Hy Brasil

by Margaret Elphinstone

  I guessed I’d flooded the engine. Quite likely they’d beat up Jared. They’d lock him in prison. This wasn’t England. They might be torturing him at this very moment to make him confess to what he didn’t do. I was crying, but I ignored it. I made myself wait five whole minutes by my watch. It was the longest five minutes I ever want to live through. I felt so incompetent: this sort of thing just didn’t happen to people in books. At last I took a deep breath, picked up the handle, and gave the cord one almighty jerk. The engine roared.

  I turned the throttle down with trembling hands. I pulled on the painter until the mooring rope came up again. I can untie a bowline without difficulty. The boat was floating free. I knew how to go into forward because I’d seen Jared do that yesterday, though I hadn’t been paying much attention. I turned the lever, and the boat suddenly shot forward. I grabbed the tiller just in time before we hit the rocks, remembered to shove it the opposite way from where I wanted to go, and got the bows pointing into open water. Next thing I knew I was out of the bay and into the sound.

  I felt the current at once. It was trying to make me go east, towards Lyonsness. Maybe it would win: my heart was in my mouth. In the end I had to point nearly west to keep on going straight across. But when I did that it worked: I found I could aim exactly for the spot I wanted. There was no mist now, but the sound seemed to have got twice as wide as it was when Jared was there, and the middle of it felt very exposed. I could see the Atlantic stretching away to the north-west, and for the first time in my life I didn’t like it. But by the time I got to the other side I was already growing accustomed, and when I lowered the throttle and came carefully round the rocks into the bay at Ferdy’s Landing I was breathing almost normally.

  There was a small pale-brown girl with a halo of black hair, dressed in nothing but a pair of pink dungaree shorts, sitting on the end of the jetty fishing with a rod and line. When I came alongside, which I thought I did rather well, she got up and took the painter from me, and tied it to a ring with a neat clove hitch. I switched off the engine. ‘Hello,’ I said. ‘I’m Sidony. Is your father in?’

  ‘In the kitchen, Pappa and Mamma both. Where’s Jared?’ She watched me gravely as I tied the stern rope to a ring. I could see her looking at my knot, but she didn’t comment.

  ‘He couldn’t come,’ I said. ‘I need to talk to your Pappa about it.’

  I was glad she didn’t come in with me. All the more so, in that when I walked into that orderly kitchen where Ishmael and Anna were drinking coffee over the remains of their lunch, with three abandoned places at the table between them, as if this were an ordinary day and the world were still a normal place, I instantly came very close to tears. But Ishmael and Anna were almost strangers to me, and I controlled myself. I must have looked awful, though, because I didn’t have to tell them something was up. They were kind, and brought me in at once and sat me down at the table. I was surprised how calmly they listened to my story. Ishmael interrupted me with questions twice. I described the big coastguard to him as well as I could. I told him how they’d brought the packets in as if they’d found them upstairs. ‘But they were never there. I know they were never there. It was a set-up. Jared never had any drugs anywhere.’

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Ishmael. ‘Had you searched his house too?’

  I stared at him in shock. ‘Of course I hadn’t! But I still know. Don’t you believe me?’

  ‘Oh, I believe you. All I’m saying is, you’ve no more evidence than I have. You say you know Jared. How? I think I know him too. But you can’t prove him innocent, and nor can I. Not that way.’

  He seemed so cold about it. I couldn’t help it, the tears were spilling over and running down my cheeks. ‘He never had drugs,’ I reiterated. ‘Jared never would. But even if you could prove it, he did hit those policemen, or whatever they were. I saw it.’ I was sobbing openly now. ‘And they’ll send him to prison for that, just like they did before. And supposing I hadn’t been there, he might have shot one dead. He might easily have. And now they’ll lock him up. That’s what he’s scared of, of course he fights. And when we were talking before and I asked him what he was afraid of, he said the thing that frightened him most in all the world was being locked in, not able to get out and being in the power of people he couldn’t trust. That’s what he told me and that’s exactly what they’ll do to him. They’ll hurt him. I saw it. I saw them hurting him on purpose, and they’ll do it more, now they’ve got him. And he won’t give in, he’ll fight them, and they might do anything to him then. And you’re his friend. He said so. That’s why I came here as fast as I could. And I’ve already wasted a whole lot of time trying to work that fucking engine, and if you won’t do anything but ask me silly questions you’re going to waste a whole lot more!’ I’m ashamed to say that then I buried my head in my arms on the table, and fairly wept.

