Only the Ocean Read online

  She returned the notebook to her boot and smiled at the baby and told it to go back to sleep.

  It had been her idea to ride out to South America for a long time now. Organs and operations were cheap out there, the only place for fixing up for a girl like Kel. She’d had the idea in place for forever, had read about the operations on a square of newspaper ripped for the loo, and it annoyed her now to have to find the ship the man had told her to board amongst so much panic. It was just her luck that today her running idea had become everyone’s idea. She told the baby to hold on and she ran with the crowds a little, but Kel knew better than to straggle under the harbour lights. She could hear warning shots blast the night air, knew well not to ignore them. Soon the crowd would be dispersed and all folk gone back to idling, pleading with a god that did not exist. Kel was more than cynical; there had been a million scares and threats to the tower folk before and she’d concluded that fear for fear’s sake was the culprit.

  She ran on toward where she thought the ship would be, the vessel that would bring her safely to a new life, her destiny. The one-two-three fortune story that went: get the girl, swap for drugs, sell the drugs to pay for the operation. She went over it again and again like a chant. One-two-three and her life would start over again. A new life in a new country with a partway new kind of heart, fixed and ready for whatever. And it didn’t matter what stage of chaos the new country was in because it wasn’t this one and more importantly it wasn’t her chaos.

  She circled the docks and filtered out through the crowd and onward toward where she knew the cargo ships were moored. When she reached the clapperboard warehouses she found a cubby of tarred, useless nets and settled herself to watching and waiting. How many ships? It was hard to tell; she counted eight – nine maybe – each one pushed against the next, stacked with steel crates and what names she could see she said out loud but it didn’t help. Where was her ship, where was the Kevothek?

  ‘Shit.’ Kel stood up and climbed the dune of nets. Somewhere out there was her ship, it had to be; she had not planned for anything other than victory. One more scan of the horizon, one last-ditch attempt to find something of meaning …

  It was then that she saw it; a flag in tatters, but its name was unmistakeable.

  ‘The Kevothek.’

  The black of dark and acrid smoke combined shielded Kel from the clutch of watchful deckhands and she watched the armed guards patrol the ship. She observed where they stood and counted out the time between each one’s circuit as she double-tied the baby tight to her back. The third man to come round walking the third time had the longest space tailing him. He walked too fast and the man behind walked too slow and into that timeless void Kel ran and jumped with the bag and the baby strapped and saddled wrong and she hit the deck with a crack.

  Chapter Two

  Kel lay on her front and waited for her something to start hurting. When nothing did she reached around to check the baby, clubbed a hand to its mouth and listened for the wet slap skid of running footsteps, and when none came she pushed herself fully beneath the hot beating purr of stirring engines. She slowed her breathing down to an easy-draw beat and waited for her heart to fall in the same and then she furthered back between the huge metal crates that towered all around and there she paused for thinking time.

  She could hear gunfire, a warning shot, and the screams of people running-rabbit at the main harbour side a few hundred metres back. She imagined their footsteps slipping on the wet ground, getting closer to the Kethovek, and she prayed the ship set sail before they had a chance to get down to this end of the harbour. Kel knew the chaos would not end tonight; it never did. She untied the baby and lay in the snuggle-warm with it lying near to her and when survival instinct returned she sat up.

  A bit of fresh salt air was blowing, waking her and Kel was happy to sit up and wait. She’d wait for evening shadows to pull the cargo containers snug around her and when night came fully she’d think over the next stage of her plan and she would think it over good.

  She wasn’t just running for the sake of freedom: she was heading toward a future set out in perfect star formation and she couldn’t wait to get fixed up, have a pin put in her heart or whatever it was to bring its size back down to normal. Some fool-folk reckoned it was a good thing to have a big heart; it wasn’t.

