Draca

by Geoffrey Gudgion

  Tilly stood there, stuffed into wide, tight jeans that squeezed her belly into the shape of an over-iced cupcake. The look on her face was somewhere between a grimace of anger and a smirk of triumph.

  ‘You took your time.’ She barged past him into the cottage. Her children followed her, pushing excitedly into the hall and squealing loud enough to make Jack’s head ache until they saw his prosthetic foot and shut up, staring at it wide-eyed. He’d just wrapped a towel around his middle.

  ‘Tilly, what the hell are you doing?’ He looked at his watch. Shit, he was late for work. Jack turned to follow her but left the door open. Tilly’s husband was still on the drive, hanging back, looking uncomfortable. Jack and Darren never had much to talk about. He was probably a decent enough bloke but, well, he was also the sort of guy who’d marry Tilly. Jack wasn’t sure what he did for a living, but it involved driving the van that was now parked outside.

  ‘Wouldn’t want you running off with our stuff, would we?’

  Her kids lost interest in Jack’s foot and ran into the front room.

  ‘Your stuff?’ The children started poking at Grandpa’s model of a Viking longship. ‘Please don’t play with that, guys.’

  ‘You do what you want, Wayne. Just don’t break nuffin.’ She turned to Jack. ‘I’m entitled, see? You get the boat, we get the house. That’s fair, innit?’

  ‘Half the house, I thought? The other half to Dad?’

  ‘We thought we’d live here until it’s sold, save on rent, see? But Dad says he’s in no rush to sell.’

  An echo of the nightmare sounded in Jack’s head. Not the fear, not the certainty of pain and death, just the sad weight of betrayal.

  ‘Couldn’t you at least have given me the chance to get dressed?’

  Tilly sniffed. ‘It’s plenty late enough for most people. You go ahead, though. We’re not going anywhere.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Tilly.’ Jack stopped. Shouting sent stabs of pain through his head and forced him to continue quietly. ‘You could have warned me.’

  ‘I called. You didn’t pick up. Is your woman upstairs?’

  The absence of Charlotte’s name or even the word ‘wife’ was a calculated insult.

  ‘She’s not here.’

  Tilly’s sad little ‘oh’ of disappointment told Jack all he needed to know. It was a Saturday, Charlotte could be expected to be there and Tilly had wanted the pleasure of throwing her out. Jack was surprised Harry hadn’t come along to watch.

  Jack was still making himself coffee when the children started screaming upstairs, and they found them fighting in the bathroom. They’d filled the bath with water and tried to play boats with Grandpa’s longship model, but it had turned upside down and begun to disintegrate. Tiny, immaculately crafted slivers of wood floated on the surface. The older one, the boy, was trying to push the pieces back together, mashing them in the process. The bow of that pathetic, dripping wreck had started to spring apart like the empty husk of a seed pod. The girl was crying in the corner, saying it was all the boy’s fault and she’d told him he shouldn’t.

  It was time to go.

  Outside it was nearly high tide, with enough depth of water to bring Draca’s bow into the jetty, so Jack could load directly from the shore. Most of his stuff was still in the suitcases Charlotte had brought, and the rest he packed in half an hour. Darren even helped him push it down the garden in a wheelbarrow and make a pile on the jetty.

  There was one awful moment when Jack thought Draca’s engine wasn’t going to start. It was a calm day, with too little wind to sail out of Freshwater Bay, and he prayed to whatever gods looked after the Ahlquists to spare him the humiliation of pushing his stuff back though the garden to his car. But after much heaving on the starter crank, Scotty the engine stuttered, caught, coughed again and settled into a slightly asthmatic purr. Jack kept her ticking over as they loaded.

  There was still a little of the flood tide running, so Draca was pointing the right way, and Jack didn’t look back after he slipped from the jetty. He wouldn’t give Tilly that satisfaction. He just left a cloud of smoke behind him, spreading over the surface like an oily fart.

