Authors: Fiona Shaw
‘You eavesdropped.’ Meg spoke quietly.
‘Yes, but what he said …’
‘It was a private conversation.’
‘But what he said …’
‘Stop now,’ she said, and he stopped.
Her voice was level, but she was so angry he thought she might hit him. He pictured her battering at his chest, the pair
of them like a piece of corny melodrama, one of those black and white pictures from before the war.
‘Sit,’ she said.
He slid round the table and sat slouched down on the bench, his back against the wall, his arms on the scrubbed surface. It was his old place though he had grown so much these last six months that there was barely room.
She took the frying pan off the heat and sat down opposite. She was white-lipped.
‘When you leave home, then you will choose how you live your life …’ she said and she paused.
He sat in his pyjamas and sweater facing his mother over the table, so near to her that he could see a money spider scrambling in her hair. She was as angry as he’d ever seen her. She reached and put her hand on his chin like a command, lifting his head so that he met her gaze; and the kitchen, his father, Benjamin asleep, his siblings: all were vaporised and there was only the two of them in the whole universe.
When she spoke again, she did so slowly, as if each word had been chosen with great deliberation.
‘…You will choose how you live your life. And as you are my son, William – as my son – I tell you that you, and you alone, must do the choosing.’
Her words were fierce and opaque. They were older than her anger and fiercer than a wish. They rang through his head and he thought: this is like a play; we are acting something. But it was also real, and he knew he must remember what she’d said.
Then Meg took her hand from his chin and stood up.
‘I don’t ever want to hear you talk about your father like that again. If you have something to say, say it to his face or not at all. You’ll be a man soon and you must start to behave like one.’
Will sat in silence as his mother went on with her cooking. She had told him something he understood clearly and something that he understood not at all. He looked across at the farther wall to the picture of the knots. He knew each by heart: the clove hitch, the bowline, the reef knot. He had eaten every childhood meal at this table and in this place, and he had learned the knots without knowing it. Now, as his eyes ran across them, he could feel the rope in his fingers: the rough intransigence of wet hemp, the clean moves of the knot, the tug to bring it to bear, that sure satisfaction of a knot well made.
‘Your breakfast is ready. And you’d better wake that sleeping beauty friend of yours before too long, else his will be shrivelled and dry and the tide will have gone.’
Will started. His mother’s voice had a mock-jovial edge and he was grateful to her.
‘I’ll eat mine first, then wake him,’ he said, because he wasn’t ready yet to share the room with anybody else. Just for a few more minutes he wanted to keep his mother to himself.
Benjamin slept like a dancer. That’s what he reminded Will of. Lying on his side with one arm above his head and the other out across the floor, his fingers spread like an invitation; and his legs leaping as if caught by some ancient sculptor on an
ancient frieze.
‘Greek boy,’ Will whispered, ‘wake up.’
He bent towards him, desire rising, and another morning he might have wedged his bedroom door shut, then put his fingers through Benjamin’s hair and run them down to the crook of his dancing hip. But today they were sailing to Shining Sands and he checked himself. There was no time to be lost. And besides this, there was something too much for Will about leaving his mother downstairs and turning so soon to Ben.
So he put his hand on the sleeping boy’s shoulder and shook him. Gently at first, then harder, but Benjamin slept on. Only groaned a little and turned away, his breath still a sleeper’s breathing, deep and even.
‘Wake up, Ben.’
A note of impatience crept into Will’s voice.
‘Come on. Time for breakfast, Benjamin Mayer.’
The minutes were ticking by and the tide waited for no man, most especially not for an idle boy. He winced with the thought because it was his father’s. His father, who disliked boats of every kind and was never a slave to the tide and yet who chose to live so near to the sea that he could taste the salt on his tongue. Will shook his friend again, gripping his shoulders more fiercely, digging his fingers down into the soft muscle.
‘It’s a perfect day. Come on. Get up, or I’ll get mother’s bell and ring it in your ear.’
Still Benjamin lay sleeping and Will stood up, frustrated,
his thoughts slipping into violence. He would go to the bathroom for cold water; he would beat him with something, a hairbrush like the matron used, the belt on the back of the chair.
Then hands grabbed at him, his legs buckled and he fell, tumbled to the covers, Benjamin on top of him, his face close, laughing.
