Chapter Nine
I am woken from my sleep very early the next morning by a loud buzzing noise. In my state of semi-consciousness I scramble to get my clothes on and shake Max awake. He is slow to respond at first but we’re both ready to make our way to the common cabin in under five minutes. I vaguely wonder if this is some sort of drill for when the alarm goes off or any other noise on this ship alerts us to a problem, there doesn’t seem to be any urgency in the buzzing noise to me. Doors open along the hall as we pass revealing the others in the same dishevelled condition Max and I are in. I hear Linton say to Merva in a voice that s obviously meant for everyone within a fifteen metre radius to hear that this is just a planned drill by Renka and Diego, nothing to rush about. His drawn-out relaxed tone gets me angry, he clearly enjoys having knowledge he assumes no one else has and relishes shouting it to the world as if it gives him a sense of power. I quicken my pace to open the distance between us. Max and I open the door to the cabin. Renka, Fiona, Mickael and Mayther are already here. I feel sorry for the person who forgets, if there is one, they wae going to cop it from the others. This makes me think of Tomas, I don’t remember seeing him in the hall, it crosses my mind that I should have knocked on his door to make sure he came to the congregating area, but I dismiss the idea because it implies that I think him incapable of remembering himself.
By the time the last stragglers come into the cabin the buzzing noise is really getting on my nerves, if this really is just a drill couldn’t they turn the stupid thing off now? There are a couple missing, Tomas is one of them and I wonder if I’m supposed to be on sentry duty, I have a fleeting feeling of worry in my stomach thinking that if something is wrong we really just meandered in while there are some of us on deck. Then I notice the relaxed demeanour of Renka and the others who were here before Max and me. I hope that if this is just a rehearsal we don’t act so blasé when it comes to the real thing. To my surprise it’s Mayther who clears his throat to quieten everyone and starts talking, Renka stands to his left and a little behind him. I smile at this because Renka has obviously imposed this ban on his control over the meeting as a punishment for him not following procedures before, I can’t imagine Mayther suggesting he do the talking. Ironically, this just shows how much control Renka actually has, not the opposite, it is a little disconcerting.
“Well, it’s good to see everybody bright eyed and bushy tailed on this fine morning”, Mayther says with too much energy and enthusiasm. It’s met with more than a few groans.
“Fiona and Renka were the first here and have already been up on deck to check that the sentries are okay. Even though unplanned this was a good practise for everyone”, Mayther smiles a sly smile, meeting the eyes of Max who smiles tentatively in return.
A glance at Linton reveals an angry scowl on his face, being wrong or ill informed doesn’t quite sit right with him. I can’t stop one side of my mouth curving in a smirk.
At this statement, Renka steps forward and says the buzzing noise is the ship’s senses reporting that the waters have calmed and the screen is receding. I’m frustrated that I didn’t get to see it for myself. I wanted to see how the apparently seamless connections come apart. I regret coming to the meeting area first now.
The meeting splits up after that, Mickael and Gerla, who both look like the sleepwalked down the hall announce they’ll be going back to bed. The rest of us head to the supplies room or the deck to check out the screen-less view. I look at Max and feel sad that I haven’t spent much time with him at all recently. He’s always sketching with Tomas or on his own and I’m either on sentry duty, fishing or searching someone out to have heated discussions with, usually Renka. I’ve been preoccupied with all the stuff Renka has told me and guilt washes over me as I think about how I have neglected Max. I’ve noticed a change in him and wonder if it has to do with me not telling him about what Renka said, he didn’t seem to mind at the time but maybe it is grating on him. I contemplate the effects of telling him everything but cringe away from the idea. He would run away with the ‘me having immunity’ idea and would be severely let down if I broke out in sores again.
“Hey, Max, do you want to do some fishing with me? Mayther set aside some Turtle guts that might be good bait”, I ask Max enthusiastically.
I look forward to the idea of having Max to myself for a couple of hours before my sentry duty. I’d been rostered on to do the rounds this morning – but swapped with Vonteuse who prefers the peace to the shared dome duty. I thought I owed him after he covered some of my duties when I was sick. Now that the screen is down we would have to be diligent again.
