Crackdown

  Ellen gave me an amused glance. “Little Orphan Annie? It’s hard to believe she’s about to be worth six million dollars. Still, she’s got precious little else going for her.”

  I smiled at the severity of Ellen’s judgment. “Is she that bad?”

  “She has a distressingly simple mind, with only room for a single idea at any one time. Presently that idea is cocaine, and nothing but cocaine. She has an obsession with the drug that verges on monomania. She tells me she needs to understand it if she’s going to defeat it.”

  “Don’t you approve of that?”

  “I think she’d do better to understand herself,” Ellen said tartly. “She allowed a man to persuade her into taking the drug, so she can only blame herself for her predicament. She’d find it more useful to understand her own character shortcomings than to take an elementary course in drug chemistry.”

  “What do you make of Rickie?” I asked.

  “He’s precisely what anyone would expect of a drop-out Phys Ed basketball-playing retard,” Ellen said scornfully, “by which I mean that he’s a jock with the brains of a dung beetle. He reminds me of your Neanderthal friend, the Maggot, except Rickie is a great deal more handsome.”

  “Is he?”

  She laughed at the suspicion of jealousy in my voice. “Yes, Nicholas, he is. But he’s not cute.”

  At supper, as at lunch, Robin-Anne ate with the appetite of a horse, though her brother hardly touched his chicken and pasta salad. “Don’t you like pasta?” Ellen, who was perversely proud of her skills in the salad department, asked Rickie with just a touch of asperity.

  “It’s great. Really awesome.” Rickie lit a cigarette. “I just guess I’m not hungry.”

  Robin-Anne reached over and tipped her brother’s food on to her own plate. “Kind of starving,” she justified her theft, then poured herself some diet soda. For once we were carrying neither wine nor spirits on Wavebreaker, for Jackson Chatterton’s drug clinic had utterly forbidden us to offer the twins any alcohol, saying that any mood-altering drug could hamper the success of a detoxification programme. We were thus officially a dry boat, though I had hidden some Irish whiskey in the engine room, and I was sure that Ellen would have similarly salted away some vodka.

  It seemed that Ellen and I were not the only ones to take such a precaution, for late that night Jackson Chatterton lumbered on deck with a bottle in one huge hand. “Bourbon,” he explained laconically. “Want some?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  He chuckled, produced two cardboard cups, and poured me a generous slug of the whiskey. We were alone on deck, though not the only ones awake for I could hear Rickie and Ellen’s voices coming from the open skylight of the main saloon. I hoped Thessy was fast asleep for he would be taking the morning watch.

  “Cheers,” I said.

  Chatterton raised his cardboard cup in silent acknowledgement, then stared ahead to where a great beam swept around the sky. “A lighthouse?” he asked in a voice which suggested that a prudent man avoided such things.

  I nodded. “It’s called the Hole in the Wall. Once we’re past it we can turn out to the open ocean. Things will be a bit livelier then.”

  “Livelier?”

  “We’ll have a bit more sea, kick up some spray.”

  I had spoken enthusiastically, but Jackson Chatterton seemed unmoved by the prospect. “What are your plans?” he asked me.

  I had nothing particular planned, merely an idea that it might be interesting to thrash our way out into the open ocean, though, mindful of the danger of tropical storms, I had no intention of going too far from the safe shelter of a Bahamian hurricane hole. But I fancied feeling the long hard pressure of ocean waves against our hull and, though we were short-handed, I reckoned that a few days out of sight of land would shake us all down quickly. I explained all that to Chatterton, but stressed that we would run for cover at the first sign of trouble.

  He must have assumed that I meant trouble from the twins, for he suddenly became surprisingly loquacious. “They won’t give you any grief in the next few days,” he said. “Now that they can’t get hold of cocaine they’ll just crash out.”

  I grimaced. “Does that mean they’ll be seeing green monkeys and blue snakes up the rigging?”

