Only the Ocean

by Natasha Carthew

  ‘So?’ asked the girl.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are you going to kill me or did you just save me? I’m confused.’

  ‘Shut up.’ Kel lit herself a cigarette and sat back.

  ‘You got one of those for me?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘I gave you some of my whisky.’

  Kel took a cigarette from the pack and lit it off her own and she flicked it into the girl’s lap.

  ‘Charming.’

  Kel ignored her and went to stand at the open door and then she sat with her legs dangling and she told the girl to come sit the same.

  ‘Don’t push me.’ The girl laughed.

  ‘If I wanted you dead I would have left you to them men.’

  ‘I was just making friends. I didn’t ask to be saved or whatever the hell this is.’

  Kel looked at Rose to see if she was funning the way shack menfolk did, but the girl wasn’t and she returned her gaze to sea, from where they sat stern high above the waves, they could have gone unnoticed forever.

  Light from the pared moon gave them something for seeing by and Kel looked at the thunderhead clouds as they jostled for space above the ocean floor. Big banging bags of rain the weight of spanners that would soon clash and send sparks flying. She turned to watch the girl drink some of the whisky then took it from her and did the same.

  ‘I hope you’re not planning on sucking that thing gone,’ said the girl. ‘It is mine.’

  ‘Mine now.’

  ‘Actually it’s my dad’s.’ The girl looked at Kel and told her she was strange and Kel said she knew that already.

  ‘Not going to tell me your name?’ the girl asked. ‘At least then I’ll know who’s doing the killing or whatever this is.’

  ‘Keryn,’ said Kel, ‘Kel for short.’ She looked at the girl and told her she was not going to kill her.

  ‘My name’s Rosen, but everyone calls me Rose.’

  They sat in silence with the bottle passing between them and watched the clouds rebound out on the horizon and Kel knew it wouldn’t be long before they chased the sky down and ended up duelling above their heads.

  ‘It’s a nice night,’ said the girl suddenly, ‘either way.’

  ‘What?’ asked Kel.

  ‘The night, it’s beautiful.’

  Kel looked at the girl and then she looked at the clouds that were hurtling towards the ship. It was starting to rain. ‘It’s a storm,’ she said.

  ‘Lovely though isn’t it? Lovely and beautiful and sad all mixed up the same.’

  Kel shrugged. The girl was like nobody she had ever met, she looked at the world from some skewed angle, melancholy for the sake of twisted pleasure. Rich-kid bored-kid thoughts.

  ‘It’s just a storm,’ Kel said again. ‘I don’t like storms.’ She looked at Rose and said she’d seen trees rubbed out to nothing but ash on the ground because of lightning.

  ‘I doubt it.’

  Kel nodded. ‘Seen a church steeple explode to flyin dust the same, don’t you see no storms in them towers you live?’

  ‘How do you know I live in the towers?’

  ‘Cus duh.’

  ‘The towers are mostly covered for protection, we only go out when the sun shines.’

  ‘That int so often.’ Kel looked across at the girl and told her she wasn’t what a stowaway looked like.

  Rose laughed. It made a ridiculous sound. ‘You are.’

  Kel looked away.

  ‘I suppose you’re wondering?’ the girl went on.

  ‘What?’ asked Kel.

  ‘Why I stowed away on my own father’s ship.’

  Kel shrugged. She didn’t care, all she knew was the girl was meant for her plan to work.

  ‘Boredom,’ said the girl. ‘Isn’t that terrible? I was bored.’

  ‘You bored now?’

  ‘To be honest I am a bit, I was having a ball with the lads, until you came along.’

  Kel took out her knife and pretended to clean her nails for the scare but it didn’t work.

  ‘If you knew the towers you would know what I mean.’

  Kel returned her knife to the scabbard.

  ‘I wish for adventure,’ the girl continued.

  Kel wished for silence, a few minutes would have been something, the posh girl would not shut up.

  When the rain slashed at their swinging legs they went inside and Kel told the girl that she they would not be leaving the container tonight. ‘You can lie down beside the baby,’ she told her.

