1966. On board the SS Himalaya
The on-board search for Philip started immediately the alarm was raised by Janet’s hysterical parents. Every crew member available examined every nook, every cranny, slowly, methodically, going from bow to stern. All of them calling his name. Philip! Philip! Everything combed through. Every passenger shaken out of sleep. Every cabin checked. Philip! Philip! Every lifeboat investigated. Every pile of sheets and towels lifted and shaken. Philip! Philip! Every lifebuoy counted. Every lifebelt storage cupboard emptied and repacked. The engine room checked, pipe by valve by piston. Philip! Philip! The swimming pool dragged. The bar shelves scoured. The map cupboards in the bridge rifled and scanned. The galley’s fridges and freezers all examined. Philip! Philip!
And, as dawn troughed up the sea and powdered up the sky, two small boats were launched to search the ocean. Six men went out and six came bouncing back half a day later. Their lips were as tight as the heft in their brows and they shook their heads, silent, on return. Janet was interviewed twice, maybe three times, by a man in uniform who was blind in his right eye and over-compensated with the penetration of his left. She muddled through her words, weeping and shaking, her mother on one side, her father on the other.
Yes, she’d seen him leave the dining area last night. Yes she’d followed him out onto the dim deck. There’d been two people, maybe smoking, at the far end. But maybe not. She couldn’t be sure whether one of them was him. Was it him? The man’s left eye probed and pierced.
How far away were you? You must have recognised your own brother?
She wasn’t sure, she replied. She’d approached the two, maybe two, then turned, changed her mind. She’d had a headache. She’d sat somewhere, in the lee of the wind.
Where did you sit? How long did you sit for?
She couldn’t be sure. The men at dinner. So tedious. She’d had such a headache.
You may have been the last person to see him alive. Try harder to remember.
She was trying. She was doing her best, she said. Over and over. Leave me alone, I can’t bear it. Her father put her arm around her. Her mother said something about leave her, leave her be. We’ll try again later.
In the end, the Captain admitted defeat. He was sorry, he said to Janet’s still hysterical parents, but they’d need to continue on. They were too far from land for any coastguard vessel to be of use. But he’d made the calls. Followed protocols. He offered his sincere condolences. Whatever they needed, he said, with a small bow, they only had to ask. There’d be a ceremony for Philip the following day. Of remembrance. The Chief Mate would organise it with the Chief Steward.
Janet’s father just stood, silent, looking out of the porthole, his fingers picking and picking at the hem of his jacket. Janet’s mother slumped in the chair in the Captain’s cabin. Her head was down on her knees, her hands over her ears. Janet put her hand on her mother’s back, felt the wretched heaving of her spine as it surged forward and back, forward and back. There were two Janets now. The inside one and the outside one. The outside one had just become a liar. A comforter. A sister who mourned her brother. The inside one, the one that knew the truth, the one that could tell the truth, was clawing and cleaving to get out. Or stay in. Janet couldn’t really tell.
To be continued.
SANDERLINGS 