After the Storm (18 page)

An hour later Kim was up and boiling water for coffee. There was no sound from Rob and Anna’s cabin. Rob had come back late and put a very drunk Anna to bed. Kim was going into French Harbour to buy material for the new drapes. She’d told Owen this the night before and he’d made no comment. As she headed into town she was thinking about his silent resistance to her plan to smarten up the boat.

Anna was lying next to Rob feeling very ill. The boat was a horrible place to suffer the sickness and achiness of a full-blown hangover. How she longed for a proper bathroom with a deep bath where she could have lain and soaked her aches away. Or a high-powered shower she could have stood under for half an hour. She took two paracetamol with the water Rob handed her. She couldn’t remember anything about getting back from the bar or undressing. He must have put her to bed.

‘Sorry about last night,’ she said, shamefaced.

He kissed her pale face.

‘I’ll make us some coffee.’

Later he offered to row her around the bay to find a place where they could swim. Owen had said they could take the dinghy for the day and as there was no beach to speak of at French Harbour he had recommended visiting some of the lovely small bays nearby that were accessible by boat.

‘I don’t think so Rob,’ she said.

‘Swimming might make you feel better, get your body moving.’

‘I feel too sick to get into the dinghy. You go. I’ll rest up here today.’

He took the mask and fins and left feeling irritated with her. She was wasting one of the few precious days left on this holiday. He slung the mask and fins into the dinghy and checked he had enough dollars in the fabric money bag he wore under his T-shirt. He rowed out to deeper water and then along the shoreline to the east of French Harbour till he found an outcrop where he thought the swimming would be good. He pulled on Owen’s mask and fins and dived into the sea. He swam for about an hour in wonderfully clear water and enjoyed the brilliant flashes of colour from the small fish around the rocks. He trod water as some longspine squirrelfish darted in front of his mask, and a crowd of tiny blue chromis glittered at the periphery of his vision.

Anna dressed herself and went to sit in the cockpit with a large bottle of water. She was glad the others had gone out. Worse than the nausea and her aching limbs was the feeling of shame at her behaviour last night. She had thrown a strop and stormed off. And what had she said to Vivienne? Had she been terribly indiscreet? She seemed to remember she had cried at one point and said they were all ganging up on her. How embarrassing and childish.

The bus had reached the outskirts of Sandy Bay and Owen got off. Money Joe’s house was built on stilts above the water and a small jetty led up to it. Owen walked up the jetty and knocked on the door. Money Joe’s woman, Maribel, a local woman, opened the door and took him through to the sitting room. Money Joe did not get up from his chair; he nodded to Owen to come in and pointed to the chair in front of him. He had long grey hair which he wore in a ponytail and a Jesus beard. He was dressed in jeans, sandals and an Iron Maiden T-shirt that stretched over his paunch. Some people were taken in by his hippy style of hair and dress. Owen was not. He knew that he was completely ruthless and was also prone to episodes of paranoia. Owen sat down on the raffia chair opposite him.

‘Greetings comrade… Would you like a gin?’ Money Joe said.

‘A bit early for me, a black coffee would be good.’

Money Joe would sip gin all day but he never seemed to get drunk. Maribel, who had been waiting to get instructions, now went out and returned a few minutes later carrying a mug of black coffee and a glass of gin on a tray. Owen stood up and took the tray from her and placed it on the mirrored table between them.

‘Gracias,’ he said to her.

As far as he knew she spoke little English even though she had been with Money Joe for many years. It seemed to be a relationship of few words. Maribel left the room and shut the door behind her. Owen unzipped his rucksack and handed over the large package. Money Joe took it from him and went over to his desk. He took out a penknife and cut away the gaffer tape until he got to the smaller packages inside. He slit into one of these, dipped a wet forefinger in the powder and rubbed this over his gums. He smacked his lips as if he was eating something very tasty. Then he opened a drawer in his desk and took out an envelope. He gave this to Owen and slumped back into his chair. He flicked open a box of cigars by his elbow.

‘You want one of these?’

‘No thanks.’

Money Joe rolled his fingers over the cigars, selected one and lit it. Owen was counting the dollars in the envelope. It was enough to keep his boat for a few more months. He zipped the money into his rucksack.

