by Alex Shearer
I asked Angelica what had happened to her mother – if it wasn’t a sensitive spot – and whether rats had got her too, not just the fingers but the whole deal. But she said no, it was nothing like that. She said it was the loneliness that got to her, and being on that small island with nothing but two other human beings and a whole lot of dead rats for company, pegged up to dry out in the sun. So one day she had flagged down a passing cruiser and asked for a job on it and hugged them both and said she’d be back. But that was turnings ago and she hadn’t been back at all, not even for a visit. So I guess that rat-skinning isn’t to everyone’s taste, for which, apparently, there is no accounting.
I got Peggy over to listen to some of Angelica’s rat-skinning stories, but I don’t think she enjoyed them as much as I did, and Angelica didn’t tell them so well in Peggy’s presence either, like it was cramping her style a touch.
Later on Peggy came over to me, when Angelica was down below doing whatever it is that girls do to keep themselves so pretty, like polishing their glasses and so on, and she said, ‘She’s a smart little thing, that Angelica, isn’t she, Martin?’
‘Brain like a factory,’ I said, feeling – yet not really knowing why – that I should emphasise her brains rather than her looks.
‘You like her, do you, Martin?’
I just shrugged.
‘She’s got some fine rat-skinning stories,’ I said.
‘Yeah,’ Peggy said. And then added, ‘Hasn’t she though?’ Whatever that was supposed to mean. ‘Yeah, she’s smart all right,’ Peggy repeated. ‘And plenty of imagination.’
‘Isn’t it good to have imagination, Peggy?’
‘Sure it is.’
‘Didn’t you always say?’
‘I did, Martin.’
‘“Just imagine,” you used to say. If I ever said I was bored, you’d say, “Use your imagination.”’
‘I’m not denying it.’ Then she looked at me and smiled – which I was pleased to see, as she hadn’t smiled much lately and had been looking old and tired, which she maybe was, but hadn’t shown it. ‘I never thought I’d be taking four of you on the school run,’ she said. ‘Never imagined we’d be picking up waifs and strays and stragglers along the route.’
‘Are we waifs and strays, Peggy?’
She reached out and ruffled my hair, like she hadn’t done so much recently, though she did it a lot when I was small.
‘We’re all waifs and strays, darlin’,’ she said. ‘One how or another.’
‘You’re not though, Peggy, are you? I mean, you’ll always be there.’
‘I’ll try to, Martin,’ she said. ‘But listen … you know … one day –’
‘One day what?’
‘Oh, nothing. I’ll tell you another time.’
‘Peggy, what are you going to do when we get to City Island?’
‘Well, I won’t be joining you at school.’
‘Will you be going home again?’
She looked away from me and didn’t answer straight away. Then she smiled again – the smile of a thousand wrinkles, as she called it. Her. Not me.
‘That’s right. I’ll be going home. Back to my island and old Ben Harley – or, should I say, even older Ben Harley – and my smallholding and … yup, that’s what I’ll do.’
‘Peggy,’ I said, ‘you won’t be lonely, will you?’
‘Of course not, darlin’. I’ll be too busy for that.’
‘If I thought you were going to be lonely I wouldn’t go to City Island.’
‘No, I’ll be fine. You don’t worry about that.’
‘And there’ll be the holidays.’
‘That’s right. You can come and see me.’
‘How’ll we get there?’
‘I’ll come and get you. Or buy you a couple of tickets on a tramper. Take a while, but you’ll get there.’
‘Then that’s OK, then,’ I said, feeling greatly reassured that she was going to be all right without us, for after all, she saved us from being orphans when she didn’t have to.
‘Here comes the love interest,’ she said. Well, I think that was what she said. I didn’t quite catch it. And I didn’t know what she meant. ‘I’m going to check the autopilot, make sure it’s doing its job.’
‘OK.’
Angelica came back over and joined me under the canopy on deck. Her glasses really gleamed and I could tell that she’d been polishing them, and she smelled nice, like soap.
