Below the Thunder

by Robin Duval

  A freighter was waiting by the dockside. It was smaller than a channel ferry and its immaculate white flank was uninterrupted by windows. There were two orange lifeboats, each slung so high in the superstructure that Bryn wondered how near to foundering the ship had to be before they could be successfully wound down and floated off. Small blue and yellow flags fluttered from lines on both sides of the wheelhouse. A thread of smoke was drifting up from one of the ship’s twin blue funnels.

  Bryn left the negotiations to Agnete and she disappeared into a single storey building by the dock, taking their passports with her. When she returned, ten minutes later, she was accompanied by a cheerful, shirt-sleeved man who looked briefly at the VW, nodded and handed over two sheets of paper. They exchanged a few words, laughed, and shook hands.

  It would be a couple of hours before the ship was ready. But Agnete had done it all before. She drove out of the terminal and down a rough road along the bank of the Thames, to a large public house standing alone in waste ground. The nearest other building was a centuries’ old fort at the river’s edge. She parked the car round the back of the pub and led the way inside.

  It was an interior from Hogarth’s and Dickens’s England, scarcely reconstructed. Flagstone floors, blackened wood panelled walls. An oval bar stood at the centre of a satellite universe of dark drinking rooms, tiny booths, window bays, cubicles, alcoves. Tiredlooking middle-aged men sat quietly together, with a scattering of women of a similar age, blonde and mascara’d. On one of the walls hung a jarringly anachronistic digital juke box, ‘provided by Essex Leisure’, and playing songs from the current charts.

  Bryn bought two pints of bitter for a price startlingly lower than he’d paid earlier in the day. He found Agnete already settled in a corner. The dark walls either side of her were inscribed with quotations from Samuel Pepys, in cream paint and flowing manuscript.

  ‘He used to visit Tilbury on Navy business,’ he explained. ‘At the fort… ’

  But she was listening to the juke box. One song finished; another succeeded it.

  ‘Rap music,’ he observed. ‘Can you tell the difference?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And it’s hip-hop.’

  ‘Is it music though? Or some kind of rhythmic declamation?’

  She turned deliberately towards him.

  ‘It’s nothing to do with age, Agnete,’ he said pre-emptively.

  ‘Well, you enjoy your Bayreuth, Bryn. I like Big Sean, The Roots and Jay-Z. As you English people say: End Of.’

  ‘Lots of people your age go to opera.’

  ‘To hear people shouting.’

  ‘In a musical way.’

  ‘Not like rap then, Bryn.’

  He was enjoying himself. He had almost forgotten how much he loved a good argument.

  ‘In that case there are two different kinds of music.’

  ‘Really, Bryn?’

  She sighed.

  ‘There’s the kind that, in a free world, anyone can choose to call music. No criteria need apply. And there’s the second kind. The kind that new generations will be listening to a hundred years down the line. All the rest – that first kind – is, as someone else said, noise. Because like all noise it dies away eventually and for ever. Never to be heard again. Music, by contrast – like most art – is built to last. To be passed down.’

  He was rolling. Agnete’s irritation only fired him up further. The ice blue eyes were fixed on him, basilisk-like. It was more than sufficient reward.

  ‘So this is about dead people, Bryn. Not different generations. It’s got to be your blessed Wagner to qualify as music.’

  ‘Certainly not. I rate the Beatles, Elvis, Buddy Holly – ’

  ‘Dead people.’

  ‘Do you genuinely think that rap band will be listened to in a hundred years’ time?’

  ‘It’s hip hop. But that’s because it’s music we want to listen to now. Why does everything have to be appeal to old people?’

  ‘That’s not what I said.’

  ‘Why can’t music be made by young people, for young people?’

  ‘It always was.’

  ‘Oh right. Mozart, Schubert. So what about all their other contemporaries whose work’s been forgotten? Didn’t they write music? How different are they from my bands?’

  ‘They could be rediscovered.’

