Draca

by Geoffrey Gudgion

  ‘No.’ Harry wasn’t sure whether that tightening of Jack’s hands around his coffee mug showed he was angry or defensive.

  ‘Tell you what.’ Harry had been thinking about this. ‘You share it with Tilly and we’ll say no more about it. Nothing for me. Just you and Tilly. Can’t say fairer than that.’

  Jack put his mug down and poured coffee into it as if it was a job that took all his concentration.

  ‘Restoring Draca will take money. Quite a lot of money.’

  ‘Yeah, but…’

  ‘And I need somewhere to sleep near the boatyard. I can’t commute from our flat. Not every day.’

  ‘It ain’t fair on Tilly…’ The boy could be so bloody stubborn, sometimes.

  ‘It’s what Grandpa wanted.’

  ‘You already said. He wasn’t right in the head.’

  They were like a pair of dogs, circling around the same pile of vomit. And just when they’d started to talk reasonably. Harry stood to go before he lost his temper.

  ‘We’ll talk about it some other time.’

  ‘Deep joy.’

  Jack didn’t get up as he left.

  The Slut was waiting for him with her backside against the driver’s door of his Jaguar, and her arms folded across her chest. Harry walked up to her, and waited for her to speak.

  ‘Harry, a word of advice. If you love him, back off.’

  ‘Don’t tell me how to handle my son.’ Harry was already pretty riled.

  ‘Someone needs to.’

  ‘Get out of my way, woman.’

  ‘You have no idea what he’s been like since he got back, do you?’

  Of course he didn’t. They’d hardly spoken.

  ‘He’s had four jobs in three months. He’s drinking too much, he’s not sleeping and he’s a pain in the arse to live with.’

  ‘So why are you telling me?’

  ‘I don’t give a shit what you think of me, Harry, but restoring Draca would be good for Jack. For the first time since he was wounded, he’s got a project. He’s motivated, and he won’t have a boss breathing down his neck. So back off and let him sort himself out doing something he enjoys.’

  As she finished that little speech she pushed herself away from the car.

  Harry didn’t answer. Just got in and drove off.

  Of course she wouldn’t want him to give back the money.

  * * *

  Land spirits. ↵

  Chapter Three: Drekahōfuō

  (Old Norse: the dragon head on a ship’s bow)

  From the saga of King Guthrum

  King Guthrum gathered a great army and harried in the Westlands, the folk fleeing before him wherever he went, for it was known that he had all men killed that stood before him. Then King Alfred came against him with an army of the West Saxons and there was straightaway a great strife both hard and long, but the end of it was that neither side had the victory.

  After the battle King Guthrum withdrew to Jarvic[1] and gave his son Jarl Harald charge over a mighty force of longships. He commanded Harald to sail straightway to the South and to fall upon the great harbour of the West Saxons at Fyrsig, where all the longships of his fleet might safely lie. Furthermore Jarl Harald was not to harry the lands in between, lest the news of his army fly to Alfred like fire in dry grass, but was to fall upon Alfred by surprise from the South while Jarl Guthrum came against him from the North.

  Now Harald Guthrumsson was a great warrior and had good opportunity of choosing himself the foremost in strength or boldness, and many mighty men followed him and offered their sons to be his bodyguard and berserks. In Harald’s dragonhead ship, the stem men were the best chosen, for they bore the jarl’s standard, and the berserks took their place in the part which went from the stem back to the bailing place. Fearless were these men, strong as bears and mad like wolves. They bit their shields, and filled their foes with terror, and neither fire nor steel would deal with them.

  Thus sailed Harald Guthrumsson with one hundred and twenty ships and half the army of King Guthrum.

  I: JACK

  As the sounds of his father’s car receded, Jack stared at the carrier bag that his father had dumped beside the carving, dropping it with as little respect as a bag of shopping. Grandpa wasn’t the first person Jack had known who’d died, but he was the first one that he’d loved. He’d never before had that jolt at the sight of a cardboard brick that was all that was left of a person. In Afghanistan he’d had to go through the personal effects of a dead marine, sending home treasures and tokens of endearment that, despite his efforts, would spill a fine, red, desert dust when the box was opened. It was desperately sad, but it didn’t touch him personally in the same way. There was even a guilty sense of relief that he was still alive and it wasn’t his effects that were being sent home. It had been close, though. The day that marine died, Jack had dug a bullet out of his own body armour.

