Blood Ties

by A. J. Quinnell

  And then the reality prevailed.

  He knew now that it was totally natural and right. The forces that pulled them together were complicated. The emotional priorities dominant.

  Garret, through the horror of his kidnapping and confinement, and the shocking trauma preceding his rescue, was badly affected.

  Ramesh only spent three nights in hospital. Garret was kept in for close observation. Then it was pronounced that he must return to America forthwith to undergo skilled therapy.

  It all happened so quickly, and in strict tempo. Ramesh’s euphoria dissipated. Having found and rescued her son, Kirsty was now deeply concerned that his mental scars should not be permanent. For the moment there could be no time to develop her feelings for Ramesh.

  It had been on the second day following the rescue. Kirsty came to his bedside and held his hand.

  “You know I must go back. For the moment Garret needs me. You know that Ramesh.”

  She looked into his eyes. He saw the pain.

  “I do understand, and have always understood ever since that night.”

  Ramesh pulled her closer. “You know how I feel . . . I love you Kirsty.”

  “Yes, Ramesh, and I love you. But. . .”

  “I have accepted your leaving,” Ramesh interrupted. In sparing her the agony of having to divide her love it was the ultimate act of unconscious kindness.

  Now Ramesh wondered whether indeed he did understand, whether he had really accepted. He knew the answer. It hurt. For the first time he recognised the resentment.

  Apparently the Tanzanian Government was deeply embarrassed by what had happened, and were acutely anxious that no publicity should be released. Okello was lured to Kenya. The pretext: a skilled surgeon capable of saving his life. He was declared persona non grata in Zanzibar and Tanganyika. He vanished from sight.

  A kind of deal was struck. Howard called it ‘reparation’. Anyway, money was involved. Whether it was from the Americans or a grateful Tanzanian Government was immaterial to Kirsty. Her first concern was the future of her son. Four days after the rescue Ramesh and the others were in a special section of the airport seeing her and Garret off. It was hot and humid.

  He only managed a brief moment alone with her. She had clung to him fiercely, tears in her eyes; a moment of deep intimacy drawing their feelings and events of the past weeks into focus.

  The moment was shattered as Howard took her arm, insisting that she join the already delayed plane.

  Kirsty was gone.

  In well concealed anguish he turned to Lani and Cady and drew warmth and pleasure from their love for each other.

  Even as they had motored back from Zanzibar on that fateful morning, they had decided to marry.

  There had been practical problems. Lani was stateless. Technically she was not even allowed to land on Tanganyikan territory.

  Cady had gone to the Canadian High Commission and insisted that she be given temporary papers so that they could marry. The Commission officials rolled out the bureaucratic barriers and then recoiled as Cady’s wrath shivered the building.

  Eventually it was arranged and at the ceremony in the Anglican Church Ramesh gave her away, suffused with paternal pride, his longing for Kirsty momentarily suppressed.

  They honeymooned for a week at the Mikumi Game Reserve and insisted that Ramesh accompany them. He had adamantly refused and they told him that if not, they would camp on Manasa’s deck. They meant it. So he had gone with them and spent a wonderful week and been an integral part of their happiness.

  Cady was going to return to work. They would live on Cyprus. He telephoned his friend Cam, who told him that work was plentiful – even with his old company Aramco. The offending tool pusher had offended once too often and been fired. The word was out that Cady had been wronged and his application to be re-hired would be favourably received.

  Diffidently Cady had asked Ramesh if they could travel with him and Manasa as far as Cyprus. Scarcely concealing his pleasure Ramesh had quickly agreed.

  Then a few days later Lani had conferred privately with Harriet. A visit to a doctor was arranged and shortly afterwards Lani announced that she was pregnant. For two days Cady shambled around like a bear who has found the ultimate honey pot. Then the mantle of imminent parenthood descended over him.

  Earnestly he discussed the future with Ramesh. He was down to his last couple of thousand dollars. As a potential father perhaps he should go straight back to work? Earn money to provide for his coming child?

