After that, dressed in shirt and underpants which were both long overdue for the same treatment, I ate the morning meal.
After that, I tidied the cabin, folding the blanket and my extra clothes and stacking everything neatly.
After that, I still couldn’t face for a long time that my soaring hope was unfounded. No one came to let me out.
It was odd how soon the most longed-for luxury became commonplace and not enough. In the dark, I had ached for light. Now that I had light, I took it for granted and ached for room to move.
The cabin was triangular, its three sides each about six feet long. The bunks on the port side, and the loo and sail bins on the starboard side, took up most of the space. The floor area in the centre was roughly two feet wide by the cabin door, but narrowed to a point about four feet in, where the bunks and the forward sail bin met. There was room to take two small paces, or one large. Any attempt at knees-bend-arms-stretch involved unplanned contact with the surrounding woodwork. There was more or less enough space to stand on one’s head by the cabin door. I did that a couple of times. It just shows how potty one can get. The second time I bashed my ankle on the edge of the sail bin coming down, and decided to give Yoga a miss. If I’d tried the Lotus position, I’d have been wedged for life.
I felt a continuous urge to scream and shout. I knew that no one would hear me, but the impulse had nothing to do with reason. It stemmed from frustration, fury and induced claustrophobia. I knew that if I gave way to it, and yelled and yelled, I would probably end up sobbing. The thought that maybe that was precisely what someone wanted to happen to me was an enormous support. I couldn’t stop the screaming and shouting from going on inside my head, but at least it didn’t get out.
After I’d finally come to terms with the thought that it wasn’t Exodus day, I spent a good deal of time contemplating the loo. Not metaphysically: mechanically.
Everything in the cabin was either built-in, or soft. From the beginning I’d been given no possible weapons, no possible implements. All the food had been for eating with my fingers, and came wrapped only in paper or plastic, if at all. No plates. Nothing made of metal, china or glass. The light bulb had not only been unscrewed from its socket, but the glass cover for it, which I guessed should be there, was not.
The pockets of my suit had been emptied. The nail file I usually carried in my breast pocket was no longer there: nor were my pens clipped inside: and my penknife had gone from my trousers.
I sat on the floor, lifted the lid, and at close quarters morosely glared at the loo’s mechanics.
Bowl, flushing lever, pump. A good deal of tubing. The stop-cock for turning the sea water on and off. Everything made with the strength and durability demanded by the wild motions of the sea, which shook flimsy contraptions to pieces.
The lever was fastened at the back, hinged to the built-in casing of the fitment. At the front, it ended in a wooden handle. Attached at about a third of the way back was the rod which led directly down into the pump, to pull the piston there up and down. The whole lever, from handle to hinge, measured about eighteen inches.
I lusted for that lever like a rapist, but I could see no way, without tools, of getting it off. The hinge and the piston linkage were each fastened with a nut and bolt, and appeared to have been tightened by Atlas. Nut versus thumb and finger was no contest. I had tried on and off for two days.
A spanner. My kingdom for a spanner, I thought.
Failing a spanner, what else?
I tried with my shirt. The cloth saved the pressure on skin and bones, but gave no extra purchase. The nuts sat there like rocks. It was like trying to change a wheel with only fingers and a handkerchief.
Trousers? The cloth itself tended to slip more easily than my shirt. I tried the waistband, and found it a great deal better. Around the inside of the waist was a strip with two narrow rows of rough-surfaced rubber let into it. The real purpose of the strip was to help belt-less trousers stay up by providing a friction grip against a tucked-in shirt. Applying trouser-band to nut gave a good grip and slightly more hope, but despite a lot of heavy effort, no results.
The day ground on. I went on sitting on the floor futilely trying to unscrew nuts which wouldn’t unscrew, simply because there was nothing else to do.
Tinned ham again for supper. I carefully peeled off all the fat, and ate the lean.
The hatch stayed open.
I said thanks for the soap, and asked no questions.
Sunday. Another Sunday. How could anyone keep me locked up so long without explanation. The whole modern world was churning along outside, and there I was cooped up like the man in the iron mask, or as near as dammit.
I applied the strips of ham fat to the nuts, to see if grease would have any effect. I spent most of the day warming the piston-rod nut in my fingers, rubbing fat round its edges, and hauling at it with my trousers.
Nothing happened.
Now and again I stood up and stretched, and climbed up to see if the sail bolsters were still obstructing the view, which they always were. I read bits of the thriller again. I closed the loo lid and sat on it, and looked at the walls. I listened to the seagulls.
My ordinary life seemed far removed. Reality was inside the sail locker. Reality was a mystery. Reality was mind-cracking acres of empty time.
Sunday night drifted in and darkened and slowly became Monday. He came much earlier than usual with my breakfast, and when he had lifted out the exchange carrier, he began to close the hatch.
‘Don’t,’ I yelled.
He paused only briefly, staring down unmoved.
‘Necessary,’ he said.
I went on yelling for him to open it for a long time after he’d gone away and left me in the dark. Once I’d started making a noise, I found it difficult to stop: all the stifled screams and shouts were trying to burst out through the hole in the dam. If the dam broke up, so would I. I stuffed the pillow into my mouth to make myself shut up, and resisted a desire to bang my head against the door instead.
The engine started. Din and vibration and darkness, all as before. It’s too much, I thought. Too much. But there were only two basic alternatives. Stay sane or go crazy. Sanity was definitely getting harder.
Think rational thoughts, I told myself. Repeat verses, do mental arithmetic, remember all the tricks that other solitary prisoners have used to see them through weeks and months and years.
I tore my mind away from such impossible periods and directed it to the present.
The engine ran on fuel. It had used a good deal of fuel on the journey. Therefore if the boat was going far, it would need more.
Engines were always switched off during refuelling. If I made the most colossal racket when we refuelled, just possibly someone might hear. I didn’t honestly see how any noise I could make would attract enough attention, but I could try.
The chain rattled down through its hidden chute as the anchor came up, and I presumed the boat was moving, although there was no feeling of motion.
Then someone came and put a radio on top of the hatch, and turned the volume up loud. The music fought a losing battle against the engine for a while, but shortly I felt the boat bump, and almost at once the engine switched off.
I knew we were refuelling. I could hear only loud pop music. And no one on the quayside, whatever I did, could possibly have heard me.
After a fairly short while the engine started again. There were a few small thuds outside, felt through the hull, and then nothing. Someone came and collected the radio: I yelled for the hatch to be opened, but might as well not have bothered.
Motion slowly returned to the boat, bringing hopeless recognition with it.