“Yeah, sure, I’ll go get our stuff, can you get me something to eat and I’ll meet you on deck”, Max answers happily before quickly walking off towards our cabin.
I grab a couple of biscuits, some salted meat and notice some dried seaweed, it is thin and crisp. Mayther and Isabella have been experimenting with it, trying to dry it out so that we can take some of it with us across the ruins. I decide to take a couple, there are heaps there and they’re out in the open so I guess they won’t mind if I taste-test. I fill my canister up with water from the small sink that s huddled in the corner of the room. It seems a funny place to have a sink but it’s pretty convenient for us, maybe that’s why this room was chosen instead of the others on the lower level. I throw it all into a bag and go in search of Max.
Max is on deck and we find a secluded spot at the stern of the ship where the transports and cylinders block us from the others. Max has brought along his sketchbook and I’m eager to have a look at what he’s done so far.
We get to baiting our hooks and casting the reel lines. We have four between us, there are quite a few fishing supplies on board, plenty of rods and nets but everyone prefers the large steel reels, they’re easier to use and the holders at different sections of the ship mean you can leave them for a while, which is handy when you’re on sentry duty. Max and I brought some of our own stuff that we used back home but we’re saving that for when we’ll need it on land, they’re more suited for that style of fishing anyway.
“Can I have a look at what you’ve done so far in your sketch book?” I ask Max feeling genuinely excited to see his work.
“Sure, just grab it from the box”, Max indicates the box he used to carry the bait, spare hooks and knives we were using.
I wonder why he isn’t a bit more precious with it, throwing it among smelly fishing gear seems a bit too lax. I want to say it, to tell him to take better care of it but something stops me. This is the change that I’ve been feeling, the hesitation to say things like that to Max. I don’t know if the change is from him or from me.
I flip through the book and gasp at some of the sketches. They are amazing. Tomas wasn’t kidding when he said Max would come a long way in a short time. He has captured some amazing scenes. The most striking is the turtle. He clearly observed Mayther when he pulled it in, killed it and of course gutted and cooked it. There is a sequence of sketches depicting each stage, they’re slightly off-skew, like he’s viewing it all through a glass bowl, but it seems like he meant it to be this way. It doesn’t take away from the work. It makes it unique and creative. I’m astonished at how in such a short time Max has developed his own style separate and completely different to Tomas’. He’s sketching events and scenes he witnessed on board but he takes the reality out of it where even though I know the things he draws happened I question whether they are real. Tomas sketchs the feeling into people, he sees deeper within everyone and memorises snapshots that represent a person so exactly, there is no room to question the reality he portrays. I’ve never seen value in art, there is so little around for me to appreciate any way or the time to stand around looking at it. I think about what Max said about the work not being art, that Tomas doesn’t like to call it that, I have to disagree. What I am seeing of Max’s work and what I have seen of Tomas’ work can only be described as art. It certainly isn’t equivalent to my boring journal entries. Thi
s is on a completely different realm.
I turn to Max who is staring out to sea and follow his gaze to a seabird circling above looking for prey. We both stare for a long time. I wonder if this is the same bird that Tomas captured in the sketch that inspired Max to try his hand at drawing. Could it be that I feel intimidated by this newfound talent of Max’s? Is that what I sense has changed between us, why I stop to think about what I’m going to say to him? I look back at Max and try to see him objectively, not as a big sister. It takes a lot of concentration and I’m glad that he is intently staring at the seabird to give me time to do it. He looks older, his hair flops over his forehead, but it doesn’t look cute from this objective perspective, it makes him look dark or mysterious. His full lips and soft nose are so familiar to me, I could lose my eyesight and still recognise them if I traced the features of a thousand people before I got to him. But now they are coupled with a jaw-line that is defined by a hard straight line, it takes the softness out of his facial features. And his eyes that have appealed to me to fix things, to make things right so many times over the years now hold knowledge in their own right. What has happened? I see him as a chubby faced boy, my little brother who needs protection. I feel sick to my stomach at the thought that I have been blind. Did this change occur while we’ve been on board or has it been going on at home only to be missed by me? Both of our birthdates have come and gone while we’ve been away from home, it isn’t something anyone celebrates, another year closer to Age-Sickness. Is it that Max is twelve now and physically changing? The thought strikes me that I am the one who needs him to rely on me, to depend on me for protection not the other way around. Maybe the insight I had credited Max with since he was a tiny boy was really him seeing what I needed and giving it to me. Anguish at the idea that I’ve burdened him when all I ever wanted was to take his burden away rushes through me. I’m certain it spills across my face for all to see, there is no way I could stop it. I turn back to the seabird and as I do I glimpse Max’s hand sitting on his lap. He still has the dimples at the base of each finger, which give his hand a baby-like appearance. Each dimple is a little spark of hope, a message that could mean all the questions that had just run through my mind are void. I imagine that his elbows also have the dimple instead of the floppy skin part you get when you’re older, but I can’t check because he’s wearing long sleeves.
