Draca

by Geoffrey Gudgion

  ‘Had any thoughts about yesterday?’ George asked him. Neither of them seemed to know where to start, and that seemed as good a place as any. An apology would be good.

  ‘Didn’t Draca do well?’

  George certainly hadn’t expected that slow, appreciative smile.

  ‘You nearly killed us.’

  ‘We were so totally in tune, Draca and me.’ It was as if Jack hadn’t heard her.

  ‘Until you asked her to turn out of danger.’

  Jack’s face fell. He’d heard that.

  ‘You know, Grandpa felt very close out there. He should have been with us. Felt the ship at her best. We’d have laughed at the storm together.’

  ‘Eddie and his friends fell out under Anfel Head. They thought he was going to kill them all. I spoke to Chippy.’

  Jack shrugged deeper into his foul-weather jacket. ‘I wasn’t there. Wouldn’t know.’

  ‘It’s like you’re turning into your grandfather.’

  ‘And the problem is…?’

  ‘Old Eddie? Mad Eddie? Eddie no mates?’

  They stared across the tables at a matt-grey harbour. Rain dripped from the awning, making tinny noises as it hit the tables.

  ‘Jack, do you believe I’m psychic, that I see things other people don’t?’

  ‘I believe you believe it.’ Jack took a sip of coffee and slumped back, waiting for her to say more.

  ‘I think your boat took over Eddie in some way, before he got too old and sick to sail. Now it’s taking you over. It owns you.’

  ‘I think you’ll find it’s the other way round.’ Jack folded his arms and hunched into his foulies, as if her words were rain to be endured.

  ‘I told you the other day: you’re different when you stay away from Draca.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Happy. Lighter. More… yourself.’

  ‘You might have had something to do with that.’

  That wasn’t much of an olive branch, but it was a start. But ‘have had…’ Did that mean it was over?

  ‘You’ve changed since you started living on board.’

  ‘I’ve had a few setbacks, remember?’

  Jack reached for his coffee again and George grabbed his hand, forcing him to look at her.

  ‘Jack, I believe you’re in danger. Your boat will kill you. That figurehead is frigging evil.’

  His look said it all. Cynical and a bit patronising.

  ‘I thought Draca looked after us rather well yesterday.’

  George let go of his hand, exasperated.

  ‘Remember you and Old Eddie saw things in your garden that you couldn’t explain?’

  Jack nodded half-heartedly.

  ‘I bet you haven’t seen anything recently.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’ He sounded surprised.

  ‘But have you?’

  ‘No. And I’m not sure I ever did. Not really.’

  ‘Perhaps because that frigging carving is back on the water, not in the garden.’

  ‘Then why aren’t I seeing things on board?’

  ‘I am. And maybe you’re not seeing them because they’re becoming part of you.’

  Jack laughed in a way that she didn’t like.

  ‘Last week you said you’d sell Draca if the trip didn’t work.’

  Jack shuffled on his seat. ‘Perhaps we both have things to think about after yesterday.’

  George closed her eyes, wondering whether to go on. ‘I told you once that I could see things about people.’ No good had ever come of talking about colours, but she didn’t know how else to explain. ‘I can shut my eyes and think about someone, and they’ll have colours around them. The colours tell me about them the way a smile says someone’s happy.’

  ‘You said.’ His tone said ‘Get on with it’.

  ‘Colours don’t lie. I don’t think people can fake them.’

  ‘They wouldn’t know about them, anyway.’

  ‘Yeah, whatever. When I was a kid, way back when I first went to school, I thought everyone could see stuff like that. To me it was normal. I learned to shut up about it when all the other kids laughed at me.’

  ‘I’m not laughing.’

  ‘Not out loud. The point is, the colours tell me stuff. I knew your grandpa was going to die.’

  ‘He was nearly eighty and had cancer. Sounds a fairly safe bet to me.’

  ‘I didn’t know he had cancer. I did know his colours went black. That’s what happens when someone’s going to die soon.’

  ‘So how does this explain why you freaked out yesterday?’

