DRAKE'S ROCK by Terence Gibbons

Chapter 1

Pamela Drake strained over the rail of the boat, her slim body arching in spasms of tortured muscles, and vomited into the dark waters of the Southern Ocean. They had rounded Cape Horn despite the virus that had struck down both her, and her husband Alec, a few days before. Long intervals of delirium had taken them mostly by turns so that just when it had appeared that one of them was recovering the other would succumb to it again or vice versa. It was more due to luck than anything else that they had rounded that most dangerous of all capes with any margin of safety at all, but they were round and the worst of the voyage lay hopefully in their wake.

The objective of the voyage had been to celebrate their first wedding anniversary and was in fact the honeymoon that they’d been obliged to forfeit a year ago. Forgoing their honeymoon had been no real loss as both of them were deeply involved in their outside interests. He had spent the year consolidating his new business by obtaining the dealer concession for Toyota cars for the area in order to boost his services as a garage. She was given the welcome opportunity of time to research dolphins in the Pacific to complete a paper she had to write for her university course. She was well on the way to becoming a marine biologist and the cruise was a welcome opportunity to do some field work. It was all coming together for both of them.

From their first meeting their lives had changed in many positive ways. In Alec she had found the perfect counterbalance to her mother’s perpetual criticisms of her capabilities. Not once had he ever found fault with the way she was doing anything. It still took a lot of getting used to, not having everything she said or did pulled apart by a dominant tongue. It was almost like she had not begun to live, or be a complete person, until the day she met Alec. He gave her room to grow and find herself without any obvious effort on his part. She had once asked him about it but he had simply shrugged, genuinely not knowing what she was driving at. She soon came to realise that his attitude, like most peoples, was normal and her mother’s abnormal. It was a freedom she had never known, and she was forever finding it difficult to adjust to it. She often found herself waiting for some negative reaction to something she did, but nothing ever happened. She and Alec got along like two bodies sharing one soul. Anger was never a part of their relationship and when she looked at those of their friends’ she wondered how many marriages were so perfect.

Having finally taken her degree in medicine her mother had assumed that Pamela would continue her career as a doctor but Pamela had had other dreams. Alec had allowed her the space to grow, and still did, willingly giving her the time she badly needed to find her true worth. Her mother, for whatever reason, had always held her back when Pamela’s tendencies had been to follow paths that went against her mother’s ideas of what a young woman of Pamela’s character should do. After their engagement she had entered the university to study marine biology and Alec had always been there to encourage and support her. The fact that he was a keen sailor with a well-found boat had made so much difference. He would sail her, using his personal knowledge of the area around Gisborne, to show her places that had some interest to her studies. While still macho he had a lot going for him when it came to considering her needs. He taught her by degrees to sail and handle the eleven and a half meter wooden ketch. He never appeared to be worried that anything she did with it would result in any severe damage. He left her often to sail it on her own, although it was his pride and joy, confident that the cold laminated hull could resist almost anything. The inner layer was of mahogany which gave the interior a warm, homely glow. Next came two diagonal layers of oak for strength, with a final skin of teak as defence against marine worm. The total thickness of the hull was close to forty millimetres, tough enough for almost anything it could hit. They had cruised, for miles, before they were married and Pamela could handle the ketch as ably as he and her navigation was improving all the time.

Pamela's grip on the stanchion post tightened as her body retched again to evacuate her already empty stomach. A rope, she had secured to her ankles to prevent her going overboard, strained as her involuntary retching tried to throw her into the sea. Gagging for breath she leaned back in an attempt to put an end to the agony; gulping cold air down into her stomach, air that seemed as black as the ocean itself, until the sickness seemed to abate. Clinging to the rail, and spreading her legs against the incessant rolling of the boat, she gazed out over the constantly shifting ocean, screwing her eyes up to aid her in the impossible task of seeing anything. Overhead the impenetrable ceiling of black clouds raced along, at the vagaries of the wind, starving the scene of any light that might have come from the moon, or the sun, which didn’t quite manage to completely set at that time of year. The horizon, had it been visible at all, she knew would be a glowing deep pink, a smudge of colour that would slowly move eastwards through the night until the sun rose again in the early hours of the morning. Gleaming like a miniature sun from three-quarters of the way up the mizzen mast, the solitary spotlight cast a yellow funnel of light down onto the boat producing the effect that they were sailing inside a pot of the blackest ink. Nothing was visible beyond its golden cone of light. As the spray was licked up by the wind it glittered like diamonds cascading through the powerful beam.

Their voyage had abruptly taken on nightmare proportions. When they could have sailed straight back home to New Zealand they had decided to continue by way of Cape Horn for two reasons: Alec had always nurtured every yachtsman’s dream of circumnavigating the globe, so they had decided between them to head for Cape Town by way of the Horn, where some of his relatives lived. This particular aunt and uncle had at the time been unable to attend their wedding, and had never actually met Pamela, so this looked like a good opportunity to meet this part of his family. Then their intention was to sail around the other great cape, the Cape of Good Hope, and continue east on the last leg and head with, mutual reluctance, back home to Gisborne, New Zealand.

Apart from the fiasco of sickness that had stricken them, the whole voyage had been idyllic, but now Alec lay sweating and moaning behind the lee-cloth of his bunk, a canvas sheet set there to prevent him from falling from the comparative comfort of his berth. His mind slipped in and out of consciousness, just as she had done the day before. However his discomfiture was added to by a badly injured leg from taking a fall on deck during one of the many vicious tempests they had encountered two night ago. He had not been able to move from his bunk since.

She felt her stomach heave once more and gripped the stanchion with heavily gloved hands still numbed by the bleak polar wind. The smothering cloud cover cracked briefly to shed an eerie light from a winking moon. Blue hints of illumination that flickered across a tempestuous sea dotted here and there with growlers, small pieces of ice that derived their name from the sound they made as they rubbed against each other and along the sides of boats at the vagaries of wind and current.

The waves appeared to grow slowly in the distance, developing fearsomely, becoming massive and jet, rushing at them like a moving wall causing the counter of the boat to rise crazily. On the face of the angry water she could just make out the huge loop of heavy hawser that Alec must have laid out to help keep the boat stern on to the remorselessly advancing seas and to slow them down a little as they plunged down the faces of each successive wave that lifted them. As she watched, they raced down into a deep trough. The bow dug into the surface of the next wave throwing up spray that mixed with the flying spume torn from the peaks to sweep out on the gale, like old men's beards. It carried on the wind to smart like pellets against any area of unprotected skin . She turned her face downwind as it lashed her. The loop of thick rope bit into the water behind leaving its own trail of agitated water. The wind moaned in the rigging, rising slowly to a screech as its intensity increased, pressing the bow under. Glancing forward, she noticed that Alec had also set the small storm sail on the inner fore stay. Creeping, on her hands and knees, she returned to the cockpit just as another mammoth hump of water passed under the stern hissing like a crazed leviathan. A monstrosity of mythology that became real to any sailor at sea in such conditions.

Almost falling from weakness down the companionway, she flopped into the seat at the chart table, struggling to bring her mind to bear on the problem of fixing their position on the chart.

‘That can't be right,’ she muttered in disbelief after a few frustrating minutes of calculations that just would not come right. According to their dead reckoning they were almost six hundred miles from Cape Horn having moved in a south-easterly direction. She checked again, but their entries in the log had been sporadic and mostly illegible due chiefly to their malady. Had they, while confused in their delirium, neglected to keep the log up to date? Could they have missed a couple of days? What mistakes had they made during the worst of their sickness? The spidery scrolls on the pad, what did they mean? Was that a two or a seven, and that a five or an eight? Whatever calculations her fuddled mind made she still came up with the same sort of results: They were many miles from where they should have been!

