Shining Sea (18 page)

“Isn't anyone else hungry?” he says, moving his shoulder out from under Ghislaine's hand.

They gobble down Ghislaine's meal and brush their teeth at the side of the road. “Right,” Rufus says. “We have another early start tomorrow.”

The others withdraw into the bothy. But the sky is still light, he had that nap earlier, and talking about his family—just thinking about them—has awakened something long dormant in him that doesn't want to lie down again. He stays outside, staring at the sea, the rolling waves, the swallowing expanse. Birds fly off into that void, some alone, some in pairs. The odd thing about the sea is, its huge expanse means freedom to some and emptiness to others.

He extracts the book of Greek mythology from his plastic barrel and opens it to the words his brother Luke penned once, years ago, on the back flap.

Good luck to you, father stranger; if anything has been said amiss may the winds blow it away with them, and may heaven grant you a safe return…

Ghislaine appears in the doorway of the bothy. “What are you reading?” She sits down beside him.

He closes the book. “Nothing.”

The sun is finally setting, falling over the line of the Atlantic. There are haddock and mackerel and even whales out there, some heading west toward America.

“I was telling you about my family earlier,” he says.

“Yes.”

“Well, my father died of a heart condition from being a prisoner of war during World War II. And my brother—he was killed in Vietnam.”

“That's terrible. War is terrible.”

“But my friend. He killed himself. After he got back from Vietnam.”

He waits for her to ask why. She doesn't. Instead she takes his hand. The skin on her fingers is hard and calloused but warm.

“He said something to me. Before.” He pauses, remembering that gentle late August night, the full moon rising. Eugene in his stupid blue coveralls with
GENE
written on them when no one had ever called him Gene in his life. “He said:
I knew I was going to get called up. And
you
wouldn't be. I knew I'd be the one to get a low number.”

And he recognized, when Eugene said it, that he also had always known this was how it would happen, just like all the good luck that had come his way but not Eugene's. But he brushed the thought right out of his head. Instead, he said:
That's just stupid, man. You're just talking bullshit
.

Eugene had lost his one special gift. Hope.

He lets go of Ghislaine's hand. “We should get some sleep.”

He unrolls his sleeping bag inside the bothy and slips inside. The late night sun, the currach, the moon rising over the Hebrides.

“
Bonne nuit,”
Ghislaine says softly, sliding into her own bag.

He pulls the flap of his sleeping bag over his head.

Rufus's alarm rings before the moon has gone to sleep and the sun has awakened. It's cold, and in the damp and insinuating air, last night feels like a nasty dream physically stuck to him. His legs itch; the space between them and his crotch, the front of his thighs, his ankles, the back of his neck and hollow of his back. Maybe it's the salt from his brief swim two days earlier or from the sweat of rowing or the combination. He hasn't bathed since leaving Iona. No one has. They take their places in the currach under the moon, pick up their oars, and head into the sound. Once so shiny, Ghislaine's straight hair, in front of him, has self-sectioned into clumps.

“Don't get too close to me,” she says from her bench.

“You're going to keep your arms down when you row?”

“Nice.”

They slip through silky black water. At least it is calm; yesterday's tempestuous sea is as hard to imagine as winter's cold is during the summer. An otter paddles by, the struggling fish in its mouth catching silver in the moonshine. They pass an entire colony of seals lined up along a strip of sand, one slick fat body squeezed next to another. Two pups thump their way down into the water.

“Did you know, Francis,” Rufus says, “that the male Atlantic seal mates with up to ten different females during their mating season?”

“Oh, for Christ's sake.”

“You think you might be a selkie?”

“Shut up, Rufus.”

If Rufus keeps this up, their next stop may be his last. Leaving is one of his best-honed skills, after all. They're supposed to berth in Port Ellen, at the bottom of Islay. There's bound to be a ferry from there to somewhere. Katie can make the final stretch in his place.

The sun begins to rise. They enter the Sound of Islay and let the tidal race take hold of the boat. Suddenly, they are moving so quickly the currach is nearly slipping out from under them. The compulsion is strangely exhilarating, half frightening and half thrilling. They speed by the island of Jura on one side and Islay on the other, passing a handful of larger boats whose captains toot their horns.

