The Surfacing (37 page)

Is there any picture of her? DeHaven said. Does it say how much she'll have a year?

You're finally looking to settle down? Kitty said.

Everyone else seems to be at it, said DeHaven.

Brooks handed him another and pointed at the passage to read. He read the name and
date and read out the greetings. Then: Your sister got a good situation in a draper's
shop but lost it for what reason she would not tell.

Well now, DeHaven said. I wonder what that might be.

Now she is thinking of emigrating to Australia, Morgan read, from where she has news
there is great demand for teaching school. The priest thinks the place is wild and
fast for a lady but we are confident of her character so we are encouraging her.
Otherwise we fear nothing but disappointment awaits her here. There is no department
of labour in which she is not able and willing, as you must know. She has good testimonials
and letters of introduction, but of course her passage must be paid and we are asking
all her family to help, for if only we can get her out we are sure she will succeed.

The poor girl, Kitty said. They're trying to get rid of her.

Dear Con, said Morgan's voice. Things are very bad in the country still. We could
better bear it and every other trial if you were home. How your long silence has
weighed on our hearts. Your poor mother has only one hope now which is some information
of her son's safety. But she bears her trial with resignation and she has been a
great lesson to us all. Our father has been less better able to bear the absence
of all his sons. The priest has often been here to remonstrate with him and each
time he has sworn a solemn oath he will reform but ere long he has fallen again into
dissolution. You would be frightened to see the change. God forgive me but sometimes
I think it would be a great mercy if he were taken. I am helping as best I can but
I have my own family now and can not do as much as I would like or always be on hand
when need is most. My two boys are getting to be fine big lads now both of them,
you would not recognize them. Some of the people in the town are very good towards
us, though we would not take it if we could help it as there is no more bitter bread
than the bread of charity. But what can not be cured must be endured I suppose, and
as Fr Lyons says there is better in store for us all surely. I pray to the Father
of Orphans that He be Father to you far from your parents and kin and see to it you
stay safe and in health and do not wander. He will not forsake you if you entrust
yourself to His care. If we do
not meet again in this world we will surely meet in
the next beyond all separation trouble and misfortune around the foot of His throne
forever.

There is great faith in that letter, MacDonald said.

Who was it for? said Brooks.

A man called Hickey, Morgan said. Cornelius Hickey.

In all the cabin there was silence, respect or shame. Only DeHaven seemed not to
have heard. Already he was sifting through the bag for another one.

That's enough, Morgan said. He folded the letter away. Afterwards he got out the
London Illustrated
and began reading aloud from the very first page, even if they
had heard it many times before. It was the latest news of the Piraeus blockade. Palmerston
was holding firm, but the French ambassador had now withdrawn from London, and that
threatened to complicate matters quite seriously.

12th May

He was listening to the boastful knocks of a mallet, as Banes knocked the pins from
the housing mainframe. He could feel the thing deep in his chest. They'd found a
fault-line, and a wedge was being driven in, opening it up, letting in air and light.
The housing had already been rolled up and tidied away. Above was a calm, clear sky.
Clothes-lines looped from mast to mast. The yards were strewn with shirts and smalls
and every sundry. They'd had their first great wash.

You wouldn't want to leave a mess behind you, she said.

Of course not. What kind of a man do you think I am?

Below and above, almost every man was on his knees,
Bible in hand, scrubbing hard.
They would leave her as they'd found her, he had announced. Mint clean and mint bright.
To some of the men, it was perfect proof their captain never expected to see her
again.

13th May

Morgan carried him down the gangway, upside down, the head flopping, squeals of terrified
delight. He carried him around to the far side of the ship, into the long iron shadow,
where he wanted him to play. The instant he set him down, of course, the boy made
for the blazing snow. Morgan let him wander, strut. He had lived in fetters too long.
The snow was soft now, he had his mittens on, it did not matter where he fell. Giant
hands always picked him up and set him back on his feet.

The world sloped downwards in every direction, drawing him on. The boy was luring
his father out into the open, into the light, where all the old certainties would
shrink and crumble. There was something out there he needed to find, and Morgan followed,
striding, trying always to keep between him and the sun. There was a time when he
had prized such light. Not now. The shadows were too sharp and too deep. They slurred
reptile along the ground. Still Morgan loomed, his fathomless silhouette. His shadow
was flat and solid. The boy stood in the middle of it, as in a pool of dirty water.
He dragged it along the ground like a cape.

In the distance the shadows were bottle-green. A lone gull drifted down like a windstolen
handkerchief. The boy watched it with admiration, wobbled off in pursuit. The gull
lifted into the air, set down again a little farther off. Morgan watched the hunt.

No! he shouted, but it was too late, Tommy had veered under the hull, run straight
into one of the props that held the ship upright. He bounced off. He sat stunned
on the ice. He wrestled himself to his feet and set off again. He wanted with purpose,
not whimsy. He had no interest in sympathy. Morgan watched with no small esteem.
Here was the man he himself would like to be.

The men were leaning over the taffrail. Below was what looked like a frontier atrocity
– a dozen bears spliced and stretched on the ice. The clatter of voices. The brilliant,
savage light. On its southern face, the whole of the hull was splattered with shirts
and smalls. The floe was strewn, treasure everywhere – bales, bottles, planks. The
boy wanted it all.

Then Morgan saw the bear. Standing shyly at the corner of the coal-house. She seemed
curious, and a little confused. The boy hadn't seen her yet, but was wandering in
her direction. Suddenly he lifted his head, and stopped dead in his tracks. He turned
his head to search for his father, to check did his father see. His arm was pointing.

Ca! he shouted, grinning beautifully, with great pride.

He was waddling towards her now as fast as he could.

