The Restless Sea, page 19
Another boy, shorter and wider than Jack, is approaching them. ‘Hope I’m not interrupting?’ he says.
Olivia drops Jack’s hand and steps away, feels her cheeks burning again.
Jack is unaffected. ‘Carl, meet Olivia,’ he says, rolling her name slowly across his tongue as if he’s tasting it.
Carl nods in greeting and then addresses Jack. ‘Thanks for coming to get us,’ he says. ‘The others’ll be along in a moment. We didn’t get far. Maybe you can help us?’ He turns to Olivia. ‘We’re here for a few days. What’s there to do?’
‘There’s always lots going on,’ says Olivia. ‘There are dances, we’ve got two cinemas …’
‘And what do you recommend?’ Jack asks. ‘What do you like doing?’
‘I recommend you climb the hills. The views are incredible …’
‘I bet they are,’ says Jack, still staring at her.
‘Here come the others now,’ says Carl.
There are four men making their way towards them. They eye Olivia with amused interest, eyes flicking from her to Jack. ‘Where’s the boat?’ one of them asks, his voice rasping like pebbles beneath water.
Jack indicates the launch that is tied alongside Olivia’s boat. ‘’Scuse us,’ says the man with the raspy voice. They will have to climb down into her boat to cross into theirs.
Olivia stands aside, watching as they leap down, steady even though the small vessel rocks with their weight. Jack lingers next to her. ‘See you tomorrow,’ he says. It is a statement rather than a question.
‘I don’t know where I’ll be …’ she is saying, but he is already hopping down after his crewmates, his bare feet making no sound. He balances for a moment on the gunwale of his own boat, looking back at her over his shoulder until Carl pulls him in as it chugs to life. Olivia watches the boat make its way out past the sleek, grey Navy ships and on to the new rabble of merchant ships that are kept separate. She tries to make out which ship is his, but it is impossible, and all she can do is watch until he is lost among the towering hulls and fat anchor chains slimy with seaweed.
Olivia wants to try for flatfish in the small bay out beyond Cove. It is a secret place that Charlie told her about, but never had time to show her. It didn’t take her long to find, and has become one of her favourite spots, hidden away from the multitude of eyes and ships that now infest the loch. She digs out the trident from the shed. It is a fearsome-looking weapon with three pointed, barbed spikes on the end of a pole. She lashes it to her bicycle and sets off, her empty fishing bag slung across her back. Cove is about five miles away, along a bumpy track that hugs the south side of the shore. She flies downhill with her feet off the pedals, the air catching in her throat and making her as breathless as when she thinks about Jack, her heart skipping with the excitement of promise, and she has to stop herself smiling. Above her a purple blush is spreading across the hills as the heather comes to life.
As she passes Firemore Beach, she spots two boys in the road. She comes to a halt, dragging her bare feet on the stony path, sending dust billowing into the air. It is Jack and Carl, who must have been exploring the beach. Olivia feels the heat in her cheeks – glad she can blame it on the exertion. It is as if her body has decided to act all on its own, without listening to her brain. ‘Can’t keep away?’ she says, her voice casual but her heart pounding.
‘Nope,’ says Jack. ‘Where are you going?’
‘I’m on my way to stock up on fish. I sell them in the afternoons. You can catch me later at Aultbea, if you want …’
‘We could help you now,’ says Jack.
‘Oh no,’ Olivia says, shaking her head. ‘I can’t give away my secret hunting ground …’
‘Can’t believe there’s anywhere secret around here.’
‘There are plenty of places if you look hard enough. And that’s the way I want to keep it.’
‘We’ll follow you.’
‘You’re not allowed beyond Cove. There’s a checkpoint.’ The sentence hangs in the air like a challenge. Jack raises an eyebrow and smiles. Olivia stands up on her pedals, pushing herself away along the road. ‘See you at Aultbea this afternoon,’ she shouts over her shoulder. She lifts her hand in a dismissive wave as she cycles on, but her heart is racing and a broad smile is spread across her face.