While I’ve been staring at Max the seabird has caught its prey, a sizeable fish wriggled in its beak trying futilely to escape. We watch as the bird flies away gracefully then Max’s spinning reel brings us back to why we are here.
After about an hour-and-a-half Max and I have caught three good-sized fish, one is a bream, one I can’t identify, I just hope it isn’t poison and the other is a taylor. I’m happy that I can easily identify two of the three fish caught all thanks to Mayther’s teaching who seems to be a wealth of knowledge on anything animal. My fingers are aching and even though I try to de-hook my catch, Max sees my difficulty and does it for me. We put the fish in a bucket of fresh seawater and start back towards the dome. I have sentry in half an hour and want to get the fish ready for steaming before then. Max seems to be in as much of a hurry as I am, maybe he has a sketching lesson with Tomas planned. We pass Linton and Isabella who are fishing on port side of the dome and compare our catch. The turtle guts is good bait it seems, we’re going to get a filling meal out of it. I mention that I have sentry as a means to end the conversation and Isabella offers to gut and clean our fish with theirs. Linton has a sour look on his face but he isn’t going to go against any suggestion Isabella makes. I wonder again why she spends any time with him; they have such opposing personalities, if anything I would have picked Isabella’s idiosyncrasies as making her one of Linton’s targets. I mentally check myself; I’m supposed to be withholding judgment on people after my experience with the Sickness. Maybe I am only privy to one side of Linton.
I start to thank Isabella for offering and say that Max can deal with our fish but Max jumps in and accepts graciously. I look at him sideways and wonder why he’s done that, he used to love cleaning the fish. From the time he was three years old he would squat next to me with his head so close to the fish I was gutting, his nose almost inside the fishes belly. He was so proud the day he pulled in his own fish and gutted it, there wasn’t much to it but I cooked it anyway and said it was the juiciest fish I’d ever eaten. The memory makes me sad as I contemplate my earlier thoughts about our relationship.
Max hurries along beside me after we leave Linton and Isabella. I’m not going to have time to wash up after fishing and the biscuit and dried seaweed I ate nearly two hours ago aren’t doing much to satisfy my now grumbling stomach. I reach into my bag to grab a drink of water and offer it to Max. He takes a few big gulps and gives it back. Even though the fishing alone-time hasn’t gone exactly as I had thought it would, I’m happy that we can be silent together, that I can offer him water and he accept without words, that we can sit and appreciate a great flying seabird without talking about it to death. Comfortable silence means shared experience and deep knowing, I’m happy that Max and I have that.
Merva and Renka come into sight as they round the dome, they’re probably the two people who I least want to see right now or anytime in the near future but I don’t make up the roster. I can’t remember who I’m doing duty with, it could be Tomas, it usually is. I nod to Renka in a stiff greeting and smile at Merva.
“You’re right to go Merva, it’s only five minutes”, I say dropping my bag at the base of the dome.
“You too, Renka, I’m taking Tomas’ duty”, Max directs at Renka confidently.