  With good thoughts settling she lay back on her bursting saddle bag that housed all and everything she had in the world, and she turned it buckle down so there was some comfort for her head within the dip of material. She watched as a drift of ripped black-sack clouds crept across the thin wedge of sky above. Their silent wandering had Kel float out in her own mind and she closed her eyes to enjoy sudden solitude, even made something of cuddling the baby. Kel could hear the curl of ocean as it licked and sucked at the ship’s hull and the slow clink of chain as it retreated and pulled the anchor free of water. She imagined the lift of each of the other vessels’ bulging bellies as the sea caressed them with tender hands, the beckoning mystery of foreign lands whetting their appetite for the unknown, along with that of every man and runaway and crazy that stood onboard their decks.

  Kel had no such appetite. She only wanted what should have been hers; health and a simple life just being. Adventure was not for her. There were enough wilds in her as it was; enough of the unknown to declare herself uncharted, a stand-alone live-alone island, a rock, no matter how she crumbled inside.

  She pulled the baby close.

  The last of daylight slid by unnoticed. Bit by bit the sky dipped dark and grew void of colour, nothing but the mix-black palette of midnight in the middle of nowhere. Kel listened out for the constant burp and banter of harbour seagulls but there was none. All she heard was the whirr of engines punching and clocking up speed. The ship was finally moving. She sat up and pulled her denim jacket from the bag and wrapped it about her shoulders and she tucked the bed-blanket and the raincoat around the baby to keep it from rolling and she scanned the sky in the hope of star camaraderie, but the black night gave nothing away.

  She looked down at the sleeping kid; it was the worst kind of companion. ‘You better be on your best behaviour,’ she said and she shoved it into hiding and stood to stretch the cold deck floor from her bones. She had work to exact, no time to lose. Everything was in place.

  The first thing on her list was to locate the girl, it wouldn’t be hard. There was no other girl on the ship besides herself. Rose would be a flower amongst thorns, a sore thumb sticking out. Kel would sneak around under cover of darkness until she’d pinpointed the girl and sourced a lifeboat. Then Kel and the baby would need somewhere safer to hide and wait, ready for when the time was right for kidnapping. In Kel’s mind it was as pure as quartz; it held all the light she needed to see it clearly.

  She set off following the maze of storage crates that stretched wall-high and were everywhere about the ship. Kel could tell they were heading down the English Channel; the thin leaving light on that scoop-curve of horizon port side told her so. The faint wash of pink and orange hues leaked into the forever ocean like a snaking oil slick, spoiling the black ink with its rainbow spillage.

  Kel stepped into her new world with all the command she thought was in her possession. The ship and its thump-and-threat din and the firm grip of deck beneath her feet were a million miles from home and it was perfect.

  She looked around at her surroundings and was careful not to step too far from the shadows, told herself that no matter what she would keep to the plan. Two nights to make sure the ship was away and heading, two nights to keep the head down and the eyes watching; see the girl, get the girl and get gone.

  There were plenty of people onboard ship with heeding ears, not just everyday people but strangers and stragglers and plain old crazies, working the ship for cash because they were all out of chances on the mainland. Men who couldn’t get work or a life that fitted right would hit the high seas with a two-bit coin between their teeth and a little hope in their hearts. Kel knew about t
hat kind of hope, she had it big and ballooning in her chest just the same.

  She leaned to the railings and peered down toward the waves that lifted the hull and she looked at the diminishing lights of Falmouth and raised a hand goodbye, told it to wait for her cus in two days she would return, she promised it this.

  Kel said goodbye to the flickering candy town for the sake of maudlin and moved on from the railings so she could see something more of the ship. If the plan was going to work she had to know its gangways, the secret tunnels and the rough-neck workers who inhabited the oily spent place. She would watch their every move and fill the idling gaps between with her movement, keep a hundred steps ahead to keep from being discovered. She followed the starboard railings that penned the edge of the ship and was careful not to slip on the greasy deck. Tonight she would find the captain’s quarters and see the girl to stamp the last detail of the plan into being.

  She kept to the thin elevated shadows and turned her ear from the noise of the smash-and-grab waves and the constant clank of gearing engines and she made sure to be nothing to the men but empty space.