  ‘Do I get a choice?’ asked Rose.

  ‘What you reckon?’ Kel stood at the door and finished the bottle and she listened to the thundering clouds and watched the lightning come close and hitting, and she didn’t close the doors and would not bed down until the storm had passed fully.

  When finally it did she sat at the corner of the blanket and watched the girl fumble with a new cigarette she’d taken from Kel’s pack, and when she fell asleep with the dumb-drunk punch of too much drink Kel leaned forward and took the cigarette into her own mouth and she smoked it down to her fingers and lay down the same.

  When dawn arrived they would be far enough from land that the plan could be put into play: a little light in which to navigate, set the dinghy to water and return to the mainland.

  All night through Kel idled with her ears stretched open to night noises so when morning came she had been waiting for it. It brought no change to her world except a thin slip of surprise sunlight that pried open the heavy metal doors and settled at Kel’s feet. She leaned forward to watch it sparkle and smile and there was something in that ray of light that had promise dusted into it. In the bit of light she bent to her to check that the girl was alive the same way she did each day for the baby.

  ‘I’m not dead,’ said the girl.

  ‘I know, just checkin.’ Kel couldn’t have this kidnap thing go wrong, it was time to get the job done proper and get off the ship for good. She watched the baby wake and when it started to beg she picked it up and turned her back to the girl so she could feed it and when the baby was stuffed enough she returned to the door.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ asked Rose.

  Kel ignored her.

  ‘Maybe you should start praying, Stowaway, if you’re god-fearing. Some of you swampers are, aren’t you?’

  ‘I int,’ said Kel flatly.

  ‘Well maybe you should be, maybe I should. Perhaps that’s my problem.’

  Kel opened the two-door just a little and peeked out.

  ‘Anything?’ asked Rose. ‘I should go and tell Dad I’m OK.’

  ‘I thought you was a stowaway too?’

  ‘I am, but the lads would have told him about you and if they said about you they would have said about me.’

  ‘That int fact,’ said Kel.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘They dint come lookin, did they, last night.’

  ‘How do you know what they did and didn’t do?’

  ‘They was drunk for one and two they didn’t tell your dad you was a stowaway and three …’

  ‘Yes and three? I’m waiting.’

  ‘Shush, be quiet.’

  ‘Well I’m ready to go, thank you for saving me from whatever you thought I needed saving from and, of course, the witty conversation, but I really have to go.’

  ‘You can’t.’

  ‘I think you’ll find I can.’

  Kel hung from the door, it was time to move, now. She was prepared for two things only, settle the lifeboat to water then return for the girl, a few minutes was all it would take. She told the girl to be quiet and put on her jacket and swung her bag crossways against her back.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Rose shouted but Kel ignored her. ‘What about the baby?’

  ‘Sing to it.’

  ‘I only like pop songs.’

  ‘Sing them.’

  ‘Thought you told me to be quiet?’

  Kel stepped out on to the top rung of the ladder. ‘No shoutin, just
. You’re a stowaway, remember?’

  She pushed the door closed and tied the outside chain into a knot, there was no way the girl was getting out of there until Kel returned.

  She climbed down the turret of crates with her knife flashing ready in one hand and her notebook in the other. She was prepared for two things only: settle the lifeboat to water then return for the girl.

  She sidled past one crate and the next and the next until she reached the gangway that would lead her to the steps below deck. The orange boat that had been there yesterday would be there today, she only wished she had the time to fill it with food.

  She tapped her knife to the railings and she rolled the glint of surprise sunlight across its blade like a solitary tear. She would get the boat and the girl and get off the stupid ship immediately.

  She stood with her hands on the railings and looked down into the sitting circle of the lifeboat lashed to the side of the ship and the light of day illuminated the orange rubber into an apparition of freedom.

  Kel looked about and was glad to know that she was still alone despite her fantasy of escape. The men would be blackened by drunken sleep for a long time yet. It was perfect.

