by Lucy Atkins
And even if she has Finn here, on Black Bear Island, she would only say that I asked her to bring him. Her word against mine. The solid local businesswoman, against the incompetent foreign mother.
I’m so close now. I just have to get to the floathouse. My poor little boy. If she does have him up here, he will be so scared.
I have to distract myself. These thoughts are poison. I stare at Sven’s broad back. I remind myself that my mother was once out here on her boat, scanning the waves for orcas, with a camera round her neck. She was here, so it cannot be the edge of nowhere – this is my mother’s place. This sea was her territory. This was her home and so I am connected to this place too, no matter how inhospitable it feels. Or how unlikely. This place is in my blood. It is part of me too.
It seems inconceivable that she lived out here, then walked away one day – to spend the rest of her life in Sussex, raising children, painting, gardening, walking the dog. She divided her existence into ‘before’ and ‘after’ with a thick red line that nobody was allowed to cross.
Then I realize that tonight could be my own red line: my own before and after point. If something has happened to Finn then this journey is going to cut through my life, leaving an open wound, for ever. I squeeze my eyes shut. Then, for the first time since I was about ten, I find myself praying – even though I don’t know what God I’m praying to.
Please keep him safe. Make him safe. Don’t let this happen to my baby. Please don’t let this happen.
Sven’s boat is slowing. I open my eyes. We seem to be rounding a headland – I catch a glimpse of rock momentarily lit up by the boat’s headlight; the water feels slightly less reckless, just slightly.
‘Are we here?’
‘Yep.’
‘Where’s the floathouse?’
His hand rises off the wheel. I stand up, swaying and bumping with the boat, and peer through the windshield. We’re close to the coast again now; black rocks loom through lines of rain, illuminated by the boat’s headlight. Sven is pointing to our right. The boat bounces up and over, up and over the waves, but they feel less threatening now that we’re in a more sheltered bay. I grip the rail and try to ride the motion by bending my knees as I squint through the streaked cabin windshield. But all I can see are towering ranks of pines that lead down to rocks, where waves smash, one after another, throwing up extravagant plumes of surf.
‘I can’t see a floathouse.’
He points again, right in front of us.
‘Where? Over here?’
The big hand goes back to the wheel. He flicks some switches, picks up the crackling radio and mutters something into it.
Then I realize I’m looking right at the floating house. It is nestled behind a protective shelf of rocks, straight ahead. I see its slanted roof. It is a symmetrical two-storey wooden house, with a long window on the top, and two smaller windows below. There’s even a chimney. We’re so close, I can’t believe I only just noticed it. It’s made of dark wood so it blends into the trees, and is long and low, protected from the bay by the rocks. But there is a light on. A light: someone is there. I can see a shape at the main window. I lean forwards, pressing as close as I can to the streaked windshield.
She’s here. She really is here. I was right to come. And I made it – I made it.
We draw closer to the rocks and Sven turns the boat sideways. It rocks and tilts and for a moment I think it isn’t going to right itself and we’re going to capsize – but it slaps back down.
I grab my bag and hook it across my body. I see, now, that the rocks aren’t black, they’re speckled and slick – light greyish on top, with a skirt of seaweed around barnacle-pocked sides. I step out into the rain, tugging at my hood. The pine forest smells sharp and alive, and it is as if the trees are breathing their primitive strength into my cells; another wave thuds onto the rock and splatters foam across the boat.
Sven slows the engine to a rumble. It sways and tilts, and I cling to the railing, wind thumping at the sides of my head, looking down at the swirling sea between me and the rocks.
Sven seems to be waiting – is he expecting me to jump? I lean back into the cabin. ‘How do I get to the house?’
‘Can’t get any closer than this.’ He flicks some switches.
‘What? Do I jump?’
‘Or swim.’ He isn’t smiling, but I glimpse a very bright blue eye, between cap and beard. Then he turns his broad yellow back on me again.
I hesitate. ‘So you’ll wait here – you’ll take us back, right?’
