Lifeboat (6 page)

‘He is more obscure than I thought,' he said. ‘Notorious rather than mainstream. Aunty says his death was as responsible for his notoriety as his writing. He shot himself.'

This brought my attention back to what he was saying.

The biography the librarian had ordered was written posthumously. He was sure it would contain photographs. I hoped that even if there was no likeness of my castaway in the book, the photographs might bring something back to her; in her dream she had seen her father's face.

‘Thank you for bringing this,' I said, holding up the piece of paper.

‘My pleasure,' he replied. ‘What do you think?'

‘It sounds plausible. I'll write to the publishers. Would your aunt have their address?'

He pointed to some writing at the bottom of the page, surrounded by doodles.

‘Here, I wrote it down – sorry, it's a bit hard to read now.'

‘Oh thanks, thanks very much.'

We stood at my desk while I stared at his writing. I was conscious of the curious glances we were getting from my colleagues.

‘Thanks,' I said again. ‘I hope I haven't dragged you away from the library just for this?'

‘Oh no. It's my day off.'

‘Oh, I see.'

This made me feel even more like I was imposing on him. I was about to thank him again when he said: ‘I won't disturb you anymore. I'm glad you're pleased.'

‘Yes, thank you.'

He stuck out his hand and shook mine firmly, just twice, then released me, stepping back with a grin.

‘Let me know what they say,' he said. ‘The lifeboat pair, I mean – come and see me at the library?'

I gave him a smile as he left. At the door he turned and waved again – I was still watching. I waved back and sat down in my chair, opening some files at random to appear engrossed with work and so avoid the looks and questions of my colleagues. I had some feelings of embarrassment, which annoyed me because his visit was to do with my work enquiries. I wished he had come in his work clothes.

I stared at the files in front of me, taking none of them in. I'd met men at university; there were a few with whom I was on first-name terms, just for the comparison of notes on lectures and group work for tutorials. None had attracted me as I had hoped they would. At school we'd had no contact with men except for the priests.

Who would fall in love first and with whom had been an almost constant topic of conversation in the dormitories after lights out. Some of the more forward girls made ribald jokes about the priests, which I found embarrassing, although I would never show it. I had planned to get a boyfriend when I was at university, but only in an abstract way, like I planned to find a hobby and try curling my hair; I thought about holding hands with someone, kissing someone. I gave no thought to the actual type of someone, and when it came to talking to a man in the real world, I found myself lost for the small talk that tugs the more weighty craft of conversation into safe waters.

I managed to smile at boys, but no more. My roommate told me this made them consider me shy or disinterested. She suggested I have a few drinks to relax and invited me to some parties, but my real shyness and a budget that did not allow for the buying of party dresses, stopped me.

I sat at my desk and thought about what I would wear next time I went to the library, which embarrassed me all over again. I chastised myself for wasting time and turned my attention back to the safety of work.

*

I wrote to the publisher immediately. I could only hope that my letter would receive the priority I requested and that a positive return would be forthcoming before the two-week deadline was up.

HAPPINESS

In a cold country he warmed his heart on love, planting his feet to spread root-like into the soil of their life.

She beat her wings against his enclosing hands, until he slipped her into his pocket to nest.

They shared their memories of sunshine and vast spaces like rationed chocolate, in a tiny flat decorated with plans of the future that his engineer's heart designed for her.

Happiness floated on the top of warm baths, spread itself over toast and rained like a blanket from the sodden sky. It rolled in sleep to wrap itself around them, turned her lions into fat cats curled by the fire and built a ramp up to his knotted heart.

When he went to war she stayed alone in their room. She lost herself in his clothes, hiding inside his coat like a child beneath the bedclothes in the dark.

The days ticked away until she discovered someone hiding with her. Then her hideout became a nest and she thought: so late in life I have become the lioness, guarding our young while he is away defending his pride. She wrapped herself around her belly as it grew and her heart swelled accordingly to encompass three.

DAY FIVE

The woman barely acknowledged the news when I told her about the biography. Not even knowledge of the writer's suicide elicited a response. He exhaled his disapproval and said: ‘Such men I have no patience with. There are many ways to die, but what is so good about death that one would go to it willingly?'

The guard had brought them in late that morning – she had been difficult to wake, he said, and suspicious of the wardens, despite having seen them every day since her arrival. She refused to leave her room until the man was brought in from the other cellblock. She also refused breakfast and was now hungry.

I quelled my feelings of annoyance at her contrariness and agreed to continue our work at the café.

The guards left them in my care with a shrug – although they had seen all types, it was obvious they considered her unusual.

We walked slowly to the café, not speaking. She seemed frail. He held her arm, supporting her in a gentlemanly fashion. After choosing a table in the sun he gently helped her into a chair and, whilst I ordered, found a sun umbrella on another table and moved it over to shade her. It was all done quietly, without a word between them. Much like on the lifeboat, I imagined.

‘This seems like good news,' he said, in reference to my discoveries.

The woman looked out to sea.

‘I think it is,' I said.

