How To Be Brave (22 page)

‘Now we’re three I think we’ve got another week’s worth. Food too, though biscuits are low.’

‘Shouldn’t we try and make rations last ten more days?’ asked Platten.

‘What does it matter?’ said Colin. ‘What’s the use of trying to make the rations last longer than we can? Food’s no good to a dead man. Nor is water. If we’re not picked up soon, we shall be dead. I’m sure of that, yes. Let’s take a chance on it and up the rations quite a bit, Chippy.’

Ken drew up a new list, determining they could now have two ounces of Bovril, six malted milk tablets, and four squares of chocolate. Biscuits could not be increased as they were running out. No one cared much for them anyway. Ken’s examination of the water situation raised hopes a little; having been so careful with the stuff meant they still had a good few tins of it.

‘I think,’ said Ken, ‘that we’re safe to set water rations at three ounces, three times a day. What do you think? This seem fair?’

It sounded heavenly. ‘I won’t argue with that,’ said Platten.

‘Nor I,’ said Colin.

As it was midday Ken issued the water and Colin studied his slightly fuller cup with thirsty eyes. It was hard to know how to best use the water; dry lips longed for its moisture, baked throats craved lubrication, blood screamed for liquid, and fried brains cried for relief. But thirst dictated Colin down it as quickly as possible.

‘What about the grub?’ he said. ‘Since we’ve decided to go rash with the supplies, how about starting now with a meal?’

They ate their Bovril Pemmican and milk tablets in silence.

‘I think,’ said Ken, ‘with today’s oppressive heat, that we should rest until the sun goes down and resume lookout with the cool of the evening.’

Who could argue? The act of talking and issuing rations had drained them and even Colin had no heart for watch duty. While they dozed, Scarface tailed the boat, maybe waiting for another body to be released to the sea, maybe weighing up how he might overturn the vessel, or maybe he somehow knew who was going to survive and he wanted to be there at the end too.

I remember waking on the thirty-fifth day to Ken shaking Platten roughly. It is the most vivid day I can recall, apart from one other. It is the one that I think of most often, apart from one other. I shouted at Ken to give over and when he did, Platten fell with a heavy thud. The man had died. We were stunned, even after the eleven deaths we had witnessed by then. It was not only that he had been so well the day before, but that now we were just two. We clasped hands, I remember. We looked at one another for a long time, hardly believing it. It had begun with Ken and I, and now we thought it might end with us two. We were so very sad for Platten – he’d been a grand chap. His quiet personality had done a lot for the crew and he’d been known as Fair Play Platten aboard the
SS Lulworth Hill.
We tried hard to give him a dignified and worthy send-off, but our sapped strength meant we had to kick him overboard and then sit and listen to the sharks tearing him apart. I wonder now how we survived so long and the other men did not. Over and over I think of it. Ken and I were not any bigger or stronger or better or fitter than the other men. We did not pray any harder or believe any more than they did or do any more. We were not more worthy. It does not seem fair. But I realised out on the ocean that fair doesn’t come into it. There is nothing fair about any of it. Fair is something we men have invented to try and make sense of it all. But there is no sense. There is only what you do
.

‘So there was just two of them,’ said Rose. ‘It always was really, wasn’t it? Just like us. You always need two, you know. One of you to be sad and one of you to be happy, and then you’ll both be brave together.’

I’ve always liked New Year’s Day so much more than New Year’s Eve. You get to start all over again. You’re bursting with hope, like a new term at school when you decide to write neatly in your blank exercise book and not make any mistakes or rush homework.

New Year’s Eve is an ending, the full stop that concludes a book. New Year’s Day, the new book. That year I was glad to say goodbye to it and knew I’d not look back with particular fondness. This one will be better, I told myself. That was my self-promise: hopeful, non-specific, just better.

Rose and I spent it quietly. A quick visit to my dad, a few hours with Vonny, a brief look around the sales at more remnants for Rose to stitch, and then back home for an evening of TV, roast beef, story time and watching the fireworks from my bedroom window.

At midnight flashes of fire lit the sky above our shed, scattering gold dust and ice-white stars, boom, pop, boom, pop.

‘Is that what a flare looks like?’ asked Rose, nose up against the glass.