  ‘It doesn’t. I’m trying to tell you your colours are going black. So black it worries the shit out of me.’

  This time, Jack’s laugh was more nervous.

  ‘I love you, Jack.’

  He still didn’t speak, but grimaced as a gust of wind flapped the fringe of the awning and scattered raindrops over them.

  ‘Yesterday, you said you loved me.’

  Jack sighed. ‘George, yesterday you lost it when the anchor chain slipped. Today you’re talking about auras. Don’t you think you’re giving me a lot to digest?’

  ‘You think I’m neurotic.’ She said it as a statement, not a question. Jack didn’t reply, just hunched a little deeper.

  ‘Sod you, Jack Ahlquist.’ George pushed her chair back, metal scraping over the pavement, and left him sitting there.

  George waited until the end of the working day before she called Charlotte’s mobile. She picked up within three rings.

  ‘George, darling.’ She sounded pleased as well as curious. ‘How lovely to hear from you.’

  They exchanged pleasantries until there was a what-are-you-ringing-about? pause.

  ‘Charl, I’m worried about Jack.’

  ‘So what’s he been up to?’ Beyond Charlotte’s voice, George could hear another woman. It sounded like she was asking who was calling.

  ‘He’s irrational. He’s moody. He’s taking risks. He’s drinking too much. And he’s obsessed with that boat.’ As George spoke, she realised how lame that sounded.

  ‘That’s Jack. What’s new?’

  ‘But it’s getting worse. He’s behaving just like Old Eddie did before he trashed the boat.’ George scrambled to find a believable way of explaining. Something that didn’t involve colours or ghosts. ‘I think he’s going to do himself damage.’

  ‘You sound awfully upset. Are you two lovers yet?’

  George didn’t answer. She didn’t want to make things worse for Jack, and she’d always been a bad liar.

  ‘You are! Awesome!’

  ‘Seriously, Charl, I think he could do something really stupid.’

  ‘And you think I can help?’

  ‘I’m looking for advice. You know him better than anyone.’

  ‘Our Jack has been on a downhill slope ever since he was wounded. You know why he drinks so much?’

  ‘Tell me, Charl.’

  ‘I think he’s trying to destroy the thing he hates most of all.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Himself.’

  George bit her lip. The other woman’s voice sounded down the line, quickly muffled as Charlotte put her hand over her phone. The words were indistinct but the tone was petulant.

  ‘So what can we do about it, Charl?’

  ‘We? Haven’t you heard? He ain’t my problem any more.’

  ‘Me, then.’

  ‘George, darling, if I knew that we might not be divorcing in the first place. Look, I’ve got to go.’

  ‘Charl, why does he hate himself?’

  There was a dry chuckle at the end of the line. ‘Ask his father. Keep in touch. Ciao, bella.’

  *

  Jack would never have forgiven George if she had gone behind his back and called his father. It was going to be down to her. A battle for Jack between her and Draca. A priest might listen, but then she didn’t know any priests. So George did the only thing she knew how, and talked Jack into coming back to hers for a takeaway pizza
. She had to remind herself he was worth saving. Jack was subdued, but at least he came. He drank wine, a lot of it, until he fell asleep on her bed halfway through the evening. George managed to pull his foot and jeans off, but couldn’t do much about the rest.

  Jack had another nightmare, and woke up bellowing in the dark. George knew by then that the nightmares were always about the time he was wounded, never about his first trip, when he’d won a medal. He lay there gasping for air, and George cradled him to her, rocked him and stroked his back. His skin was cold and clammy with sweat under his shirt. When he’d been still a while, she asked him if he wanted to talk about it, and he rolled onto his back so that all George could see was a faint profile in the darkness. There was only the hint of a paler grey where his eye caught a little light. He spoke upwards, like to a microphone hanging from the ceiling.

  ‘When that truck was on fire…’

  Jack spoke in short phrases, with little gasps in between.

  ‘…Such pain… There was no dignity left, no humanity… One part of my mind floated off and watched the rest of me go mad…’

  George kept very still. He’d never revealed this much before.

