Rupert Thomson - Divided Kingdom

‘No,’ I said again, more firmly. ‘I had no choice.’

‘Well, anyway,’ Fernandez said, ‘it’s too late now.’

When I got out of the car, I saw that we were parked in the corner of a large warehouse. I paced up and down to try and work some feeling back into my legs. After a while, a man in blue overalls came over, wiping his grease-stained hands on a rag. ‘That’s the one, Mr Fernandez,’ he said, pointing to a pale-orange container. Then he slid his eyes across to me. ‘They lift that container, you’d better be holding on to something. They’re not exactly gentle.’ He flicked his lank, thinning hair back from his forehead. ‘Maybe try and wedge yourself among the statues.’

‘What statues?’ I said.

The man just sniggered. I watched as Fernandez went round to the back of his car and opened the boot, then I looked at the container again, its exterior scarred and battered. ‘Are you going to lock me in?’ I asked.

‘The door’s got a bolt on it,’ the man said, ‘so it can be opened from inside as well as out. I’d stay inside if I was you. Stuff shifts about. You start walking around the hold, you could get crushed. Also, the guys that run the boat don’t know you’re there. They’re not going to like the idea of a stowaway.’

So I was a stowaway now. I was becoming more illegal by the minute.

‘How long’s the voyage?’ I asked.

‘Eighteen hours. Maybe more. Old tramp steamers, it’s hard to say.’

Fernandez returned with two blankets and a plastic carrier bag. ‘Some food for the journey,’ he said. ‘And you’ll need the blankets. It’ll probably get cold in there.’

The man in the overalls stood some distance from us and began to gnaw at his fingers. Every so often he would lift them away from his mouth, nails curling in towards the palm, as if to admire his handiwork.

I looked at Fernandez. ‘I don’t know how to thank you for all this.’

‘I’ll be glad to get rid of you,’ he said. ‘You people who don’t know what you’re doing, you’re dangerous. You destabilise things.’

‘I thought that’s what you wanted.’

‘You people.’ Fernandez shook his head. ‘You always have to have the last word, don’t you?’

There were smells first of all — salt water, rust and then, surprisingly, fried food. I waited for the darkness to ease a little, to reveal something of the interior, but nothing changed. I heard Fernandez drive away — at least, I assumed it was him. My ears still rang with the dull clang of the door slamming. Minutes went by. The darkness was no less dense. I didn’t panic, though. Instead, a certain unanticipated relief came over me. It’s strange how our reactions can startle us. But perhaps relief made sense. I had been living a life sustained almost entirely by adrenalin, and obviously there was a part of me that viewed the next eighteen hours as a respite, a kind of breathing space. Also, I was bound for the Blue Quarter — and far sooner than I could ever have hoped or imagined. I still couldn’t quite believe what Fernandez had done for me.

The man in the overalls had shut the door on me so quickly that I had had no chance to inspect my surroundings. To allay any fears or uncertainties that might beset me later on, I decided to do some exploring. I took one step at a time, fumbling at the air with hands I couldn’t see. Having located the wall of the container to my left, I began to follow it, but I hadn’t gone far when I came up against an obstacle. Taller than I was, wider too, this would be one of the statues the man in the overalls had mentioned, but since it had been wrapped in protective sheeting I wasn’t able to guess who it was. To its right stood another statue, equally well protected and equally anonymous. I stepped to the right once more and found a statue whose arms stretched out in what I took to be a gesture of supplication. A saint, presumably. Which one, though, I couldn’t possibly have said. To the right of this third statue there was only air, and I walked forwards again. In nine steps I had reached the far wall of the container. I turned to my right. As I groped my way towards the next corner, my foot caught on something and, bending down, I found a coil of slightly oily rope and several small cylinders or tubes, all roughly the same length. When I realised what they were, I laughed softly to myself. I’d had a lighter on me the whole time — the one that belonged to Annette. Feeling stupid, I brought it out of my coat pocket, then flipped the lid open and thumbed the flint. The flame only lit the area immediately around me, but I could see the rope now and the cigarette butts. There were some white cartons on the floor as well. A couple of dockers must have eaten a takeaway in here, then had a smoke. Holding the lighter at head-height, I saw how the rope had been used to lash the statues together. Solid and yet ghostly, oddly menacing, the wrapped shapes occupied at least two-thirds of the container, which left me a narrow right-angled space, a sort of corridor, in which to move about..

After a while I heard a man shouting instructions close by, his voice accompanied by a high-pitched electric whine, then a loud grinding sound came from below me and the entire container shifted to the left. I pocketed the lighter and sat down, wedging my back against the wall and bracing my heels against one of the ridges in the floor. The container instantly lifted off the ground. I assumed it was being transported from the warehouse to the quay. We stopped again, and I heard more shouting. There were various knocks and bangs on the roof, then the container was hoisted into the air where it swung from side to side, tilting a little. I gripped the legs of the statue nearest to me and kept my feet braced against the metal ridge.

Though I did my best to prepare myself for the container’s arrival in the hold, the sudden impact jarred my spine. I was aware too of the disparate pieces of bone that made up my skull; somehow I could feel all the joins. And the loading hadn’t finished yet. Shortly afterwards, another container was lowered on to the roof above me with a brutal resounding clang. Now I knew that the containers were being stacked on top of each other, and that mine could well be on the bottom, I felt a flicker of claustrophobia. Once the ship was moving, it might be wise, I thought, to unbolt the door, if only to have an idea of how the cargo had been arranged.

In the meantime my thoughts turned to John Fernandez. Despite his contempt for me, which he had done nothing to conceal, and despite his habitual gruffness, I realised I was missing him. He was the person I felt closest to in all the world. I had tried to explain myself to him, and even though he hadn’t really understood, let alone approved, he still knew more about me than anybody else I could think of. It was pathetic, perhaps — he would surely have thought so — but true nonetheless.

A loud rumbling began, and the wall behind me started to vibrate. The ship’s engines. Soon we would be heading out to sea. I sat on the floor with one blanket folded under me, the other draped over my shoulders. Night wouldn’t have fallen yet, but it was already cold. I opened the bag Fernandez had given me. Inside, I found a slice of pizza. I took a bite. Chorizo or pepperoni. I ate half of it and saved the rest. There was a banana too, a packet of biscuits and a Thermos flask. I unscrewed the flask and brought it to my nose. He had made me coffee. I poured myself a cup, then drank it straight down. I didn’t care if Fernandez despised me. My gratitude still stood. He had chosen not to turn me away, though it would have been well within his rights to do so. Instead, he had offered me food and shelter, and we had talked without evasion, without pretence. It was hard to believe that I would never see him again. I only hoped I hadn’t compromised him in any way, him and his family.