The Boat (2 page)

He could barely move his limbs even if he’d wanted to, they’d become leaden and useless, waving like planks of wood as the coldness rattled in his bones. Panting and spitting water he watched as the fender bobbed towards him, only a matter of feet away now, taunting him with a brief respite from this struggle. He couldn’t stop himself, he reached out and grabbed hold of it, hauling it in towards his body, resting his head against its scratched, solid surface, gasping for air, his eyes focusing in on all the scuffs and stains, wondering whether this was going to make dying easier or harder.

Something soft brushed against his legs and he looked down at the trailing fender rope. He pulled it up with his clumsy, frozen fingers. The rope was caught on a heavy piece of fabric. He brought it up to the surface. A small, cracked cry escaped from his throat and his heart thrashed about violently in his chest, briefly pumping life into the numbness. It was her prayer mat, all darkened and made heavy by the water, but most definitely it was her little prayer mat! A tiny piece of her had come back for him. She would have called it
a sign.

His fingers, rigid as rods of steel, made heavy work of untangling the rope. His juddering teeth proved more capable and he bit his way down it, loosening the carpet inch by inch until eventually he worked it free, heaving it out of the water and on to the fender, passing the rope behind his body, his hands grabbing uselessly at each other. He tried jabbing the end of the rope through the eye at the top of the fender. By chance he succeeded and tightened off the slack, but it was dark by the time he’d tied the two half-hitches needed to keep him there and his body had begun to tremble uncontrollably.

Johnny’s dad had asked Rob and him to look out for the girls on the beach while he went to the chandler’s in Padstow. They’d intended to do the brotherly thing, but Rob had ended up buying some dope off the lifeguard and they’d sat on the sand dunes getting stoned in the sunshine. They’d lost track of the girls hours ago. The last Johnny had seen of them, they were mucking about in the rock pools doing whatever it was that eleven-year-old girls did.

Johnny lay there sifting hot sand through his fingers, turning a perfect heart-shaped little piece of slate over in his hand, feeling the warm sun on his back, discussing the merits of trimarans versus catamarans with Rob, when his attention was caught by Sarah’s little friend over Rob’s right shoulder, up high in the sand dunes beyond. She was perched at the very top, back to the sea, poised, knees bent, arms stretched out in front of her. He wondered what she was doing. She looked like an animal about to pounce, her attention firmly fixed on the whispering grasses in front of her. Then, to his immense surprise – he was pretty wrecked – she threw herself backwards high up into the air, forming a perfectly piked backwards somersault, gracefully flying through the blue Cornish sky. She landed neatly on her feet at the bottom of the dune, facing the sea, before skipping forwards on to the harder wetter sand.

Johnny choked on the spliff. ‘Rob! Did you see that?’

Rob gave a cursory glance over his shoulder. ‘No,’ he said.

‘Watch Clemmie!’

So they both watched as she climbed back up the dune, scrabbling nimbly up the sand, like a sun-kissed nymph in her blue and white stripy swimming costume, Johnny noticing the tan lines on her perky little bum. She jumped sideways to avoid Sarah who was doing rather heavy forward rolls down the dune.

‘Wait for it!’ he said to Rob, leaning on one elbow, making himself comfortable, eyes on this new vision: her strong, brown limbs, her copper hair blowing about wildly in the salty breeze. How on earth could he not have noticed her before? Even the sunlight seemed to be lighting her differently today, as if she were something that had to be highlighted. Two minutes ago she hadn’t even registered in his mind – of course he’d known her for years as his little sister’s friend, and she’d been down to Cornwall a couple of times, but he’d never paid her any real attention. For the first time he was
seeing
her, as if he had borrowed some binoculars and there she was in sharp focus, Sarah’s friend, a whole new species: a ‘Clemency Bailey’. Once again, she took her position, frozen, poised, and then threw herself backwards fearlessly, arching and twisting against the sky but this time, open-bodied, slow and leisurely.

Rob sat up and wolf-whistled her. She turned around then and saw them watching her and she took a deep, flourishing, theatrical bow before scrabbling back up to the top again.

‘She’s going to be a right little heartbreaker,’ Rob said, but Johnny could tell that his mind was back on trimarans, which suited him just fine; he preferred watching her over his shoulder, having her all to himself.