  And when marines died, they were blown away from unreality. They did not belong to the place that had destroyed them.

  But Grandpa had belonged to this place. This place had belonged to him. The familiar scene of boats on the water should be different without him. Jack half expected to find a razor cut across the view like a slice across a sail; some rip that had opened, pulled Grandpa through and sealed itself behind him. There was just an ugly purple cube inside a bag as a sign that he’d gone, the way a suicide might leave a pile of folded clothes on a beach. Two bricks’ weight of granules instead of a note.

  Charlotte, coming through the kitchen behind him, didn’t belong here. Jack decided he partly belonged; upstairs the small bedroom with the single bed still displayed Grandpa’s cherished fragments of his childhood.

  Charlotte’s hand touched his shoulder, balancing herself as she swung her leg over the bench. Even in his hung-over state, the flash of her thigh was distracting.

  ‘Hey, chum.’ She put a fresh mug on the table.

  ‘Hey, Lottie.’ ‘Charlotte’ had always seemed too formal a name, unless he was ticked off with her.

  ‘Thanks. For sticking up for me, I mean.’

  ‘I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of being right.’

  The flow of her movement checked and she settled more cautiously onto the bench, staying silent while she emptied the last of the coffee into her mug. As she replaced the pot, she stretched to squeeze his hand. ‘Poor Jack. I really thought it could work. You and me.’

  ‘So did I.’ He paused. In front of them, the trees on Witt Point appeared motionless in the heat, but their reflections in the water were hazed by wavelets, and ripples ran through the reeds in the shallows. There would be enough wind to sail, out in the harbour.

  ‘Why did you marry me, Lottie?’

  She thought for perhaps two breaths before answering. ‘Do you remember how we were always laughing together, before you were wounded? Those golden months between Afghanistan and the last, bloody deployment? You were the best male friend I’d ever had. The closest I’d been to loving a man.’

  ‘Were?’

  ‘Are. Even after all the crappy times since you came back.’

  ‘We did have a lot of fun, didn’t we?’ He smiled, until he realised he’d used the past tense. Talking was easy in this place, side by side, staring at the view rather than each other.

  ‘I think I was a bit in awe, as well, even before the honours list came out. We all were. And we were so perfect, the handsome hero and the general’s daughter, the must-have couple for any gathering. Maybe I got lost in our own mystique.’

  Jack formed a question in his head, testing the words, wanting to keep the tone light.

  ‘I remember your father spouting off at dinner, once.’ Jack dropped his voice in imitation of the general’s gruff pomposity, punctuating each phrase with bulldog puffs of air through his lips. ‘Good God! When I joined the service, there were three absolute no-nos: druggery, buggery and treason.’ He slapped the table in pretend anger. ‘Now druggery earns a slap on the wrist and buggery is posit
ively encouraged! Next thing we know, treason will be a matter of conscience.’

  Charlotte laughed. Jack could do a pretty good imitation of her father.

  ‘Daddy thinks the world of you. They both do. And they know things have been difficult.’

  ‘You’ve never told them you’re gay, have you?’ Jack remembered the hurt on Charlotte’s face at that dinner.

  ‘I’m not gay, I’m bi.’

  Jack shrugged. ‘Bi, then.’ He didn’t challenge her. ‘But have you?’

  She shook her head. ‘I think they were starting to suspect, though.’

  ‘And marrying me gave you ‘air cover’.’

  ‘I hope I was never so cynical.’

  ‘You should have told me though. Before we married. That’s the only thing that still rankles.’ His words tasted of strong coffee and stale alcohol.

  ‘We’ve had this argument. I thought that part of me would go away.’

  Jack opened his mouth and shut it again, realising they were being drawn back into a well-worn channel. They were quiet for a while, watching the view, until she touched his hand again.

