When the Night Comes by Favel Parrett Read Free Book Online

him? My father, with brown hair like mine, but on his face a beard of red clear to see. Red—bright like fire. Red—bright like flames.
    I touch my own face, feel the stubble on my chin. I can never grow a beard like that, not full. My beard would not keep my skin warm in the cold. I only need to shave once a week, and that is something at sea.
    I look over at the pile of magazines on the coffee table near the sleeping men. I want to get one, to read some old news from the world, but I stay put. I don’t want to wake anyone. They have been working hard, their hands stained from the resupply. So I just sit. I take it in. I drink this strange coffee. I look around.
    It feels lived-in, the room. Stuffed full of life.
    In the evenings, men crammed in, seats hard to find. Some stand by the pool table, some at the bar. There is laughter and there are arguments, there is joy, there is wanting. The mundane, day-to-day, all here in this room. The years here, in the corners and against the walls, years walked into the faded carpet.
    The echoes of men.
    The sun hits my face. My eyes follow the rays to the glass of the square windows. There, beyond the brightness, I can see a hill made ofstones. Brown against the white. Brown, the color of the earth, so out of place. A kingdom of rocks in the snow and in the ice.
    Something inside me kicks alive, stings—like memory. Familiar. Real. I stand, move closer to the window. I keep looking at the hill. A hill of stones. A hill of rocks.
    Something hits the floor, a magazine, and the man with the red beard wakes. He stretches his arms, his eyes surprisingly green and young and wide. He looks at me.
    â€œHi,” he says.
    â€œHi,” I say.
    He picks the magazine up off the floor and puts it on the table. He stretches out again, stands up.
    I look to the window. “What is this place?” I ask, and I point at the hill, to the stones. The man comes closer, squints into the light.
    â€œReeve’s Hill,” he says, and he stares with me for a while at the scene out there. Then he looks at his watch.
    â€œTime for lunch,” he says.
    I follow him up the tunnel to the mess. He tells me his name is Ben. He is a diesel mechanic and he’s been up all night watching the fuel lines. We shake hands and his grip is strong. Welcoming. I still have my coffee cup in my other hand, almost empty, but I can’t drink any more.
    The mess is full, most people already eating. It’s not large but there is room enough. The summer crew are sitting together. I wave to them—I know most by name from the journey down. Not yet grease-stained, not yet callused, not yet comfortable in this new place. What will it be like when the darkness comes? When the cold dark is pressing down on these small rooms, on these thin walls?
    I have this sudden feeling that Nella has left, sailed away without me. I can’t see her. I am far away, left behind. I want to run, to see if she’sthere in the bay. I want to go back to my ship, my home. I do not belong here. But someone calls my name. I look across the room. It’s a solid gray-bearded man. The station leader. He waves me over to his table, asks me to join him. And the feeling is gone. I know the resupply is still going and Nella is out there. Half a day of work at least. She won’t leave me here.
    â€œHave you had a good look around?” he asks me, and I tell him, “Yes, thank you. I have had a good look around. Inside.”
    He is sitting with the winterers. A group bound together. They are almost home, their time over. But for now this is still their house. They are comfortable—many just in their long thermal underwear and socks, glazed eyes, cheeks sunburnt to the color of blood, eating with gusto. Beef casserole and pasta, fresh vegetables that have been missing for so long. Full bowls of fruit salad on the tables waiting to be devoured. Fresh fruit, eaten in silence—fresh fruit eaten with