He shakes his head. ‘Uh-uh. Can’t do that.’
‘What?’
‘Storm’s coming and I ain’t waiting for ’er.’
‘But, Sven, please! It won’t take long to get my son – and I can’t stay here! I have to bring him back with you, to Raven Bay.’
‘Uh-uh.’ He shakes his head again. ‘Can’t wait.’
‘But – please!’ I lean both hands on the doorframe. ‘Please. I need to get back to your aunt’s house tonight. I can’t stay here! What if they aren’t here?’
‘Either come back with me or stay here. Your choice. But I’m turning her round right now.’
A voice grates on the radio but I can’t hear words – it sounds like coordinates. He growls something into the radio and revs the engine.
‘Sven – please!’
He turns his head. ‘Get off now or not at all. I won’t smash up my boat for you nor anyone else. I’m getting her away from these rocks in the next five seconds.’
I peer back at the floathouse – and then I see her. Just an outline at the window, blurred, but it’s unmistakably her: I know that upright posture, the broad shoulders and – yes – it’s Finn – she’s holding him on her hip, a solid little bundle. He’s here. He’s safe.
‘I see him!’ I start to climb out onto the deck again.
He steps across the cabin and grabs my arm. ‘Go fast or the sea’ll have you. Wait for the wave then jump.’ He pulls me round to make me look at him. ‘Jump big.’
I teeter on the deck. The bitter wind buffets me, and rain thunders on to my hood. The sea is so loud – it seethes around the boat, vast and hungry and angry, and wind howls through the tree tops behind the house – but all I can think about is getting to Finn. I wait for a wave to hit and then I hurl myself off Sven’s deck. For a second I am suspended in the air, then I thud onto rock – the grainy surface bites into my knees and hands as I scramble away from the next wave that is coming; I move as if there is a wolf snapping at my heels. And it hits. It throws up a sheet of freezing water that whacks down just behind me, drenching my back and legs and feet. I gasp – it is bitterly cold. Water runs down my neck as I scrabble, frantically, up the rock towards the floating house.
Behind me I hear the boat engine churning as Sven turns it around – getting away from the rock before the next wave smashes it to pieces. But I don’t care about the cold or the storm. Finn is in there and I’m about to get him back.
The rock is covered in a film of ice. My feet slip as I clamber away from the sea; my fingers are numb and even the parka couldn’t keep out the water but I don’t feel cold; I can see the window of the floathouse. I can see it.
She isn’t there any more, but in a moment I’ll be on solid ground – one more jump. I don’t even care that Sven is going and I’m going to have to spend a night with Susannah on this rock in the middle of the ocean. I am about to have Finn back.
I make it to the top. Wind batters my ears and rain slashes at me. Another gust almost knocks me down – and the next wave slaps on the rock below – for a second I imagine slithering back down the ice into the black sea. The roar of the water and wind swallows the sound of the boat engine, but I can see its yellow lights through the rain.
The rock is a kind of protective platform, lit up by the dim floathouse lights. I can see that it leads all the way to the shore, just to the left of the house. I slide down it, scraping my hands, and then I leap onto the land. My feet crunch
on stones and ice. The smell of the forest is overpowering – I am close enough that I could reach over and touch the sides of the house. The wood is shabby – a patchwork of lighter planks and bits that have obviously been tacked on. It is protected from the sea by the rocks, and from the wind by the pines, but the floats on which it rests creak and rattle and bump with the rise and fall of the water beneath it. All around, rain tumbles into undergrowth and through the branches of the trees.
‘Susannah!’ I shout. ‘Susannah!’
To get in, you have to make a little leap from crumbling land onto a rim that runs all around the house. I shove at the door – the wood feels as if it could disintegrate into splinters at any moment, the paint is peeling, but I push it hard turning the handle.
‘Finn?’ I howl. ‘Finn?’