The GPS, that wonder of modern navigation, which would have given them an instant and accurate position was out of commission with the antenna broken during Alec's fall and he had been unable to fix it in his present condition. Their hand-held unit had been stolen during their short stopover at Tonga when the Stella Maris had been broken into and burgled. Though they had tried but had failed to find one to replace it. It could also have been at Tonga where they had bought the food that had given them this sickness.

She went to Alec in the hope that he was lucid enough to understand what it was she was trying to say. She was nothing like the sailor he was; she hadn’t the experience he had and couldn’t find the solution to this problem on her own. Only he would know what to do. She found him with his wetsuit trousers down revealing an angry, abnormal looking swelling on his right thigh. Bringing the lamp closer, she immediately diagnosed that it was a fracture rather than just the bruise he had claimed it to be. It was typical of his need to maintain a macho image that he had not admitted just how seriously he was injured. Nothing must tarnish that notion, and she wondered just how much of him was image and how much the real him. Was she in love with a dream? What was the real Alec like, the persona he kept so well hidden by this need of his to always appear so manly? She didn’t like these thoughts racing unaided through her mind. She judged them to be childish, that they were edging towards disloyalty, so brushed them aside as she reached across to feel the leg.

‘Alec. That’s broken.’

‘I know.’ The sheepish admission made the look in his amber-brown eyes appear anything but manly. Together with his unkempt dark curly hair he looked so boyish. ‘I didn’t want to worry you. I figured we’d reach Port Stanley any day, where I could get it fixed.’

For two days she had been handling the boat on her own because he was sick and had often cursed him for his weakness in that sickness. How she had felt guilty for all the bad things she had thought about him, but saddened for the extent to which her own weakness had been increased because of these feelings, things she had never voiced, notions that he was making too much of his illness. Port Stanley, she thought, was well away from where they found themselves but she said nothing for the moment as her sympathy drove all other thoughts from her mind.

‘Dear God! You must be in agony, especially through these storms.’

‘It has had me cussing at times,’ he grinned boyishly.

‘It has had me cursing aloud on deck because I thought you were malingering. You great ox. Didn’t you just think, for one minute, that by being honest with me you would have, in some way, helped me to cope better with all this extra work? And not all of your foul language was under your breath.’ Her anger at his deception melted as she took in his youthful smile. ‘Most of your language was so heated that we haven’t seen a single bird for days. You scared them all off with your blue outbursts,’ she joked, unable to hide her genuine concern for him.

‘I don’t suppose it has anything to do with the fact that we’ve been in a constant storm and that they can’t land?’

‘Nope! I saw them flying off with their wings over their ears.’ She began collecting together an assortment of things from the well-stocked medicine chest. ‘This is going to hurt like hell, darling, but it has to be done.’

‘It can’t get any worse than it is now,’ he grunted between clenched teeth. ‘Do what you have to do, doc’

‘It won’t be easy for you, but you must try to relax the muscles in the leg.’

He nodded and mentally prepared himself for what was to come. Struggling against the motion of the boat, she pulled the limb until the ends of the bone were aligned, then fastened a piece of towel around his leg before applying the splints. He gritted his teeth while she did this but was forced to cry out loud when, as she was tightening the fastenings, the boat lurched unexpectedly causing her to stagger and apply more torque than she desired. She administered to him with painkillers and antibiotics with plenty of water to drink. When she had done everything she could to make him comfortable, she explained their situation as she saw it.

‘We are heading for the ice-fields, Alec, if we keep on this course. I can't be certain of our position but I think we are pretty close to the South Sandwich Islands.’

‘Jesus! What's the sky like?’

‘Too overcast for the sextant,’ she responded recalling the compact covering of rolling clouds competing to block out the sky.

‘I don't know what I can do with it, but I have to try to repair the antenna. If you can strip it from the deck, that is.’

‘And why not? Why shouldn’t I be capable of unfastening a few screws?’

‘Bolts!’ he corrected.

‘Bolts, then. I’ll get some spanners.’

‘The sea water won't have done it any good at all.’ Alec settled himself into as comfortable a position as the boat would allow him while she climbed on deck to detach the antenna from its bracket.

Being new at the start of the voyage it should have come away easily but the bolts had become heavily corroded so she had to return below to hunt out a can of releasing agent from the tool locker by the engine. Returning on deck she sprayed with one hand while shielding the bolts with the other to prevent the agent from being whipped away uselessly by the near gale. The oil also penetrated the many cuts and scratches on her hands until they stung. Her arms were bruised from hanging on against the erratic movements of the boat. At times she had to pause in her work while she held on for dear life, as the boat tossed defiantly against the confused seas. After a prolonged combat with the elements, during which she almost lost the spanners twice and almost had her arms pulled out of their sockets, she managed to unfasten the stubborn bolts and bring the whole contraption below. She passed it triumphantly to Alec. Her smug expression was not lost on him.

‘I knew you could do it. If you hadn’t been so handy I would’ve signed somebody else on for this cruise.’ This was a side of him that she really liked; it was such a contrast to how she had been treated at home, and in particular by her mother. Her father had simply grunted about the amount of money he was having to find for her education.

‘Oh, would you? Bearing in mind this is our honeymoon.’

‘Some honeymoon,’ he grinned as he inspected the antenna closely, wedging his thumb through the wide split in its plastic cover so that he could see inside.

‘Well, it will get worse if you can’t fix that. We’ll be spending the rest of our married lives at the South Pole with the penguins.’ She tried to make light of the situation.

‘Well, you’d have the perfect opportunity to study them for that paper you keep wanting to write,’ he muttered turning the contraption round in his hands. He was competent to repair any type of engine, but with sophisticated electronics he was well outside his league. Even if he could diagnose the fault, he doubted he would be able to replace any damaged parts, but he had a talent for utilising anything to hand though.

‘You always turn the negative into a positive. I don’t know how you do it. Some-times I think your brain must be up-side-down inside that skull of yours,’ she laughed.

‘It would never do for all of us to think the same way. If the occasional man did not come along with a different thought, or way of approaching a problem, we would never have a genius to guide us forward. Without such unconventional thinkers mankind would never have evolved into the fine, intelligent creature that he is.’

‘Oh, sure. Spears and clubs have been replaced with guns and weapons of mass destruction. Fine, intelligent creatures indeed!’

‘Man has to have his weapons,’ Alec retorted. ‘He would feel infinitesimal without them. The reality of the fact escapes him under the illusion that through his technology he is capable of destroying his own existence, if he chose to do so. He doesn’t want to, and I don’t think he will, he just has to be in a position to be able to exercise that power.’

‘And in his search for these wonderful crutches to prop up his macho tendencies, he almost destroys the environment that succours him. His constant experimenting is laying waste millions of square kilometres that should be used more productively to feed and clothe the world, not to mention poisoning the oceans and generally upsetting the whole balance of the planet,’ she protested against this, his latest theory on the brilliance of man.

‘Well, that’s all a component of the cycle of life, don’t you see? Technology begets technology, knowledge leads to further knowledge. Eventually we will have devised ways to counteract all that we have messed up. We will achieve the perfect world.’

By now he was getting into full swing with his hypothesis while still taking apart the antenna using tools that she passed to him. But Pamela bristled at this last statement.

‘Is that what the nuns at St. Gregory’s taught you? They taught me that in the beginning God gave us the perfect world and our part in his creation is to help complete it yet all we have is done nothing short of trying to destroy it.’

‘My nuns were more forward thinking than yours. The world God gave us was perfect for man at the beginning of his development. But if you insist on giving this a religious connotation I’ll go along with it. We were given the task of husbandry of the earth with the purpose not of simple maintenance but of improvement. Our sole remit from God is to complete what he began.’

