Shining Sea (17 page)

He and Eamon stroke, with Eamon moving into Rufus's place, while the others work together to set the currach up for sailing. Putting the mast up, getting the sail ready, and attaching the ropes proves no easy feat with the boat in a continuous rocking motion. No sooner do they have it up and the sail fills, however, then the currach takes off at a clip. They tuck the oars away.

“If the wind keeps up like this, we'll make it to Islay in no time,” Rufus says, reclaiming his bench. “We can just sit back and enjoy it.”

He is ashamed by the relief he feels when Eamon grabs the side of the boat and also retches into the ocean.

Once they reach Islay, they again have to figure out where they'll spend the night.

“If you want to look for another byre, fine,” he says. “But then we're parting ways for the night. Sorry, man. Too claustrophobic.”

Rufus points toward a small stone structure, not much bigger than the byre was but with a window and door, on a low, square-topped grassy bluff. “There's a bothy. Maybe it's empty.”

They tramp up to look. The bothy is clean and dry with a steeply pitched tin roof. A faded poster for a church Christmas sale back in 1978 is taped to one interior wall. There's no other trace of human habitation.

Rufus steps back out onto the road to survey their surroundings. “All right. It's close by the boat, too. Ready for tomorrow morning's departure. Let's bring our stuff up.”

While the others go looking for civilization, he settles against an exterior wall of the shepherd's hut. The wind has calmed, and the sea grass stirs gently. Seabirds fill the air with cries and shouts that become a kaleidoscopic shanty. He falls fast asleep.

A shoe kicks his boot. Rufus looks, if possible, even more ebullient than usual.

“You should have come with us, man! We got a ride into Port Askaig, and everyone promised to spread the word. Letters, phone calls to the mainland. Someone knew someone working for the
Campbeltown Courier.
”

“If you want to get the word out, you're going to need more than some small local newspapers,” he says, standing up, stretching. The others gather around them.

“Of course! But I've already written to the bigger newspapers. Ghislaine even translated a letter into French for
Le Monde, Le Figaro,
and”—Rufus turns to Ghislaine—“what's that Jean-Paul Sartre one?”

“
Libération,
” she says.

“
Libération
. I knocked on some doors and took some reporters to lunch also. But it's great to get these local newspapers. Grass roots, Francis. People power!”

He laughs. When it's not annoying, Rufus's enthusiasm is infectious. “You belong back in the sixties, Rufus. Power to the people. Peace, love, and harmony.”

“Well,” Rufus says with a smile, “peace, love, harmony…and money.” It's no secret Rufus has bankrolled this endeavor. He wouldn't be surprised to find Rufus has cleared out his bank account to do it.

“Some people hae some words fer the English,” Katie mutters. “Bloody English.”

“I'm English,” Rufus says. “Ghislaine's half English.”

Katie kicks the ground. “Sorry.”

“It becomes a habit, you see,” Rufus says, “passed from one person to another. That's just what we're trying to break out of.”

Katie flushes.

“Are we going to catch some fish?” he says. Katie's just a kid. And probably some of the islanders the others spoke with today did have some choice things to say about the English.

“You just play your guitar,” Ghislaine says. “I have
le menu
taken care of.”

The evening sun throws brilliant ribbons of orange and yellow across the horizon. They're all too spent from rowing to argue, anyhow. He unwraps his guitar from its folds of plastic and settles down by Ghislaine's side, not playing anything in particular, just strumming. Although he wouldn't want to admit it, his hands are too sore to pick the strings. Katie and Eamon search the beach for driftwood, and Rufus collects rocks from the road to make a fire ring. There's a fireplace inside the bothy, but Rufus points out they've no way to know the state of the chimney. They don't want to get smoked out.

From the supplies barrel, Ghislaine takes out a pan, flatbread, cheese, a package of smoked fish, an onion, a square of foil containing dried oregano, and several tins of baked beans. “There,” she says, tapping the top of a tin. “Proof I am half English.”

“Au contraire, ma belle,”
he says. He learned a few crucial words during his stays in France. “No Brit would have thought to bring the herbs or the onion.”

