“Yes. I’ll have to get the first third. It’s not on me, it’s— I’ll be back. Where might the lady and I find a room?”
“Cheval Blanc.”
“Cheval Blanc?”
“Over there.” La Barbe points. “Behind the warehouse. There’s a sign. If you’re there, I’ll know where to find you when I’m ready to sail.”
“All right.” Thomas turns to go.
“Hey. No agreement till I get my first third.”
“I know. I’ll be back.”
—
A loud thumping on the door startles Thomas and Hélène from deep sleeps. They’re in an upstairs room at Au Cheval Blanc. The pounding tests the hinges.
“Thomas!” Hélène embeds her fingers into his arm.
“Who? Who’s there?” Thomas calls out. He unclasps Hélène’s grip. He puts his bare feet to the cold wooden floor. He’s wearing a chemise, the same shirt he wore yesterday. And the day before.
The pounding has become heavy thuds.
“Who is it?” Thomas asks, face pressed against the door.
The pounding stops. “Open up. Time to go.”
Thomas squints at the window, the only source of light in the room. It’s still near full dark, only lightening a bit. Full dawn is yet a ways off. Thomas slides the bolt. He opens the door. The bear of a man is there, his face and full beard dimly visible in the faint light. La Barbe is shaking his head. “Time to go. First light.”
“La Barbe,” is all Thomas can say. He glances over at the bed, where Hélène is holding the cover up to her neck. “It’s time to go,” he says to her.
“Come if you’re coming.” La Barbe holds up both hands. “Wind’s down and tide’s about to turn. But I need my next third.”
Thomas rubs a hand across his face. “All right.”
Hélène jumps out of the bed. La Barbe looks away. She has on only a chemise. It comes barely to her knees.
“We’ll need help with the trunk.” Thomas points to where it lies. “To get it down the stairs and over to the boat. If you can—”
“Cart’s below. Will lend a hand. Hurry, we take to the sea when the sea decides.” La Barbe turns and thumps down the stairs.
Thomas closes the door and goes to his hat atop the small table. Yes, inside the crown of the hat he finds the coins he and Hélène put there last night. That next payment is already counted out. Nothing was taken from them in the night.
“Remember, it’ll be cold on the water.” Thomas is pulling on the warmest wool veston, justaucorps, breeches and socks he owns. He’ll not be wearing any wig, not in an open boat out on the sea.
“I know, I know.”
—
Hélène recalls sourly that she had wanted to make a good first impression when she arrived in London. She wanted to wear the finest dress she owns. Yet last night Thomas shook his head and said it’s November and the sea air will be a lot colder than the air on land. Hélène decided he knew more about this than her. So she’s putting on the drab green dress, the one she hates. Its one and only virtue is its warmth. Once they’ve set foot in England, however, in the place called Gravesend, she’ll change into the new burgundy dress she bought the day before they left Paris. She will not take her first steps in London in any drab green dress.
Thomas helps Hélène finish off her dressing. He ties the strings, wraps the cloak round her shoulders and tells her how very pretty she looks.
“A lie, but thanks.” She gives him a quick kiss.
“Ready?” he asks.
“I guess.”
Thomas opens the door and shouts, “La Barbe, La Barbe.”
No answer comes from below, but Hélène is relieved to hear the sound of heavy boots climbing the stairs.
“You are ready, you?” Hélène uses the formal ‘vous’ with Thomas for the first time in their years of knowing each other. She does so by design.
“That I am, Madame.” Thomas adjusts his shoulders so he is standing more erect.
As the boot steps grow louder, the couple stands an extra few inches apart. Each finds a pose and an aloof expression that they hope says they’re not lovers, just travelling companions. Yes, La Barbe has seen that they slept in the same room, even the same bed, but he doesn’t know any more than that. Besides, he’s not going to be telling tales to anyone in England, is he now? He’ll be returning to France after he has taken them to Gravesend – so it doesn’t matter what he’s seen.
