Draca

by Geoffrey Gudgion

  ‘I think you beat yourself up too much.’

  They were quiet for a while, but the silence was natural.

  ‘Would you come out in Draca again?’

  ‘Might do. If you got rid of that figurehead.’

  Jack snorted. ‘I probably will. After we scatter Grandpa’s ashes.’

  ‘It’s evil, Jack. Like it’s aware.’

  ‘I don’t see that.’

  ‘Maybe it needs you.’

  This time the silence was less comfortable.

  ‘I’m glad you came,’ Jack said eventually. ‘What you said about staying friends…’ He tried to find words with the right sensitivity. ‘Charlotte and I were friends for a long time before…’

  ‘Before you was lovers.’

  ‘Yes.’ How do you tell a girl you know how to be a friend, just a friend? ‘I think, in a way, it was our best time.’

  George stood up, a little abruptly.

  ‘I gotta go. Time for work.’

  As she walked down the hill, Jack wondered if he’d said the wrong thing.

  III: HARRY

  Harry found it hard to read Old Eddie’s diary. Eddie used to have such neat writing, in the same curly copperplate that you see on fancy certificates. In his last diary it was all angles, and none of the angles the same, like the legs of a dead spider.

  It was sad, too. Harry knew that his father went a bit weird, towards the end, but he hadn’t realised he was deranged. It was quite a blow to realise his own father was crazy. All right, so they called him ‘Mad Eddie’, well, at least some people did, but that was like a nickname, a label they gave him because he could be so bloody exasperating. Finding out that the guy was really off his trolley was embarrassing, like when he wrote about that carving as if it were alive, and raved about Vikings in the trees. He could have been locked up in a loony bin for that.

  It was obviously the cancer. It got to his brain, before he died. Thank God they didn’t have to have him certified.

  Then there was the stuff Eddie wrote about how Harry had a downer on Jack. So hurtful, that, even if Eddie was losing his marbles. The wife said Harry should go and talk to Jack about it, just the two of them, but Harry wasn’t sure. How can anyone turn up and ask ‘Was I a good father?’ It’d be too embarrassing for both of them. Besides, they hadn’t exactly parted on good terms after that lunch. But Mary got upset and threw the diary at him so Harry gave in and drove over there, one afternoon after work, midweek when he knew The Slut wouldn’t be there.

  It was awkward. Jack just stared at him on the doorstep, blinking at him with bloodshot eyes. He hadn’t shaved, either. Really was letting himself go. After a bit, Harry swallowed and found his voice.

  ‘I thought we might go for a walk. Have a chat.’

  Jack looked at him long and hard, but then he shrugged and turned back inside the cottage. He didn’t invite Harry in, just left the door open, but Harry followed anyway while Jack fetched a jacket.

  They didn’t discuss where to walk, but Harry headed towards the hills that rise about six hundred feet behind the cottage, in a line that runs for miles, all the way down to the cliffs at Anfel Head. It would be good exercise and there were great views from the top. An old bridleway angles up the side of the hills, and they didn’t talk much at first, just got used to each other’s presence. It was easier that way, to let things come to the surface in their own time.

  The boy was the first one to call a rest, when they’d hardly gone a couple of miles and climbed maybe halfway, up to the level where it gets really steep and the farmland becomes open grass hillside. Jack called after him, and when Harry turned the boy had thrown himself on a wooden seat by the track. That made Harry quite pleased, at first. Jack was nearly thirty years younger, and Harry wasn’t even puffed. He’d been in front and hadn’t seen that the boy was struggling. Harry went back and sat beside him so he could get his breath back.

  ‘I used to enjoy our walks, when you was a kid.’

  ‘You were always keen to prove how strong you were.’ Jack closed his eyes, breathing hard. He looked pale.

  ‘Got you fit though, didn’t it? You can thank those walks for getting you into the marines.’

  Jack bent down, rolled up his trouser leg and unstrapped his foot. God, the boy knew how to make Harry feel small. The limp was so slight now, and he’d been behind him…

  Jack began to massage some cream into his stump, working his thumbs and fingers into the flesh and grunting with what might have been pain or relief. The skin was pink and blotchy, and seamed with scar tissue like a badly wrapped present.

