‘I’ll have you know I cook very well, thank you very much.’ The wife was in a huff now. ‘Good, plain, English cooking. And no, thank you. I’ve just had lunch.’
They hadn’t, but both their backs were up. They’d come prepared to be nice. Now they felt like they’d picked up the wrong fork at a fancy occasion and everyone was laughing at them.
They were saved by a cheer. Jack had untied the ropes holding Draca to the pilings, and waved them over his head. Out on the water the powerboat put its engine into reverse and the line tightened. Slowly, ever so slowly, Draca eased backwards to the sound of more cheering and the popping of champagne corks. George backed away from Harry’s group, saying she’d go and help with the lines.
‘I’ll come too.’ The Slut went with her. As they walked away, George thumped The Slut on the arm, all playful, like she was cross and laughing at the same time.
Harry took Tilly’s kids along the jetty where they wouldn’t get in the way, thinking that children are easy at that age. You can hold their hands so they don’t fall in the water, and you can never say the wrong thing because even if you do, they don’t know it. So he stood on the fringes with a kid in each hand, listening to them babbling away, and watching the crowd as Draca was hauled alongside. The Slut sprayed Jack with champagne, whooping as Draca’s side squeezed the fenders against the jetty. George heaved at ropes, pulling Draca in, and you could see the effort it took by the way she had to lean into it. Harry wished Jack had found a girl like that. No airs and graces, and not afraid of hard work.
It was strange to see a woman doing that sort of thing though. Boy’s haircut, workmen’s gloves and enough strength to haul a big boat to shore, but a lumpy sweatshirt and a woman’s arse as she bent to wind the rope around one of those bent metal things on the jetty. And all the time Jack stood on deck with his weight on one leg and the other bent at the knee, waving to the cheers. When he ducked to dodge a cork, Harry saw the boy as a child again, all tousled hair and laughter and happiness. Made him feel quite full.
It hurt though, to see the way he climbed down to the jetty. The boy used to be so fit. Had to be, in the marines. The boat was riding high in the water and it was quite a step down. Jack moved like an old man, holding onto the rigging with both hands and reaching out with his good foot until his toes touched. The way he did that stretched his trousers high on his bad leg, and Harry tried not to stare. The shaft made it look like there was just a stick of bone above his boot.
Harry hung back with the grandkids, keeping them out of the way until things calmed down on the jetty, and watched Jack kiss his mother. At least those two were talking. The wife must have raised her voice over the hubbub because when the sound of the powerboat faded away she forgot to lower it and Harry could hear half their conversation.
‘Wish you’d come and see us,’ she was saying.
Jack had his back to Harry so he didn’t hear his reply.
‘Then come midweek, on your own.’
His shoulders lifted.
‘You’re both so stubborn. He’s here. He’s trying.’
It was time for Harry to say hello. He let Tilly take the kids and shook Jack’s hand so hard the boy was a bit taken aback.
‘She’s looking good, Jack.’ He’d give praise where praise is due. The boy looked cautious, like he was waiting for a ‘but’. Harry meant it though. She looked smart. Nicely sanded decks, fresh varnish on the woodwork and new, shiny fittings. Jack had buffed the brass compass and instruments in front of the cockpit until they gleamed. He’d done himself proud. Now why couldn’t he take a compliment? And what was it about the boy that always put Harry on edge? He got all knotted inside.
‘Will you sail her today?’ Harry asked.
‘There’s a bit of work to do yet, Dad. Get her ballast back in her and then fit her out.’ He looked at the sky, which was a flat, windless grey like the sea beneath. ‘And I don’t think anyone’s going to sail much today. That’s why everyone’s here drinking my champagne.’
‘So it will be a while before we scatter the ashes, then?’
‘A few weeks.’
‘Well, show us around then. Let’s see what you’ve done since I fixed the engine.’
Jack put a plank against the boat’s side so the women could get on board, walked up it and turned to Harry from the deck.
‘Come on, Dad.’ Jack held his hand out to him, before anyone else. Harry felt quite choked as he climbed on board.
