‘Int no nails in the wood,’ said Kel as she jumped back into the cabin, ‘and it int my fault you took to wearin heels onboard ship.’
‘What do you call this then?’
Kel looked up to see a six-inch spike poking her way.
‘Keep that,’ she said. ‘Keep any nails you find, em could be useful.’
‘For what exactly?’
‘Anythin.’
They set about stomping the planks into halves and quarters and Kel hammer-split the wood with her knife until they had enough for a fire and there was water good for drinking straight and water good for boiling from a tap on the wall. Kel checked its reserves and there were ten litres left in the tank at the very least.
‘We should take that with us,’ she said to Rose.
‘What?’
‘The water tank.’
Rose agreed and when they had a small fire sparking in the bucket and water boiling for pasta they looked closer at their environment.
‘Pots are good, let’s take them too,’ said Rose as she searched through the detritus with the lamp in hand. ‘Any kind of container would be handy.’
Kel stood back and watched the girl come alive with purpose. She wasn’t afraid to work after all. ‘And anythin that can be set alight,’ Kel added, ‘things like rags are handy for flares.’
‘And all the food,’ continued Rose. ‘It would be good not to starve to death. How long would it take?’
‘To what?’
‘Starve to death?’
‘Bout three weeks I reckon.’
‘That long?’
Kel shrugged and said maybe less.
Rose sat opposite from Kel and the fire whilst the bundled baby slept sound against her back and she asked if they would ever get back to Cornwall.
‘Course,’ said Kel, ‘I told you, we int far, don’t reckon anyway, just need a good current.’ With the tide in the right direction it would be a short stretch around the tip of the coast and north where maybe things weren’t so bad. Maybe even the docks didn’t have so much disaster to them now: the possibility of things returning to normal was realistic enough for Kel to think it and believe. The thing that had happened might have been just that, a thing or a situation run wrong that had started out as panic but had then come back around. It was always like that, one side struggled whilst the other landed on their feet. No matter the situation, Kel knew those people floundering in the water would have been swamp folk.
Suddenly Rose made her jump by asking her what was wrong besides the obvious.
‘Nothin.’ Kel shrugged and she watched the pasta water froth and fall from its hooked perch above the flames.
‘Doesn’t look like nothing.’ Rose poked the pot with a fork and they both sat back to watch more droplets spittle and die out on the heat.
‘Are you thinking about back there? All those people drowning.’ She looked Kel straight in the eye and said it was OK to feel sad or maudlin or whatever.
‘I int maudlin,’ said Kel and that was the truth, she couldn’t care any which way about the people.
‘Well I’m just saying, it’s OK to feel something if you’re already feeling it.’
‘I int feelin nothin.’ She looked at Rose and sighed. ‘Feelin int my thing.’
‘Or thinking it, you’re allowed to think things too.’
Kel leaned forward and plucked herself a twist of pasta and she ate it and said the pot was nearly ready.
‘You don’t have to act so tough just because, it doesn’t hurt to show your worries. It’s not a sign of weakness.’
‘Course it is.’
‘Of course it’s not, it’s just emotion, one way of making sense of things.’
Kel cleared her throat. ‘Spose I int got no emotion to me then, that’s fine, I can live with that.’
‘Well you shouldn’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s not normal.’
‘Well then that’s me and all, not normal and no emotions and whatever else, you got enough drippin for all of us in any case. Can we eat now?’
‘Whatever you want, dear kidnapper.’
‘Cus we int eaten in forever.’
Rose sat forward to take the pot for draining and she said she knew Kel was changing the subject and that was fine with her. They sat in silence whilst they ate the bite and chew pasta from tin bowls and it had never tasted so good.
When the pasta was gone and their stomachs stretched to capacity Kel stabbed open a tin of peaches with her knife and they sucked at their flesh and kissed them like they were summer-day drift-away ice-pops. To have fruit and any fruit was to have new-found life returned to their bones and blood and colour put back into their thinking.