  ‘Are you going to tell me what happened?’

  ‘Are you sure you want to know?’

  Now what did he mean by that? ‘Of course.’

  ‘I already told you. IED. Underneath a truck.’ Jack spoke in short, clipped sentences but flat, like he was a machine. ‘The blast broke both my legs and killed my driver. My foot jammed in the door and the petrol tank blew up. I hung there until the fire burned my boot off. Another man died trying to get me out. End of story. Shall we walk?’ His freshly creamed stump made a soft, sucking noise as he pushed it into the socket.

  ‘Let’s sit here a while.’ Harry felt bad now about striding out, and that stump looked angry. ‘Enjoy the view.’

  They were high enough to see over the heathland and salt marsh to the harbour. The sky threatened rain and the clouds were moving away from them at quite a lick, out over the harbour and inland, but it was calmer in the shelter of the hill.

  ‘Old Eddie wrote that you won a medal.’ That was one of the entries that hurt most of all, suggesting that Harry would have rubbished it. It was hard to forgive Eddie that, even if he was mad.

  Jack winced. ‘Did he? I didn’t read that far.’

  ‘But did you? Win a medal?’

  ‘Not for this I didn’t.’ Jack lifted his foot off the ground.

  ‘But you were given one?’

  Jack sighed. ‘Operational Service Medal. Campaign medal. Standard issue.’

  ‘Ah.’ That made sense. The boy stretched out his leg and pushed his hands into his jacket. He wasn’t making this easy for Harry. Maybe he was expecting an apology for that lunch that had gone wrong.

  ‘Does it hurt?’

  ‘Sometimes. It can chafe when I walk. The foot can be painful too, even though it’s not there.’

  Harry squirmed on the seat.

  ‘How’s the boat?’

  ‘Sailing OK. Needs a new engine, but I can’t afford that until the solicitor is granted probate and the estate pays out.’

  ‘We must scatter Old Eddie’s ashes together soon. Let’s fix a date when we get back.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Eddie said you should have gone to university.’

  Jack slumped a little. ‘Bit late for that now.’

  ‘You still could though, especially with Old Eddie’s money. Become a mature student or whatever they call them.’

  ‘Might do.’ The boy watched him as if he wondered where all this was leading.

  ‘No one in our family has ever gone to university.’ Harry tried to sound enthusiastic but Jack just looked surprised.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re getting ambitious for me?’

  Harry closed his eyes, trying not to react. Jack reminded him of a youth he had had to sack once, all sullen and hostile no matter how much Harry had tried to motivate him, the sort of kid who hunches into his hoodie and says ‘yeah, whatever’ if you offer him the chance to do something different. Jack didn’t wear a hoodie, and he used clever words, but the attitude was the same. Sullen. Unresponsive.

  ‘Every father wants the best for his son.’

  ‘Until they achieve it.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ Harry was getting pretty riled. Jack could only push him so far.

  ‘Do you remember the day I came home and told you I’d been selected for officer training?’

  ‘Sounds like you’re going to remind me.’ Maybe th
ey should have kept walking.

  ‘I was so bloody proud. Selected from the ranks to lead the finest troops in the world. I was walking on air. Do you remember what you said?’

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘You asked if I was afraid that they’d find me out, one day.’

  Harry shifted on the seat. ‘You’re twisting it. Taking it out of context.’

  ‘What context would you like me to put on it? That you didn’t think your son should be an officer, or that you didn’t think he could hack it if he did?’

  ‘I was worried for you. Didn’t want you to be hurt, if you got ahead of yourself. You can understand that.’ The first rain began to fall, in large spots that soaked through to his scalp as soon as they hit his hair. Soon they’d have to move.

  ‘Ahead of myself or above myself? Our family have never been officers either, have we?’

  ‘What’s happening to you, boy? You was never like this before.’ Never this aggressive. Never so disrespectful. Harry stood up. Stump or no stump, he needed to walk.