‘That stinks of foul blasphemy, Alec, and if you don’t go to confession when we get home then I’ll dob you in to the bishop himself.’

‘It’s not blasphemy it’s...’

‘No! Stop right there. Enough is enough. Let’s change the subject. Are you hungry O modern man?’

Alec chuckled and squinted at the antenna. ‘What’ve we got?’

‘Well I fancied a chicken chow mien with all the trimmings but as the kitchen is a mite on the mobile side it will have to be soup.’

‘Chicken, I suppose?’

‘Correct. Just imagine it is chow mien.’

Pamela wedged herself in the galley to heat some soup from packets, juggling against the unremitting roll of the harassed boat. At least that was performing as it should and keeping them afloat. Stella Maris, Star of the Sea. She felt that they had let her down by their involuntary neglect in failing to keep the log properly. She poured soup into a deep bowls, cut great wedges of bread, and took some to Alec, who could only move now in an extreme emergency. Every slight change of position called for great strength and resolve on his part. She braced herself at the small table in the galley and made a valiant effort to eat hers knowing that within the hour she could be feeding the fish again.

After eating she lay in her bunk to sleep the strange sleep of the yachtie which equates to that of a dog in that it is shallow and, from a human point of view, hardly worth the while. This time she awoke before the alarm went off. The motion of the boat felt sluggish and was rolling about wildly. She girded herself up for another trip on deck to make sail. It was a struggle but, although her body was tired, her mind was soon refreshed by the icy blast of the wind. Why wouldn't it make up its mind what it wanted to do? It either blew hard or not at all. Things had taken on a slightly brighter hue in that she could now see the ocean around her with its angry waves covered with white spume. The sky continued grey with dense clouds that boiled as they raced ahead of the small yacht. An hour later, with the main set with two reefs in it, the boat was again moving along with some grace. She paused at the hatch knowing that she would be forced to venture up on deck again before long to take in sail; she hoped she could get some rest first and made her way to her bunk. She was exhausted. Sleep came instantly.

As she slept she dreamed she was a child doing something under the instruction of her dominant mother and everything she did was wrong or not done well enough. Frustration and anger grew inside her but she seldom fought back. It would be pointless, her mother always won even when she was so off the mark. Dominance was right and that was the end of it. Looking in vain over her shoulder, for any support from her father, she tried harder and vigorously to get the task done to her mother’s satisfaction which was never shown even when the high expectation was achieved. ‘You are just not doing it right Pamela’, her mother railed at her and she awoke filled with a confused anger and her mind haunted by her fathers sad deviated eyes.

The boat was being thrown over on its beam ends and she knew at once that they were moving too fast. Knowing Alec could not go on deck she was compelled to and struggled to get herself dressed against the wild elements she had to face. She pushed the hatch open just far enough to allow herself to crawl onto the steeply sloping deck. Below her was the angry grey water of the Southern Ocean which meant death; above her the windward side which meant being exposed to the full strength of the wind not to mention its wind-chill factor. She took this latter route gripping with both hands while she spread her legs for leverage against anything on the deck or cabin side that would afford her a grip, if only temporary. It seemed an eternity before she reached the mizzen shrouds where she linked her harness up to a safety line that ran to the base of the main mast. With both arms embracing the mast, she slowly stood up.

The boat appeared to be in a boiling seething gigantic cauldron with the port bow being pushed under by the frequent hard gusts. The wind bearing down on them was like something solid; a tangible wall of Antarctic air, numbing and unforgiving. Each thrust as it rose above the norm pressed the small ketch dangerously under by the bow. She had to get all sail off the Stella Maris quickly if she was to survive and them with her. Edging her way forward she began work on the mainsail hoping none of the slides were jammed or frozen or that the boom would take it into its mind to smash the boat to pieces. She took a few turns of the topping lift around the winch and strained to crank it on the winch. With the some of the weight off the sail it was still slow work because the violent wind made the canvas as tight as a board and this fought against her. Her hands became so numb that she no longer had any feeling in her fingers. As she gasped for breath the chilled air stung her nose, mouth and lungs. The task, which in normal weather she would have had it done in less than thirty minutes took an age. She had been working now, pressed to the deck, for at least an hour and the sail was still big enough to be causing the boat some distress. She sang a hymn to herself as she struggled on, a hymn she remembered from her childhood about the Virgin Mary, the Star of the Sea. At last the head-board was in her grasp, the unruly sail lashed to the boom with the boat beginning to rise and take command of herself. She was making just enough way to be in balance with the elements. Pamela made a quick visual inspection around the deck. Nothing seemed to be out of place and everything that should be there was there.

Without a rest she moved cautiously forward to trim the small storm jib, a stiff piece of sail designed to be set in a strong winds but nothing like this. She reset it just the same. Now the boat was making its way as she should: under control with the regal dignity bred into her by her designer’s pen all those years ago. Reefing the mizzen was slightly easier than the main but still a mammoth chore that had to be done to balance the downwind thrust of the jib. With the boat under control returning below was less arduous than her trip upward and she was feeling good about herself. The whole operation had taken her more than two and a half hours during which time she was chilled to a numbness that made her joints stiff.

‘How's it going with the GPS, Alec?’ she asked as she massaged the feeling back into her arms and legs. Before long they would be warmed through and the aches and pains of a dozen or more bruises would have her wishing she was still frozen.

‘Nothing wrong that a new one wouldn't fix,’

‘I'll heave-to at the next shop,’ she laughed, but she knew the situation was serious. They had little idea of where they were or how long they had been sailing on that course and could only guess at what lay before them in those dark grey waters. They had not had a positive position fix for five days. He pointed to a piece of the antenna that had sheared inside the cover.

‘There’s the problem I think. If I can join it back together somehow it might work.’

‘Are you confident?’

‘Always, my darling, but that doesn’t mean I can fix it.’

‘What do you need?’

‘To be up and about so that I can solder it for a start.’

‘Is that wise?’

He shrugged. ‘It’ll be damned awkward to do laying down.’

‘Could I do it?’

‘You can do anything you put your mind to, my angel.’ Alec would always say things like that. He encouraged her in everything she attempted, always with constructive criticism that was worded not to hurt or offend. He had helped her to develop so much self-confidence and self-esteem during their time together. She smiled down at him as he gathered the bits and held the two pieces to show her how it went together. 

‘You need to hold the soldering iron on it until it gets up to temperature. If you keep dabbing it with the solder you’ll know when it’s ready because the solder will melt. You might struggle though with the boat moving like this. It won’t be easy at all.’ He almost added ‘for anyone’ but held back. He always tried to guide her without making her feel that he was patronising her.

‘I’ll give it a go,’ she said with a confidence she barely felt. Having retrieved the soldering iron and solder from the tool chest she moved into the galley and set to work at the table with both the pieces propped and wedged on stacks of cork coasters. With each movement of the boat they slid out of position and she had to reset them while keeping the iron from burning anything. After several failed attempts she developed the technique of resting her elbows on the table while pulling herself towards it. Her eyes were stinging with fatigue and the thin wisp of smoke that rose from the solder; the pieces swam before her so that she stopped the heat to reposition them only to find that they had not moved after all. Finally the solder began to flow into the joint. She wondered how much she should apply and shouted to Alec for advice.

‘Keep it flowing until it begins to dribble from the bottom,’ he supplied just as it did so. She withdrew the iron and waited.

‘I think I’ve done it, Boss,’ she shouted in glee.

‘Nice one, Pam. I’ll put it together later. Right now I need to sleep. These painkillers are beginning to kick in.’