  Chatterton poured himself more bourbon, then put the bottle within my reach on the binnacle shelf. “Coming off cocaine isn’t like that. At first they’ll just want to do nothing but eat and sleep. It’s the opposite of a cocaine high, you see.” He paused. “The difficult bit starts two or three days later. That’s when the real hell begins.”

  “For all of us?”

  “It won’t be easy,” he said grimly, and I was suddenly rather glad to have the taciturn Chatterton aboard. The big man had obviously come on deck to warn me what to expect from the twins, and for that I was grateful.

  “I noticed that Rickie wasn’t eating today,” I said, “but Robin-Anne was?”

  Chatterton nodded. “Rickie may have stopped his cocaine a day or two ago, which means he’s probably already over the crash period. I promise you one thing; he’s brought none of it on board. I searched him and his luggage, and he was clean.” The big man thought for a few seconds, then laughed. “He’d better be clean! That turkey has got one chance of avoiding jail, just one, and that chance is by proving to the judge that he’s cleaned up his act. And if he doesn’t do that, then the man will send Rickie’s plump young ass down to the gang-rape squad in the county jail.” Chatterton did not sound unduly worried at that prospect.

  “Can we be sure Robin-Anne didn’t bring any of the drug aboard?” I asked.

  “She won’t have done that,” Chatterton said with conviction. “That girl is serious about giving it up, real serious, heavy serious! That girl is really trying! She studies the drug, you know? Like it was her enemy.” Chatterton had spoken with genuine admiration.

  I glanced up at the sails, down at the compass, then ahead to where the lighthouse loom arced powerfully through the night. “So what are the twins’ chances?”

  “Depends on their will power, ‘cause nothing else will do it for them. There ain’t no pill to get you off the powder, Mr Breakspear, only will power. And let me tell you, coming off coke is the hardest damn thing in the world, and you’re real lucky if you have a rich daddy who pays for people to hold your hand while you go through the hell of it. The twins’ daddy has paid for you and me, Mr Break-spear, and for everyone else on board this boat, but even with all that money and all this boat, we still might not succeed with them.”

  “It’s that hard?”

  “It is that hard,” he said ominously, and I thought of John Maggovertski’s sadness for a pretty girl who had whored herself to pay for the white powder. “And it’s even harder,” Jackson Chatterton’s voice was suddenly sinister, “for a poor person who has no one to help them.”

  I stared at Jackson Chatterton, and at last sensed the drama that lay behind his big calm presence. “Why did you leave the army, Mr Chatterton?” I asked after a long pause.

  “I guess you can guess,” he said.

  I guessed, but did not make him confirm my guess. Instead I asked whether the American army had helped him to kick his drug habit.

  “Sure they tried, they tried real hard, but back then I didn’t want to be helped.”

  “But you still got off cocaine? On your own?”

  “Eventually.” The light inside the binnacle glossed his black face with a sheen of red, sparking his eyes like fire. He was not looking at me, but staring doggedly ahead into the turning white light of the Hole in the Wall. “And I had to lose a good, good woman before I came to my senses. But I did kick the drug, Mr Breakspear, and it was probably the hardest damned thing I ever did in all my life. But once I’d done it, I swore I’d help others do it.”

  “Even the very rich?” I asked provocatively.

  “The rich trash pay the bills, Mr Breakspear, which lets me give my spare time away to the poor trash.” r />
  I looked at the tough, impressive face. “Are the twins trash?”

  He paused before replying, then gave the smallest shake of his head. “She’s OK, but him?” This time the pause was almost eloquent, then he gave a richly contagious laugh. “I’d have liked to have had Rickie Crowninshield in my platoon for just five minutes.”

  I laughed too. “Good to have you aboard.”

  “It ain’t bad being aboard,” he said, and held out his hand and, not before time, we shook.

  By midnight I was alone on deck, and happy to be alone. I like sailing alone at night. I like to watch the phosphorescence curling away from the hull and I like to watch the brilliant specks of light fade in the black deep water far in the ship’s wake. I like to be alone under the careless profusion of the stars, and alone on a moon-glossed sea.

