How To Be Brave (28 page)

‘Isn’t she the most beautiful sight?’ Colin grinned. ‘Can you really believe it? Is it really and truly a ship?’

‘See the white ensign,’ cried Ken. ‘She’s British Navy!’

‘God bless the British Navy!’

‘A bloody ship, lad!’

‘We’re saved,’ said Colin.

Nearer and nearer she steamed, until they could plainly see the numbers on her bow – H32 – and recognised her for a destroyer. She blasted several whoops of greeting and Ken and Colin whooped back. Across the water came the wonderful sound of her engine telegraph, and screaming as her forefoot lessened so she could slow down.

‘Let’s stand,’ said Colin, gripping the mast harder.

‘I don’t know if I can, chum,’ admitted Ken.

‘You can.’

‘I really can’t.’

‘You will. We’ll do it together.’ Colin put an arm about Ken’s waist and, much as he had fifty days earlier when pulling him from the water, helped him stand. ‘We’ll be standing when she meets us, by God we will.’

And so they were standing when HMS Rapid pulled up alongside their small lifeboat. They heard orders being shouted aboard, saw cheery, smart, well-fed sailors rushing around, following commands. Nets were dropped and heaving line thrown.

A gentle, well-spoken voice came from above. ‘Are you alright there, chaps? Can you make it up here by yourselves?’

Ken waved cheerily and began to climb but fell back into the boat’s well. Colin tried and failed too. But there was nothing more to worry about. No more fight needed. Agile sailors climbed down the netting and carried them both onto the ship, to the robust cheers of its crew.

‘Come on up,’ grinned one of them. ‘Nice little craft you have there. Shouldn’t fancy crossing the Atlantic in it myself mind.’

‘Never did see owt like it,’ said another.

‘Blimey, me old China,’ said another. ‘I’ve heard they starve you blokes in the merchant navy but I never knew they did it as proper as that.’

Colin wanted to say thank you to the blond-haired baby-faced sailor who carried him, but could find nothing. He looked back at the ocean as he was lifted over the railing; their lifeboat seemed so tiny.

How had they lived so long on it? Was this ship a dream and he’d wake up, asleep next to Ken? Ken. Where was Ken? He tried to see where he’d been taken but he was so tired he could barely stop his eyes closing, afraid if did he’d wake back on the lifeboat, alone.

One last look back at it and there was Rose, waving, her hair bouncing in the gentle breeze. He tried to whistle but nothing emerged. Yet even from so far he heard her singing, some song he didn’t know. But it didn’t matter because the ocean did and her words merged with its endless sonata.

In his log that day, Ken wrote –
The greatest day of all my life and the day I shall never forget. We were rescued this day by
HMS Rapid.
To our Lord we can only say Thank You
.

In the book nook, bathed in the candle’s playful light, Rose and I danced around the cushions as though a gleaming white vessel had picked us up too.

Rose cried, ‘A ship, a ship, a ship, today a ship!’ Then she clapped her hands, sang it again and danced anti-clockwise, her shadow flickering ghostlike.

I flopped onto a cushion and laughed at her joy; eventually she tired and sat opposite me. Excitement submitted to sadness. We were done; it was over.

But I didn’t want the blackout to end, the lights to come on and reality to hit.

‘I’m so glad Ken was there too,’ Rose said, still breathless.

‘Me too,’ I said, ‘Neither of them would have survived without the other.’

‘Even though I
knew
Grandad Colin would live, I felt dead nervous,’ she admitted. ‘But that’s what happens in ace stories. Like when I read the last Harry Potter book and everyone had told me what would happen. It didn’t matter, because you can never
really
be sure until you get to the end.’

She was right; even with a true story, there are different versions and there are parts that get exaggerated or left out. In the end all you can do is believe the parts that sound right to you.

‘Did you name me after Colin’s mum?’ asked Rose.

‘No,’ I said. ‘That truly is some strange coincidence.’

‘No such thing.’

‘Maybe. But we named you after the lovely colour of your face.’

She pulled a scornful expression. ‘Why do parents have to be so stupid over names?’