In the belly of the ship, in the still afternoon, Petersen was struggling to breathe.
Beneath them lay twenty-seven feet of ice. On the surface, Morgan was frozen in time,
in temptation. If, for another few seconds, he did nothing at all, everyone could
go home together, once and for all. He stood watching, sick. These were the final
moments, the final breaths. Time was flowing around his body, like a river around
a stone. He could hear it rushing past.

He put a ball into her just under the left ear. She was already turning to move away.
A ripple ran through her from head to haunch. The boy was screaming, on account of
the noise. A single step, then she toppled clumsily, like a drunk on his hands and
knees trying to get up.

14th May

A spoon and a pair of blinkers, Morgan said. One spare pair of drawers, one spare
shirt. He was proud and dismayed, that he could be reduced to this.

Opposite, DeHaven was folding and refolding a pile of clothes on his bunk.

I keep hammering it home, Morgan told the room. No et ceteras. And I keep finding
little trinkets and other nonsense in their bags.

He set a pack of cards on the scales, and noted the weight. The same for the little
bundle of books. They were for the boat generally, to help pass the time. His concern
with every little detail, the men regarded as mere fuss, a sign of nervousness.
He himself knew it as a lack of confidence in his scheme, and in the crew.

In the forecastle they were sewing in silence. Patching. Doubling seams. That morning
he had ordered them to replace all their buttons with buttons twice the size. They
were tailors now, making clothes for other men.

He thought freely of Melville Island, its northern coast. It was a callous hope.
He wondered where the real attraction lay – in the prospect of relief, or in the
trial itself?

He read his latest list aloud, for the ship's surgeon to perfect. Boiled pork and
pemmican. Candied ginger and chocolate. Coffee and rum. More than almost anything
else, the coffee was sacred. He had seen its miraculous powers with his own two eyes.
Coming back from Beechey, every morning it had raised the men from the dead.

To save weight, he would have anything tinned turned out and put in bags. Have each
week's ration separately packed, with the sacks for later weeks a little heavier,
to give them something to look forward to.

15th May

The galley door was wide open. She was in there with Cabot. Morgan put a stool under
him and leaned back against the door. The man's evening was obviously well under
way. He moved only when he had to, and the words came out one at a time.

Say your goodbye, Cabot told her now. Say it to his face and not just to the back
of him.

Your goodbyes, Morgan said. Plural.

Why should he come back? said Cabot's voice. Why? Tell me for what reason.

Whatever was said, Morgan made sure it made no dent in his face. He watched Cabot
pour again. There were several bottles on the counter, but he made no remark. For
the first time in his life, he refused to count. It was a city they were abandoning,
an entire civilisation. By morning the Cossacks would be galloping through the church.

Cabot was still searching for the cork, and Morgan watched him sway.

Perhaps you'd better go to bed, Cabot, Morgan said.

Why?

Because you're drunk and you're talking nonsense and you're embarrassing me and Miss
Rink with every word you say, and if you succeed in remembering any of this tomorrow
I sincerely believe that in recollection you will be an embarrassment to yourself.

Richard, Kitty said, and managed to make this some kind of plea. She still wanted
to be the man's friend, and Morgan was angry at her, too easily. He was too ready
to condemn. He was still struggling to convince himself to leave Cabot behind.

It's like a holiday, Cabot said. Your life. Did you ever think of it in such a way?
You do what you want, and afterwards nothing of it matters at all.

That is one way of considering the matter, Morgan said.

That is the reason I like it so much out here. Up here. It's
not real, everything
that happens. It's just like a holiday. When I go home, everything will be the same
as it was when I went away. And for now I can do as I prefer, and later it is forgotten,
it disappears. I just leave it all behind.

You're not coming with us, Cabot, Morgan said. You're staying with the ship.

Cabot gave no sign of having heard. Morgan studied the face, that the drink and the
cold and the lack of light had turned to cheap meat.

Why would I bring you, given your physical state? he said. Why would I want you along,
more than one of the other men?

Richard, Kitty said.

Look at you, Morgan said. You're a weight and a liability and nothing else. How much
hauling do you honestly think you could stand?

I'm sick, I know it, Cabot said. But I'm not the only one. There are plenty in the
hospital. Petersen.

There's healthier than you will be left behind.

I got all the way to Beechey, didn't I?

We're going a lot farther than we went to Beechey. And besides, that was a long time
ago. You've done a great deal of harm to yourself since then.

Cabot struck himself in the chest, very hard. I'm still a good man, he said. You'll
see.

No you're not.

You have decided to punish me, is that it?

I'm not in the business of punishing. I want men that can haul hard and long and
won't be looking for any special consideration. I want to get to Melville.

Cabot reached for and tilted the bottle for a better look. He seemed tempted to finish
it off. The captain decides, he said. I'm not going to beg. He poured another dose
and put it inside him. The empty glass struck the surface with a solid, decisive
knock.

There's something inside me, Cabot said, more quietly. Something alive. He was talking
to the floor.

What is it? Kitty said.

I don't know. But sometimes I'm glad it's there. Sometimes I feel I would like to
wake it up. This does that, sometimes, for a little while. He showed them the empty
glass. And sometimes I wish I could kill it, I could rip it out. Sometimes I think
it wants to kill me. I can't explain. I myself, I find it hard to comprehend.

Cabot, you're not well, Kitty said.

Have you been eating properly? said Morgan.

I'm the chef, Cabot said.

You're the chef and your clothes are hanging off you, Morgan said.

When Cabot was gone, she talked and Morgan listened.

He's not making it any easier for himself, is he? she said.

No, Morgan said. He looked up at her and looked down again. The galley floor was
caked with filth, all about the foot of the stove.

Are you really going to leave him behind, or are you merely trying to scare him?

If I leave him behind, I don't like to think what he'll do to himself.

I could take care of him, Kitty said.