Tide (2 page)

Dylan walked down to the beach every day after school and stared out long and hard, filling his head with the vastness. He had come from far inland where there was also vastness, but a vastness that was red and dry; or on those rare occasions when water came, it was a huge flood that vanished after a few days. But what the sea and the desert had in common was the immensity of the sky itself, arching over them like a protective dome, keeping things in and out, keeping and making secrets. The sky seemed to be the reason for the desert's existence, and for the sea's existence.

The police sergeant, with his son and the two other boys, collected Dylan from outside his house on Saturday after an early lunch. Dylan's mum had a quick, reassuring chat with the sergeant, and hugged her son, reminding him to be sensible and do what he was told. Normally Dylan would have been embarrassed, but he was too excited to care and the other boys were the same. One of them, Serge, whom Dylan knew least, scowled and smiled at the same time in a way that was ambiguous, but not ambiguous enough for Dylan to spend any time thinking about. And it was through the back window of the car, and Dylan's eyes were
really
on the twenty-foot boat that sat on the trailer behind the four-wheel drive. He'd seen it before, at his mate's place. It was called
Hilda,
after the sergeant's wife. It didn't seem that big, really, but it did have a large outboard motor – an Evinrude – on the back.

Once they reached the marina, the boys hopped out of the car so the sergeant could back the boat trailer down the ramp. His son directed him with precision, knowing his dad had little patience for showing off, especially when doing something serious. Once the trailer was submerged, the sergeant winched the boat down, down, down into the green water. Wading in up to his waist, he directed the boat around the ramp and, taking a rope hooked to the bow, dragged it to the small beach alongside. There were other craft, but since the sergeant was a well-known local, the other weekend sailors did their best to avoid him.

He called to the boys to hold the rope while he jumped in and got the sheet anchor, which he tossed into clear space on the shore and jumped out to secure. The boys, champing to get on the boat, held its bow while the sergeant parked the four-wheel drive and trailer exactly where they should be. Then the boys clambered on board. The sergeant retrieved the anchor and towed the boat out, then climbed aboard himself. He told his son to lower the outboard; then, just as the other boys thought they were drifting too close to the marina jetty, he started the engine and turned the boat out towards open sea. Dylan was overwhelmed as he sat with the others at the back – at the
stern
– watching the water churning and frothing, the propeller digging its furious, white wake.

As the boat skipped along past the grain ships moored outside the shipping lanes, Dylan considered the only way to confront, to absorb such vastness was in the orderly manner of the sergeant, who said nothing more than was necessary. Occasionally one of the other boys hooted with joy, but the sergeant's son was clearly on duty with his father, watching for any sign of a command, and if he was enjoying himself it was only in a form specific to his relationship with his father. The two former best friends, who were very close, pointed to the town they were leaving behind, muttering under their breath and barely restraining their excitement. They didn't invite Dylan into their conversation, which they directed over the engine's roar and the hull's slap slap slap on the gentle swell. Dylan didn't mind.

When Dylan noticed the waterspout on the horizon, he said nothing, because he didn't understand what it was. He was sure, though, that no-one else had seen it, because he had trained his eye to see so far into the distance, into the vastness, that he hardly believed anyone else could see that far or in that way. But the others did notice clouds forming on the horizon, and the sergeant half yelled above the boat-noise, Have to keep an eye on that, the weather comes up fast out here.

But he kept the boat going at a steady pace, and a half-hour passed before he spoke again.

That cloud's building and the wind is picking up, boys, so we might play it safe and head back in today. We can come out on another day.

The two former best friends moaned a little, but the sergeant's son cut them a look that said, Don't do it, my father's not in the mood.

Dylan wondered where the shore was. He considered the sun, which was fast vanishing behind thick cloud, and thought he'd worked it out. The boat was old, but had a compass and all the safety gear, and they all felt overprotected rugged up in their orange life jackets. The sergeant cut back on the throttle and curved the boat around.

Look, boys! he called. Dolphins.

