Long Voyage Back

  `You did too squeal,' Lisa insisted. 'And it was nice.'

  Jim shook his head, smiling. Ì didn't hear a thing,' he countered.

  `Do I make noises?' Lisa asked.

  Ì was too busy to notice.' Again they laughed, until a noise in the main cabin curtained off only a few feet away sobered

  them. They lay quietly, staring at each other, listening. They heard Tony swear and Katya laugh.

  `Do you think they might come in here?' Lisa asked. Jim grimaced and nodded. 'They might,' he said. `Should we let people know?' Lisa asked. 'You know, about . .. what we're doing?'

  `No,' said Jim. 'Our parents have enough to worry about without . . Ì know,' said Lisa. 'After Frank and Mother had that long

  talk after dinner tonight I found her crying in her cabin.' `Really? I don't understand what'

  s happening with them

  all, do you?'

  Ì thought she ... liked Neil, but now . . . I don't know.' `My father said . . Katya abruptly ducked up from the curtain and appeared only a few feet away.. 'Oh!' she said. 'Hey, I'm sorry. I must have the, wrong room.' She laughed briefly and as quickly stooped down to disappear back into the main cabin.

  As they heard her and Tony begin arguing Jim grabbed his swimming trunks and pulled them on and Lisa scrambled for her shorts and blouse.

  `What is this?' Tony said, suddenly emerging into the room. 'Neil gives me the worst berth on the boat and even then it's not mine.'

  Ì'm sorry,' said Jim, whispering. 'Would you please keep your voice down.'

  Ì can't even talk in my own cabin?' said Tony.

  Òh, shut up,' Katya whispered from behind him. 'Leave them alone.'

  `We're leaving,' said Jim. 'And I'm sorry we . . . used your bed.'

  Ìt's not mine, it's Connie's,' said Tony. Tut it's the principle of the thing.'

  `Tony, you've got as much principle as an eel,' said Katya. `Come on, Lisa,' said Jim.

  `Do your parents know you're screwing?' Tony asked.

  `Not yet,' said Jim. 'And I'd like it if they didn't know.'

  `Sure,' said Tony. 'I dig it. I don't imagine your Dad would be too hot about your fucking with Jeanne's baby. Hey, you know, it's statutory rape! How about that?'

  `Go,' said Katya to Jim and Lisa. 'Tony, you're an ass.' `Statutory rape. Army desertion. I'

  m witnessing all sorts of crimes.'

  `You witness a crime every time you look in a mirror,' said Katya. 'Goodbye, kids. I'm glad you're lovers.'

  Jim and Lisa left, the shame and uncertainty stirred by Tony not erased by Katya's blessing. They stopped fora drink of water in the galley and then soberly climbed the steps into. the wheelhouse.

  Olly was snoring on a settee while Macklin stood at the wheel, the light of a cigarette casting a brief reddish glimmer to his face. Jim was aware that Macklin had been ordered not to use any of the cigarettes and he automatically stopped, looking at him. Macklin didn't speak, simply returning Jim's gaze, then looking at Lisa, then back at Jim. Lisa left to go to her cabin with Jeanne. Macklin exhaled a cloud of smoke towards Jim but the rush of air from the port entranceway blew it aft.

  `Have a good time?' Macklin asked.

  Jim returned his stare a moment longer and then walked past and out of the wheelhouse towards his own starboard cabin. His futile rage at Tony and Macklin had him trembling. Down in the cabin Frank was awake, staring at the ceiling. `Where you been, Jim?' he asked.

  Jim went to the little sink to wash the sweat off his face.

  `With Lisa,' he answered after a moment. . . Talking . .

  His father didn't say anything for a while. Jim wiped off his face and chest, the salt water leaving him still sticky.

  Ì'm glad, Jim,' Frank said. 'I mean your and Lisa's getting together. Being friends. It's good.'

  Jim, his back to his father, felt a wave of emotion flood him

  - gratefulness to his father, love of Lisa, sadness at his father's troubles.

  `Thanks, Dad,' he said, wiping his face and chest.

  `You know,' said Frank, still invisible on his berth, 'Jeanne and Lisa and Skip are really part of our family now. We've got to take care of them . . . take care of them just as we would . . . your mother and Susan.'