Pamela waited until it had cooled sufficiently for her to touch it then took it to him. He was already sleeping. She had immobilised his leg by packing extra cushions and bags of clothing around him. On a towel on his chest were all the bits which he hoped he could put back together when they were dried and free from salt. It looked far from likely that he would be able to put together again. It did not look too promising at all to her but she wished he didn’t have to sleep just yet. If he could assemble it she could refit it to the deck mount while he slept. Hiding her disappointment she lifted the towel by its corners and tied it up in a bundle so that none of the pieces would not get lost. She did all that she could do for him before returning to her bunk to catch up on some sleep with the boat on a new course that should bring them closer to their intended passage.

She slept soundly for, not two hours, but four. As she extricated herself from the tangled sleeping bag she was assaulted by all the aches and pains that the heavy going had given her. Her ribs were bruised; her arms and wrists were stiff and aching; and four of her fingernails were painfully split and bloody. In addition to this were all the countless cuts, grazes and scratches her hands had received during the last few days. Her first thought though was to check on Alec who was in a deep sleep but his colour worried her. He was grey beneath the thick black beard and obviously in pain.

She was cold, so terribly cold, and so grateful that Alec had suggested they buy wetsuits for this part of the voyage. They were difficult to put on, especially on top of thermals, but once dressed you remained fairly warm. On deck it made little difference what you wore with that relentless chill blowing straight off the Antarctic ice cap. Reluctantly, she clambered up the companionway and crawled out onto the deck to make an inspection. The sea was still in a wild mood but the gale seemed to have dropped just a little in strength. The waves were still piled high and the strong wind streaked their peaks white with spray that lashed her skin. She raised the mainsail and the mizzen sail to their first reefing point leaving the tough little storm jib as it was. After a few minutes of trimming the boat was striding along quite respectably, slicing her way up and down the massive swell. Up and down, up and down. She clambered below again with the warmth of her bunk enticing her but she had to pay a visit to the heads first.

Damn this sickness! What had caused it? Was it the tinned fish they had bought in Tonga? Who could tell? It could be down to anything they had eaten. She rinsed her face before turning into her bunk fully dressed to sleep fitfully having dosed herself with antibiotics and set the alarm to give her a couple of hours. As she slipped slowly into the darkness of slumber she was aware of Alec groaning in his bunk and felt she should go to him. He was still asleep. She checked the bottle of painkillers and saw that he had taken some more. Before going back to her bunk she kissed him gently on the forehead. What a mess. They had to make land soon and get that leg seen to if he was to keep it. The antibiotics would hopefully prevent any complicating infection setting in. Nothing was ever certain and she needed so badly to make him well. He was by far the best thing that had ever happened in her life and she knew she would do anything to keep him. Her love for him was like a melancholy ache. There had never had a cross word between them because essentially they thought the same things, as though their minds were one. She gently stroked his forehead then stopped for fear her caress would awaken him from the tranquillity he so sorely needed.

But Alec was not asleep. His pain-filled mind was working on their situation and he feigned sleep so that he would not have to look into the worn face of the woman he loved so much. This was all his fault, he thought. Why had he been so persuasive, when they were planning this voyage, that they sail around the Horn? They could have sailed so easily for New Zealand without going into the South Atlantic at all. Visiting Aunt Alice and Uncle Doug had just been something to add to his argument for circumnavigating the world. He tried to tell himself that it was not his fault that they had been made so ineffective by the food poisoning. That had made a difference, but they might just well have coped better if they had not had to sail, at that time, through the most treacherous seas on the planet. He twisted his position in the bunk almost screaming as the ends of his broken bone ground against each other. He bit hard until the pain subsided. Damned! he screamed inwardly at himself. Because of his dream he had subjected Pamela to all this. She had not complained once, simply appearing to submit to his dream and had done all she could to make it come true. Even now she was doing it all while he lay, a useless article incapable of doing anything but add to her already heavy workload. She was too good to be treated like this and he vowed that in the future, when they had somehow pulled themselves out of this mess, he would see that things were different. He would try so hard not to be selfish and consider what she wanted out of life above his own desires. He had to find it in him to work with her to ensure their future and not be in charge of every situation. It wasn’t as if she was incapable of doing anything. He knew she had the intelligence and inner strength to complete any project she undertook. He had seen the way her mother had treated her over even the simplest of things and had railed at her in Pamela’s defence. Why did Pamela put up with it? Why did she never fight back? It was as though she was playing a waiting game, that some day her mother would be gone and Pamela left not grieving but in peace. His wife’s patience seemed endless. His altercations with her mother had not really been of any help and had done much to drive a wedge in what could have been a normal family relationship. What is normal? Doesn’t every family have strife like this? No. It was unnecessary. There was nothing like this between his mother and Pamela. She thought she was a wonderful catch, and so she is. Too good to be dropped into a situation like this. And in a way I am guilty of using her love for me, her insecurity too, in order to get what he wanted out of this voyage. He knew that she would do anything to please him and had taken advantage of that love. Or had he? Could he really accuse himself of such a selfish and cruel act? In all honesty he could not fully deny it because it was partially true.

Guilt for their present predicament weighed heavily upon him. While he endeavoured to ease this guilt by trying to find extenuation in the sickness that had certainly been the root of the problem he found little comfort. Swallowing another handful of pills he tried to relax to allow them to take effect and spare him these torments of the mind and body.

Once again the alarm clock failed to rally her to her duties. She checked that it was working properly by setting it to go off and it did. It was a consequence of her fatigue that she had slept through it once again and a tired sailor is a dangerous one. Night had fallen again and the sea was still raging with spray whipping in sheets from the crests of the high waves. It was difficult to estimate their size but they were big, cold and black, and that was sufficient for the thirty-two year old woman, who to all intents was single-handedly sailing the boat. At that moment Alec was little more than another part of the boat to be taken care of. She crawled on her stomach around the deck, clinging like a spider to what seemed like invisible handholds, inspecting everything that she passed, and was pleasantly surprised to note the small amount of damage to the boat sustained during the worst of the storm but when she saw that the life-raft canister had been washed overboard she froze. Its loss worried her considerably. The Southern Ocean was probably the last place to be without one. While realising the dangers she tried not to dwell too much on the consequences of its loss. They were unthinkable!

Turning her attention to the sails she spent time trimming them before the chill of the wind and her nausea drove her below once more to take some more antibiotics with plenty of water. She administered to Alec too who looked deathly pale in the light from the lamp. The clammy skin of his forehead almost burned her hand. Her heart ached with concern.

‘Hang on in there, Alec. Another day and your stomach will settle at least. How's your leg?’

‘Comfortable,’ he answered trying to hide the pain he felt with every movement of the boat. She could imagine without any difficulty how each plunge and twist of the boat was adding to his pain.

‘Shall I heave to so you can rest?’ It was an option. Another couple of days would not make much difference and with the absence of the plunging of the boat, as it tried to crash faithfully through the waves, he would get some relief.

‘No, I can take it. Let's push on, but don't overdo it yourself. You're looking beat.’

‘Now that's some way to compliment a girl,’ she ran her fingers through his tousled hair then took the bucket he had been using to pour its contents down the heads. Hanging it back by his bunk she began to tidy the cabin. ‘I’ve tied all the bits of antenna up in the towel for when you’re ready to do some work. Right now I’d better get this lot cleared away.’

It was as though every article on the boat had burst out of its locker to form a sliding mess on the cabin sole. After spending almost an hour crawling around she had everything more or less back in its original place then set about heating some chicken on the stove. This task was hindered by the amount of clothing she was wearing but she persevered. To presume to go on deck with just one layer of clothing less would be inviting trouble. Hunger gnawed at her stomach as she poured soup into two large enamel mugs and hacked some chunks of bread. Pinning herself into a corner she ate her own meal before coaxing some down Alec, feeding him like a child. Neither had been able to eat anything substantial for three, or was it four days?

