Boy

Cruises are for old people. I hadn’t expected ever to take one; not at least for a half century or so. But then that would assume that when I looked for my holidays, I would be the one doing the choosing. I hadn’t had much of a choice here, but still, once we had threaded our way through the protection of the Magellan Channel and reached the open seas, I seemed to be taking a Pacific cruise.

I had expected to be confined to my cabin, but as soon as the ship was properly out to sea and the ship had settled into its route, my door was unlocked and a sailor politely asked me to follow him. I wasn’t achieving very much lying on my back in my cabin so I did as I was asked. He led me, with no guard behind, just glancing back now and then to check I was following, down a couple of corridors, up a flight of stairs, I gathered there were probably cabins worse than mine on the next floor down, and better ones on the corridor I was on now. All the cabins but one were on one side of the corridor, which I guessed meant they all had portholes. That one exception was at the end of the corridor, which made it the biggest.

The sailor stopped at the cabin at the end and rapped on the door.’

‘Enter.’

The sailor opened the door, stepped inside, saluted, said,

‘Captain,’ and waved me in. The captain nodded at him and he left, closing the door after him. Not locking it.

‘Please sit, ‘ the captain said.

A sea captain is a difficult and responsible job and he didn’t look as if it was beyond him. He had a very handsome face, he was probably around forty, his hair was cut short and was showing signs of grey, but what stood out were his pale grey eyes, which looked very bright, as if you would have to try very hard to get anything past him.

He crossed the cabin to his desk and took an envelope from a drawer.

‘Mr. Jakes. I have been put in a very difficult position. I have been asked to deliver you, though we both know very well that you were taken against your will. I am extremely unhappy about this, but right now I am in a poor position to do anything about it. Ship owners are powerful men. When other powerful men ask them favours, they like to say yes, and store further favours for the future. This favour involved me. I am sorry.’

I believed him. I had not had the option to refuse, so why should I doubt that he could be put in the same position. Being a successful adult with some power of his own, it must have been even more humiliating being told to do something that you plainly didn’t want to do.

‘Thank you. That means something, to have an apology. Thank you.’

He nodded in acknowledgement.

‘I will explain the situation and how we will deal with it together. If I treat you decently, I would ask an enormous favour of you, and in doing so, I would not see my decent treatment of you as payment of that debt. Decent treatmentis your right and my duty. If you do me a favour, I will be in your debt.’

‘You have to tell me what it is. I can’t make open promises.’

‘Of course.’

‘Because I keep my promises.’

‘Good. Then here is my request. We will dock in eight days in San Diego, in California. In this envelope is your passport and an open economy ticket to London from Los Angeles, valid for a year from the day you were picked up. Also to cover the inconvenience of being dropped in a more expensive country is a thousand dollars. These were provided to me, they are not my gift. I will give it to you now. I will expect you not to try to escape. We are in the South Pacific. Right now it is very cold. We are sailing North, so naturally it will get warmer, but it is a big sea, with some poor weather. Until we come into port, we will never be nearer than 60 kilometres to land. You would not survive. You can eat in the mess or in your room. I would appreciate it if you did not tell the men about your situation. Chatter but do not confide. Also do not go in the lifeboats. If you are seen messing with the lifeboats—which you would probably not be able to operate—I will be told and you will be confined to your cabin. Otherwise you may move around where you wish. I would like you to stay in your cabin between midnight and six. That you are here is not my choice and if I could, I would choose otherwise. Nevertheless I am responsible for you. My favour is that when we reach San Diego, you do not go to the police. You walk away from the ship and continue your travels, or return to London. I know that this is a big favour but I have to ask you. If you do not promise, I will still let you free. I will, however, claim you are a stowaway who was treated better than reasonably.’

‘I believe you.’

‘Thank you.’

‘My family live quite near the docks in East London. We knows families with sailors. No-one would give away a captain’s ticket. It isn’t something you risk lightly.’

The captain was shaking his head in unhappy agreement

‘So someone made you take me. Yes, I’ll walk away. But…’

Life seemed, since the moment I heard of Balarubu, to have been one endless complicated whirl of movement, one dead end leading to another complete lack of choice. I sensed I might have to take my opportunities where I could.

‘…I will take the favour away with me. When I leave your ship, I’ll take your name, and one day I will ask for the favour back.’

The captain gave me his hand and shook firmly enough that it hurt a little, though I tried hard not to show it.

‘To have someone go to such trouble to take you away from my country, but not to hurt you. You must have put yourself in a tough place. And now you bank my favour. Old head, young man.’

‘I’m just learning to look after myself. One more thing that you mentioned. that I hope you can help with?’

‘If I can?’

‘I haven’t eaten for over a day. I need to eat..’

‘I didn’t realise you had been held before you were brought on board.’

He opened the door and the sailor was waiting at ease.

‘Take him to the mess.’

