The Boat (17 page)

‘Hey, Johnny,’ Frank whispered, grabbing his arm in his hand, holding him behind as the others went below deck with their wares. Johnny had to turn around and face him then. Frank’s eyes were mischievous, quizzical.
He sees everything.
‘You look like you need cheering up. After we’ve eaten, you want to get the sails up? Show me what you’re made of?’ he said.

Johnny nodded. That was exactly what he wanted to do; Frank did indeed see things. ‘Absolutely,’ he said.

Annie gutted the fish and Frank cooked them while Johnny patched up Granny’s leg. He made her a splint out of an old lolly stick while Smudge and Clem built her a new home out of a cereal box, Smudge decorating the walls with felt-tip drawings of more able tortoises skipping about merrily in the scrub. They put Granny in the box with her lollipop leg. She seemed unimpressed; she stared at the murals, nonplussed by the unexpected turn her life had taken.

Johnny slid himself under Clem at the saloon table and put his arms around her. He squeezed her small body against his and buried his face in her hair. He whispered in her ear that he wanted to row her ashore and find a nice private stretch of shade. Smudge, sitting on the other side of the table, thought that sounded like an excellent idea, they could look for more tortoises – not quite what he had in mind. Instead the three of them chopped apples and made a crumble and Johnny didn’t think about Annie’s breasts at all until she came down to help them and he could see them jiggling underneath that shirt as she peeled the apples.

It wouldn’t be long now; they might even find a village this afternoon.

After lunch was cleared and washed up, to Johnny’s relief, they left the bay. He pulled up the anchor and Frank motored them out of the harbour. They chugged along the coast for a bit with Johnny waiting for the nod to get the sails up. He sat waiting, leaning against the mast, Clem at his side, the warm breeze on his face, turning every now and then to see if Frank was ready. He couldn’t just put the sails up without Frank’s permission; it would be like helping yourself to a drink in someone else’s house. He wondered out loud what he was waiting for.

‘He doesn’t do anything without a reason,’ Clem said, sucking loudly on a pear drop; she’d bought a stash of them in the UK and rationed herself to one a day so that they’d last her up to three months. ‘Have you noticed that?’ she said.

‘I have,’ Johnny said, his hand absentmindedly stroking her leg. They both looked over at Frank at the helm, his dark hair waving wildly in the wind, a cigarette dangling from his lips. There was something of Gregory Peck about him today.

‘He saved us, didn’t he?’ she said. Johnny turned to look at her; she’d used exactly the same words that Annie had. ‘The other night…’

‘I suppose he did,’ Johnny said, taking her hand. ‘I think we should get off at the next village though, not wait for the town.’ He looked out at the puffy white cumulus clouds bouncing along the horizon. ‘Otherwise we might be stuck for a week.’

Clem turned sharply round to look him in the eye. ‘What? Aren’t you enjoying it?’

‘I am… I am,’ he said, backtracking, trying to sound reasonable. ‘I don’t want to outstay our welcome, that’s all.’

‘But we haven’t. Frank says we can stay as long as we like.’ Then she paused, screwing up her face in the sunlight, struck by a new idea. ‘Why? Did Annie say something? What happened on the hillside?’

‘Nothing,’ he said, too quickly, a clenching in his gut. He squeezed her hand. ‘Nothing happened.’

‘Well, what’s the rush then?’ She looked over at the shore and he noticed that the ends of her lashes had been bleached by the sun. His eyes followed her gaze.
Nothing.
The bows of the boat were going up and down in the waves, ploughing through the water. An arrhythmic lull seemed to take hold of them both.

‘I’m not ready to leave,’ she said, smoothing his fingers. ‘It doesn’t feel like the right time. Let’s wait until we get to a town.’

He felt both relieved and anxious to hear her say that. If the Annie thing hadn’t happened he would be with her one hundred per cent. There was something different about these people, something alluring and attractive. The attraction wasn’t a physical thing – well, it was, but it was much more profound than that. He didn’t understand
what
it was quite yet. He could only think of it as though he had been swimming on the surface for a long time and someone had just introduced him to the snorkel and mask.

‘OK,’ he said, feeling that at least he’d tried. ‘Well, let’s play it by ear.’

‘Don’t get too comfortable!’ Frank yelled from the cockpit. ‘She’s all yours!’