From this morning onward Thomas and Hélène are cousins, nothing more than that. It helps that some of what they are going to tell people they meet is true, or nearly so. The story henceforth is that each is recently widowed, she from a Russian tailor and he from a lovely lady. They’re travelling together to offer each other the support and assistance of a friend. They’ll worry about making adjustments to those stories after they’ve been in London for a while.
La Barbe fills the doorframe. “That it?”
He’s pointing at the trunk. Thomas nods.
“Well, take your end. I’m not carrying it by myself.”
Hélène picks up the two satchels while Thomas goes to the far end of the trunk. She can see that her new cousin does his best to carry his end of the weight as high up as La Barbe, but cannot. It’s all he can do to stagger to the door and to the top of the stairs.
“Minute please.” The strain is evident in Thomas’s voice.
“The blankets, buckets and some food and drink,” announces La Barbe. “Already in the boat.”
Thomas and Hélène exchange a glance. They appear to have signed on with the right man.
—
“How long do you think this will take?”
Thomas waits for La Barbe’s reply. The man has just cast off the last line and jumped down into his boat. It’s a chaloupe, an open boat with no decking and only a single mast. The large sail is brown-stained. La Barbe swore with an upraised hand as Thomas and Hélène got into the boat that he has already made the crossing to England at least a hundred times. Only half a dozen of those trips, however, have been to Gravesend. Nonetheless, he knows the route.
“What’d you ask?” La Barbe says at last to Thomas.
“How long to Gravesend?”
“As long as it takes.” He squints at Thomas then adds, “As long as that.”
Thomas checks the horizon. It’s barely the peep of day. He doesn’t understand why the man he and Hélène have entrusted their fate to is so reluctant to just say how long the crossing will take. He turns back to the bear.
“But you must know from experience. On average, how long would you say?”
“Oh, on average.” La Barbe grins like Thomas has made a joke. “Well, on average it gets a lot rougher once we’ve cleared this port. And once we’re out there it’s hard to say what on average means.”
Thomas looks to the large irregular form covered by a canvas tarp that sits in the middle of the boat. Under there are their satchels as well as their trunk. Everything of value they possess is in that trunk, including what is sewn into the lining of their finer clothes. Thomas cannot help but wonder now if that was a mistake. What happens if the boat overturns? The trunk will go straight down. Thomas takes a breath. Too late now.
“Still,” Thomas persists, turning back to La Barbe, “would you say a couple of hours? Maybe three?”
“We’ll find out, won’t we now? But I can tell you this. Dover’s three hours at best and sometimes twelve. And we’re not going to Dover but farther still. Even with the archangel Saint-Michel in charge of the wind, we’d never get to where we’re going in as short as two or three.”
Thomas studies how La Barbe is handling the rudder, then looks away. He notices Fort Rouge is now off to the starboard, no longer off the bow. He knows he should let the subject drop, yet he cannot. “Six or seven then?”
“Fr
om where do you hail, my friend?” La Barbe has a laughing look on his face.
“I— I’m from Paris, but I grew up in Normandy.”
“Not along the coast it’s plain.”
Thomas’s head ticks back. All right then, he’ll keep his questions to himself. He turns toward Hélène, curious as to what she thinks of La Barbe’s rudeness.
What is Hélène doing? When they first descended into the boat she had colour in her cheeks and a determined set to her mouth. Now, a little more than a quarter hour later, barely having exited Calais harbour, she has shrunk inside her clothes. Her face is pale and her lips are a shade of blue and trembling.
“What’s wrong?”
Hélène holds up a wobbly hand. “The boat— the motion—”
Thomas grimaces. This is not good. The boat is just now going out where the swells are running higher and she’s already feeling the roll of the sea. He kneels on the bottom of the boat and goes to her.
“You’re getting seasick. Don’t look down. Find something on land and stare at that. That’s what I’ve heard.”
“Leave me be.”
Thomas moves on his knees back to where La Barbe is keeping one hand on the tiller and the other on the line tied to the boom.