  Anna came and put her arms around me. ‘It’s all right, m’dear,’ she said. ‘We’re his friends too. You can trust Ishmael, he’ll get him out. But he needs to think.’

  After a minute or two I sniffed and swallowed, and accepted a cup of coffee. Ishmael sat at the end of the table, frowning. But when he spoke to me again his voice was kind. ‘I won’t waste time. I don’t think he’ll find a better friend than you, but maybe I can deal best with the next bit, and I promise you I will.’ He smiled at me suddenly. ‘M’dear, it’s all right. I’ll do whatever I have to, I promise. Can I ask you one or two more questions?’

  ‘Of course.’ I wiped my nose on my sleeve, and Anna passed me a tissue. ‘Just because I make a fuss it doesn’t mean I can’t think. Just ignore it.’

  ‘I don’t think you make a fuss,’ said Ishmael. Then he said, ‘What’s Jared been doing this past week? Has he been finding out anything he didn’t know before?’

  I stared at him. ‘I’m not sure. At least … there’s Nicky’s treasures. Is that what you mean?’

  ‘Nicky’s treasures?’

  I explained. ‘But they searched the house, and the box was right there by the bed, because Jared had been showing them to me, but they never said a word about it.’

  Ishmael didn’t seem to be listening. ‘How did he get into the Pele Centre?’ he asked abruptly.

  ‘He didn’t say.’ I hesitated, and added, ‘He wouldn’t, I think. We don’t seem to agree about stealing.’

  ‘Would anyone else know he’d been there? Has he talked to anyone?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ A thought occurred to me. ‘I suppose Peterkin might have an idea. He’d know Jared, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Peterkin’s brother was Jed’s best friend at school,’ said Anna. ‘Pat’s away from Hy Brasil now. Pete was always tagging after them both. He’d do more or less anything Jed told him to. He wouldn’t shop him, though, unless someone really scared him.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ishmael. ‘There’s Peterkin.’ He pushed his chair back from the table, and stood up. ‘All right, m’dear. I’m not going to waste any more time. Now listen, what we’re going to do is this …’

  NINETEEN

  JAMES HOOK SAT at his desk, while behind him gulls wheeled in the wind beyond the plate glass window. Three letters lay on the desk before him, all written in an elegant italic script, even though they were inscribed in pencil on cheap lined paper stamped at the top: Government Jail, St Brandons, Hy Brasil. He read them over again, frowning. The first said:

  Dear Per,

  About the gannets: I hate to have to ask but if the project stops now that’s four months’ work pretty much down the tubes. My notes are on the second shelf down on the right hand side of the stove, behind the table. About half the chicks are already ringed – it says in the notes which nests – the rest need doing as they get big enough. I collect dropped fish from round the nests daily to check on species of fish prey. See notes for details. Like I told you, now the main gannet stuff is done I’d just started a general record of successful breeding this year on fulmars, Leach’s petrels, kittiwakes, puffin, ringed plover
, dunlin and tern (latter doing much better this year). You don’t have to bother with all that if you don’t want to. It says in my notes how far I’d got. And I keep an eye on the spotted sandpiper’s nest above the mooring – remember I showed you.

  Thanks. I’ll give you my pay. I hope it won’t be for long.

  Jared.

  The second said:

  Dear Sidony,

  I hope you’re OK. I’ve been worried about how you’d get off the island. It was rough on you. I’m sorry.