  She had time. A minute to lower the boat and run back and grab the girl. She stepped into the shadows of the low-slung nothing-much sun and went quickly to unrope the boat and lower it into the water.

  She went to work lowering the lifeboat from the crane, turning the crank with her thoughts set on the plan whilst her arms ached with the effort of heavy work. With each turn she cursed the salty seawater, the rust in every cable and on every cog.

  With her mind racing crazy she didn’t hear the laughter rumbling and rolling through the tin-can alleyways until it was too late.

  ‘Looks like the stowaway’s plannin jumpin ship!’ shouted a low boom voice and Kel felt her insides crush with dread for the thing that was about to happen.

  She turned to see the men for the first time clear as day. They laughed and grinned themselves into a circle.

  ‘Leave me be,’ she said calmly and she wished she had the girl ready and at arm’s length of her dagger for the leverage she would have been.

  ‘Let me through, lads,’ called a voice from behind them. ‘Let me through to see what it is you’re seeing.’

  The men unstuck shoulders and split for the captain. ‘It’s that crazy knife-wielder from last night, sir,’ one of the younger men shouted.

  Kel stood tall, ready for battle.

  ‘Don’t you know the law of the waves, girl?’ he asked. ‘Did nobody ever explain to you that stowaways get chucked off ship?’

  Kel shrugged despite the bite of fear creeping up on her, and when the captain came close and closing she shrugged again and said ‘no’.

  ‘Hey lads, we’ve got a live one here haven’t we?’ He stood on his toes and huffed a hot acrid gut full of air into Kel’s face. ‘I suppose you’ve guessed by now that this ship isn’t meant for runaway kids like yourself, your life is mapped out in the swamps.’

  ‘I chanced upon it and fancied it just.’ Kel looked him straight in the eye and pushed for pity the way little kids did.

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘With all the latest happenins and goins on,’ she continued, ‘sposed the sea was the best place for goin.’

  ‘You supposed right, but not on my ship.’ The captain turned to the others and asked how it could be that there were two stowaways on board when each and every one of them had eyes in their head for looking and a gun in their hands for shooting.

  Kel had a good look at the semi-auto rifles strapped crossways to each man’s shoulder and she had a fancy for one of those guns.

  The man glared at her for the longest time and Kel glared back. There was no point in backing down, they either had her or they didn’t.

  ‘You’re a kid,’ he continued. ‘Rough kid, but a kid all the same.’

  Kel looked at the ground, found a bit of of dry gum to stub her toe against.

  ‘So because of that fact, kid, I’ve decided to grant you armistice. Which to somebody like yourself means we’re not going to throw you to the sharks, but you will remain locked up for the duration of the trip.’

  ‘No,’ said Kel. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. America was useless to her without the drugs, without money. The drugs that awaited her and the swapsy girl coupled with the availability of the dinghy sitting pretty at the side of the boat were the only things she could think about.

  The captain was talking again, going on and asking questions and whatever else, and Kel nodded and perhaps she spoke occasionally but inside she was tapping out time. She could feel the knife pushing hard against her hip-bone and it urged her to do something and to do something quick. She pushed her hat to the back of her head and felt for the six-inch blade through the material of her jacket.

  ‘It beats me how nobody bothered to come up to my office and knock politely on my door to tell me that not only was my own flesh and blood stowed away onboard ship, but some rough-neck swamper too.’ He turned toward Kel. ‘So, I hear you’ve met my daughter?’

  Kel’s blood ran cold, they had found Rose after all. She watched Rose walk slowly through the crowd.

  ‘My lovely daughter, good job my boys heard her shouting from the crate, said you had rescued her, by locking her up, imagine that.’ He laughed and beckoned for her to move closer and Kel saw the girl’s mouth twitch with amusement at the thought of Kel being found. When she saw the baby bundled in Rose’s arms she looked at the ground, ashamed. She let her finger rest against the one-eye popper of her knife sheaf that hung from her belt and silently clicked it open, moved forward a little. What was she doing? It wasn’t meant to be like this. Time slowly tapped out and before she knew it her hand was on the shank, she stepped forward toward the girl and put her free arm around Rose’s neck, the knife pressed into the flesh. Kel stood still and the silence around them became deafening.