“My cousin, she’s getting sick. Is there anything you can do?”
Thomas thinks he can see grinning teeth through the sailor’s beard.
“Do?” La Barbe shakes his head. “Quiet now.” He’s not looking at Thomas but a little farther out to sea. There’s another boat, a schooner much larger than his chaloupe, approaching the entrance to the port of Calais. La Barbe’s eyes switch back and forth between the fast oncoming schooner and the now flapping sail of his own boat. He’s making adjustments as he steers.
At last, the wind fills La Barbe’s sail and the chaloupe lurches ahead. The two boats pass safely, but with only twenty feet to spare.
Thomas clenches his lips as he waits. With the schooner now behind them, he speaks to La Barbe again. “I’m sorry, but you will have seen this before. A passenger who is seasick. What can she do?”
La Barbe swivels to meet Thomas's eyes. The grin is gone.
“Look, that’s the way it is. Go back where you were and tell her she’ll be all right.”
“But—”
La Barbe offers a conciliatory shrug. “You never know who it’ll be. Today it’s her. Maybe the quickest I’ve seen. But you, you could be next. Understand? It’s going to get a lot rougher soon. I say you go back to her.”
La Barbe adjusts the tiller and the boat makes a quick correction. The bear of a man pulls out a flask and takes a nip. He offers it to Thomas, but Thomas shakes his head. Alcohol would only make him sick without delay. He crawls back toward Hélène.
“Hey,” calls out La Barbe.
Thomas looks back.
“I’m aiming to get us there before dark. But dark comes early this time of year, so I don’t know.”
Thomas’s head sinks down. The day has barely begun and La Barbe is saying they won’t get there until near dark. Thomas looks up. “Thank you.”
“There are two buckets. Over there.” La Barbe gestures with his chin to indicate where the buckets are. “One’s for the necessities. The other, well, I’d like it better if she’d retch overboard. Give it to the sea. It’s hard to clean up the boat when someone spills their stomach in here. But that second bucket is there just in case she can’t make it over the rail.”
Thomas holds La Barbe in his gaze for a long moment. He watches him take yet another nip of whatever it is in his flask. He and Hélène are completely helpless in this small boat, open to whatever elements fate chooses to send. There have to be larger boats that make the crossing to England, ones that have decks and even quarters for their passengers. Yet he didn’t see any like that along the wharves of Calais. So it’s either they continue on with La Barbe in this boat and hope for the best, or they make him turn round right now and go back to Calais. Thomas clambers over to Hélène. He picks up an extra blanket and wraps it around her.
“Can you hear me?” he says in a soft voice near her ear.
She opens her eyes and blinks. “What?”
“Do you want him to turn round? Go back to Calais? He says it’s going to take all day. We could forget Londres. We could move to Caen or Rennes instead.”
Hélène shakes her head. Then a startled look takes over her face. Her frame trembles and shakes.
“I’m going to—”
She says no more. She grabs hold of the boat’s rail and retches over the side, her entire body jerking as she does. Thomas holds on to her by the shoulders then rubs her back. When she finishes vomiting, he pulls her back and wraps her up in two blankets. He covers her from her neck to her feet. Thomas glances back at La Barbe. He gives Thomas a nod.
“She did well,” the seaman shouts. “Not a drop in the boat.”
Thomas rubs his eyes with his hand. Oh my God, and they’ve only just left the soil of France.
“Thomas.” Hélène’s voice is weak. “You’re going to have to look after me. I can’t.”
Thomas enrobes her quivering frame with his arms. “Shush, it’s all right. Just close your eyes. I’ve got you. I have.”
“Thomas?”
“Yes?”
“If the boat sinks, the trunk won’t float. We’ll have to....”
“Shush, Hélène. Just try to get some sleep.”
Thomas closes his own eyes. If the boat sinks, he thinks, it’s not the trunk that needs worrying about. He can’t swim and he doubts she can either. And even if they could swim, the November water would do them in. All three of them, La Barbe as well, would follow the trunk to the bottom of the Manche. Thomas exhales. He blinks away any thought that the boat is about to capsize. He looks back toward Calais. It’s now not much more than a cluster of tiny buildings along a thin strip of shore.
