The Rigger-1

THE RIGGER

MONDAY

Brad picked up the pace, his heavy boots ringing on the hard grey tarmac. “Should have checked that tide table properly,” he muttered, half audibly, to himself. End of the safe crossing time was 17.45 – or was that for the day after? He’d only glanced at the figures on the website before setting out from the B&B that morning. Maybe it was 16.45. Funny how much it varied from day to day; you wouldn’t think tides behaved like that.

Brad took his phone out of his trouser pocket, the right pocket, where he always kept it. Keys in the left pocket, with his wallet. He fumbled with the phone. ‘Samsung’ flashed up briefly on the black screen, then snapped off again. Strange, he’d charged it up the night before. Perhaps the battery was on the way out. No matter, trudge on.

Here was the board with the last safe crossing time – 16.15. He’d left the Fairoaks Inn at, when was it, 3pm? Or was that just last orders? He’d taken a while to finish his last pint, then he’d gone for a slash. More than a slash, actually; those five pints of Theakestons, plus the chips, plus two bags of port scratchings, not to mention last night’s meat madras, plus rice, and nan had made their presence felt.

So it might already be four. That would mean 45 minutes to get from one end of the causeway to the other, to safety and the comfort of the B&B on the island. Three miles. Doable. Doable if he did have 45 minutes.

There was always the refuge hut, on stilts, at the halfway point. He’d feel a fool. Would he end up being rescued by the lifeboat, get himself in the local paper? He imagined the ribbing he’d get from his workmates: “Check-it-Again Bradley’s losing his touch at last, mon! No’ so canny now!”

Well, that wouldn’t be funny. Not now.

Ex-workmates. Not sure when he’d be going back, if ever. Perhaps he was losing his touch. Not like him to forget something like a tide. That’s what not having a job to go to every morning did to a man. Gardening leave, they called it. Not that he’d ever been much of a one for gardening.

The pints of Theakstons were making their presence felt, again. Third time since he’d left the pub. He hopped over the wall and unzipped his flies.

The sound of a car, the first for at least half an hour. He hastily zipped himself up again. It was coming off the island at a brisk pace, doing about 45, 50. He cursed himself. “Should have flagged it down, man,” he mumbled. “Could have asked the driver the time, mebbe cadged a lift back to the Fairoaks. Man, you really are losing it. Come on, get a move on.”

 

 

He was passing the refuge. The water didn’t seem to be getting any closer to the causeway, didn’t seem to be closing in. So he’d be a mile and half from safety. Twenty five minutes or so at a normal walking pace. Tides could move faster than you realised, could lull you into a false sense of security, but still…He could make out the warning board at other end. Press on. He’d feel a fool to himself spending half the night in a wooden greenhouse on legs.

 

 

Now the causeway was just a thin strip of grey through the water. He could hear the Splosh-splosh-splosh as the grey-green waves lapped around the edges. He glanced back. He’d covered half the distance between the refuge and the board. Three quarters of a mile to go. Ten minutes at a brisk pace. Or should he start to run? Jog, at least.

 

He pivoted on his left foot, lifted his right uncertainly into the air, letting it clomp down onto the road. Been a while since he had run, except for a bus. Thump-thump-thump-thump-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP! He’d always been a heavy-footed guy. Once, decades ago, when he and Deidre been staying at seaside hotel down in Devon, he’d had a go on the treadmill in the upstairs gym. The owner had come upstairs to see what the racket was.

Brad swayed from side to side under the unaccustomed motion, panting slightly. The thump of his boots on the tarmac was now accompanied by light splishes. Just puddles from the afternoon’s rain, he told himself. Dinna fash yerself…

 

 

Now his boots were churning white foam around his feet, the bottoms of his blue jeans slapping wetly around his ankles. He tried to put a spring in his step, better to propel himself over the water. Harder now to make progress, much harder. He stumbled, twisting over on his left ankle, yelping at the sharp pain but grabbing one of the roadside marker posts and pushing himself forward. The board was, what, 300 yards ahead? Should he swim for it? Could he swim, weighed down by jumpers and heavy jacket? Should he throw them off, keys, wallet and all? He thrust his left foot down and, for the first time, failed to find hard tarmac. He pushed both feet down, grounding both feet on the road, the water up to his belly-button. He forced a step through the water, then dragged his other foot along, scraping along the road to not lose contact with it. Grunting with effort, he repeated the exercise, did it again, and again and again. His breath was coming in short gasps now. The board wobbled closer in his vision, agonisingly slowly. “Keep goin’, man. It’s all ye can do…”

 

He threw himself forward, clutching the rough marram grass in an embrace and pulled himself up onto the bank. He lay on his back on the verge, panting, his chest heaving up and down steadily, rhythmically, water pouring onto the grass from his saturated clothes.

After a few minutes he rolled over and pushed himself up to his feet. “Dinna do so bad for a man of sixty-three, all things considered,” he said, to no one.