British Columbia, late summer 1977
It needed some work, but it was perfect – a traditional A-frame, one and a half storeys high, built on a platform of cedar logs that had been lashed together with steel cable, and held in place with railroad spikes. Her measurements worked: it slotted in behind the rocks as if it had been built for the space. After the guys who towed it up from Nanaimo had gone, she went back to the boat with the baby nestled against her in the papoose. The Native Canadian woman on the market stall said you could ‘wear’ babies in it till they walked, sliding them round onto your back as they got bigger.
She pushed open the door, and stepped into her kitchen, one arm protectively curled across the papoose. The float-house had belonged to an elderly fisherman and it stank of herring, roll-ups, mildew and woodsmoke. Her eyes adjusted to the light. It would need a massive scrub out with bleach. She’d ordered parts for the Coleman stove from the hardware place down in Raven Bay and had brought up an icebox with her from Victoria. But she’d need to go back to Raven for planks of wood, screws and brackets – there were no shelves anywhere in the house.
She squatted, carefully, and opened a kitchen cupboard. The doors felt loose on their hinges, but they could be reinforced; she might need hardware for that too – she should make a list; they could do with a coat of paint too. But other than that, it was going to be just fine: a narrow, practical little galley kitchen, with windows above the sink, and room enough for a small table and a couple of chairs.
As she walked into the living room she readjusted the sling so that it spread out around her back more, and didn’t tug so much on her shoulders. They’d agreed that she’d stay here with the baby to sort out the floathouse, while the guys went down to Vancouver and Seattle for the funding meetings – you couldn’t sit in meetings with a baby, not if you wanted to be taken seriously. But she didn’t mind being left here. In fact, she wanted to be here alone for a bit. It felt right.
The living room was a good space, larger than she remembered, with enormous windows that, when clean, would give a wonderful view of the bay. Ana’s sofa was coming up by tugboat the next day along with the double bed. She’d been planning to stay in the bell tent, but now the house was here, she realized she wanted to move in right away, even before cleaning it. The smell really wasn’t too bad now the door was open. She might just bring the camp bed and the Moses basket in from the tent tonight.
She looked through the murky window, at the sea. The house shifted with the sway of the water beneath it. She hadn’t thought about this – but she liked the gentle motion. She tried to picture fifteen-, twenty-foot waves powering across the bay towards the little house. But there were the rocks. And she wasn’t afraid of the sea, despite Ana’s warnings. She felt at home on it.
This last year had changed the way she looked at a lot of things. She used to believe that willpower and determination were all that mattered in life. You had to find your goal then focus on it and make it happen. Maybe it had begun as a survival strategy in a childhood of lonely Saturdays spent poking around on the beach for sea stars and clams while other girls’ mothers took them to ballet class. She had made a decision, aged about nine or ten, that she would be a marine biologist and she had emerged from that childhood with a scholarship and a purpose. She still believed that determination mattered, but now she wondered whether it wasn’t that clear-cut after all. Maybe life was more mysterious than that.
Only eighteen months ago, she was wholly focused on her PhD, studying dolphins at Sea Park. And now she was standing with her beautiful baby in her own floating home looking out onto an ocean full of killer whales. She could not possibly have articulated this scenario to herself, even a few months ago. But it felt completely right – as if this had been her goal her whole life and she just hadn’t known it.
She knew there’d be storms and hardships ahead – no doubt many days when this whole endeavour seemed foolhardy – but this was undoubtedly the right place and the right life. With that baseline so firmly in place nothing could really go wrong.
It didn’t matter what other people thought. The community on the dock had plainly believed that it was mad to bring a baby up here. Ted and Sandra even sat her down one night to ask if she really knew what she was taking on. She did her best to reassure them – as if they were the parents she’d never had. But she’d been right, because summer had worked out just fine.
They’d rigged up a weather shelter on the Zodiac, and constructed a secure little baby nest of fleeces and life preservers; she even made a mobile out of clam shells and fishing wire. And then they just got to work. Admittedly, there were more beach stops, and their day packs now included a diaper bag – and people couldn’t believe it when they saw an infant onboard. But nothing had gone wrong.