  Suddenly she heard a shout somewhere on the upper deck. A fight was breaking out, she knew the sound all too well. She climbed the steel ladder that clung to the side of the quarterdeck and was careful with the footing, and when she reached the top she hooked her arms between the metal bars and wedged herself against the warm purr of a generator and this was where she saw them properly for the first time.

  Men and boys were jostling for space out on the deck. They pushed and shoved back against each other until a circle was formed around two fighters and Kel turned and wiggled into position so she too could watch the battle, even though she knew not to expect to see the girl there. She was a prim-posh tower girl; a kid like that wouldn’t understand the primal need to fight.

  Kel ducked each time eyes idled her way and she bit down on the nerve that wanted to run so she could see the victor suck up the win, taste the sugary-sharp brilliance that violence brought. Kel knew about blood and bone and the beat that exposed both and she wondered why anyone would want to fight for anything other than survival. Not that it mattered; their stupidity was her gain. It would give her the chance to explore the ship while they watched the blood get sluiced from the deck and they fixed their eyes on the next two men and turned their minds to the placing of new bets.

  Kel took her time to walk the length of the vessel toward the captain’s quarters. She guessed it was at the front tucked out of the way.

  ‘Somewhere quiet,’ she told herself, ‘somewhere hidden.’

  She reached the bow and saw the last remaining feature on the ship: a small hut-like structure studded to the deck and the sign on the door read ‘Captain’s Mess’ so this was the place.

  Kel stood close to the door and held her breath. She hadn’t expected to find it so easily, she needed time to work out what she was doing. She felt for her notebook in the back pocket of her jeans for reassurance.

  ‘Just a recce,’ she whispered. ‘See the girl to know that she exists.’

  Kel told herself to think of her as the enemy, or, even easier than that, cargo. The girl was just goods after all, a component in a long line of workings that joined together, would fill all four corners of her beautiful, faultless plan.

  She put her nose to the window and squinted to see if she could see light and turned her ear for noise, but nothing. Maybe the girl was asleep. She’d heard that tower kids were lazy, useless. Kel reached for the handle and found it gone but in its place a key. She unlocked the door and went in.

  Two rooms, one for sitting and one for lying down. Kel knew the girl was not here, of course not, the door had been locked from the outside and there was not one sign of anybody at all, no sign that any girl had ever been there.

  Kel left the cabin the way she found it and decided to head below deck; if the girl wasn’t here perhaps a room had been made up for her down there. Since the menfolk were above deck then not many would be below and Kel acknowledged the situation as a chance to plunder food whilst she looked for the girl.

  She retraced her footsteps and saw that the men had settled to other entertainments: a wooden chest upturned, a pack of cards produced. Men and boys all cut the same took their places around the makeshift table, some with money some without; they circled the action, roped around three times like a noose. Cards were dealt and matchsticks counted out for that’ll-do chips, and when all heads dipped to the silence of the ocean’s push and pull Kel crept fully toward deck and she tiptoed from one shadow to the next until she found the hole that led down toward the main living quarters and she put her boot to the first rung of the ladder and climbed down.

  Below deck the drill of engines turning over seeped into every corner of the ship. Every vent and pipe, every wooden crate rattled with the sound of movement, a floating gun-laden death ship bound for unfamiliar things on the forever sea. Kel bent to one of the crates and wondered what they were carrying. The sign said Food, Kitchen, but the way the contents knocked together sounded all wrong for tins and supplies. She stood back. The first time she met the man at the river bar he told her not to wonder what the ship was carrying, but when pushed he told her it was guns looted from the naval base in Plymouth and at the time Kel had thought them stupid: drugs were one thing, but guns were another, they were instant, bang-bang, game over. Kel’d bet anything that the contents of these crates were weapons.