Then he realised. He hadn’t thought about it since he’d started his journey across the causeway.

 

 

TUESDAY

He was back on the causeway, by the board. Brad took out his phone; he’d made sure it had been fully charged the night before, along with the piece of paper on which he’d noted down the safe times in his neat, compact italic. Today safe crossing would end at 17.45.

He bent down and tightened the laces on his trainers, borrowed from the B&B owners, then took out his phone again and checked the time. 17.12. Three miles in 30 minutes, six miles an hour. Doable.

He waited two more minutes, precisely, then set off, at his rolling gait.

 

He passed the refuge and fished the phone out of the pocket of his lycra leggings. 17.28. “Too easy, man,” he breathed. He climbed the stairs of the refuge and looked out. He could see the Fairoaks away to his left. The grey smudge of the old fisherman’s cottage where he was staying to the right, a thin curl of smoke coming from the chimney. The lady had said it was cold enough for a fire that night. Something to look forward to when he got in. He checked the time again. 17.32. Time to go.

 

The water was closing in again. He picked up his feet, lighter now in the trainers. He redoubled his speed, lifting his knees up almost to his chin, thrashing and splashing through the now foot-deep water. The board loomed through the twilight. He splashed slowly along the last few yards and heaved himself up onto the bank. “Still too easy,” he mumbled.

 

 

“Yeah, lass, it lovely here, lass. I can guaran-TEE that you’ll LOOV it here when you come down. And the B&B’s lovely too.” He nodded to the manageress who was crocheting a cushion cover in a corner of the lounge, pointed the phone in her direction. She beamed back. “Sure you can’t get away early on Friday, make a proper weekend of it?

“Ah, OK. Well tell your boss from me that she’s a reet coo. Ah’ll see you when I see you, love. OH! By the way, you’ll never guess! Ah’ve taken oop running!

“Yeh, ME! I did three mile today, ah’ll hev ye knoo … No, I dinna collapse – I was fine, mon. Haf an ‘oor. Less, even. I’ll do it in twenty-five termorra, ye’ll see.

“I dunno why. Mebbe it’s the fresh air, change of scene…OK, see yer Friday night!”

 

She was a good lass, was Deidre, Deeds. Ever since they’d danced together at the Orchid Ballroom in Nethercastle nearly forty years ago. She’d stuck with him, though the long decades of him working out in Saudi, Abu Dhabi, away for months at a time, never complained. And she didn’t mind that she was a couple of inches taller than him. Everyone was a couple of inches taller than the Pocket Rocket.

The week’s stay on the island was her suggestion. Take his mind off things, a bit of fresh air, a change of scene. She’d even driven him down there from Nethercastle on the Monday morning, before she started her afternoon shift at the bakery. He’d had to give up his company car when they’d put him on gardening leave.

 

 

In his bedroom, he pulled the dark blue duvet over his head, buried his face in the folds. “Think positive!” he told himself. “Think about the causeway. Twenty-five minutes, non-stop next time…”

 

He must have managed to sleep for a couple of hours; there was grey light seeping through the curtains. Get up. Find summat to do. Walk around outside; anything. He pulled on a T-shirt and slipped the trainers onto his feet.

 

The light was beginning to go. Just one more lift, and they’d call it a day until the next morning. The big piece, the hundred-ton boiler, with the two big dockside cranes and one of the MV Eurosol’s own cranes to steady it. Inching slowly out of the hold, little by little. Now the cranes were starting to swing towards the quayside, easy does it, steady, steady … His fellow rigger was on the ship, checking that everything was as it should be. He was watching from the quayside, outside the checker’s office, leaning against the dark red brick wall, ready with the radio to warn of any untoward movement. Then: one side of the huge cylinder slipped downwards, toward the deck of the ship; a sharp CRACK! as the sling snapped, then a BOOM! as it hit the deck. The sound echoed back and forth across the shallow valley, making a clack-clack-clacking sound as it ratted the windows of the houses. Seagulls rose, shrieking, into the sky. Everyone’s head swivelled round in the direction of the Eurosol. The ship rocked wildly from one side to the other, its sides banging and grating against the quayside.

Someone up in the harbour office must have hit the emergency button. Already, ambulance and police sirens were yelping out from across from the other side of the small town. He ran, stumbling over discarded pallets and fishing gear across the quayside to the ship. The head stevedore was ahead of him, throwing himself up the rocking companionway, taking the rungs three at a time; he followed.

The guy was lying on his back, legs dangling over one of the hatches, a corner of the piece must have caught him as he tried to get out of its way. Three of the ship’s blue-boiler-suited crew clustered around him, gabbling urgently in Tagalog. The man’s face was white, his eyes open. Brown eyes; he remembered that. He didn’t know his name, but he’d nodded to him in the tea room, half an hour before.