The Wreck of the Zanzibar (2 page)

Everyone is pleased with me, even Father, because I was the one who spotted the ship before they did on St Mary's. It was just that I was in the right place at the right time, that's all. I'd been milking the cows with Billy, as usual, and I was coming back with the buckets over Watch Hill when I saw sails on
the horizon out beyond White Island. It looked like a schooner, three-masted. We left the buckets and ran all the way home.

The gig was launched in five minutes. I watched the whole thing from the top of Samson Hill with everyone else. We saw the St Mary's gig clear the harbour wall, the wind and the tide in her favour. The race was on. For some time it looked as if the St Mary's gig would reach the schooner first, as she so
often does, but we found clear water and a fair wind out beyond Samson and we were flying along. I could see the chief holding on to the mast, and Billy and Father pulling side by side in the middle of the boat. How I wanted to be one of them, to be out there rowing with them. I can handle an oar as well as Billy. He knows it, everyone knows it. But the chief won't hear of it – and he's the coxswain – and neither will Father. They think that's an end of it. But it isn't. One day, one day . . . Anyway today we won the race, so I should be pleased about that, I suppose.

The St Mary's boat lost an oar. She was left dead in the water and had to turn back. We watched our gig draw alongside the schooner and we all cheered till we were hoarse. Through the telescope I could see the chief climbing up the ladder to pilot the schooner into St Mary's. I could see them helping him on board, then shaking hands with him. He took off his cap and waved and we all cheered again. It would mean money for everyone, and there's precious little of that around. When the gig came back into Great Porth we were all there to meet her. We helped haul her up the beach. She's always lighter when we've won. Father hugged me and Billy winked at me. It's
an American ship, he says, the
General Lee
, bound for New York. She'll be tied up in St Mary's for repairs to her mizzenmast and could be there a week, maybe more.

This evening, Billy and I had our birthday cake from Granny May as usual. The chief and crew were all there as well, so the cake didn't last long. They sang ‘Happy Birthday' to us and then the chief said we were all a little less poor because Laura Perryman had spotted the
General Lee.
And I felt good. They were all smiling at me. Now's the time, I thought, I'll ask them again.

‘Can I row with Billy in the gig?'

They all laughed and said what they always said, that girls don't row in gigs. They never had.

I went to the hen-house and cried. It's the only place I can cry in peace. And then Granny May came in with the last piece of cake and said there are plenty of things that women can do, that men can't. It doesn't seem that way to me. I want to row in that gig, and I will. One day I will.

Billy came into my room just now. He's had another argument with Father – this time the milk buckets weren't clean enough. There's always
something, and Father will shout at him so. Billy says he wants to go to America and that one day he will. He's always saying things like that. I wish he wouldn't. It frightens me. I wish Father would be kinder to him.

A TERRIBLE STORM LAST NIGHT AND THE PINE tree at the bottom of the garden came down, missing the hen-house by a whisker. The wind was so loud we never even heard it fall. I'm sure the hens did. We've lost more slates off the roof above Billy's room. But we were lucky. The end of Granny May's roof has gone completely. It just lifted off in the night. It's sitting lopsided across her escallonia hedge. Father's been up there all day trying to do what he can to keep the rain out. Everyone would be there helping, but there isn't a building on the island that hasn't been battered. Granny May just sat down in her kitchen all day and shook her head. She wouldn't
come away. She kept saying she'll never be able to pay for a new roof and where will she go and what will she do? We stayed with her, Mother and me, giving her cups of tea and telling her it will be all right.

‘Something'll turn up,' Mother said. She's always saying that. When Father gets all inside himself and miserable and silent, when the cows aren't milking well, when he can't afford the timber to build his boats, she always says, ‘Don't worry, something'll turn up.'

