by Lucy Treloar
There was Luis’s shouting in the mist ahead. ‘What the hell? What are you doing?’
Josh bellowed back: ‘It’s my kid. Cat’s mine. If she wants the baby, she can come with me.’
‘Give her back,’ Luis shouted.
Cat screamed: ‘Let her go!’
They were slow blurs and then as close as if we’d flung open a door onto a shadowy room. Josh was holding the baby with one arm around her belly, and she was screaming and choking. Cat grabbed his arm, and Josh pulled from her grip and in his haste half fell into the boat, lunging its length as it dipped and listed to free the line. Cat grabbed its end on the dock, whipping it around the bollard twice and knotting it fast.
‘Let it go now,’ Josh said. ‘Loose it, or I’ll drop her overboard.’ He held the baby over the water; he held her under her arms and dipped her foot in, and looked up in a taunting way. Treasure fell silent. It was unimaginably worse than her screams. He pulled her back up, and dandled her again above the deep grey water and she was still quiet but drawing juddering, hiccupping breaths.
‘Oh no,’ Cat sobbed, shaking. She leaped into the boat. ‘Give her to me.’
Josh staggered, and gripped Treasure hard. ‘Careful now.’ He gave a sort of smile, like he was nearly done. He had Cat on board and they were almost free.
I had seen his determination. I said, ‘That’s enough, Josh. Give her back. Give her back I say.’ I drew the gun from my pocket. ‘I will shoot.’ I have never felt calmer or more certain. The world had never been clearer. It was peaceful in a way.
‘You’ll have killed the baby then. That’s on you.’
‘I don’t think so. I can dive faster than she can sink. I can shoot faster than you can move.’ My voice was serene. I felt still inside.
‘You won’t do it.’
‘I’m a good shot. And I’m a good swimmer.’ I waited for a second. ‘No?’ I asked. I pulled the trigger and a splinter of wood flew at his side.
‘You crazy fucking bitch.’ A streak of blood appeared on his free arm. He turned it and pressed it to his leg and looked again. Treasure was horribly quiet, just making these jerky breaths inwards, ‘huh, huh,’ like that, like a runner who’s almost run her race. Her legs went stiff and pulled up again as best they could.
Cat, poor Cat, after a first cry of horror was panting and sobbing, ‘Oh no, oh no, give her to me.’ I didn’t think I’d hurt the baby. I knew that gun; I knew myself.
I aimed the gun again. Josh looked at his arm, at the red ribboning out. Treasure finally began to scream. He looked away from her strident mouth.
‘Give her now,’ I said.
Cat reached and dragged Treasure from him and passed her to Luis across the water so fast he fumbled in surprise. She clambered up, desperate, and took Treasure back and held her close.
I held the gun on Josh, who was looking dazed now, at his bleeding arm, at his failure. ‘She all right?’ I asked Luis.
Luis looked Treasure over around the edges of Cat’s arms. He nodded and pulled Cat inside his coat so only her hair peeked out, hiding them both. Treasure disappeared. I had not noticed Alejandra still holding tight to my other hand and now I gave her a little push towards Luis and he drew her in and she was safe too.
‘Better be going,’ I told Josh. I untied the line and threw it into the boat.
‘You can’t make me.’
‘I think I can. You’re not staying here another night, I’ll tell you that now.’ I tipped the gun to one side and looked at it, and aimed and shot a little further along the boat. Chips of wood lifted and spun in the mist and fell again, splashing lightly in the water. I didn’t want to hit him that time. It wasn’t necessary.
‘Okay, okay! Maybe I shouldn’t have done it. But you fucking shot me.’
‘It’s a graze. And it doesn’t matter now. You did do it.’
‘I wasn’t going to let the baby go. He took her.’
‘He did not. She wasn’t yours. Look at that. Do not turn from that. Know that.’
In his agitation the boat was rocking again. He planted his feet. ‘If I leave now, don’t bother wondering. I’ll be telling my father about you and what you did. Who do you think they’re going to believe, Luis? Did you think about that? I’m trying to look after Cat. You can’t do that. What kind of life will you have?’
