The Boat (7 page)

‘Get in the boat,’ he said and they clambered aboard over the cleats and ropes, shuffling forwards in the rain, creeping over the transom into the cockpit. He thought perhaps they could nick one of these boats. But it was no good, they had to get past the marina, they’d never be able to slip away.

‘We just need to get over there,’ he said peering over the stern, nodding towards the lane where the men were still lurking. ‘Unless we go the other way…’ He looked over towards the castle and the rocks beneath it.

They waited in the cockpit, keeping their heads down, until the men behind them had caught up and split off into two groups, one of which stood under the yellow canopy of the restaurant and the other turned back towards the marina. Instead of using the quayside, they quietly clambered over the boats, beam to beam, Johnny with the bag across his shoulders now like a backpack, Clem still clutching her carpet, climbing from one boat to the next in the darkness.

There was a shout from behind and a flash of torches across the rigging and decks of the boats further behind them. Their only option now was to leg it quickly towards the rocks beneath the castle where the huge man-made, wave-breaking boulders piled up against each other.

They were both nimble on their feet and they ran as fast as they could through the driving rain. Behind them they could hear the cry of voices as torchlight flashed across the water but neither of them turned until they got to the rocks. Breathless, soaked and terrified they began to scrabble across the boulders on all fours, slipping in their panic. Clem cried out with pain; she’d gashed her face. Johnny grabbed her wrist and pulled her along, gripping her so tightly that her fingers throbbed and her arm socket ached. Not until they got to the promontory did they stop and pause and look behind them through the downpour. They’d lost the men with their torches; two of them were on the boats going the wrong way and the others had disappeared along the road.

‘Jesus Christ.’ Clem was choking, the tears running down her face. ‘What do they want from us?’ She was shaking uncontrollably. Johnny watched the men scrabbling across the boats. Some of them were running back towards the marina. He leant back against the rock.

‘What are they going to do to us?’ she cried.

‘I don’t know,’ he said, his eyes frantically searching the harbour. How the hell was he meant to know everything? He pulled her in out of the flashing torchlight and they huddled against the rock as far out of the rain as was possible until the cries and footsteps ceased. They sat there for a long while, both of them shocked and frightened, their breathing rapid, their hearts pumping furiously. They sat there until there was quiet, until the only sound was that of water: the sea crashing against the boulders; the rain lashing the rocks. And he wondered what the hell they were going to do.

Clem pulled away from him, tucking herself into a ball, her forehead resting on her knees, motionless. Somewhere in the distance a rumble of thunder rolled across the sky. She lifted her head and looked out across the sea. There was nowhere to go to. There was nothing to say.

When she did speak, her voice was flat. The panic had been replaced by an eerie calm.

‘Why do we always end up in scrapes, Johnny?’

‘We don’t
always
,’ he said.

‘We do.’

He couldn’t really deny it. They were always in scrapes. In France they’d worked for an awful man who’d conned them out of their money, in Italy they’d been mugged not once but twice and they’d ended up on a very strange hitch-hike through Yugoslavia with a man who kept changing his clothes for no apparent reason. Even their wedding had been a disaster, topped off with him forgetting to take any money to the fancy hotel in Padstow so they’d had to do a runner out of the window down the drainpipe.

‘It’s just what happens when you go travelling,’ he said, but inside he was wondering how other people managed to avoid scrapes – Rob and his girlfriend only ever came back from their travels with suntans and tales of dreams fulfilled.

She didn’t say anything, just carried on staring out at the horizon. She closed her eyes and rested her head on her knees again and started imagining. She could do this easily; she could almost transport herself out of any situation. She could imagine somewhere else so vividly that sometimes it seemed as real as the real thing. She let the rain lead her. She took the sound and turned it into Cornish rain. Only now it was lashing down against the windows of the cottage behind the curtains and she was all warm inside beside the fire, sitting in the faded armchair watching a film on the crappy black and white TV. Johnny was sitting at her feet, leaning on the chair, and his dad was lying on the sofa in his shorts, his hands behind his head, his wild white hair standing up. Every now and then the picture on the telly would go fuzzy and Johnny or his dad would have to get up and fiddle about with the coat hanger that was sticking out of the back.

