The Dragonfly

by Kate Dunn

  She shook the box upside down, “It is empty! He is gone!”

  He leaned forward a fraction, peering at the box, then leaned forward a fraction more so that he could inspect the foot or so of water between the boat and dry land. Do they swim? Do they slither up mooring lines and slide round fenders? He surveyed the bank, blade of grass by blade of grass. He checked behind him one last time. “Alright,” his shoulders slumped down from round his ears, “You can come back on board.”

  “But we must look for him – he is only a little baby.”

  “What?”

  “We must find him–”

  “If you think–”

  “He is very small, he is very young, he is in great danger–”

  He could see the tell-tale welling of sorrow in her face and was conscious of her facility for expressing emotion – heartfelt emotion – while at the same time gauging its effect. For once, his instinct to pacify and compensate deserted him.

  “I am not going to look for…” avoiding the specifics, he went on in a quiet voice, “…whatever. We are going to have lunch,” though he had never felt less like a cheese omelette in his entire life, “…the two of us. You can help me cook it if you like, but I have no intention–”

  “He was my pet!”

  “I don’t care if he was the Queen of Sheba.”

  “You said I could have a pet–”

  “I said nothing of the kind. You said you wanted a pet, which is a very different thing.”

  “–because of Amandine…!”

  “Oh for Pete’s sake–”

  She burst into tears.

  “I’m sorry,” he collected himself. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry about Amandine and I’m sorry about – everything else. But I can’t have Hector or any other kind of – you know – on the boat. I just can’ t.”

  “I hate you.”

  It took a moment for both of them to digest what she had said. Fearing that she had gone too far, Delphine grew reckless and went further, “I wish I’d never been born,” she sobbed.

  Nervously scanning the bank, he stepped ashore.

  “I’m sure you don’t mean that,” he began, thinking that she probably did and in the circumstances he wouldn’t blame her one little bit. To rub salt into his own wounds, he thought of Tyler and the price he had paid to have this troubled scrap of a girl all to himself. He stifled a sigh and after a moment he went and stood a little closer to her. He could see her tears rolling into the corner of the Tupperware box. “Here–” he held out his handkerchief, “I’m afraid it’s got a bit of grass stain on it and some engine oil…”

  Delphine looked at his handkerchief and fell to weeping harder. Gingerly, he mopped one side of her face and then the other. “You have no idea, Delphine, how very, very glad I am that you were born. Blow–!” He wiped her nose. “Very glad.” He cleared his throat. “I know you are going through a really hard time at the moment, really hard, but it won’t always be like this,” he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “You’re going to have to trust me on this one.”

  A long, stuttering sob escaped from her; it sounded as if it were taking her soul away with it.

  Silence.

  “Are we friends?”

  She lowered her head. He liked to think it was a nod.

  “Look – I’m very sorry about…er…Hector. He gave me a terrible fright.”

  She wiped her face on the inside of her arm and for a moment, streaked and grimy, she looked beautiful, in the way that ancient faces can look beautiful. She looked scarred and worn and sweet. He held his hand out, palm side up. “Put it there, pardner,” he said.

  Hesitantly, staring down at the ground, she slipped her hand into his and the small weight of it made him feel humble and blessed all at once. He just kept holding it, until at length Delphine wound herself round and into his arms, and she leant against his chest, giving him the gift of all her sorrows, the great gift, and the two of them leaned against each other and he stooped down to kiss the top of her head, thinking that in the grand scale of things, if he had paid a price at all in saying goodbye to Tyler, then it was the right price and a fair price and it must surely be worth it.

  “If you’re going to have a pet,” he said, disengaging himself slightly and leading her back down towards the Dragonfly, “Then it’s probably best to have one that doesn’t need to live in a Tupperware box…”

  After an improvised lunch (chunks of bread with lumps of chocolate) they played Spit and Damn It, and Delphine managed to be reasonably patient while he tried to teach her Backgammon, but when she’d had enough she plugged herself into her phone, though he couldn’t be sure that she was listening to anything, just that she wanted to seal herself away.

