Anne Korkeakivi - Shining Sea

“You just play your guitar,” Ghislaine says. “I have le menu taken care of.”

The evening sun throws brilliant ribbons of orange and yellow across the horizon. They’re all too spent from rowing to argue, anyhow. He unwraps his guitar from its folds of plastic and settles down by Ghislaine’s side, not playing anything in particular, just strumming. Although he wouldn’t want to admit it, his hands are too sore to pick the strings. Katie and Eamon search the beach for driftwood, and Rufus collects rocks from the road to make a fire ring. There’s a fireplace inside the bothy, but Rufus points out they’ve no way to know the state of the chimney. They don’t want to get smoked out.

From the supplies barrel, Ghislaine takes out a pan, flatbread, cheese, a package of smoked fish, an onion, a square of foil containing dried oregano, and several tins of baked beans. “There,” she says, tapping the top of a tin. “Proof I am half English.”

“Au contraire, ma belle,” he says. He learned a few crucial words during his stays in France. “No Brit would have thought to bring the herbs or the onion.”

Rufus looks up from his fire-ring construction. “I brought the herbs and onions.”

Katie reappears with an armful of branches. She dumps them onto the ground next to Rufus. Little twigs stick in her jacket and hair. Eamon follows close behind and, adding his branches to her pile, starts snapping them in half, carefully laying them in an intricate pattern within the stone circle.

He plucks alternating G and C chords, willing his sore fingers to work:

Across the rolling sea,

Pulling as one,

Across the rolling sea

Day not yet done…

“What’s that?” Ghislaine says.

“Just something I was thinking.”

“You write your own songs?”

He shrugs.

Katie sits down on her life preserver on the opposite side of the circle of rocks from him and Ghislaine. She studies Ghislaine.

“How do you get yer hair so straight?” she says.

Ghislaine starts opening a tin. “How do you get yours so beautifully curly?”

“It isnae beautiful,” Katie says. “It’s awful.”

“Perms are very popular. Lots of girls are getting them in London. They’ll pay fifty quid to get hair like yours.”

“An’ then yer arse fell aff.” Katie tears the band out of her hair, scrabbles the whole mess up in a hand, and reties it, generally making things worse, not better. “Maybe I should come down to London.”

Everyone, even Eamon, laughs.

“Do you like London?” he asks Eamon.

Eamon shrugs.

“Do you live there?”

“Nay,” Eamon says. “Kent.”

“Eamon works on my parents’ estate,” Rufus says. “He’s on the garden staff.”

“But your family’s back in Northern Ireland?” he asks.

“Aye.” Eamon shrugs and stands up. “Gotta take a slash.”

“Eamon’s father is UVF,” Rufus says once Eamon has lumbered down the road, looking for a shielded spot to pee. “In the Maze, doing a seven-year sentence.”

“UVF?”

Ghislaine and Katie look at each other.

“Ulster Volunteer Force. It’s a loyalist paramilitary group in the north.” Rufus strikes a match and holds it against the driftwood. “Eamon’s father blew up a car driven by a Catholic bringing her kid to visit her granny.”

“Holy shit.” He stares down the road. “Why’s he here, then?”

“Because his father blew up a car with a Catholic and her kid in it.”

The flames grow steadily. Rufus’s red cheeks shine even brighter in its light. Katie’s hair glints even more copper. A piece of driftwood explodes, and he pulls his guitar back. “I thought Eamon was your second Catholic,” he says. “Ghislaine’s not Catholic. Katie’s too young to be an official crew member. Anyhow, she’s representing Iona, not a denomination. Who’s the other so-called Catholic on the boat?”

“I am,” Rufus says.

“How can you be Catholic?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Never mind.”

“There are some of us, Francis. Cromwell didn’t get us all.”

“I didn’t mean that. Just that…you know, nothing.”

“Right. Nothing.”

Ghislaine settles next to him. “Where is your family, Francis?”

It’s not as though he’s some sort of idiot. Anyone would agree it’s confusing: Ghislaine is French but Protestant; Rufus is a British posh but Catholic. Eamon is Irish but Protestant. At least Katie is what one would expect. She’s sitting on the other side of the fire, chewing off a fingernail, scowling at him. She took offense at his calling her too young to be official, undoubtedly.

“The States,” he tells Ghislaine.

“Do you see them often?”

Six years ago, a girl he was crashing with in Paris suggested they busk in front of the Louvre. C’est parfait. All the world goes there .

She was right. Even his oldest brother.

Mike was on his honeymoon. I didn’t know we had family in Europe, his bride said with a heavy Texas accent, looking confused, glancing at his open guitar case with its smattering of francs and the raccoon-eyed girl beside him.

I didn’t know, either, Mike said. What the hell, Francis? Mom has been going nuts.

Language, honey, Mike’s bride said.

Her name was Holly, and she was an army brat, met while Mike was finishing his medical training in Texas after his last tour in Southeast Asia. My daddy was part of the liberation of Paris in 1944, Holly said, babbling, while he and Mike sized each other up. Who knew what she’d been told about him. I grew up looking at the pictures — the big stone arch, all the men spilling over that big avenue. My dad was one of them, told me Paris was so beautiful even after being through the war that someday I needed to go see for myself. I’ll go for my honeymoon, I always said. So here we are!

Mike folded his arms over his chest. Mom and I thought Canada — with the draft dodgers. Patty Ann said Thailand. Only Sissy thought Europe .

I didn’t dodge the draft. Remember? I didn’t get called up.

Exactly. Don’t you think Mom has lost enough family already? Couldn’t you have at least let her know where you were? That you’re alive?

You’re right, he said, hoping this would be enough, knowing it wouldn’t. Yeah, I should have let her know.

All she’s got left are me and Sissy.

This frightened him. What about Patty Ann? What about Ronnie?

Okay, and Ronnie. God knows what Mom would do without Ronnie. But Patty Ann — forget it. At least she got rid of that bastard. Mike squints and places his hands on either hip. Did you even know she’s divorced again? And had a fourth kid? Hang on. Did you even know she remarried? God damn, Francis. Your own sister.

It was like being buried alive in sand. All this… life, suddenly dumped on top of him.

Look, let me go put my guitar away and get cleaned up. We’ll talk over dinner.

Mike unfolded his arms and grabbed his wrist. No fucking way. I’m not letting you out of my sight.

He couldn’t remember having ever heard Mike curse before. Luke, yes. Patty Ann, always. This was a new, tougher Mike, one whose staid determination had morphed into something steel-like and enduring. Or maybe it was a reflection of just how angry Mike was. His bride’s hands fluttered nervously at her blond ponytail, touched the little gold cross on a chain around her neck, like this was an unknown Mike to her also.

Dinner — oh, we’ve eaten some strange things since we got here. But the pastries! Holly said to no one in particular.