  Agnete’s tight-drawn face softened.

  ‘You’ve lost this argument, haven’t you?’

  ‘Afraid so.’

  ‘Never mind. Why don’t you choose the next track yourself? Is Oasis old enough for you… ’

  A uniformed policeman had come in and was chatting across the bar with the landlord. Agnete watched him for a while, and took Bryn’s hand and led him out through the back rooms to the VW parked at the rear. She veered off down a track that rejoined the road a hundred yards further down. In his side mirror, Bryn could see a second policeman waiting patiently in the main car park.

  The ship was stern end to the dock. A large white truck was easing up the ramp into the lorry deck. Agnete tucked in directly behind it, carefully positioning the VW close enough to the ro-ro doors to prevent any other vehicle boxing it in.

  A good-looking young sailor in a fluorescent jacket invited them to follow him to the upper decks. Almost as an afterthought, he asked for their ‘papers’ and Agnete handed him the two sheets Bryn had seen earlier. He noticed her name was printed at the top of one, the Hathrill alter ego on the other.

  They climbed up two flights of iron steps and down a short corridor with numbered doors on either side. The young man opened the first of them and pressed the key solicitously into Agnete’s hand.

  ‘I hope you find it satisfactory,’ he said.

  It was a tiny but Ikea-efficient cabin for two people. In a space not much more roomy than an under-the-stairs cupboard, there were two beds (one hanging from the wall), a ceiling-high wardrobe and shelves, a shower/toilet/washbasin/everything else cubicle, and an armchair.

  The young man was waiting at the door.

  ‘I need your passports. Please?’

  Agnete handed them over without demur. He glanced at the photographs, and dropped the documents indifferently into his jacket pocket.

  ‘Stop worrying,’ she said, when the man had gone.

  ‘You said they wouldn’t be interested in them.’

  ‘He’s not. He’s only interested in us.’

  She grinned at him.

  ‘He was checking to see if I was your daughter. And if he had a chance.’

  There seemed to be no other civilians on the ship. Nor, apart from the mess man, was there any sighting yet of the crew. The sole indication of their presence was a set of locked doors forbidding entry to ‘crew quarters’.

  Civilian access to the open air was through a fire door at the end of the dormitory corridor. Beyond it was an uncovered main deck packed tight with containers, as close as tiles on a kitchen floor. The working part of the vessel – living quarters, wheelhouse – was bunched together at the stern.

  They found a small deck behind one of the lifeboats and watched the ship ease away from the dockside, past the piled slag heaps of metallic waste, and ranks of unshipped containers, towards the Thames.

  Agnete slipped a hand into his.

  ‘Relax,’ she whispered. ‘It’ll be fun.’

  ‘They’ve got our bloody passports.’

  ‘It’s not a problem.’

  ‘How can you be so confident?’

  ‘Because I know,’ she said. ‘It’s all managed by the Border Agency in Croydon and they’re not interested in Tilbury. They’re resourced to cover the essentials – airports, Dover, the Eurotunnel.’

  ‘How can you know all this?’

  ‘Marcus told me,’ she murmured diffidently. ‘Five – MI5 – complain about them all the time.’

  The ship was gliding, slower than walking pace, down a long brick-lined passageway so tight and narrow that there was barely a yard to spare on either side of the vess
el.

  Something else was nagging at him. An irritating and – no doubt – inappropriate moral scruple.

  ‘I’m worried about the car,’ he said at last.

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The hire car?’

  She looked at him incredulously.

  ‘We should tell the hire company where it is.’

  ‘And give the game away?’

  ‘In a couple of weeks’ time, maybe.’

  She turned away, as if trying to puzzle him out.

  Seagulls hung in the air above, banked and wheeled away. Smoke from the funnels drifted into the darkening sky. The lock gates closed and the vessel began almost imperceptibly to rise to the level of the river beyond.

  ‘Alright,’ she said, and leaned gently into him. ‘As soon as it’s not an issue. We’ll tell them in two weeks… I guess I’d forgotten you’re nothing like Marcus.’