Yep, Kel thought, maybe things would not be so bad, she’d start over once the girl was gone. Throw herself at any crime that would pay towards the operation, as long as it didn’t involve kidnap.
She would draw the line at dealing in people, it was messy. And besides, people talked back.
‘What are you smiling about?’ asked Rose. ‘And don’t say it’s the peaches because I won’t believe you.’
Kel swung her stool up against the side of the boat that used to be the ceiling so she could recline.
‘Just thinkin I’ve good as had it with kidnappin after this.’ She lit herself a cigarette and smoked some and then she passed it to Rose.
‘Really? You sure?’
Kel shrugged.
‘Does this mean I’m free to go?’
‘No, I said after this. Don’t know how you’d get gone even if I let you.’
Rose pretended to be thinking things over. ‘I’d take the boat.’
‘The dinghy?’
‘It is mine.’
‘It’s your dad’s.’
‘Ha, mine, my dad’s, it’s all the same. It certainly isn’t yours. But you can have this crash and burn wreck if you want.’
Kel said that was fine by her. And all the things that came with it.
‘You wouldn’t get the food.’
‘Hell I would, if this is my boat then all and everythin aboard is mine the same, it’s the law.’
‘It is not the law.’
‘Tis, law of ships and boats and wrecks all in, it’s the law.’
‘You’re full of it, you are. Anyway, I didn’t think there was much about you that involved the law.’
Kel smiled again, the girl had her, Rose was good at arguing a point down to flat flint and she liked that. She supposed that maybe in another world where they were equal that might have meant something, but not in this one, where past cards had been dealt and Kel’s hand was full of bad odds and low numbers.
She ate the last cut of peach and they took it in turns to sip the juice from the can until the last drop had been tipped.
‘Spose we should get goin,’ said Kel. ‘Don’t like leavin the boat out there just in case.’
‘In case of what?’
‘I dunno, a storm or somethin.’
‘Could you try and stop worrying for one night,’ asked Rose. ‘That would be something, wouldn’t it? There’s blankets over there, it isn’t so bad.’
Kel took her notebook from her pocket and read over her plan it looked so simple written down.
‘Here we go again,’ said Rose. ‘Please tell me what’s in your notebook, Kel.’
‘Why should I? It’s private.’
Rose shrugged. ‘A bit of entertainment if nothing else, I’m surprised you can write.’
Kel ignored her and turned to a new page.
‘So what are you writing? Shopping list?’
Kel found a pencil in her bag and wrote PLAN 2 big and bold at the top of the page and underlined it three times.
‘Pint of milk,’ continued Rose, ‘loaf of bread, girl, boat, new heart.’
‘Shut it would you? I’m tryin to think.’
‘Well good luck on that score.’
Kel sighed and she returned the pad and pencil to her bag.
She stubbed out her cigarette and got up and she supposed it wouldn’t hurt for one night so she said as much. One night to write her new plan from scratch and then first light they would push on, return to the docks no matter how long it took.
‘I should go check the dinghy,’ said Kel. She also wanted to get the gun, it had been a bad idea to leave it.
‘For what?’
‘Check the rope’s secure, tighten it twice.’
‘I secured it already.’
Kel stood beneath the hatch and she asked the girl what it mattered to her whether she went to check the rope again or not.
‘Go on then, whatever.’
Kel shook her head.
‘And don’t do a runner,’ said Rose.
‘Course not, you got all the food int you.’
‘True, and I’ve got your baby too if you’re bothered.’
Kel shrugged indifference and she looked up at the wall of stairs toward the opening. She looked at it a long time.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Rose.
‘The hatch.’
‘What about it?’
‘Look at it.’
Rose came and stood beside her and they both stared up at the underside of the hatch.
‘It’s closed,’ whispered Rose and then she said it again and asked Kel if she had shut it behind her.
Kel shook her head.
‘Maybe it shut on its own?’