The sound throws them out into the sea, and they have to start working again. It's becoming a fine day; once they are out of the tidal race, the sea is royal blue and slack. Any bad feeling he may have had evaporates with their mutual strokes.
Dig and pull, dig and pull
. For the moment, there's only rowing across the water. He unwraps sandwiches with the others, joins Rufus in a string of weirdly chosen songs. They pass Ghislaine's tube of ChapStick around, smearing it over their burned, broken lips. A pod of dolphins follows them for a while, and Rufus points out an eagle soaring over the water in the distance.

“You're dreamin', man,” Katie says. “That's a skua.”

“Come on, Francis,” Rufus says. “You have the eyesight. You tell her.”

“Tell her what? I wouldn't know a skua or an eagle if I saw one.”

“Are its wings straight across and thick like a glider plane or curved?”

“I dunno. Straight, I guess.”

“Ha!” Rufus says.

“He doesn't know his arse from his elbow,” Katie says. “He wouldna know if it were a sheep flyin'.”

“I'd know if it were a sheep. It's not a sheep or a cow. It's not a goat, either.”

Slowly the day has become beautiful. His hands are raw, but his body feels awake in a way it hasn't since longer ago than he can remember.

His mind feels awake also. He feels strangely, inexplicably free. Inexplicably, because here he is, tied, almost literally, to these others.

Dig, pull, dig, pull.

They reach Port Ellen five hours later in a stream of sunshine. The harbor comes into view, low-lying and flat, rimmed with a string of white and gray peaked houses.

As soon as they hit the shallows, Katie jumps out of the boat. “I'm away for a bath.” She grabs her small barrel and sloshes onto the beach. A border collie runs up to greet her.

“Where?” Ghislaine calls, tucking her oars along the floor of the currach, grabbing her own barrel and taking off after Katie.

The rest of them climb out of the currach also. Eamon drags the boat to the edge of the sand and ties it to a low pier. Rufus sorts out the oars, then faces back out over the sea and hoots. “Just one more leg. We're going to make it by Columba's Day.”

“Rufus,” he says.

“Yes.”

“Can I ask you something, man?”

“Fire away.”

“Why is this so important to you? I mean, why
this?
”

Rufus crouches down on his haunches and, removing his rowing gloves, runs his hand over the black coating on the boat's bottom. “Any war affects all of us. We're the common family of man.” His short, strong fingers crawl over the bitumen, inspecting its surface, pushing, poking, prodding.

If it can handle the weather in England, it can handle the sea
. Like an advertising slogan.

“Holy shit,” he says. “The material you got Katie's father to use on the boat—the bitumen. Are you making money off it? Is this, like, one big advertisement we're risking our fucking lives for?”

Rufus continues to explore the state of the bitumen, showing no sign of having heard. “She's doing just fine, she is.”

He kicks the side of the boat. “Do you have shares in the company? Are they paying you something to use it?”

“Francis,” Rufus says, standing, turning now to face him. “What are you going to do with your life to make up for those who have lost theirs? Like your father, your brother, your friend?”

“Fuck,” he says. “Fuck.”

The high of the morning comes crashing down on him. Has Rufus been
lying
to him this whole time? Is he the only one of the others to realize it? Just how much is one person supposed to take? Measure it out, toss the moon, the earth, the sun up in the air and juggle them, throw this person together with that—his whole life has been spent trying to catch balls someone else tossed up when they came tumbling down again. Did he ever say he knew how to catch? Did anyone ever ask him? Why does everyone always expect so much from him?

He shoves Rufus's barrel-like chest with both his palms. Rufus flies backwards onto the sand, narrowly missing the side of the boat.

Eamon's broad arms swiftly wrap around him. “Enough of that, ye.”

He shakes Eamon off. “What are you? His fucking bodyguard?”

Rufus rights himself, gets back onto his feet, brushes the sand from his pants. “Pacifist, eh?” And then, laughing, “Let's go find the girls.”