She never says it to me because she knows I won't believe her. I won't believe her because I know she doesn't believe it herself. She just says it to make him feel better. She just hopes it'll come true. Still, it must have made Granny May feel better. She was her old self again this evening, talking away happily to herself. Everyone on the island calls her a mad old stick. But she's not really mad. She's just old and a bit forgetful. She does talk to herself, but then she's lived alone most of her life, so it's not surprising really. I love her because she's my granny, because she loves me, and because she shows it. Mother has persuaded her to come and stay for a bit until she can move back into her house again.

Billy's in trouble again. He went off to St Mary's without telling anyone. He was gone all day. When he got back this evening he never said a word to me or Granny May. Father buttoned his lip for as long as he could. It's always been the same with Father and Billy. They set each other off. They always have. It's Billy's fault really, most of the time anyway. He starts it. He does things without thinking. He says things without thinking. And Father's like a squall. He seems calm and quiet one moment and then . . . I could feel it coming. He banged the table and shouted. Billy had no right going off like that, he said, when there was so much to be put right at Granny May's. Billy told him he'd do what he pleased, when he pleased and he wasn't anyone's slave. Then he got up from the table and ran out, slamming the door behind him. Mother went after him. Poor Mother, always the peacemaker.

Father and Granny May had a good long talk about ‘young folk today', and how they don't know how lucky they are these days and how they don't know what hard work is all about. They're still at it downstairs. I went in to see Billy just a few minutes ago. He's been crying, I can tell. He says he doesn't
want to talk. He's thinking, he says. That makes a change, I suppose.

GRANNY MAY'S ROOF HAS BEEN PATCHED UP. She moved back home yesterday. We are on our own again.

Father said at breakfast he thought Molly would calve down today and that Billy and me should keep an eye on her. Billy went off to St Mary's and I went up to check Molly this afternoon on my own. She was lying down by the hedge, her calf curled up beside her. He looked as if he was sleeping at first, but he wasn't. There were flies on his face and his eyes weren't blinking. He was dead, and I couldn't make Molly get up. I pushed her and pushed her, but she wouldn't move. I didn't tell Father because I
knew how angry he'd be. We should have been there, Billy or me – one of us should have been there. I fetched Mother instead. She couldn't get Molly on her feet either, so in the end we had to call Father from the boatshed. He tried everything, but Molly just laid her head down on the grass and died.

Father sat beside her, stroked her neck and said nothing. But I knew what he was thinking. We only had four cows and we'd just lost the best of them. Then he looked up and said, ‘Where's that boy?'

Mother tried to comfort him, but he wouldn't even answer her.

‘Just you wait till he gets back, just you wait.' That was all he said.

Billy came back at sundown. I saw him come sailing up Tresco Channel. I ran down to Green Bay to tell him about Molly, to warn him about Father. Then I saw that he was not alone.

‘This is Joseph Hannibal,' said Billy. ‘He's American, off the
General Lee
in St Mary's.'

Joseph Hannibal is a bear of a man with a bushy black beard and twitchy eyebrows that meet in the middle so he always looks angry. I never had a chance to tell Billy about Molly. He'd brought Joseph
Hannibal back to see the island, he said, and they went off together up towards Hell Bay.

I didn't see them again until supper. Father sat in a stony silence and Mother smiled all the time, thinly, like she does when she is worried. But after a time she was doing what I was doing, what Billy was doing, what even Father was doing. We were all listening to Joseph Hannibal.

He's been all over the world, the South Sea Islands, Australia, Japan, China, the frozen North. He's sailed on tea clippers, on steamships, and he's been whaling too.

‘Yessir,' he went on, puffing at his pipe, ‘I've seen whales longer than this entire house and that's the honest truth.'

You had to listen to him – I mean, you wanted to listen. You wanted him to go on all night. Then Mother said we should go up to bed – that we had the cows to milk early in the morning. Billy said he wasn't tired, that he'd be up later. He stayed where he was. Father looked at him hard, but Billy didn't seem to notice. He had eyes only for Joseph Hannibal.

He still doesn't know about Molly, and he's still down there now talking to Joseph Hannibal.

