The Surfacing (5 page)

In the bedroom, behind his back, she'd seen him shaking with laughter and wanted
to know why. She'd been stalking, for something to share. Down at the tubs, Cabot
was roaring and flailing now, like a panicked child. Morgan watched him plunge back
under the water, frantically scrubbing himself with soap. He looked like a man scalded
or burned. Without even turning around, Morgan waved her away, shaking his head.
Afterwards, Cabot tried to leave again, wearing a furious face for protection, and
this time they actually held him down. The screams must have been heard all over
the island; certainly she heard them there in the room, and came to stand beside
him, to see what the matter was.

What are they doing? she asked. In her voice a hint of fear, like a faint foreign
accent. Are they trying to drown him? Why don't you shout at them? You must make
them stop.

Morgan merely flapped his hand again, to flap her away. His only real concern, for
the moment, was not to laugh out loud. It was one of the voices he wanted her never
to hear.

The third time, as a defence, Cabot rubbed his own backside and brandished the hand
as he made his way out of the tub; then stood whingeing and lost at the bottom of
the steps – holding the spare hand strangely aloft, wondering what to do with it.

Morgan pulled the curtains together and turned to face the twilighted room. They're
just playing, he told her. It's been a hard enough haul for them, these past few
weeks. They're just letting off a little steam.

He lets the towel fall to the floor, balances himself on one leg, and lifts the other
over the side of the bath. As it touches
the water, he lets out a long, solemn breath.
It is too close to scalding. Delicately, he dips the foot in and out, and each time
tries to leave it in a little longer. Once the foot has learned to trust the heat,
he should be able to lower it all the way; and once one part of him is ready, it
should be easier for the rest. Finally, he forces his foot right to the bottom. Between
his teeth, he curses the mother of God. In the mirror, he can see himself struggling
to keep his balance, as he lifts the other leg. Now he is lowering himself onto his
haunches, lifting and lowering again, and always able to bully himself into going
back for more. The foam rises to meet him, almost level with the top of the tub.
Unseen, the water rises too, begins to suck and slurp. Finally he touches bottom.
He relaxes, carefully, lets himself spread out. He can still hear the men roaring
and cursing outside. In here, he has surrendered to private pleasures and their disappointments.
By now he is completely submerged, everything but his head.

Are you quite at home there? she says. She is standing in the doorway.

Quite at home, thank you.

You don't look like you'll ever want to come out.

Never, he says. Just bring me my meals and my letters. And a little hot water from
time to time.

He watches her walk into the bedroom. Hears the springs take her weight. Through
the doorway, he can see the legs stretch out.

For a time, the voice says, I thought you were actually going to go with the others.
For this, she's waited until she's out of sight, safer.

Leaning back, he can see most of her body, but the head is cut off by the jamb. He
watches her undo the belt of her dressing-gown.

Really, he says, you're underestimating your charms. Hot meal, warm bath, clean sheets
. . .

And here was I imagining you were looking for something else.

Speaking, she is fingering the long hairs at the top of her
thighs. She's like a
child in a game, who hasn't yet learned how to lose. She thinks he cannot see her,
because she cannot see him.

A bit of good old-fashioned mothering, that's what I want, he says.

This time she doesn't answer. This time she lets silence do the work, so he tries
to recast and redeem it. Louder, he says: Double windows and stoves in every room.
Clean and bright. Plenty of privacy, and a wonderful view. If we could just manage
to get rid of your brother, I might move in permanently.

As though to demonstrate, now he lifts himself up, gets his feet under him, steadies
and stands. Maybe he'll meet a nice native girl up there and never come back, he
says. A fairy-tale ending for everybody. Maybe even as we speak . . .

Mr Morgan, she said sternly, that's positively scandalous. Why, the man is engaged
to be married. What kind of people do you take us for?

Now he's standing over the bed, looking down, at the way she's laid herself out.
Now he's lying beside her, and before he's even had time to settle she has her hand
on his chest. Systematically, she moves the hand back and forth, as though searching
for a particular texture, a particular quality, that only she can appreciate. She
lets the motion of the hand become a circle, and lets the circle grow, to bring more
and more of him in.