His son, no longer able to restrain the excitement he'd been sitting on, burst out. Please, Dad, we're not going to see Africa Reef – can we just sit here for a few minutes and watch the dolphins?

The sergeant looked at the boys, all well-behaved, and said, Just for a few minutes. The sky's getting dark out there and it's coming in. We don't want to get caught.

And the boat was rocking much more than it had been, and with the engine idling, it started to tilt in ways it hadn't tilted before. The dolphins surfaced, submerged, surfaced, submerged, appeared a long way off, then vanished.

Okay, boys, said the sergeant, we're off. He pushed the throttle lever out of idle position and accelerated. The engine sputtered and died. He tried to restart, and it sputtered and died again. Another death later, he said gruffly, Move out of the way, boys, and went to check the fuel tank, and then the motor itself.

Enough fuel, he said, squeezing the bulb and checking the indicator. Motor doesn't smell flooded.

He messed with it a while, though he had trouble because the swell was gaining strength, tossing him and the boys together. Watch it, boys! he roared. Dylan retreated to the cabin area under the bow deck. The other boys followed him, except the sergeant's son, who was stationed at the wheel, holding on as if all life depended on it. Dylan felt a jab in his back, and looked around to see Serge snarling at him. Out of my way, you dork, he said just loud enough for Dylan alone to hear. You're a bloody stranger, mate, and if anyone's getting the comfy position it's not going to be you.

Dylan moved, and looked out at the sergeant, the dead motor, the vast sky black in all directions now. A strong wind was cutting across the boat and spinning it like a top. Every time the boat went side-on to the swell, it felt as if it was going to tip and capsize. Dylan rolled onto Serge, who openly thumped him and yelled to the sergeant, This guy's a dag, Sir, he's rolling onto me like a girl.

The sergeant yelled against the wind, Act like a man, son! Dylan knew the instruction was meant for him.

As the sergeant worked frantically at the motor, barking at his son to ‘turn it over' every now and again, he began to swear. Fucking prick of a thing, fucking bastard. The fucking battery will be flat next and then we'll be well and truly fucked. The swell was getting massive and there was fear in everyone's eyes, even the angry sergeant's.

Then, on his father's instructions, the son turned the ignition again and the engine fired into life. The sergeant lurched to the wheel, pushed his son aside and said, Hold on, everyone! He faced the boat into the pitch of the waves and started towards the shore, rubbing the top of the boat's compass as if it were a talisman. He called to his son to look for the flares in the front of the boat, and have them ready.

Serge and the other boy were clinging to each other, then Serge vomited and vomited. Dylan noticed Serge had literally turned green, but he didn't find any satisfaction in it. He just stayed still and stared into the place where the sun should have been, where all life came from. He thought of the desert sun, the inland sun he'd grown up with. It could burn you alive in no time, but he missed it.

The sea had become the smallest place in existence: it wasn't vastness, just weight, crushing weight. It felt as if it was going to break through the hull at any time. Water was sloshing through the cabin. Soon, with the sergeant's son, he was working the bilge pump, unsure who had told him to do it or how he knew what to do, or even what it was. Serge looked like death, and Dylan feared him. The other boy held Serge tight and Dylan thought it'd be nice to have a friend who cared so much. He'd had friends like that out in the desert and yet had been to eager to leave them. To go somewhere, anywhere. Africa. Africa Reef. His friends had been closing in on him. He'd felt he was losing the key to the vastness, the space.

They broke through the edge of the storm, and the sea began slowly to settle. The sergeant looked at Serge's vomit but not at Serge. To his son he said simply, You can clean up that mess when we get home. Should have done it over the bloody side. There was shame everywhere. Dylan thought of saying, I'll help, but knew that it was better to say nothing. He wasn't trying to win friends, and he wasn't trying to make enemies.

When they'd got back to shore and had managed to hoist the boat up onto the trailer, Dylan wondered about Hilda, the sergeant's wife. He'd met her a few times and she was so beautiful and soft. He wondered how it would have all gone if
she'd
been on the boat, rather than just her name.

