He began to jog along the beach, looking over his shoulder at her, turning at the far seawall, climbing the steps and circling around once more. He thought about trying to phone his grandmother, but his mother had always done the dialing and he didn’t know the number.
A fresh breeze herded litter along the street and he walked past the alleyway where the older teenagers were breathing in their glue. They called after him and he hurried away, giving them two fingers from beneath his jacket.
Try me, he said under his breath.
You’d try me, would you?
Come on, so.
I’ll kick the living shite out of ye.
He found himself suddenly outside the house of the old couple. It was a whitewashed bungalow and there were roses in bloom on the front driveway. It looked old, as if it had been sunk back into another decade, battered by years of the sea. The window frames were rotted. Some slates were missing from the roof. The gate, when he touched it, shivered. He hesitated and then opened the latch and turned around again. He went to the pier, sat with his back to a pierside bollard and smoked a cigarette, then raised the courage and walked nervously up the path. The old man answered the door.
Can I borrow the kayak?
Excuse me?
If I keep it close to shore?
The old man smiled and said: Wait please.
The boy was surprised that the man had a foreign accent. He couldn’t place it and, for a moment, he was horrified that the old man might be English, but the accent didn’t have any of those tones. English people, he thought, delivered their words on silver tongs. They spoke as if each word were being served with scones and china cups. Or else they spoke like soldiers, rolling the words around with menace and fear. This accent was different. It sounded like there was gravel in it. Like there were stones in the old man’s larynx.
The old man shuffled out from behind the house carrying a life jacket with him and he beckoned the boy to come around the corner where the kayak was propped against the wall. The boy knew from watching that he would have to carry the kayak high above his head, and the old man nodded approval at the way he balanced the paddles on either shoulder. They negotiated their way through the rosebushes.
It’s light, said the boy, although the boat was much heavier than he expected.
They went toward the sea and the man looked like he was walking toward days that once had been.
At the pier it took them a long time to adjust the spray skirt that would stop water from coming into the boat, and then the man passed forward the single life jacket and told the boy to strap it on.
The boy looked toward the beach at the blond girl in her swimsuit and felt a flush of embarrassment in his cheeks.
I don’t need a life jacket.
Put it on.
Why?
The old man smiled, and with that the boy strapped on the jacket.
I can swim you know.
I didn’t ask you if you could or not.
Fair enough, said the boy.
It was high tide and there was no need to drop the boat with ropes. They let it rest on the water and the old man climbed down a couple of rungs and went into it with skill. He said that dropping the boat from the pier was dangerous. It was really just the lazy man’s way out, he didn’t like carrying the boat all the way around to the beach. The boy was shocked at how difficult it was to get in—the old man gripped his arm and guided him down, but still he was sure he was about to fall. He could feel the sweat at his armpits and he was suddenly happy for the life jacket. He put his hands in the water and it felt remarkably cold.
The old man asked him if he was ready, but before the boy could answer the boat was already gliding out into the water.
The sun lit up half the harbor and the rest was left in cloud shadow.
They said very little as they paddled around near the pier. The boy, at the front of the kayak, couldn’t see the old man’s face and he wondered if he was bored. The boat seemed fragile; the boy felt as if he was sitting on the very surface of the water and the nervousness made his fingers tremble. The paddle was hard to maneuver and, even in the calm waters of the harbor, he felt sure the kayak would tumble. They paddled farther out than any of the swimmers, and he felt as if the whole beach was watching them. His head felt light and airy and he had to fight the happiness. The old man showed him how to slice the paddle through the air, turning it in midswing so that it cut sideways, smooth and controlled. He said that all good things were done with economy. The blade should never go too deep into the water or else too much energy would be used. And there should never be too much of a splash when the paddle came out—it should look as if the sea had hardly been disturbed.
Don’t fight the water, the old man said. Let the sea do the work.
The boy tried to place his accent, still uncertain, but after a while he grew comfortable with the paddling and asked where the old man was from.
Lithuania, he said.
Lithuania?
Do you know where that is?
I do, aye.
But the boy knew nothing of Lithuania, and when he finally admitted it they stopped by a buoy, steadied themselves, and the boy half turned his body around in the kayak. The old man drew a map of the USSR on the buoy with a wet finger, the borders gradually dissolving in the heat. There were large liver spots on the man’s hand and the boy thought he could have made the map from them. The man said that he had once been a logger in pine forests near the Polish border, that he had been away from his country for over thirty years now, living in different parts of Europe, surviving on money from a relative in New York.
The boy felt dizzy in the vast geography that was contained in the harbor.
He learned that afternoon how to ply the paddle with a gentle twist so that the blade struck the water fully, how to curve the boat with a flick of his wrist. His arms grew tired and his knees ached from where they were bent in the well of the boat. When they pulled in to the pier the old man slapped him on the shoulder, said: You did well. Come back tomorrow. You’ll learn more.
The boy ran home.