‘Rose!’

‘At least it means I’m like Scarface,’ she said. ‘We both got names because of our face. The best reason. So what happened to him?’

I sat closer to her, wrapped the blanket around us both.

‘It was actually said – by Ken afterwards – that
HMS Rapid
gunned Scarface down when he attacked the lifeboat one last time. But I just couldn’t bring myself to kill him like that. Even if it happened – and we can never truly know – I prefer to think of him still swimming out there in the Atlantic Sea. Don’t you? Isn’t that how it
should
be?’

Rose nodded. ‘Will he still be there? How old do sharks get to?’

‘Not sure. Maybe twenty? So, no, he won’t be.’

‘At least he maybe got to be an old man.’ She paused. ‘Did Colin?’

‘No more story right now,’ I said, getting up. ‘I’ll have to find more candles and ring and find out what’s going on with the electricity.’

‘Because the story’s not over,’ Rose said, more urgently. ‘There’s always the end and then what happened
after
the end.’

‘We can maybe do that tomorrow.’

‘In bed,’ she insisted. ‘
Soon
.’

‘We’ll see.’

‘We’ll see!’ she mocked.

‘Rose, you said you’d be able to let it go,’ I said.

‘This isn’t me not letting it go,’ she said. ‘I just want to know about the medals and stuff.’

‘I know,’ I said softly.

I understood her needing those final threads to be tied up neatly. I could feel Colin fading already, leaving us, returning not to the lifeboat but perhaps home. Even though I hated them, I also felt there should be one last goodbye.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘We can do that, but the house is cold and dark and I need to warm and light it.’

‘When I’m in bed,
please
?’

‘Maybe,’ I sighed. ‘We cou…’

A knock on the door finished my sentence. I remembered April earlier on, promising lemon cake if the lights didn’t come back up. Such treats only reminded me that Rose would need extra insulin to enjoy it or she’d have to wait until her blood sugars were low. Perhaps I’d just hide the cake away so she didn’t nag for the smallest piece, as she so often did, breaking my heart.

How fast the reality of injections and blood readings and power cuts replaced our visit to the lifeboat. I was almost afraid of the lights coming on again. When they did, like those in the theatre after a play is done, I felt like the magic would die altogether. It would be like none of it had happened.

A knock on the door again. An impatient April, with cake.

‘Don’t go too near that candle,’ I warned Rose, ‘and when I come back I’ll guide you upstairs so you can clean your teeth and get ready for bed.’

‘Not bedtime,’ she moaned. ‘Can’t I …’

‘No,’ I snapped, and went to the door.

In the shadow I could barely make April out. What was it Colin had written in his diary? That at sea it wasn’t the darkest before dawn but when the sun had just gone. Yet it seemed blacker now than when April had called earlier, even though my eyes had had time to grow accustomed to it.

‘April,’ I said.

Then the lights flickered, came on, went off, and came on again.

‘I’m not April,’ he said.

No, it wasn’t. It was a ghost.

It was Jake.

Jake with his two oversized bags. His thick red hair was cut short for the tour, his freckled skin was sunburnt and his hazel eyes so like Rose’s, full somehow of both mischief and sadness. He dropped the two bags. I put a hand out and drew it back, afraid that my touch would make him disappear again. He held my face and I closed my eyes, smiled.

He was real. He was home. He kissed me.

‘But … how?’ I managed to ask, still afraid to believe.

‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’ he said.

‘Oh, yes.’ I shivered in the wintry draught. ‘Of course, yes.’

‘What did you do with all the light?’ Jake picked up his bags. ‘The house was dark as I approached. Did you forget to pay the bills in my absence?’

‘Oh, no. It was a power cut. But you … when did …how…’ I could hardly talk; I was Colin when he saw the ship.

‘I only found out yesterday,’ Jake said, still bright in the new light, so sudden, so real. He stamped his feet on the mat. ‘There wasn’t time. Anyway I thought it would be like that night in the snow. Remember? Me showing up when you didn’t expect.’

‘Of course I remember.’

I had thought of it so many times while he was away. Now Jake had given me another moment to save for dark times alone – the night he arrived with the light.