  Jack’s head cleared as he wove through the islands across the harbour, inhaling a mouldy, almost-autumn freshness from the shore. Some of the trees had their first touch of yellow. He wanted to be away from there, to be turning for the open sea not the boatyard, to cut the ties as easily as he’d slipped the mooring. All ties except George. A mental picture formed of George braced at the tiller with the wind fluttering that orange-streaked hair around her face, and the wake stretching behind them as the land sank below the horizon. It wouldn’t matter where they were going, but sunshine would be good. Sunshine and steady winds and endless chances to see the way her face lightened when she smiled at him, that look that said everything was OK.

  George wasn’t smiling as she watched Jack bring Draca alongside one of the boatyard’s pontoons. She stood with her fingers pushed into the pockets of her shorts, thumbs hooked outside, in her slightly slouched, shoulders-back, don’t-mess-with-me posture. She took his line and helped him tie up without a word. When he killed the engine she was standing on the deck by the cockpit, frowning down at him.

  ‘I had things I needed you to do this morning.’

  ‘Sorry. Like I said on the phone, I didn’t know my sister was coming.’ Jack hugged her under her bum and lifted her, holding her with her legs dangling and angling his face up to hers. ‘Give me a kiss.’

  She allowed a perfunctory touching of lips. ‘You need a shave.’ She sniffed. ‘Heavy night, was it?’

  Jack put her down but kept his arms around her body, savouring her presence. ‘I vented a few feelings.’

  George pushed him away and lifted her chin towards the foredeck, which was piled with suitcases and bags. ‘Do you want to put that stuff in the sail loft?’

  ‘Have you thought any more about going away?’ Jack tried to hug her again but she broke free. George was in a huff.

  ‘How’s your engine working? Looked like you were burning coal on the way in.’ The question sounded part serious, part prevarication.

  ‘Hasn’t let me down for weeks. Come on, Chippy’s back tomorrow, isn’t he?’

  ‘Only light work.’

  ‘He could man the office, give you a break.’

  George stood braced against the hatch, one hand either side of the companion ladder. Below her, the chart-room and saloon were crammed with more stuff. She shivered for a moment, although it was a warm day. ‘This boat gives me the creeps.’

  ‘I think Draca has kept me going, these last few months. Draca and then you. And she’s my home now.’

  George turned to face him. ‘The last two weeks, you’ve hardly been near her, and you’ve been different. Happier. More alive. When you’re on board, it’s like something’s got its claws into you.’

  ‘I’m just pissed off with my father.’

  ‘It’s more than that. I’m worried about you.’

  ‘You’re my best medicine. Come away with me. Please?’ Jack faltered on the edge of an admission, and then said it anyway. ‘I love you, George.’

  At that, she held him. It was a while before she spoke.

  ‘OK. One night. I’ll probably sleep in the saloon. And if it freaks me out, we come straight back, OK?’

  Jack tightened his hug, but she pushed him back so she could look into his eyes.

  ‘On one condition, Jack. Dry boat. No booze.’

  ‘I can do that.’ Of course he could. For a couple of days, anyway. With the right incentive.

  *

  They made an early start on a day of high, dry cloud, and rode the westerly tidal flow into The Race, pushed by a cool south-easterly that was forecast to strengthen through the day. That stretch of water could be exhilarating or seriously nasty, but with the wind on their quarter and the tide behind they had a smooth, fast passage. Once Anfel Head dropped astern and the morning passed without incident, some of the
tension in George’s shoulders slipped away. She took the helm, cautiously at first, but Draca was in a good mood and behaved herself. Jack went forward to enjoy the sensation in the bow, where the boat felt more alive than anywhere. The stern would lift to a wave and the bow dip so that the bobstay, the steel line running down from the bowsprit to the stem, sliced the water. Draca would surge forward in a bubbling rush and the dragon would be low enough for its base to touch the water, like wetting its feet, before it rose with its head glaring at the horizon. Jack stood with his legs astride the bowsprit, with the staysail bellied beside him and his hand braced on the forestay, where he could feel the hum of Draca’s happiness.

