Sharkey’s Son - Gillian D’achada

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It took his mind off the whirling thoughts of Sharkey and Oom Daan and losing the house, and instead, put them firmly on the dunes of the West Coast.

      On he went, step by careful step; first nudging the path ahead with his toe and then, finding it smooth and free of thorns, trusting his full weight to the still-warm sand.

      He had been walking for about an hour when, suddenly, the cottonwool quiet was rent by a snorting, rolling-eyed monster. It reared up next to him, kicking sand up onto his chest and spraying his face with its hot breath.

      Grant didn’t stop to think. He ran in the opposite direction, as fast as his legs could carry him through the thick sand, so that by the time he realised that the monster had really only been a dune buck, into whose night grazing he’d accidentally stumbled, he had quantities of thorns in his feet and a painfully thudding heart.

      “Bloody fool,” he chided himself the way he’d heard Sharkey do, as he sat down to pull the thorns out. He was alert now, nervous … and cold. He pulled on his anorak and got wearily to his feet again. They were sore and stinging. He turned to face into the mist, knowing that in so doing he would eventually reach the sea.

      He certainly didn’t want to wander back into civilisation again and bump into someone from the village.

      The mist no longer seemed protective. It rushed at Grant in blowsy billows out of the darkness. Who are you? Who are you? it seemed to whisper at him. For the first time in his life, Grant felt unwelcome on the West Coast. He remembered what Sharkey had said once, “Don’t ever think you know the sea. Just remember, it doesn’t know you”. Now he understood what he’d meant.

      Who are you? the mist mocked, unmistakably the master of this night and this place and this time. Grant pulled his woollen cap further down over his ears and eyes so that he wouldn’t have to hear its taunts and see its hostile rushing, rushing.

      He walked on and on into the great, white nothing. His toe hit something hard and unmoving and he yelped. The mist was so thick that his cry of pain didn’t travel at all; it was swallowed the moment it was uttered. But the pain in his foot was real enough. He looked down. He had kicked a rock, a big, round rock with something painted on it. He peered closely and a cold shiver started in his knees and ran all the way up his body to the very top of his head. He was staring at a cross.

      I’m probably standing on a grave, he thought.

      During daylight hours that thought would have bothered him only slightly; but now, surrounded as he was by this wild, white night, it filled him with a sickening horror that deepened to intense terror when the mist cleared slightly and he saw, sailing silently up the beach towards him, a truly ghastly apparition: a ghost ship, full of gawping holes.

      Grant’s mouth went dry. The horrible, hulking presence, darker than the night, challenged him. But he couldn’t run away. He couldn’t even move. All he could do was stare and wait for terrible, unthinkable things to happen.

      But nothing happened. No headless captain ordered him aboard, no wailing of a drowned crew sounded from the aft deck. The mist swirled in the still night just as before.

      That’s when Grant realised that the ship itself was stationary and it was only the mist rushing past it that gave it the appearance of movement. And then he noticed that a big piece of the ship was missing. It’s only half a ghost ship, he thought, puzzled. The more he stared at it, the more puzzled he became, for it was leaning over at a peculiar angle. His fear waned a little and as it receded, a suspicion of a thought crept in to take its place.

      “I wonder if maybe …” He marched straight up to the ship and banged it hard with his fist. Flakes of rust drifted down onto the sand. He walked all around the wreck. “It’s only a wheelhouse after all.”

      With the rock formations behind it, the deceiving mist and a fear-inspired imagination, the rusting wheelhouse had the appearance of a much larger structure. Grant found the entrance on the far side but could see nothing in the darkness. He plunged his hand into his pocket and felt for Sharkey’s phone. Shaking with the after-effects of fear, he finally succeeded in pressing the button that lit up the display face. With his ghoulish green light he walked about inside the structure. It was the size of a small room and, apart from one hole big enough for Grant to stick his head through, it was weather-proof and sturdy. “This will do for tonight,” he told himself.

      Just as he was about to spread out his blanket, the wheelhouse was plunged into blackest darkness. The phone lay cold and lifeless in his hand. Grant was appalled. The battery! He’d been in such a hurry to get away he hadn’t even thought of that. Now how would he access the money in Sharkey’s FLASH account and get to Lüderitz? His legs were aching and he was tired enough to fall asleep right there and then, standing up.

      Tomorrow, he told himself; tomorrow he could think again, worry again. For now, he must sleep. He spread out his blanket, lay down and rolled himself up in it. It was so dark in the wheelhouse that it made no difference whether he kept his eyes open or closed them. The ground was hard and lumpy beneath his back and he could feel the grit of sand between his skin and the blanket. But he felt more comfortable lying down than he had been standing on his thorn-punctured feet. I must get them into salt water tomorrow, Grant thought. Like every Lagooner, he knew that the sea was the best healer.

      He went back over the day’s events. It had been one of the worst days of his life. As bad as the day his mother had died. She’d been ill for a long time. Grant had got used to her being thin and white, used to her weekly trip to the hospital in Vredenburg. So he hadn’t thought much about it when she’d left in Hasie Viljoen’s truck that Friday. Only she hadn’t come back that time. Sharkey had – white of face and tearful.

      “You’re all I’ve got left,” Sharkey had said, hugging him close. “You and me and this house, that’s all we’ve got.”

      Grant stared up into the blackness. Why didn’t he take me with him?

      Chapter 6

      Grant woke to the cry of gulls and the gentle slap of surf on sand. Something was digging into his back. He rolled over and was momentarily confused. He wasn’t in his narrow wrought-iron bed in the low-ceilinged bedroom he shared with Sharkey.

      With a rush, the recent events returned. He was in the wheelhouse he’d stumbled upon the night before. And he was there because Sharkey had left him. The journey he’d embarked upon with so much certainty the evening before now seemed impossibly difficult to accomplish. Panic and sorrow crushed him in a dual embrace.

      He sat up and fumbled for his bag. He felt around until he found the little carving he’d brought with him. He held it until his courage returned. Steadily, the sorrow abated. In its place, he felt a deep sense of peace come and settle upon his heart like a seagull landing on shore’s edge. He opened his eyes. Through the wheelhouse door he could see dunes and rocks and a piece of clear, high West Coast sky. He was not afraid any longer. He knew he’d made the right decision.

      He stood up, testing his stiff limbs. Not too bad, considering all he’d put them through the night before. He picked up the blanket and shook out the sand. No wonder he’d dreamt he was sleeping on rocks; there was a rusty piece of wheelhouse door sticking out of the sand just where he’d laid his blanket.

      He lifted a foot and examined it. It was red and puffy. The sooner he got his feet into the sea, the better. He stepped out of the wheelhouse and deeply breathed in the wild West Coast air. It was heady with ozone, delicious. He walked gingerly down to the sea and winced as he waded in. Not only was the salt burning his thorn wounds but the water was icy cold as only the Atlantic could be.

      He stood in the shallows and turned his back to the sea. He looked left and right, up and down the beach. It was not a beach he was familiar with.

      Not that he was complaining – the further away from Langebaan village, the better.

      Grant decided that he’d risked exposure long enough for the sake of his feet and hobbled back to the wheelhouse on his heels, trying to keep the most badly affected parts of his feet away from the sand.

      Somewhere

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