  In the darkness Jim put the washcloth and towel down on the sink and went to his narrow berth forward of Frank's.

  `They . . they're good people,' Jim said as he climbed up on to the foam mattress.

  `They're family,' said Frank. 'Lisa's your sister.'

  Jim pulled the sheet up over his damp, sticky body and pulled off his swim trunks. He felt a chill at his father's describing Lisa as his sister, fearing that Frank was thinking in terms of himself and Jeanne and not seeing Lisa as separate, as . . . a woman.

  `Goodnight, Dad,' he said.

  Àll of us ...'Frank seemed to say softly, but Jim didn't know what he meant, and in another minute he could hear the heavy rasp of his father's breathing in sleep. Lying in her berth beside Katya the next morning Jeanne thought about Neil and about Skippy's not eating enough and of how gaunt Frank was beginning to look, and of Neil's thighs and Skippy's fascination with fish guts, and of Lisa and Jim, and of the planet withering with the plagues unleashed by the war, and of her weariness in dealing with it all, and of Neil and of her happiness. At times their voyage seemed hopeless; at other moments selfish and narcissistic. Part of her felt that she ought to be suffering and dying on the mainland with the rest of the world, not alive with love. She wanted to be a nun administering to the suffering victims of this war horror; she wanted to be naked in Neil's arms. She wanted to devote her life to bringing up her children so that the world they created would be free of the evil that her

  generation had unleashed. But she wanted a house, a big double bed, with a supermarket and restaurant next door. She wanted Frank tostop loving her and Neil never tostop. She wanted the world to stop surprising her with its ability to kill people; she wanted to die. No, she wanted to live, to live, to live.

  She slipped briskly out of her berth and, though it was still forty minutes to go before she was due to feed the two watch teams, she began to dress.

  `Hey, what's the problem?' Katya asked her unexpectedly. `You've been tossing and turning as if trying to solve the entire world's problems in one long think.' Resting on one elbow, Katya was looking sleepy-eyed at Jeanne, who stood a few feet away buttoning her blouse. Katya spoke in a low voice so as not to disturb Lisa and Skip, still asleep in the adjoining berth. At five, the light was just gathering in the east.

  `Restless,' Jeanne answered.

  `Men do have that effect, don't they?' Katya countered, not accepting the evasive answer. Jeanne stared back but didn't reply. 'Frank and Neil are both coming on to you,' Katya went on, 'and you're interested in Neil. Where's the problem?'

  Jeanne leaned down to put on her boat shoes. Although she liked Katya, she was unused to confiding in another woman, especially one she barely knew. Ì don't think my personal emotional problems are worth talking about,' she finally said in a low voice.

  `They're worth talking about if you plan keeping me awake every night thinking about them,' Katya replied. 'Hey, come, on, I'm exactly the person you should talk to.'

  Jeanne walked softly to the forward part of the cabin to check that Lisa and Skip were asleep. When she returned opposite Katya a gentle swell rolled under Vagabond making her three hulls tip, slide and roll with a queasy sideways motion that always made Jeanne feel a mild dizziness.

  `Have you slept with Neil?' Katya asked after the silence continued. Unused to such bluntness, Jeanne remained turned away.

  Ìf you'd like me to vacate this berth and take Skip off your hands today so you and Neil can be alone, I will,' Katya said. Ì mean getting it on with a lover on this boat is getting to involve a major logistical effort. It's worse than a girls' dorm.'

  Jeanne turned back to Katya.

  `You . . . and Tony?' she asked.

  Òh, me and Tony are the types that
could make it in Grand Central Station . . . if that's what I wanted,' Katya replied, smiling sleepily. She sat up and stretched, the sheet sliding off and revealing her small breasts with long nipples.

  Jeanne looked away. 'It's not a problem of privacy,' Jeanne said softly.

  `Well, tell me what it is,' Katya said. 'I promise to give you bad advice which you can ignore. It's the telling that will help.'

