Forecast (6 page)

Steven feels his heart shoot upwards the way the grain-sacking was lifted from Marsyas's hands. Laughter inhabits him. He swings one leg over the banister and careens down, bumping over the corner-post moulding. He lands with a thump at his grandmother's feet.

‘I'm afraid the phone lines are down already,' she sighs. ‘I can't call them back. We're cut off.'

Steven's eyes glitter. His grandmother smiles and puts a finger to her lips.

4. Evacuation Advisory

‘It now seems certain,' the man on Storm Track says, ‘that Francesca will make landfall within twenty-four hours. Coastal airports have been closed and evacuation will become mandatory as of seven o'clock tomorrow morning. Evacuation routes and reverse-lane changes are being posted …'

‘Will Marsyas drive us?' Steven asks.

‘No. I'll drive. Marsyas never leaves. Even for Hugo, he wouldn't leave. Your parents will be watching this on the Weather Channel though. They'll be so relieved.'

‘The man said we
have
to.'

‘Yes, it's the law. The National Guard will come knocking, door to door.'

‘So how come Marsyas—?'

‘Oh, he'll hide somewhere. There are always people who won't leave. They feel just as safe here. They feel safe wherever they are.'

‘The Governor has announced that one eastbound lane will be kept open for emergency vehicles,' the Storm Track man says. ‘All other lanes on the Interstate are for inland-bound traffic.'

‘Marsyas thinks he's got a special arrangement with hurricanes,' Leah says. ‘He believes he can talk to them.'

‘He can,' Steven says. ‘Like his grandma.'

‘According to Marsyas, hurricanes speak Gullah,' Leah laughs. ‘Like the island people.' She raises her eyebrows and cups a hand behind one ear, listening to the noisy patois of the wind.

‘I can speak some Gullah. Marsyas taught me.'

‘Did he indeed?'

‘There has been much criticism of the Governor,' the Storm Track man says. ‘Charges are flying … many claim that the order to evacuate has been left too late.'

‘Grandma?'

‘Hmm?'

‘Couldn't we stay here with Marsyas?'

His grandmother folds him in her arms. She smiles and puts a finger on his lips. ‘And just what would your parents say to that?'

‘How will they know?' he whispers.

‘We interrupt this announcement,' the Storm Track man says, ‘to warn that the Carolinas have now been placed on Hurricane Watch, the highest state of alert. Many think this is far too late, given what happened with Dana last year. Impossible congestion on the Interstate, gridlock from Hilton Head to the Georgia border. A highway patrolman, on condition of anonymity, said angrily: “You can't move several hundred thousand people at a moment's—”'

A soft popping sound floats from the mouth
of the Storm Track man. For a moment, he glows like phosphorus and then the television screen goes dark. Every light in the house blinks off. The air-conditioner groans and shudders and dwindles into a trembling that Steven can feel in the floorboards before it goes silent and still.

‘Well,' Leah says, reaching for Steven's hand. ‘I've got the candles in a drawer right here. Don't be frightened.'

‘I'm not frightened.'

5. Hurricane Watch

Face to face, the woman and child float inside a bubble of light. Elbows on the warm oak table, chins in cupped hands, eyes gleaming, they have the air of conspirators very pleased with themselves. Shadowy gold from the candle moves like reflected water on their skin.

‘Isn't this exciting?' Leah whispers.

‘Yes,' he whispers back.

‘And what do you think I've got hidden under the table?'

‘The photograph box!'

‘How did you guess?'

Steven laughs, leaning across a large carton that is crammed with portraits in fading sepia tones,
black and white snapshots with deckle edges, bright Kodacolor prints in postcard size. ‘My pick, my pick. I pick first.'

Steven squeezes his eyes shut and reaches in, his hand delving deep. He pulls out a photograph and holds it against his chest like a poker card.

‘Black and white,' he says, pleased, sneaking a look. ‘Guess who?'

‘Must be your grandfather. Or me.'

‘Both,' Steven says. ‘Ten points. See?'

‘Hold it closer to the candle.'

‘Is it very very old?'

‘Ah, that one,' she says fondly.

‘Is it older than Hugo?'

