Long Voyage Back (41 page)

Ì know.'

Ànd Jim's withdrawal from the boat and his . . . relation with Lisa has upset him.'

Ì don't blame him.'

She hesitated. 'And ... us . . . that upsets him,' she went on. 'He ... he's in no condition now to make such an important decision. Especially on such short notice. He's an awfully good man, but at this moment . .

`Yes?'

Ì think you should go ahead with your plan without him,' Jeanne concluded quietly, looking up at Neil. Ì'd like to help in any way I can,' she went on. 'And I think it's important that Jim be part of it. And Lisa. And Katya.'

Ìf they'll come,' Neil said sullenly.

`They'll come,' she said.

Neil watched her carefully. She stood there, clearly weary, with the same regal authority she always seemed able to maintain.

Ìt'll mean a long two-, three-or even four-week ocean voyage,' he said. 'A lot of it like the one we had from the Bahamas, slamming, slamming, slamming. There won't be any escaping it.'

She looked back at him and smiled. Ì'm used to it.' But then she shrugged a tiny shrug, her chin falling down, 'But some day . . .' Tears had formed in her eyes. Neil took her in his arms and held her close with one hand

and caressed her hair with the other. Jeanne . . .' he said, holding her tightly. 'When an animal is being chased, after a while all it wants to do is lie down and let the dogs take it. It wants it all to end.'

At first she held herself stiffly in his embrace and then collapsed against him, her arms returning his hug, her hair pressed against his cheek. Although she made no sound, in her fierce hug he could feel the tiny tremors of her crying.

`... Run ...' she said.

`You keep running,' Neil said. 'Later, if you make it, you can have the leisure to worry about what kind of a life you want to lead. Right now, for us, the dogs are still at our heels.'

Jeanne nodded, but she looked sad and beaten.

Ì love you,' he said softly in her ear. When she didn't respond he bent to lift her up and place her on her berth.

Ìt's too . . . no,' she said, speaking mechanically. 'Please ... no ... Skippy He climbed up beside her on the berth, not able to see much, wishing he could see her face, her eyes. Groping at the head of the bed he found a flashlight and turned it on, letting its light fall against the far wall. She was staring at the ceiling, seeming to refuse to look at him. Her expression was tense, withdrawn.

For a long time, resting on one elbow he stared down at her.

`Hey,' he finally said. 'My name is Neil. I'm in bed with you.'

Tears welled up in her eyes, which she closed, a grin appearing on her face. 'I guessed as much,' she said.

`The least you can do is say hello,' he continued, loving her smile and bending to kiss the tears in the corners of her closed eyes.

`Go away,' she said, reaching up to put her arms around his neck and hold him close.

`Never,' he replied, coming over on top of her. 'Never,' he whispered. And they made love.

From the moment Jeanne drew Neil down on top of her and opened her mouth to his kiss, their desire, so long restrained, exploded in a series of passionate caresses and couplings that followed one another without words, thought or conscious intent. The necessity ofsilence imposed by their unspoken concern for the sleeping Skip and the more distant Frank seemed to add to their sensual intensity. Occasionally they would emerge from their sexual universe to find themselves nose to nose staring at each other as if each had awakened from some unbelievably joyous dream. Their eyes would speak a brief acknowledgment of their jointly created miracle, but their mouths, as if afraid to break the spell, remained wordless. Then they would lose themselves again in fierce intertwining.

`Living God, Jeanne . . .' Neil finally whispered when exhaustion finally left them, sated but still joined, back in a more normal world.

Jeanne, again beneath him, simply smiled up at him. `Yes . . .' she said. Up in the wheelhouse Tony and Macklin sat alone, Macklin smoking, Tony sipping at some rum he'd bartered for earlier. Frank and Olly were below sleeping. Although Katya had returned, Jim and Lisa were still ashore. Tony and Macklin had seen Neil follow Jeanne down into her cabin, but for a long time talked about Neil's plans for a raid.

`The trouble is,' Tony complained in the dim light falling from the kerosene lamp, 'even if we raid the pirates and get some decent food it just means more endless sailing.' In the month since the war Tony had lost all his fat and was now tall, muscular and slender. His boisterousness had given way to almost daily irritability. He and Katya had fought again a few minutes before and it didn't help matters that she had compared him unfavourably with Neil. To give Jeanne and Neil privacy Katya had gone aft to sleep in Neil's cabin.

`That's all there is, Tony,' said Macklin quietly. 'We'll never be safe until we're into the southern hemisphere.

Vagabond's the only way for outcasts like you and me to get there.'

`Maybe,' said Tony. 'But I'm not sure I want to spend the rest of my life as a cabin boy.'