Luis looked at Josh. He didn’t say anything.
‘On your way now,’ I said.
I’ll give him this: he didn’t beg, but started the motor and faced away and headed out of the docks into the mist. The wind was licking the water into small peaks and the mist was thinning. It wouldn’t be much longer until it was clear. Storms came up fast, but he had time; he had a chance.
I turned away. We all did. He was cast loose and everything had changed. I always wondered why I wanted to see Wolfe to its end, or to mine, and why I didn’t care which it was. The island was part of me as much as any other thing: a heart, a memory, a scar on my knee. But watching Cat in the rocking chair with Treasure at the end of that day made me see how the end of Wolfe was wrapped tight in a beginning. Things were already starting to gather together somehow, even while they were falling apart.
I thought about it quite a bit later, playing it through, and couldn’t see it ending better if I’d done different. He said he could swim. I would take him at his word. There was a hole in the boat now, whether or not he knew it. Best that they didn’t know or even suspect. That’s what I believed.
Josh’s boat dwindled until not even our eyes could trick us into thinking that we could still see him and he might yet return.
‘That’s the end for us too,’ I said. ‘We need to get going. Get your things fast, whatever you need. He’ll do what he said.’
Alejandra’s eyes were huge and black and there wasn’t time to reassure. ‘Come on now,’ Luis said. ‘Better get Luna ready.’ She gathered herself at the thought of her doll.
We agreed on a half-hour from then. We didn’t talk about what we’d do afterwards. I hadn’t killed him; he was still alive, and I held on to that.
The wind was gusting in our faces already. By the appointed time it was buffeting louder and waves were sluicing up beneath the rear of Shipleys, like Barlows’ ruin of long ago. There would be no leaving that day, and no one coming to search for us. The house was trembling, but they wanted to stay one last night; they were used to its strange movements.
The wind roared up louder in the dark, loosening shutters, which thrashed the walls as if someone was trying to break in. There was no sleeping after that. The power had gone. I lit a lamp and went downstairs, where I stoked the fire and watched the flames, listening to the raging outside, thinking of what was to come, and trying to plan. Where would be safe? How would I know when I didn’t know the world?
I drew the curtains back and looked out as best I could. It was black as pitch and filled with noise. I should have prepared better. I should have known better. Night and day flickered and repeated as if by switch. I could hardly take in what I saw: a slumped shanty, the dock disappeared, and to the south where there should be land, nothing but water. I strained to picture Shipleys and even peered from the landing window – no better there. Girl couldn’t settle, walking to the front door and back in so intent a way that I looked through the window half expecting the gaunt and sodden figure of Josh to be dragging up my path, strands of seaweed trailing and drifting from him. Those childhood horrors, the thought of Baby, a puppy we’d once had, and Mrs Lacey and her silver eyes. But there was nothing but wild shadows, shattered light and flying debris. Girl whimpered. ‘Good Girl,’ I said, but she would not be calmed. I looked again. It was just a sort of moving density at first, a clot in the night, which I could only tell by the way it changed from one lightning strike to the next. It was them, coming along the road in the middle of the night in that weather.
I grabbed my ja
cket from the door and ran through the house and flung open the door onto the porch, and even though I was expecting something fierce the wind seized the door from my hand and smashed it against the wall. Girl howled and her fur plastered flat against her. I slammed the door closed, pulled my hood tight, and staggered down the stairs and along the road through the tearing wind to meet them. Lightning hit Shipleys. Its roof was gone, and its shingles blew about as ragged as leaves. Every lightning strike created a new image, as if the world was a gallery wall. Things floated by, catching and moving on, being swept away. They became clearer, Alejandra’s head buried against Luis, who was holding her tight in his arms, Cat staggering, huddling Treasure beneath her coat. I reached them, much good I did, and though they shouted I couldn’t hear. I turned and we went on, splashing through the water, which was flowing freely across everything, pushed along by the wind. The salt meadow and the low bushes leaned and couldn’t right themselves, and for an instant I caught sight of the marsh walkway like a sea serpent rising above waves, and of all their ghostly faces beside me.