‘How long are you staying this time?’ Money Joe asked.

‘Not long.’

‘I may need a package taken to Belize City in a few days. You up for that?’

Owen hesitated.

‘It may not work; we have to be here for a week or so.’

‘Let me know comrade.’

Owen nodded and drank his coffee. If you spent too much time with Money Joe you inevitably got caught up in things and they were usually things you’d rather not know about.

‘I was wondering if you had any cabins available for a few days? I’d need two.’

Money Joe had invested in some hillside cabins across the island which he rented to tourists.

‘How many nights do you need?’

‘Five nights ideally.’

‘That’s OK, day after tomorrow. You know my cabins out near Oak Ridge?’

‘Yeah. You’d be doing me a big favour.’

‘I don’t want rent, but you can give me something for the electricity. You wouldn’t believe the cost of electricity on the island these days.’

‘No problem. Thanks.’

Owen put down his mug.

‘I need to get back to the boat. A guy’s coming over to look at the engine.’

Money Joe let out a malicious laugh showing teeth stained by years of his cigar habit.

‘You still having trouble with that shit engine of yours?’

They shook hands and Owen left the room and headed for the back door as he needed to use their bathroom. He passed the kitchen where Maribel was sitting at the table filling in a puzzle book. She did not look up at him. The word on the island was that she had once belonged to the Mennonite community in Belize but had broken free from them. She was strangely self-contained and seemed to have no curiosity about the visitors who came knocking on Money Joe’s door at all hours. It was safer that way of course.

And then through the kitchen window he saw Teyo walking up the jetty towards the house. Teyo was a strongly built man with thick black hair slicked back from his forehead. He wore a gold chain around his neck and looked strangely like a Central American version of Elvis Presley. He had an easy smile and was a rotten man. Owen did
not
want to greet Teyo. He did not even want him to know that he and Kim were back on the island. They had met at Money Joe’s house some months ago and Teyo had taken a strong fancy to Kim which had alarmed Owen. He went into the bathroom as he heard Teyo banging on the front door. He waited until Teyo had been let into the house and he and Maribel had gone through to the sitting room. Then he slipped out of the bathroom and into the kitchen and opened the backdoor which led to the duckboards at the rear of the house. He sidestepped a sprawl of rusting tools and a coil of rotting rope and lowered himself carefully off the jetty and into the water holding his rucksack above his head with one hand. He would wade under the stilts of the house and get over to the jetty without being seen by Teyo.

He moved through the water slowly and as silently as he could. Part of him knew this was a foolish thing to do. Why had he feared meeting Teyo? He inched forward carefully and now he was under the sitting room of the house. He could hear the low rumble of Money’s Joe’s voice and the more staccato responses of Teyo. He was worried he would be heard and discovered and if he was how on earth would he explain being in the water? Just then Money Joe opened a window above him and threw out a lighted cigar which fizzed in the water and bobbed along in front of him. He heard Money Joe saying irritably:

‘Shit cigar…’

He heard Teyo say:

‘So she noticed his wandering eye?’

‘Yeah, finally…’

‘She’ll pay for that,’ Teyo said as Money Joe shut the window.

Owen heard Joe’s slouching steps as he crossed the sitting room and his voice rumbling again but he couldn’t catch any more words. He waited a moment longer to steady himself and then pushed through the water to the jetty out of sight of the windows of the house. He pulled himself up and took his trainers off and emptied them of water. He checked the envelope and the dollars in his rucksack were not wet. He felt faintly ridiculous but also relieved. He calmed himself by walking along the quay and looking at the boats moored there. It was then that he saw the black hulled motorboat out in the distance. He stopped and stared. There was no doubt: it was the same boat they had seen on their journey to Roatán.

Rob hauled himself back up into the dinghy and rowed towards a tiny beach that could only be reached by water. He pulled the dinghy onto the sand. He had the beach to himself and thought it would have been so much nicer to have shared this spot with Anna. There were a lot of sand flies around and at the top of the beach he found the rotting corpse of a seabird. For some reason he felt the need to bury the bird. He used his hands to dig into the sand until he had made a hole deep enough to be a grave. He lifted the bird using one of Owen’s fins and rolled it into the hole. He covered it with sand and patted the mound and put several large pebbles on top.