  “How long had Hector been on board?” asked Colin, an anxious thought occurring to him as they prepared for bed.

  “For not long enough,” she said pointedly. “Since Tyler went up with the bridge. I found him in the long grass, while you were talking.”

  He nodded, “He didn’t have any little friends, did he? Or relations?”

  “I think he was an orphelin – I do not know the word. All alone, without parents,” she added, to be sure that he understood the extent of their association.

  He checked the bottom of his sleeping bag, all the same.

  ~~~

  They passed from leafy light to darkness as they went through the Tunnel de Breuilles, then the Tunnel de Mouas, then all seven hundred and fifty-eight metres of the Tunnel de la Collancelle. Outside, the netted sunlight caught in the branches overhead and spilled down creepers which hung low like viper’s tails. The air felt used; it couldn’t circulate and filled the cuttings bronchially, damp with other people’s breath.

  “Our first down lock,” Colin rubbed his hands together, “Easy as pie – no messing about with boat hooks, looping ropes over bollards that are far too high. You just pop the centre line on like that–” he demonstrated, “–and Bob’s your uncle you can put the kettle on and have a cup of tea.”

  There was none of the turmoil of the up locks, where the water tumbled and churned into the chamber, sending the boats skittering to the end of their lines. The Dragonfly became indolent, so that each descent was little more than a recline, a stretch and lean that allowed her joints to settle.

  As they bowled down past Bazolles and Mont-et-Marre they established a routine: Delphine jumped onto the lock side as the little boat swooped close, looped her rope, then hopped back onto the cabin roof and lay down in the sun. She had her headphones on, creating distance, but from time to time if she caught his eye, she waved at him with a happy/sad, brave/sad, sad/sad expression and Colin waved back, revving the engine, accelerating after coots to try and make her smile, or pulling faces at the pale Charolais cattle which haunted the banks like wraiths, quenching their ghostly thirst.

  Faithlessly, the Nivernais had given up on the River Yonne and was pursuing other options. Approaching the little town of Chatillon en Bazois, it hitched up with the River Aron and the two of them idled side-by-side, leaning into each other’s curves, placid in the warm afternoon. The Dragonfly dawdled through the town, dodging a hire boat which had come firing out of the open lock like a bullet from a gun. Colin listened to the furious recriminations of the crew as they went hurtling past: I couldn’t reach! It’s not my fault. We need to get the rear line on first…

  Perhaps the sun was too soporific; perhaps the fields were too warm and golden; perhaps the trees whispered too beguilingly, perhaps the walls of the chateau by the lock were too achingly ochre, so beautiful he had to look back, like Orpheus, to crane his neck and stare.

  Perhaps it had just become too easy.

  Lazily, possibly (in retrospect) smugly, they nipped into the lock and pulled up alongside so that Delphine could do her thing with the rope. Colin did his thing and reduced the revs, twisting round to contemplate the knuckled branches of a row of trees which had been pollarded in the spring and were wrestling their way back into growth
. Beyond them lay the ornamental gardens of the chateau, the hedges clipped and controlled. Sunshine glanced off round towers and chimneys, while reptilian black tiles glittered on the ancient roof. The late afternoon light was hazy with pollen and heat, dust and tiny seeds floated down through the thermals and Colin sat there, absorbing everything with the keenness of someone who has learned to live in deficit. He was so spellbound he barely acknowledged the lock keeper, who had closed the gates behind them and sauntered past to open the paddles at the front. He listened to the winding sighs of the machinery and the lethargic creak of their rope, his little boat imperceptibly floating down as the water began to drain away, and he was so intent on straining to see the last bright weathervane of the chateau disappear from view that he barely noticed the fact that the rope was no longer creaking, but griping insistently. He was roused by a squawk from Delphine, who had flipped round onto her hands and knees, “Colin–?” There was a note of query in her voice, rather than alarm, so he was slow to surface from his slumberous trance and he didn’t come blinking back to life until he saw the navigation book slide down the everything locker. His Swiss Army knife was sitting on top of it to weigh down the pages and it was only when it bounced over the side and into the water that he realised something was amiss.