Before it peters out, Olivia comes off the path, hiding her bike among the peat hags. A little bit further are a couple of bell tents where the anti-aircraft regiments are living. She scrambles away and over the rocks behind them like one of Mac’s sheep, invisible to the half-naked men shaving in the burn that runs down on to the road. She continues along the coast until she can descend to a pristine beach – white and untouched. Electric pink thrift and mustard yellow lichen brighten the soft grey of the bare rocks, which are still cool underfoot.
Olivia takes in the empty beach and smiles to herself. She uses a box with a glass bottom to spot the fish, which are camouflaged on the seabed, just throwing up a telltale cloud of sand as they flutter off. She wades out up to her thighs, the water touching the bottom of her shorts and making them stick to her legs. Jagged pinnacles rise dramatically on either side of the bay, as though the cliffs are breaking up. Rocks throw indigo shadows beneath the jade water. The sand kneads the bottom of her feet. She focuses on the box in her hand; the trident poised in the other. All that exists of the world is the view through the glass. The water is crystal clear, just the odd thread of dark seaweed tumbling gently over the rippled sand below. She moves as slowly and imperceptibly as she can, the trident at the ready. Her bicep begins to ache. She sees a shape in the sand and brings the trident down in a flash. She knows she has got it before she lifts it flapping out of the water. It was a perfect strike.
She holds the trident up above her head. The fish struggles on the end, gasping for air, its body flipping and flopping in the sunshine. She wades ashore. Shoals of tiny silver fish dart away in front of her. She dispatches the fish with a sharp blow and slips it into her fishing bag, ready to go again, when she spots Jack and Carl making their way across the beach.
She is half-annoyed that she has to share the beach, half-pleased that he has made the effort.
‘Hope you’re going to catch more than that,’ says Jack. ‘We’re a hungry crew.’
‘It’s harder than it looks,’ says Olivia.
‘Let’s give it a go.’
‘I’ll be fine right here,’ says Carl, throwing himself down on to the sand and lying back to sunbathe.
Jack laughs, and, bold as brass, removes his top, pulling it off over his head and aiming it at Carl. The muscles in his shoulders and arms are strong and smooth in the sun. They wade out into the sea. The water in the shallows is as warm as bathwater now. Olivia glances over at Jack. His brow is furrowed in concentration. He moves slowly and gracefully in the water. His arm is steady. A vein pulses in his neck. His forearm is as brown as hers. She sees his muscles flex as he plunges the stick down into the water.
‘Got one!’ he says. Olivia can’t help grinning too: he seems so pleased with himself. ‘First time I’ve ever caught anything.’
‘We’ll have to celebrate then. You must eat it here and now – fresh as it possibly can be.’
‘What – raw?’ He makes a face.
She laughs. ‘No! We’ll cook it. I’m not a Neanderthal.’
They wade back to the shore, the water rolling down their legs like rows of pearls. Olivia unhooks Jack’s fish and whacks it over the head.
‘Can I see?’ says Jack.
‘Your fish?’
‘No.’ He points.
‘My priest?’ she says.
‘Priest?’ He laughs, a deep, rich sound that makes her heart lift. ‘Doesn’t look like any kind of priest I ever heard of.’
‘It’s what you call something you hit a fish over the head with.’
‘Strange thing to call a killing instrument.’
‘Ever sat through a long sermon?’
He laughs again. ‘Never sat through any sermon,’ he says. He runs his finger down the knife. ‘O.J.B.’
‘My initials. My aunt gave it to me. It’s also a knife,’ she says, taking it back and showing him how to unfold it.
‘Beautiful,’ says Jack. But he is looking at her and not the knife.
Olivia builds a fire with driftwood that Carl and Jack have collected from the shoreline. The wood is dry as paper. It catches instantly and crackles, the flames leaping up, almost invisible against the sky, bending and distorting the beach with their heat. When it has died down to an orange glow, Olivia whittles some fresh wood and spears Jack’s fish, laying it between some longer branches pushed into the sand. Jack watches her all the time, dark eyes unreadable. Yet she doesn’t feel uncomfortable, just as though every sense is on fire.