  ‘It was the proudest day of my life, and you took me off at the knees.’

  ‘One chance remark, and you’re letting it sour your life.’ Harry was really angry now. He had to leave before he started shouting.

  ‘But it wasn’t one chance remark, was it, Dad? It was every bloody time that I achieved something!’

  ‘If that’s what you think of your father, after all I’ve done for you, then, then…’ Harry turned away, striding up the hill.

  ‘Grandpa’s diary.’ Jack shouted loudly enough to stop Harry. ‘One of the last entries I read said something about never getting your approval. What else did he say, Dad?’

  Harry put his head down into the rain and walked. God, he’d tried, but Jack had finally, totally ticked him off. He bellowed his last remark over his shoulder.

  ‘He was mad.’

  IV: JACK

  How was it that Jack and his father could never meet without fighting? Jack promised himself every time he saw Harry that he wouldn’t lose his rag, and within ten minutes he could feel the tension rising. Jack never used to shout at him. Wouldn’t have dared, but that hillside had been an echo of childhood. How many times had he watched Harry stride away while he struggled to keep up?

  Why is Tilly allowed to stay home and play, Daddy?

  If she was allowed her dolls, why couldn’t he read a book?

  Tilly’s a girl.

  Just before they stopped, when the leg was hurting like hell, Jack had this distant memory of sitting by a path, bawling his kiddy eyes out because he was too tired to go on.

  Toughen up, little soldier, you won’t get big and strong like that.

  At least Jack hadn’t told him about Charlotte. His father would have been so bloody smug.

  Not that Jack would have had much to tell him. He hadn’t spoken to Charlotte since the night of the row on board, although she’d sent him a text to say she’d come over at the weekend, ‘to talk things through’.

  Jack’s fuse was definitely getting shorter. But then, he hadn’t had time to prepare himself. He’d only just come ashore for a shower. He’d taken to living on board. Not because of Dusty Miller – Jack hadn’t seen him under the trees for weeks – but just while the cottage next door was let. Jack had grown used to the isolation of Grandpa’s cottage and had made the mistake of wearing shorts one hot morning, forgetting that he had neighbours. Within a minute the children next door were glued to the fence, open-mouthed, eyes wide and locked on Jack’s leg. The older one nudged the younger one as if shooing him away, knowing that they shouldn’t stare, but both stayed, watching him move around the garden. After that they found reasons to keep looking, even when Jack was wearing chinos.

  He found he liked sleeping on board. The bed in the sleeping cabin was a little cramped at the foot, but there was a subtle movement to the boat, even when it was moored in Freshwater Bay, that was soothing. The sounds of the water against the hull were gentle enough to lull him to sleep, and he could mask the scuttles so that the early-morning light didn’t wake him. It was cosier than the cottage, even if he did have to row ashore for a shower. What he couldn’t understand was why, if he was sleeping more soundly, he was so perpetually tired.

  And there’d not been a hint of anything like George’s experiences, so he began to think the ghost had been in her mind. There were still dreams, but the dreams were of sailing and the slow breathing of the ocean, not of agony and death. He even wanted them.

  Until the night after his row with Harry.

  He’d had six solid hours’ sleep before the oars woke him, but was still deeply under. Before that, in his dream, there’d been a sense of excitement, the dry-mouthed tension that comes before action. He crouched with Dusty Miller near a compound, watching, thumbs on safeties, senses on hyperdrive. No words, no radio, hand signals only. Dawn breaking, night-vision goggles off. A whole troop is with him, behind him. Why are they bunched together? The boat, of course. The engine won’t work so they have to use oars, but the oars make too much noise. There’s a growl of wood on wood like distant thunder, even though every oar is wrapped with wet sheepskin to muffle the sound, and with each rumble the boat surges forward and water bubbles under the forefoot. Dusty and Jack stand in the bow, one each side of the dragon, ready to jump as soon as the keel touches. They must get close, under the walls, kill the sentries silently and be in among the enemy when the real fighting begins. Then there would be the wild exhilaration of combat, a taste that is both fear and joy, sharp-focus adrenalin and dusty confusion. The motion jerked as the keel struck, and Jack leaped off the bow, expecting to splash into shallows and run, crouching, for cover.