  Jeanne glanced again at her sleeping children and finally, with a sigh, began talking. She explained that in the wake of the personal losses all had suffered, those aboard the ship now formed a kind of family, one which took precedence over any single person's desires. Nothing should be done which might divide the family. Although she and Neil might be attracted to each other, she felt that if that meant the unhappiness and bitterness of Frank then it wasn't worth it. In the telling she somewhat played down her feelings for Neil, an action which, when she'd finished, left her vaguely dissatisfied with her explanation.

  Katya, now sitting up and leaning back against the partition between her berth and that of Lisa and Skip, was brushing out her curly, ashblonde hair. When Jeanne stopped talking, Katya frowned. `So don't sleep with either of them,' Katya concluded, looking puzzled. '

  Most men survive. Or they find someone else they can bury their sorrow and other parts of their anatomy with.' She looked at Jeanne questioningly. Jeanne was depressed by the advice. It was excellent advice, but had the flaw of asking her to give up Neil.

  Òr sleep with both of them,' Katya went on, watching Jeanne carefully.

  `No, I can't do that,' Jeanne said simply.

  Katya swung herself out of bed to begin dressing. As she reached into a cubby to get her shorts she became abruptly irritable.

  `You think too much, Jeanne,' Katya said. 'If you and a man love each other, that's it, that's first. The rest of the world doesn't count. Family doesn't count. A woman friend doesn't count. Grab it.'

  She stepped into her shorts, then grabbed a yellow tee-shirt and pulled it over her head, shaking her hair and brushing it down when her head emerged. Èveryone else does,' she added, and, with Jeanne staring after her, she climbed the hatchway steps, slid back the hatch, and left.

  According to Neil's noon sunshots Vagabond was now about fifty miles north of the reef and cays lying off the northeast coast of Great Abaco Island. Sailing at about seven knots, Vagabond might come within sight of land a little before sunset. The thought gave Neil little exhilaration. He found himself approaching this landfall warily. Already he and Frank had argued that morning about whether it was definitely necessary to obtain additional food and water before sailing on for Puerto Rico. Frank was concerned at having to halve their food intake for up to two weeks, while Neil himself felt that starvation was not their primary danger. The Bahamian government had announced that it was confiscating any foreign vessel that landed in Bahamian waters without first clearing Customs at Freeport or Nassau. All weapons aboard any ship were being confiscated. The rash of pirates that were afflicting Bahamian waters could be stopped only by the rigid enforcement of these rules. All food was strictly controlled and rationed by the authorities. Foreigners unable to pay with gold, silver, or barter for their food, were being forced to join work forces or - those who had them - give up their boats as exchange.

  Had not the wind direction made a landfall on Great Abaco Island a logical course Neil would have preferred to stay at sea, away from the dangers he foresaw closing with the land. The sun was shining brightly, the sky a deep blue, and the sea sparkling with small whitecaps from the twelve-knot breeze still blowing perniciously out of the eastsoutheast. Frank, at the helm, was pinching Vagabond a bit east of south because when they came to the reef they' would have to

  proceed southeast along it until they decided if, where, and when to take Vagabond into land.

  It was a little before the changing of the watch at two o'clock that Jeanne, using binoculars, spotted a ship. At first this was all she could be sure of. Ten minutes later she and Neil, alternating use of the large pair of binoculars, had determined that it was a sailing boat heading north, but without any sails up. A minute later, when the boat altered its course to the west, Neil thought that it, like the only other sailing ship they had seen on their trip south, was starting to flee. Then he realized differently.

  `What is it?' asked Jeanne.

  Ìt's a drifting boat,' he replied, handing her the glasses. `Probably abandoned, a derelict.'

  As she began studying the mysterious ship, Neil walked out into the port cockpit where Frank and Tony were looking through the smaller glasses.

  Àlter course,' Neil said to Tony at the helm. 'We're going to take a look.'

  `What the hell for?' Tony asked.

  `There may be survivors,' Neil replied. 'If not, there may be supplies we can salvage.'

  Ànybody still alive on that boat we can do without,' Tony commented. 'This close to land the ship's probably been sacked already.'

  `We're going over,' Neil said.

  In half an hour Vagabond had arrived within a hundred yards of the derelict. The ship's white paint was blistered and peeling, fragments of the mainsail lay loosely along the boom, and a halyard was loose and swinging idly back and forth with the rocking of the boat. There was no sign of life.