‘You mean at sea? I’m not sure. It’d have to be bright though, wouldn’t it? To be seen from afar.’

‘Everything to do with danger is totally bright,’ she said. ‘Lighthouses and police sirens and those red warning signs in movies when the bad guys have set bombs off.’ She paused, her breath smoking the glass. ‘Will Dad have fireworks?’

‘Not sure.’

‘How many sleeps until he’s back?’ she asked.

‘Maybe, um, nine or ten.’

‘Maybe?’ demanded Rose.

‘It just might not be exactly the day he said. Because of the army and how long the journey is. It’ll be soon. That’s all you need to know.’

Soon wasn’t a lie, it was the story she needed. Or was it the one I needed? Weeks ago I’d threatened that I’d tell Jake how badly Rose had behaved and make sure he didn’t come home again. Now it felt like I was being punished for my behaviour that day, for breaking up the door.

‘Tomorrow I’m going to do two of my injections,’ she said. ‘Cos I don’t want you coming into school at lunchtime when I’m back next week, and I want to go on the Year Five trip to Whitby in summer and I’ll look like a total idiot if I have to have my mum come too!’

‘Please don’t call yourself an idiot,’ I sighed. ‘And even if it isn’t me, someone will always have to watch you when you do everything. In case you measure the wrong dose or you’re low and can’t hold it.’

I should have felt glad at her huge efforts toward independence. But part of me died. Let her go, said my head; I can’t, said my heart.

In the last week she had done five injections, with difficulty. The angle was different when self-injecting as opposed to having someone else do it. I was able to go straight into the flesh, clean, in and out. She had to bend her arm while squeezing a small bit of tummy flesh with her other hand and pressing the pen lever at the same time. At times she panicked and pulled the needle out before the full insulin dose was released, meaning her blood sugars rose. Or she couldn’t press the lever at the same time and had to start again, meaning more bruises. It would never be easy, no matter how old she got or how long she had diabetes. Each time I offered to take over Rose shoved me away, determined to conquer it.

‘Don’t suffocate me,’ she yelled. ‘Stop watching me all the time. You’re putting me off.’

‘You should be glad,’ she said now. ‘You can go back to work and stuff. You must be bored being at home. I would be if I was stuck in all the time like a little rat in a box.’

An emerald firework splattered across the sky like sparkly grass cuttings spat from a lawnmower. Rose was right. It was time to think about going back to work. I’d soon be totally redundant from my role as storyteller, blood reader and injector – and what then?

I glanced at the clock on my bedside table: twelve fifteen. ‘Bedtime now,’ I said. ‘You’ve seen in the New Year.’

‘Did you make a wish?’ she asked as I tucked her in.

‘Not really,’ I admitted. ‘More of a self-promise. Did you?’

‘Yes, but I can’t tell you or it won’t come true.’

I went to kiss her forehead but she wrinkled her nose and turned away, a child one minute, a mystery the next.

‘How will I be able to do Colin’s diary at lunchtime if I don’t come into school anymore?’ I asked her.

‘Mum, the story’s going to be over by then,’ she said, exasperated, as if I should have known. And I did, I just didn’t want to think about it yet. I had worried how she would cope when it finished, but I’d never really thought about how I’d feel – until now.

When I pulled away something fell from under the pillow – a book. It was
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
. I remembered how desperate I’d been at the hospital to get her to take one.

‘You’re reading again,’ I said, pleased.

‘Not yet.’ I could tell she was half-asleep. ‘I put it there ready.’

‘Ready?’

‘For when Grandad Colin’s story is over.’

‘That could be another week,’ I said. ‘We’re still only at day thirty-nine.’

‘I’m … just … getting … prepared…’ she said, the words separated by sleepiness.

I put the book back under her pillow, sniffed her hair. It was all warmth and sleep and faint coconut shampoo. I turned out the light. In my bedroom I watched the dying fireworks and wondered why I wasn’t elated. I’d done it.
We’d
done it.
She
had done it.

Rose had not only accepted her blood tests and injections but she had done some herself. And now at last the little girl whose first words were ‘book, book, want book’ was returning to her beloved stories.