When Jack’s fish is cooked, Olivia passes it to him. Their hands touch. She feels the heat in his fingers. He starts to flake the white flesh of the fish from its skin, shoving it into his mouth.
‘You want some?’ He offers it in his fingers. She shakes her head. She is too breathless to eat.
They lie back on the sand. The sea is a soft blanket of green. A white-tailed eagle soars through the thermals above them, the tips of its large wings like elegant palm fronds. In the distance, ships come and go in the haze like ghosts.
Later they catch nine more flatfish between them: not a bad haul. The day has passed quickly but the sun is still warm even as it melts into the sea. The tide is coming in, fingers of water reaching out for them.
‘Won’t someone be missing you?’ Jack asks.
‘Not likely,’ says Olivia.
‘My mum was always on at me to get home.’
Olivia turns on her side to look at him. ‘Where’s home?’
‘London.’
‘Is your mother still there?’
Jack stares into the sky. Carl’s eyes are closed, but she can tell that he is listening too. ‘You don’t want to hear about her. Tell us about your mum …’
‘I think she’s too busy saving people to care about what I’m up to …’
‘Oh dear, poor lamb.’ He pushes her shoulder. ‘What about your dad?’
‘He’s away at sea. He’s a captain in the Navy.’
‘A captain? I never met a captain’s daughter before.’
‘Do I live up to expectation?’
He glances across at her, looks her up and down. She enjoys the way his eyes linger on her skin. He nods slowly. ‘Yes,’ he says, ‘I reckon you do.’
‘What does your father do?’ she asks. The question is automatic – something built into her – but as soon as she has said it, she feels foolish. She doesn’t want to make him feel awkward – and anyway, out here, in the hills and on the beaches, it doesn’t seem to matter where you come from.
‘He’s a corporal in the army. Or he was … He was in France …’
‘I didn’t mean to pry.’
He peers out towards the horizon, narrowing his eyes. ‘Missing presumed dead is the fancy term,’ he says.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Could happen to any of us,’ he says. ‘Your dad. Me … Death don’t mind – we’re all the same to him.’ He starts to stand. ‘We’d best be getting back,’ he says, brushing the sand from his legs and shaking it from his top.
‘You enjoyed learning to harpoon?’ she asks, relieved to lighten the tone.
‘Not just that.’ He stares at her in the fading light, the pink glow in the sky reflecting in his dark eyes. There is a hunger about him that is both threatening and exciting.
Olivia tucks her hair behind her ears. ‘If you’d like, I could teach you how to catch from a line tomorrow,’ she says. Her heart is pounding again.
‘I’d like that,’ he says.
They make their way back to Firemore in comfortable silence. In the warm twilight, Olivia feels as though the beach and the rocks, the hills and the loch, are somehow part of her, and she of them, and when she glances across at Jack, it feels so right that he should be here, as if he too is already a part of her. She waves goodbye to the boys and pedals home in the luminous dark, feeling less lonely and more whole than she ever has. Somewhere along the shore, a lonely curlew calls, an eerie shriek that skids and bounces across the water, but Olivia is too wrapped up in her thoughts to notice.
The next morning she is out on the springy lawn in front of the bothy, checking for weak points in a fishing line and attaching more barbed hooks at various points. As she searches among the chalky necklaces of sharp barnacles for bait, Jack appears. Her stomach flutters, but she carries on smashing the limpets from the rocks, skewering the slippery molluscs from their shells, and threading them on to the hooks.
He helps her to drag the old red rowing boat down to the water’s edge. The hull scrapes on the shingle. The paint is peeling in places, and the wood inside has been bleached by the sun. Olivia removes her socks, tossing them on to the lawn. Jack helps push the boat out. She gasps as the chilly water touches her warm feet, feels the pleasing roundness of the pebbles massaging her soles. Jack hops in at the same time, and the boat dips and bobs and turns slowly on the water.
‘Here, let me,’ says Olivia. ‘I know where the lines are.’