‘Come on, fight me,’ Benjamin said. ‘Perhaps you’ll win today,’ teasing him, because both knew that Benjamin was the stronger.
‘Ben, don’t,’ Will said, and ‘Don’t …’ again, as Benjamin pinioned his arms and leaned close.
‘You woke me in that brutal way and you won’t even kiss me?’ Benjamin said, keeping his voice low because Henry and Emma slept in the next room.
‘Mother has your breakfast waiting, and the day’s so clear you can see the colour of Brigstone Rock and I’m taking you to Shining Sands, and the tide …’
Will’s voice implored.
‘All right.’ Benjamin let go Will’s arms and stood, and the two boys dressed in silence. As they were leaving the room, Will crowned his friend with his sailing cap and kissed him once on the mouth.
‘That’s a promise,’ he said.
‘Have you told your friend about the dance tomorrow?’ Meg said.
A clock struck another quarter and Will wished she had not
brought it up just now.
‘I’ll tell him as we walk down to the slip,’ he said.
‘A dance,’ Benjamin said, in his bright, talking-to-mothers voice. ‘I like dances.’ Will looked at him sharply because that wasn’t what he’d ever said before, and Benjamin returned a guileless smile.
‘You see?’ Meg said. ‘Not everyone is as dog in the manger as you.’
‘It’s a girl I‘ve barely met,’ Will said. ‘Her birthday. I’d forgotten. She wouldn’t even notice if I wasn’t there. And we won’t know anybody.’
‘Will seems to think there’s no need, ever, to meet any girls,’ Meg said.
‘There’s Emma,’ Will said. ‘I get on with her perfectly well.’
‘And she’s nearly seven years old, and your sister.’
Benjamin put down his knife and fork.
‘Delicious, Mrs Garrowby. I feel ready for anything. Sailing, dances, you name it.’
‘I’ve said to him: no girls at school, there’ll be no girls at Oxford to speak of, and by then you’ll be twenty-one years old and any girl, she’ll expect you to have some idea of what to do. How to talk to her.’
‘You’re not finishing those bits?’ Will said, pulling Benjamin’s plate towards him, and he ate the fried bread and sausage that remained.
‘We must go to the dance. You might meet your future wife there,’ Benjamin said, poker-faced, and to Meg: ‘What kind of dress code is it?’
His mother and Benjamin had charmed each other from the first, and mostly Will enjoyed it. There was something ancient and courtly about their compliments and he was happy to sit and watch. He was mostly happy, too, when they joked at his expense, but this talk about the dance was too raw. He didn’t want to meet a girl, or anyone, and it hurt when Benjamin said he should.
‘It’s casual,’ Meg said. ‘You’ll be fine.’
Will swallowed a last piece of sausage.
‘I don’t know where you get that appetite, or where you put it. You eat more than Benjamin and he’s bigger, taller than you,’ she said.
‘Will’s not as slight as you think, Mrs Garrowby,’ Benjamin said. ‘I’ve been up against him. He felt pretty solid then.’
Will looked round at his friend.
‘Up against him?’ Meg said. She sounded unsure as to what he meant.
Will stood abruptly, and took the plates to the sink.
‘In rugby,’ Benjamin said.
Rattling the plates Will turned on the tap. He smothered a giggle.
‘Ah,’ she said.
‘Yes, he can see off a fullback with as much force as the next boy.’
‘We’re going,’ Will said. ‘Now.’
Meg counted off the items gathered on the table, packing them into a rucksack.
‘Sandwiches, beer, griddle, water thermos, oilskins, sweaters,’
she said. ‘And matches, of course.’
‘I’ve got a lighter,’ Will said, fingering the one in his pocket. It was a gift from Benjamin because Will had admired it, though he didn’t smoke. ‘Surely not oilskins?’ His mother was such a pessimist. ‘Look at the weather. I tapped the barometer: set fine.’
‘It’s the sea. You never know,’ Meg said. ‘The finest sailors have been surprised by the weather. And make sure you wear life jackets.’
‘Mother, please,’ Will said, because she was treating him like a child, and because he knew what she would say next.
‘I watched people die for lack of them,’ Meg said.
There was a pause like a heartbeat, then Benjamin spoke. ‘I promise we’ll wear them,’ he said and Will watched his mother’s expression ease, and wondered why he hadn’t said that first.