  His balance was improving. He could walk back across the deck, with no need to crawl, and George was grinning as he came. Jack’s chest filled with contentment, not just with George, but with the knowledge that at last she was experiencing Draca at her best, sailing sweetly, proving her pedigree. It was like reconciling two dear friends. When Jack and George sat together in the cockpit, leg to leg, his arm around her, the world was a wonderful place. From time to time one of them would shift to adjust a sail, but then they’d settle back into that companionable huddle with George steering one-handed, her other hand resting inside Jack’s thigh. They didn’t talk much, but the soft movement of her fingertips spoke volumes. When Jack asked her what she’d like for lunch, she twisted to kiss him, slid her hand a little higher up his leg and answered ‘you’.

  They found an anchorage where high cliffs dropped to a bare, stony beach. In the far distance, two walkers strode the coastal path but otherwise it was a place of crying seagulls and the faint, gravel sounds of waves breaking on shingle. In the cockpit, she kissed him hard, almost possessively, but squealed when he found the edge of her jumper and slid his hands inside.

  ‘Warm your hands up!’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Not on me. Let’s go below.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Well it’s too frigging cold up here.’ She led the way.

  At first Jack didn’t understand her mood, that hardness in her eyes as she pulled off her top. This was more assertion than seduction. Then he realised that George was putting her stamp on Draca, almost as if she had to prove her right to be there. The way she unclipped her bra, spilling her curves, was downright aggressive. She turned, bare-breasted, reaching for him, in the middle of the saloon.

  ‘Let’s not go forward.’

  Jack understood. Not in the sleeping cabin. He bent to nuzzle her.

  ‘Jack, can you smell something?’

  ‘You. S’wonderful.’ He inhaled her scent: soap and salt, wool, a little perspiration, musk. He wanted her badly.

  George gasped and broke away. Jack looked up, alarmed, as she covered her breasts with her arms as if there was someone else in the cabin. She backed against the table, looking around her with eyes that were suddenly wide and frightened.

  ‘Jack, can’t you sense it?’

  ‘Sense what?’ It was just a cabin. Varnished wood. Racks of sailing books behind brass retaining bars. Leather benches that they’d been about to put to very good use. And Jack had a lovely, half-naked woman in front of him and a painful pressure in his trousers.

  ‘It’s here. It knows we’re here.’

  ‘I’m not feeling anything.’ Jack opened empty hands in a way that showed the double entendre was deliberate. A nervous smile flickered across her face and was gone. Her eyes still darted from side to side. She thumped the table beside her, angrily, but kept the other arm across her breasts.

  ‘George, you’re not getting spooked, are you?’

  A look crossed her face that was almost a snarl, and which became smouldering defiance as she lifted her arm away from her breasts and braced herself backwards against the table.

  ‘Not a ghost of a chance.’

  ‘That’s the spirit.’

  George lifted her bottom onto the table and sat there, cross-legged, shoulders back, breathing deeply. ‘I’m just going to think nice, calm thoughts.’ She turned her hands palms upwards on her thighs, thumbs circled onto middle fingers, imitating the classic yoga pose. Her eyes were now locked on Jack’s, and he wished he didn’t see the fear there. She was almost shaking.

  ‘George, you sure about this?’

  ‘No frigging spook is going to tell me where I can’t have my lover. Om manipadme hum…’ She waggled her head from side to side, parodying the mannerisms of an Indian guru, until he stepped forward and kissed her, wrapping her in his arms. As the kiss lengthened she uncrossed her legs and folded them behind his backside, pulling him closer.

  ‘Om…’

  ‘George, I love you.’ He loved her for her courage. He loved her for her humour. He loved her for the body that was soft and urgent against his, and in that instant Draca let out a snarl that reverberated around them as if they were inside the belly of a great, growling beast. Jack could feel it through his foot, and even through his stump. He could feel it through George’s body, as if she sat on throbbing machinery rather than a table.

  There was a heartbeat of shock before George clung to him and screamed.

  III: GEORGE

  George couldn’t believe that Jack had abandoned her there, in the cabin. She was nearly crapping herself, and gripping him so tight it must have hurt, but Jack broke her hold like she was a child, leaving her breathing the evil. He legged it up the steps so fast there might have been every ghost in hell chasing him. She was on her own as she scrambled off the table, with the boat still snarling around her. George grabbed her top as she ran, holding it across her chest until she reached the cockpit and took in great gulps of air. Jack was already on the foredeck when she turned, looking for him, and that horrible, rattling growl stopped with a final crack that jerked the whole ship.

