In Search of the Blue Tiger (36 page)

The boy looks to the Father and then to the sea. Then the Father talks on.

‘These three huge bullies, the Swash brothers they were called. Gypsies, they were. Tinkers, we used to call them. They chased me from school. I got home ahead of them. I was a fine runner in those days and glad of it. So I closed the door behind me. Panting I was. Father was home that day and he asked me why I was panting. I told him about the tinker boys out in the street. And do you know what he did? He cracked me on the side of the head and pushed me back out in the street, bolting the big heavy door behind me. “Fight your battles,” he said. And there were the three huge boys; they could hardly believe their luck.'

‘So what happened next?' asks the lad, shouting above the squall.

‘I took a terrible beating that day, but I took it. And afterwards I went to boxing school. A year later I won a scholarship exam and the head teacher gave me a fountain pen. I was the only boy in the school who had ever won a scholarship. And those same three boys stole it from my desk. So I waited at the school gate and challenged them. One at a time. One by one. Each in turn I knocked flat to the ground. And bloodied as I was and though I never got the pen back, I knew I was on my own always and could only ever count on my own strength to get me through.'

‘Do you still box?'

‘The last time I boxed was on a troop ship to Palestine.'

The Father jerks his head as if evading an unexpected left hook.

‘On board was the British Army heavyweight champion. They set up a ring on deck and in the fifth round I sent him crashing to the canvas. The same combination that put down the biggest of the gypsies. Two right jabs followed by a crunching left upper-cut.'

He re-enacts the final blow. The shadow boxer in the night. Jab, jab. Upper-cut.

‘Did you take up the scholarship?'

‘No,' says the Father, still jabbing the air. ‘Not in those days. The likes of me went to work as soon as there were hairs on your legs.'

Suddenly, there's an eerie silence, followed by a distant bubbling and rumbling. The two night watchmen, the Father and boy, exchange glances and then squint into the darkness.

By the time the wave hits Tidetown it is a shadow of its ocean self, yet huge enough to make its mark on history. It swoops in from the mouth of the bay and breeches the harbour wall with a thump and a whoosh. The drinkers in the Sailor's Arms, with last orders on their minds, barely have time to be startled before the water crashes through the window, sending tables and chairs in a swirl, smashing friends against foes in a spin with no time to settle differences.

Up the hill, the townsfolk come out into the streets in dressing gowns and slippers to make sense of the din, picking out from the dark the white foam of the swell and surge on the quayside below. All is abubble and afoam, with boats hauled from their dry-docks to be spun on the tide. The sea, having conquered new land, calls a truce and settles into its newfound territory. The drinkers, sodden and waist-deep in brine, waddle out the door of the Sailor's Arms.

Mrs April settles by the fireside, her favourite Blackwatch tartan rug over her lap. On the record player Mahler competes with the storm that is doing its best to battle on until dawn. She knows all too well the power and wrath of the sea and when the wave thumped the coastline her heart jumped a beat. Like everyone else, she went out to her front gate and saw the commotion, heard the rumours being flung up and down the high road, looked up to the blackened, angry skies and realised something very serious was in the offing. But she had decided there was little for her to do but wait until morning, stay warm by the fireside and let events unfold.

Pulling the cardigan around her shoulders she turns her attention to the letter that has sat on her dressing table since the afternoon post. Carefully she slits open the envelope with the silver paper-knife with the ebony handle her husband gave her on their wedding night. As always, it cuts beautifully, sharp as ice.

She knows the letter is from Oscar: the handwriting on the address, the watermark across the stamp. She sits back comfortably in the old armchair, unfolds the letter and reads:

Dear Mrs April,

I hope this letter finds you well. I am very happy here at the monastery, especially now that Stigir is with me. Thank you very much for looking after him so well. He likes it here and sleeps at the end of my bed on a blanket. I am very busy. I have two jobs. One in the library and one in the orchard. The librarian is called Brother Moses and I've told him all about you and the library in Tidetown and he is very interested to meet you. I know you have met Brother Saviour already, when he came to your house to collect Stigir. When he returned here he asked me if I would like to invite you for a visit and of course I said yes. So this is my main reason for writing. To invite you to come here to see me and Stigir. We will show you around and I am sure you will have a nice time. Please come on the 21st. You can come in the morning and then stay overnight if you wish. Brother Saviour says some of the monks will be in Tidetown early to sell vegetables at the market and could bring you here. Please let us know if it is a good date for you. Otherwise we can arrange a more convenient time.

Looking forward to seeing you here.

Kind regards,

Oscar

Next morning it is Sunday. The sun shines as if nothing untoward had occurred in the night.

In the town square the talk is of the ships at sea. The trawlers and dredgers, ferry-boats and tugs. Stories of safe havens and alcoves and who might be lost when the notice is posted.

In the chapel, the sermon is on the Flood and the powerful hand of the Almighty, the precariousness of life, and for Your Mercy and the safety of our men, Amen.

In the Kingdom Hall, Brother Pearson talks of the signs of the last days, the Second Coming, and the need to be ever-vigilant and ready.

In the library, Mrs April, back at work a week, catching up on the backlog, sorts index cards, saddened by the memories of battleships in the harbour and the heavy loss of love.

In the House of the Doomed and Damned, Great Aunt Margaret kneels by her niece's side, strokes her hair and wipes the tears that roll down her cheeks.

‘He always said it would end like this,' says the Mother quietly. ‘And I know it has.'

‘I know,' says her Great Aunt, feeling the young woman's pain.

‘In spite of it all, I do love him so, my man of the sea.'

‘I know,' says the older woman. ‘I know you do.'

If a member of a Sumatran's family is killed by a tiger, the overwhelming loss turns into the hair and claws of a tiger. Any surviving relative, now a tiger, runs into the forest.

It matters little what the wave is doing, for he is under the water and deep. Drawn down by the pull of the sinking trawler, flipped by the sheer volume of water from the huge rogue wave that falls upon it as if the blackest heaviest cloud has dropped straight out of the night sky. The boat seesaws though the air, turns from stern to hull like weightless flotsam, and is sucked down to the ocean floor. The swirling pool is his trap and executioner and there is no way out. No more a miraculous dance with death to retell by the fire in the Sailor's Arms. For this time, it is for good and ever. The only time left, as he is twisted and turned by the swell, is measured by the precious air still held in his lungs. A few more breaths and that is all.

‘My only son, that I have yet to know. There was a young man tonight. He reminded me of how I was. How you would be. How we would be together, one day. I have to struggle before I can surrender. Too late. Never to stand together on deck. To share a drink of rum. I would have loved you.'

He thrashes out with all the might of his fists, but there is no resistance, nowhere to land a punch. No knockout blow. Dove-grey air bubbles dance and swirl around his head, until they slow from a frantic rush to a trickle: one by one, to none.

His arms fall to his side; his body submits. Dancing and twisting in the grey-green deep, the Father's final lonely jig. Far above, the waves still roar as the storm circles between air and sea. But settling into his watery grave, in time-honoured fashion, yielding at last, one more sailorman gives up the ghost.

Saint Augustine wrote that time is nothing in reality, but exists only in the human mind's way of understanding reality. A way of making sense of the world. Time is not always the same. Like when you are waiting for something to happen. I always think of Christmas time, when those last days take so long to pass. But then time goes so quickly at other times, you hardly see it passing, like the last week of the summer holidays. Mother always said a watched kettle never boils. I watched one once. It did boil, but it took longer than it would have done if I hadn't sat looking at it. It was as if time was playing a game with me and the kettle.