‘To mark the spot,’ he said aloud feeling back in touch with his childhood self.

An hour later he rowed back to French Harbour and secured the dinghy. He needed to eat and he wanted fish. He had spotted a place earlier, a restaurant built out over the water. And then he saw Kim walking down towards him from the town, carrying two bags. He took these from her.

‘How’s Anna?’ she asked.

‘Sleeping it off,’ he said with a conspiratorial grin. ‘Will you join me for lunch?’

‘Well I’d love to,’ she said.

‘What about going there?’

He pointed to the restaurant built out over the sea.

‘It’s kinda expensive there.’

‘Let’s go there. My treat, to thank you for all those great meals you’ve made for us.’

They picked a table out on the back deck which was built over the water. He ordered the King Crab Special and Kim chose yellow tail snapper wrapped in a palm leaf. He ordered a bottle of white wine and she shook her head at the prices.

‘See the material I bought,’ she said.

She pulled out the fabric she had chosen for the porthole drapes: thick cotton with bold blue stripes on a white background.

‘I wanted Mediterranean blue but they didn’t have it. I think this blue and white looks neat though. And I’m gonna paint the lockers the exact same shade of blue.’

‘It’ll look good. So you’re going to sell the boat here?’

‘I think so.’

‘You don’t see so many wooden boats any more.’

‘No, but the folks that want one really want one and they’ll pay for it,’ she said.

‘It’s a handsome boat all right.’

Their food arrived on large plates and the fish portions were generous. He poured more wine into her glass.

‘This is such a treat,’ she said.

Their eyes met and they smiled warmly at each other. She was a plucky woman, Rob decided, and it was what he liked most about her. She always tried to make the best of things. It couldn’t be easy living in this hand-to-mouth way with Owen.

‘You looking forward to life back on land?’

‘Oh I am, and to seeing my darlin’ mom and dad. It’s been a long time.’

She cut into her fish and chewed it slowly.

‘I like the way they cooked this. Anna told me you guys live together in London.’

‘I spend most nights at her flat. And I keep my music collection there so that makes it home, but for the sake of appearances I keep a daybed at my mate’s place.’

‘For the sake of appearances?’

‘Anna’s father, he’d give her a hard time if he knew we were living together.’

‘So he’s a straight kinda guy and he’d like you guys to get married?’

‘Not a reason for doing it Kim. He’s a bit of a bully, in a very civilised way of course.’

He put a forkful of crab into his mouth.

‘Well maybe bully is too strong. He’s a snob. And I’m sure he wishes Anna was with one of the sons of his golf-playing crowd in Canterbury. And she chose me instead.’

‘She chose well,’ Kim said.

‘Thanks. You know Anna and I come from very different backgrounds, but the strange thing is we both grew up in homes full of music and musicians, very different musicians though.’

‘In what way?’

‘My step-father Elliot plays in a rock band. Anna’s father teaches at some famous church school that’s big on choral music.’

Kim sipped at her wine.

‘And my biological dad is a rock musician, but I don’t know who he is, or even if he’s still alive,’ Rob said.

‘How come?’

‘My mum got pregnant at a music festival when she was only nineteen and I’m the result.’

‘And she never told the fella?’

‘No. Or even her mum and dad though they wanted to know who he was. She’s kept the secret so long and she’s very attached to it. I’ve asked her but she won’t tell me, says it’s best I don’t know.’

‘Would you like to track him down?’

‘I would you know. He’s American. I didn’t care when I was a kid. Mum and I were so close and it was always the two of us against the world. But the feeling’s been growing in me for a while that I need to know who he is.’

‘He may not be good father material.’

‘Probably not, but I’d still like to know something about him, to know more about where I come from.’

‘I can understand that,’ Kim said.

Rob poured more wine into her glass and his.

‘Thanks. Now I wanted to get married to Owen so much. And my wedding day shoulda been a happy one, but my brother Jared didn’t show up. My mom was waiting and waiting for him and the day became all about Jared not showing.’