‘Where’s Gemma?’ I said.
‘With Alain, gutting fish for dinner.’
‘Huh,’ I said. ‘No surprises there then.’
‘You OK, darlin’?’ Peggy called over.
‘I’m fine, thank you, Peggy,’ Angelica said.
‘Good.’ Peggy smiled. ‘You keep him in order.’ Then she went back to looking at the charts.
‘She’s nice, your grandma,’ Angelica said. ‘She must be the oldest person I’ve ever seen.’
‘Clean living and whisky,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘That’s what she tells people when they ask how she lived so long. Clean living and whisky.’
‘What’s whisky?’
‘Old Ben Harley makes it and puts it in a bottle. He says it’s whisky but I think it’s more likely drain cleaner. And it’s good for deterring midges.’
‘You want to play draughts again, Martin? Maybe you’ll win?’
‘Nah … not right now, Angelica. I don’t suppose you’d have any more rat-skinning stories, would you? I guess you’ll have run out and told me them all by now.’
‘No … no … I don’t think so. Just give me a moment to remember some of them now … yes, right. So did I tell you about the time my dad and I had this huge great sky-rat cornered, but then the harpoon gun misfired, and Dad had to strangle it with his bare hands?’
‘No, you never mentioned that one. I’d like to hear about it, I really would. And all the details. Including the gory ones.’
‘Then I’ll see if I can remember them all, Martin.’
‘Like, did he have to poke it in the eye? Don’t leave anything out. Make sure to include the eye-poking if there was any.’
‘I’m just recollecting and bringing it back to mind to have it ready for the telling.’
‘Great,’ I said. ‘Great. And was there any eye-poking? Or anyone getting any bits chewed off?’
‘You know, I think there was that day. In fact, I’m sure of it.’
‘Perfect. And you’d better tell me how you gutted it after you caught it too, and whether there were any fingers inside, or maybe a leg or something.’
And I really did think it was special that someone could be so pretty, like Angelica. But not just that – that she could have so many good rat-skinning stories right there at her fingertips and up her sleeves too. I reckon a girl like that could have been an honorary boy quite easy and no trouble. I reckon if I’d found a few more boys and we’d had a vote on it, we’d have let her in straight off, and no arguments. And she’d have had a seat at the top of the table, and the big comfortable chair, with the arms.
13
a small, and unfortunate, explosion
MARTIN STILL SPEAKING:
‘How long till we get to City Island, Peggy?’ I asked, and not for the first time, more for the umpteenth. Or maybe even the umpteenth plus one.
‘Not far now, Martin,’ she said, which was the standard answer. And she threw the dregs of her green tea overboard. A little shoal of sky-fish pounced on them and snaffled them up.
But I felt she was just trying to keep me quiet. It had been ‘not far now’ since we set off, and I didn’t even know if we were halfway there yet.
‘Are we halfway there yet?’
‘I hope so.’
‘So it’s about the same again?’
‘Could be, Martin. Kind of depends on the route we have to take from here. I’m trying to keep to the back roads. Maybe another seven days, maybe ten.’
‘OK.’
> ‘You getting bored?’
‘Just wondering.’
‘Maybe we’ll stop off somewhere, get a change of diet and a proper shower.’
You couldn’t waste water on a boat like ours, you had one basinful each per day for the whole business, teeth brushing included.
‘At least the sky’s clear now,’ I said. ‘Nothing nasty coming our way.’
‘Don’t speak too soon,’ Peggy said. ‘Let’s not tempt providence.’
But I already had.
We saw them about an hour later. There were so many you could barely count them all, and they were constantly moving and drifting, which made assessing their numbers near impossible. I thought, when I saw them, that it was a swarm of sky-jellies – not the men-of-war, but the smaller, more friendly ones, the ones without the poison sacs. But that was only what they looked like. It wasn’t what they were.
Alain advised Peggy to cut the solar engines and close the wind sails. Even she didn’t know what they were. But he did.