‘I’m sorry, Clem,’ Johnny said.

The rain was seeping down the back of her shirt; she could feel it running down her back into her pants. ‘It’s all right,’ she said wearily, turning her face towards him, eyes still shut.

He knew what she was doing. But it did them no good thinking like that. Even up shit creek with no paddles you could always use your hands or get out and push. He stood up and looked about him, out to sea, reaching into his pocket to check that he still had their tobacco. He dried his fingers on his shirt and rolled himself a cigarette under his jumper and lit up, keeping the flame covered by his hand. They’d wait here for an hour or two and then make their way back to the road; it would be fine. She’d see. They’d get up the hill and hitch a lift and by tomorrow evening they’d be laughing about all this. When he turned back to offer Clem a drag, he found her kneeling on the carpet, her palms pressed together, her lips mumbling.

‘What are you doing, Clem?’

‘I’m praying on my prayer mat. That’s what it’s for.’

‘Only if you’re a Muslim.’

‘God’s not bothered what religion you are.’

He flicked the soggy cigarette into the water. He knew she believed in angels and ghosts and her own private god, who thought church was a waste of time yet enjoyed getting the odd request, but he’d never seen her praying before, not on bended knee. He felt he’d really let her down then. She shouldn’t need to turn elsewhere for comfort. He hated the idea of her depending on someone other than him.

God, if you’re listening to her, get us out of this.

They both heard the music at the same time. It seemed to ooze through the pouring rain, the gentle strumming of a guitar accompanied by a pure, almost angelic female voice. It was coming from somewhere very near, from the rocks just around the corner, out of sight, as if a mermaid were sitting there, singing to them, luring them in. Quite stunned, they stared at each other, neither one of them moving a muscle, the clear voice briefly transporting them from out of their miseries. She sang of a bad moon rising. She made earthquakes and lightning, hurricanes and overflowing rivers sound like the most wonderful things in the world.

The mermaid was singing to
them
, voicing their worries. Slowly Johnny raised his chin up to the heavens and closed his eyes, feeling the rainwater washing his face, the music seeping into him.

Completely enchanted, they both moved slowly, as if any sudden action might disturb the singer. Johnny bent down and gently picked up the sail bag and Clem carefully folded up the prayer mat, tucking it under her arm, and then she took Johnny’s hand, both of them following the voice, their ears finely tuned, lightly tripping from rock to rock now that there was a new hope, now that their hearts had been lifted.

A small, barely populated bay crept into view. The strange thing was that they had never come across it before; it seemed to have popped out of the nothingness entirely for their benefit. The bay beyond this one held the boatyard which they had travelled to every day. But this bay was invisible from the road.

A smattering of small boats littered the water and through the darkness a few white houses stood out along the shore. There was only one light on in the entire bay, a warm yellow glow shining from a small boat moored by a short jetty not fifty yards away, bobbing about in the choppy water. The boat was stern to with the cabin doors ajar, light spilling out on to the cockpit dancing a zigzag across the choppy water to their feet, illuminating the slicing rain between them.

It was from this boat that the mermaid sang, her voice pouring out like rays of sunshine, touching them with its warmth.

Her voice had been joined by another. The second was the voice of a child and together they sang in perfect harmony about that bad moon on the rise.

Now that Johnny and Clem could see properly with the light of the boat to guide them the rocks seemed less slippery despite the relentless rain; their feet found it quite easy to grip. It poured harder and the thunder rumbled closer. They heaved themselves up from the rocks on to the pier and walked twenty paces or so to the beginning of the little wooden jetty, the voices fading a little now that the boat was beam to. Johnny adjusted the sail bag on his shoulder and took Clem’s hand. They stepped on to the jetty, their sodden shoes making no noise as they slowly moved down the planks towards the boat, stopping right at the stern. Written on the transom in curled looped lettering was the name
Little Utopia
.

That was exactly how it seemed to them: a heavenly place full of warmth and light and music.