We reached the house and burst in. Girl shook wildly. Cat pulled Treasure, screaming, from beneath her coat. ‘It’s okay, sweetheart.’
‘In front of the fire, all of you,’ I said. ‘There’ll be clothes in the attic until you get yours dry.’
‘Kitty, Kitty, I thought we would get drownded,’ Alejandra said.
‘Did you? I don’t think that would happen with Luis and Cat around.’
‘And you.’
‘Yes, me too. I would definitely not let that happen.’
I went to the window. The world was lit again and it was made of water. I leaned against the wall. I felt through my feet and all through me, the way the house quaked and the ground seemed to quicken, and wondered whether the island would survive the night. There was nowhere better than our house on Wolfe, my father always said, but he had never seen weather like this.
‘We have to ride it out, hope for the best. No point worrying about what we can’t control. Bed first, and we’ll get ready in the morning.’
Luis and Alejandra went upstairs. Cat stayed behind. ‘Do you suppose Josh . . .’
‘Made it? He left long before it got bad.’ What else could I have said? I have regrets, but not speaking more plainly is not one of them. ‘It’s done now and that’s the way of it. He had time, all being well.’
We waited through the next day and the next night. No one would go out on the water in this. Luis and I went down to Shipleys that first morning. It had sunk to its haunches in the night, its roof and back had sheared off and its front gazed towards the sky. We approached it gingerly, wading through the water and climbing the porch’s end. The door stuck but we kicked and threw ourselves at it and it finally gave. The hall and the front room fell away. It was dry enough, the downstairs ceiling still being there, but sodden elsewhere. We turned off the power.
Luis nodded. Mostly they’d finished getting their things together the night before. We filled another bag, then had to battle up the road. That was the first run. What a day. The wind was not quite so bad by evening, though the rain continued.
‘We should leave tomorrow morning,’ I said to Luis at some point. ‘The back door’s jammed in my house. That’s not good.’
‘All your things.’
‘No point crying. I chose this.’
We pushed against a gust of wind, the words blowing away so at first I wasn’t sure if I heard him right when he spoke again. ‘I heard about my mother.’
‘Did you say your mother?’
He nodded.
‘Pending deportation. I found out last week.’ He leaned into his walk as if more than weather was against him.
‘And you didn’t tell us?’
‘Because. Because. It’s the end then. Just me and Alejandra and the next thing. I didn’t want to leave Cat with Josh. She doesn’t want to go to her parents.’
‘No.’
Luis didn’t mention his mother that evening. No one spoke of what would happen after we got to the main. That was stupid of us. Even now we were holding on to the island. I had some thoughts, but there was no point in getting people’s hopes up when it might not work out.
The boat fought the old dock, which was mostly above water again and just holding together now the storm was dying. It was first light, sunrise was breaking through, and the wind was close to exhausted, kicking up in spurts but settling again. The churning water was the same strange green-yellow of the day they came. Luis and I took a rope at each end of the boat and hauled it close to the landing. Cat eased in, clutching Treasure; then Alejandra slithered from the dock on her stomach with Cat guiding her legs. Cat pulled her close and they sat together, the waves licking up around them.
‘Now you,’ I said to Luis, and when he looked like he might argue, I inclined my head at the boat and waited. He threw his rope in and crouched low and jumped. ‘Girl,’ I said. She leaped. The boat yawed, and even though things were not going well for us and the weather was still uncertain I thought that this might be the last time a person would be on Wolfe Island and looked down the dock to the Watermen, at their long shadows streaming back.
I jumped in and started the motor. We drew away. Waves rose and fell about us. There were the old posts in the waves, Tobe’s shanty with water swilling in its doorway, Shipleys on its knees, the Watermen, and further away my house, with the water rushing along its front like a river, like a train. It is silent in memory. The water rose above the porch and the door stoop. A shirt caught in a pomegranate tree pulled free and billowed across the watery land.