  “Colin!” There was pure fear in her voice now. She scrambled up the roof of the cabin, which was tilting at thirty degrees and flung herself onto the lock side. She managed to get the trunk of her body on first and twisted round. “It’s the rope,” she cried, “The rope’s jammed.” Until then, Colin had been preoccupied with the loss of his knife, his head full of idiotic thoughts about how long he had had it, whether there was time to fish it out, how quickly it would sink, but as the deck began to shelve beneath his feet – forty degrees, fifty degrees – sending him lurching towards the water himself, he became ferociously alert, the hot flare of adrenaline spurting through him. He spun round and balancing on the kitchen locker, no longer a flat surface but an escarpment, with one hand he reached port side of the boat, now disorientatingly above his head. He hauled himself upwards and inched his way along the duck egg blue flank of the Dragonfly towards the snagged line. The loose end, instead of spooling freely, lowering the boat, was caught, and the more the water drained away, the more trapped it became.

  “Stop the lock,” he bellowed. “Tell the keeper to stop the lock.”

  He was conscious of so many sounds fading in and fading out: a child whimpering, the clatter of the propeller slowing in the air, a man’s voice shouting in French, the tangled noise of cutlery and crockery falling, the soft acoustic of clothes and bedding tumbling through the cabin, the pious squeak of his shoes on the paintwork, his heart beat, the faint reproach of birdsong, a man’s voice shouting in French…

  “Allez, allez monsieur!” The lock keeper was standing above him gesturing, stooping to reach down to him. In the man’s shadow, he glimpsed Delphine, crouching low with her eyes closed and her hands covering her ears. Colin tried to lever himself upwards, grit embedding itself in his palms like glass. He could feel the suck and slime of the lock wall against his thighs; his feet went shooting off in all directions; he lost a sandal. The man had him by the T-shirt, by the shoulder; he was shouting at him. Everything happened so slowly, until everything happened so fast: the pale, mild chateau, the pollarded trees, the terrified little girl, the meaty arms of the lock keeper, the chlorophyll green of the lock wall and then the wide, forgiving sky all chased each other helter-skelter round and round until before he knew it, he was sprawling breathless on the stone quay.

  He stumbled to his feet. The man was still shouting at him. “Non comprend,” Colin turned away from him. “I’ve lost my sandal. And my knife.” He made his way to the edge of the lock. Don’t look down, he told himself, once you look down…

  The Dragonfly was dangling sideways from the centre line about a foot above the water. He stood with his head bowed. Some of the junk – the torch and the mallet – had spilled out of the everything locker and was caught in the corner of the deck; Delphine’s turquoise pinafore was in the water, dragging down.

  Delphine.

  The man was in his face, talking coercively right up close. “Yes, yes” said Colin, pushing past him. “My granddaughter–”

  She was curled up, as small as small can be, her face pressed into her knees and her arms covering her head. When he reached out his hand to touch her, she was rigid with fear.

  “It’s OK,” he said, his voice blurting and shaky. “Everything’s going to be OK. I just need–” He had no idea what he needed: to feel steady on the uncertain ground, perhaps. He looked at the chateau. He looked back at the town. Three or four people were clustering round. “I just need to–” The lock keeper had him by the sleeve. “I just need to sit down, as a matter of fact,” he said, his legs folding up beneath him.

  He managed to lift Delphine into his lap. That seemed to be the most important thing. The longer he held her, the smaller she felt.

  “You alright, mate?” asked an English voice.

  “What?”

  “Are you alright?”

  “I don’t know. I’m fine. I’ll be alright in a minute.” He peered up at the inevitable group of helpful boaters, trying to locate the speaker. “I’m fine,” he repeated, apprehensively.

  A man stepped forward, scratching his cheek. He had a huge belly slung above a disproportionately long pair of shorts. He rolled his lower lip against his teeth, chewing at a tuft of beard.