The children gathered round him, almost as soon as they left the house. The sailors
had given them a pack of cards and they touted it proudly. They wanted Morgan to
show them how it was done. He fanned the cards out, faces hidden, asked the smallest
boy to choose. She translated and explained as best she could. Morgan got her to
blindfold him with her purple silk scarf. The chosen card was being passed from hand
to hand. They were looking for a hidden sign. They did not want to give it back.
They watched Morgan shuffle, still blindfolded. He gripped the pack and began to
squeeze. The
cards were spluttering into the air, then lying in disorder on the ground,
half the faces turned up. He seemed to be searching through them the same as everyone
else. The King. The Queen. The Ace. A few had fallen on the window ledge. And then
they saw it. On the other side of the panes, between the inner and outer windows,
somehow. The thing was impossible, but there it lay, with the dead flies. It was
the Knave.

They stared at it in silence, suddenly afraid. They all wanted to ask the same question,
in Danish or English or Esquimaux. She could ask it in any language she wanted. It
was a secret he would never tell. It was the one thing he would leave behind that
would not perish. It would grow untended, for years to come.

22nd July

At breakfast Myer told them to close their letters, any man that could write. The
rudder was repaired. They were leaving tomorrow morning, to try again to force a
way through The Pack.

About Giorgio, Myer said. Someone really ought to write to the family.

No one said anything.

Mr Morgan, Myer said. You knew the lad, didn't you?

As we all did, Morgan said.

What I mean is, you knew the father. Know.

He's my wife's cousin's brother-in-law, Morgan said. If the truth be known, I've
never even met the man.

All the same, it was you brought the boy aboard, am I right?

I wrote the recommendation, that's all. I'm sure, sir, you've written plenty of those
yourself over the years.

Are you refusing to write the letter? Myer said.

I'm not refusing, no sir, Morgan said. Merely, I would have thought the thing more
the captain's privilege. And to be perfectly blunt, I would prefer not to be involved.

As a little courtesy by the ship's second to his captain, Mr Morgan. Is it really
so much to ask?

Shouldn't it be the chaplain? Morgan said. Is that not how these things are usually
done? I mean even for form's sake.

MacDonald knows the man no better than I, said Myer.

For godsake one of ye give me the address and I'll write the damn thing, DeHaven
said. How hard can it be? Dear so-and-so deeply sorry to have to inform you, be assured
it was but the matter of a moment and entirely painless. He had from the first impressed
the officers and crew by his courage, diligence and good nature, was held in the
warmest regard, et cetera et cetera, will never be forgotten by those of us who had
the honour to serve at his side. How does that sound, Captain?

That sounds like just the thing, Myer said.

If you like, DeHaven said, I'll do you out a copy for future reference, should the
occasion again present itself.

That afternoon Morgan rowed over to see her. Her brother stood brooding in the parlour.
She said they would go for a walk. It was one of the first fine days of the year,
and everyone was sitting outside, soaking up the sun. Before they could get beyond
the last hut, they were surrounded. The faces looked hunted, shrunken, grey. The
voices were imploring, and Morgan did not understand a word. He searched his pockets
for something that might pawn them off. He brought out a little signalling mirror
and the leader took it straight from his hands, put it down into his parka with barely
a look. The voices were still pleading. They wanted something else, or they wanted
more.

They strolled together along the coast. On the other side of
the headland there was
a little cove. Back at the settlement, a tuft of smoke was snagged on the chimney
of her brother's house. The wind had all but died away, but still he caught a whiff
of rotten meat. He scuttled down the rocks, nimble as a goat, then wandered along
the beach, waiting for her to pick her way down. When he looked back she was sitting
on a tree trunk up at the high water mark. He called out, called her to come and
see. The cliff face had fallen away, revealing a dozen different strata of rock,
like the layers of a cake. Here there was sand, here slate, here tiny fragments of
shellfish, crushed almost to dust by an unimaginable weight, by an unimaginable lapse
of time. But she made no move, and eventually he began to walk back towards her,
trawling his feet through the coarse, heavy sand.

