Rupert Thomson: Air and Fire

‘It’s more likely,’ she said, ‘yes.’

Though it occurred to her, as she smiled up at him, as he took her hand in his and touched it to his lips, that they were already in a place where the imagination, to use his phrase, had taken hold. That she was even there at all, sitting in the cabin of a ship that was bound for Mexico, was the purest act of the imagination. Hers, not his; he would never have been able to imagine it, had she not compelled him to.

The cabin-boy jumped. When she turned to look at him, he was standing with his head tipped at an angle, his toes gripping the deck.

‘I thought I heard something,’ he said.

Not for the first time during the voyage, Suzanne realised her debt to the boy. The SS Korrigan was a tramp steamer. It was in the business of carrying cargo, and its crew was unused to passengers — unused, especially, to women. Monsieur Groque, the Captain, would address her during meals or on the bridge, but he had to labour to produce even a few civilities, and it was no surprise to her that he reverted to the most foul language the moment her back was turned. As a woman she was, at best, a source of discomfort and inhibition. At worst, she was invisible — no, worse than invisible: a jinx, an evil omen, a pariah. Only the cabin-boy would speak to her with any measure of normality, though he had sworn her to secrecy, fearing what the crew might do to him if they found out. She had kept her promise, and nobody knew of their assignations, not even Théo; still, the boy’s head swivelled at every creak.

At last he satisfied himself that nobody was calling him. He seemed to uncoil, his muscles loosening against his bones. He was like a dead thing coming back to life.

‘When do we arrive?’ she asked. ‘Tomorrow, isn’t it?’

He nodded. ‘Midday.’

‘So we can see each other one more time,’ she said, ‘and by then one of us will know. About the water, I mean.’

He moved to the rail beside her, and his head dipped on his neck. ‘What will you do there,’ he asked, ‘in Santa Sofia?’

‘My husband’s building a church.’

‘Is he a priest?’

She laughed. ‘No, he’s an engineer.’

The cabin-boy ran his hand along the rail, following a sudden twist in the metal. It had buckled during their passage round Cape Horn. That same night a wave had snatched one of the lifeboats from its cradle. They had not seen the lifeboat again.

‘He builds things,’ she added. ‘Out of metal.’

‘Metal? Why metal?’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps because it lasts.’

‘Suzanne?’

The voice had come from below.

‘It’s him,’ she whispered. ‘My husband.’

But the cabin-boy was already slipping through the narrow gap between the ventilators.

She crossed to the stair-head and peered down. Théo stood at the foot of the steps in a dressing-gown and leather slippers, his black hair still disarranged by sleep.

‘In heaven’s name, Suzanne. What are you doing up there?’

It was at moments like this that she could feel the fifteen years that lay between them. She did not see the difference in age as an obstacle, however; she saw it only as a place where irony could happen, a gap that tenderness could close. She knew that she had disconcerted him — ladies of her station ought not to climb ladders — but she decided to make light of it.

‘Have you noticed the water, Théo?’

He had not.

‘Take a look,’ she said.

But Théo did not move towards the rail. He remained at the foot of the stairs; he seemed suddenly to be plunged in thought. ‘I think I’ll write a letter,’ he said.

‘A letter? Who to?’

‘Monsieur Eiffel.’ He looked up at her again and she saw that he was smiling. ‘I shall inform him that my wife has turned into a monkey.’

Laughing, she began her precarious descent.

She slept late on the morning of their arrival. By the time she woke, Théo had already dressed. He was wearing his black frock-coat and a pair of elegant pale-grey trousers, and he carried a malacca cane with a carved silver head. They would be landing in three hours, he reminded her.

They took breakfast on the bridge, accompanied by the Captain, the Quartermaster and the Chief Engineer. The usual food was served: dry biscuits, fried eggs sliding on a bed of grease, coffee with no milk. Though it was the last meal of a long and perilous voyage, there was no sense of occasion. If they had been putting into Hong Kong or Shanghai, perhaps it would have been different — but Santa Sofía? Perhaps, after all, there was nothing to celebrate. They ate in silence; the ship steamed northwards, its metal plates vibrating gently.

The Captain hunched over the table, as if his breakfast were a mirror and he were studying his reflection. Suzanne watched him fork a dripping yolk into his mouth, the web of muscle pulsing in the thin flesh of his temple. She had to speak, if only to distract herself from her disgust.

‘I wondered if you’d be good enough, Captain,’ she said, ‘to explain what has happened to the sea.’

The Captain stopped chewing. His eyes lifted, pale, faintly mocking, empty of intelligence. ‘I beg your pardon, Madame.’

‘The sea’s red,’ she said. ‘I wondered why.’

‘Scared you, did it?’

Suzanne looked away. There was so much that she did not know, and the Captain seemed to take pleasure in seeing her ignorance confirmed — not only confirmed, in fact, but reinforced. During the past three months she had often asked him if she might be shown the stokehold or the engine-room. He would grunt, invent excuses, prevaricate. The ship was a mystery to her, and he had set himself up as guardian of that mystery. It was entirely typical of his behaviour that, though it was she who had enquired about the sea, it was to Théo that he directed his reply.

It transpired that the change in colour was caused by a myriad of tiny organisms floating just below the surface. As a natural phenomenon, it was customary for the time of year, though it led, he said, to ‘a great many tall tales’. There was once a tribe of Indians, for instance, who believed that it was a sign from the gods, instructing them to make a human sacrifice.

‘They thought the sea had turned to blood.’ The Captain grinned. ‘Savages,’ he said, and, picking up his fork, he pierced the skin on his second egg.

Théo pursued the subject with the Captain, for he too was eager to acquire some knowledge of the region, but Suzanne found, in any case, that she could no longer listen. The inside of her head was slowly turning, as if she had been fastened to a wheel. Heat rose off her in a blast. She had to concentrate on the table, the stains and burns, the ridges in the grain of the wood.

She had been married to Théo for more than five years and they still did not have any children. She had miscarried twice. Théo did not know. The first time it happened, she had not even realised that she was pregnant. She had been walking down the stairs when she felt something break inside her, run down her legs. She stood in the hallway and lifted her skirts. The blood had filled her shoes.

She wrapped all her clothes in old copies of the newspaper and left the house. It was evening. The sky had filled with stunned light; the streets lay dark and still beneath. She set off towards Les Halles and did not stop until she found a brazier that contained a few glowing embers. It was a place where five roads met, but she saw no one. She dropped her bundle into the flames. Watched the paper catch, the clothes begin to blacken. Every now and then she stirred the fire with a stick from the gutter. She stayed until she was certain that nothing remained. It took a long time. Her shoes were glazed kid; they would not seem to burn. At last she returned to the house and took to her bed, saying that she was ill.