I began to close the door, but paused. On the street, in a growing mist that curled like waves, another ghostly shape. Colin? I tried to focus, make him out in the silvery haze, a familiar shape, a smile. But it disappeared. Perhaps my imagination.

‘What is it?’ asked Jake.

‘No, nothing,’ I said softly, and closed the door.

Then, shy at first, I put my head on Jake’s chest. Like Rose, he smelt of things familiar, of him, and of faraway places I’d never know. I could hear his heart through the thick jacket, as rhythmic as the sea – or maybe I imagined I could.

‘I can’t believe you’re here,’ was all I could say.

‘I am.’ He squeezed me, hard.

‘I don’t want you to go away again,’ I said softly.

‘We can talk about that,’ he said.

‘We can?’ I looked up at him.

He nodded. ‘It might be time.’

I remembered Rose, waiting by the candle. As though reading my mind, Jake said, ‘So where’s my girl?’

‘She’s going to be so happy.’ I pulled free, wanting to share this wonderful surprise. ‘Rose,’ I called. ‘Can you blow that candle out and come here?’

Come and see what happens after the end
, I thought.

‘I don’t want to go to bed yet,’ Rose called from the back room.

Then she appeared in the hallway, hair all messed up from being wrapped in a blanket, and her mouth fell open and her eyes blinked three times. ‘Dad? Oh, Dad, it’s you!’ And she ran and jumped on him.

 Jake picked her up and swung her the way he had since she could walk. ‘Gosh, you’ve grown,’ he said, pretending she was too heavy for him to lift.

Rose play punched him. ‘I’m light as a feather!’ She looked at me. ‘Did you know, Mum? You should have told me!’

‘She didn’t know,’ said Jake, kissing her forehead and putting her down. ‘I thought I’d surprise you both. I’d never have missed the looks on your faces now. So what have you been up to then? What’s new and what’s happening?’

‘Don’t say happening, Dad,’ said Rose. ‘It makes you sound ancient. We just had a power cut – it was aces. We had to light a candle to finish our story.’

Jake came into the kitchen, Rose dancing around him, and I closed the door. The radiators clanked and warmth filled the house again. We had light, we had heat, and we had Jake. I still wanted to pinch his arm, touch his face, and make sure he was real.

I switched on the kettle and fussed about how hungry he must be, but he said he was fine and he’d eat supper with Rose.

‘I’ve had it already.’ She was still dancing about. ‘Done my injection and blood and everything.’

Jake looked sad at the word injection. I remembered that I’d had two months to get accustomed to it, to her diabetes, to blood tests. This would all be new for him. It would likely be a shock to see his little girl drawing blood for the first time, to watch her pierce flesh with needle. He’d have to get used to the dark.

He sat at the table, motioned for Rose to sit on his knee.

‘I’m nearly bloody ten,’ she said.

‘
Language
,’ I warned.

‘You’re never too old to sit with me,’ he said.

So she did.

‘Tell me all about this here diabetes then,’ he said, his voice light but his eyes pained. I left them together, Rose talking animatedly about what she had to do and what it all meant and showing him her blood machine, and Jake listening intently. I washed the tea and supper pots and put the laundry away, and when I returned they were talking about Colin.

‘Today the ship came,’ she explained. ‘I swear, Dad, I thought my heart was going to jump right out of my mouth!’

‘Speaking of stories,’ he said, going into his holdall. ‘How about these?’ He took out a handful of new paperbacks. ‘I got them for you at the airport. If you’ve already got some of them, don’t worry.’

Rose viewed them quietly. ‘Thanks, Dad,’ she said.

Jake frowned and looked at me. The old Rose had always clapped her hands in joy at new books. This one – the one Jake had to get to know – hadn’t read a book in weeks. I shook my head to let Jake know I’d explain later.

‘I know your dad’s here, but it’s late,’ I said.

‘Do I have to go to bed?’

‘Yes,’ said Jake. ‘Come on, your mum’s right. I’ll be still here in the morning.’

‘But it’s school then!’

