River Odyssey (21 page)

Angel’s mother was waiting on the steps. She stood up when she saw us coming. She was short and skinny too. I wondered what she was going to say.

“Angel?”

“Hi, Mom.”

Her mother squinted at me. “Who is that?”

“This is Alfred.”

She went to her mother and they hugged. I stayed on the sidewalk.

“And this is Hollie. Isn’t he wonderful, Mom?”

“Angel. Who is Alfred?”

Angel gave Hollie a big kiss and hug, then looked into her mother’s face.

“My brother.”

“Excuse me?”

“He’s Daddy’s son. From his first wife. Did you know that Daddy had a first wife? And you know what? He’s the Submarine Outlaw. He really is. Isn’t that amazing?”

Angel’s mother’s face fell and her arms dropped to her sides. I could tell from the look on her face that she had not known that Russell Pynsent was married before.

“Yes, I see it right away,” she said to me. “And no, dear, I didn’t know he was married before. He never told me that.”

“He left when I was born,” I said. “When my mother died. I never met him till now. But he doesn’t know who I am yet, I don’t think. Or maybe he knows. I’m not sure.”

She looked at me with a frown. “He has a way of leaving, doesn’t he?” She put her hands on Angel’s head and kissed her again.

Then she looked at Hollie: “Oh, my sweetie, look at you!”

“His name is Hollie, Mommy. Look at his ears. And that’s the seagull we saw on TV. Remember? That’s the same one!”

Angel pointed to Seaweed, who was standing in the yard looking bored.

“Yes, I remember. Did you bring your submarine to Montreal?”

“Yes.”

Angel’s eyes opened wide. “You
did?”

I nodded.

“Oh! Can we see it?”

“Umm … I don’t know. I promised myself I wouldn’t let anybody else in it because it’s too dangerous. And, I have to be very careful right now because the police are looking for me.”

Her mom looked alarmed. “They’re looking for you? Why?”

“Because someone tried to steal my sub. A young guy broke into it, and I had to go in and rescue my crew, and he panicked and almost drowned, and the police came and rescued him. But now they know I’m here in the city with my sub and they probably think I caused the whole incident.”

Angel’s mom stared at me sympathetically. I could tell that she believed me. “Why don’t you come in, Alfred? Come in, please, and have dinner with us. We have lots to talk about.”

“Okay. I would like that. Thank you.”

“How old are you, Alfred?”

“Sixteen.”

“Please come in.”

I STOOD ON THE
bridge and watched the police boats scour the river. They were hanging portable sonar devices over their sides. They lowered them into the water the way helicopters did when searching for submarines during military exercises. These were the river police of Montreal. They were searching for me.

It had been two days. I was surprised how determined they were. They motored by the very marina where the sub was, and would have discovered it had they been able to distinguish it from the hulls of the two barges that concealed it. But they couldn’t. How lucky that I had chosen that spot, and how lucky that I had stayed a few days with Angel and Antoinette. Having almost caught me once, the river police must have been very determined to find me again, catch me and arrest me. They might have too, if I had stayed on the move.

As I watched the boats drag their sonar lines like fishermen I wondered how long they would search for me. Would they search upriver and downriver too? Would we have a difficult time returning to sea? How I longed to return to sea. How I longed to sail to the Pacific.

But I would be sorry to leave Angel so soon. In just a few days we had become a family. Maybe it wasn’t a regular kind of family, I didn’t know, but it was real enough to me. Antoinette was a wonderful mother. She loved Angel more than anything else in the world and would do anything for her. She was wonderful to me too, and seemed happy that Angel had a brother. It would be difficult to leave. But I had to go. I promised Angel I would send her a short-wave radio receiver, so that I could send her messages no matter where I was.

And I promised her something else.

The next day, in the evening, we climbed into Antoinette’s car. Angel sat in the back seat. She talked excitedly as we drove across the city. “You will like Daddy, Alfred. It just takes him a while to warm up to someone. He’s like Seaweed.”

Antoinette drove down a long residential street and stopped in front of an old house.

“I’ll wait here,” she said. “Take as long as you like; I don’t mind. I’ll read my book.”

Angel and I got out of the car. She took my hand as we went up the front steps of the house and rang the doorbell. I was fighting down my nervousness. There was absolutely nothing to be afraid of, I told myself. But it didn’t help much.

The door opened and there he stood, like a man who wished he could run away but had nowhere else to go. His eyes were opened wide. He cleared his throat but didn’t say anything.

“Hi Daddy,” said Angel. “Can we come in?”

He opened the door wider and made room for us to pass. I couldn’t help feeling he was wishing we would just go away. I followed Angel inside.

“Thanks for inviting us over, Daddy.”

He followed us into the kitchen where we all sat down at the table. He rubbed his face with his hands. His hands were rough. They weren’t as big as Ziegfried’s, or my grandfather’s, but they were bigger than mine. He looked tired. Angel spoke as if she were talking to one of her friends at school. “We can’t stay too long, Daddy. Mommy’s waiting in her car. We just wanted to come and say hello. This is Alfred. He’s my big brother. He is also the Submarine Outlaw. Did you know that?”

He shook his head. I thought he looked like a caged animal. I didn’t know what to say. Suddenly, he opened his mouth. It took a while for the words to come out. “W—would you like a beer?”

I shook my head.

“We would both like a cup of tea,” Angel said politely, as if we were sitting in a fancy restaurant.