In fact, she’d become very good at sitting in a boat surrounded by killer whales, simultaneously breastfeeding, listening to the hydrophone, looking through binoculars, and making observational notes, while Jonas, Dean – and anyone else who had come out that day – took photos of the whales, and scanned the catalogue. There had been some bad weather days when she’d been forced to stay at base camp while the others put on all-weather suits and went out – those days drove her insane – but most of the time she was out there, gathering data. She had made enormous progress in just three months. And they had a perfectly happy, healthy baby.
She turned her back on the windows, and looked around the living room again. It was a little gloomy because of the dirty windows, and the dark, wood-panelled walls, but it would be a lot better with furniture and a scrub down. She’d cover Ana’s sofa with a bright throw and put it right there, along the wall, next to the wood stove that the guys were bringing back from Vancouver. She’d scrub the scum off the windows, fix up this floor and lay down rugs; she’d put up shelves, hang some photos, and it would be perfect. She’d need to make a start on the logs, though – she wanted to master the chainsaw before the guys got back. She didn’t want anyone to have to show her how to use it. She’d had enough of being shown how to do things.
The day they put up the bell tent, Eve had appeared through the trees with her wolfhound. ‘Learn to use a chainsaw,’ she’d said, without even a hello. Her hair matched her snowy poncho. ‘That’s what matters most up here. You won’t last long without firewood when the nights close in.’ She looked right at Elena. Her eyes were like small black pebbles. Then, without further pleasantries, she turned and walked away again through the skinny pines towards her hut, raising a hand, but not looking back.
Elena imagined sitting in this room with snow on the trees and the mountains and the floathouse roof; a roaring wood stove, books and papers spread out, baby toys, a pot of hot soup on the stove … She smiled to herself, and wandered towards the stairs.
The floathouse had cost less than she’d budgeted, and by her calculations there was enough money left to keep them going for a year if they were as self-sufficient as possible. They could fell a few smaller fir trees for firewood – and cut back the undergrowth, then there’d be room out back for a sizeable vegetable garden. According to Ana it wasn’t too late to plant kale and Swiss chard – they’d survive the frosts and snows and give a
steady supply of vitamin C until spring. And the forest was bursting with berries now – so she needed to get picking. Fall would be hard work even without a tiny baby and her research to work on, but she didn’t mind hard work.
Ducking under the low beam at the bottom of the staircase, she kissed her baby’s cottony head, and made her way upstairs. With a forest in the backyard, whales out front and fresh air all around, there could surely be no better place to raise a child. But she wasn’t stupid – there was a lot to learn.
In the bedroom, she walked to the great window and peered through its dirty glass. The sky was clouding over, and the waves looked darker, and swollen. For a moment her certainty shrank and she felt how small and insignificant she was in this tiny wooden house, floating on the margins of a fathomless ocean.
Anything could happen up here.
The nearest hospital was a pretty long helicopter ride away. She folded her arms around the papoose and sucked in a big breath. This was what the pioneer women must have felt, as they laid down roots on the unknown land. The unknown was scary. But the opportunity outweighed the fear.
The low-angled bedroom needed a good clean to brighten it up. It smelled stale and several years of salt and rain-stains were blocking out the light. But soon it would be paradise up here – the window was the full A of the roof; you’d be able to lie in bed and look out at the ocean. It occurred to her that she could drill a hole through the two floors and drop a hydrophone into the water. The underwater sounds could fill this room, day and night. They could wake up to the sound of the whales, and fall asleep to their voices at night.
She peered through the grubby glass, down at the deck – ‘Hey.’ She touched the sleeping head with her fingertips. ‘That’s where we’re going to sit on good weather days.’ She pictured morning coffee as the sun rose over the bay. They’d be able to spot whales on the ocean and jump straight into the Zodiac. She imagined beers on the deck, too, after a long day on the water. They’d all sit down there and talk about what they’d seen as the sun lowered itself behind the dotted islands.