‘How could it? Was lyin flat to the deck.’
Kel leaned against the wall and she looked at Rose and put a finger to her own lips.
‘We’re not alone are we?’ said the girl.
Kel shook her head. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘We int.’
Chapter Seven
‘I knew this would happen,’ came a voice from somewhere above their heads. ‘First the storms and risin tides and then the rebellion and then you know for defo a gang of gumbo kids gonna come round rootin.’
Kel pulled up a stool and she stood on it so she could hear clearly what the man had to say.
‘We int no gang,’ she shouted. ‘And we int child pirates neither if that’s what you’re thinkin.’ She heard the man stomp and haul himself about the deck and waited for a reply and when nothing came she shouted again that they were not a gang and she remembered to say something about trust.
‘Where you sittin?’ he asked.
‘On the stools,’ said Kel and she sat down.
‘Move them stools back and sit on the floor.’
‘We’d better do as he says,’ said Rose.
Kel moved the stools and they sat with hands crossed and waited.
‘You sittin?’ asked the man. ‘You sittin with nothin plannin down there?’ His voice was shaking.
‘Yes,’ they both shouted in unison.
‘What do you think he’s going to do with us?’ whispered Rose. ‘He doesn’t sound right, not right in the head.’
Kel watched her put a finger into the baby’s mouth to keep him quiet. ‘Spose he don’t know we’re all right,’ she said.
‘All right is you?’ Suddenly the hatch flipped back and a man turned all ways toward old except his age hung headways through the trap like it was caught in a noose. ‘Answer me!’ he shouted.
‘We just stopped to see what was what,’ said Rose. ‘We thought you might be in need of some kind of help, perhaps.’
They watched the man’s eyes slip between them and Kel wished more than ever she had brought the gun from out the dinghy.
‘You helped me eat my food, I see that much.’
‘Just some pasta,’ said Kel and she could feel the little scraping of patience she was tending flake away completely. ‘Dint think it was nobody’s seein there werent nobody here to claim it.’
‘Here now, int I?’
Kel shrugged and said something about the law of boats and Rose kicked her.
‘Where you from?’ he asked.
‘Cornwall same as you, sounds like.’
‘You see it?’
‘See what?’ asked Kel.
‘What you mean what? The end of civilisation.’
Kel went to stand and he told her to stay put.
‘There’s always bin riots,’ said Kel.
‘Not like what I seen from the harbour few days back, police couldn’t hold em, it’s World War Three just about. So I did a runner and came out here.’
‘What you mean?’ asked Rose.
‘Everyone shootin everyone else.’
‘Swamp folk, just?’ Kel wanted to know.
‘And the tower folk, some towers even got breached, that’s why all the fires.’
Kel looked at Rose and said it was probably just the usual swamp uprising and then the repression that came after.
‘We seen it afterwards,’ she said to the man.
‘What you see?’ he asked. ‘What you see exactly?’
‘Fires on the headland, smoke all over …’
‘And the people? Dead was they?’
‘Some was, and more was headin that way.’
The old man nodded as if he knew it was going to happen, he’d seen it in a vision or in his dreams.
‘Spose you think you’re the lucky ones,’ he said, head still dangling.
Kel shrugged.
‘Well you int, I can tell you that right now, way things is goin you’re gonna wish you were flat-backed and bloated out in the soup same as everyone. Sea’s gettin worse, looters everywhere.’
Rose looked at Kel and she looked away.
‘We’ll see,’ said Kel and she said to the man that she was going to boil a pan of water for tea.
‘You mouthin me, girl?’
‘I int mouthin you, sir and I can make a promise on that, just all this talkin got me thirsty is all.’
Kel waited for the man to go one of two ways, plain mental-mad or simple-smiling like they were old friends. She heard Rose hold her breath beside her.
‘See you got a fire goin,’ said the man. ‘Spose a cup of tea int gonna hurt nobody seein you got a fire goin. I int had the smarts to do that, since the old girl rolled over and the stove went wall-ways.’
