After the Storm (20 page)

‘I thought you liked this life,’ he said and his voice had a hard edge to it.

‘I did, for a long time. I’m finding it harder now.’

‘Why? What’s changed?’

‘It’s the never knowing where the next dollar is gonna come from.’

‘Well I didn’t have you down as a nine-to-fiver,’ he said.

‘That’s not fair and you know it. I’ve been with you every step of the way.’

‘I’m hearing a “but”…’ he said.

‘It feels like we’ve reached the end of the line. And I’m missing my mom.’

To her surprise her eyes filled with tears.

‘OK, OK, I get it.’

His voice was sharp and he stood up and jumped off the boat.

‘Where are you going?’

He didn’t answer her.

He strode away along the pontoon and down to the harbour. A fisherman was sitting with a mound of yellow nets in front of him and was mending one with care. Owen sat on the wall and watched the man at work. In this part of the world you looked after the tools of your trade. There was none of the wanton waste you saw everywhere in Florida, objects discarded the moment there was a chip or a stain, surplus food chucked into bins. Kimmie had told him how much got thrown away at the restaurant where she worked and it disgusted him. The fisherman secured the final knot and put down his net.

‘Nice work,’ Owen said in Spanish.

The fisherman nodded at him.

He wandered into the town. He was going to send a card to his aunt Cally. He didn’t remember to do this very often, maybe twice a year, and it had been a while. He chose a card with a picture of working boats on it and went to a café and got himself a coffee. He wrote that they were both in good health and he hoped his aunt was doing well. He did not say they would be coming back any time soon. The feeling was growing in him that he couldn’t go back to Florida.

It was rare for them to fight outright like this. Kim felt miserable as she went down into the saloon, picked up her scissors and continued to cut the fabric for the new drapes. She was sure Owen would throw the piece of paper away with the Dutch man’s name and cell number on it, a man who would have bought the boat and cared for it too. It didn’t make sense. She thought about Gary and Gail again and how a couple needed to want the same things in life in order to make a go of it. She had always thought she and Owen wanted the same things, but recently they seemed to be pulling in opposite directions.

Later she heard Rob and Anna rowing up in the dinghy. They secured it and joined her in the saloon as she was clearing the table of her sewing things.

‘Hi there,’ Anna said.

‘Looks like you’ve been busy,’ Rob said.

‘Yep, I’ve been sewing all afternoon. Owen’s out and I’ve got a bit of a headache now.’

‘I’ll make dinner if you like,’ Anna said.

‘Well thanks. I’d appreciate that.’

They kept waiting for Owen but he didn’t show up. Eventually Anna went below and she cooked them pasta with tomato and red pepper sauce and grated cheese on top. It was a simple dish.

‘Comfort food,’ she said as she served it up to them.

‘It’s nice to be cooked for,’ Kim said.

Later, lying in their cabin, cuddled up to each other, Rob said quietly:

‘Something’s up. Owen’s not back yet.’

‘And Kimberly seemed low tonight. I wonder if they had a fight?’

‘It’s a shame. This is our last night on the boat with them.’

‘Well I’m looking forward to the cabin and a proper shower,’ she said.

It was well past midnight as Owen walked back to the boat following the line of the harbour wall. His feeling of lowness had grown all evening and he’d been drinking at a dive bar for hours. He saw a couple in front of him who were taking the same walk back. They stopped to embrace and it made him feel sad watching the couple hold each other so passionately. After a long moment the couple pulled away from each other and sauntered on. He needed a slash and found an alcove in the wall. He unzipped and relieved himself. He looked down at his penis in his hand. He didn’t use it much for sex these days, in spite of having a wife he loved and who the lowlifes on Roatán referred to as a pocket Venus.

Kim was still awake in the saloon waiting for Owen to come back. She had taken the fabric out again and had carried on with her sewing until the work was done, straining her ears to hear his footsteps on the pontoon. Finally she heard him approach the boat. She left the saloon and dropped the washboard into place so as not to disturb Anna and Rob. She watched him approach in the darkness and his steps looked unsteady.

‘Where’ve you been?’

‘Out…’

‘Oh Owen, it was our last night on the boat with them.’

He moved from sadness to anger in a flash.