  In his paternal role, Ramesh agreed.

  Another trip to the airport. Another farewell. Of course he would visit them on Cyprus. It was only a matter of weeks.

  Ramesh had immersed himself in activity. It was not difficult. Manasa literally swarmed with workers. Early on Howard and Murphy had taken him to one side and explained that ‘funds’ had been allocated.

  The deck and dog house were sanded down and cleansed of the black paint. A new set of sails were measured and cut, equipment was installed: a sophisticated single side-band radio, a depth sounder, a new compass, and an array of instruments. For two days Manasa was hauled out of the water while Ramesh stayed with the Godfreys. Her bottom was scraped and her hull painted.

  While the boat was slipped Murphy had arrived with an American marine engineer who was in Tanganyika with a US aid mission trying to upgrade the local fishing fleet. He had spent two hours in the engine room in oily affinity with the Perkins. When he emerged on deck, wiping his hands on cotton waste, he asked Ramesh, “Who fixed that old mother up for you?”

  Ramesh said, “An Englishman on the Seychelles called Jack Nelson. Is it all right?”

  “Believe it!” the American said. “She’ll take you there and back and anywhere. The guy’s a pro.”

  In the meantime Ramesh wrote letters. The first was to Jack Nelson, care of the Naval and Military Club in London. It was a long letter telling of everything since Manasa had left, and explained his deep love for Kirsty. He gave a return address of poste restante Djibouti which would be his second port of call after Mogadishu. Then he wrote to the Savys on Bird Island and Dave Thomas, giving them an abbreviated version of the events.

  His letter to Jaran Singh in Bombay had been difficult. How could he describe the last two months without his old friend concluding that he had lost all his senses? He contented himself with describing the voyage to the Seychelles and the scenic beauties of the islands and the wildlife.

  And then there was the letter to Kirsty. He explained in great detail the trip with Cady and Lani following the wedding, and the announcement of Lani’s pregnancy. It took him two days to write the last paragraph. A battle raged between caution and suppressed emotion.

  It was the night that did it. It was nearly calm – just a gentle breeze and the sky was like black velvet studded with diamonds. He wanted her with him, and said so.

  He had the reply just before he left. It was a long letter devoted mostly to news of Garret. He was responding well to treatment. During long talks he had expressed a desire to study marine biology. Her stories of Aldabra and the other islands had excited him. She was thrilled with his sense of purpose. The ‘reparation’ money was being invested to cover college fees. Meanwhile she thought she would have to start working again. She would write to him care of Cady in Cyprus. The last paragraphs were filled with words of gratitude and she ended the letter: ‘With love, Kirsty’.

  On the other side of the world Kirsty was worried. The reason was hard to define. Garret’s recovery had been swift and seemingly complete. He had quickly put on weight and the flickering, recessed look in his eyes had faded and been replaced by one of confidence.

  The eminent psychologist had been pleased, and had told Kirsty that although Garret would always live with the dark side of the memory, the experience itself may have added to his character.

  She saw it herself, clearly. He had left home a restless, introspective, resentful youth. He had returned as a man. For a month as she talked
to him, listened to him and, above all, watched him, she had felt pride, satisfaction and an overwhelming sense of relief.

  Garret, their only child, a single egg in a nest. A scrawny down-covered chick that had ventured too close to the rim and tumbled out; spread wings without feathers; spiralled down towards the rocky ground. An instant before impact she had swooped in and plucked him up. No ordeal had ever emerged into such a reward; no scepticism been bludgeoned into such vindication. At times during the first days it had been physical. She found herself touching her son. Fingers, as she passed him a cup of coffee; an arm casually brushing his on a restaurant table; her lips on his cheek in a goodnight kiss.

  It had to be physical. For so long he had been a wraith: a dream; a ghost. He had been the vision reflected in every sympathetic gaze, every sceptical eye and ever)’ salvo of cynicism.