The jolting crunch came without any warning and for a split second she froze with fear. She could hear water surging into the hull and before she could move it was rising above the cabin sole. With swift movements verging on panic she threw items of food into a hold-all with a bottle each of painkillers and antibiotics. If they were forced to abandon the yacht Alec would certainly need them. By the time she had reached the companionway water was slopping around her feet when the boat heeled and Alec was struggling to free himself from his sleeping bag. She zipped the top of the bag of food and tossed it up into the cockpit before scrambling below again to help him.

‘Start the engine!’ he was yelling, ‘The electric pump will slow things down a bit.’

Her shaking hand turned the starter and she prayed. The engine fired up on the third turn and the bilge pumps went to work with a will, miraculously overtaking any ingress of water, but her feeling was that they were far from safe. The situation seemed unreal. It was a nightmare from which she must awaken. The yacht sinking beneath them had never entered her wildest nightmares.

‘Alec. If we are forced to abandon we only have the dinghy. The life-raft was carried away in the storm.’

‘Right. You'd better get on deck and check the dinghy then. But don't launch it yet. There's no cause for panic at the moment. The pumps are holding her. If you sit me down there I'll help out with the hand-pump.’

She took a hold of him, straining beneath his heaviness as she helped him out of his bunk into a sitting position by the companionway and passed him the bilge pump handle. With his characteristic grin, measured to hide the pain that burned in his leg, he began to work the pump with rhythmic strokes while she scrambled by him.

On deck she was met by absolute chaos, a nightmare of disorder with both masts swaying on the verge of crashing over the side where vicious rocks rose like blackened teeth amid the frothing water. The boat lifted slowly on a wave, swinging again towards the rocks. Pamela plucked herself from the effects of terror that had her frozen to the spot. Putting the engine into forward she fought to steer the stricken yacht clear of the waiting rocks but the might of the sea was greater than her and the engine. The bag which she had so hastily stuffed with emergency provisions slid around at her feet. She snatched it up and attached it to a life belt so that it would float if the boat went down.

Fear clutched at her heart as she saw the dark shape of a massive wave, against the black sky, moving towards them. A second later she realised that it was not moving at all but they were being driven towards it. And it was not a wave at all but an island. Another sickening, crunch as timber ground and splintered against unyielding stone. The boat lurched abruptly, bucking like a startled horse in a frenzy to shake itself free of the rocks. Pamela lost her footing and found herself flying, tossed across the boat like a flailing rag doll. As she landed she felt her ribs crack against the cockpit combing before she slid across the narrow side-deck. Her hands grappled frantically for a hold. She heard Alec roar against the sounds around her. When she tried to stand, something struck her head then there was nothing as her small body was bowled overboard, lost in the darkness of the night and the cold black waves of the Southern Ocean.

This complete book can be downloaded here

LODGERS by Terence Gibbons

Lodgers

Chapter 1

Anne was devastated!

She was pregnant. Her doctor had said as much and now she felt how any other seventeen year old would feel about it. Life, she thought, had delivered her yet another bitter blow and she wondered when all the hard knocks would cease; when would she start to have a happy life?

Her slightly uneven teeth, biting into her lower lip, did little to hold back the tears that rose within her. A troubled life had taught her that self-pity was seldom of any use to anyone; that adversity was a part of living and had to be dealt with in the same way as anything else. But she had to acknowledge that things had never run smoothly for her since the day she was born. Her father had left her mother to get on with her pregnancy. Before Anne had uttered her first cry in this world her mother had collected all traces of him in the middle of the lounge and, having sorted those articles that would sell, heaped the rest, the photographs and sundry rubbish, in the garden and burned them. So from birth Anne had never known her father; he was never mentioned in the house and there had never been any communication from him.

He was dead to them!

Anne had always wondered about him and often would dream of him; always a masculine figure who she feared; someone that she could never identify with.

When Anne was just four her mother had been admitted to hospital where she died. The young child had been hustled off to an orphanage where she remained. The house and all its contents had been sold and the proceeds put into a trust for her - a sizeable sum which would become hers when she attained the legal age of twenty-one.

Thirteen years had dragged their heels while she grew into womanhood within the high grey walls of the orphanage. These years had been interspersed by short visits to foster homes but those brief excursions into normal family life had ceased when she was thirteen. Once, when she was nine or ten, she had read David Copperfield and, inspired by his long trek to find his aunt who had subsequently taken him in, Anne had packed a small bag and set off in search of her aunt Molly, her father's sister. Aunt Molly had received her coldly, fed her and put her to bed. It was when Anne awoke the next morning that she learned the difficult lesson that fiction is a far cry from the real world. When she had entered the sitting room she had found a social worker there, summoned by Aunt Molly, to take Anne off her hands. She was unwanted.

Anne had never been able to understood why. Her aunt was the only relative she had alive. That night, back in her bed in the orphanage, she had cried herself to sleep after vowing, with her hand on her bible, that she would never read Dickens again; in her young mind she saw him as a writer of lies.

This disillusioned child became a problem for the authorities except at her school where she proved to be a willing and able student. She developed an insatiable appetite for knowledge and it was this great plus in her character that kept her from crossing too far over the line with those who strove to control her. It was not that she was outright bad; when told to do anything, instead of getting on and doing it, she always insisted on knowing why she must do it. Life became more and more unbearable as the painful years of adolescence slipped by. As she matured she would look at the drab orphanage, a solid rectangular block of stone with blank walls broken by identically curtained windows, as a place from which she must eventually escape. Walking through the private grounds she felt the oppressive strength of the high walls that enclosed the place. Now at seventeen her chance for escape had come, but was it really an escape? Of one thing she was certain. There would be those who would say she had used her body as a means of escaping. Only she knew it was not the case. Becoming pregnant was not the result of a deliberate plan but she did wonder if it had lurked in her subconscious. She had and did look forward to the day when she would have her own family. Family ties were something she really yearned for. In her dreams she had often seen herself with a husband and children - faceless figures that were her entire world. A family without character; people whose sole role it was to provide her with something she had never had; faceless as though it mattered little who they were so along as they were her family.

She rocked back and forth on the edge of her bed until her teeth bit too deeply into her lip. Drawing a deep breath she rose and straightened her skirt. It was time to talk to her house-mother. It was time she imparted her secret to another and Mrs Douglas at least would understand.

She found her at her desk in the small office busy with some papers. Anne stepped into the room after giving the door a half-hearted knock. She cast her eyes uncertainly around the cluttered office, stealing herself to find the courage to speak.

Mrs Douglas had the broad face and figure of homeliness. Her brown cow-like eyes shone with the warmth of maternal love despite the fact that she had never been a mother in the natural sense. She had never been married, the title of Mrs being no more than an accoutrement to her calling. She was dressed in a thick tweed skirt that touched her ankles; a thick cardigan of a similar drab brown covered a blouse which was fastened at the neck. A big cameo broach rested beneath her multiple chins. Her flat face split in a warm smile when she looked up from her work.

"Hello Anne. What can I do for you."

Anne stood before her, uncertain how to begin. Should she be direct and simply blurt it all out? or should she edge around until the subject came into the conversation? Any attempt to manoeuvre the conversation in that direction would be impossible. There was no route she could take that didn't sound bad. She wished she had thought it through before coming down.

She wished she had thought it through before getting pregnant!

She decided to come to the point, she wanted so much to get it over with, but when she spoke it turned into a compromise.

"Mrs Douglas. I've just come from the doctor's."

"Oh? I didn't know you were ill, Anne."

"I'm not." She twisted a damp handkerchief in her small hands.

