The Surfacing by Cormac James Read Free Book Online Page B

in his throat. We had a letter from your
brother Jim, he read. He told us he does not think you care so much for the life
of a sailor. However much it may seem a hard life and a strange one to a young boy,
you must put up with it now. Maybe you will like it more with time.
    4th August
    At midnight Morgan hauled his mattress up on deck and rolled it out. Still he could
not sleep. Below it had been too warm. Here it was too bright. The moon overhead,
and the stubborn sun, and both giggling below, in the long crazy lead they’d been
ploughing through the floe. He got out his mother’s letter again, that had been waiting
for him in Parker’s bag.
    Dear Richard, it said. It is with deep regret I am writing you these few lines, in
the hope that they may somehow find you, wheresoever in the world you may be. Your
father was buried yesterday 28th. I am only after coming back from the funeral at
Bandon, where all our people are buried as you know. He had a very happy death. You
can rest easy on that count. It was a grand funeral. The bishop insisted on saying
it himself, on your account I believe. 79 yrs he was according to the Bible. I am
congratulating you on your birthday 19th July whether yet to come or already gone.
I hope you will enjoy many more years. I hope too you have seen sense and are now
living a better life than previously. The weather here is still very hard and cold.
It is terrible hard on all the Old People, and there is plenty about the place I
think will not see another winter through. I myself will be 71 years in September.
I am going through life here alone now the best I can, but I am lonesome as I have
not a single one of the family with me. That is not what I expected of you. I did
not think ye would forsake me every one. I am very anxious to hear from you at least
one last time before I die. I am lonesome here now after your father of course. To
the end like myself he could see neither sense nor virtue in your pursuit of hardships
and labours to which you were never bred. We could never neither of us ever comprehend
why you went and quit the Land Service. I expect a long letter soon and don’t forget
it. God bless you and watch over you day and night wherever you may be.
    He remembered his last visit home, calling to his father’s room. He’d opened the
door just enough to stick his head in, to ask was it a good time? The doctor was
bent over the bed. The old man was getting his daily dose, the doctor said. Morgan
chastely closed the door. Going down the stairs, his mother was coming up. He stepped
back against the wall, so they would not touch as they passed. Afterwards he waited
almost an hour down in the kitchen, warming himself at the fire, before he could
muster the courage to go up again. For this, his last visit, he wanted the old man
in a proper state – beyond the first flush of stupidity, the first grin of relief.
He wanted him well enough to pretend he wasn’t in too much pain. By extension, that
he wasn’t in pain all the time, that he hadn’t always been in pain, more or less
constantly, more or less unbearably, all his life. That it didn’t matter his son
couldn’t do anything about it, was helpless, like a parent with a suffering child,
because nothing more needed to be done, it had been dealt with, he felt considerably
better now. So Morgan waited a long time at the fireside before going back up.
    He had mentioned the letter to no one, and most likely never would. It was something
he wanted to keep for himself, apparently. Why, he could hardly say. In so many things,
he was a mystery to himself. Perhaps those aboard were not fit to share it, in his
slighted mind. Yes, that felt right. That felt like a reasonable counterweight.
    Now in the silence he could hear scraps of ice nibbling at the hull. Still he could
not sleep, and in the end he climbed down and walked out in the queer twilight, under
its spell. He could see clearly that the thing had relaxed. He watched the