‘The boat you’re so keen to sell,’ he said.

‘Don’t start that again. Please.’

‘I’m gonna sleep on deck.’

‘Well there’s a surprise,’ she said.

The next morning they assembled for coffee in the cockpit, as they always did first thing. Kim looked tense and Owen said very little. It was to be Anna’s and Rob’s last morning on the
El Tiempo Pasa
. They went below to pack their belongings. Rob sat on the bed looking out of the porthole as Anna packed her rucksack quickly.

‘You go on deck and help Owen with the sailing and I’ll pack your stuff,’ she said.

Owen and Rob sailed the boat the eleven miles eastwards from French Harbour to a mooring in Oak Ridge on a buoy. Oak Ridge was a working town built around the harbour. Many of the houses and shops were built on stilts and reached by boat. There was a large fish and shrimp processing plant, the largest on the island. They stood on deck and watched the small boats which were used like buses to ferry the workers back and forth to the factory. There was not much of a beach to speak of and little sign of tourists. They got into the dinghy and Owen rowed them ashore.

Money Joe’s cabins were on a hill on the outskirts of the town, a short walk up from the scrubby beach. Owen led the way, striding ahead of them till he found the two they had been allocated. They were simple wooden cabins and stood next to each other. He handed over the keys to Rob and they agreed to meet up later.

Rob unlocked the door and stepped inside. It was basic in design and finish and there was no glass at the windows just mesh and slats you could open and close. There was a main living area containing a small hard sofa and two chairs. Off this there was a kitchen and a small bathroom. The furniture was cheap and flimsy throughout. There were four white plastic chairs in the kitchen around a small metal fold-up table. The cabin had been given a perfunctory clean and Anna saw a procession of ants climbing the wall behind the stove. She checked out the bathroom.

‘Oh bliss, a proper shower,’ she said.

There was a separate bedroom with narrow twin beds.

‘Singles,’ Rob said mournfully.

‘We can push them together to make a double.’

They did this. Rob picked up the two mosquito nets, one for each bed.

‘We’ll need these,’ he said looking up at the squashed mosquitoes all over the ceiling and walls. He spread the nets over the beds as best he could. He was already missing the boat. Anna unpacked her rucksack.

‘I’m going to take a nice long shower.’

Owen and Kim stood in the main room of their cabin and looked around.

‘Typical Money Joe,’ Owen said. ‘Cheapskate bastard…’

‘It’s only for a few nights.’

Kim was troubled that Owen had got the cabins from Money Joe, even though she had been the one to ask him to get them. Why had he gone to him of all people? She made a point not to mention the varnishing of the floor of the saloon, although this was the sole reason for the move to the cabins. When Owen was in one of his moods it was wise to say nothing. If it came to it she could do the varnishing herself.

‘At least we’ve got a double bed,’ she said.

‘It’s so airless in here,’ he said.

She opened the slats at the bedroom window to their full extent.

‘I’m going over to West End in a bit, with Anna, to buy a dress for the party.’

After a long shower Anna came into the bedroom, sat on a towel on the bed and rubbed body lotion onto her legs and her arms.

‘That was nice,’ she said.

Rob watched her rubbing in the cream. She had shapely legs and he especially liked her thighs. He could feel himself getting aroused.

‘You’re all lovely and slippery.’

He pushed her back onto the bed and kissed the mole between her eyebrows and moved his hands down her stomach and onto her thighs.

‘I can’t now. I told Kimberly I’d go to West End with her.’

‘Can’t it wait?’

‘Later. We’re going shopping.’

He sat up looking disgruntled.

‘Shopping trumps sex, does it?’

‘We’ve got the cabin now. There’s plenty of time,’ she said.

She dressed and went next door and thanked Owen again for securing the cabins for them.

‘Glad I could oblige,’ he said.

He looked glum. The women headed down the hill to the beach. It was a dirty scrubby kind of a beach and there were a few loungers laid out but these were unoccupied.

‘Not the prettiest place, is it?’ Kim said.

‘No; French Harbour is nicer. But it was kind of Owen to get us the cabins.’

‘And it’s kinda interesting around here. There are mangrove swamps along the road where you can take tours. We did it once and you see all kinds of wildlife there.’