I turn around in time to see Renka nod and walk away, Merva stares at me curiously. I don’t want her to see the shock and anger that is probably clearly on my face, it would just give her and Linton fuel for their ongoing fire of gossip, so I smile sweetly and start walking briskly away from her and Max.
I hear Merva make what sounds like a sly comment to Max but can’t make out what it is exactly. Max falls into step next to me shortly after that and it’s almost funny that this silence is so charged after I recently mentally congratulated us on our comfortable silences. I turn to Max and se that he is frowning. We probably look very alike in this moment.
“So why did Tomas need you to take his duty?” I ask without preamble.
“He didn’t, I wanted to take it, I’ll be taking his share of Diego’s duties from now on”, Max answers matter-of-factly.
“What, but why? You don’t need to do any duties, no one expected an extra person”, I retort.
“I’m not an extra person anymore, Karther died”, Max responds dryly.
This stumps me a little, I don’t know why but I don’t want Max doing sentry, maybe it’s because it has proven to be dangerous after all, with Karther and the freak wave. I’ll take on extra ones if Tomas dioesn’t want to do it anymore. I had planned on doing that anyway. Max is the youngest on board and he isn’t expected to do sentry, he’s here because I brought him, not a so-called ‘volunteer’ like the rest of us. Maybe he felt pressured to do some work when I was sick because we were down two then but now I am fine to take the load.
“Don’t worry about it, I can take over from now, Max, you don’t have to do Tomas’s share, I offered to do it all myself in the beginning anyway. Besides you’ve come such a long way with your sketching, you should have as much time as you want to work on it”, I say soothingly as I place my hand on his shoulder.
Max stiffens at my touch and I drop my hand from his shoulder. We both stop walking at the same time and face each other. Max has anger written all over him, I’ve never seen him this way.
“I don’t need you to cover for me, Pia, I’m capable of doing sentry duty myself”, Max states in a clear determined voice as he looks straight into my eyes.
It seems like he is saying much more than the few words that have escaped his mouth.
“I didn’t say you weren’t capable, I said you could use the ex
tra time for your sketching. You’re not a volunteer, you don’t have to take on the roles everyone else does”, I talk in a calm and restrained voice because I find this new Max unpredictable and I don’t want him to think that I’m being confrontational.
“That is not your real reason”, he states as his stare penetrates deep into my mind and my heart if I was honest.
He is right of course, why did I try to lie to him, I know better than that.
“You’re right. I think it’s too dangerous for you to do sentry duty”.
“Why is it too dangerous for me and not for you?”
“Max, you’re only twelve, you know what happened to Karther, and the wave, imagine if the screen doesn’t work next time”, I plead for understanding.
“Karther was twice as big as you and without the screen the wave would take out the whole ship. The real reason you don’t want me to do sentry is because you want to keep me a little kid forever, you want to protect me from everything but you can’t, no one can”, Max says this with a mixture of passion and frustration in his voice.
Again, he’s right, except about the part where I can’t protect him. The only thing I can’t protect him from is the Sickness and now I might even be able to do that.
“You’re right, I do want to protect you from everything and I’ll always want that no matter what age you are. You’re wrong about me not being able to do it, Max, I can and I will, if I have to talk Tomas into doing the duties again then I will”, I know I am pushing it a bit, dismissing Max to get what I want but what I want is what is best for him.
The reaction to this speech is drastic and instantaneous. Max turns a bright red and leans in closer towards me, it surprises me that he isn’t that much shorter than I am.
“I will make decisions for myself, Pia, I organised this with Tomas, he doesn’t see me as the baby that you do, in fact no one here does. You are not my mother”, he spits at me.
The last words were a slap in the face. I gasp and take a step back. Max has never spoken like that to me before. Mentioning our parents like that is taboo, we never do it. We don’t talk about them or refer to them in conversations with others unless it is completely necessary. Max is angry, really angry, his words bring up all the questions I had in my mind from fishing. Am I smothering him, being unfair in my assessment of his ability or babying him? Has he been pandering to my needs all along or is this an epiphany he had while on this ship? I don’t know what to say so I just turn and start walking again. Max falls into step beside me and neither of us speaks for the next three hours.