  ‘Don’t do anything stupid now,’ said the captain. ‘There’s a baby settled there in Rose’s arms, an innocent child.’

  Kel shouted that she knew that already. She knew that he was trying to control her by threatening kin, the thing that was most important to most folk. But Kel was not most folk.

  Kel held Rose tight and when she screamed and kicked out crazy Kel stiffened her grip and held her nerve and told the captain that she would be stealing the boat that dangled from the side of the boat and she pulled the girl backwards towards the dinghy and told her to quit her wailing mouth. It was too late for more thinking or battling out a better plan otherwise and so she told them all to turn their backs and head to the other side of the ship to keep blood at bay and that her boss of sorts would be in touch.

  In Kel’s mind there was little doubt that she would use violence if needed. In the end survival came down to one thing and one thing only; kill or be killed.

  Kel kept the knife settled to the girl’s throat and she asked the men to give her a gun and ammo enough for her own protection and she told them that if they let her go nobody would come to any harm.

  ‘You keep to your path to America and you won’t have nothin to worry about.’ She pulled the girl closer and told him that things would soon become clear.

  ‘And what if we don’t follow your stupid kid orders?’ asked the captain.

  Kel pushed the side of the knife a little more into the girl’s throat.

  ‘OK!’ he shouted. ‘Stop.’ He told one of the men to place his gun on the deck in front of Kel.

  ‘Good.’ Kel reached out a foot and dragged the gun toward her and bent to it with the girl buckled beside her and picked it up. ‘And just so you know,’ she said, ‘this int stupid kid orders, it’s just orders.’

  With the gun in hand and the knife still threatening the girl climbed down into the boat without fight and Kel stepped after her and she looked up toward the deck to see if the men had kept their promise of keeping to the other side. Some had but the captain had moved forward
.

  ‘What now?’ asked Rose.

  ‘Be quiet,’ said Kel.

  ‘But you’re going to let me go, aren’t you?’ She was still smiling, enjoying the bit of excitement that Kel provided.

  ‘No,’ said Kel.

  ‘But you said I’d be released.’

  Kel looked at Rose for the longest time, she wanted to tell her that everything was going to be OK, but truth was the girl was far from it.

  ‘I’m kidnappin you,’ she said.

  She settled the loaded gun in her lap and she told the girl not to move as she tightened her grip on the engine cord and pulled.

  ‘You’re what?’ asked Rose again. Her smile was beginning to slip.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Sorry? When are you planning my release?’

  Kel shrugged and she said she supposed in a week or two, if Rose was lucky.

  ‘What?’ the girl shouted and Kel told her to shut it or else. Kel had her eye on the captain, he was calling for his men but they knew better than to get involved. When he hung from the side of the ship Kel told him to get back, stay back.

  ‘What do you want with me?’ shouted Rose. ‘Why are you taking me from the ship?’

  ‘I told you, I’m kidnappin you.’ Kel stood to pull the cord when she realised the boat was floating toward the back of the ship; she had to get the engine started and quick.

  Kel bent to the cord and pulled and pulled but nothing started, and when she turned her gaze back to Rose she saw with panic rising that the girl had placed the baby into the floor of the boat and was lurching towards her. The motion pushed Kel’s bit of the boat right toward the ladder at the end of the ship – easy for a man to scale down and come aboard. She could hear them up on deck, they were shouting and running the length of the vessel to see how far the lifeboat had drifted.

  ‘You gonna get me shot,’ Kel shouted. ‘Get me shot and then what?’

  ‘Good,’ said Rose. ‘I don’t know why people like you always get away with things anyway.’

  Kel grabbed the girl by her collar and started to shout, more words pouring from her in that one moment than most her whole life. ‘The way you got your life int nothin to do with me,’ she told her. ‘Little rich-bitch girl with nothin but family and money on your side. It’s people like you that’s always gettin away with things. I’ve never got away with nothin, so just sit down will you?’