Sole Survivor. Derek Hansen

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СКАЧАТЬ Red gathered up Jack’s wayward paper clips and returned them to their home in a little plastic bowl.

      “What if I sent a boat for you?”

      “No. I have a boat.”

      “Don’t like cities?”

      “No.” Red closed his eyes. “I don’t like cities.”

      To say Red didn’t like cities was colossal understatement. He couldn’t stand the cars, the noise, the crowds, the milling and disorderliness. He’d had to leave Auckland when he’d become too frightened to go outside his own front door.

      “Do you want me to come to you?” The officer worked hard to keep the exasperation out of his voice and only partially succeeded.

      “You coming alone?”

      “Alone, but with a crew. If you want, they can stay aboard the patrol boat while I come ashore.”

      “Okay.” Red was beginning to feel more confident. “I took their lines.”

      “I guess that’s something. I’m sorry for shouting. Don’t feel too bad about this morning. You weren’t to know. But look, if we can get something worked out together, we could really nail the bastards next time. You’re in the ideal position to help us. Have you got a number I can ring you on?”

      “No. Call Col at Port Fitzroy and leave a message. He’ll know what to do. Good-bye, Lieutenant Commander.”

      Red hung up too quickly, before the officer had a chance to respond. He stood silently in the gloom of the shed while he gradually calmed down. He’d fulfilled his obligation. His duty was done. If the lieutenant commander needed to find him he knew where to look. More than anything Red just wanted the whole thing to blow over. Like the hermit he was, he just wanted to crawl back into his shell.

      Red motored home as fast as he could and copped a soaking in the process. He grabbed a spray jacket from the storage locker and huddled in close to the console and splash guard. Archie had crawled up under the bow deck, safe from the flying spray and wind. The wind was the problem, working on his wet skin and chilling him to the bone. He knew he had no need to run so fast, knew he was also wasting diesel, but he had things on his mind. Unwelcome things. When he wasn’t worrying about Bernie, either the woman or the lieutenant commander would sneak into his thoughts, and he couldn’t find sufficient distraction. There was no place for either of them at Wreck Bay. He turned the corner around Needles Point and felt the wind and sea swing behind him. The temperature jumped ten degrees immediately, and his entourage of seagulls, blown from their station astern, wheeled indignantly as they tried to regain formation. They knew about the fish. Red had kept one box of snapper, which Jack had generously iced for him, and left nearly fifteen hundred pounds of fish behind to be sent to the co-op. Enough to pay his bills for months.

      The calmer water gave Red the chance to work. He began gutting and filleting his fish, splitting the big fish up the back and saving them for smoking. The gulls feasted raucously on the guts but he kept the heads and frames to make stock and fish soup. Nothing was wasted, ever. He killed the motor as he reached Wreck Bay, and let the boat’s momentum carry him up to his mooring. He knew that he should make Bernie his first priority, but there was still work to be done and a logical order for doing it. His boat needed cleaning and there was no way he could leave it while one speck of fish blood or guts remained to harden in the sun and stain the paint. He scrubbed the decks and gunwales till they were spotless, dried them with cloths, then fastened the storm cover into place. The sun had dropped behind the ridge by the time he began the steep climb up through the bush to Bernie’s. When he reached the pohutukawas he automatically took the left fork, which would take him by the Scotsman’s cabin. Angus was waiting for him, a grim, brooding presence framed in the doorway.

      “I saw you come in. What is it you want?”

      Red glanced up at the veranda, the demarcation line beyond which he’d never set foot, not in the Scotsman’s time anyway. “I’ve brought you some fish.”

      “Aye, I thought as much. It’s why I never went fishing myself.” Angus took the fish and watched as his faithless Bonnie smooched up to Red. “Is there something I can give you in return, some gherkins, perhaps?”

      “No. I have to get on up the hill to see Bernie.”

      “How is he, the old man?”

      “Why didn’t you go up and see?”

      “Don’t you lecture me! He’s entitled to his privacy as I am to mine.”

      “He needs help,” Red shouted back in a flash of anger. “And he’s entitled to that!” He wasted his breath. Angus had gone indoors and slammed the screen door shut behind him. Red turned and made his way back down to the pohutukawas. The muscles in his back had stiffened in the cold of the return journey and ached under the load of fish and the steepness of the climb. He felt bad about leaving the old bloke on his own and worse for not leaving Archie. But he couldn’t go without Archie’s company two days in a row. Red put the fish box down where the track forked to Bernie’s and left Archie to mind it. He took a couple of medium-sized snapper fillets with him up the trail to the shack. He called out as he approached, but there was no answer. He pushed open the screen door.

      “Bernie?”

      Red felt his way in the darkness, found the matches on the table and lit the hurricane lamp. One of the jugs of sherry was missing off the table, so the old man had obviously got up at some time. Red wandered into the bedroom and found Bernie lying on his bed, dead to the world, the half-empty jug alongside amid gobs of toilet paper. Red knew he’d get no sense out of the old man that night, and that there was no point in cooking him a meal. He reached down to pull a sheet and blanket over him so that he wouldn’t get a chill in the night. His hand brushed Bernie’s cheek. It felt cold, unnaturally cold. He held the lamp closer to the old man’s face. His eyes were half open but they’d long given up seeing. Bernie had died alone, and there was nothing Red could do about it.

      Red took the lamp back out into the main room and sat down at the table. He’d failed a dying man. He put his head in his hands and let his tiredness and dismay wash over him. Archie had to see Bernie, too, so that he’d understand. Red went to the door and whistled. The dog sensed what was afoot the second he stepped into the shack. Instead of trotting in to see Bernie, he stole in, nose quivering. He sniffed along the length of Bernie’s arm to confirm his suspicions and retreated to the door, pausing to look reproachfully at Red.

      Red forced himself to his feet. He hadn’t wanted the responsibility of caring for Bernie but the responsibility had found him anyway. He opened Bernie’s cupboards and grabbed as many preserving jars as he could find, relics from the time Bernie bottled the fruit from his plum, peach and nectarine trees. He opened the freezer compartment in the top of Bernie’s fridge. It was filled with trays of ice kept for icing his catch. Bernie had never entirely discounted the possibility of taking his boat to the rise one final time. Red took the trays out and shook the cubes onto the bench. He filled as many jars as he could with ice and sealed them. He carried the jars into the bedroom and distributed them evenly around Bernie’s body. He pulled the blankets up over him to trap in the cold air, found two more in the wardrobe and tossed them over the bed as well. He tidied up the floor around the bed, put the top on the half-empty jug and put it away in a kitchen cupboard. He pulled the curtains closed. Bernie had liked to sleep late and had curtains to block out the morning sun. The curtains would help keep the shack cool. Red began to feel better. He’d done his duty. The bach was tidy and Bernie was taken care of. He half-filled a tin with chicken pellets and went out to round up the chooks. СКАЧАТЬ