His mother was waiting for him and in the early evening, after dinner, she told him about his uncle, the reports that had come through on the pierside phone, and he imagined it: the pulse weakening, the feel colder, the taste of water metallic, the headaches, the dizziness, then the searing agony settling down to its own dullness, the eyes more shrunken every day, a dip in the blood pressure, a dribble cup at his head, bile on the pillow.
He’ll go to the end, his mother said.
He’ll die?
He’ll go to the end, she said again.
Does he still have a cough?
He does, yeah.
And do they give him medicine?
No, there’s sugars or proteins or something in the medicine, he can’t take it.
Do they still keep food at his bed?
They do, yeah.
They’re bastards, he said.
She hesitated at the curse, a reply quivering on her lips, but she said nothing. Afterward she went down on her knees to pray.
Bastards, he whispered again before he went to sleep. He heard the muffled weeping from where she knelt.
* * *
THE OLD MAN was waiting for him on the low wall outside the house, rolling a cigarette with patience, sprinkling the tobacco evenly on the paper. The bones on the back of his hands were prominent, leading like a scallop to his fingers. He brought the cigarette to his lips and licked the paper and sealed it slowly. The boy had his own cigarette butts in his pocket that he had rescued from his mother’s ashtray but he didn’t want to light up in front of the old man. He watched with jealousy as the cigarette crisped and flared. Two thin streams of smoke came from the old man’s nostrils and the boy leaned closer to get the smell of the tobacco.
Einam, said the old man.
Pardon me?
Let’s go.
Shall I put on the spray guard?
The old man l
aughed and said: Skirt. I told you yesterday. It’s called a skirt.
Shall I put it on?
Yes.
The boy looked behind his shoulder, pulled the spray skirt over his head and then lifted the kayak.
Instead of dropping the boat from the pier they went to the beach, kicked off their shoes and socks, and waded into shallow water. A drizzle had begun and the beach was empty. The boy got into the kayak and the old man stood waist-deep in the water beside him. He showed the boy how to right the boat if it ever overturned, by tucking his head in toward the boat, swishing out the paddle underwater, and snapping his hip upward, thereby rolling the boat right side up. It was very difficult, he said, with a double boat, but it was good to practice. If the worst came to the worst, the old man said, he could simply remove the spray skirt and hold on to the floating boat and hope the tide would carry him in.
Suddenly the old man tipped the boat and the boy went over in the water. He flailed around a moment and tried to bring his paddle up, but couldn’t. The boy yanked the front of the spray skirt, and for a moment he was all commotion underwater and then he rose, spluttering and spewing. The old man leaned down and grabbed the boy under the armpits.
For fuck sake.
Pardon me?
Why did you do that?
Get in the boat.
I can’t. Fuck sake. I’m soaking.
Get in, said the old man. I’ll hold it.
Fuck sake.
He coughed up some seawater and spat it out and exaggerated his shiver.
Get in, said the old man, as he patiently tilted the boat in the air and dumped most of the water out. He did it with ease and then he steadied the boat and the boy climbed in again. He had to throw his leg over the side of the boat, making him feel vulnerable and stupid. His trousers were soaked and heavy. He felt the old man’s hand on the small of his back and he wriggled away from the touch. When he finally got into the boat, his bare feet touched the water that was still in the well.
I’m fucking freezing.
The old man said nothing.
This is stupid.
It took an age to get the spray skirt adjusted once more and immediately the old man tipped the boat a second time.
The boy didn’t even try to right the kayak with his paddle. He ripped at the spray skirt and came up spluttering once more. He stared at the old man, pushed the boat away, and threw the paddle after it. He was about to take the spray skirt off when the old man started laughing. The boy watched. The old man’s head was thrown back in the air and his mouth was open and his eyes were closed.
What’re you laughing at?
I’m laughing because it’s funny.
I’d like to see you get dumped.
Would you?
Aye.
Would you really?
I would, aye.
The old man dropped himself backward in the water and he was submerged for a second and his cap floated on the surface. The boy reached for the cap and handed it to him when he came back up. Both of them began chuckling and the boy thought that they must have been a curious sight, out in the shallows of the sea, he and an old man, dripping wet, laughing.
After a while the old man clasped his side and breathed heavily and shook his head back and forth, then put his hand on the boy’s shoulder, gave one final snortle, and said: Get in the boat.
Fair enough.
This time, he said, swish the paddle out properly.
Okay.
And no bad language please.
* * *
EACH DAY THEY WENT OUT in the boat as his uncle weakened farther. The town seemed small from the water, tucked down in the hollow between the headlands, fringed by the beach. In the distance the mountains contorted the blacktop roads to their liking. Beyond the mountains, the sky was cool and azure and serene. The whole scene, thought the boy, could have been taken for a postcard.
He and the old man remained in the harbor, going from buoy to buoy, sometimes nudging up against large boats, learning how to maneuver the kayak, guiding it in circles, making figures of eight, once or twice riding the waves in toward shore.
Birds pinwheeled above them and sometimes the old man pretended to talk to them, sounding curious caws and screeches that made the boy chuckle.