  Giant yellow container carriers were gliding around in the arc lights alongside the lock, emitting shrill pulsing cries like robots from an apocalyptic future, bearing their bungalow-sized burdens away in their great jaws to more distant parts of the dock.

  The riverside gates opened. The boat began to pick up speed into the river.

  ‘We’re not going to Denmark after all,’ said Agnete.

  ‘Hamburg?’

  ‘Not even that. Göteborg.’

  ‘What… Gothenburg?’

  ‘It’ll be fine. This is the boat I used to take to our family holidays in south Norway. It’ll be a straight drive from there to Germany.’

  ‘How long does it take to get across the North Sea?’

  ‘Oh, Bryn.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Relax. It will be thirty-six hours. Together.’

  Chapter 25

  Og hør du, Agnete, hvad jeg vil sige dig:

  og vil du nu være Allerk æresten min?

  O ja saammaend, det vil jeg saa,

  naar du t’ar mig med til Havsens Bund

  Listen, Agnete, now listen to me

  Will you be my sweetheart down in the sea?

  O yes indeed, in truth it will be

  When you take me down to the depths of the sea.

  Old Danish Ballad

  The evening deepened, and they were alone on the river. For an hour, the only other boat to pass them by was a small pleasure yacht, with half a dozen revellers enjoying a noisy private party. Schools of tied-up dinghies bobbed on their wake; a three-masted old-style schooner stood rock-like at anchor.

  Beyond the river’s edge was unrelieved industrial desert. Slag heaps and warehouses to starboard; power station chimneys, piled-up car bodies on the port side. Wide, flat wasteland and marshes; Canvey Island; chimneys, derricks, storage tanks, whole dominions of rust and crumbling concrete.

  And, as the Thames widened towards the North Sea, a taste of the future. Wind turbines sprouting from hidden sandbanks, waving their skinny white arms like so many corps de ballet. Marker buoys diminishing into the distance. More wind farms. Scores upon scores of stranded, anorexic ballerinas. Open water. A lightship. And finally as the night descended, an otherworldly nothingness. The stars, the flat horizon of the black, featureless sea, and no sound but the deep bass chugging of the ship’s engines.

  A chill rose from the water and drove them indoors. They made their way back down the dormitory corridor to the other public area within the ship: the drivers’ lounge.

  This was a small space divided into two even smaller spaces. The first contained three round Ikea tables – each with a neat little black broderie anglaise doily at its centre – and some hard pine chairs. A stainless steel shelf ran along the inboard wall, with condiments, cutlery, a coffee machine, microwave. A serveyourself dinner was set out on electric warmers. Stuffed eggs with shrimps and salad. Mixed whitefish stew and boiled potatoes, steaming and as yet untouched.

  The other half of the room, tactfully separated from the eating area by a wood lattice screen, was the television parlour. Audible but muted sounds of humping: bass-baritone grunting and rhythmically precise squeaks, squeals and gasps. Bryn peered through the partition. A pile of unclassified DVDs – A Night in China, A Night in Paris, Adult Affairs – had been scattered on a coffee table, and an overweight man in an Elvis Lives t-shirt was sprawled fast asleep across the viewing sofa. Bryn took a helping of seafood and salad through and squeezed in alongside him. He flicked the remote channel control to an English television news station. The fat man slept on.

  The airports situation seemed to be improving. After the initial chaos, many flights south and east from the UK had been reinstated. The airways above North America were still closed, however, as the volcanic ash cloud continued its relentless drift towards the Midwest.

  There was a small item of local London news. Two men held in custody after the north London murder earlier in the day had been released without charge. They were expected to be deported to an unnamed Middle Eastern state.

  The fat man woke up. He was restored to his blue movie.

  Agnete had by now disappeared.