Then later that night everyone had gone for a walk along the surf because the moon was full – his mum was always coming up with hippie reasons for excursions – and on the way back to the cottage Clemmie had declared that she was going to go swimming and he had found himself deliberately dawdling, saying to no one in particular, ‘I’d better keep an eye on her, there’s a rip tide.’ Even when she’d said she didn’t need an eye on her, she was almost twelve, big enough to swim without eyes on her, still he’d sat down on the dry sand at the water’s edge as the others wandered back.

‘I’ll have a smoke then,’ he said and she’d shrugged her shoulders.

‘It’s a free country.’

And he’d been quite taken aback by the carefree way she had pulled her dress over her head and taken off her knickers without so much as a backwards glance at him. Then he’d watched her run into the sea, shrieking in the waves as they knocked her over, the moonlight shining on her naked body.

‘Come in!’ she yelled to him as he sat there on the sand and it had felt good to be invited into her watery world where all the fun was going on. She wasn’t to know that Johnny never went
in
the cold British sea, only
on
it. Even when capsizing dinghy sailing, he prided himself on never getting wet; he’d neatly step on to the centreboard, straddling the hull and righting the boat, barely wetting a toe.

‘Chicken Licken!’ she shouted, diving under a wave, disappearing into the water, the starry night her backdrop.

‘Come in, Johnny!’ She was waving at him, slippery and shining. He felt for the first time as if he was in the wrong place, here, dry on the beach, when it looked so much better over there with her in the water.

‘Help!’ she cried, pretending to drown. ‘Shark!’ She went under and stuck her legs up in the air, walking on her hands.

Then, quite out of character, Johnny found himself ripping off his clothes and running in. ‘Emergency services are here! Worry not!’ he shouted, splashing into the icy water. ‘Holy shit!’ he yelled as the water hit his nuts. The thrill of the chill, the suck and the pull of the current made him whelp. Clemmie was swimming towards him, faking struggle, and he grabbed her hand and pulled her manfully into his arms, picking her up like a damsel in distress.

‘I’ve got you. You’re safe! Now where’s that naughty shark?’ he said, flexing a bicep.

She gave a throaty chuckle – he’d noticed that laugh of hers – and wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck. He could feel her nakedness against his stomach, the coolness of flesh on flesh. She turned her face to his. They were inches apart, locked together, not laughing any more but serious, intense, staring into each other’s moon-shining eyes, and a strange sensation went through Johnny: a warm rush seemed to flood through his entire being as if a void he had never known existed was being filled up and it struck him that he had been waiting for this moment for all of his fourteen years; whatever it was, this was it! This was the essence of life! He wanted time to stop just for a moment until he had fully grasped it but already she was slipping out of his arms. She had let the water pull her away and was lying on her back looking up at the stars.

For she had felt it too; she lay there, floating, eyes to the heavens, surrendering herself to the waves, pleasantly startled by what had just occurred, this new sensation in her body, all slippery and buzzing. She felt alive. Something had shifted inside her, away from childish things. She let the waves wash over her and carry her back to the shore, suddenly aware of her own nakedness as she stood up and ran back through the surf to the dry sand.

A little while later they sat in silence watching the sea, wet, dripping and newly intimate. She was wearing his jumper; it hung gigantically around her small frame. She’d tucked her knees up to her chin inside it to keep herself warm, drops of seawater running down her cheek.

‘Do you believe there are monsters out there?’ she asked him, squinting out at the dark horizon.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Why not?’

She liked that. She believed in monsters. She believed in everything.

‘That red dot could be an eye,’ she said, pointing far out to sea.

‘Or a fishing boat.’

‘Look! There’s a green one!’

‘Same boat. She’s turning.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Red light’s left side of the boat – port. Green’s right – starboard. It’s white now, that’s the stern. She’s heading out. West.’

‘Where’s it going?’

‘Fishing.’

‘I know that, Johnny. I meant if it carried on going straight, where would it end up?’

‘America, I suppose. No, Canada even.’

‘Wow.’ She sucked the end of a piece of salty hair. ‘Have you been to America?’ she asked.

‘No. Not yet. But I will one day. I’ll sail there.’ He liked it when she looked at him like that, shining her light at him; he didn’t want her to look away.

‘Really?’