Kel nodded and she got up to fill a pan with water and she put it to boil over the rack that sat square to the metal bucket fire.
She heard Rose ask the man if he was coming down to sit, her voice a little softer, friendlier. He replied with a no and he told her that no offence was meant but he didn’t trust anyone except his dog and his dog was dead.
‘Don’t even trust me own daughter if truth be known.’
‘No offence taken,’ said Rose. ‘I don’t trust anyone either and that includes the girl sitting next to me.’
Kel looked at Rose and noticed that a little spark had returned to her eyes, she liked that.
When the water was good enough boiling Kel added a teabag from the tin Rose had found and she simmered it dark and poured it into three metal mugs.
‘You got sugar?’ she asked the man.
‘Nope,’ he shouted from his perch. ‘Bad for you.’
‘No it int,’ said Kel, ‘it’s energy and energy’s good.’ She passed Rose her mug and stretched up to the man to pass him his and he thanked her despite it being his tea that was being served on his boat and he told her to sit down on the floor and then told Rose to do the same.
‘So,’ he said, ‘you kids gonna tell me how you ended up where you int sposed?’
‘What you mean?’ asked Kel.
‘Me boat, how you happen on me boat?’
‘Well,’ Kel began, ‘fact that it was tipped sideways and all busted out had somethin to do with it.’
‘Still me boat.’
‘But we dint know that did we? We did call out and everythin, spose you weren’t in.’
‘That’s cus I was out fishin.’ He spat long into the well of the cabin.
‘So you’ve got two boats have you?’ asked Rose. ‘That’s handy I imagine.’
‘Int nothin handy bout it, most trawlers have a dinghy, it’s
called preparation.’ Everyone was talking like it was normal everyday to sit about chatting on a sinking trawler in the middle of the ocean but truth was the old man had them captive and Kel didn’t like that one bit.
‘I’ve bin livin on this ere boat roundabout my whole life, she int so big but she’s my life. I knew it would happen, just dint know when.’ He dangled his legs through the hatch and Kel thought how easy it would be to grab one of those legs and pull him to the ground. She was losing patience, had started to wonder if he’d found the dinghy, worse, if he had found the gun.
‘Spose you wonder what happened to the old girl.’ He patted the boat in case they didn’t know what he was talking about.
‘So what did happen?’ asked Rose.
‘The truth is if I knew I’d tell you but I don’t so I won’t.’
The two intruders looked at each other and shrugged.
‘One minute I was at the docks and the next I was headin out as fast as I could go, boat must have hit somethin and before I knew it I got tipped and knocked myself clean out with the winch.’
‘Rocks do you reckon?’ asked Rose.
‘I dunno, I came out into the Channel to get away from Falmouth, never used to be rocks out here, but I keep seein things that weren’t there before, land and then no land. Dunno, maybe another boat got me, but then where’s the boat?’
‘Maybe a ship,’ said Kel. ‘Maybe that’s it.’
‘Maybe, there’s bin a fair share of traffic recent what with everythin, vessels all over with folks unable to make land.’
Kel moved herself from the floor and on to a stool and she asked the old man what he knew to distract him from noticing.
‘Same as you, the shootin and the runnin and then the fires, you seen em, they was everywhere. I just headed south, but now I don’t know where I am.’
Kel shook her head and said they only saw a few fires and the aftermath and that was all.
Rose copied Kel and helped herself to a stool. ‘Do you … do you know which towers went down?’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Kel. ‘We don’t know that any came down for certain, give em all a few days and things will be back to normal.’
‘Dint see much in truth,’ said the man. ‘I was lucky, was still out in the harbour, bin fishin for mackerel. Heard it more un saw it and when I looked up the sky was full of fire, fallin fire, like stars but mad close. Fires rained down on all and every one. Made a change from water at least.’
Only the Ocean Page 8