‘They’re just jellies, aren’t they?’ she said. ‘They’re not going to bother us.’
‘No,’ Alain said. ‘They’re mines.’
‘What?’
‘It’s a minefield.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Wait …’
He fetched his crossbow and fitted a bolt into it. Then he went and stood on the prow and fired the arrow high into the air. It arced up and then fell; on its descent it hit one of the ‘jellies’ – which immediately exploded. The shrapnel from the explosion set off three or four other mines, which exploded in turn, and they set off others, then the noise stopped, and it was quiet again, and we could see pieces of the mines falling down towards the sun.
‘Well …’ Peggy said. ‘Well now …’
The minefield was huge and the mines were drifting in the wind.
‘Can’t we go around it?’ I asked.
‘We can try,’ Alain said. ‘But it might drift with us.’
‘Under it then?’ I said.
‘We’ll lose buoyancy and sink,’ Peggy said.
‘Over it then?’ I was running out of options now.
‘Atmosphere’s too thin,’ she grumbled.
‘Go back then, and find another route?’ I suggested.
‘That’ll add more several days, but it’s safest,’ Alain said.
Peggy looked thoughtful.
‘A few more days? I was hoping to get there in good time, before the term started –’
‘Or we can try to sail through it,’ Alain said. And he and Peggy shared a look.
I stared at the minefield ahead of us. I couldn’t say that going through it seemed like a very good idea.
As we floated, trying to make a decision, we were hailed by another sky-boat, a smallish one, about the size of ours, which had come out from the shelter of a tatty-looking one-boat island over on our right.
‘Ahoy there!’
The boat was steered by a man, bare-chested and sunburnt, with a couple of gold teeth in his insincere-looking smile, and a scraggy beard that hadn’t been trimmed lately.
‘Ahoy there! You need a pilot? You looking to get across?’
Peggy looked at him like she wasn’t too impressed by his character, at least if his appearance was any true indication of it.
‘Maybe,’ she said.
‘I can guide you,’ the man said.
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Taken plenty of boats through. Not lost a one.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Seen a few folk try it on their own – never made it, though.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Peggy said. ‘That so?’
‘How many of you?’
‘Five.’
‘Do it for a thousand Units.’
‘How much?’
‘It’s two hundred Units a head.’
‘You don’t charge by the boat?’
‘Charge by the passenger.’
‘That sounds expensive.’
‘It’s the expertise you’re paying for. Expertise, know-how, local knowledge.’
Peggy looked more doubtful than ever, and a touch suspicious with it.
‘And how’d they get there? All those mines?’
The man shrugged. Peggy scowled at him.
‘Didn’t plant them there yourself, by any chance?’
‘Lady, please –’
‘So how’d they get there then?’
‘Just drifted in. Some war zone somewhere. They lay the mines then the war moves on and the mines get forgotten about and the solar tide takes them –’
‘And they end up by your doorstep and you make a living out of them?’
‘It’s an ill wind, lady,’ the man said, and he showed us the gold teeth again. ‘It’s an ill wind that don’t blow somebody some good. I ain’t the only one making a living out of misfortunes.’
‘Well, we don’t have a thousand Units,’ Peggy said. ‘So I guess the answer’s no.’
‘Eight hundred. I’ll do you a discount as it’s kids.’
Peggy shook her head.
‘Friend, if I had eight hundred Units, I wouldn’t be giving them to you. And as I don’t, I won’t be giving them to you either.’
The man chewed his lip.
‘Six hundred to get you through. That’s my last and best.’
‘Well, thanks anyway,’ Peggy said.
‘OK,’ the man said. ‘You’d better go round the long way then. It’ll cost you three or four days. But it’s your time. If you ain’t got money, then time’s the alternative. Sorry I can’t do it no cheaper, but I’d be undercutting myself, and then if word got about …’
And he touched his forelock with his finger, in a kind of mock and sarcastic salute, and he turned his boat around and went back to his scrap-heap island.