‘Yup. I’m going to build my own boat, mono-hull, ketch – wooden, of course. Teak decks, double-ended. She’ll be the most beautiful boat on the ocean. And then I’m going to sail her single-handedly around the world.’ He couldn’t help showing off a bit. But it was true, that was exactly what he was going to do.

She was staring at him. Whatever it was that had shifted earlier on inside her, she could feel it starting again and it most definitely came from
him
. It was as if he knew her; it was as if they were connected. He was everything she wanted to be – chiefly, an adventurer. ‘Johnny, can I come? Can I sail round the world with you?’

He laughed. ‘Then it wouldn’t be single-handed.’

‘Who cares? We could do it double-handed.’

He smiled, getting out his tobacco. ‘Well, perhaps we could.’ He started rolling a cigarette.

‘Roll us a ciggie!’ she said, all excited now that they had some sort of arrangement. ‘A nice big fat one like you were smoking on the dunes.’

‘Do you smoke?’ he asked, pleased that she’d been watching him.

‘Not yet. Johnny? Why did you call a boat a “her”?’

He turned in towards her, away from the wind, to roll the cigarette. ‘Because of the shape – all curves and elegance, like a woman.’

‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Am I curved and elegant?’

‘Well, you’re only eleven.’

‘Yes,’ she said, annoyed with herself; eleven seemed a ridiculous age to be, neither one thing nor the other. ‘And three-quarters.’

‘I stand corrected.’

‘I’ve got a boyfriend,’ she said, as if that might make her a bit older.

‘Yeh?’

‘Yup. Roger Benson. We’ve touched tongues and every-thing.’

Johnny whistled. ‘Go for it, Roger.’

He cupped his hands and struck the match, the red flame of the phosphorus briefly blinding him. He felt her watching him and he liked it. He inhaled and blew the smoke out into the air and then passed her the cigarette. Their fingers were clammy with dampness and the cigarette stuck so he held it to her mouth as she tentatively leant forwards. He could feel the softness of her lips against his fingertips.

She coughed. ‘Yuck,’ she said, spitting out a strand of tobacco.

‘It’s disgusting at first. You have to get used to it.’

‘Do I? Oh, I will.’ She was determined to get it right; her lips sought out the cigarette again. He fed her another drag. This time she breathed in without coughing but clearly not enjoying it.

‘Good girl,’ he said and she smiled proudly. He noticed for the first time how her two front teeth crossed a little and he thought that one day a boy might get obsessed with teeth like that.

‘Johnny? Have you got a girlfriend?’

He leant back on his elbows and watched the fishing boat. ‘Not exactly,’ he said.

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means
not exactly
.’

She twisted around and lay on her front, looking at him. ‘OK. I’ll decide,’ she said. ‘Have you touched tongues?’

He looked her in the eye, straight-faced. ‘Yes, we have.’

‘Then yes, you’ve got a girlfriend,’ she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. She sat up again and went back to watching the fishing boat winking out in the Atlantic. Of course he had a girlfriend: looking like he did, smoking like he did, being an adventurer like he was.

‘Are you going to marry her?’ she asked.

Johnny laughed. ‘No.’

‘Why not?’

He took a long, slow drag of the cigarette. ‘Because she’s already married.’

She turned to him slowly, her jaw dropping, her eyes widening, her lungs filling. ‘Wow! How old is she?’

‘Thirty-five,’ he said, watching the thrill dart about her lovely face.

‘Oh my God!’ she cried, delighted. ‘She’s an old woman, Johnny! You’re only fourteen.’

A couple of months ago Johnny had been babysitting for a friend of his mum’s when she’d come home unexpectedly early, smelling sweetly of red wine. She’d stopped him in the hall, slipped some cash into his breast pocket, told him he was the sexiest young man she’d ever come across and then, to his immense surprise, pressed her blue lips against his. One thing had led to another and she’d whisked away his virginity on a Superman blanket on the sofa, minutes before her husband came home. He’d been doing a fair amount of babysitting since then.

‘Don’t tell Sarah, Clemmie.’

‘I won’t,’ she said, zipping her mouth and leaning back on her hands. She liked secrets. But she didn’t quite know what to do with this one. She let it churn about her head for a bit but whichever way she looked at it, it kept making her feel peculiar.