‘Let me. You can direct me.’ She doesn’t argue.
‘Haven’t been in a rowing boat since my training ship,’ says Jack.
‘That must have been a change from London.’
‘It sure was.’
‘A bit like school?’
‘Better. Hard work, but I made some good mates, and I learnt more than I ever did at school. Now I’ve got a good job. I’ll be an officer one day. Might even be good enough for the likes of you …’
Olivia colours. ‘You already are,’ she says.
‘We’ll see.’
He pulls the boat deftly and fast. They skirt the edge of the loch. She indicates for him to stop by the corks that mark her lines and pots. The long lines are weighted down by stones, smaller lines with hooks at the end dangling off the main line like socks on a washing line. The sun is not yet high in the sky, but Olivia’s face is beginning to tingle and her skin feels taut and dry where the salt water has evaporated. A black-headed gull sweeps through the air, its deep orange-red beak open as it squawks crossly at them.
She starts to pull the first line in. The seawater drips on to her bare legs, leaving fine white sprinkles of salt when it dries. The first two hooks are empty, but Olivia can tell by the weight and movement that there is something further along. As the third hook draws in closer to the boat, she sees a flash of gold and then a pinkish-red fish is twisting on the end of the hook, its pale belly flashing, oversized fins flapping like wings, bulbous eye staring. It makes a horrible croaking noise like a frog as she brings it into the boat.
‘Don’t touch it!’ she says. But the warning is too late. Jack drops the fish, sucking his fingers. It has sharp spines on its back and its gills. He thrusts his stung hand into the water, hoping the coolness will ease the burning.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Don’t stop,’ he says. ‘There’s more …’
He’s right. They keep pulling the line in. The next two fish are more streamlined and a golden colour, with a protruding lower jaw and huge dark eyes. ‘Pollock,’ says Olivia.
She clubs each fish over the head in one deft movement, killing it instantly. Then she starts to gut them, hanging over the side so that the entrails are washed into the water, before slipping them into the bucket. Almost immediately there are three gulls clamouring above them: a black-headed, and two larger black-backed, cawing and squawking and yelling at each other.
When they have finished, Olivia rebaits the hooks and drops the line back into the water for tomorrow. She turns to Jack, who is still sucking his finger. ‘Let me have a look?’
He holds out his hand and she makes a show of examining it, enjoying the feel of his warm, dry hand in hers. ‘I think you’ll live,’ she says.
‘You’d better hope so,’ he says. ‘Us Merchant Navy boys are indispensable.’
‘I don’t doubt that for a second.’
‘King George himself has said so.’
‘I’m sure.’
The water buffets the little dinghy, and Jack pulls the oars in, resting them on the rowlocks. He lies back on the thwart, his head resting on the gunwale, his feet up on the opposite side, soaking up the sun. The loch is emptier today. Another convoy must have moved out. The remaining ships are far enough away not to encroach on their world. A cormorant bobs nearby, a sleek, Z-shape on the water.
‘Listen,’ says Olivia.
‘To what?’ says Jack.
‘Exactly.’
They look up at the bright blue sky, the three gulls squawking overhead. The water kisses the bottom of the boat as they bob and drift. Around them the hills slope away to the sky. From this position, Olivia can almost pretend the loch is empty again, no ships squatting behind them, just the open sea.
‘What made you join the Merchant Navy?’ she asks.
‘Had to join something. Too young for the army. Too dumb for the RAF …’
‘I’m sure that’s not true.’
‘I haven’t had what you’d call a good education.’
‘The war put a stop to all that?’
‘Oh no. I was long gone. Everyone stops at fourteen. Didn’t you go to school?’
She shakes her head. ‘We had governesses.’
‘Governesses?’ He laughs.
‘What’s so funny about that?’
‘It’s proper fancy having a teacher come to your house.’
‘I couldn’t help it. My parents hired them.’
‘Only time my parents met my teacher was when I was in trouble.’
‘Is your mother dead too?’
He nods.
‘I’m so sorry.’