‘Shyster,’ Peggy muttered. ‘Wouldn’t surprise me if he bought all those mines army surplus and laid the whole minefield himself, just to rip off unsuspecting travellers. Well, I suppose we’d better turn around and go back and take the long way.’
She went to take a look at the sky charts.
‘Or I could do it, if you want …’
It was Alain. Peggy looked at him.
‘You do it? Pilot the boat?’
‘Wouldn’t be the first time.’
‘You’ve sailed a boat through a minefield?’
‘Few times.’
‘Have you now? And you got through?’
‘Here I am as evidence.’
‘Right …’ Peggy stood, weighing up the chances. ‘What happens if we hit one? Will it sink the boat?’
‘Not necessarily. It could do. Could trigger a chain reaction with other mines nearby and blow us up. Or it could just be some damage and injuries.’
‘What kind of injuries, son?’
‘Arms, legs, chest … head and neck …’
‘Oh, those kinds of injuries. Nothing too serious then,’ Peggy said. Alain twitched, irritated, but he didn’t respond. ‘What do you all think?’ she asked.
‘I trust Alain,’ Gemma said. (But, as I may have said before, it was no surprises there.)
‘I’m willing to chance it,’ Angelica said. But I sort of knew she would be; after all her rat-skinning escapades, she wouldn’t be bothered by a few sky-mines.
‘Martin?’
‘Well …’
I wanted to turn around and go the long way, but I was too afraid to say I was afraid. It was the embarrassment more than anything. I wondered then if other people had also got themselves into situations they didn’t want to be in, just out of sheer embarrassment and not wanting to be put down as the local wimp.
‘Fine by me,’ I said.
‘OK, young man,’ she said. ‘You’ve got the wheel.’
And she got out of the way and let Alain take over at the helm.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Before we start, everyone get something, a broom, boat-hook, pole, anything. Cover the end with a cloth, something soft. If a mine gets
too near, then very gently push it off. But don’t, whatever you do, touch the spikes – or it’ll go. All right?’
‘I think we’ve got that,’ Peggy said.
‘All right. Then I’ll open up the solar panels –’
He did. And we began to move. I heard a gold-toothed voice calling to us, from the nearby island.
‘You’ll kill yourselves, you crazy sons-of- –’
But Peggy just yelled back at him to hold his tongue.
And on we sailed.
The problem was that they didn’t stay still. The slightest thermal, the smallest change in the wind, and they’d drift in a second to somewhere else. The way would be clear in front of you, and then there were suddenly five sky-mines blocking your way, and you had to swerve or dive, or swing around in a moment.
‘One coming up port side, Martin.’
That was my bit. Port side, stern. I saw it coming and got the broom to it and gave it a shove.
‘Not that hard, Martin!’
The mine veered off, but it gathered speed as it went, and about a hundred metres from us, it crashed into another.
‘Get your heads down!’
Alain ducked too.
Next thing, there was a boom, and then shrapnel everywhere, and bits of metal embedded in the boat.
‘Anyone hurt?’ Peggy said. Nobody seemed to be. ‘Not so enthusiastic next time, eh, Martin?’
I wanted to say, let’s turn around and go back. But, when I looked, the mines had closed in behind us, and going back was every bit as bad as going on, maybe even worse.
Alain turned the wheel to move the rudder, and set the tilts to angle us up or down; we moved on through the minefield, and the mines drifted past us.
‘They so look like sky-jellies,’ Gemma said.
‘Yes, they’re supposed to,’ Alain told her. And I did wonder if he and the Liberation Enlightenment Army hadn’t laid a few mines themselves, maybe even these ones, surrounding us right now.
‘Look over there.’
Angelica was pointing to the right, where a pod of sky-whales was bobbing along, heading towards us through the outskirts of the minefield.
‘Great Whites …’
‘Yes, and you know what they eat, don’t you?’
‘Sky-fish,’ I said.