  “About your boat, mate. I’ve had a word with the lock keeper – GCSE French and all that – and the thing is, I think you need to check your insurance, because as far as I could make it out, I think he’s planning on hiring a crane…”

  Delphine was so still in Colin’s embrace that he wondered if she’d gone to sleep; or perhaps she’d died of fright – he bloody nearly had. He clambered to his feet, hefting her weight. Her legs clashed against his and he could feel the drape of her arms around his neck. Cautiously, he returned to the side of the lock and stared down. The Dragonfly looked like a discarded toy. He hadn’t realised it was quite so small.

  The lock keeper came hurrying up, still hammering out suggestions, but now that Colin had come to and could take him in properly, he could see that he was a young man, not much more than a student, with his hair tied back in a ponytail.

  “Can’t he just fill the chamber up and refloat her?”

  The helpful boater shook his head. “Not when she’s lying at that angle. She’d just fill up with water,” but he translated Colin’s query all the same. The lock keeper spread his hands flat, signalling finality, and went to make a phone call. The helpful boaters started to drift away. Colin rested his chin on Delphine’s hair. Upstream, a queue of hire boats was forming. One or two of them had tied up already, the others were noodling around, wondering what on earth was going on. A crane? The lock could be closed for days. They could be stuck in Chatillon, with its treacherously beautiful chateau, until the end of the week, or longer still. “Look,” he said to Delphine, “You’re too heavy for me to carry. I’m going to have to put you down now.” He loosened his hold and she slid to the ground. He caught her before she crumpled up. It was as if she had vacated her body, as if there was something about her that wasn’t working any more.

  “Delphine?”

  Apart from a tiny tightening of the muscle around her eyes, there was nothing.

  “Are you OK?” He glanced round to see if there was somewhere they could sit and started to head for the stairs up to the street, limping because he only had one sandal. He sat down on the bottom step, so that his face was on a level with hers. “You and I need to have a chat,” he began, putting his hands on her shoulders because she was visibly shaking. “We need to clear something up,” he leaned in closer, tilting his head one way and then the other, trying to engage with her. She stared at the ground. “What’s happened is completely and utterly my responsibility. I should have checked the line. I should
have checked it every time, and the fact that you were so fantastically good at coping with it doesn’t let me off the hook. Is that understood?”

  She gave a sigh so small it was inaudible.

  “It turns out that I’m a bit of a crap sailor.” He studied his hands; the hands that had built the Dragonfly. “I’m rubbish, in fact. I’ve got a lot to learn,” he added shortly. “I can’t apologise enough. It was my mistake; my mistake entirely. Is that understood?”

  She might have said, “It was my fault,” perhaps she mouthed the words, it was almost impossible for him to make out. She might have done. He couldn’t be sure. At that moment there was a shearing sound that cracked wide open, fissures of noise splintering crazily, then the slap of wood on water as the rope which was holding his beautiful, duck egg blue boat snapped and the Dragonfly went crashing face down into the lock.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  On the morning of the conjugal, Laroche was restive. He kneaded the muscle in his forearm as if he wanted to separate it from the bone. The lines around his eyes were pulled tight.

  Michael shot a look at him. “What’s up?”

  “It’s me bleedin’ wossname conjugal, that’s what.”

  “Ah.”

  “Don’t want to see ’em. Changed me mind.” He shifted his weight in the chair, got up, walked to the door, kicked it, then came and sat back down. “Besides, got a daughter already. My little Zazie. Don’t need another one.” He sniffed then wiped his nose on his shoulder. “Nobody likes to be made a fool of, Rosbif – do they?”

  “Who’s making a fool of you?”

  “Her bloody mother, that’s who. It’s not the kid. I like kids – couldn’t eat a whole one yada yada oink oink. But she’s having a laugh. Well, fuck her.”

  “You’ve got nothing to lose…”

  At that, Laroche leaned his forehead into his hands. He slumped against them. “Thanks for pointing that out, Rosbif,” he said in a low voice. “I feel shitloads better now. Lilian Laroche – the man with nothing to lose. Merci bleedin’ beaucoup.”