  To touch him was to savour her own redemption.

  And they had talked. At first, by his insistence, of her journey and the people collected on her path. He never tired of the stories, the places and the characters, and her reaction to them.

  Two weeks after their return to New York he had closeted himself in a bedroom of their rented apartment and emerged hours later with a folder of letters. Silently he gave it to her and she read them: letters to the people she had described. Simple, dignified letters, expressing not only gratitude on his own behalf, but firm and masculine appreciation for the kindnesses they had shown his mother.

  Then they had talked about his future.

  His own journey, and the stories of hers, had fired him with a love, close to obsession, about the sea and its denizens. He applied to enrol in the University of Florida-to study marine biology. He had done well in high school and that, together with an explanatory phone call to the Dean from a certain gentleman in the State Department, ensured a favourable response.

  The semester would start in a week and while he prepared and planned they discussed her future. She would work again. Not at Goldrite Fashions – that was a millennium in the past. She refused to consider taking any part of the ‘reparation’. That was invested for her son’s future. She would find any kind of a job. Waiting tables, behind a counter in a store, ticketing in a travel agency. She would not work behind a desk. That was firm in her mind. She would not be a book-keeper. That, too, was in the past. In whatever she did, she would be face to face with people.

  As she discussed it with Garret they both knew she was thinking only of her near future – the temporary future. The real horizon – beckoning future, was never discussed. She was looking only to see him settled in college, walking on firm ground.

  She was confident but she was worried. She was on a plateau of happiness, but there was a cloud. When she looked into her son’s eyes she saw curtains. They were tightly bunched. Held back like the curtains on a stage midway through a play; recessed away from the bright lights. In her mind they were ominous – waiting for the last line of the final act.

  She scolded herself for foolishness. The curtains were merely apprehension that in her happiness and redemption something must go wrong. Nothing could be perfect.

  But such analysis did not dispel them and finally, one night, while they were having dinner in the apartment, it suddenly struck her with cleaving certainty.

  She had been talking about Ramesh again. Somehow the conversation often swung to him. In answer to a question from Garret she had just recounted, yet again, how Ramesh had, with such insouciance, offered to put Manasa at her disposal. She looked up into her son’s eyes and saw the curtains: no longer bunched, but half drawn. In an instant she realised it. Garret had perceived the depths of her feelings for Ramesh. That was the cloud. After bringing him back to life she was likely, if only mentally, to abandon him for another.

  He listened silently, soberly, as she tried to explain. She told him of her feelings for Ramesh, but how they would be subjugated until at least Garret had fashioned his own future. She had not burned all her bridges and gone through mental hell to find her son, only to abandon him.

  She finished talking and studied his face anxiously. His eyes were cast down at the tablecloth. Achingly she wondered whether her words had been adequate; sufficiently reassuring.

  He raised his head and she was looking into the clear, sure eyes of a strong man. But curiously they contained tears. His lips moved in a smile, half bemused, half ironic.

  “Mom. I love you. I knew that the first time while I was sitting on the dirt floor of a hut in the worst slum in Kathmandu. I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself- homesick or anything. I just realised that all that crap you threw at me since Pa died was because you loved me; were frightened for me . . . those years I felt imprisoned in a padded cell . . .”

  She sighed and started to say something, but he shook his head. His smile was still there but now it contained only affection.

  “No, Mom. Hear me out. From that moment I was on a journey home. A long journey but a positive one. I was gonna see a lot of the world and come home and tell you that I loved you but I had to lead my own life. My blood was rare —but it was good blood — it worked, like everyone else’s. I was gonna be firm with you; and I guessed that, because I’d taken off and left once, you’d understand and let me be, and kind of love me enough and not too much.”

  Up to now he had been looking into her eyes, but now his gaze dropped again to the table, and his voice became quieter.