  I like the sounds of a boat sailing at night. The sounds are the same as those of daylight, yet somehow the night magnifies and sharpens the creak of a yielding block, the sigh of air over a shroud, the stretching of a sail, the hiss of water sliding sleek against the hull, the curl of a quarter-wave falling away, and the thump as a wave strikes the cutwater to be sheared into two bright slices of whiteness. I like the purposefulness of a boat at night as it slits a path across an empty planet. I like the secretiveness of a boat in the blackness, when the only thing to dislike is the prospect of dawn, which seems like a betrayal because, at night, in a boat under sail, it is easy to feel very close to God—for eternity is all around.

  I tacked the ship shortly after midnight, doing the job by myself and enjoying the work. Ellen was still awake, talking in the stateroom with Rickie, but everyone else seemed asleep. I wished that Ellen and Rickie would go to their beds, for the soft mutter of their voices was an intrusion on the dark and star-studded infinity through which I steered Wavebreaker.

  I had just winched in the staysail’s port sheet when the explosion sounded, or something so like an explosion that I instinctively cowered by Wavebreaker’s rail as my mind whipped back to the crash of practice shells ripping through the sleet in Norway.

  The sound of the explosion melded into a terrible noise that was like an animal dying in awful, bellowing pain, but beneath that sound of agony was a harsh metallic scrape and clash that punched at my belly and eardrums. If anything the sound seemed to become louder as I ran down the deck. The noise was a foul but apt accompaniment to the schooner’s fitful motion for, with her wheel lashed and her sails only half trimmed, Wavebreaker was bridling and jerking into the short hard seas that were driving through the North-East Providence Channel.

  The noise rose to a scream; like the sound that a beast would make while being disembowelled. I stepped over the coaming and down into the cockpit where I cannoned off the binnacle before snatching open the companionway hatch. I put both hands on the rails and vaulted down to the accommodation deck. I slipped as I landed and fell against the bulkhead. I scrambled up and reached for the eject button on the cassette deck. I punched the button and was rewarded with a blessed, ear-ringing silence as the offending cassette slid out.

  “Shit! What is this?” Rickie, apparently still vibrating to the music, sprang up from the stateroom couch. “Hey! That was my tape, man! I was listening to that!”

  Ellen was grinning from the other couch, but I was in no mood to humour her amusement. “Thessy’s sleeping for the morning watch, for Christ’s sake!” I accused her, wondering why she had let Rickie play such an appalling din at such volume at such a late hour.

  “We’re just listening to music!” Rickie was suddenly truculent, twisting off the sofa and dancing towards me on the balls of his feet. An inch of ash spilt from his cigarette as he raised his hands in a threat to hit me.

  “Rickie!” Ellen called warningly.

  Some grain of self-preserving sense must have penetrated Rickie’s skull, for he suddenly dropped on to his heels and offered me a placatory grin. “You should like that sound, Nick!” he said happily. “It’s really heavy English music.”

  I looked at the cassette which claimed to be music recorded by the Pinkoe Dirt-Box Band. “New shipboard rule,” I said, “no English music on this boat, unless played very softly or through earphones.” I tossed the cassette to Rickie who, turning away and thus leaving his blind eye facing me, fumbled the catch.

  He stooped to pick up the tape. “Are you saying I can’t play my music?” He was suddenly spoiling for a fight again.

  “The man is saying that you keep the noise down, and I am saying that you do what the man says.” Jackson Chatterton had appeared in canary yellow pyjamas at the far end of the stateroom. His looming presence utterly cowed Rickie who whined something about only wanting to play Ellen a little night music, and that he had not meant any harm, and what was a guy supposed to be doing on this boat anyway? It wasn’t the goddamn navy, really, and he went on muttering all the way past Chatterton’s impassive gaze and so into the cabin that the two of them shared. Thessy’s scared face appeared at the other cabin door, but I shook my head at him, mimicked sleep, and he ducked back inside.