At lunchtime the old woman came out to the pier to watch, bringing them sandwiches and milk. They ate together on the pier, legs dangling over the water. He discovered that their names were Vytis and Rasa. When they spoke it was mostly in Lithuanian but the boy didn’t mind; he felt as if he were in another country anyway, and after a while he began to recognize certain words that came up constantly between them—berniukas, duoshele, miela, pietus—although he wasn’t quite sure what they meant. After lunch they took to the boat again for an hour or so. The old man didn’t wear a watch but he said he could tell the time from the local church bells, and he sometimes even anticipated their toll. He said he liked to be home early and that the finest thing about life was an afternoon nap, it was his favorite moment of the day, to draw the curtains and drift away into odd dreams.
While the old couple slept, the boy would hose down the kayak and then make his way back toward the caravan. He often dipped into the town’s dustbins to find a newspaper and he checked the horoscopes—one afternoon he decided that his uncle’s birthday must have fallen in Scorpio, since the newspaper said that there was difficulty now, but with a planet about to enter the sphere, all would suddenly become calm.
His mother was delighted by his kayaking and she said if he kept it up she would increase his pocket money, so that one day he might be able to buy his own boat. He took the extra money and immediately ran back down to town and spent it all in the video arcade.
On the fourth morning, he and the old man went beyond the harbor, careful when crossing the meeting of currents, out into the moving corduroy of sea waves.
The boy was excited by the distance that was put between him and the town. He cawed at birds in the air. Farther out, the horizon seemed vast and flattened by a pale blue sky. They paddled for an hour with their backs to the town, and the sea remained calm.
While they were floating, the boy half turned his body in the kayak. I want to tell you something, he said. You see this here black armband?
Yes?
He stuttered and found his throat going dry. Eventually he told the old man all about his uncle, and they paddled for an hour without saying another word.
He felt as if the whole harbor was weighted down with implication, that each splash of the water had a meaning, and as the silence took on a greater weight he thought that the Lithuanian would have something wise to say but as they brought the kayak in toward the pier the old man simply cleared his throat and lowered his voice and said that he was sorry, that it was a sad story, that he too had been unhappy as a boy for a reason that no longer mattered, that his joy now was in simple things that needed no memory.
* * *
AT MASS HE WAS SURPRISED that some older people recognized her from when she was a girl. They smiled and declared she looked like a teenager, which made him shiver with embarrassment. He created a gulf between them by putting the hymnal on the seat. His mother had made him wear a clean blue shirt with a button-down collar, and on purpose he let the tail of it hang out from his trousers. During the sermon she tried to tuck it in but he pushed her hand away and she just smiled at him.
The church was new and high-windowed and antiseptic.
When they went for Communion he walked a few steps behind her. For the first time he properly heard the words: This is the body of Christ. He wondered if the hunger strikers who had already died had taken the last rites and, if they had, did they receive bread before they died? He found himself tortured by the question and he had visions of emaciated men walking around the prison hospital with single patches of white on their tongues wondering whether they should swallow or not. The weight of the bread held their tongues down and so they could not ask the question of God. Their eyes wat
ered. Slowly the bread dissolved on their tongues and entered their saliva and the hunger strike was broken. A prison doctor came and gloated. The men sank to their knees and died from starvation anyway.
He felt his mother elbowing him in the ribs and he looked up to see that the Mass had ended.
Outside, the priest was shaking hands with the congregation. The boy waited on a distant stone wall while his mother made her way through the crowd. He noticed that the priest brushed his hand against his mother’s elbow and the boy said aloud: You horny bastard.
They were given a lift to town by a man with a long and sunburned face who asked if they were going to the pony races. His mother said no with a firmness that delighted the boy.
In the newsagent’s they bought the Sunday newspapers and two loaves and four cream eclairs. As they were emerging from the shop, he saw the old couple entering. They looked as if they’d been toiling in their garden.
The old woman winked at him and the man patted him on the head and the boy could feel the delicate weight of the old man’s hand as he walked away from the shop.
That’s my friend, he said to his mother.
Oh, that’s him? He’s not exactly a bed of roses, she said with a chuckle.
What’s that supposed to mean?
I’m just kidding.
What’s it mean?
I’m joking, love.
You smell too. You smell worse than he does, you know that?
Listen, I’m just kidding you, love. Take it easy.
He scowled and found himself trying to sniff at his own armpits as he slouched behind her. He remembered his chess pieces, and as he followed his mother he thought to himself: Fuck the queen, I’m a knight.
In the caravan they spread out the Sunday papers on the table. There were photographs of his uncle from years ago. He ran his fingers over the face, then cut the pictures out very carefully. He put one of them in his shirt pocket and taped the other above his bed. Later, as he played chess with his mother, using the wooden pieces, he patted the photo in his pocket and it seemed as if his fingers were moving over his uncle’s ribs. They felt prominent, like the ribs of a hungry horse. The bones made a sound like some musical instrument, and when he shoved his fingers deeper into the pocket he could feel the water swish in his uncle’s belly.