‘Much older. That was a very long time ago, before we were married. I remember that day. We'd been beachcombing for shells and starfish and I was covered in sand-fly bites. Your grandfather kept offering to rub them.'

‘Did he like me?'

‘He adored you. Can't you remember that?'

Steven shakes his head.

‘You used to ride on his shoulders through the saltmarsh. Somewhere in the box, there's a photo of you both on the boardwalk.'

‘Was I three?'

‘No, just a baby almost. But you used to clap your hands whenever you saw a white egret.'

A shadow of a memory brushes Steven, but he cannot hold on to it.

‘It's your turn, Grandma.'

Leah slides her hand into the box and shuffles the past. ‘Ah,' she says. ‘Look what I found. It's Steven with no clothes on!'

Steven wrinkles up his nose. The baby in the photograph is lying on a blue bath towel. He has a cloth toy in one hand. ‘That's Humpty Dumpty!' Steven says, startled. Puzzled, he thinks about Humpty Dumpty. ‘We lost him,' he muses. ‘Where did he go?'

‘Probably off to one of your baby cousins. Your turn.'

‘Abracadabra,' Steven says. He pulls out a coloured photograph and studies it. ‘It's you and Grandpa again,' he decides.

Leah holds the image close to the candle. ‘Oh my!' she says, startled. ‘How did that get into the box?'

‘You put all of them there, Grandma.'

‘No,' she says. ‘Not that one.'

‘Grandma?'

‘A street photographer took it. We didn't know until he tried to sell it to us.'

Steven can see a white line around the edge of his grandmother's fingers where they are pressed into her cheek. With her other hand, she turns the
photograph over. ‘He kept it,' she says. ‘But I wrote on the back of it first.'

Steven leans in to the candle. There is no writing on the back of the photograph. His grandmother presses her lips against the back of her right hand.

‘What were you and Grandpa doing?'

‘Do you think that looks like your grandfather?'

Steven studies the photograph. All grown-ups look much the same to him. ‘I don't know,' he says.

‘It's not your grandfather. It's someone I knew from back before that.'

‘What were you doing?'

‘We were riding out a hurricane,' Leah says.

6. The Eye of the Storm

Sleep approaches like a dangerous calm. Leah blows out the candle. Steven is curled up on the sofa, his head in her lap, and she strokes his hair. Her hand comes to rest on his shoulder. In the flares of lightning, she watches the flutter of his lashes against his cheek.

Francesca is throwing a tantrum beyond the screen-porch and Leah hears the crash of a tree going over but it is happening like a movie in slow motion with the sound turned low. Steven stirs and moans a little but does not wake. Other noises
intrude like a cascade of whites and blues, very close, and Leah knows that if she did not have the mute button on for this show, the colours would cut her. Windows come and go, she thinks tranquilly. They blow in, they blow out. Somewhere, definitely, a window has been shattered. Not this room, she thinks. Bedroom perhaps. She should have let Marsyas board them up.

She can feel the sofa tilting slightly, sliding, and perhaps the house? Perhaps the foundations are going? Leah tries to resist, but the house is slipping its moorings, listing into salt marsh and sleep and the dream-past. Soon a man from the National Guard will knock at the door and she will have to climb back up the floorboards, she will have to carry Steven on her shoulder. Your son and your daughter-in-law have laid charges, the National Guardsman will say. Reckless negligence. Failure to evacuate in time.

But the airport was closed, Leah pleads. There was nothing I could do.

Just answer the phone, the Guardsman orders.

Phone? Leah says. Phone lines are down. It's my alarm.

She gropes for it, knocking candle and photographs, dislodging the past from its box.

Steven sits bolt upright, wide-eyed. ‘It's Mommy,' he says, then his head sinks back onto Leah's lap. His eyes are closed.

Answer it, orders the man from the National Guard.

Leah fumbles for the receiver in the dark. We're all right, she says. The National Guard are here to get us out. I tried to call before but the lines were down.

What? she says, startled. Who?

She holds the receiver away from herself and looks into it, dazed. It resembles a nautilus shell. When she puts the shell to her ear, she hears ocean. She hears hurricane. She hears the past.

This is so strange, she says. This is very very strange. Where are you?