He got up, went to the sink, filled the kettle with water and put it down on the stove. His movements were slow and deliberate, a little like mine, but slower.

“Alfred is going to send me a special radio, Daddy. Then he can send messages to me when he is travelling around the world. Isn’t that neat?”

He nodded and stared at me. I sensed he was going to say something but changed his mind and said something else instead. “How did you become a submariner?”

His question took me by surprise. “Umm … I don’t know; it’s kind of a long story. I had help.”

“I figured you’d be a fisherman.”

That caught me by surprise too. “No way.”

“I bet your grandfather wanted you to.”

“He sure did.”

He knew my grandfather.

“How is your grandmother?”

“Good. Same as always.”

“That’s good.”

He turned to Angel. Their eyes met and they shared a look. I was starting to understand what she meant by him warming up after a bit. I was feeling less nervous.

“I’ll make the tea, Daddy.”

“Be careful. The stove is hot.”

She smiled. “I know.”

“Where are you going next?”

“The Pacific.”

“The Pacific Ocean?”

“Yes.”

“Can you get there from here?”

I nodded.

“Of course you can, Daddy. Don’t you know that all the oceans are connected?”

He looked as if he didn’t. I wondered how much schooling he had received but didn’t want to ask. Angel did. She would have asked anybody anything.

“How long did you go to school for, Daddy?”

She poured water into the teapot, put the kettle down on the stove and turned off the element. Then, she climbed up onto the counter, reached into the cupboard and brought down three cups.

“Grade eight.”

“You and Alfred are the same! He left school at grade eight too. Isn’t that interesting?”

We both stared as she dropped two tea bags into the teapot.

“How do you get to the Pacific from here?” he asked.

I wondered if he was asking just to make conversation.

“Umm … the best way is to go through the Panama Canal. But I’m not sure if I can do that. My submarine is not legal. But that’s only a problem in Canada. In international waters I’m fine, except for coming into port, or sailing through a canal. Then, I need registration papers, which I might be able to get in the Caribbean. I want to go through the canal because it would take forever to sail around the tip of South America, and the north is kind of dangerous.”

“You can sail to the Pacific by sailing north?”

He sounded a little interested now.

“Yes. If you sail through the Northwest Passage. It’s a maze of islands up in the Arctic. You have to zigzag your way through. But there’s a lot of ice, even in summer, although less than there used to be, I guess. Very few sailboats have ever made it through, and usually they’ve needed an icebreaker to clear a path. But submarines pass through all the time. They sail under the ice. They can do that because they’re nuclear powered usually. My sub is diesel-electric, like a World War II sub. But I have a bicycle … ”

I was going on too much. He was staring at the floor.

“Aren’t you afraid?”

“Of what?”

“Of the ice, of the sea, of your submarine breaking down or springing a leak; of drowning, or getting caught and put in jail? Aren’t you afraid?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. I stared at him. My grandfather’s words came to me again. Why did he think my father was not like me? What did he think
I
was like?

“Uhh … I guess so. Sometimes.”

“You are?”

“Sometimes. Not all the time.”

He looked confused. “Then … why do you go?”

“I don’t know. I guess because I want to so much.”

“He’s
brave,
Daddy.”

He looked as though he were trying to figure me out. We were related. I knew that but still couldn’t quite believe it.

“Well, it sounds pretty dangerous.”

“It’s
exciting,
Daddy, that’s what it is. And you know what else? Alfred has a crew, and it’s a dog and seagull. Isn’t that amazing?”

My crew was waiting for me. Suddenly I felt like leaving. “Maybe we should go, Angel.”

“We haven’t had our tea yet, silly.”

She poured tea into the cups and carried them over to the table one at a time, spilling them a little. He turned and looked at me as if he had just heard a piece of bad news. “I am sorry I wasn’t a father to you.”

He was shaking a little and I realized he was much more nervous than I was. Angel and I didn’t know what to say. I tried hard to think of something. “Nobody’s perfect.”

“That’s right, Daddy. Nobody’s perfect. This tea smells good. It’s nice that you are having us over for tea, Daddy. Isn’t it nice, Alfred?”

“Yes.”

She opened the fridge and brought milk and sugar to the table. She poured milk in hers and it spilled over the top. “Ooops! Sorry.”

He looked at me and I saw deep sadness in his face. It looked like it had created the wrinkles there. He wrung his hands together. “When your mother died, I grieved for a long time. I loved her very much. I never saw it coming. She was the picture of health all through the pregnancy.”

He stopped, stared at the floor and tried to collect his thoughts. He looked far away. “They wanted me to stay and fish. But I couldn’t do that. I hated fishing.”

“Me too.”

He laughed nervously. “Your grandfather loves fishing.”

I grinned. “I know.”

“I figured you’d be a fisherman by now for sure.”

“No way.”

He took a deep breath, then continued. “I stayed for about six months, I guess. One night, I got up and left. I didn’t even take anything with me. They were looking after you already, doing everything for you. Every time I looked at you… ”

He stopped and stared at the floor.

“You must have been very sad, Daddy,” Angel said.

“I couldn’t stay. There was no work for me. I wouldn’t have known how to look after you.”

“But why did you never write? Why did you never come back and visit? Why did you run away when you saw me?”

For a moment our eyes met. Then his eyes shut and he dropped his head.

“I was ashamed.”