"Oh good. Just feeling under the weather were we?"

"No Mrs Douglas. Not exactly." The words just refused to come out. They were there, burning in her brain until they hurt, refusing to transmit themselves into the open.

"You want to tell me about it? I am rather busy, dear."

Anne looked down at the strangled piece of linen in her hands and began to untwist it, stretching it back into its original shape.

"I'm pregnant." Anne was surprised at how easy it was in the end, just like getting pregnant. She was also taken aback at how calmly the housemother took the statement. Had she heard her correctly? She showed no signs of anger or shock but simply gathered the papers together and set them aside.

"So. You are pregnant. How do you feel about it?"

"I don't think I know exactly."

"I see." Mrs Douglas waved her to a chair then eased herself out from behind the desk and came to sit beside her.

"You must feel something, Anne?"

Anne thought about it. Just how did she feel? Scared? Certainly, but she would never admit that to anyone. She had made an extensive self-study of her strengths and weaknesses and, finding anything she considered negative, had endeavoured to turn it into a positive. She was always defensive against anything that could cause her pain.

"Do you want the child?"

"Of course I want it," she blurted, overwhelmed at the implication of the question. Although she rarely went to Mass she had been brought up with Catholic teachings.

"You must think very carefully about it, Anne. To go forward into motherhood at your age. Well you are still very young for such a responsibility. You have the whole of your life..."

"I'm pregnant now! Not planning to get pregnant. I'm already going forward into motherhood. It has already started. There's no way of turning back!"

Mrs Douglas waited until the tension went out of the girl before she spoke. "Something can still be done, Anne. Under the circumstances."

"Kill it? You mean I should have it taken away?"

"You mustn't jump into a decision that will effect the rest of your life, Anne. You must try to think clearly of your future and what bringing up a child on your own would entail."

"I'm not getting rid of it."

"Well you don't have to decide right away, like I said. What about the father? Does he know yet?"

Anne shook her head. How could she tell him when she had been far from certain. She wasn't sure that she wanted to tell him. He would only dump her if his mother had anything to do with it.

"Are you going to tell me who he is?"

"Steven. Steven Pagett."

"Steven? Why he's only a boy."

"He'll be twenty next birthday," Anne replied but found herself agreeing. Steve was immature. How would he take it if she did tell him. Suddenly she smiled; he would love the idea; it would make him feel manly. She wondered if he loved her enough. As her mind tripped along that path of disjointed thoughts she pictured his face when she told him. How he leapt in the air like he'd scored a goal. Then his face would turn blank before it was filled with tender concern. His pale blue eyes promised her everything. Everything will be all right, he would murmur. Anne felt herself grinning like a fool on the edge of the lecture that Mrs Douglas delivered in her velvet tones. It wasn't that Anne found the things she had to say boring though nothing she said was new, Anne knew where her future lay. She had no illusions about it; it would be difficult but she would be treading a path that millions of young girls had been forced to take before her.

Did that make it foolish?

She struggled to keep her feelings hidden as Mrs Douglas went on mapping out a bleak future for her. She waited until her house-mother had finished then rose from her chair and silently left the room.

Unaware of anything but the present problem she walked aimlessly until she found herself outside the front door of the orphanage. The sun danced behind a tall chestnut tree, furtively as though it was uncertain whether it should shine on this house of suffering. It balked at intruding its warmth and light on a world where young people had no parent to turn to for love or comfort. Anne watched as it flickered an exploratory eye over the grounds, as though it was aware of her plight and was embarrassed by its own presence. Was it making some calculation to alter its orbit so that some of its life-giving rays would fail to fall on the already mouldering walls of the orphanage? She chuckled at her imagination but stored the effect for a time when she would write a poem about it. It was a part of her nature that she should write, not in a diary like others, but to put her innermost secrets in verse. Her writings were strictly private and never seen by anyone. Poetry had provided an escape - a means of letting off steam at times when her normally quiet nature prevented her from venting it in tempestuous outbursts or arguments.

She ignored the sun's inevitable foray into the grounds. She had more to do than wax poetical. Walking to her favourite spot in the garden, dominated by an old weeping willow, she squatted on the newly cut grass and attempted to rationalise the situation, to get her thoughts lucid in her confused mind.

She did love Steve; of that she was certain. Of course she loved him or she would never have given way to his amorous urgency. When it came to it, she was just as willing to consummate their relationship as he was. It was fine and healthy, a continuation that was natural. They loved each other; Steve had said as much. He loved her; she loved him; what more was there? So much for retrospect, she thought as she dragged herself back to the problem.

What problem?

She ran her hands over her stomach where she thought the baby would be lying. There was no problem. She was pregnant and Steve was the father; how could that be a problem? The whole thing would work out no matter what. Life did that. It couldn't be manipulated. She either had her man with a child in the offing or she simply had just a child. Whichever way she still had someone to love and be loved by.

Damn him! If he thought he was better off out of it then that was up to him. Of one thing she was unwavering in her determination - the child would be loved and cared for in as near a normal home as she could achieve. Sod Steve. If he didn't feel up to the fight then she'd fight alone. Anne found herself breathing hard as these thoughts pressed through her mind. She leaned with her back against the surprisingly solid trunk of the willow, cocooned by its trailing branches, so frail yet so enveloping. The dampness of the grass beneath her prickled against her warm skin. The sun, streaking in slender shafts through the branches failed to dry the ground she mused, yet still managed to infiltrate her private world. She smiled at her silliness; the sun has no mind. It shines on good and bad with equal brilliance.

She peered at the house through the trailing foliage and wondered at its origin. A house for someone rich with lots of public power, someone who had left a great deal of capital towards its upkeep in the name of philanthropy; a person secure in the knowledge that he would always be remembered and blessed for his social conscience. Was that why he had left it? Had it been genuine love for the less well off or an act of vanity - a way to achieve everlasting remembrance.

"Bah! what good has he done for me?" Anne considered the question she had set herself. He had provided a roof while she grew up; a shelter against the elements of nature; but what else? What had this great man in mind when he made his will? The house that had once glittered with the finest of society was reduced to a shell; a building that housed the unwanted children of the twentieth century. She conjured up an image of him. Dressed always correctly; associating with the cream of society around him; looked up to by those outside his social circle and down on by few. What had made him want to be a public benefactor? How had he achieved his great wealth in the first place? In the slave trade? Or was his fortune made off the backs of the poor that he employed in some dirty factory where men, women and children were forced to work under terrible conditions, and for long hours? Had he felt some terrible pangs of conscience in his last years?

The house was dead. Where laughter had once rung in its rooms tears were now shed in silence. All the children in the home knew that silent pain, the solitary shedding of tears. What once had been the home of a rich family was now a reception centre for those who had never known the privilege.

Anne shook her head to clear the negative thoughts and returned to her present predicament. She knew she was up against it: if this had happened just a few years hence she would have felt more in control. Just four years away lay security with the trust that had been set up for her. But this safety net was a long way off and nothing could make the law bring it nearer. It was all sealed up in ink on yellowing paper. She found herself wondering if she would be able to get a mortgage on the strength of the trust. No. She was only seventeen and she could not sign anything of a legal nature until she reached the age of twenty-one, so that was a problem that only time itself could solve. She lay her hand on her stomach, the flat muscular stomach that Steve had admired so much when they lay together. Beneath her hand she sensed the growth of her offspring. She began to warm to the thought of being pregnant; it put her, by a sharp leap, into the world of adults. She was a woman. No longer a child; the child was within her. And so she became excited at the growth of her family inside her; it gave her confidence for the future so that the anguish she had felt receded to the back of her mind. She began to feel that, whatever lay ahead, she was capable of rising to the challenge.