Rufus looks up from his fire-ring construction. “I brought the herbs and onions.”

Katie reappears with an armful of branches. She dumps them onto the ground next to Rufus. Little twigs stick in her jacket and hair. Eamon follows close behind and, adding his branches to her pile, starts snapping them in half, carefully laying them in an intricate pattern within the stone circle.

He plucks alternating G and C chords, willing his sore fingers to work:

“What's that?” Ghislaine says.

“Just something I was thinking.”

“You write your own songs?”

He shrugs.

Katie sits down on her life preserver on the opposite side of the circle of rocks from him and Ghislaine. She studies Ghislaine.

“How do you get yer hair so straight?” she says.

Ghislaine starts opening a tin. “How do you get yours so beautifully curly?”

“It isnae beautiful,” Katie says. “It's awful.”

“Perms are very popular. Lots of girls are getting them in London. They'll pay fifty quid to get hair like yours.”

“An' then yer arse fell aff.” Katie tears the band out of her hair, scrabbles the whole mess up in a hand, and reties it, generally making things worse, not better. “Maybe I
should
come down to London.”

Everyone, even Eamon, laughs.

“Do
you
like London?” he asks Eamon.

Eamon shrugs.

“Do you live there?”

“Nay,” Eamon says. “Kent.”

“Eamon works on my parents' estate,” Rufus says. “He's on the garden staff.”

“But your family's back in Northern Ireland?” he asks.

“Aye.” Eamon shrugs and stands up. “Gotta take a slash.”

“Eamon's father is UVF,” Rufus says once Eamon has lumbered down the road, looking for a shielded spot to pee. “In the Maze, doing a seven-year sentence.”

“UVF?”

Ghislaine and Katie look at each other.

“Ulster Volunteer Force. It's a loyalist paramilitary group in the north.” Rufus strikes a match and holds it against the driftwood. “Eamon's father blew up a car driven by a Catholic bringing her kid to visit her granny.”

“Holy shit.” He stares down the road. “Why's he here, then?”

“Because his father blew up a car with a Catholic and her kid in it.”

The flames grow steadily. Rufus's red cheeks shine even brighter in its light. Katie's hair glints even more copper. A piece of driftwood explodes, and he pulls his guitar back. “I thought Eamon was your second Catholic,” he says. “Ghislaine's not Catholic. Katie's too young to be an official crew member. Anyhow, she's representing Iona, not a denomination. Who's the other so-called Catholic on the boat?”

“I am,” Rufus says.

“How can you be Catholic?”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Never mind.”

“There
are
some of us, Francis. Cromwell didn't get us all.”

“I didn't mean that. Just that…you know, nothing.”

“Right. Nothing.”

Ghislaine settles next to him. “Where is your family, Francis?”

It's not as though he's some sort of idiot. Anyone would agree it's confusing: Ghislaine is French but Protestant; Rufus is a British posh but Catholic. Eamon is Irish but Protestant. At least Katie is what one would expect. She's sitting on the other side of the fire, chewing off a fingernail, scowling at him. She took offense at his calling her too young to be official, undoubtedly.

“The States,” he tells Ghislaine.

“Do you see them often?”

Six years ago, a girl he was crashing with in Paris suggested they busk in front of the Louvre.
C'est parfait.
All the world goes there
.

She was right. Even his oldest brother.

Mike was on his honeymoon.
I didn't know we had family in Europe,
his bride said with a heavy Texas accent, looking confused, glancing at his open guitar case with its smattering of francs and the raccoon-eyed girl beside him.

I didn't know, either,
Mike said.
What the hell, Francis? Mom has been going nuts.

Language, honey,
Mike's bride said.

Her name was Holly, and she was an army brat, met while Mike was finishing his medical training in Texas after his last tour in Southeast Asia.
My daddy was part of the liberation of Paris in 1944,
Holly said, babbling, while he and Mike sized each other up. Who knew what she'd been told about him.
I grew up looking at the pictures—the big stone arch, all the men spilling over that big avenue. My dad was one of them, told me Paris was so beautiful even after being through the war that someday I needed to go see for myself. I'll go for my honeymoon, I always said. So here we are!