  Àhoy, I rindsong!' Neil shouted as Tony brought Vagabond so close to the wind all three sails luffed and she became almost dead in the water ten yards short of the forty-foot ketch.

  `Hit the horn,' Neil said to Tony, who gave one loud blast from the air horn on the control panel shelf.

  Àre you going to board?' Frank asked Neil.

  Just then a figure emerged from the cabin into the ship's cockpit. Crouched and blinking into the bright light, a small, unshaven man in his forties wearing only a bathing suit stared at them.

  Neil and the others, stunned, stared back.

  `Can we assist you?' Neil asked loudly after the shocked silence.

  `Water,' the man said hoarsely. He was hollow-eyed. `Water,' he repeated more loudly. As Jim ducked below to get some of their precious water and the man peered down into his own cabin, Frank came up to Neil.

  `What are you going to do?' he asked.

  `Take him off,' Neil answered, staring glumly at the stricken Windsong. `Back her offa bit,' he added to Tony, 'then bring her up to the port side. Get the fenders.'

  `There must be others aboard,' Jim said, arriving with water. 'He can't be alone.'

  `The guy's practically dead,' Tony said, easing Vagabond alongside Windsong. Neil and Frank moored the two boats side by side with the fenders cushioning their impact.

  `Do you want to abandon ship?' Neil asked. 'We can take you aboard.'

  The man, the bones of his rib-cage protruding grotesquely against the skin of his emaciated body, lowered his head and stared at the water.

  `We're all dying,' he answered. 'I don't know.' `Radiation sickness isn't necessarily fatal,'

  Neil said. 'You may recover.'

  The man looked back up at Neil.

  Ì know,' he said. 'That's what's hell. But my wife and

  daughter ... are almost dead. They'll never make it.'

  Jim now handed a plastic jug of water across to the man

  who, with sudden agility, grabbed it and hugged it to him. `Let me go below and - decide what we'll do,' he said and

  less nimbly made his way down into the cabin of his boat. Neil, Frank and Tony were left in the side cockpit waiting.

  `What is this shit?' Macklin suddenly said, appearing beside them, looking sleepy, the hair of his chest glistening with sweat. 'You bringing more people on to raid our food and water?'

  Neil didn't reply.

  Ìf they're all dying,' Tony said, 'it'll just be a waste. You said yourself that prospects of finding food in the Bahamas don't look good.'

  Ì know,' Neil said.

  `What happened to your fucking-principle of triage?' Macklin interjected. Neil didn't answer. The four of them stood silently i
n the gently rocking Vagabond awaiting the reappearance of the dying man. What had happened to triage, thought Neil, was that at sea you didn't abandon a fellow sailor.

  The man emerged from his ship's cabin. 'I'd appreciate it if you could take us off,' he said. When they stared at him, he finally added, 'I'll need help.'

  `Mac,' said Neil. `Go aboard and give the man a hand.' `Go yourself,' Macklin said and stalked away.

  Ì'll go,' said Frank. He boarded Windsong ahead ofJim but suddenly noticed along the coaming and in the cockpit a fine grey ash. He first took it to be sand, but with a stab of fear realized it was radioactive ash. He clambered quickly back on to Vagabond, pushing Jim back ahead of him.

  `Jesus Christ,' he told Neil. 'There's fallout on deck.' Neil looked and frowned.

  `This is ridiculous,' said Tony. 'Let's get out of here.' Neil hesitated again, then turned to Frank. 'I'll board and help them abandon ship,' he said.

  Ì'll help you,' said Jim.

  `You stay here,' Frank said gloomily to Neil, grabbing his shoulder. 'With your bum arm you're the wrong man for the job.'

  When Frank boarded Windsong, Jim quickly followed. Ducking below into the main cabin Frank saw that there were two women lying under dirty sheets on opposite sides of the main salon on what normally would have been settees. The cabin was a jumble of pails, towels, open cans of food, dirty dishes, clothing, blankets. The stench of sweat, urine and excrement was stifling. The small hollow-eyed man stood apologetically next to his wife.