She told him again what she'd told him before. Regardless of what he decided, she
said, she could not continue here. She told him Rink did not need her, did not want
her, was ready to go home.

Where would you like to go? Morgan said.

Is that an invitation?

No.

She didn't care about the details, she said. The place was not important, the life.
He would be surprised at how little she needed. These past few years, she had surprised
herself.

He started to climb back up the rocks to the path. Sooner or later she'd follow.
From that height, he kept an eye on her progress, step by martyred step. Below them
the sea turned in its sleep, the waves boiled over like milk and sizzled on the shore.

He walked her home. In her brother's presence she didn't look at him once, but at
the front door she asked if he would be able to call again, later.

We'll see each other at the ball, won't we? Morgan said brightly. I presume you'll
keep at least one dance for me?

He walked down the front steps. He made sure not to turn around. Fear had put his
heart in a gallop and it was coursing over every obstacle. Steadily, his boots chewed
their way
across the beach, the careless shingle, towards the whaleboat. Still he
hadn't heard the door close.

For their last night, MacDonald held a special service in Rink's church. Morgan sat
alone on the foremost bench. An invisible draught was toying with the limp flame.
In the corner, a doe-eyed saint was pining. Behind him, the voices were singing in
Danish or in Esquimaux, he tried not to listen, he didn't care.

Afterwards, as the men shuffled out of the church, MacDonald took hold of Rink's
elbow and led him aside. He respectfully wished to disadvise his friend from unlocking
the door of the dancehall. They turned their heads to look. It was too late. The
crew were already prying it open with an oar.

About midnight, Morgan went outside to empty his bladder, and recognized a face in
the shadows. It was DeHaven, sitting on a crate with one of the native girls. She
was drinking straight from the bottle, her head thrown back. Morgan watched them
groping each other awhile.

The hall was candlelit. Through the open door he watched the revellers lunging and
tottering blindly. An old Irish jig had every one of them by the lapels.

The next time he went out, he met DeHaven again down at the ditch. Shoulder to shoulder,
they stood in silence and listened to it sizzling on the ground. What in the moonlight
looked like the same girl strolled past them, barefoot. Slung around her neck was
a pair of their sailcloth boots, puppet-ting along to a silent march. DeHaven asked
had Morgan anything left to drink. Morgan had brought over a dozen bottles of his
own wine for the common table, and a bottle of brandy, which he'd kept for himself.
DeHaven pulled the bottle from his friend's pocket, held it up to the moon, to see
how much was left.

Rowing to shore earlier in the evening, there'd been the usual brave banter, and
statements of grand ambition. Bastard thinks he's Napoleon, Morgan had said, and
DeHaven had countered deftly, with a jibe about him and Rink's sister.

Later, the barefooted girl came and danced beside him. Morgan gave no ground, and
soon afterwards she took his hand and led him outside. On his way out, he made sure
to catch DeHaven's eye. Morgan gave him a stiff salute over the heads of the mob,
glad he'd been seen, because it would give them something else to jeer him about.

She turned her long white back to him. A little later, she turned to face him again
with a wise grin. He told her it was hopeless, she was wasting her time. He told
her how much he'd had to drink, but the girl believed in her own special talents,
and got down to work. Either she thought she knew better, or she simply didn't understand
a word he said.

Afterwards, he lay alone in the sly midsummer twilight, listening. What he heard,
all around him, was panic and surrender. Out on the ship, Myer had hoisted a red
lamp to guide them home. Across the harbour, every window in Rink's house was liquid
gold. Morgan was wrung-out, stupid, brittle, and ready to make the most of it. He
would be calling on her for sympathy – a role he didn't think she could resist. Sympathy
and forgiveness, of course, could easily be confused. Letting her see him in that
state, with his guard down – she'd take it as an act of trust, and feel obliged,
or allowed, to pay him back.