With this sudden surge of confidence she rose from her throne beneath the willow and pushed her way through its shroud. The bell was sounding for the evening meal and she walked back to the house a new person. The young Anne was left beneath the tree; this Anne was strong, grown up and filled with resolve, striding forward in life, prepared to take on all the obstacles she knew were there before her.

"One thing at a time," she said to herself as she entered the noisy dining hall.

The meal was, as usual, wholesome and nutritious but Anne ate only what she considered would be good for the minuscule being inside her. Throughout the entire meal she thought only of her baby. For her the recriminations were over. Steve and her had made the child but it was her duty as its mother to provide for its well-being. She felt strong, stronger than she had ever done in her life. She was no longer alone in the world; she felt an overpowering sense of belonging and it showed in her face, highlighting her pale skin with a colour that made her look healthy where she had looked wan. If Steve didn't want anything to do with her then so be it! Her strength surprised her; she had graduated into another world, a world where she felt she alone was in control.

---------------

She waited patiently in the park, sitting on the bench by the lake where they always met. She looked at her watch anxiously. He was late! Usually it was the other way round. Then she saw him, strutting down the path between the tall poplars that flanked each side. She smiled as he approached. Did he know? Had he some idea that he had every right to prance and be proud of his masculinity?

"Watcha, been waiting long?" He plonked himself down beside her on the bench slipping his arm around her shoulders, drawing her closer to his lips. His kiss had none of the fire or passion of their first kisses. When she thought about it she realised that not only their kisses but also their lovemaking had become less exciting. Was that because they now knew each other too well? Surely it should get better not worse. Were they bored with each other? Their kissing when meeting had become customary, almost obligatory. A habit?

"I was early."

"I got held up at home," he excused feebly.

"Steve, can we go some place that's more private? I need to talk to you."

"What's wrong with here?"

Anne looked around her. There were a few people in the park but no one within earshot.

"Do you love me Steve?"

He laughed. "You know I do. Hey, what is this?"

"Do you think we'll ever get together? Y'know. Really together?" She was a long way from the confident young woman she had promised herself to be.

"Married y'mean?" He gasped with a smile on his lips that could easily turn into a sneer. She felt embarrassment colour her cheeks.

"Yes. Have you ever thought about it?"

"Hey what is all this? A leap year or something?" he joked.

Anne bowed her head. It was proving more difficult than she had thought and the young Anne she had left beneath the willow began to creep back into her. She fell into a silence that could be felt.

"Come on love, what's this all about?"

She looked away to where a man was playing with his young daughter. She watched him swinging her round and round until the child was dizzy, falling with shrieks of laughter when she tried to stand up. She imagined it was Steve with their child. The man took the little girl in his arms and hugged her. A lump formed in Anne's throat; what she had witnessed she, herself, had never known. Before she realised it young Anne had found her way out from beneath the willow and reoccupied her body, tears were falling onto her cheeks.

"Hey, what's the matter Anne?"

She turned her tear-filled eyes to him, hating herself for the weakness she was showing, a weakness she felt he would take all wrong.

"I'm pregnant Steve."

"Pregnant!" he yelled.

Anne dabbed at her eyes, with a crumpled handkerchief, at the tears she was shedding at great cost to her pride. Steve's exclamatory answer echoed around her mind, shattering any preconceived ideas she had formed. Steve was chewing his lip; he could only guess how Anne was feeling and was wishing he had remained more calm.

"Are you sure about it?" he ventured hesitantly.

Anne simply nodded. She couldn't bring herself to speak. Her hoped for dreams were shattered. How she had imagined the situation was nothing like the reality. Instead of being a loving and warm revelation it now seemed sordid and dirty. She felt like a tart who was trying to trap her man. She felt a strong impulse to stand up and run from the park - to escape from a situation that was too real for her.

Steve fumbled in his pockets for a crumpled packet of cigarettes. Taking one out he straightened it thoughtfully between his thumbs and forefingers before fumbling with a match which broke when he struck it. Finally having lit the cigarette he smiled and put his arm back around her shoulders.

"I thought you'd be pleased about it," he said through a cloud of smoke. She looked at him in disbelief.

"Then you're not upset about it?"

Steve beamed; his chest appeared to swell.

"'Course not. I'm chuffed. I admit I would rather it had happened a bit different. It would have been nice to get wed first."

Anne's face brightened a little. Perhaps the fragments of her dreams could be pieced together again. She sat silent, content to let him talk.

"We would have got married eventually, Anne. But now this has happened we'd better get on with it, and quick."

"Are you sure though? It doesn't matter if you're not. I mean if you'd rather not I'll understand. I mean...I'm not forcing you into anything that you don't really want to do."

Steve took this as a hint of doubt on her part that it might not be the best thing to do; he felt that in some way she was rebuffing him - offering him an easy way out. Without realising it he was strengthened in his resolve to do the right thing.

"I not only want to, Anne, but I bloody well will. How soon can we fix it up?"

"I'm not sure. I'll have to get permission from the Director of Welfare Services. I don't know how long that will take."

Steve lolled back on the seat, took a long draw on his cigarette, then tried to blow a smoke ring. His efforts were dissipated by the strengthening wind. He tutted.

"What's wrong?" Anne looked at him but his face gave nothing away.

"I was just thinking of all the red tape. This is the sixties yet no matter what you want to do in life you always have to have some paper or other to sign. Look at you. You're old enough to be a mother but not old enough to get married on your signature on a pile of forms they will stuff in your face. I'm old enough to go to war and die for this country but I'm not old enough to vote or get married without my mam and dad's permission. Not 'til next year anyroad. Daft ain't it?"

Anne shrugged, looking away to conceal the question that formed in her mind. Why can't he keep his thoughts centred on one problem at a time without nudging and poking at some other subject?

"I don't see that matters much really," she said. "There isn't a war and the next election is years off."

"That's not the point though. Is it?"

"Look, Steve, don't you think we ought to concentrate on one thing at a time?"

Now it was Steve's turn to shrug. Until now the news of the baby had been pleasant if devastating; now that Anne had categorised it as a problem it lost some of its sparkle. When he considered it in its new light he did not care for it so much. The savings in his bank account he had earmarked for a deposit on a new motorbike; it would soon be swallowed up on a wedding. They would need a place to live and God knows what else for the baby. On top of that was a bigger drawback. How would he break it to his mother? She'd go through the roof. Now everything looked bleak. Not only would he be at loggerheads with his family but the new bike was out of the question, and he'd had his heart set on the Honda for a long time.

Anne knew by the way he chewed the inside of his bottom lip that something was bothering him.

"What are you thinking?"

Broken from his thoughts he stared at her with the accusation barely masked behind his eyes.

"Eh? Nothing."

"Didn't look like nothing to me," she pressed.

Steve looked away. It was her biggest fault, the way she always wanted to be inside his head, snooping and rummaging through all his private thoughts. It made him feel like a winkle being picked with a needle.