Òh yeah, that,' said Macklin, grinning. 'That we can probably change.'

'I'm getting a little tired of waiting,' said Tony, pacing back and forth in the dim light. Às-long as Neil and Frank are together you and I will be cabin boys,' Macklin went on. '

Let's face it, right now no one needs us. They have Neil. He's hardass enough to get them to save themselves. Without him they'd flounder.'

`Without him they'd need me . . . us,' said Tony. `Yes, without him.'

Tony stopped in front of Macklin, who sat with his accustomed heavy composure. Ì don't notice us doing much about it,' Tony said. `They'll do it for us,' Macklin replied quietly, 'if we give them enough time.'

`Do what?'

`Split the boat apart. Send Neil packing. You don't think Frank is going to let Neil stay aboard once he finds out he's balling Jeanne, do you?'

Tony looked uncertain. 'I don't know,' he said. 'Frank likes Neil, and if Jeanne went with him . . .' He paused. 'He'd sure enough be pissed though.'

Ùnfortunately,' said Macklin, 'Frank seems determined not to see what's going on.'

`Why don't we tell him?' asked Tony.

Macklin sat very still. Then he took out a cigarette, lit it and took a long toke. 'Beats me,'

he replied.

Frank, bone-weary, nevertheless staggered out of his berth when Tony told him there was some trouble between Neil and à woman'. Confused, half-asleep, he had felt an instant anger that Neil was bothering Jeanne, but before he could ask further Tony had disappeared.

Slipping on a pair of shorts and taking a flashlight, he stumbled up out of his cabin and went aft to Neil's cabin. He knocked on the hatch, then slid it open. Flashing his light down to descend the ladder he was startled to see Ka tya's bare legs and then her questioning face. She pulled a cover over the rest of her body. Frank's first hit was pleasure: so Neil was balling Katya, he thought. He was glad. But when he saw that the man in the berth was Olly, snoring peacefully, Frank blinked uncertainly. Ì'm . . . ah . . . looking for Neil,' he said. Katya blinked up at him.

`He... went topsides to check on. the anchor,' she replied. Oh.' Frank closed the hatch and walked into the wheelhouse.

`Have you seen Neil?' he asked Macklin, who was seated against the mizzen mast with his feet stretched out on the settee. 'Tony said something about some . . . problem.'

`He's in bed,' said Macklin.

`No, I just checked there,' Frank said.

Ìn bed with Jeanne,' said Macklin indifferently.

Frank remained where he was, turning the light off to leave himself in relative darkness. He felt fear. Unexpected and powerful fear. He walked reluctantly to the port cabin, hesitated, and then banged his fist down three times on the sliding hatch, like a judge gavelling for order. From inside came no response. In a small burst of breeze Vagabond swung slowly off to port in the darkness, swinging on her anchor. Frank hammered again three times on the hatch.

`What is it?' he heard Jeanne finally say.

Ì'm looking for Neil,' Frank said harshly, even as he had a strong momentary hope that Macklin was wrong, a hope that sunk, dragging his heart with it as a silence returned to the cabin. Then he heard the sound of someone landing with a thump on the cabin floor. He waited.

In another few seconds, the hatch slid forward away from him, a figure came quickly up the ladder steps and stopped at the top, three feet away. It was Neil. After a hesitation he came out into the cockpit and stood before Frank. In the wheelhouse behind them Macklin was turning up the kerosene lantern and its dim glow now fell across Neil's bare chest. He was wearing only his swimming trunks. Frank stared at him; Neil returned his gaze steadily without expression. Then Frank saw on his shoulder a long black strand of Jeanne's hair.

`You goddamn son-of-a-bitch,' he said automatically. `No, Frank,' said Neil. 'I'm ... sorry . Frank swung his fist with the same instinctive rage that he had uttered his profanity. The blow struck Neil solidly in the side of the head, sending him reeling to his right and tumbling into the cockpit seat. There, stunned, he sat for a moment turned sideways to Frank, touching the left side of his face.

`You heartless, selfish son-of-a-bitch,' Frank said, his fists clenched at his side, looking down at Neil. Neil looked up, anger in his eyes too.

`Selfish, Frank, not heartless,' he said.

`How dare you take advantage of that woman when she ... she . ..' Frank wanted to say '

she's mine' but the words stuck in his throat and he felt an urge to cry. Ì'm sorry,' Neil said. 'But sometimes something becomes more important than loyalty to a friend.'

À GODDAMN FUCK?' he shouted at Neil.

Neil looked up at him coldly. 'Yes,' he answered quietly.