‘And very kind of this librarian to go to so much trouble for strangers such as ourselves,' he added.

‘So you may be English,' I said ‘or at least your father was, if this writer is your father.'

Her accent was English, but with him she conversed most fluently in Spanish. His accent was neither Spanish nor English. Indeed, I had trouble pinning it down to any particular country. It could have been French, but that of a Frenchman long gone from France, and he spoke only a few words in that language. Or rather, I had only heard him speak a few, and I had a feeling that he understood more than he was prepared to admit.

Our only lead seemed to be that of her father, which in her more positive moments she felt was memory, not just a dream, but she could not tell where one ended and the other started.

The weekend approached, signalling the end of my first week with them and the beginning of my last. I tried to ignore the feeling of panic which arose whenever I remembered the deadline – if I could just get one confirmation, perhaps my boss would extend the period of the investigation.

The weekend also meant two days away from the office, usually a time I spent sailing, my weekly treat, but this weekend it felt like time lost. Nor did I relish the idea of spending the weekend at work. So I decided to take them with me. I was an officer of the government after all, and an old man and woman would hardly seem like a security risk. It was unorthodox, but surely acceptable under the circumstances. However, I did not plan on telling my boss.

After they ate we returned to the compound. They had spoken little; she still looked dazed. The common room was empty and as I left I saw her curl up into a battered old cane lounge and close her eyes. He stood at the far end of the room, staring out of the window, a stance that was becoming familiar to me.

Apart from the old cane lounge, a dozen wooden chairs and tables decorated the room, and a few greasy decks of cards were stacked on a shelf, next to some shipping magazines. Despite the furniture, the room looked bare. The walls were green and shiny, a particular shade of green I dubbed ‘public lavatory green', unbroken by anything but a list of regulations glued lopsidedly by the door. I felt sorry to leave them in such stark surroundings, but hoped that I may soon return with better news.

All I needed was a weekend security pass. I looked for the chief of security. He was not in his office. Enquiry revealed that he was at the docks, dealing with an emergency on board a foreign freighter. As it was, this emergency worked in my favour.

The freighter arrived that morning, containing produce to be unloaded immediately, due to a damaged generator in the main cool room. The vessel had been attacked by one of the pirate gangs that infested the channels of the northern islands. The freighter waited in a small bay for a week, while the engineers repaired what they could, and then sought refuge in our port. The harbourmaster admitted the vessel to port despite a discovery that the majority of the ship's crew did not hold the correct papers to enter our country; they were not members of the maritime workers' union, nor did they hold work visas. Such an oversight by the captain and the mate was not above suspicion. Their crew, it turned out during interviews, worked for a fraction of the cost of accredited crews. The maritime union was a strong one which did not take poaching on its territory lightly.

The dockside was in uproar. Every illegal crewmember was to be incarcerated until the correct paperwork could be sorted out. The boat was to be unloaded by local teams and the ship sent on its way again, having paid a hefty fine. When I arrived the crew were boarding buses bound for where I had just come from. After two months at sea, no one was happy about it.

I found the chief of security on the last bus. The captain and the mate were being led away by a couple of guards; both looked furious.

The chief glanced up as I jumped on board the bus, alerted by the wolf-whistles and comments directed at me, but so intent was I upon my mission that I barely noticed what would usually have sent me running. He seemed unsurprised to see me and started talking before I even sat down.

‘I'm glad someone had the sense to call you. It's a terrible mess here and I'll need statements taken from all the crew members.'

He leant clumsily to one side, pulled a large, checked handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow. The tight, blue uniform did not suit his burly figure – he looked like an uncomfortably costumed father shanghaied into a part in his child's Christmas pantomime.

‘Have you been briefed?' he demanded, as he attempted to stuff the handkerchief back into the pocket -it wasn't going back in there willingly.

‘No.'

He let out a sigh of exasperation and rifled through the document case he was carrying, head down, thrusting individual papers to me as he came across them. I was holding half a dozen before I found the courage to correct him.

‘That's not why I'm here, sir.'

He waved a hand at me, without raising his head.

‘Well it is now. These men,' he looked up and jerked a thumb at the glum-looking lot behind him, ‘are mostly from the Balkans somewhere, as far as I can tell. You speak that, don't you?'

Without waiting for me to answer, he continued: ‘Itinerant workers, no papers. It's a huge balls up and we need it sorted.'

He remembered himself all of a sudden and looked sheepish.

‘Pardon the language.'

I waved that away, wondering why men seemed to assume that women didn't swear. I could repeat the expression back to him in half a dozen different languages, some with hilarious translations; none of them offended me.

‘So why are you here?' he asked, looking at me properly for the first time.

‘You have two detainees I'm already working with. The lifeboat pair?'

‘The old couple? How's that going?'