Steven moves, and Leah extricates one arm from under his shoulder.

She watches words float from the shell in her hand.

It's been twenty years, says the voice in the nautilus phone.

I know, Leah says. Believe me, I know. But we agreed on that. No contact, we said.

You didn't give me much choice, the shell says.

You didn't have to be so absolute, Leah protests. For twenty years, not one word, and suddenly you call in the middle of a storm?

The whole world, he says, can watch a hurricane live these days. We've got Francesca on satellite TV. I've been watching her coming ashore and I know
you're right in her path. I wanted to know if you were safe.

Leah watches Steven making fish mouths in his sleep.

Where are you? she asks.

It's daylight here, he says. It's tomorrow. I know you're still in the dark.

But how did you find my phone number? she wants to know.

That's a very curious story, he says. If we met, I could tell you about it. It's so curious, it has to be fate.

Leah traces the whorls of Steven's ear with her index finger.

I'll tell you something even stranger, she says. You know that picture a street photographer took?

I still have it in my wallet, he says. It has ‘Love, Leah' written on the back.

His voice is like the pull of ocean in the pearled curve of the shell at her ear. She can feel herself being sucked in.

Will you meet me again? he wants to know.

I don't know, she says. I'd have to make arrangements, I'd have to think … can you give me some time?

Hello?

Hello?

7. Voyage of the Pine Tree Galleon

A small fleet of rooftops and wardrobes beckons Steven but he steers clear. He knows what he knows. Dolphins brush the undersides of his feet. Jimmy Saunders waves and halloos from a floating table. You're going the wrong way, Jimmy calls. All the islands have drowned.

Steven keeps his hand on the tiller, his eye on the star. His sails are full of Francesca. The storm surge looms over the branches of his ship like a mountain and Francesca is taking him straight up its green glassy slope. Higher, higher, higher. He knows he will go over the top.

A pirate ship has thrown grappling irons, the pirate has boarded his tree.

I am taking your grandmother and Marsyas hostage, the pirate roars, but Steven sees the white egret and claps his hands, and the angel, sword drawn, comes stepping across the waves.

8. Anatomy of a Hurricane

Initial phase is a simple matter of smoldering tropical temperatures and turbulence. Latent heat is released into the atmosphere which becomes more buoyant. Instability increases. A chain reaction is
set in motion and a cauldron of destructive winds spins into orbit and out of control. A hurricane devours everything in its path until it dies of its own exhaustion.

What can never be accurately predicted is the sheer velocity of the sequence from initial disturbance to chaos. Tumult begins without warning and can happen anywhere, any time, at an airport, a book shop, a dinner party: eye contact, latent heat, a mad buoyancy, increased instability, derangement.

‘This is madness,' Leah protests. ‘This is insane.'

‘Your skin tastes like mangoes,' he murmurs, ravenous. The room is steamy. The air is bright with the flash of passionbird wings. Leah sees gold, cobalt, emerald green. She smells jasmine. Their bodies give off latent heat, they are buoyant, floating far above any known life, orbiting through the treetop canopy where orchids run mad.

‘You smell like rainforest,' she tells him.

‘You're wild as a hurricane,' he says. ‘We have to go wherever this takes us.'

‘We can't,' Leah protests, suddenly panicked. Beyond the path of the storm, she can see the faint shape of her other life. ‘Think of the devastation,' she pleads.

‘Too late,' he says. ‘We've passed the point of no return.'

But Leah can see the blue arrows. Evacuation route, the blue arrows say. This way lies safety, they say.

9. Reprieve and Other Disappointments

‘During the night,' the National Guardsman tells Leah, ‘Francesca veered sharply north. She's going to miss us. Going to slam into North Carolina instead.'

‘So the order to evacuate—?'

‘Cancelled, ma'am,' he says cheerfully. ‘Should have the power back on soon. I see you lost a couple of windows.'

‘I've lost two of my pines,' Leah grieves.

‘Got to go,' the man from the National Guard tells her. ‘Got to knock on every door.'

‘Grandma?'

‘Steven!' Leah says. ‘Be careful. There's glass all over the floor. We've got broken windows, and look at our poor broken pines.'