Maybe Tilly shouldn’t have worn shoes with high, pointy heels. She nearly fell over when they stuck between the planks on the jetty, so the kids got away and ran ahead of her, running up the gangplank until Jack put his hands under Wayne’s arms and swung him aboard, laughing. It was a wonderful, happy moment, when Harry thought everything might be on the mend. Little Wayne danced with excitement as he landed on the deck, shrieking out questions in his high, piping voice.
‘Uncle Jack, is this the boat you stole from Granddad?’
Harry groaned inside as the moment crumbled and the laughter in Jack’s eyes turned to pain. He let the kid go, very gently, and glared at Harry. That old, defiant look was in his eyes again.
‘Jack, I…’
Jack turned his back.
‘Tilly, you’ll have to take those shoes off.’ His voice was flat, like he’d lost interest in the day.
‘What, and spoil a decent pair of tights?’
‘Those heels will wreck the deck, Tilly.’
‘But we’ve come over here special to see the boat.’
‘Then take your shoes off.’
Like his mum said, the boy could be so stubborn. He wouldn’t give in, even when Tilly had a huff and said she wanted to take the children home. The wife said she was too old to go swinging on ropes and wouldn’t feel safe to climb on board anyway, so they all left.
Harry looked back as they crossed the yard, wondering if they’d been too hasty. On the boat, The Slut was giving Jack a hug and George was watching them from the end of the jetty where she was tidying up ropes, still in her workmen’s gloves. It had all started out with the best of intentions. But for The Slut, it might have worked.
VII: Diary of Edvard Ahlquist, Volume 39
30 th January. Wind SE, 4, rain.
Jack came again. He doesn’t talk about Charlotte much. I think they’re having a rocky time. She rang him, this morning, and gave him a lot of verbal. Not sure what that was all about.
Bring her over, I said, take my room with the big bed, but I think he likes having time out.
He’d find it easier to get a job now if he’d gone to university. Should have done, he was bright enough. Always reading. When he came over here as a kid, he only wanted to do two things – sail and read. Sailing was fun, but words were a hunger for him. If he’d have been my son I’d have encouraged him to stay on at school, but Harry didn’t want to know, and Jack was always trying to please his father, back then.
Learn a trade, Harry told him, and you’ll never starve. Carpentry, perhaps, because Jack was good with his hands. But Jack wanted to prove himself, and followed his father into the armed forces.
Maybe that’s why he went into the Marines, to impress Harry. I think that’s what he’s always needed – his Dad’s approval. Harry would never praise him, though. He’d think it would make Jack soft or big headed. Harry’s hold over Jack is never to be pleased, whatever Jack does.
Poor kid. Fancy spending your life needing something you’ll never get.
VIII: JACK
Chippy Alan fished a spark plug out of a cleansing bath of petrol, wiped it dry and screwed it back into Draca’s engine casing.
‘Now try it.’ He climbed back up the steps into the cockpit to give Jack space to work the crank handle.
Jack prayed to whatever gods ruled boat machinery, and heaved. And again. On the third pull the engine coughed, rattled, coughed some more and settled into a noisy, irregular clatter.
‘Good man, Scotty.’ Jack patted the casing and adj
usted the petrol/paraffin mix until the noise subsided into a steadier hum.
‘Looks like you’re burning old rags,’ George called from beside the tiller. Jack poked his head out of the hatch. George had twisted to watch a cloud of dark, oily smoke drifting on the wind astern of them.
‘More like engine oil.’ Chippy wiped his hands on a rag. Behind Jack, Scotty made a single, explosive sound, somewhere between a backfire and a dropped hammer, and died. The line of smoke stopped as if someone had lifted a dirty paintbrush from a sheet of paper. Chippy shrugged. He didn’t look surprised.
‘What did your dad do to it?’
Jack told him, as best he knew.
Chippy pursed his lips. ‘You don’t feel like asking him back to do it again?’
‘Not if I can help it.’
‘I’ll do my best, but I’m a shipwright, not a mechanic. You might need a new engine.’
Jack groaned. ‘I can’t afford a new engine.’ The bank loan was nearly gone. There’d be nothing more until the lawyer was granted probate on Grandpa’s will.