Frank lunged at Neil to grab him by the throat, but this time Neil fell sideways to avoid the charge and grabbed Frank's left arm to pull him past and send him crashing into the back of the cockpit seat. Frank turned and reached for Neil again, but he pulled himself up and away. Blindly, Frank rose to come at him a third time.

`Look, Frank, this is ridi . .

As Frank swung at him Neil ducked under the blow and slammed into Frank's chest, sending them both a second time back against the cockpit seat, Frank being crushed hard against it by Neil's weight. The wind was knocked out of him, leaving him momentarily stunned. He felt Neil push himself

to his feet and step back again into the middle of the cockpit. Both men were gasping for air.

Frank looked up at him, feeling both a hatred that seemed unwinding out of control and a sad, little boy urge to cry, as if Neil were the neighbourhood bully picking on him.

`Look, I know . . .' Neil began.

`You ever go down in her cabin again and I'll kill you,' Frank said, expressing his inconsolable rage.

Neil remained uncertainly a few feet away, his fists clenching and unclenching at his side, sweat matting the hairs of hischest.

`Don't say that, Frank,' Neil said softly. 'You don't . .

Ì SAID IT! I MEAN IT!' he shouted back. 'STOP BETRAYING ME!' he screamed. Neif flinched at those words. Jeanne appeared behind him in her cabin entrance, looking past Neil at Frank with a pained, frightened expression. Frank's heart ached for her: how he wanted to protect her, care for her.

Ìt's not Neil you should be angry with,' he heard her say to him.

`Damn it, Jeanne, how could you?' he asked huskily. Again he wanted to cry.

`Get below, Jeanne,' Neil said, pushing her back with -his left arm. Frank saw now that Katya, wearing Neil's robe, was standing in the wheelhouse beside Macklin and Tony, watching. And Jim and Lisa had now returned too; staring at him. A greater sense of sadness and humiliation flooded through him. He felt beaten. Slowly he brought himself to a standing position. ' Have .

he began, but had to clear his throat. 'Have I made myself clear?' he said to Neil with as much coldness as he could command, the sounds coming out huskily, like those from a dying man.

`Yes,' said Neil.

`Good.'

Unseeingly, the images of people blurred - later he realized that he must already have been crying - he moved past Neil, shoved himself between Katya and Tony and returned to his cabin. He had lost everything.

Guiltily, unhappily, Jim and Lisa escaped Vagabond with Katya, in theory to barter for some additional food out at the commune at Salt Point, but in reality to get away from the ship conflicts they couldn't handle. They sailed with Oscar, Gregg and Arnie and two young women aboard Scorpio. One was Oscar's girlfriend Janice, a plumpish woman of thirty with short curly brown hair. The other was a slender, nervous young girl named Mirabai who was vaguely connected with Arnie. Both women - and the men too he realized - struck Jim as frighteningly passive and apathetic. None of them seemed to have any ideas about how they might survive what was happening. They were vaguely hopeful that the commune might feed and take care of them, and only Oscar seemed interested in joining Vagabond and sailing further south. Gregg and Arnie, often stoned on grass, seemed indifferent even to the prospects of the commune. The old racing ship moved sluggishly and Jim noticed how tentatively Oscar and his crew handled her. He became concerned at the small anchor they threw overboard, especially when they payed out so little scope that a fresh breeze might well blow them out to sea. Oscar explained that their big anchor had been stolen. When Jim suggested that it might be advisable to put out another hundred feet of anchor line they thought it was a swell idea.

By the time the three from Vagabond rowed ashore at Salt Point with Oscar and Janice it was after four in the afternoon. Then, as they were pulling the dinghy up on to the beach, Gregg's shouts from Scorpio indicated that even with the additional scope Scorpio's anchor was dragging in the rising wind. Oscar and Jim left the three girls and began rowing full

speed back to the sloop. The three women were left to investigate on their own. Salt Point was a barren peninsula stretching out from one of the three white enclaves still surviving on St Thomas. It had become an unofficial home for a small group of homeless young whites and blacks who were to varying degrees followers of Big Robby, an endof-the-world preacher. As Lisa followed Janice and Katya into the low shrubs to cross the peninsula towards the cove where Janice said the barter boat was reported to come, she moved reluctantly, unhappy at being separated from Jim. On the other hand she needed to be away from the tensions of Vagabond and looked forward to checking out the commune. Big Robby preached that the end of the world was upon them - just three more weeks or something like that - and that all should take joy in the last days. All Lisa wanted was joy with Jim, and though she and Jim didn't really believe the actual end of everything was only three weeks away, they both wanted to hold on to and explore the happiness and love they'd found.