‘Back and scrubbed up in time for dinner,’ Meg said.
‘Will you tell Benjamin the story then?’ Will said, because she was so serious about the life jackets, and he wanted Ben to know why.
‘If you bring me something back from your adventure,’ she said.
The lane was still deep in shade as the boys walked down to the water, and the sky overhead was the strongest blue. Will pranced and skipped. He picked a stem from the hedgerow and presented it, mock-gallant, with a bow, to Benjamin.
‘For you, Lady’s Bedstraw,’ he said. ‘Should be Lad’s Love,
but it doesn’t grow wild. Anyway, this is prettier.’
His friend took it laughing and sniffed the froth of yellow flowers.
‘Smells of honey,’ he said, ‘which is not what I’ve heard from the boys who brag.’
‘Don’t be vulgar,’ Will said. He punched Benjamin’s arm. ‘We’re off. Gone and free.’
‘And sleepy,’ Benjamin said.
‘You’ll love it, where I’m taking you.’
‘Better be good. What time is it, for God’s sake?’
‘You can sleep, if you want to, when we get there.’
‘I want to sleep now.’
‘Did you know that a boy is always taller than his mother? Fact.’
‘Will, be quiet.’
The one’s grumbling and the other’s bounce had the air of something long-practised between them, and in this way they walked the mile from house to water. They passed only the milk lorry and, down near the water, an old man with his rheumy dog.
‘William Garrowby, you must be,’ the old man said.
‘Yes sir,’ Will said.
‘Look the spit of your mother. Off sailing?’
‘Yes sir.’
‘Well, watch for the fret later if you’re going off far. She’s sitting out there, but she’ll be coming in this afternoon. Won’t be able to see your hand in front of your face.’
‘Yes sir.’
The Garrowbys kept their boats a mile out of the village on a small piece of land set a hundred yards or so back from the estuary, next to the Estuary Hotel gardens. The hotel had kept the waterfront for itself, and the Garrowbys ran their boats along a track beside the gardens, which ended in a narrow slipway down to the water. It was characteristic of George that he had thought about what he thought he needed but not about what his children would be capable of. Someone with a different bent of mind or some experience in sailing would have found a piece of land closer to the water from which it was easier to launch boats. But it didn’t occur to him to think in this way, and besides, he had got the land for a good price.
At the time George had thought he would take up sailing. He liked what he considered to be sailing’s science – the calculations one could apply to wind and water, the charts and so forth – but when it came to the fact, he didn’t enjoy it at all. He didn’t enjoy how the weather confounded him and he didn’t like getting wet, or muddy, or getting it wrong. He didn’t like being unreliable. So he stopped sailing almost as soon as he had started, though Will was glad his father had insisted, even so, that his children learned it all thoroughly.
The piece of land comprised a square of grass, two dinghies and a rowing boat, each on its own trolley, and a small shed for gear: oars, life jackets, groundsheet, rugs, outboards, cans of oil, paint, etc. The shed had electric light, routed from the power line high above, and when he was younger, Will had fantasised about living in here. Somehow the electric light
made it seem more possible. Looking back, he saw it as his Huck Finn phase and already he felt a rueful affection for that younger boy.
‘Perfect time,’ he said. ‘Twenty minutes and the tide’ll be just right to launch straight off the slip. Won’t even have to get our plimsolls wet.’
He set about rigging the boat, shouting an occasional instruction to Benjamin. He stowed the rucksacks and the groundsheet in the bow.
‘What did the old man mean, about fret? Is it dangerous?’ Benjamin said.
‘Sea fret. Like mist. It can come in suddenly, but it looks set fair today. Besides, we’re not going far out; we could hug the shore, more or less, if we needed to.’
He fetched the oars, life jackets, mackerel lines and bucket. Handing Benjamin a jacket, he pulled his on and tied the bows securely.
‘Most important thing is to do what I tell you, when I tell you. Don’t want you knocked out by the boom because you didn’t go about when I said to.’
‘You told me that last time,’ Benjamin said.
‘Well, I’m telling you again. Anyway, last time we stayed in the estuary. This time we’re heading out to open water. Would make rescuing you harder.’
‘What’s the other thing, then? The slightly less important thing.’
‘Watch the wind. That’s how you know what to do with the sails. But it often changes, plays tricks on you, so you have to
keep watching it. That’s what the telltales are for.’