  ‘And do you know the cruellest thing?’

  George blinked in the darkness, feeling her own tears welling.

  ‘I can’t remember it ending…’

  Jack swallowed.

  ‘…The blessed moment of oblivion.’

  The hint of grey beside his eye lengthened and glistened, and she leaned over to cradle his face and kiss away his tears.

  *

  They found a form of stability for a few days, like the hour around high tide when the sea stretches all the way to the hills on the far shore of the harbour and doesn’t seem to rise or fall, and there’s only the navigation buoys to tell you about the sandbanks or the currents beneath. They didn’t have the passion of the first weeks, but they had companionship, and in a way that seemed deeper because Jack had reached a low place and he knew George was still with him. George made sure he had things to do around the yard, the heavy work that Chippy couldn’t manage. Anything to keep him ashore and active and away from that boat. At nights she tried to keep him with her, away from Draca and a bottle. Sometimes she succeeded.

  They didn’t talk about the boat again. If George had forced a decision between Draca and her, it might not have gone her way and she didn’t dare risk that. Jack didn’t talk about going away either. He hadn’t found the money to replace his engine, and the long-range weather forecasts showed a storm spinning out of the Gulf of Mexico, wreaking havoc up the eastern seaboard of the USA and heading their way over the Atlantic.

  The calm didn’t last of course. For a while, Jack was no worse, but he was no better either. It was like George was standing on dry land, trying to hold onto a boat that was being dragged out of her hands by a tidal flow.

  All that week the tides grew higher, building towards the highest ‘spring’ tides of the year. And on a day when they felt the first gusts of the coming storm, and flood warnings were announced for low-lying areas, Jack’s father came.

  * * *

  Anglo-Saxon: vengeance through generations; a blood feud waged against the kin of a murderer. ↵

  Deeply versed in sorcery. ↵

  The ‘blood eagle’ ritual execution. ↵

  Chapter Ten: Allfeigligr

  (Old Norse: having the mark of death plain on one’s face)

  From the Saga of King Guthrum

  Harald was borne to his dragonhead ship, fully armed and with the best of his array. Guthrum placed Harald’s sword in his hand that he might be chosen, but all men knew that the manner of Harald’s death would condemn him to serve Hel in Niflheim, not Odin in Valhalla. His body was burned with great riches within his boat, and the fire was very glorious, for Guthrum hoped that the higher the reek went up aloft, the higher place his son would receive with the gods.

  At the setting of the sun Harald’s ship was consumed and sank beneath the waves, but the sea was not deep; when the flames were extinguished, the dragonhead remained above the waters, well bloodied and staring at the shore. At this sight Guthrum swore that it was not yet finished, and Harald was not avenged.

  Those that were foremost in the army counselled against war. They spoke of the völva’s prophecy, that one woman would cause the deaths of half the army, and that their deaths would be without honour. They feared not death, but desired to die gloriously, sword in hand, and thus join the einherjar. Many said that the oath on Yngvi’s ring had been sacred, and must not be broken. Others counselled that a war would be without profit; they had already done great scathe and there was little more plunder to be had in that region.

  But Guthrum’s rage could not be quieted, and with his own hand he slew King Alfred’s hostages, that their paths be set. The army divided; half followed King Guthrum towards Exanceaster[1] by land, and half sailed Westwards. In the days that followed Guthrum harried in the lands to the West, pursued by the army of King Alfred. But a mighty storm smote the land and men said that the gods were angry for the breaking of the oath. They watched for their brothers at sea.

  I: HARRY

  Harry was worried about Jack. Him and the wife both were. There’d been no contact, except through solicitors, since they agreed to split Old Eddie’s estate.

  ‘Old Eddie’. Didn’t seem right to call him ‘Mad Eddie’ any more, not when they knew he was really mad.