Mike folded his arms over his chest.
Mom and I thought Canada—with the draft dodgers
.
Patty Ann said Thailand. Only Sissy thought Europe
.

I didn't dodge the draft. Remember? I didn't get called up.

Exactly. Don't you think Mom has lost enough family already? Couldn't you have at least let her know where you were? That you're alive?

You're right,
he said, hoping this would be enough, knowing it wouldn't.
Yeah, I should
have let her know.

All she's got left are me and Sissy.

This frightened him.
What about Patty Ann? What about Ronnie?

Okay, and Ronnie. God knows what Mom would do without Ronnie. But Patty Ann—forget it. At least she got rid of that bastard.
Mike squints and places his hands on either hip.
Did you even know she's divorced again? And had a fourth kid? Hang on. Did you even know she
remarried?
God
damn,
Francis. Your own sister.

It was like being buried alive in sand. All this…
life,
suddenly dumped on top of him.

Look, let me go put my guitar away and get cleaned up. We'll talk over dinner.

Mike unfolded his arms and grabbed his wrist.
No fucking way. I'm not letting you out of my sight.

He couldn't remember having ever heard Mike curse before. Luke, yes. Patty Ann, always. This was a new, tougher Mike, one whose staid determination had morphed into something steel-like and enduring. Or maybe it was a reflection of just how angry Mike was. His bride's hands fluttered nervously at her blond ponytail, touched the little gold cross on a chain around her neck, like this was an unknown Mike to her also.

Dinner—oh, we've eaten some strange things since we got here. But the pastries!
Holly said to no one in particular.

He stared down at Mike's strong hand, wrapped tightly around his arm, stared at it until Mike let go.

Don't be ridiculous,
he said.
I'm a grown man now. You can't pick me up and carry me home if I don't want. Why would I run off?

They made a plan to meet at 8:00 p.m.—
They eat so late here!
his new sister-in-law said,
but it's okay…y'all know, the jet lag
—and in the back of his new sister-in-law's guidebook he wrote out detailed instructions on how to get from Mike's hotel to a nice but not too snails-and-frog-legs restaurant he felt sure they would like. Then he kissed the raccoon-eyed girl good-bye and hitched a ride to Spain.

Ghislaine has piled flatbread on a plate. He helps himself. “Not much,” he says. “I haven't seen my family in a while. Haven't those beans jumped around enough in that pot? I'm starving.”

“
Voyez?
He can't wait for that French haute cuisine.” She slaps his hand.

Rufus pitches a stump at the fire. “Watch out you don't burn yourself.”

“You're going to get ash in our beautiful dinner,” Ghislaine says.

Rufus sits down on the other side of Ghislaine, a small bottle of whiskey in his hand. Katie looks on with interest as he reaches over Ghislaine for it and takes a sip.

“Don't even think about it,” he says to her.

“What a spoilsport,” Katie says. “You of all people.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

Rufus waves a hand. “Peace, everyone. Francis, you've never said how old you are.”

“Thirty-one. Almost thirty-two.” His birthday will be in less than two weeks.

“So you were about twelve? Thirteen? When you lost your father, I mean.”

He takes a second tug from the bottle and hands it back. “I was nine.”

Ghislaine stops spooning beans onto tin plates. “I'm sorry. That's young.”

He shrugs. “I lost a brother, too. In Vietnam. And a friend. My best friend.”

Rufus nods sympathetically. Ghislaine rests her hand on his shoulder and gently rubs it.

Here he is on some island off the coast of Scotland—he can't even remember which one right now—with these people he barely knows, and he's telling them all this stuff he never tells anyone. He, of all people, doesn't deserve anyone's sympathy. Especially not if they knew
how
he lost his best friend, that he was with him that very night. That maybe, if he were stronger, if he were better, if he had only been
listening,
he might not have lost his best friend at all.