“Fer feck's sake,” Eamon says before joining Rufus in walking toward the white houses, “get yerself together.”

He feels sluggish, almost drunk with his sudden outburst. As an adult he's thrown a punch a few times—at one girl's boyfriend, at another's brother. The time Georgina got into a fight with a dealer in a club. But never to inflict damage, only to deflect it. And, yet, he's felt the urge to punch Rufus pretty much ever since they met. Why? He likes Rufus. He
admires
Rufus.

The truth is that Rufus is a beautiful person, everything they all tried to be back in the days of Woodstock and the Summer of Love. If Rufus
is
getting money for testing out the bitumen, it's just to fund this project. Rufus hasn't lost hope. Rufus is a true believer. Rufus is everything he isn't.

He leans down and scoops some pebbly sand into his hand. He throws it at the air, feeling like a five-year-old boy again.

The border collie belongs to an ample, good-natured woman named Fiona. Her two sons have left home, freeing up a bedroom for the two girls. He, Rufus, and Eamon will get the floor of the sitting room. They all can have a swift shower. And then they'll eat.

“Ah've nothing in,” Fiona says. “A'll have tae away to the shap.”

“Do you understand anything she's saying?” he whispers to Ghislaine. She stifles a laugh and inclines her head once: no.

Rufus gives them a look. “We'll bring some things from the shop for dinner, ma'am. We have to set out anyhow to talk to people before evening comes, share with them what we're doing.”

“Aye,” Fiona says. “But furst you best all wash. You smell like the bottom of a fishing boatie. With the fish still innit.”

This he understands.

To everything Fiona says, Rufus nods, adding a word here or there. The bastard probably even studied up on Scots these past six months, preparing for the journey. Rufus really is about the most amazing guy he's ever met. And it rubs off—he's felt better these last days than he has in years. Ever, maybe. It's almost as though he's courageous, too. At the very least, he's useful.

“Listen, man. I'm sorry about back there on the beach,” he whispers, after the girls and Eamon have withdrawn to get cleaned up.

“Ah've never met an American afore,” Fiona says, putting the kettle on.

“Don't look at him for an example, ma'am,” Rufus says. “They kicked him out.”

“Did they? Whit fer?”

“Threat to the ladies,” Rufus says and claps him on the back.

It's good between them.

Rufus picks up a well-worn copy of
The Daughter of Time
by Josephine Tey from the kitchen table and begins to thumb through it, wrinkling his brow in concentration.

He leans back in his chair and stretches his legs. “Rufus,” he says, “why didn't you go to Oxford? You look like an Oxford man to me.”

Rufus puts the book down. “My father thought so, too. But none of the colleges at Oxford agreed.”

“Oh, shit.” He looks at Fiona. “Excuse me.”

“I'm glad I went to Imperial,” Rufus says. “First of all, it's a great uni. Secondly, I'd never have met Ghislaine if I hadn't.”

“Oh, right. I'm sorry about that, too, man.” Really, there's nothing going on between him and Ghislaine. But she is a tonic. It's hard to ignore.

“Sorry about what?”

“Here you go.” Fiona sets the teapot on the table and herself on a chair. “Ghislaine—that's a different name. Welsh, is it?”

“I don't think so,” Rufus says, laughing. “Ghislaine is from France. But this journey would never have happened without her. We met at a dinner for the rowing club at Imperial. She was telling a group of us about a French windsurfer, Arnaud de Rosnay. Do you know what I'm talking about?” He and Fiona shake their heads. Rufus adds, “Sort of a cross between sailing and surfing—one person on a board with a sail.”

“I've heard of windsurfing,” he says. “I meant the guy.”

“De Rosnay? A Frenchman. Ghislaine's family is friendly with his family. She's been sailing with him. He took this mad ride alone over a great stretch of sea—he has the idea of windsurfing between hostile countries as a symbolic bridge between them. Sport, the arts—ways to find connections between people. I hear he's planning to take on China and Korea next autumn. Ghislaine was explaining this, and I thought: Why not rowing?”