‘It belongs in a museum, not a working boat.’ Chippy sat on a cockpit bench, still wiping fuel off his fingers.
‘It’s always been a bit temperamental.’ Scotty was part of the ship. He needed to be coaxed into helping, that’s all.
‘And it’s petrol.’ Chippy sounded disapproving. Petrol engines are more of a fire risk in a boat. ‘Don’t put sentiment before safety.’
‘Petrol/paraffin. Grandpa wanted to keep her in her original state.’
George sat with one elbow hooked over the coaming and the other arm lying on the tiller, almost shapeless in a loose sweatshirt. She squinted upwards at the new mast, where they’d set the standing rigging that braced the mast and bowsprit but not yet the running rigging that worked the sails.
‘Hence no radar.’
‘Nor satnav, but you can do that on a tablet computer these days.’
George pushed the tiller. ‘No auto-steer, neither.’
Jack lifted a light line and block out of a locker. ‘But she’ll hold her course in almost any wind if you lash the tiller.’ He was beginning to feel defensive about his ship.
George touched one of the belaying posts beside the cockpit, a thick, upright block of timber with a horizontal metal rod through the top that was used for securing the running rigging. The square post had been worn almost to a circle and polished a rich honey brown by over a century of use.
‘And no winches.’ Modern boats had drum winches that could tighten rigging with relative ease. George had a teasing look in her eye.
‘Nah. You need muscles in this ship. Real sailing.’
‘I love mussels. Especially steamed with a nice plate of fries.’
Jack pretended to ignore her. ‘You can’t be shellfish in this ship. Everyone has to pull their own weight.’
They exchanged a flicker of eye contact. Jack enjoyed her company, even if she was Charlotte’s new best friend.
‘All the more reason to have an engine you can depend on,’ Chippy Alan sniffed.
‘She sailed without an engine at all for her first thirty years.’ Maybe he’d move back on board when Draca was fitted out and operational.
‘Not in this harbour she didn’t.’ Chippy was right. Draca’s keel dropped nearly seven feet below the surface, and there were too many twists in the channels and too much tide for a big boat to rely on sail alone. She had to have a working engine.
‘I need to get a job. Earn some money.’
‘Welcome back to the labouring classes.’ George stretched out her legs, bare and shapely beneath her shorts but not long enough to reach across the cockpit. She squinted into the sun as a weak splash of sunlight made its way through the cloud and turned the orange streak through her hair into a Day-Glo yellow.
‘There’s plenty of work around, this time of year.’ Chippy threw his rag into a bucket. ‘Tourist stuff, mainly.’
‘In olden times,’ George opened one eye, ‘once we’d bent on the sails, she’d be considered seaworthy.’
Jack wanted to sail her even more than George. He’d spent half an hour that morning on the boatyard’s pontoons, admiring Draca from all angles. She now had all her ballast aboard, eleven tons of iron he’d heaved and stowed by hand, and she floated like an ocean thoroughbred, beautiful, begging to be unleashed. It was like having a new sports car and not being allowed to drive it.
‘In olden times,’ Chippy’s tone was more cautious, ‘they didn’t have no echo sounders, nor electric lights, nor any of the stuff that needs batteries to work. Which means a motor to charge the batteries.’
‘The batteries would last us for a day sail, though, if they’re topped up with shore power when we go. And Grandpa kept all the old oil lamps working.’
‘But even your iPad needs charging, else you’re back to charts and sextants.’
‘We wouldn’t need it out in the bay though. That’s our back yard.’ Jack only noticed the ‘We’ after he’d said it.
‘Unless you get fog.’ The wash from a passing boat lifted the bow as it passed under Draca and the pontoon. Beyond Chippy’s grizzled head, the bowsprit rose, dipped and rose again against the expanse of water beyond, as if to say ‘What are you waiting for?’
‘We could choose a clear day with steady winds. Wait for this storm to pass.’ The watery sun was a sign of a forecast blow. ‘We need another few days to finish fitting out, anyway. Say a week including sails and running rigging.’