“Hélène,” he whispers, “do you want me to take your mind off things?”
Hélène’s eyes remain closed. She does not reply.
“All right,” says Thomas. “Did you know that Calais was under English kings for a few hundred years? That it sent representatives—”
“Oh no.” Hélène’s eyes snap open. Instantly there are beads of sweat across her forehead. She tries to grab hold of the rail, but the retch comes before she can free herself from the blankets. The first half of the stream splatters inside the boat. The stinking yellowish liquid bounces off the inside of the boat and over her and Thomas. The rest, mercifully, she sends out into the sea. Her two hands are grasping the side of the boat, the knuckles white.
“Did her best,” says La Barbe from the tiller in a loud voice. “You’ve likely got her too wrapped up. But have a look. There’s rags in one of the buckets. Wet them in the sea and clean yourselves up.”
Thomas goes to get the rags. He wets them over the side.
“She won’t be doing that all day long,” says La Barbe. “No one does. A few more times, then she’ll pass out for an hour or two.”
Thomas does his best to clean the mess off the blankets and off his and Hélène’s clothes.
With Hélène quiet and back inside the blanket wrap again, he shifts his gaze to the sea. From the wharf in Calais, the Manche looked so smooth in the distance. Out here, on its swells and valleys, the ocean is something else. Its waves roll up, then crest and spill, then re-form to do it again. And again. It’s a giant sheet of liquid grey undulating of its own accord. The individual waves are of no import, none at all. What matters is the whole, which is beyond anyone’s control.
Thomas puts both hands to his brow. He doesn’t feel well himself. If only the sea would flatten out. He closes his eyes and takes a shallow breath. Then he takes as many breaths as rapidly as he can. He opens his eyes to look down at poor Hélène. She’s cradled in his arms. Her pale face i
s peeking out from the blanket he wrapped around her head, her skin a greenish hue. Her hair is matted from the bouts of sweats. He cannot see how she is going to make it through as many as a dozen more hours of this. And what if—
“Bread and cheese in the hamper there.”
Thomas turns La Barbe’s way. The man is still nipping at his flask.
“Sausages and a couple of bottles of wine as well. If you get hungry, that is.”
“No,” Thomas replies, burying his face in his hands. The last thing he wants is to eat and drink. Especially not sausages.
“Your woman won’t want a thing. But you’ll need to get her to sip some of the small beer later on. Can’t let her get too dried out.”
Thomas raises his gaze to the thick November clouds swirling high overhead. He tries to recall better days. Nothing comes. He can’t think of anything but the rolling sea. There’s something wrong with his balance and his stomach is starting to feel warm while the rest of his body is growing numb. He grabs the third blanket and wraps it around himself. It doesn’t do a thing. Shivers and trembles begin.
He can no longer smell the salt of the surrounding sea. What fills his nostrils is the stench of the vomit that remains on his and Hélène’s clothes and on the bottom of the boat. It catches in the back of the throat. He closes his eyes and locks them shut. He decides not to look again at what Hélène spilled. He curls in as close as he can to her quivering, blanketed form. He does not care how pathetic he looks to the bear steering the boat.
Thomas swallows back the convulsions, gulping for air. The bile is souring his mouth. He swallows down a heave, but the next is too much. He gets up and leans over the rail. He splashes a yellow mess into the sea. He hangs out as far as he can, sucking in the cold air. But then his body is chilled, soaked from the sweats. He pulls himself back to the bottom of the boat to curl beside Hélène.
“You all right?” she asks.
Thomas shakes his head. She nods that she understands, and closes her eyes. He does the same. Maybe it would be best if the boat did go down after all. Wouldn’t a minute of numbness in the cold water of the Manche be better than the world of agony he and Hélène are trapped within?
The Maze Page 14