‘The Watermen,’ Luis said.
‘They’ve done their job, kept us safe. They’ll have to take their chances. I might come back for them some day.’ No one said anything. The gaunt creatures stared after us and I couldn’t tell what their sentiments might be.
I kept watch for Josh the whole journey. Once I saw a long dark shape drifting on the water’s surface, rising to wave tops and falling leisurely off the other side. It was just driftwood, but a big piece, and I thought I might be sick. I told myself again that he might have made it even after his boat filled with water, if he had got far enough before the weather got bad. He was a good swimmer, Cat said, a good swimmer. We didn’t discover his boat or his body between Wolfe Island and the main.
I did not want to know myself a murderer again, like I didn’t want to know that death was real. I had known Josh, though, and felt something for him – not only rage – and his death (if he had died) was close. I imagined his terror when the boat began to sink. He wouldn’t have panicked, though. There is not a day since that I haven’t thought of him and I think I will never be free. Cat was quiet, holding Treasure tight beneath her coat, smoothing the top of her head where it peeked out, and pulling Alejandra near.
Then the island, one moment so clear, began to blur.
‘Just look at it,’ I said.
‘Do you love it more than my mother?’ Cat said.
‘What a thing to ask.’
‘It’s what she thinks.’
‘Never. Never. I’ll make sure I tell her. But I do love it.’
Wolfe was a thin line when I looked again. A moment later it was gone. What do you do when everything falls apart? You gather up the people you love and the few things you hold dear, and all the rest? You let it fall away.
Blackwater was quiet when we puttered into harbour, the sort of quiet that follows drama or precedes it. On the eastern shore trees had been torn from the ground and their roots reared in the air. Three people standing nearby appeared dazed. One man in a thick pea coat stared from beneath his fisherman’s cap as we berthed. We climbed onto the docks. He might have been counting us, marking us, remembering our details. People notice the unusual in small towns. I made sure not to look at him too hard, and wished Girl was less memorable. Her belly was round with her unborn pu
ps; perhaps it was on account of them that she seemed so wary. I wanted his gaze to slide away. Already I was thinking of how to become invisible.
‘We’re going to walk like we know where we’re going, like we’ve just arrived in town for the day, okay?’ I said. ‘Look chatty now, like you mean it. If any talking to them is required, I’ll be the one doing it.’
‘Where are we going?’ Cat said. She pushed the blanket from Treasure’s face, and she looked around as alert as could be.
‘We can’t talk here. Come on,’ I said. We loaded ourselves up and came down the dock towards the men. There was no choice about that. They watched with undisguised interest.
‘Things are awfully quiet,’ I said when we were closer.
One of them said, ‘Where you been? Everyone’s gone. Evacuated for the hurricane. Not a soul in town. Storm surges were predicted.’ And then another narrowed his eyes and peered past me at all the others. ‘How come you didn’t know?’
‘Came from Wolfe. Power’s out. Haven’t heard a thing for days. You think this is a mess, the island’s just about gone.’
‘No kidding.’ He shook his head. ‘All of you?’
‘Grandkids visiting.’
‘All of them yours? You got papers?’ He said it so casually, the same way a person might ask for the time.
‘Papers? Is this what we’ve come to that I need papers for family? God help us all.’
‘Just being careful. “Vigilance from all, towards all.”’ Evidently he was quoting something or someone. ‘Just being a good citizen. Something you should remember.’
‘I remember it every day, don’t imagine I don’t.’ This was the moment when Hart or Doree, had they been nearby, would have put a hand to my sleeve and said, ‘Now, Kitty.’
‘I heard of you, I think. Crazy hermit lady, right?’
‘Crazy is in the eye of the beholder, as is solitude, I’ve always thought. I’m in better shape than you.’ He touched his hand to his bloodied cheek. ‘Good luck with all that,’ I said, nodding at the fallen trees.
‘Sure.’