s voice to ask, Lalage, what’s wrong? then felt the floor lurch as I realised that she was not going to ask.
‘The bullet ripped through her bowel,’ the doctor said. ‘There isn’t anything to be done except make her comfortable.’
I looked up and saw that my father’s face was grey.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Paul,’ the doctor said again. ‘I’m so sorry. The blood loss, the infection. It was too much for her. It would have been too much for anyone.’
My father closed his eyes. He clenched his hands into tight fists.
‘It’ll be peaceful,’ the doctor continued. ‘I’m making sure of that, at least.’ He gestured towards the bag of clear fluid dripping into my mother’s arm.
I looked at my father, willing him to produce another miraculous ship, one in which my mother had not been shot. But he kept his eyes closed and took a long time to draw breath. ‘Is there anything you don’t have?’ he said at last. ‘Is there anything you need that might make a difference? That might … save her?’
‘No,’ the doctor said quickly. ‘I’ve got everything I want, more of everything than I could possibly need. It’s all here for me. The morphine, the saline, the sterile needles and the drip …’
My father opened his eyes and colour returned slowly to his face.
‘I cleaned the wound with swabs and dressed it with surgical muslin. Mr Paul, I had fresh water and antibiotics. If it had been possible to save your wife, I could have done it with what was here.’ The doctor finished, and my father stepped forwards and held out his hand.
‘Thank you,’ he said as the doctor took it.
‘No,’ said the doctor, ‘it is you I thank. If I had had all this …’ He stopped, and my father put his free hand on the doctor’s shoulder.
The sou
nd of footsteps still surrounded us – pattering ones underscoring chatter and effervescent giggles, heavier ones accompanied by deeper voices – but this time they were going the other way, back to the ballroom.
‘What?’ I demanded from the floor, pulling my hair away from my face. ‘If you’d had all this, then what?’
Neither man replied. They stepped apart and silence flooded between them.
‘I told the people to gather in the ballroom after they’d found their cabins,’ my father said. ‘I have to talk to them. If I’m not there, they’ll be uncertain. They’ll look to each other, they’ll look back to what we’ve left behind. It could all … I need to be there. She’d understand that. She told me to do it properly.’
‘But she’s not dead,’ I said. They looked down at me. I scrambled up with my back to the wall and faced the doctor. ‘You said she’s not dead. She took a breath. And there’s blood. The blood’s still coming. Dead people don’t bleed.’
‘It’s only a matter of time,’ the doctor said quietly. My father stood bowed, his eyes on my mother, his senses alert to the sounds outside and the constant dark rumbling of the engines taking us onwards, onwards, we knew not where.
‘Does she know we’re here?’ my father asked.
‘The pain relief is very strong. It needs to be.’ The doctor paused. ‘I could go to the ballroom for you,’ he said. ‘They’ll understand.’
The footsteps on the walkway became quicker, skittering over the background bass of the engines and fading towards the ballroom. I took my mother’s hand again. I felt the shallow quick fluttering of her pulse and watched the deep rise and fall of my father’s breathing as he thought. I held my breath.
‘No,’ he said. ‘It has to be me. They need to see me, to hear me. The ship was my plan. They put their trust in me. With all due respect, Roger …’
The doctor inclined his head in acknowledgement.
‘Perhaps,’ my father said, moving towards the door and then coming back to the bed, ‘perhaps you could go to the ballroom and tell the people to wait.’ I breathed again and lifted my head. ‘Tell them that I … that Lalla and I … that we will be with them shortly. They’ll wait. Of course they’ll wait. They’ve waited so long already.’
The doctor nodded. ‘Mr Paul,’ he said. ‘Michael. I want you to know – you need to know – that at no time in history could more have been done for her. And I thank you.’
‘You’re happy,’ I said to the doctor as my father began to open the door for him. The doctor took a breath as if to deny it, then sighed. He leaned his forehead against the steel door and spoke to the floor.
‘I’ve watched so many people die without being able to help. And to be able to help someone, to be able to do everything I can and then let what will be, be – that’s life, Miss Paul. What’s happiness, more than that?’
‘And will you?’ I said.
‘Will I what?’
‘Let what will be, be. You’ve stuffed her with drugs so she can’t even hear me. She doesn’t even know I’m here. She wouldn’t want that. She wants to talk to me, even if it hurts her. She’d rather be in pain than be like this.’
The doctor straightened up and turned to me. My father took a step backwards, as though he wanted a better view. ‘You think?’ the doctor said. He pointed a finger at me. The slightest tremor at its tip betrayed the effort he was putting into controlling himself. ‘What do you know about pain, Miss Paul? What do you know?’
My father took my hand and held it tight. I felt the strong pulse in his thumb, the warmth and resilience of his flesh, and I stared into the doctor’s face, which was as white as my mother’s. ‘Life is pain, Miss Paul, and a pain-free death is a gift. You should thank your father. You should thank him on your knees for what he’s given your mother. That’s what you should be doing.’ He took a breath. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, but this time he was talking to my father, not to me.