Now I could breath easy—not to mention eat well. I knew I wasn’t going to be bundled overboard. I only had to pass the time. The ship’s engineer told me that a complete lap of the outside edge of the main deck was six hundred metres. So if I lapped it fifteen times a day, it would give me nine kilometre walks; I did it in alternate directions to avoid much more boredom than was inevitable. That at least gave me a justification for eating the way I did. With little else to do, I was making the most of every meal time. After eating in cafes for weeks, apart from my time with Lucia, I was bored silly with a very limited menu. On board, the pressure was to cook food that tasted like home, so Chilean home cooking was what I got. Lots of beans, rice, meat and chicken, a hundred different ways to cook it and plenty of fresh baked bread. The cook is an important man on board ship and I got on very well with him thanks to my appetite for his work.

The mess was a friendly place for the most part. There were only a couple of the men who were hostile, a runty, weasel faced little man, and his sidekick, twice his size, with a face like a boxer on a long, long losing run. But no-one else seemed to care much for the pair of them, who kept to themselves down in the depths of the engine room, and hardly seemed to clean themselves up for mealtimes.

I spent plenty of time in the galley. There wasn’t much to hang about in my room for. My walk only took a couple of hours a day, and there were always people around there.

I had always been encouraged to cook at home, so I offered to make myself useful. Cook passed me to his kitchen porter, Joe, a deadpan Filipino, who was happy to pass some of his duties along and spend more time smoking on deck and staring into the waves. Cook in turn was happy for Joe to get a break. Joe asked me to test the knives. They were scary. Sharper than anything you would ever have felt in a normal kitchen, you could shave with them—and I don’t mean if you had a few weedy wisps of bum fluff like me. I said as much to Joe who frowned, tested the knife by touching the blade at an acute angle to the back of his thumbnail and declared it a butter knife. Then he showed me how to sharpen knives. I spent an hour sharpening the knives. That is very satisfying work if you ever get the chance. Slip, slide, slip, slide, the knife whistles and slides its way up and down the fine grained sharpening stone, then the knife is turned and the job starts again. Because the knives were sharpened so often, they only needed sharpening for a minute each side—but they had a lot of knives; one for every occasion, and Joe had his own knives he used preparing meat and veg for Cook. That was Joe’s next lesson, that made him very happy. He watched me slicing veg and chopping onions and garlic, the way my mum had showed me. Naturally, mums being cautious, she had taught me to be slow and careful. Joe took the knife and would chop through a bowl of vegetables in less than a quarter of the time it took me. Then at the end of it, he would have done the job more cleanly with more regular sized pieces. He showed me the secret, which was the job before. Sharpening. Sharp knives are safer because there is less pressing and pushing, so the knife is less likely to slip, catching your fingers. He taught me always to hurry in a kitchen. If you hurry you can get on to the next job which needs doing just as badly. And if there isn’t a next job, then why spread that job out when you can go for a smoke or take the weight off your feet. He was giving me all the tips as if I was preparing for a life in the kitchen, but it kept us both busy, and it kept Cook happy. I wanted the journey to pass, and in the heat and flurry of the kitchen, that was just what it was doing.

When mealtimes came I would cross back over to the mess. Joe dished out the food. Cook sat on a stool at the back of the kitchen and watched his work disappear, or occasionally yelled at his assistant to go give Joe a hand. I would queue up with the crew and admire the food on my plate, that I had played my part in putting together, as well as admiring the size of the heap on my plate.

I picked up a lot, as I wasn’t content just to sharpen knives and chop veg. Eventually, Cook agreed to teach me to make bread. He showed me a basic mix, showed me the best place to leave it to make it rise, then had me watch as my dough turned into bread. He wasn’t impressed at first, but the kitchen made bread constantly, at least three batches a day, and he turned me onto that—on top of my sharpening and chopping, so that after a few days I was a passable baker. I still wanted my walks but I cut down to ten laps and took them at six in the morning before I turned up for breakfast and my first kitchen duties.

Cook also showed me how to take the dough before it had risen, when it had just been left for ten minutes or so to settle down, then to take small plum sized balls, spin them out into huge wafer thin flatbreads—or string vest-breads for the first few attempts—then to throw them onto a bone dry glowing hot griddle for a few seconds, then flip them over, a few more seconds and they were done. These were incredibly popular with the crew, and when I tasted them I knew why. They were so far better when they were eaten instantly, still hot to the touch, so on the mealtimes we ate those, Cook worked with me, each of us spinning out the door, flopping the flatbreads onto the griddle, then jetting them out across the mess like bread frisbees to whoops of encouragement and praise from the crew. We made dozens and dozens and for the first time maybe since I was picked for the first football team when I was twelve, I really felt like part of something. This was a place where Balarubu barely made an impact on my life. It was a noisy place, with little conversation. Mainly orders, and acknowledgements that the orders were heard and understood. I felt at home, up to my elbows in flour, plasters on my learner’s cuts and burns, apron on and white cloth wrapped round my head like a pirate baker.

A couple of days before we came into port, a strange idea came to me. I was happy here. I asked to see the Captain. He seemed pleased to see me.

‘I hear you have been busy on board.’

‘If I’d stayed in my room, I would have gone stir crazy. Why make a prison when you don’t have to?’

