It started on day one, because I guess how could it start on any other day? On day one, though, he didn’t realise it was day one, (How do you know you’re counting until you start counting?) he merely decided that he’d simply had enough, and that he had to do something about it. He started moving around the house. He tidied up everything; cups, plates, teaspoons, food wrappers, clothes that he had left to pile up over the week. He brought out the hoover, he straightened all the throws on the chairs and sofas. And after he had cleaned the windows, bleached the bathroom and even de-greased the oven he sat back down with a cup of tea and started to make his plan.
“Wow, you cleaned!” his housemate exclaimed when she got home from shopping.
On day two he went down to the timber yard.
“Well what sort of boat are you building?” asked the short, serious looking one.
“One that floats” he replied and watched the man go off to the store room, shaking his head.
On day three it rained so he covered up his pieces of wood that were lying all over the garden with a tarpaulin they used as a smoker’s shelter for when they threw house parties. He went into town to the library. He pulled out the almanac of tide tables for that year and for every port and secondary port in the country and its neighbouring islands. He took out a note book and started to jot things down, scribble some things, turn pages, go back pages. He stood up after an hour and went over to the maps section and took out some admirality charts of certain coastal zones and took them back to his table. Every few hours he would go and get more tea or water and he bought a sandwich and some flapjacks from the library cafe.
Outside, smoking under the shelter, an attractive girl with huge, swooping brown eyes said to him
“I love these rainy library kind of days”
“Maybe” he said, and threw his cigarette end in the ash bin and went back inside to his charts, notes and almanac. He worked until the library closed at 9pm.
On day four it was still raining so he went back to the library and did the same as the day before. The attractive girl with the huge swooping brown eyes turned up at midday and smiled at him. Outside, smoking, she asked him
“What are you doing with all those maps?”
He looked at her from a thousand miles away
“Planning.”
They finished their cigarettes with no more words; just the sound of the relentless rain, stinging the pavement over and over.
On day five the rain continued and so he did the same as the previous two days and worked down at the library until the latest time he was allowed to. The attractive girl with the huge swooping brown eyes was there again but she did not take her cigarette breaks at the same time as him and only acknowledged him with a smile as she passed him on the spiral staircase on his way down to the cafe. At 9pm the librarian had to tell him to leave.
“We’re closing now. But I’m sure we’ll be seeing you tomorrow again.” And then she laughed.
He gathered up his things and put the charts and the almanac back.
“Maybe. There’s a lot of work to do yet.”
He walked home under the street lights which were struggling against a fog that had begun to lie about the town. The smoke from his cigarette blended in perfectly to his background.
On day six his housemate was off work as it was the weekend.
“I wondered if you fancied coming to that exhibition we were talking about?” she asked him.
“I haven’t got time for these things right now, Cath. I’m sorry. You go and tell me how it is though.”
“What is it you’re actually... errm, doing?” she ventured.
“I’m planning.” He said with a full-stop and end-of-paragraph sort of tone.
He worked in the garden all day on his boat; sawing, nailing, edging.
Catherine returned from the gallery and stood at the back door looking out into the garden. She could barely see him for the fog, she could just make out the outline and shapes of him and a vaguely skeletal boat and she could hear the sound of banging and sawing and hammering which seemed to ricochet and bounce off the fog to its magnification.
“Do you want a cup of tea?” she called out into the white.
On day seven, Catherine was at home again and fog had cleared. They sat together at breakfast while he was reading a book about stars.
“Evan’s coming round for lunch today and he’s bringing Rav and Jenny. Do you want to eat with us too?”
“I’m busy” he said, not looking up from his book.
“You like Rav. I know Jenny can be a bit much sometimes but...”
“It’s not that, Cath. I’m just really busy.” He said, not moving his eyes from the page.
He was back out in the garden working on the boat while they all ate lunch. He could hear them laughing in the moments that he wasn’t sawing or hammering. He paused for just a second, saw poised for cutting, and looked back at the house. He could see through the window the table and the food and he saw Evan doing some big hand gestures while presumably telling some sort of amusing anecdote.
When it started to get dark he heard the door ppen and Rav came out with a tray of food and a beer.
“You’re not going to come in and join us are you?”
“No. Sorry.” He said. “I’m just really busy.”
“Oh well” she sighed “where shall I put this tray?”
“Just set it on the ground there. I just need to finish this beam.” And then he added “thanks, Rav.”
Rav was walking around the pieces of wood that were beginning to resemble at boat.
“It’s pretty good this, you know. Did you honestly make it from scratch?”
He nodded.
“It’s impressive. But, why are you building it?”
“I’m planning” he said and ended the conversation there.
Many days passed.
On day forty three his arms were sore, so he left the boat which now had rigging but no sails and went to the library. On the way there, he saw a pocket compass in the window display of a pawn shop. It was ornate looking but surprisingly cheap, and most importantly, working. He went inside and bought it. It was made of some sort of hard metal and had a strong clasp which allowed it to spring shut to keep the compass safe and shelled. On the inside of the shell, there was an engraving. It read
Impossible to lose yourself
He sprung it shut, put it in his safe zipped pocket and started to run to the library. When he finished that night, he ran home too.
On day fifty the canvass he had ordered arrived. He laid it all out in the garden and measured it and marked it with a pencil. Catherine came outside with a cup of tea for him.
“What’s this?” she asked, and for the first time since this plan began, he smiled.
“Sails!”
On day seventy four it blew a storm. He sat in his boat in the garden, wrapped in jumpers and a raincoat and gloves and a hat. He smoked a cigarette and laying in the cockpit looking up at his finished rigging he closed his eyes. He was exhausted and slept there, in the garden of that residential street; the driving rain, the vicious cold wind and the violent cracks of thunder from far away behind thick, sodden grey clouds.
On day seventy nine he finished his books. He and Catherine were sat there in the front room; he reading and she doing her internet banking. He slammed shut the heavy 700 page hardback and looked at her.
“Huh?” she asked.
On day eighty he went down to the harbour.
“Yeah that shouldn’t be a problem” said the older man with the weathered face. Smoking a cigarette he pointed to a younger, athletic looking man with sun bleached hair.
“Go talk to my son. It’s my crane but he’s the one who actually does it now. I just can’t be bothered any more. Know what I mean?”
On day eighty one he watched his boat be lowered into the harbour.
“Thanks. Perfect. Thanks.”
The younger man asked
“When do you leave?”
He considered the question while looking out to sea.
“When the time’s just right.”
On day eighty six Catherine came downstairs in the middle of the night for a glass of water and found him in the garden. He was sitting under the apple tree on a chair with a duvet wrapped around him, looking up.
“What are you doing?” she whispered from the door.
“Waiting!” he hissed back.
“Waiting for what?”
“Lots of things. The right time, the right height, the right tide” and then he added “a sign.”
“I’m going to call your parents tomorrow” she said, sliding the patio door shut.
On day eighty seven he said “Cath, why don’t you join me under the apple tree tonight?”
She was squeezing lemons for her icing.
“Is this so I won’t call your parents?” she asked, putting the half-lemon down on the side and turning to face him.
“Just come out with me tonight. Then you’ll understand.”
“I can’t tonight. Evan’s coming over, he gets back from America this evening!”
“Aw, that’s great.” He said, looking out of the door up at the sky. “It’ll be cold tonight anyway, there are no clouds.”
On day eighty eight he was gone. Catherine and Evan came downstairs in the morning to find a note on the kitchen table.
Tonight, under the apple tree, through the gaps in the branches, I saw my sign. I have gone to get her. Xx
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