The Restless Sea. Vanessa Haan de

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      ‘Ent nothin’ to it. Listen.’ The man leans closer. ‘I was like you once, except I had no ma or pa, not a penny to my name. I slept in ditches and drains until I was eight, and then I found myself a berth. Now I’ve sailed to every country you can think of and plenty you can’t. I’ve seen wonders you’d never imagine: beasts of the ocean, castles in the sky, men that breathe fire, women what change shape. I’m free to work when and where I want. Hell, I’ve even got me own stash of gold.’

      And he laughs and his great jaw opens, and Jack can indeed see the yellow metal glittering in the back of his dark mouth.

      Jack shakes his head. ‘There’s my mum, my sister …’

      The man is suddenly serious again, urgent. He thrusts his face right up against Jack’s, and Jack can smell the tobacco on his breath. ‘I can see you’re a brave lad,’ he says, ‘but it takes a proper kind of bravery to turn your life around.’

      Then he puts his head back and laughs again, moving away as he does.

      Jack catches sight of something in the sailor’s hand, winking and blinking in the sunlight. ‘Oy!’ he says, snatching at the bracelet. ‘That’s mine.’

      The sailor holds the jewel out of reach. ‘No wonder you was running,’ he says. ‘It’s a fine piece …’

      Jack blushes, ashamed, but the anger is a stronger emotion, and he lunges again, grabbing the bracelet from the man’s hand and backing away.

      The man grunts, as if satisfying some inner itch. ‘Perhaps it’s too late already,’ he says. ‘You’s in too deep.’

      Jack doesn’t want to listen any more. He has inched far enough, and now he turns and stumbles away from the latrines, slipping back among the dock workers, those men with the same worn and weary expressions as his father. He keeps his head down, cap pulled low, occasionally throwing a glance back over his shoulder, but the gold-toothed sailor has vanished into the maelstrom of the docks.

      A little further on, he finally reaches his destination. Carl nods a curt hello. He is shorter and stockier than Jack, and he keeps his hair shaved close, which makes his neck look thicker and his shoulders broader. ‘What’re you doing here?’ he says.

      ‘Thought I’d come and check we were all right for tomorrow.’

      ‘’Course,’ says Carl. He peers at Jack more closely. ‘But what’re you really doing here?’

      Jack shrugs and tries to look nonchalant. ‘Fancy going to the pictures?’

      But Carl knows him better than that. ‘Whatever you’ve done,’ he says, ‘you better have left it at the gates. My dad’s not going to let us work together if—’

      Jack cuts him off. ‘It was nothing,’ he says. ‘Just Stoog kicking off …’

      ‘I thought you were putting all that behind you?’

      Jack cannot meet his eye. ‘I am. I have …’

      ‘A new start, you said …’

      ‘Just drop it, will you?’

      Carl doesn’t push it. He and Jack have been best friends for as long as they can remember – brought together on the docks, and in the same class since they were sent to primary. The boys watch Mr Mills work for a while. He is a deal porter: unloading and stacking the long planks that arrive on the steamers from overseas and the narrowboats from upcountry. It’s a skill that’s up there with the best on the docks, and means regular employment, a far cry from the casual labour that Jack’s dad had to rely on. But it’s still hard work. Jack can barely lift one plank; Mr Mills carries three or four at a time. He wears a leather cap with a long bit dangling down to protect his shoulders. It is like watching an acrobat, the balancing and judging where best to lay the next plank on the towering pile, the skipping from mound to mound, and all the time the planks on his shoulder tipping up and down while his legs and feet work to keep his body stable.

      When he spots Jack, Mr Mills jumps down from the top of the mountain as sure-footed as a goat, his muscles bulging and flexing with effort. He is breathing heavily, his broad chest expanding and contracting against his braces. His calloused hands are full of splinters. ‘Jack,’ he says, his low voice betraying his dislike. The scar on his cheek is a pale, raised streak down his red face; Carl’s family have Jewish blood, and the mark is a souvenir from the fight against the fascists in Cable Street.

      ‘Mr Mills,’ says Jack, nodding back.

      ‘I thought you two was going to work tomorrow?’

      ‘We are. But since he’s here now, can we go to the pictures?’ says Carl.

      Mr Mills rubs his scar and eyes Jack. ‘You’ll have to be up early …’

      ‘We know …’

      ‘I want you back by dark.’

      ‘Sure.’

      ‘Or I’ll have your mother on my case …’

      ‘I’ll be back.’

      Mr Mills gives Jack another narrow look and then rubs Carl’s head, and Carl pushes him away, laughing, then the boys disappear once more into their city.

      Jack settles the cap firmly on his head, pulling it down tight. He creeps out without waking his sister. It is easier now that she sleeps in their mother’s bed. He will pick her up later in the morning, once his mother has been at work for an hour or so. The guilt that plucks at his insides is tinged with worry: Betsy still can’t read properly, and now that the school has relocated to the countryside it looks as if she never will. He knows she will be cross when she wakes – she likes to stick as close to him as his own shadow these days – but the docks are no place for a child.

      Dawn is breaking. The sky is leaden, pressing down on him with a suffocating heaviness. It is cold, and he half jogs down the high street to try to keep warm. Past the air-raid siren. Past the navy blue police box, and the sandbagged shop fronts – the fishmonger, the greengrocer, the hosiery shop, the tobacconist, the pawnbroker. The stillness is broken by an ancient fire engine and a taxi pulling a water pump that trundle past in the opposite direction. Probably a drill. Everything’s a drill these days. Sometimes he wishes the Nazis would come and drop a bloody bomb. That at least might be exciting.

      Jack has been good as his word, working the docks with Carl for the last two weeks, avoiding Stoog and the others. Today the boys are heading to the East and West India docks, Jack’s favourites, where the air smells of spices and oils, of spilt rum and sacks full of tobacco left to mature in the warehouses. Much of the work is still beyond even Carl’s ability – rolling or repairing the heavy barrels, or portering coal and grain – and they stay out of the way of the seasoned gangs with their vicious case hooks, but there is still plenty of work to be found. The boys take what they can get: an hour here or there loading and unloading the smaller carts and trolleys, separating cargo on the floors of the warehouses, jemmying open chests for the customs officials.

      They cross from dock to dock, hitching a lift in a cart or a truck or a barge, or they take the train from the Royal Docks, with its vast refrigeration sheds packed with ghostly pale slabs of meat. There is cheese arriving from Europe, and fabric from India, apples and grapefruit from Australia, Palestine. Persian carpets, and СКАЧАТЬ