There's something about Joseph Hannibal, something I don't like, but I'm not sure what it is. One thing I am sure of though. As soon as he's gone Father's going to have something to say, and when he does I wouldn't want to be in Billy's shoes.

I'm trying to stay awake by writing this, so I can warn him about Molly, but my eyes are pricking and I can hardly keep them open.

THIS IS THE WORST DAY OF MY WHOLE LIFE. IT began well. Joseph Hannibal left the house this morning at last. I thought he'd sail away on the evening tide and that would be the end of him. I was wrong. Billy has gone with him. Even as I write it, I can hardly believe it. Billy has gone.

It all began just after Joseph Hannibal left. We've had arguments before, Billy and me, but never like this. He didn't seem a bit sad when I told him, at last, about Molly and her calf. He just said that I should have been there, or Mother; that it wasn't his fault. I got angry and shouted at him. Billy just shrugged and walked off. I hate it when he does
that. I raced after him and grabbed him. He turned on me and told me I was taking Father's side against him. I knew then that it was all because of Joseph Hannibal. It's as if he's split us apart. Billy thinks that everything about him is wonderful, that he's doing what a proper man should. He won't hear a word against him.

This afternoon Billy and Father had their expected set-to about Molly. Father roared and of course Billy shouted back at him. He wasn't going to stay and be a cowman all his life, he had better things to be doing. I've never seen Billy like it. The angrier he became, the more he seemed to grow. Nose to nose in the kitchen he was as big as Father. Father said he'd strap him if he didn't hold his tongue and Billy just stared at him and said nothing, his eyes like steel. Mother came between them and Billy stormed out. I followed him.

We went to Rushy Bay where we always go to talk when we don't want anyone else to hear. We sat on the sand together, and that was when he told me. He'd been talking to Joseph Hannibal. Joseph Hannibal had asked the skipper of the General Lee and the skipper had agreed: Billy could join the ship as cabin boy.

‘I'm going, Laura,' Billy said. ‘I was thinking about it all last night. And not just because of Father, either. It's a big world out there and I'm going to see it. This could be my only chance.'

And I could see that he meant it, that I couldn't argue him round. I tried all the same. I begged him to stay. I even said I'd go with him. He shook his head and looked away. I know Billy so well, better than he knows me, I think. Once he's made up his mind there's no stopping him. I knew it was hopeless.

He put his arm around me and told me he was sorry, that I'd be all right. He'd write to me, and when he comes back he's going to bring me lots of things from America, from China, from the frozen North. When I cried he hugged me very tight and said he'd go now, just as he was. He didn't want to have to go home again.

‘You'll tell Mother?' he said. ‘You'll say goodbye for me?'

I walked in silence with him down past the church to the quay. We saw Father paring a hedge up in the field where Molly had died. Billy looked at him and said nothing. He was close to tears. He turned away.

‘And say goodbye to Granny May too,' he said. From the quayside we looked across at St Mary's. We could see the masts of the General Lee.

‘She's a fine ship,' he said. ‘A fast ship. She'll take me all over the world, Joseph Hannibal said.'

He smoothed my hair and told me to go home without looking back. I cried all the way home, not so much because Billy was gone and I might never see him again, but because he didn't want me to go with him.

This evening, from the top of Samson Hill, I watched the General Lee sail out past St Agnes. Billy was right. She was a fine ship. I knew he'd be looking back at Bryher and he knew I'd be up on Samson Hill. I could feel his eyes on me. I shivered, not from cold, but because I knew then as I know now, that I'll never see Billy again. Her sails were red in the last of the sun, as red as any blood.

I said nothing till just before supper, when Mother asked where Billy was. I told her as gently as I knew how. She sat down and her eyes were suddenly empty of life.

‘No,' she whispered. And that was all.

Father was working late in the boathouse. He came in a few minutes ago. I was sitting on the stairs
when she told him.

‘You drove him away,' she said, shaking her head. ‘You shouldn't have. You shouldn't have.'

‘He'll be back,' said Father. ‘You'll see.'

Mother turned away from him. She didn't believe him, and neither do I.