‘How about I take you and meet you after?’

Rose danced around the kitchen again, scattering her new books.

‘Shall I put these in your book nook?’ asked Jake.

‘No,’ she said, looking at me, nervous. ‘I don’t want to keep my books there anymore. Do you mind? I want them in my room now.’

‘Of course,’ I said. I had expected this.

‘I loved being in the book nook,’ she said. ‘But I don’t think any other stories would be quite right there now, would they?’

I smiled, and she smiled back.

Then we all went upstairs. On the landing Jake frowned at Rose’s new off-pink door. I waited for the question I’d dreaded since that horrible day, the answer I had to give ready in my throat. But Rose said, ‘Oh Dad, do you like my new door? I had a really bad hypo one time and kicked the old one shut and broke it up. Don’t be mad – I can’t help how I am in a hypo.’ I tried to interrupt her with the truth. It wasn’t fair that she take the blame. But Rose talked more loudly over me. ‘So Mum got me this new door. What do you think?’

Jake shook his head and laughed. He looked around the room and his eyes moistened. I knew how he felt. Even her bedroom had changed. Chaos had calmed. The once choppy sea of papers and DVDs and pens and books and clothes was now a smooth expanse of folded jeans and orderly items.

While Rose was cleaning her teeth he said, ‘She seems so grown up, Nat. How can she have grown so much in only three months? I feel so bad that I missed all of this. What you two had to cope with.’

‘Don’t.’ I shushed him with my finger to his lips. ‘You did what you’re supposed to do – your job. And I did mine. I know I made things difficult for you at first. I was a pain in the arse. But now I wouldn’t change any of it.’

‘I’m so proud of both of you,’ he said.

‘I am of you.’ I hugged him. ‘I’m glad I had to do this on my own. I needed to.’

Rose came back into the room, toothpaste smeared above her top lip. She climbed into bed, said, ‘Can Dad stay with me for ten minutes?’

‘Okay.’ I tucked her in. ‘Just ten minutes though.’

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
fell from under her pillow, its bookmark still at the title page.

‘Will you read this now instead?’ I asked her.

‘Maybe soon.’ She paused. ‘It just won’t be as good though, will it?’

‘As Colin’s story?’

‘No.’

‘I don’t suppose anything ever will be,’ I said.

‘I was wrong,’ she said softly.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I said animals in stories are more interesting than people. And I still think they’re great – like Scarface was. But people are the only ones who make you feel
everything
. Especially your own people.’ She paused. ‘In the morning will you tell me about when Colin got home?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘We’ll do that tomorrow.’

‘But tell me … did he get better? Please tell me that.’

‘Yes, he did,’ I said.

‘Did he find a sweetheart?’

‘Oh, yes,’ I said. ‘Your great grandma. And they had three lovely children.’

She smiled.

So I left her and Jake; their heads bowed close like two sails on a ship blown together. I watched them for a moment, sharing jokes. It occurred to me that a person doesn’t have to be physically present to be with you. You can be separated by time or miles and still affect one another.

I closed the off-pink door.

Then I went to the book nook and took all the paperbacks from the shelf and put them in a box. I put both of the cinnamon cushions on top and put the box near the stairs. I polished the wooden bookcase until it looked like new. I closed my eyes and pictured Rose in her room, reading again. Words devoured secretly once more, beneath her duvet, with a torch. She might read slowly at first, grumbling each evening that the sentences were too clunky and the build-up too slow. She might say that the story didn’t make her heart dance. But I knew then she would remember how to enjoy made up books and everything would fall into place.

When a hand gently touched my shoulder, I smiled. Jake.

I looked up.

It wasn’t Jake. It was the other ghost.

I looked into dark eyes, and the ocean and a tattered boat sail and my own face, but no colour, as though I viewed the images through a black-and-white filter. I readjusted my focus, took in his face, and all the sea colours flickered – jade and turquoise and amber.

Colin.

Grandad.

He was young and unlined and cleanly shaven. He had on a suit with thick lapels, kept together by four buttons forming a square, over a hand-knitted jumper and finished with a striped tie. Two medals were pinned to his chest and he wore his hair the way men had in the forties, swept to one side with gluey gel and cut short around the ear.