  I can’t write much and it can’t be private. But what I said to you just before that happened – I mean it. Only I shouldn’t have said anything about being on Despair, because I can understand why not, in the long term anyway, but the other bit, that was the important part, and I would do that anywhere, supposing you wanted it. I mean this. Please could you give Lucy the message which I mentioned to you?

  I hope I won’t be here long. Please don’t go away before you’ve seen me if that’s possible. If not, leave your English address with Lucy. Please don’t forget. If you do have to go away, please don’t forget, even if other things should happen to you away from here, that I still need to talk to you. Even if it’s a while, I’ll be in touch. I don’t know who reads this, so that had better be all.

  Love from Jared.

  The third said:

  Dear Ishmael,

  I’m in the jail. I don’t know why. I don’t know what to say that will get past the censor. But if you can think of anything, please do. They say I can’t see anyone, but maybe you could ask. I guess I need your help.

  Jared

  PS I can’t see what it should have to do with the Cortes but maybe you could keep an eye on things there too?

  ‘Hands!’

  The bodyguard appeared at the office door. ‘These two can go,’ said Hook, and pushed over two letters with their envelopes. ‘See to it, will you?’

  ‘Yes sir.’

  All Jared could see from the high barred window was a patch of deep blue, and the shining gulls that wove across it, tossed by a wind he could not feel. It would be wild on Despair today, all sun and wind and dancing sea. The air would smell clear as water, fresh off the Atlantic, and the wind would try to whip his notebook out of his hand as he worked. The gannets would huddle face into it, barely turning their heads as he walked among their nests. But when they took to the air they’d let the wind take them and fly free, way out over the ocean, as far as the eye could follow. The island was just where it always was. Only he was missing. He shut his eyes and thought about his island as it was when he was not there.

  Yesterday he had gone round every yard of the coast, visualising it inside his head, remembering the name of every rock and precipice. Yesterday the patch of window had been dull grey, and recalling Despair had been comforting. Today was different. Today was the sort of day that he had always found impossible to spend indoors, and he felt dangerously active. He wasn’t likely to start screaming or hammering at the steel door of his cell, but he understood how people could. He caught himself staring out at the patch of sky again. He shut his eyes.

  They weren’t letting him have any books. He’d tried asking for a Bible when secular reading matter was refused, but they weren’t taken in by that ploy, and said no. Yesterday they’d allowed him to write three short letters, and then they’d taken away the paper and the pencil again. They said he’d do better to take his time to re-consider. That meant he wasn’t to be allowed to read, or write, or see anybody, until he confessed to what he hadn’t done. He’d hesitated before writing the letters. He’d demanded the means as a right, but when to his surprise it was conceded, he sensed a possible trap, though it was hard to see how he could have incriminated himself or anybody else. He wasn’t at all sure his letters would get posted. He doubted if any of them were quite what his jailors had been hoping for.

  The only satisfaction he’d given them so far, if it did satisfy them, was that he’d been extremely sick. The cell still smelt. Even being in here all the time, and presumably relatively oblivious to the smell of himself, he was unpleasantly aware of it. Maybe it was the bang on the head that had caused the sickness; maybe it had been the long drive over mountain roads, lying on his face on the floor of a police van that smelt of petrol, with his hands cuffed behind his back; maybe it was the effects of being interrogated under bright lights in a small hot room, for what felt like hours although he had no way of knowing, with pains shooting through his head, and having to try hard all the time never to say yes to what he hadn’t done, even when they kept changing the questions. Maybe it was just simple fear. They hadn’t threatened him with anything specific, yet.

  He hated being sick. Compared to other things that might happen it was trivial and humiliating, but it had left him feeling weak. No one had come near him all that night, but next morning, when he’d asked to have the basin emptied out, they’d refused, and left him with it for the next forty-eight hours. Now everything, including himself and the pyjama-like prison clothes he was wearing, seemed to smell horrible, but he wasn’t sure any more how much of it he was imagining.