  Mary fretted a lot about Jack. She wrote to him at his flat to ask him how he was, and to invite him for a meal, and when the boy didn’t reply she called his mobile. Jack said he hadn’t had the letter. Seemed he hadn’t been to the flat for a while and was living on the boat. She tried to find out if things were going sour with The Slut but he wouldn’t say. Mary couldn’t pin him down to a date to come over, either. She said he sounded tired.

  They didn’t feel they knew him any more. They hadn’t talked, not really talked, since before his wedding. Back then, they had a son who was tall and proud. Turn around and he’s bent over like he’s trying to fit under a roof that’s too low, and he’s lost a foot and won’t talk about it. Won’t talk about anything. God, that hurt. Something as bad as that and he wouldn’t let them help. He was ten miles away and he might as well be a thousand. Mary said they should go and see him, but Harry wasn’t sure. He’d tried that, twice: once after Eddie’s funeral and once to talk about all the crazy things in Eddie’s diary. No one could say he wasn’t doing everything in his power to help.

  Then go again, Mary said. Let’s both go. But Harry put his foot down and said he’d go alone. The block was between him and Jack. God knows why, but they had to sort it out, man to man. Besides, Harry didn’t think The Slut would live on a boat, so the boy would probably be there on his own.

  Harry didn’t ring to say he was coming, just in case Jack made excuses not to see him. Some grey-haired guy in the office gave Harry directions to Draca but he sounded suspicious and, within a minute, while Harry was still looking, a young woman caught up with him and asked him how she could help. She made it sound like she’d asked what the hell he was doing. Harry smiled when he recognised the cute little thing that had come to Eddie’s funeral, but she seemed sour and worried, as if he’d come at an awkward time. She went ahead of him, showing him where to go, swung herself onto Draca’s deck like she knew her way around and shouted down the cabin hatch for Jack.

  Harry was still walking down the pontoon when Jack’s head appeared in the hatch. He was unshaven and unkempt but he looked at the girl with the kind of smile that told Harry straight off that they were lovers. God, would his family never learn? Jack was just like his grandfather, playing away. That smile only lasted a moment while she whispered to him, before he peered around her and saw Harry, and his face froze. That change, the way he narrowed his eyes and tightened his jaw, hurt more than Harry could say. It was instinctive. Not faked. It told Harry that his own son didn’t like him.

  The girl straightened and
climbed ashore, saying, ‘I’ll leave you guys to it.’ The glare she gave Harry as she passed told him that Jack had shared his opinions. Jack stared at Harry from the hatch without speaking.

  ‘Aren’t you going to invite me aboard?’

  Jack turned, and let Harry follow him.

  ‘You’ve done a grand job on this boat!’ He had too, and Harry believed in giving praise if it was deserved. Jack was pulling the door to the forward cabin closed as Harry came off the steps. It looked a bit of a mess in there but the main cabin was tidy. Lots of freshly varnished wood and gleaming brass. Jack leaned his back against the forward door and watched Harry as he looked around.

  ‘Your mum says you’re living on board now.’

  Jack nodded. He still hadn’t spoken.

  ‘And what does Charlotte think about that?’ It was an effort to use The Slut’s name, but Harry had promised Mary that he’d do his best.

  Jack shrugged. ‘We’ve separated.’

  It took a moment for that to sink in. Harry supposed he should have felt happy, but then a thought occurred to him and he lifted his chin towards the cockpit.

  ‘Because of that girl a moment ago? George, or whatever her name is?’

  That was a mistake. Before, Jack had been hostile but sullen. Now he was angry.

  ‘Why are you here, Dad? Changed your mind?’ He waved his hands around the cabin and lifted his eyes to the ceiling. ‘You going to take the lot?’

  ‘That was unfair. Unfair and unkind.’

  ‘So why are you here?’

  ‘We’re worried about you, your mum and me. I thought we could have a talk?’

  ‘About what?’

  It was Harry’s turn to get angry. He took a deep breath to make himself stay calm.

  ‘Whatever’s making you a stranger to us.’

  Jack made a sarcastic little laugh. ‘You shun my wedding, ignore my career and take away my inheritance. Now you wonder why we’re strangers?’