‘I’ll tell Rob. We should do that,’ Anna said.

They walked along to the bus stop by the fish processing plant.

Rob tapped on the door and Owen let him in.

‘Bit of a shithole, ain’t it? Owen said.

Rob nodded his agreement.

‘Anna’s happy to have the shower.’

‘I feel so shut in here. Strange I know because it’s bigger than the space we’ve got on the boat.’

‘Can’t you and Kim sleep on the boat?’

‘She wants me to varnish the floor of the saloon.’

‘Ahh, when a woman wants a man to do something it usually happens.’

Owen looked rueful.

‘She’s trying to wear me down. Do you fancy a swim?’

‘You’re not working on the boat today then? I could give you a hand?’

‘I wanna find a little bay I used to go to near here. We can go in the dinghy.’

Owen picked up his two oars and a bottle of water and they made their way down the hill to the beach. He rowed for about twenty minutes going east and then Rob took over.

‘It’s worth the row, you’ll see,’ Owen said.

They reached a tiny bay protected by rocks on either side with a triangle of the clearest water and a small sandy beach. They pulled the dinghy up onto the sand.

‘Nice spot,’ Rob said.

‘It’s good swimming too because of the rocks.’

Owen reached for his rucksack and took out the makings for a joint. He sat on the sand and rolled it, lit it and drew on the joint deeply a few times before handing it to Rob.

‘I’m away tomorrow night on Doug’s boat. Will you keep an eye on Anna?’

‘Sure.’

Rob inhaled on the joint.

‘Thing is she can get fearful when she’s on her own, on account of her over-active imagination.’

‘Ahh, they can be troublesome.’

He handed the joint back to Owen who drew on it deeply again. As they got stoned Rob talked about Anna, the things he loved about her. She really didn’t care about material things and she clashed with her father a lot because he was very status conscious. She had told him how she hated her father’s pretentions: the large and manicured garden with the matching teak garden furniture which was so different from her granddad’s lived in and worked upon garden. She was much more like her granddad, who was the son of a farm worker.

‘Yeah, she talked about him with great affection,’ Owen said.

‘He was the greatest influence on her life.’

Owen was rolling a second joint.

‘When Anna went back to live with her parents she felt like a fish out of water. No-one in her family has ever really
got
Anna except her granddad.’

‘And you; you get her,’ Owen said.

‘I guess I do. She’s physically afraid of every damned little thing but emotionally strong. She doesn’t back away from difficult truths.’

‘You sure do love her. Don’t worry I’ll keep an eye on her.’

They smoked the second joint in silence looking at the sea in front of them. The colours in the water moved and shifted from green to turquoise to midnight blue. Owen sighed as he stubbed the smoked down joint into the sand.

‘You OK?’

He shrugged.

‘I’ve been better.’

‘Are you and Kim all right?’

‘She’s mad at me, keeps going on at me to sell the boat.’

‘You don’t want to sell your boat do you?’

‘No I don’t. Can’t bring myself to do it. I don’t know how I’m gonna do it but I’m not going back to Florida.’

As the bus pulled into West End Anna could see why this was the divers’ and surfers’ mecca on Roatán. The town fronted a spectacular beach. Dive shops lined the main sandy road which ran along the shore and there were posters everywhere offering diving classes and sea kayaking and glass-bottomed boat tours. Kim said further along there were two clothes shops they should check out. In the first one she found a turquoise sun dress with a deep frill around the hem. She liked the colour and tried it on.

‘It’s pretty and it suits you,’ Anna said.

Anna felt the fabric between her fingers. The dress was made of cotton.

‘Are you thinking it’s too casual, more of a day dress?’ Kim asked.

‘I think so. I don’t think it’s dressy enough for a big do.’

They found the second boutique where the clothes were more expensive. Kim went through the rails at the front of the shop. She made a beeline for dresses in bright, bold colours: acid yellow, turquoise and orange. Anna went to the back of the shop and started to go through the rails there. Most of the dresses were too bling for her taste; they had gold beads or appliqued flowers on them. She found one she liked. It was a simple white satin dress with a halter neck. She called out to Kimberly.

‘Come try this one on.’