The
Little Utopia
was a small boat, not much more than thirty feet in length. The wooden sliding hatch was pulled across to stop the rain coming in but the cockpit doors were slightly open, for the rain was pouring from the other side, the starboard bow. Above Johnny’s head, hanging from the backstay, was a Union Jack transom flag flapping wildly in the wind. They stood there motionless, hand in hand, soaked to the bone yet oblivious to the weather, quite transfixed by the light and sounds from within. The angel’s voice had brought them here. The song was coming to an end and despite the wet and the cold neither of them wanted it to stop, for the mermaid to become human. Right now just the promise of safety was enough.

When the strumming of the guitar ceased and the rain took over the night again, Johnny cleared his throat. ‘Hello?’ he called out above the cacophony of the elements. A bolt of lightning flashed above them.

A moment later the hatch was pulled back and a man stuck his head out. He was a big, fine-looking man, dark and unshaven, almost bearlike. He shielded his eyes with both hands from the light within to see them better.

‘Hello?’ he replied, stepping out into the cockpit. His T-shirt was dry and pale and the rain darkened it almost immediately in 45-degree stripes across his chest.

They watched him take them in, his expression changing from caution to concern. Johnny realized how desperate they must look. He turned to Clem and in the light from the saloon he saw how her chin was cut and the blood had run down on to her shirt, a mess of red smeared across her chest. She’d lost a shoe and her hands, feet and ankles were covered in grazes. Underneath the wetness and the blood she looked barely more than fifteen years old. He knew that he himself didn’t look much older.

‘Jesus. Are you all right?’ the bear man asked but neither of them could think of anything to say. It seemed quite evident that they were not all right. The man glanced down the quay towards the shore as if there might be more of them. Johnny too looked around him but the bay was deserted, the other boats all empty. Another growl of thunder rumbled across the sky above them.

‘Please,’ the bear man said, gesturing. ‘Come in out of the rain!’ He offered his hand and Johnny passed him the soaked sail bag and turned to Clem. She was unable to move, her limbs locked frozen.

‘It’s all right, love,’ the man said to her, helping her carefully on to the boat, taking her hand in one of his giant paws and her carpet in the other. ‘You’re safe here.’

She looked up at him and suddenly the kindness of a stranger proved too much and the tears spilt freely from her eyes.

‘Come on now,’ he said gently, opening the cockpit door with his foot, putting the soaking sail bag over his shoulder. ‘Get yourselves inside and let’s get you warm.’

Johnny led the way down the companionway steps and stood there dripping water on to the floor of their dry warm boat. A woman, presumably the mermaid, was sitting on the port side of the saloon, a guitar on her lap. Next to her was a young child, not more than four or five years old. She was the spit of her mother but with her father’s dark colouring. Neither of them said anything; their identical unblinking eyes stared at the strangers from underneath their identical skew-whiff fringes. The child’s gaze swung solemnly from Johnny to Clem and down at their bleeding, torn legs.

‘Why’s that lady crying?’ she asked her mother.

‘OK. Bed now, Smudge,’ the woman said, standing up, taking the child’s hand. The girl wriggled free and scurried away from the strange new arrivals into the forepeak, her big, dark eyes peering from behind the door as she slowly closed it.

‘Annie, get the first aid,’ the bear man said to his wife, his voice low and soft. Then he turned to Johnny.

‘Do you speak English?’ he said.

Johnny nodded. ‘We are English,’ Johnny said.

‘Were you attacked?’

Johnny shook his head. The man nodded and began to wash his hands in the galley sink. ‘You better get your wet stuff off.’ He leant into the berth beside the chart table and pulled out a bundle of towels before approaching Clem and raising her chin with one of his giant fingers. He stooped down to examine her cut.

‘That’s nasty,’ he said, his mop of dark, curly hair falling over his eyes.

She nodded. ‘I fell on the rocks,’ she said as he dabbed at her chin with the towel, his eyes flicking up to hers but flicking away again when no explanation was forthcoming. It was hard to know where to begin, so instead she stared at him for she was quite stunned by the course of events. A part of her was still standing outside in the pouring rain, wretched, not knowing where to go.