Johnny leapt to his feet and started undoing the sail-ties. ‘Aye, aye,’ he cried. ‘Head to wind, Frank!’ he called but Frank couldn’t hear above the engine. ‘Clem, turn her round, can you?’

Clem jumped down into the companionway and Frank turned off the engine and disappeared below deck, letting Clem take the helm. She nosed the boat round into the wind and Johnny grabbed the halyard and started to hoist the mainsail. The halyard jammed and Johnny jerked it free, heaving harder, balancing his weight, one foot against the mast. The sail was stiff and clean and flapped about wildly as it went up. The wind had shifted a little; they’d have to beat into it.

Johnny cleated the halyard off, pulled in the mainsheet and unfurled the genoa. Annie and Smudge sat huddled together on the port side watching his every move as he went to and fro along the deck checking the sails, looking up and leaning out, shouting instructions to Clem. Frank stood in the companionway in his fisherman’s jumper, a big grin on his face as he watched Johnny get the boat going to its maximum capacity.

Johnny took the tiller and bore away into a close haul. The boat heeled over. Both Annie and Smudge let out identical little cries, their hands gripping the sides as if they thought the boat about to capsize.

The
Little Utopia
moved nicely. Johnny was pleasantly surprised. ‘She’s quite nippy for a fat bird,’ he said, looking over at Frank, letting out the mainsheet just an inch or so.

They headed further out into the open water and Johnny felt his doubts and worries get swept away with the wind. This was all he needed; this was what he had been waiting for: the thrill of a little bit of speed. Speed fuelled by wind power alone. It wasn’t just Johnny feeling the adrenalin; he looked at the others and could see that they were all feeling the rush. It was impossible not to. Clem came and sat by his side, slipping her hand into the back of his shorts, kissing the dip beneath his cheekbone where her lips fitted and for a while it felt good, but then he became aware of Annie sitting there on his other side with her breasts. He had to stop it. He tried to think about how old she was but that didn’t work, it made him remember babysitting for the neighbours. He tried to think of her making love with Frank, but that didn’t work either, that only intrigued him. He turned to Clem and kissed her lips in a perfunctory way, handed her the tiller and got up to adjust the genny. Only a couple of days maximum, he thought, looking over towards the land.

It was much windier out at sea without the shelter of the mountains. The bows of the boat thumped smack down into the water, the spray hitting everyone in the face. Smudge squealed each time it happened, licking the salt from her lips, grinning at Johnny. She was a brave, wild little thing. Thump, thump, thump went the bows.

‘Oh my God!’ Annie cried, anxiously looking up at Johnny, holding Smudge close. He squinted up at the main. He should probably put a reef in.

‘Frank!’ he cried. ‘Do you want to put a reef in?’

Frank, still standing on the companionway steps looking out to sea, turned back to Johnny and then looked up at the sails. ‘Up to you,’ he said.

‘Put one in!’ Johnny said but Frank didn’t move.

‘Put a reef in, Frank!’ Johnny repeated, thinking he hadn’t heard. Frank looked up again at the sail and then back at Johnny.

‘What’s a reef?’ he asked.

Johnny laughed.
What’s a reef?

‘No, I’m serious,’ Frank said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘What the hell’s a reef?’

Johnny looked over at Annie, who stared blankly back at him.

‘You know what a reef is,’ Johnny said, laughing, not knowing quite what was going on. ‘You have sailed this boat before?’ he asked, handing the tiller to Clem again.

Frank shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve never sailed any boat before.’

Johnny laughed again but he was confused, thought that perhaps this was some sort of test Frank was setting. He put the reef in himself. Then he came back down into the cockpit and changed tack, heading back towards the shore, and it began to dawn on him that this wasn’t a test: the reason why the sails looked brand new was because they
were
brand new. Frank wasn’t joking. When he’d said that they’d been sailing round the Med for the last six years, he meant
motoring
around the Med. He didn’t know how to sail. Johnny stared at Frank in amazement. Why the hell would a man who didn’t know how to sail take his family to live on a sailing boat? He had to be crazy, and the sheer insanity of it was kind of impressive.

‘Why buy a sailing boat, Frank? Why not a motor boat?’ he asked a little later on, when they were alone in the cockpit sipping at beers. Frank tapped himself out a fag, caught it in his lips and lit it, sheltering the flame from the wind. He sat back, spreading his huge frame out wide, a mischievous smile on his lips.