‘Cook says you learn fast. He says one day you could be a good cook. He’ll be sorry to say goodbye.’

‘That’s what I wanted to see you about. Is there a chance I could stay? I could work for board. I don’t need the money, I don’t want to put anyone out of a job, but I do good work in there.’

I took a breath and swallowed some of the pigheadedness and arrogance I had been accused of for so long.

‘Please.’

The Captain shook his head.

‘I was told to take you to San Diego. What would my owner think, what might he say to me, if I was to deliver you back to Chile?’

‘He wouldn’t have to find out.’

‘Somehow, an owner always knows what happens on his ships. And about something like this, after all his cloak and dagger, he would certainly ask. I could not lie to him.’

Something about the way he said that make my ears sharpen. That he could not lie. But I couldn’t ask him why it was important to tell the truth. It would sound stupid and naïve.

‘Joe says your next stop is Hawaii, then on to Osaka, then on to Seattle, then San Diego and on to Santiago and Punto Arenas.’

‘Joe likes to talk.’

‘But I could work for you until you get back to the US. I could get off in San Diego, as you were told to make happen. Please.’

‘Let me think about it.’

I thought I was there.

‘But no promises.’

Again that sounded like the kind of thing I had become used to saying. I trusted the captain but I would just keep my nose clean and hope he decided my way.

We were due in port, in San Diego, in the late evening. My bag was packed, along with my passport, money, everything I needed. I didn’t see any point in spending that day differently to any other, so I turned up in the kitchen. Cook was quieter than ever and I flattered myself that it was because I was leaving. He confirmed this when he told me to make extra dough because we were having flatbreads for lunch.

Most of the officers and crew knew I was leaving that day and I hadn’t mentioned my request to stay. I was hoping the Captain would see me after lunch. I was lobbing the flatbreads around and hands were rising to snatch them from the air. The menacing couple from the engine room hadn’t bothered to try to get any, and surprise surprise, they hadn’t got any, when already some of the men were on their second. Weasel shot me a hard look and jerked his head in a ‘this way’ gesture. I sung one over, but again he didn’t make a move and someone whipped it away before it reached him.

‘Bread, pretty boy,’ he yelled. It wasn’t a lovely sound, and I don’t think he’d been meaning to compliment me.

I dropped another disc onto the ring, flipped it and tossed it, giving it a little extra in the wrist to be sure it got to him. At the last second he reached for it, but a fraction too late. The edge caught his middle finger and the flatbread flipped, spun over the air and flopped square on his face before dropping evenly onto his plate. It must have hit with the force of a viciously thrown handful of goose feathers, but as it hit there was a puff of flour, and when he looked up from his plate the whole mess saw his greasy, oily face dusted in flour. Laughter spread through the mess and the galley instantly, but standing up and looking me straight in the face, it was as if he didn’t see or hear anyone else but me. As if their ridicule was old news, but I was the front page.

‘What are you laughing at, pretty boy? You laughing at me.

I was laughing too hard to take it seriously, my personal Balarubu training wouldn’t let me refuse, and it was just the kind of situation to bring Micky ‘the Mouth’ Jakes crawling back from the grave.

‘What do you think, dough-boy.’

‘What did you call me?’

‘Dough-boy. What? Would you prefer me to call you? Ugly? Like everyone else?’

The laughter stopped dead. I had gone too far. Once again, my mouth had got me in trouble. It didn’t help my case that most people really did call him Ugly behind his back. And like most names that are used behind someone’s back, he soon knew about it, and dreamt of the day that someone had the balls or the stupidity to use it to his face.

With an amazing turn of speed for such a lump, he was across the kitchen and sliding across the counter, sending a tray of spiced meatballs off the other side. Almost before I could react he had hold of my apron and I could feel myself lifting. I gave thanks to the almost. I had a small paring knife in my hand, the blade no wider than a finger nail until just before it widened for the handle.

I pulled it up hard towards his face and more by luck stopped an inch before his nose. I saw his eyes cross as he saw the knife. I moved it forward, slipped it inside his nostril and touched it just hard enough to be sure he could feel it. I didn’t dare go any harder because I knew exactly how sharp it was.

We stayed that way for many long seconds. The rest of the room waited, breathing slow and deep, deep and quiet. I saw Cook change his stance. Then I felt Ugly’s weight change as he prepared to move a leg. He was going to try to knee me in the balls. I wasn’t prepared to take it, I already knew that. Not after the humiliation of the hotel room in Punto Arenas. And this time I didn’t have to let it happen. I increased the pressure of the blade the tiniest amount. Still he would have felt it. It was a standoff, but the odds were weighted to me. He couldn’t see the odds. His weight shifted hard and I knew the knee was on its way. I whipped the knife up and out and it slit his nostril for over an inch, almost to the bridge. It was ugly and nasty and as he pitched backward, screaming, his offensive knee missing me by a mile, a groan rippled across the mess.

Blood was pumping, and Cook stood over him with a pick-axe handle and threw a cloth at him.

‘Get out of my galley and get that seen to.’

There was one officer in the mess and he pointed at me to come with him. We were straight off to see the Captain.