  George almost cried with relief at the sudden quiet. After all that noise there was nothing but sea sounds and the hum of the rigging. There was no smell but sea air. The wind had strengthened, sending whitecaps rolling towards them, and it was cold enough across her back to make her shake. At least, she thought it was the wind.

  Jack turned, with his open shirt flapping around him, and made his way back to her, gripping the stays for balance. He was frowning as he climbed down into the cockpit.

  ‘How the hell did that anchor chain slip?’

  George started to giggle. Jack must have heard the hysteria because he hugged her, running his hand up and down her back to calm her.

  Of course. Heavy iron chain dragged through a metal hawsepipe that was set into the hull. On deck, the sound would have been a natural, end-of-voyage noise. Loud, but normal. Below decks it had been like being trapped inside a drum, and she’d freaked.

  But there was more than that. Whatever it was with Jack’s boat, she’d felt it again. Was it really only her who could smell it?

  ‘I mean, it was secure.’ Jack’s chest resonated against her head as he spoke. ‘There’s a brake on the windlass, and I know I flipped the ratchet to hold it as well. I don’t make that kind of mistake.’

  ‘I felt it, Jack.’ George sniffed into his chest. ‘There’s something nasty in your boat.’ She’d been so frigging determined to beat it, and she’d failed.

  ‘It was just the chain, George. It rattled you.’

  George pushed away from him. ‘Not funny, Jack.’ She pulled her top on. She was getting cold, anyway. There had been a presence down there. Not all the time, though. At first it was just like a draught blowing a bad smell out of a corner. She’d remembered that first time she’d been below decks on Draca, and felt like a trespasser. Well, this time the owner had been home, and he didn’t want her there. For a moment she’d thought ‘Sod you, he’s mine’, and when Jack had said ‘I love you’ she wanted him so bad that she almost forgot the spook until the roaring started. Then the darkness had been all around them, swamping them, squeezing the life out of Jack, and she screamed.

  ‘I’m serious, Jack. It’s there. It’s frigging evil. A
nd it doesn’t want me around.’

  ‘Sure.’ He buttoned his shirt and stuffed it into his trousers.

  ‘Don’t patronise me, Jack. I can sense these things.’

  ‘Yeah. Like you said, you’re psychic.’

  George huddled into the corner of the cockpit, where the cabin gave her some protection from the wind. Jack didn’t look at her as he went down the steps, but he hit the hatch in his frustration and George hugged her knees, feeling miserable.

  She’d blown it. She’d wanted to show that frigging boat that he was hers. If it had been a bit warmer he could have had her anywhere, anyhow. Her man. She’d even had fantasies about him taking her kneeling on the foredeck, with her hands around the neck of that fecking dragon, strangling it. And then when that stinking evil was all around them and the growling started she’d fallen apart. Now Jack was wound up and hitting things and the moment was ruined.

  He didn’t get it. How could anyone be so blind? It was like he saw green fields without smelling newly spread silage, so he’d calmly inhale something that made her want to gag. And now he obviously thought she was imagining it. Even if he couldn’t feel it, at least he might understand that she could.

  When he came back he had a sweater on under thick foul-weather gear, and he’d brought her stuff with him.

  ‘So what happens now?’ Jack watched her put on her bra. Lust smouldered in his face like embers in a dying fire. George didn’t turn away but she was too ticked off with him to make anything of it, and the wind was chill enough across her skin to make her rush.

  ‘I’d like to go back, please. Sorry.’ She didn’t know whether to be angry or embarrassed or just frightened.

  ‘The wind’s against us. It’s a long haul.’ Jack was probably as irritated with her as she was with him.

  ‘The tide’s turning. The easterly flow will help.’

  ‘It’ll still be dark by the time we reach Furzey.’

  ‘Jack, I’m not sleeping below, and it’s too frigging cold to sleep up here.’