  ‘We’re best like this, Jack, almost like brother and sister.’

  ‘But it’s not enough, is it? For either of us.’

  ‘We make love, sometimes.’

  ‘So when was the last time?’

  Charlotte let go of his hand, and began fiddling with the frilly edging to the carpet around the carving.

  ‘You’ve changed, Jack, since you were wounded. It was easier to love the laughing hero. You’ve been pretty hard to live with lately, chum.’

  It was a morning for long pauses.

  ‘That thing’s looking at me.’ Charlotte stared at the rug, where one corner had fallen open, exposing the carved head like a monster in a baby’s blanket. The way the light caught its carved eye gave it life. From this angle, the gaping jaw was a lascivious grin rather than a snarl. Charlotte pulled her shirt closed across her chest and held her hand there, beneath her throat, as if she’d spotted a peeping Tom.

  ‘It’s got good taste.’

  Charlotte stretched to spin the wrapping so that the head was pointing away from them, towards the water. ‘I don’t like that thing. It’s creepy.’ Her breasts slipped within her shirt as she moved, pushing free. Jack swallowed, and shuffled a little closer on the bench.

  ‘It’s growing on me. Grandpa used to talk to it, like a pet.’

  ‘Bloody ugly pet.’

  A mile away over the water, the triangular sail of a yacht ghosted seawards. Jack put his arm around Charlotte’s back and let his hand rest on her hip.

  ‘I wondered, you know, Lottie. Even before we married. The way you look at beautiful women, it’s the way I look at them. The way I look at you.’ There was something about this place that inspired calm. It made for honesty.

  ‘But you still married me.’

  ‘Being with you was always so easy, so natural. And when I walked into the officers’ mess with you on my arm, I was king of the world.’

  ‘Nothing to do with me being a general’s daughter then?’

  Ouch. ‘I hope I was never so ambitious.’

  ‘Do you want us to separate?’ She said that so lightly that she might have been offering him a cup of tea. Jack thought long enough about his reply for her to turn and peer at his face.

  ‘We’re still friends, Lottie. Does that have to change?’

  ‘No. Our trouble is that we don’t love each other enough to make a go of it, even if I could, and we like each other too much to end it.’

  ‘But I think I’ll live here for a while. Restore the boat. Try and make sense of my life. Think things through.’

  ‘I’m cool with that. Don’t spend too much time on your own, though. It makes you moody, these days.’

  ‘Then come and see me. Come for weekends.’ The thought of not seeing her, of drifting apart, was suddenly frightening.

  ‘I could.’

  ‘How about you, Lottie? Do you want to separate?’

  ‘Nah. I think playing ‘happy families’ suits us both.’

  Jack sipped coffee. They hadn’t spoken so calmly since he was repatriated. Perhaps being in the cottage, away from their normal lives, was letting them look back on themselves from the outside. Charlotte pushed a curl of dirt from a whorl in the wood with a fingernail, grey spiralling over rose.

  ‘What are you thinking about, Lottie?’

  ‘George.’

  Jack’s shoulders slumped as he remembered the funeral.

  ‘Someone else who deserves an apology.’

  ‘Precisely. Let’s go down there later, after I’ve checked in with the office.’

  Jack groaned. He didn’t want to see George Fenton, not until he was feeling stronger. He’d grovelled enough for one day.

  *

  Two hours later they sat together in the cottage’s front room, Charlotte in an armchair with an iPad in her lap, bare legs stretching forever from beneath the modesty square of plastic. Jack sat at the desk, flicking through Eddie’s diary of four years before, reading the entries for the Channel Islands voyage, and then on into Eddie’s last excursions of the season, after Jack had returned to his unit:

  *

  23 rd September. Wind WSW Force 5, falling. Fair.

  Had an overnight sail with the usual reprobates from the yard. Rode the Westerly flow and put into Dartmouth for the night. Had a bit of a run ashore and were late starting back. Tide turning against off Anfel Head. Wind picked up. Seas short & ugly.

  The lads said I carried too much sail. Dangerous, they said, and not the first time.