  Same problem with the bucket, not that he’d eaten anything much after he’d vomited away the breakfast he’d had inside him when he came in. Yesterday some of his appetite had come back, however, and he’d eaten the nameless stewlike substance that had been pushed in through the slit in the door.

  The warder on the afternoon shift on the fourth day had responded at last to his request for a toothbrush. Jared had a hunch the man was acting against orders, but naturally he didn’t ask. No toothpaste, of course, but he still had a sliver of soap that he’d hidden from the first day, when they’d let him have a bowl of warm water to wash. The taste of soap was better than the taste of sick.

  The first couple of days, after they’d finished questioning him, he’d surprised himself by sleeping most of the time. His head had been pretty sore. It was harder to sleep now. He wasn’t used to having no exercise. He’d examined every inch of the cell, out of a kind of desperation, because he knew there’d be nothing to find and there wasn’t. The bed was a solid platform along one wall, about two and a half feet wide, covered by a thin mattress with a stained cover and two shrunken grey blankets. There was a small shelf beside it on which stood a plastic jug of water and a plastic cup, and under the window there was a stained plastic bucket. That was all. A central light was let into the ceiling, controlled from outside the cell. The first forty-eight hours it had been left on all the time, and then someone had switched it off, to Jared’s relief, and since then it hadn’t come on again, so that at night the soothing dark crept slowly in and wrapped him round as if to comfort him.

  The floor space was a little larger than the size of the bed. The wall opposite the bed was of uncoated concrete blocks, and had obviously been put in later to divide this cell from the next, the two having originally been one. That would figure: Jared knew that when Hy Brasil was a British colony the prison had been built to accommodate twenty prisoners, and the whole outfit had conformed to British standards. In fact it had never been more than half full before 1958. For a few years after that it had been shockingly overcrowded, but for the past twenty years or so it had hardly been mentioned in the news at all.

  He had been in this place before, for six weeks in fact, and occasionally since then in dreams. The main difference was that last time he hadn’t been alone. What he remembered best was playing cards all day with a man called Starkey, one meaningless round of two-handed whist after another, but it was better than doing nothing. Starkey used to cheat, as if it mattered, but at the time it had become more and more irritating. Not that Jared had lost his temper; no stakes were involved so there was nothing seriously unfair about it. The days had been no more boring than a long sea voyage, and in some ways more comfortable. It was the injustice, and the being locked in, that had upset him. That, and the lack of privacy just two weeks after his mother’s funeral, and a bare week since he’d packed up everything in t
he house at Ogg’s Cove, locked the front door and the back door for the first time in his life, and handed the keys back to Ravnscar estates. He’d intended to come back to college, and try to make a new life for himself, but it hadn’t worked out that way. Eight years had passed since then, but finding himself incarcerated between the same concrete block walls, it was all coming back to him as if it had only just happened. He could have done without that.

  This time, however, he was completely alone. Sometimes he heard voices in the corridor, but never close by. The sun shone in a small bar across the ceiling from dawn until what he guessed was about two hours later, so he deduced that he was somewhere along the north-east wall.

  This was the seventh day. They had questioned him twice more, but not for two days now. No one had come. Sometimes he’d panicked. It was too hot in here, and the window didn’t open. At night he’d wake up in a sweat of terror, imagining or dreaming that the ceiling was coming down lower, and the walls were closing in all round him. It was in the small hours that he came closest to despair, and found himself believing that maybe he wasn’t going to get out, or at least not soon.

  The law of Hy Brasil said that no one could be kept in prison without trial, unless they were awaiting trial. How long was it possible to await a trial? Jared didn’t know. Perhaps for as long as the President pleased. It was in the middle of the third night, not before, that he found himself thinking about his father. Had Jack Honeyman ever been in here? Had Jack Honeyman ever got out of here, if he had been in? It was only when he thought of that that Jared broke down. But when he did cry, he did so in complete silence. If anyone were out there listening, they would never have the satisfaction of knowing they’d reduced him to that.