I pinched my lips together with my teeth and felt the blood being driven away. I hated him. I called down thunderbolts to strike him dead on the spot; I decided to find out where his cabin was and poison the water; I would track down the person he loved best in the world and shoot them through the bowels and see how strongly he held to his precious philosophy then. The door clanged shut behind him and the misty outline of his forehead faded with the noise. My father put his arm around me and we looked down at my mother.
‘Don’t be angry with Roger,’ he said. ‘He did all he could.’
‘But she’s not dead.’
‘She’s leaving us peacefully.’
‘I threw away my card,’ I said. ‘I stood on the deck rail and I threw it down to the people on the quay.’
‘I know.’
‘I did it for her,’ I said. ‘I did it so that we could sail quickly and I could come and be with her.’
‘No,’ my father said, tightening his arm around me. ‘You did it for me. For the ship. I knew you would make me proud, but I did not know how soon it would come. I owe you my life, Lalla. And so does everyone on board this ship. They are your people too, now. And so soon.’ He was excited; I could see his eyes dancing a little, even through the misery in his face.
‘But I don’t want them,’ I said, the image of my mother before me beginning to swim. ‘I want her.’ I blinked and she was back, pale on the infirmary bed. I took her hand and knelt down beside her. Her hand was cold; I rubbed it between my own, trying to communicate my warmth to her as I had done to the steel door. But her skin resisted me as wholly as the steel had absorbed me. I looked at my father, but his eyes were far away, seeing things I had never been a part of. He bent over my mother and kissed her forehead, but it was I who felt the warmth of his lips. ‘I want her too,’ he whispered.
We stayed like that for a moment, until he said, ‘Lalla. I have to go and talk to the people. Not for long. It won’t be for long. I know exactly what I’m going to say.’ He patted his pocket and I heard the rustle of paper. ‘And then I’ll be back. Right back.’
I rested my head on the pillow beside hers and stared at him.
‘It would be easier for me if you came with me,’ he said. ‘Will you, Lalla? Please.’
‘She’s not dead,’ I said again, because that was the only thing I was sure of. I turned away from him and buried my face in my mother’s pillow. I heard him sigh, then I heard the steel door open. I lifted my head and had to shield my eyes against the copper gold of the sun. My father hovered, silhouetted against the bright outside. He held out his hand to me; I shook my head and he was gone.
My father was always walking out of the room after an argument, leaving an important statement hanging in the air behind him. As soon as he’d gone, my mother’s anger would melt and she would turn to me, eyes bright, ready to play or to walk or to teach. I thought she might sit up now, smile, ask me what I would like to do next. But this time there was no private wink, no secret smile to let me in on the joke. And my father was gone.
I settled my head on the pillow next to hers. The voices and running water had stopped; everyone was in the ballroom with my father. Through the silence, I felt the vibration deep in the heart of the ship. My heart learned to beat in time with the engine, and I was back in London, walking to the British Museum, my mother’s steady steps undeterred by the emaciated faces, the blackened teeth, the smell of the end of the world. What right do we have, I heard her asking my father on our return, what right do we have to a place to call home?
It’s for Lalla, he always said. All of it. For Lalla.
Yes, she said, but has she ever eaten an apple?
‘Mother,’ I cried, and a cold gust of wind blew on me. My father had left the infirmary door standing open and I could see that the sun had set. I tried to stand and found that my legs had gone numb. My neck was stiff and I realised that I was cold and light-headed with hunger. We had not eaten since we left the flat. I shut the door. Where was my father? How long had he been gone?
‘Mother,’ I said, and
then again more loudly, ‘Mother.’ There was no response. I could not help myself; I pressed her stomach gently, and a fresh patch of blood glinted. Her blood was flowing, therefore she lived; only the doctor’s magic bag of fluid was keeping her from me. ‘Mother,’ I said, ‘it’s Lalla,’ as though that information alone would be enough to provoke a response.
I looked up at the plastic bag and the drip, drip, drip of the drugs that were keeping her still and quiet, keeping her away. The doctor was sedating her. Therefore, by stopping his drugs, I could wake her up. I could ask her what she wanted me to do. I reached up and turned the valve, and the dripping stopped.
I sat by the bed. For a few moments, nothing happened. Then her breathing became deeper and stronger. Her cheeks turned red. My heart outstripped the engines. I gripped her hand; I lined up my thousand questions.
Her eyes started open, pupils vast and unseeing.
‘Mother,’ I began, but she did not answer me. Her face was turning purple. Her hands began to flail uselessly, reaching for help I could not give. Blood flowed faster, gathering in a pool and dripping from the bed to the floor. I stood over her, trying to give her wild eyes a glimpse of my face, to bring her back to me, but her mouth opened and she began to scream, an animal cry that carved out new lines in her face. She reared off the bed and curled into a ball, her head against her knees, as though pain was the only thing in the world. Then she fell back again, hard, her face drained grey and old. The bloody sheet fell to the floor, taking the sodden dressing with it. The wound beneath was swollen red and purple and black with white dots like dead maggots. I recoiled; I could not bring myself to go near enough to cover her again. Instead I screamed with her, and we filled the small room in ghastly unison, drowning the sounds of the ship. I stopped to draw breath, but she did not, and her scream became a thin wail that faded to nothing.
The Ship Page 5