"I was wondering how my mother will take it," he submitted partially to her probe. Anne looked down at her hands in her lap. His mother, Edna. Thinking about her made Anne uncomfortable. Edna would prove to be the main obstacle and they had only met the once when Steve took Anne home to tea. Nothing was done and no decision made in their house without the full consent, and in most cases, instigation of Edna. She ruled the house and all who lived in it. This matriarchal influence even extended to the homes of her married son and daughter. Anne knew that Edna represented the greatest stumbling block to anything that either she or Steve wanted for themselves. If Edna vetoed the marriage then that event would never take place. If she failed to put an end to it by her dominance then she would achieve the same end by venomous insinuation. Anne saw her dreams once more collapsing around her ears. She doubted if Steve was assertive enough to oppose his mother; she was streets ahead of him in will-power and experienced in getting her way. Anne dreaded having to meet her under the present circumstances. The first and only time had been bad enough when Edna had shown quite plainly that Anne was far from being the girl she wanted for her baby son. Her reception had been cool without the flicker of a smile, not even a false one. The atmosphere had been thick but Steve had no notion of it; he had been proud showing off his girl and all else had been hidden from his sight by the feelings he had for Anne. But Anne had felt it because it was all directed at her. His father, Charlie, had tried to be friendly but just one glare from the queen bee had been enough to send him into the back yard with his pipe. Anne had been reminded of an old whipped dog slinking away. Edna had prattled on, making it painfully obvious, about her plans for her Steven; how he would complete his apprenticeship and his studies at the technical college before he could ever think of marrying and settling down.

They had been seated to table and given a ham salad with fruit and ice-cream. Anne had got the impression that this was how he was looked after; that he had grown accustomed to the best and would only get the best in this world. Edna would see to that. The meal, she felt, had been prepared grudgingly, that Edna would have done something cheaper but she had to make a show of it. She would never have it said that her table was not up to much.

Anne was almost physically sick with depression when she thought of it all. She wondered at what she was taking on and if it was worth it. Would she have been better off not telling Steve? Maybe she should have kept it all to herself and just stopped seeing him. Could she still do that now and how much would it hurt if she did? Of one thing she was certain - under no circumstances would she entrap Steve to have it thrown in her face at a later date. If they did get married then it would be because Steve wanted to and not in order to salve his conscience and male pride.

As if he had divined her thoughts Steve stood up. He squared his shoulders in an effort to look confident; a master of his own destiny.

"You've no need to worry about Mam. I'll break it to her. It'll be all squared, you'll see."

Anne rose to walk with him. Break it to Mam. Yes, that just about summed it up. Drop the bombshell. She smiled up into his face but was far from impressed with his sudden show of strength; Edna was not there in the park with them. Steve's sudden strength would soon be turned negative by Edna's malice; when she had finished with him he would turn against Anne. The stony glare of her grey eyes would make him shrink in her presence. No one stood up to Edna and won if she had other designs.

The wind whipped up the litter in the park, swirling it around their legs as they walked along the long boulevard beside the lake. Dark clouds raced threateningly across the weak sun. Steve felt a drop of rain splash his cheek and cursed; Anne held out her hand and thought of tears from Heaven and a poem began to take shape in her mind. A soothing balm against her problems, her mental agility took her on a painless flight as she composed the first stanzas on the theme of those same problems that oppressed her.

Tears from Heaven falling fast

On problems driven by the rain;

Thundered anger curses loud

Solutions hid behind dark clouds.

By the time they had walked around the lake with its perimeter of willows trailing in the water, rain had begun to pock-mark its surface. These things slowly penetrated her consciousness. Steve turned up his collar and guided her by the elbow into a shelter that faced the lake. Somewhere in the distance thunder rumbled again like artillery fire. Steve looked at his watch and wondered if the storm would make him late getting home for his tea.

"Wonder if it will head this way," he muttered trying to gauge whether the sound came from directly upwind.

"What?" Anne was momentarily disorientated by the sudden external disturbance of her thoughts. "Oh! I don't know. Will you tell your Mam when you get home then?"

He read the challenge in her eyes and knew what it meant; he grinned bravely and shrugged. "I reckon I'll have to pick my moment. You know what she's like. And its hardly the kind of thing to drop on her in the middle of Coronation Street is it."

Anne almost laughed at that. No subject under the sun could be broached while that was on the box.

The answer flashed in lightning brief

Like from the torch of prowling thief.

Too fleet to grasp or comprehend

When raindrops splotch the message end.

The time that elapsed between the thunder and the flashes of lightning drew closer together as the storm raced towards them. Anne became tense. Storms effected her that way. She wasn't afraid of them but it was something akin to fear that she felt. The rain poured out of the black clouds like long continuous lengths of silver wire occasionally tinted blue by the flashes of lightning. The thunder shook the ground like an earthquake. A tree, a tall ancient oak on the far side of the lake, exploded with a loud crack when a tongue of lightning struck. One half fell into the lake leaving the rest blackened and trembling in the wind. Anne gasped, moving unconsciously closer to Steve, who slipped an arm round her shoulders. He squeezed her gently.

"Soon pass over, love."

"We must be mad sitting through this lot," she shivered.

"It came up too quickly. We hadn't a chance of dodging it." He sounded like he was rehearsing for his confrontation with Edna.

"Life's a bit like that. Storms coming up on you when you least expect it."

Steve thought about that but no matter how hard he tried he could not recall a single storm that had disturbed his life.

Until now.

His mother had always been there, standing like a superior King Canute, to repel the storm. Anne knew all about life's storms. They usually followed a calm - a time when you were most contented and happy, and lulled by a false sense of security. Then the tempest struck turning your life on its head for a while. But she had always weathered these trials knowing that the sunshine that invariably followed more than compensated for the trouble. Amid the battle of nature Anne contemplated her present difficulties. If she was fortunate the child would bring the sunshine; if life kicked her then the storm could well last her the rest of her life. There was little she could do about it; nothing that she wanted to do about it. She felt Steve move beside her then his jacket being placed around her shoulders.

"Thanks" she shivered as the jacket transferred Steve's warmth to her.

"I thought you was cold."

"I don't think I was. I was just thinking of the storm."

"Nothing to be afraid of. They soon pass. See? Its moving away already." Anne held back from explaining what she really meant. What was the use? It wasn't that Steve was stupid; he just never seemed to follow her train of thought, as though he wasn't on the same plane as her.

The sun broke victoriously through the black clouds sending funnels of golden light to caress the wet ground, lingering like gemstones in the droplets that clung to the greenery. Anne took comfort in this, feeling a sudden confidence come over her. She knew that she was right in thinking that no storm ever lasts forever; good times always followed bad.

After the gloom of the storm it was painful to open their eyes in the sudden glare and they had to shield them with their hands. The charred remains of the old oak gave off wisps of steam that drifted close to the surface of the lake. She watched it snake this way and that until it was lost among the reeds and willows like a lost soul seeking a resting place.

"We'd better be off. My tea will be in the oven by now."

She passed him his jacket. It smelled of damp and him. He slipped it on then took her in his arms where she lingered for a moment enjoying the warmth and security that his embrace offered. Her lips brushed his, inviting passion which, when it came, made her gasp for breath. He laughed quietly at her flushed face, feeling proud of the effect he had on her.

"Will I see you tonight?"" she asked.

"I can't. I'm at Tech tonight and I've a pile of homework to catch up on."

"So when will I see you then?"

"Tomorrow night. We'll go to the flicks or something."

"That'll be nice. What shall we go to see?"

"You choose. I don't know what's showing."

Anne nodded. Well at least it won't be a western or a war film if she chose. Something nice. The Sound of Music was on at the Cecil.

"I'll ring you to let you know where to meet me," she added when she caught his frown.

"No. I'll ring you. About five-thirty all right?"

She agreed. It was obvious when she thought about it. He wouldn't want her ringing him at home if he told Edna about the baby tonight. And if that was to be the case then she was pleased because it meant that he was sincere about telling her.

They spoke very little as he walked her back to the orphanage. Both were totally engrossed in their own thoughts on the circumstance that would forever change their lives. When they parted outside the gates, after a brief kiss that lacked any passion on his part, she had the impression that Steve was afraid of crushing her in his arms. It was a parting so cool that Anne found herself wondering if he would call her. It suddenly occurred to her that he might be forbidden to see her again once Edna knew the score. With a shrug she turned and entered the grounds of the great house after watching him strut off down the road.

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