‘So so. The memory loss is a problem and I'd like to try a new tack. I've set aside this weekend to work intensively with them and think it would be beneficial to keep them in an informal surrounding for these purposes. We think trauma may be to blame, and a more personal approach would help. I've volunteered my time and expertise. All I require is your authorisation to remove them from custody for the weekend. And,' I gestured behind us, ‘in light of these new pressures on your department, I think it would be better for all concerned if they were secured elsewhere, until these men are processed.'

I hoped I had not overdone it. I had no permission from my department for what I was doing and could only hope that he would be too busy to double-check.

‘Well,' he said slowly. ‘I'm not sure … what about this lot?'

I paused, as if considering what favour I could do him, playing it out as best I could.

‘If you give me the old pair for the weekend, I can commit all of my time today to you, starting now. That should suffice. If not, I'll give it first priority, next week.'

He grunted his assent.

‘Fine. I'll organise release papers. But I think you're wasting your time. We have an exchange agreement with the mainland – they'll be deported next week anyway.'

I spent that day hard at work. The crewmen were mostly Croatian, trying to make some money away from the hardships of home. Many were supporting families and the chance of decent wages heavily outweighed the risk of incarceration. They knew that finance would win out, that the ship's owners would pay whatever fines were imposed by our trade department and still come out ahead. It amused them to be interviewed by a young female. We chatted about home and they showed me photos of wives and children. They were delighted to find someone who spoke their language and seemed interested in their stories. I felt sad that they were not to be offered the open hospitality of our port, when they were so far from home and their loved ones. No doubt my compatriot unionised seaman would disagree strongly.

I recorded their versions of recruitment to the ship and life on board. I heard each man's version of the pirate attack, which had damaged the generator and sent them limping to us. Each version grew with the telling, but I wrote down everything verbatim; it was someone else's job to collate and analyse what I translated. By seven that evening I was finished.

I hadn't had a chance to tell the castaways of my plan. The man was not in the men's dormitory, so I went to the women's quarters hoping to find them both. It was much quieter than where I had just come from. I found her in her room flicking idly through magazines. It occurred to me that I had not even attempted to find them any reading matter to pass the long hours of waiting.

She looked pleased to see me, her mood changed from the morning. They had passed the afternoon quietly playing cards and watching the boats come and go. She'd seen me arrive with the sailors and wondered if I'd forgotten them.

‘No, no,' I hurried to reassure her. ‘Your case is my first priority, especially with so little time at our disposal.'

‘I feel like I have so much time to spare … one can only sleep so much,' she said.

I would track down some reading matter first thing Monday morning, I promised myself.

The man had left not long before I arrived, for a walk, he'd said.

‘Where to?' I asked, wondering how I could have missed him in the corridors.

‘Who knows, my dear – I don't ask. Now, tell me about your day.'

She was pleased with my plan, childishly gleeful; she wanted to leave immediately. I was explaining why that was not a good idea when he arrived; how he managed to wander about the compound unhindered by locks amazed me. It was an odd skill. I thought of magicians, then thieves, which was unsettling. I wondered if I should tell the security guards.

‘How did you get here?' I asked.

He pointed to his feet, clad in the cheap canvas shoes they issued to inmates, the shoelaces removed.

‘I walked,' he said and winked at me.

She rolled her eyes. ‘Maybe better not to ask, I think,' she said. ‘You will sleep more peacefully without that responsibility as well.'

‘You shouldn't go where you are not allowed,' I told him. ‘It will make people suspicious.'

‘Of what?' he asked, holding out his hands. ‘An old man taking a walk?'

‘They'll think you're trying to break out,' I insisted.

He laughed. ‘And if I did, my dear,' he said, looking at me through lowered lids, ‘where would I go?'

I let it pass. She was bursting to tell him of my arrangements and I hoped he was as pleased. However, he looked so serious after she told him that I worried I had overstepped the mark. It occurred to me that he may not want to stay with me – I was, after all, an official and a stranger.

‘Sir,' I said formally. ‘If this is inconvenient just say. I am, after all, a stranger and to ask you to come to my home, well …' I tailed off uncomfortably, not quite sure how to express my fear politely.

But I need not have worried.

‘It is an honour to be asked. I am pleased to accept,' he said. ‘And do not worry, to us everyone is a stranger, even ourselves. We will be very comfortable with you.'

I left them happier than I found them, with the promise of my return in the morning to collect them.

I had never entertained guests. In my first year at university I shared a room with a girl from London whose large group of school friends visited regularly. She often hosted parties in our room, my first warning of which was the frantic tidying and decorating that took place the evening before. It always looked much the same to me afterwards.

On the day of the party she would skip the last lecture in order to bathe and dress. If the party was on the weekend she'd spend the day with her long hair in rollers, polishing and tweezering any exposed part of her body. She'd bring out her special white linen tablecloths for our desks, which were pushed together to make what she called a ‘buffet'. That was decorated with fresh flowers and whatever assortment of snacks her allowance ran to that month. The drinks varied. At the beginning of the year she was serving sherry in a set of crystal glasses her parents had given her; by the end of the year they'd developed a taste for martinis, and beer. Also, by the end of the year came boys, smuggled into the room along with the beer.