  His right foot hit the cabin’s deck before he realised that it was just the boat snagging against its buoy, and he came fully awake as his left stump kept going and he crumpled sideways into a locker. Folded into the corner with his cheek against cold wood, Jack stared into the near-darkness of the cabin, disoriented. He expected to be unleashing the choreography of battle: the crouching rush of fire teams, the murderous double taps. Practised. Synchronised. Adrenalin was surging through his body. He lay there panting, with his weaponless fingers scrabbling at carpet fibres.

  Oars. Jack could still hear them, even as his mind registered the loom of dawn through a shaded scuttle, and his hands reached for his prosthetic foot. In the main cabin, the skylight shone with weak, pearl-grey, featureless light. Fog. It clung dripping to the rigging, dewed the cockpit and thickened the air so that he could not even tell the direction of the shore. At the limit of vision a darker mass moved, a mere suggestion of a vessel, but the fading sounds were of many pairs of oars, and the wash that had the boat tugging at its buoy was of a larger vessel than Draca. A vessel too large to take easy avoiding action if it came across them in the dark, and Jack could see no lights.

  He hailed into the fog, wondering what kind of idiots, and what kind of boat, went rowing through mooring lines in that kind of visibility, but when Jack strained to hear a reply there was silence, not even the rush of water past a hull.

  But as the wash reached the shore, the wavelets on the shingle once again made the whispering of many men, a long, rippling sigh of ‘f-aay-th… f-aay-th’.

  V: GEORGE

  George thought that summers flowed out of Furzey like the ebb tide. In peak season, the place was awash with families, a high water that she thought would never end. Then, a bit at a time, the big crowds faded away until the only ones left were the families with holiday homes or long summer lets, squeezing out their last days on the coast. Soon it would be the best time of the year, those weeks between the schools going back and the onset of the autumn storms. Then the visitors would be mainly old empty-nesters and young lovers, so the locals could kick back and enjoy the sun while it was still warm. Already the harbour was less crowded. There was space to sail without dodging dinghies.

  George took the marina’s workboat out by herself, just for fun, on a day when wind and rain k
ept all but the serious sailors off the water, and motored past Witt Point. Draca was at her buoy in Freshwater Bay, with her dinghy riding astern, so Jack must have been on board, even though she couldn’t see him. She didn’t go too close as he might have thought she was pushing, but George was worried about him. She guessed all his friends were in the marines, and she knew what it was like to be alone.

  She made an excuse to call him, a simple admin question about his account, and found he was living on board. That worried her even more. George didn’t like the thought of him cooped up with whatever nastiness lived in Draca, even if Jack couldn’t see it.

  Two days later, on a morning of glassy calm, Draca motored out from behind Witt Point. George would have known it was Draca, even a couple of miles away and with her sails down. There was no other boat on the water with an outline like hers: big, flush-decked, with a long bowsprit and a square sail yard, and a counter that pushed way out over the water to stretch the sail area. With the binoculars, George could make out the figurehead at the stem and see Jack’s head and shoulders at the tiller. When he reached the main channel he turned left towards the boatyard rather than right towards the sea. Chippy Alan joined her as Draca angled in towards the fuelling pontoon.

  ‘That engine’s smoking a bit.’

  Was it only the engine? There was a rain-cloud darkness about the boat that unsettled George. When Chippy took the bow line and Jack put the engine astern, George wasn’t sure how much of the fog around the stern was real and how much was the shadow around Jack. Chippy and Jack called to each other as Jack killed the motor, but George watched, thinking ‘Feck, if I can see it, I mean really see it with my eyes open, it’s getting strong.’ She knew what that meant.

  ‘You gotta get that engine fixed.’ Chippy was cheerful, but then he could only see smoke, not the darkness.

  ‘No money left, Chippy.’ Jack sounded happy enough but it was all a sham, like he was an engine made of glass. Any minute he could come to a crumbling stop as it shattered. The darkness swam around him as he jumped ashore.