  She hurried through the squash-gut gangways with the fluorescent lights that flashed on and off and kept her nose in the air, but if there was food cooking Kel couldn’t smell it for the thick tang retch of oil and diesel that was everywhere. She went on looking and listened out for anything other than grinding cogs and when she stumbled across the dining mess she took a minute to assess her surroundings, the jumble of empty cups and plates, and she didn’t worry about what it was to be a girl if she was discovered standing there because she was a big bully-boy type of girl. Kel took to rooting and was quick to find bread half ripped and a slab of cheese just sitting and she took off her jacket and bundled them into it and grabbed a carton of milk from the cooler and she stuffed the lot beneath her arm. If there were other things worthy of the steal she would have taken them but what was left of a meal was bit and spilled and smeared, and Kel was happy with her plunder and happier still to be close to eating it. She hadn’t eaten much in recent days and she could feel the brittle snap of frailty in each and every bone.

  She left the room and traced her way back through the narrow muddle-maze and up to the deck. Maybe it was the spin of giddy-greed hunger that had her mind single-tracked but she went at a pace about the ship and she forgot to mind herself completely.

  As Kel made her way back to her little hideout amongst the crates she imagined the food sandwiched and stuffed and the milk swilled to dregs and her mouth juiced with hunger.

  At times she heard laughter jab the surrounding night air. The men’s whereabouts confused her, made her jump, the milk slipped and wasted. ‘Shit.’

  She lay on her chest and wriggled beneath the metal pipes that tangled and spiralled across the upper deck.

  She stuck close to the ground and pulled the food close, her eyes following the stud-line of rivets that pushed against her cheek until she found the ladder. She pressed her ear to the stick-grit floor to listen for shouts and the thud-thud of catching footsteps but there were none.

  Kel found the baby and struggled further beneath the hot turning machines, she wished she hadn’t dropped the carton of milk she had been looking forward to it, now all that was left was dry bread and cheese, wet clothes. She rolled the bit of food between her fingers and chewed and swallowed over: the cheese tasted of salt and the bread tasted of nothing at all. The stodge mopped moisture from her mouth and it fisted and forced its way into her chest with a punch.

  Kel could hear the engines step up gear and she knew they were running at full speed now, she could feel the vibrations in every bone and her stomac
h buzzed with loose fitting. For all her Cornish blood she hated the sea. To see the ocean was one thing, its moated border meant protection and security, but to be on it was another thing entirely, it meant danger and at high speed double danger.

  She pushed the remaining food into the space behind the baby and closed her eyes and blocked her ears partway to the ratatat but the shake was in her and she could feel the rise from her gut to her throat. She slide from her hideout and ran to the railings with the sick racing from her. In one brief moment nothing else mattered but the purge; to have her belly sucked clean down deep within the coop of riding rib-bone.

  Kel lent into the railings and doubled over with the retch and she hung in weary desperation until serenity returned. She breathed the wet sea spray and pulled it into her lungs and it was a blast of smelling salts. Her stomach unclenched and she spat the bitter from her mouth and wiped with her sleeve and she wished again for something more than nothing to quench her thirst.

  The night had come in fast and with it a mist as thick as netting cloth and Kel could feel the damp curl her hair and take what dry there was from out her clothes. She stared into the roiling dark and it tangled her and caught her where she stood and there was so much of the spin about her that she felt less of herself than what was usual. She looked beyond the ocean to where the lights of land had been and lifted the collar of her jacket. She pulled up her sleeve and her left hand felt for the self–inflicted scars on her arm and she took comfort in them. The ridges lay like tracks and were etched deep into the skin and each one told a story of the spirit that was in her.

  It was a journey that ran up and down her arm like a runaway carriage, crashing and burning and crashing again. Kel’s life was a trainwreck, a tangle of metal and detritus that indicated a life lived far from civilisation. The lines on her arm were mapped for a reason, if only she could read them, understand what they told her in regards to where she had been and where she was heading. She looked again toward the cloak of mist that had thickened to rain and closed her eyes to let the water wash her clean, one moment of calm to wish it beneath her skin and cleanse her soul the same.