I heard the gentle roll of waves. A breeze caressed my ankles and moved the curtains at the patio doors. Salt tickled my nose, filled the air. Colin smiled and it softened the penetrating study in his eyes. It was like the sun after a long, cold night. He was so close I could have leant forward and kissed his cheek.

He bowed then, courteous, a little shy, and looked towards the back door.

‘I don’t want to say it,’ I cried, because I knew. I’d learned to say thank you, but I’d never get used to people leaving.

‘You mustn’t be scared of goodbye,’ he said, his voice just like that night in the hospital, his accent beautifully rich Yorkshire, familiar in its flow, like mine only from a time gone by. He smelt of musky aftershave. ‘I’m just going back to the sea. To meet my brothers. My mum and dad. My Kathleen. My friends from the lifeboat.’

He didn’t belong to us anymore. I knew this. He had to to go where he was supposed to, and I had to let him. Hadn’t I insisted Rose let go?

‘Don’t be scared,’ he whispered.

Back at the hospital that night I’d lied and told him I wasn’t afraid. Now I realised we don’t get less scared, we just find it easier to admit it when we’ve been as brave as we can.

‘I’ll try not to be,’ I said.

‘Good lass.’

‘Young Rose is really the bravest of us all.’

‘Thanks to you,’ I said.

‘No, it is thanks to her,’ he said, gruffly. ‘Tell her I got the drawing she did on the sail cloth and I read her words –
You have to know how to be happy to know how to be sad and if you know both of those things you’ll know how to be brave
. They’re good words. Very good. He smiled.

I heard the waves building, the breeze about my ankles more urgent.

‘Have you always been with us?’ I asked.

‘Always,’ he said. ‘Watched you folk come and go, seen you get born and some pass on. But I miss the sea. Once you’ve been on it, you can never quite let it go. It gets
in
you, in your blood. Even when it sinks your ship, takes your friends, your hope.’ He straightened and patted his tie. ‘Christopher Columbus once said, “You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.” I thought of it often, you know.’ He paused. ‘I couldn’t go back there after the lifeboat. I couldn’t even think of it without great pain. I hated it for taking my friends, our ship, my youth, most of all my little brother. But I know now the sea wasn’t to blame. The sea just …
is
. We can either live on it and try and survive, or away from it and never know her lessons.’ He paused. ‘And I’m ready to go back there now.’

The night at the hospital I had wanted to put a hand over his but feared it might seem forward – now I did. He patted it and he kissed my forehead. He smelt of faint tobacco and wool.

‘I won’t look back,’ he said, ‘but it doesn’t mean I’m not watching, Natalie.’

The breeze picked up again and my skirt fluttered about my knees. He turned and headed for the back door, but I didn’t want to look. His presence faded the way it had when I was small and someone opened the bedroom door.

It was like the last paragraph in a favourite book. I didn’t want to look at the words because I didn’t want to say goodbye. But it surely wasn’t goodbye because I could think of the story whenever I wanted. Creating it for Rose was over. I’d never create it like that again. Never trade blood for words. Never go to the lifeboat. But I would know we had done.

‘Goodbye,’ he said, at the back door. He opened it.

I wouldn’t say it. I couldn’t.

Outside, the winter dark whispered to me. It’s time, it said. The candle is out, smell the promise of new days, of snowdrops coming, of changes, of spring, of beginnings.

Colin stepped outside. The ocean waited, its swirls a sweet roar that I knew he didn’t fear. I ran to the door. Spray dampened my face. Salt hung in the air. He walked up the garden, through the mist. For a moment I thought I saw the lifeboat, on a shimmering horizon in the wispy haze, and men there lifting their hands in a salute. In the rush of water I heard the final roll-call of every man. Their fourteen names floated over the endless ocean and soared into the sky.

I had to say it. He belonged to the ocean now.

I called, ‘Goodbye, Grandad.’ I knew that he heard me over the waves, even though he never turned around.

And then I closed the door and went home too, back to my sea.