‘Perhaps, like you, Johnny,’ he said, ‘I had to leave in a bit of a hurry.’

Johnny was intrigued. He waited for more information but Frank was unforthcoming and Johnny didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to pry, it would display a lack of something manly and he still wanted to impress Frank, for Frank to think he was different from other men, worthy of his friendship and respect. So instead he sat back himself and looked out at the horizon.

‘I’ll tell you one thing, Johnny,’ Frank said, rewarding him for his patience. ‘I did nothing that I’m ashamed of.’

Johnny looked away, up at the canvas. The wind had dropped a little and he adjusted the main and unfurled a little more of the genny and they drank their beers in silence. Below deck he could see Clem and Annie chatting in the galley. ‘Have you never done
anything
that you’re ashamed of?’ Johnny asked him. Those generic kinds of questions were acceptable, he knew that.

Johnny watched as the wind blew the ash off the end of his cigarette. ‘I take full responsibility for all of my actions,’ Frank said and Johnny wished that he could say the same. ‘We get what’s coming to us, Johnny. We can’t escape karma. That’s why it’s very important to witness the choices as we make them. Create good karma for yourself.’

A bit late now, Johnny thought.

‘Stay until we get to Datca at least,’ Frank said, as if they had been discussing his plans. He put his arm lazily around Johnny’s shoulder. ‘There’s sod all along this coast.’

It was true. So the decision was made; it was easy. They would stay.

The sun crossed the sky and later on, far out on the horizon, another boat sailed by, but apart from that the sea was theirs. Johnny spent the rest of the afternoon busying himself – making small adjustments to the sail trim, rolling the genny out, rolling it in, putting a reef in, taking it out, tacking, gybing, whatever the fluky wind wanted him to do. Frank had liked that: there was no choice but to respond to the now, to each breath of wind as it came or went, no time to dwell on the past. Johnny had started showing him how to read the sails, how to rely on his senses and it had felt good that he was giving Frank something in return for all that Frank was giving them.

Annie and Smudge disappeared for a siesta and shortly Frank joined them. Clem remained at the bows sketching away in her black book while Johnny sailed the boat. He watched her up there, the methodical way in which she worked, and he wondered what on earth she was sketching because there was nothing to see but sea. He thought about how they would be doing this some time, sailing their boat, going wherever they fancied, seeing the world on their terms.

He’d stopped scanning the shore for villages now – what was the point? He had completely overreacted this morning; it was nothing, it was insignificant, it had clearly meant nothing to Annie and it actually meant nothing to him. He could wait another couple of days for the town; there was no point in getting stuck in some village. Now that he’d made that decision to stay, to relax, he knew it was the right one, he could feel it in his gut, just as Frank had said. He was so focused on the sails and the horizon and the sea that he didn’t notice the feeling sidling back in, of the real world slipping away, their world being on this thirty-foot boat with a population of five where the rules seemed to keep taking him by surprise.

Annie was the first to come up, yawning, crease marks of sheet on her cheek. She was wearing one of Frank’s shirts and not much else and Johnny pretended not to notice but was intensely aware that, with Clem dozing at the bows, it was just the two of them in the cockpit. She passed him a cup of tea and it was she who didn’t meet his eye; she seemed distracted, unhappy, and he thought that perhaps she too was feeling bad about what had happened. She went back down below and he watched her pottering around the galley. She put on some music, Aretha Franklin, and began cooking something, reading a recipe. The wind had dropped and Johnny started fiddling around with the sextant. He’d cleaned up the mirrors and the lens and was lining up the horizon with the sun when Annie came back out holding a bag of potatoes. She undid the bucket hanging from the back and swung it neatly full of seawater, checking out the horizon as she did so. She emptied the potatoes into the bucket and began to peel them.

‘This is the furthest from land we’ve ever been,’ she said, looking over at the distant shore.

Johnny stopped squinting through the lens and looked at her as she peeled. ‘Seriously?’ he asked. She nodded, her pale eyes looking up at him; the first moment of intimacy since he’d touched her on the hillside. She shot a furtive glance down below deck and Johnny thought she was going to refer to it. He returned to the safety of the sextant lens.