  An apple cake had magically materialised on the steel shelf and Bryn sat at one of the tables, consuming a large slice. A second lorry driver wandered in and frowned perplexedly at the stuffed eggs and fish stew. He spooned out some boiled potatoes, added a chocolate bar from the fridge, and took his plate back to his cabin. Minutes later, the fat man followed him down the corridor.

  Apart from brief sightings at mealtimes, they did not encounter the drivers again throughout the trip. Bryn assumed they spent most of their time asleep, building up reserves, like camels or oxen, for the long haul to come. He could see why their profession tended so much to the massive and obese.

  Through the wide dining room windows, the squared-off stern of the ship gently rose and fell on the North Sea swell, weaving with the crosswind as the autopilot constantly adjusted the wheel. There was the faintest smudge of orange on the western horizon.

  He had started to worry again about Agnete.

  There was a steely resolve about her which he admired; but which had begun to alarm him. He could not suppress a slowly growing feeling that both of them now were fast tracked to disaster.

  It had been a long and tiring day.

  He shivered. Not with cold; the ship’s quarters were as warm as a Swedish duvet. But because he could not see any outcome other than incessant flight, like Bonnie and Clyde, until catastrophe overtook them. Some professional with a more ruthless agenda than their own would inevitably catch up at the finish. He might hope – as he always hoped – that he could compromise his way out, temporise, do whatever was necessary. But that was not Agnete’s way. He feared for her.

  He went back to the cabin. She was deeply asleep. The rucksack had been placed beside her bunk and a hand lay across it as if guarding the contents against enemies. A category from which – for the time present – he did not suppose she entirely excluded him. He watched her for a while, head on the pillow, hair strewn across her face, and did not have the will – or the courage – to wake her up.

  He pulled a scarf from the hold-all and returned to the tiny lifeboat deck. Round a corner, by the white-painted safety railing, was a weatherbeaten wooden bench. Not secured to the floor but free-standing like an old piece of garden furniture. A simultaneously surreal and comforting image.

  He sat down and gazed out at the ship’s wake. The churned water had a phosphorescent whiteness that he associated with southern oceans rather than the North Sea. Miles away on the port side, like tiny cut-out models, were the lights of other ships, creeping along the horizon.

  He could not share Agnete’s confidence that they had shaken off their pursuers. The likeliest scenario – it seemed to him – was that their presence on the freighter was now well known to the British; but no attempt would be made to intercept them on the high seas. Why should they bother? For thirty-six hours Agnete and he were effectively sealed up and packaged. En route to a safe delivery, with the Swedish immigration s
ervice as postman. And perhaps – after all that had passed – it would be a blessed relief. The fugitive role was not for him. He had had enough of running. He did not much care for the odds.

  But what if she was right?

  If… in spite of everything… they succeeded in passing through Gothenburg without challenge, what next?

  She would surely want – even more so than before – to play through to a conclusion. He was convinced now that her end game was unachievable. That they could not, realistically, destroy the monster. That compromise – his compromise – was the way forward.

  She was still asleep when he got back to the cabin. He let down the narrow overhead bunk and crept up the steel ladder, his stockinged feet flinching against the edges of rungs intended for men of hardier stock. Or who retired to bed with their boots on.

  Agnete may have guessed what was in his mind. She rose silently and went early to breakfast and, by the time Bryn came down, had disappeared again.

  He found her eventually on their private deck, leaning over the handrail, and gazing down the cliff-side of the ship at the onrushing sea. The rucksack, which he had begun to loathe, was zipped up and buckled on the wooden bench beside her. As he arrived she turned and caught him, and kissed him hard on the lips.

  ‘Let’s go with the flow, Bryn,’ she whispered. ‘Seize the day.’

  ‘And tomorrow?’

  ‘Tomorrow we will be in Sweden, driving down the E20 to Malmö.’

  She kissed him again at length. This was going to be so difficult.

  ‘We have to talk,’ he said at last.

  She contorted her face into a moue, shrugged her shoulders, and turned away to the North Sea.