  But Draca loved it. You could feel her come alive. That dragon on the bow is like the chrome Jaguar badge on Harry’s car bonnet; makes you feel strong & want to go faster. It was like she was playing with the waves, dancing, and I was dancing with her.

  I gave Chippy Alan the helm, and let him feel the ship at her best, but he was frightened. Not like him. We sort of fell out.

  Wimps.

  *

  Charlotte’s phone rang, and she answered it in the clipped, high-energy voice she kept for business.

  ‘No problem… yah… I’m on the case…’ She sat straighter in the chair as if her body was part of the voice, making her shirt gape. From time to time she’d lean forward for something in her briefcase, then sit back, not meeting Jack’s eye. She seemed even more feminine in this most masculine of rooms. Ceiling-high shelves filled with books, model boats, charts and nautical instruments. No softness anywhere, except for the leggy woman with the tantalising shirt draped into a leather armchair. She made the Viking longship model on the shelf beside her look like a virility symbol.

  *

  10 th October. Wind ESE, 5, gusting 7. Rain.

  The dragon wanted the sea. So did I. Neither of us liked Draca being cooped up at the mooring.

  I called them all. Again. Everyone who sailed with me, the men who used to badger me to come along. Now every last one of them said no. Couldn’t they feel the joy of a strong ship in a storm?

  I took her out anyway. One last trip before winter. Jack should have been there, just to see me. Seventy-five years old and still sailing single-handed.

  Wind was light in the morning. Managed to hoist the mainsail on my own, too. Ran the halyard to the windlass. Bit slack but I did it. She holds her course at almost any point of the compass, if you lash the tiller. And I set the square sail, but that’s easy after the main. Running before the wind with the square sail set, off Anfel Head, we were invincible.

  But Draca didn’t want to come home. Anfel Head again. Threw a fit when I turned, and fought me, all the way back. I think the dragon knows his friends are down there. The oath-breakers in the realm of Rán.

  And that blow wasn’t forecast. Wind 4, they said, rising 5. We had Force 7 and I couldn’t reef. No strength in my hands.

  Now Draca’s hurt. We came back on the engine, trailing rigging. It was all I could do to keep the lines inboard
and clear of the prop. If that had fouled we’d have been in real trouble.

  Feel bad. Feel a fool as well. Don’t want to see the cowards at the yard. If I’d have had help, we could have reefed.

  But, now I’m back, I don’t think it would have been such a bad way to go. I think if I went out again, and there was a big wave, I’d die happy. Especially in The Race, fighting a storm, like the oath-breakers. I think Draca would like that, too. End it together.

  *

  Jack frowned. ‘The dragon wanted the sea…’ Grandpa had imbued the carving with life and will. And what did he mean by ‘the dragon knows his friends are down there…’? Rán, Jack knew, was the Nordic sea goddess, who harvested the souls of drowned sailors. Perhaps the cancer had been in Grandpa’s brain earlier than they thought. Outside, the sun was on the water and a sailing breeze stirred the leaves; the wind was picking up. Inside, a fly beat itself against the window behind the net curtains: hum–smack, hum–smack, hum–smack. It evaded Jack’s efforts to brush it through an open pane, and found another square of glass to assault. No matter. Chasing the fly had only been an excuse to stand behind Charlotte’s chair and slide his hand into her shirt, but she pushed him away, tutting her irritation.

  ‘Lottie, living with you is like being a kid in a sweet shop who’s told he can’t taste the goodies.’

  ‘I’m ‘working from home’.’

  ‘Neither am I.’

  ‘Maybe later.’ Her fingers danced over the iPad, and Jack gave up. Above the desk, tufts of bookmarks waved from a mighty tome of Nordic sagas. He pulled it down, opened it at random and grunted in frustration when he saw it was written in Old Norse, with margin and footnotes in Danish. A yellow, sticky note pointed at a single word, haugbúi, with a caption written in Eddie’s awkward scrawl: lit. ‘cairn-dweller’. Ghost, undead man.

  Jack put the book back, uncomfortable. Beside him, Charlotte stretched in her armchair, pulling her arms high and wide, and arching her back in a way that made him want to throw her bloody iPad out of the window.