  “Sorry, Nick,” Ellen said, though not with any great contrition.

  “Forget it.” I was still angry, but there was no point in pursuing what was over, so I went back topsides to trim the ship, and five minutes later I saw the stateroom lights go out, and half an hour after that the lights in Ellen and Robin-Anne’s cabin were doused, leaving only a light in the forward starboard cabin to show that either Rickie or Jackson Chatterton was still awake. I wondered if they had simply forgotten to turn off the bulb which annoyingly cast its brightness through a porthole and on to the swirl and rush of white water, and I was half tempted to pull the fuse out of the circuit and thus surround Wavebreaker with darkness, but resisted the impulse.

  The night became quiet again. Wavebreaker settled on her new course and, by the time the small hours were growing, we had left the island’s lights well behind and I was cutting her prow hard into real ocean waves. We were on the starboard tack, fighting into the trades as we clawed our way out from the Bahamian shoals into the deep waters of the Atlantic. The difference in Wavebreaker’s motion was extraordinary. She had disdained the smaller waves in the shelter of the islands, but now she seemed to tremble as her hull soaked up the ponderous force of the ocean. This was proper sailing.

  And, as if to celebrate her freedom, she dipped her cutwater into a sudden trough of the sea and then sprayed white water high over her bows. The shudder of the bigger wave sent a shock wave through the long hull, and I laughed aloud with the pleasure of it. Then, as I often did when I was alone at sea, I began to recite Shakespeare. I knew reams of the stuff, yards and yards of it, learned from my father; the one absolutely true gift of my childhood. I liked to hear the verse, and enjoyed declaiming it, but only if there was no one to hear me, for I knew that my voice held all the fine cadences of Sir Tom himself.

  That night I belted out one of my favourite speeches, the one from the second part of Henry IV in which the new king, Henry V, rejects the friendship of Falstaff.

  I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers;

  How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!

  I have long dream’d of such a kind of man,

  So surfeit-swell’d, so old, and so profane;

  But, being awaked, I do despise my dream.

  I stopped abruptly. A movement had startled me and I turned to see Robin-Anne Crowninshield, dressed only in a white nightdress, standing in the main companionway.

  “That was really great,” she said. She was shivering violently.

  “You’ll find an oilskin jacket in the locker at the foot of the stairs,” I said, “and you’ll also discover that Ellen has left a Thermos of coffee on the stove, and I like mine without sugar but with milk. You may have to unscrew the stove-fiddles to release the Thermos, and you’ll find the milk in the fridge to the right of the stove.”

  She nodded grave acknowledgement of all my instructions, then disappeared bel
ow for five minutes, eventually returning swathed in one of the vast, padded and multi-layered foul-weather coats, and carrying a mug of coffee. “I assume it’s caffeinated?” she asked in her thin voice.

  “It is indeed proper coffee,” I confirmed, “but if you insist on the wimpish unleaded kind then you will find a jar in the locker above the sink. Are you hungry?”

  “I’m OK.” She sat at the edge of the cockpit, curled her legs into the warm shelter of the jacket, then hunched down into the thick collar so that all I could see of her face was her enormous, moon-silvered and lemur-like eyes beneath the pale gleam of her short bright hair. She yawned. “How long till dawn?”

  “An hour. Couldn’t you sleep?”

  “I set an alarm. I wanted to be up. Mom said I shouldn’t miss the dawn at sea, she said it’s kind of beautiful.” She rested her head against a cushion so that she could stare straight up through the network of rigging and past the light-blanched sails to where the stars wheeled their cold fire beyond the mastheads. “Where are we?”

  “We’ve just left the North-East Providence Channel and we’re in the open sea now. Did your brother’s music wake you earlier?”

  She shook her head, then seemed to shrink even lower inside the enveloping jacket. “You look happy,” she said, almost accusingly.