Peter Beagle - The Line Between

love of a common Jack Tar, that being what he still were in their sight, didn't matter how many Bank of England notes he could wave at them. «She's a lady," I says, «for all she's a Portygee, and you're no more a gentleman than that monkey in your mango tree. Money don't make such as us into gentlemen, Henry Lee. All it does, it makes us rich monkeys. You know that, same as me.»

«I'm plain daft over her, Ben," says he, like I'd never spoke at all. «Can't eat, can't sleep, can't do a thing but dream about having her near me all the time. Nothing for it but the altar.»

«Speaking of altars," says I, «you'll have to turn Papist, and there's not one of her

lot'll ever believe you mean it, no more than I would. And never mind her

family — what about her friends, what about that whole world she's been part of since

the day she were born? You reckon to sweep her up and away from all that, or try to

ease yourself into it and hope they won't twig what you are? Which is it to be, then,

hey?»

«I don't know, Ben," says Henry Lee, real quiet. «I don't know anything anymore.» He said me name, but he weren't talking to me — maybe to that monkey, maybe to the waves out beyond the seawall. «The one thing I've got a good hold on, when I'm with her, it's like coming home. First time I saw her, it came over me, I've been gone a long time, and now I'm home.»

Well, you can't talk sense to nobody in a state like that, so I wished them luck and left them to it. Aye, and I even danced at the wedding, sweating like a hog in a new silk suit, Chinee silk, and kicking the bride's shins with every turn. Danced with the mother–in–law too, with her crying on me shoulder the while, how she'd lost her poor angel forever to this soulless brute of an English merchant, which no matter he'd converted, he weren't no real Catholic, nor never would be. I tried to get her shins, that one, but she were quick, I'll say that for her.

So there's Henry Lee and his pretty new missus, and him so happy staying home with her, hosting grand gatherings just for folk to look at her, he weren't no use for nowt else, save telling me how happy he were. Oh, he still brewed up the salt wine himself — wouldn't trust me nor no other with the makings — but for the rest of it, I were near enough running the business without him. Took in the orders, paid the accounts, kept the books, supervised the packing and the shipping, every case, every bloody bottle. Even bought us a second ship — found her and bar–gained for her, paid cash down, all on me own hook. Long way from the Isle of Pines, hey?

Like I say, I didn't make all the voyages. Weren't any degree necessary for me to make none on 'em, tell the truth — and besides I were getting on, and coming to like the land more than I ever thought I would. But I never could shake me taste for the Buenos Aires run. I knew some women there, and a few men too … aye, that's a fine town, Buenos. A man could settle in that town, and I were thinking about it then.

So we're three days from landfall, and I'm on deck near sunset, taking the air and

keeping a lookout for albatrosses. No finer bird than an albatross, you can keep your eagles. A quiet, quiet evening — wide red sky streaked with a bit of green, fine weather tomorrow. You can hear the gulls' wings, and fish jumping now and then, and the creaking of the strakes, and sometimes even the barrels of salt wine shifting down in the hold. Then I hear footsteps behind me, and I turn and see the bos'un's mate coming up on deck. Can't think of his name right now — a short, wide man, looked like a wine barrel himself, but tough as old boots. Monkey Sucker, that's it, that's what they called him. Because he liked to drink his rum out of a cocoanut, you see. Never see no one doing that, these days.

He weren't looking too hearty, old Monkey Sucker. Red eyes and walking funny, for a start, like his legs didn't belong to him, but I put that down to him nipping at the bung down below. Now I already told you, I never again laid lip to that salt wine from that first day to this, but folk that liked it, why, they'd be waiting on the docks when we landed, ready to unload the cargo themselves right on the spot. And half the crew was the same way, run yourself blind barmy trying to keep them out of the casks. Well, we done the practical, Henry Lee and me: we rigged the hold to keep all but the one barrel under lock and key. That one we left out and easy tapped, and it'd usually last us there and back, wherever we was bound. But this Monkey Sucker … no, he weren't just drunk, I saw that on second glance. Not drunk. I wish it had been that, for he weren't a bad sort.

«Mr. Hazeltine," he says to me. «Well, Mr. Hazeltine.» Kept on saying me name like we'd just met, and he were trying to get a right fix on it. His voice didn't sound proper, neither, but it kept cracking and bleating — like a boy's voice when it's changing, you know. And there were summat bad wrong with his nose and his mouth.

«Monk," I says back, «you best get your arse below decks before the captain claps eyes on you. You look worse than a poxy bumboy on Sunday morning.» The light's going fast now, but I can make out that his face is all bad swole up and somehow twisty–like, and there's three lines like welts on both sides of his neck. He's got his arms wrapped around himself, holding himself tight, the way you'd think he were about to birth four thousand babies at one go, like some fish do it. And he keeps mumbling me name, over and over, but he's not looking at me, not once, he's looking at the rail on the starboard side. Aye, I should have twigged to that straightaway, I know. I didn't, that's all.

Suddenly he says, «Water.» Clear as clear, no mistake about it. «Water," and he points over the side. Excited, bobbing on his toes, like a nipper at Brighton. Third time, " Water," and at least I were the first to bawl, «Man overboard!» there's that. In the midst of all the noise and garboil, with everyone tumbling on deck to heave to, and the captain yelling at everyone to lower a boat, with the bos'un crazy trying to lower two, 'acos he and Monkey Sucker was old mates … in the midst of it all, I saw Monkey Sucker in the sea. I saw him, understand? He weren't splashing around, waving and screaming for help, and he weren't treading water neither. No, he's trying

to swim, calm as can be — only he's trying to swim like a fish, laying himself flat in the water and wriggling his legs together, same as if he had a tail, understand? Only he didn't have no tail, and he sank like that, straight down, straight down. They kept that boat out all night, but they never did find him.

We reported the death to the customs people in Buenos Aires, and I sent word to Henry Lee back in Goa.The captain and the mates kept asking the crew about why Monkey Sucker had done it, scragged himself that way — were it the drink got him? Were it over some dockside bint? Did he owe triple interest on some loan to Silas Barker or Icepick Neddie Frey? Couldn't get no answer, not one, that made no sense to them, nor to me neither.

Heading home, every barrel gone, hold full of Argentine wheat for ballast, now it's me turn to chat up the crew, on night watch or in the mess. I go at it like a good 'un, but there's not a soul can tell me anything I don't know. I were first ashore before dawn at Velha Goa — funny to think of that fine Mandovi River all silted up today, whole place left to the snakes and the kites — and if I didn't run all the way to Henry Lee's house, may I never piss again. Man at the door to let me in, another man to take me hat and offer me a glass. I didn't take it.

I bellow for Henry Lee, and here he comes, rushing downstairs in his shirtsleeves, one shoe off and one on. «Ben, what is it? What's happened? Is it the ship?» Because he never could get used to having two ships of his own — always expected one or t'other to sink or burn, or be taken by the Barbary pirates. I didn't say nowt, just grabbed him by the arm and hauled him off into the room he calls the library. Shut the door, turn around, look into his frighted blue eyes. «It ain't the ship, Henry Lee," I tell him. «It's the hands.»