I’d called Shelley a few days ago and told her about Rose’s first self-administered injection. ‘You must be overjoyed,’ she’d said to me.

So why wasn’t I?

The year had been a tough one but tomorrow, I self-promised, would be better. I looked at my phone, knowing I wouldn’t have missed a call from Jake, but hoping anyway. There were Happy New Year texts from my mum and encouraging words and offers of help from Vonny.

Perhaps Jake still being away was why the fireworks hadn’t made me clap my hands and jump the way Rose had earlier. And, of course, we hadn’t finished Colin’s story yet. I knew we were coming up to the most difficult chapters and I feared their effect on Rose. Might his worst suffering undo all that we’d achieved? It had helped so far but now came the greatest test of his life.

I closed the curtains and crawled into bed.

In the morning we woke late and I made eggs and bacon and we took them into the book nook. Rose switched on the fairy lights, said, ‘Can we keep these here? I like them so much.’

‘They’re Christmas lights,’ I said. ‘I’ll be taking them down tomorrow.’

‘They could be lights for lots of reasons,’ she snapped. ‘Reading lights. Summer lights. Just lights, like, in general.’

‘We’ll see,’ I said, and she mimicked my words with a scowl. ‘Let’s do an injection and you can have your bacon. Right – day thirty-nine.’ I paused because we still shared the story sometimes. ‘Shall I begin or shall you?’

She shrugged, sulky, so I began.

The only real event that lifeboat day was a horrid one: the biscuits ran out. Rose argued that Colin hated the things and so was glad they had gone. I agreed but explained that they were the only food of any substance. That the chocolate and milk tablets and Bovril would hardly keep a cat alive. As much as the hard texture had tortured their dry mouths and swollen tongues, Ken and Colin knew that without them they’d be considerably weaker.

But it was water they wanted most and longing for it filled every moment of the day, waking or asleep.

Rose pushed her egg around the plate. ‘I’d not eat for days if I could take my food to the lifeboat,’ she said. ‘All those Selection Boxes in the cupboard and I have to wait for a hypo to have them – such a waste!’

‘I know,’ I said softly.

At lunchtime we let Colin’s diary fall open to reveal a short passage, words written in blue amongst black like water against night sky. Had his pen run out? Had he added these thoughts long after the others or had he purposely recorded them in such a way that they stood out?

I read them carefully; sure that was how he’d want them to be voiced.

I think when I have filled this book I will dispose of it. I should not like to think of anyone else reading my laborious thoughts, my confessions, or about my mistakes. Recording these things has helped me make sense of what happened though I don’t suppose it should matter very much to anyone when I’m no longer here. I’m just an average man who experienced something quite extraordinary
.

‘I wonder why he didn’t get rid of it?’ asked Rose.

I closed the book. ‘I don’t suppose any of us know when we’re going to die, do we? Maybe he intended to throw it away and…’

‘Never did,’ she finished, softly. ‘I’m so glad, or we’d never have had it.’

‘He wanted us to have it remember.’

‘Yes.’

‘He told me to find it; then he led you to it, in the shed.’

Rose paused, and then said, ‘And now he doesn’t come as much. In the night, I mean.’

‘Maybe he doesn’t need to,’ I said. ‘We know him so well now, don’t we?’

At teatime we reached day forty. Rose prepared the injection, correctly measuring the dose, testing it, and gripping her tummy’s small bit of flesh, ready to pierce the skin.

‘Not so rough,’ I guided. ‘You don’t want to bruise even more.’

‘I know, I know!’ she snapped. ‘You start the chapter, I’m concentrating.’

‘Okay, day forty began like all the others in many ways,’ I said. ‘The sun began her daily ascent, the sky was as cloudless as …’

‘Is Ken going to live too?’ asked Rose. ‘I
need
to know, Mum.’

‘I thought you knew the story as well as me.’

‘I do. Grandad Colin’s part anyway.’

‘Haven’t you read the newspaper cuttings?’ I asked her.

‘No, they’re boring,’ she said, wrinkling her nose.

‘What about the last pages of the diary?’

‘Can’t read
that
fast.’

‘You’ll have to wait and see then,’ I said. ‘Shall I go on?’

The question needed no answer. I went on. We went on.

As did the ocean.