  “And then for months I was on that island, and every time they took my blood they took hope and some of my soul. You were always in my mind – but in sorrow. I’d never be able to tell you the words I’d rehearsed. Never show you a kid who’s finally understood.” He drew a shuddering breath. “Then at the end, when it seemed all over – when I was looking up at those bastards Lascelles and Okello – seeing the filthy fascination in their eyes — you were there. With a goddam gun in your hands – my mother!”

  He looked up at her.

  “Then we came back here and everything was roses except that I was terrified.”

  “Terrified?”

  “Yes.”

  Suddenly he grinned. His head was on one side, his eyes narrowed in relief and amusement. “Terrified because all the things I wanted to tell you were out the window – until a couple of minutes ago. You see, Mom, after what happened, after all you went through and got me out – how in hell could I tell you that I wanted to live my own life? Be really independent? Think about it, Mom. How could I say ‘Listen I want to take off for a while again?’ Or if you suggested I come home for a weekend, how could I say no? Even if there was some girl I wanted to be with instead. How could I tell you that I love you – but it was all part of being just a normal everyday son?”

  “But Garret. . .”

  “No, Mom. Wait. While you talked of getting a job-and seeing me on my way- I was terrified. I’d be down in Florida wondering whether if I phoned you once a day it would be enough. Whether I was being grateful enough. Should I come home two weekends a month – or three?” He shook his head. “I knew you would deliberately try to make it easy-we talked about it. You would never again be a clinging mother – but, Mom, after what happened I didn’t know how to handle it myself. How does a son love a mother who’s just saved his life?”

  She was beginning to understand. He saw it in her eyes.

  “You thought I might be worried about your feelings for Ramesh. On the contrary. I know you love him. You’ve been suppressing it – not even admitting it to yourself. I can see it and feel it every time you talk about him. Maybe that’s why I kept asking about him. There’s no problem. You go to him. We both have our own lives—the way it should be . . .”

  There was a silence, then she murmured: “I don’t know . . . It’s not easy. I’d be so far away . .

  He pushed his chair back and stood up and walked round behind her, leaned down, put his arms around her shoulders and his cheek next to hers.

  “Mom. If there’s one thing we found out these months, we’ll never be far apa
rt. No one can separate us – and I guess wouldn’t want to. As for getting there, take some of that damned money they gave us.”

  She shook her head pensively.

  “No. That’s yours . . . I’ll work a while . . . save up. Maybe in a few months.”

  It was not a few months. Two days later the travel agent rang. A mystery story. An agent in London had forwarded a ticket. The donor was anonymous.

  Mogadishu was brown, odorous, dirty, hot and expensive. He stocked up with fuel, water and provisions and pressed on. Two weeks later he discovered that Djibouti, apart from a synthetic French veneer, was worse than Mogadishu. He had the added disappointment of finding no mail waiting. Not realising the abysmal postal service of the region he sailed up the Red Sea in an aura of loneliness.

  The transiting of the Suez Canal quickened his interest. There was not a great deal to see but he enjoyed the sensation as Manasa glided through the desert.

  He stayed at Port Said only long enough to take on fuel and water. As he sailed out into the Mediterranean his dominant feeling was that in spite of his early dreams he did not enjoy being alone. He realised that it was the reasoning of an addict. He had been exposed to friendship and affection and craved them, but he had also been exposed to love . . . a love that he found difficult to live without.

  The realisation profoundly saddened him. His feelings were a result of a brief period in his life. Circumstances or fate had decreed it. Now fate had taken it all away, leaving him empty.

  He motored into the Larnaca Yacht Club on Cyprus two days later. Six weeks of isolation had left him empty and pessimistic. Lack of mail in Djibouti had convinced him that the strands of his friendships, like old rope, had frayed and parted.

  There was a stiff breeze blowing inshore and the manmade harbour had a difficult entrance. With utmost concentration he guided Manasa in through the narrow gap. Because of the wind and the surging sea he had the engine on full revs. He swept in to calm water and, as he reached for the throttle, a shout rolled across the small harbour.