‘And you really need a shakedown sail to make sure everything else works.’ The look in George’s eye dared him to go.
‘I’d need an experienced crew though.’ He kept his eyes on George, returning the challenge.
‘You mean I don’t qualify?’
Chippy stared at both of them and snorted in a way that said they were fools. ‘Looks like I’d better strip down that engine then.’
*
Jack’s ghost foot, the one that he could feel but that wasn’t there, woke him that night. The pain was like a bad cramp that he couldn’t fix by stretching; he just had to lie there and take it until it faded. It always went, eventually, though it could leave him panting on the bed with the covers pushed off his sweating body, far from sleep.
And in the dark, on his own, the memories would come.
Of shock as the IED detonated and the ground itself swung a fist into his belly.
Of weightlessness as the truck dropped back through boiling clouds of dirt to hit unseen, solid earth.
Of anger at being suckered into a trap. Anger at the betrayal that would have made it possible.
Of shoulder-barging the truck door as they landed, unbelievably upright, and training kicked in. Deploy. Spread out. Take cover. Assess.
Except his legs wouldn’t work. Nothing fucking worked. He just dangled there useless with his head on the ground and his foot trapped inside, with his leg buckled at this obscene angle that hurt like hell with his weight hanging off the fractures.
And of Dusty Miller running towards him through thinning dust, while Jack shook his head from side to side, making a keening noise that was more in his skull than his ears, because by then the fuel had caught and the truck was burning. And each time he threw his head to the left, Dusty was two paces closer until he was no closer at all but sinking to the ground as if he was suddenly very tired. But Jack had his foot in the fire and all he could think was ‘What the fuck are you doing?Get the hell over here and get me out of this’.
Worst of all, of Dusty lying there staring at him with his mouth working but no sound. Every now and then as Jack thrashed around there’d be the dust splash of a bullet around Dusty and a pop as if Jack’s ears were under water. Such a harmless little pop, like a kid’s cap gun.
And of smells, because Chalky White was still inside, slumped against the wheel, and Jack had glimpsed the mess where his legs had been. Pray God he was dead before he burned.
The noise in the garden made him lift his head off the
pillow, ears straining. It had sounded like the creak that the boat seat made when someone sat in it and the wood shifted with the weight. Moonlight shone around the curtains as if the garden was full of hot snow, and then faded to blackness in a heartbeat as a cloud passed over. That wooden groan was enough for Jack to swing out of bed, pull on his leg and stand at the window with a curtain lifted. The landscape outside was monochrome under a thin, glassy sky that shone like old men’s tears.
Jack couldn’t see the whole garden from his old room, just a tapering strip of lawn fading towards the trees and the harbour. The corner by the boat seat was out of sight, hidden by the bulk of the main bedroom. What he could see were patterns of silver grass between black shadows of trees, shadows that moved as the wind pushed ahead of the storm.
Then a hint of another kind of movement. Just a glimpse of a leg or a body that appeared and disappeared beyond the hard edge of the building. Jack lurched out onto the landing, kicking his prosthetic foot free of the trailing jeans, and into Grandpa’s room, where he could see the whole garden.
Nothing, at first. But then a shadow moved within a shadow, near the boat seat. Enough to show him shoulders, a waist and an arm that gripped a long, thin shape that could have been a weapon. A head-high movement that might have been long hair or the plume of a helmet, moving in the wind. Jack backed away, keeping his face well back from the window, in the steady, slow way he’d moved when the Taliban were close but unaware.
At the bottom of the stairs, his ceremonial sword lay propped against the wall, waiting for him to find it a home. The blade made almost no sound against the leather scabbard as he drew it.
The kitchen also offered no view of the boat seat, only the table outside. The moon shadow of the house lay in a hard line across the grass.
His mistake was the bolt on the kitchen door, which stuck then snapped back against its mounting, a sound as soft but as certain as a detonator. Knowing that surprise was lost, Jack threw the door open and rushed into the moonlight, sword raised. He hadn’t thought about whether he was going to challenge whoever was there or hit them with the sword and ask questions afterwards.
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