The sergeant spread plastic sheets over the seats of his car. He said to Serge, You should really walk home, but when Serge started off on trembling legs, covered in vomit and soaked to the skin, he called, I was joking! Before allowing the boys to get into the car, he said, Look out at the sea, boys. Never take it for granted.

And they did look. Dylan saw another waterspout, but as no-one mentioned it, he assumed that he alone could see it, and kept his mouth firmly shut. A new town, a new way of life. He pondered how the waterspout's grey-white reminded him of the dust devil's red-white swirl in the desert, spouts of dust joining desert and sky. And Dylan knew the sea and the sky had reasons for sharing or not sharing their secrets.

ORBIT

Two-stage rocket with capsule equals: two forty-four gallon drums, the side of a packing case, fencing wire, switches from an old country telephone exchange, wooden fruit boxes and a pram seat. A gantry made from fence pickets and nails, looking like a ladder but being so much more, and a blast area of grey sand with tufts of wild oats (green), with mission control (manned by a cardboard box, pineapple-tin-legged robot with red globes for eyes and two batteries series-circuited together for innards) the great brick and concrete shed his father used for servicing cars and trucks.

Launch time was straight after breakfast Saturday. Preparations had been over a couple of weeks, though no-one had noticed. His dad was away, maybe forever, and his mum had the baby to worry about.

He'd acquired a roll of tinfoil. Where is that foil? his mother had asked herself, not even glancing in his direction. Then the baby cried because it had ‘done a nappy'. He needed the foil to protect him from the rays. Deflection. He went to his dad's rag bag in the shed and took as many as he thought he could get away with: insulation.

He knew the risks he was taking, but he was prepared. He'd given his mum an extra-big hug after his porridge, and she'd looked surprised. But there was no reason a cosmonaut couldn't show affection to his mother. It made him no less brave. He even tickled the baby under the chin and felt warm when it laughed. Irritating thing. But it was, after all, kin. His dad, well, he'd shake hands with him on his return, if either of them made it back. No point making a song and dance before something was done. When his father had injured his back in his fourth big-time league football match he'd said to his son, See, if I'd made a song and dance about getting in the team, I'd look ridiculous now. I'll never play again, son, never. I'm washed up before I've begun. But at least I didn't humiliate myself. His father had squeezed his hand so hard when he said this, the boy had almost cried. He would never cry, not even if he started burning up on re-entry. After all, the pain and fear wouldn't last long. It'd be over in an instant. What you don't know about won't hurt you. Don't cry over spilled milk. You've got to be in it to win it. The mantras followed him all the way to the launch site.

Scaling the gantry, he thought of the apricots just about ripen on the tree by the hedge. Don't eat too many of them, or you'll get collywobbles. He risked taking three or four. He also had a glass bottle in the capsule, in case he needed to take a piss. His pockets were sticky with wine gums he'd saved from his afterschool Friday treat. Space food.

He stepped into the capsule and pushed the gantry away. There'd be no going back. The countdown was at T minus five and counting. He closed the hatch with tinfoil and wedged some rags in around the gap between his seat and the foil. He stored his supplies. Settling in to the seat, he drew a strap across his waist. He pushed the motorbike helmet (cracked – a gift from an uncle after a near-fatal accident) over his head. He flicked the toggle switches in front of him, and ran through his checklist. There was a dodgy reading in the port thruster so he tapped a gauge. It came right. The Soviet space program had to make do with what they could dig up, but it usually came through. Solid, he reassured himself.

Then there was a moment of genuine alarm. A red light. A bell sounding. What was it? He pulled off his helmet to listen. It was his mother calling him from the back step. Gee, she was loud. He could hear her over the brooding engines. Once they ignited in a few minutes, tens of thousands of pounds of thrust would eviscerate the surrounding area. His mum could be irritating, and she was always crying or yelling, or cuddling him, but she was one of the reasons he was doing this. She needed to know that at least one of her men could make good, would leave and return a better person. She would be proud of him. She was calling, Come to the phone, your cousins want to know if you'd like to go for a swim. Where are you?