And now he thought about it: of course not. ‘Friends’ with your kids was a modern invention, the stuff of daytime talk shows and quality time, of that craven insistence that children make their own decisions while you lurked in the shadows to penalise the ones you didn’t like. It was all so much nonsense. ‘Friends’ did not mean what it meant between adults, a balance of selves and strengths. It meant setting standards your children could not maintain, because if they could you wouldn’t need to set standards for them. It meant child-rearing by remote and by phone. It was an abdication, for parents who never wanted to admit they were grown-ups, who dressed from shops which were too young for them and listened to the new music to stay in the swim.
To do the job right was something else, older and different and patient and endlessly enduring, something which got stronger the more it was clawed and scratched, which bounded and uplifted and waited delightedly to be surpassed. Which knew and understood and did not shy away from the understanding that there would be pain. Which could accept shattering, could reassemble itself, could stand taller than before.
No, not friends at all.
He laughed, and knew exactly what to say.
Jack.
I am your father.
He used the sharkpunch on the door, and stepped through.
21. Win
WHEN THIS WAS over, Lester Ferris promised himself, he would never run anywhere, ever again. He would walk. For the bus, for exercise, for fun. In battle, even, if it should ever come up. He would just walk. He would never gasp, never burn like this again, with the heavy suit weighing on his shoulders and the mask’s tongue flopping back and forth across his chest. Never again.
He had considered calling for help, but there was no one he could really explain the situation to, not with the Tigerman outfit on, and no one he trusted anyway. A child with a consignment of ordnance was a present threat, and would be treated as such. They would take him down from a distance and worry about the blowback later. The apparat had a long experience of blurring the deaths of children. Male insurgent, not yet a full adult, killed in action. And that was that.
So he had no one to call, and he ran: out of the utility door and down the hill, through the shanty and down to the waterfront. Some of the houses were burned, some of them were pristine, and some had scaffolding up as if the people intended to rebuild them, as if the island was not in its last hours. He reached the water without seeing anyone: the streets were empty. The rain was coming down hard now, and there was nothing for the press pack to look at. The Fleet was just a distant collection of lights, even if they’d been disposed to look at it, and nothing was happening outdoors. He was just a man running.
He reached the Portmaster’s office, and went in, water streaming from his clothes.
Beneseffe sat in front of his communications gear, listening and talking, his voice very tense. The storm was rising and it had come in fast, the ships were out of place. Was he working them? Had the boy reached out to him? Or was he doing his best?
‘I need a boat,’ the Sergeant said, and saw Beneseffe jump. ‘Give me a boat. Now.’ He wondered whether it would speed things up if he shouted or did something violent, broke something.
‘You’re here,’ the Portmaster said.
‘Yes.’
‘He said you would not come.’
‘He was mistaken.’
In ten seconds, the Sergeant was going to tear him apart. He wondered if he could afford to wait that long. What if he was three seconds too late? Would he come back and kill the man? Wring his neck, and tell himself that was somehow absolution? ‘It wasn’t my fault, guv’nor, he kept me hanging on.’
The Portmaster handed him a set of keys. ‘Red button, green button. Then it drives like a car.’ And then, with something like shame: ‘Do what you can.’
Lester Ferris ran through the back door of the office and onto the dock, went out onto the black water.
The speedboat was light and strong, but the waves were higher than he had realised and it was terrifying. Twice the boat nearly flipped over before he learned how to make ground through the troughs and peaks, when to change direction and when to slow or accelerate. Even so, he was pounded with spray, and salt built up on the eyeholes of the mask so that he had to keep wiping it. Without it, he thought, he would have been blind. His clothes were sodden and heavy. They wrapped around things and billowed in the wind, trying to take him overboard. If he did go over, he would die. He was simply wearing too much that was heavy and would drag him down.
He could see the Fleet about half the time, had no idea how the boy might be doing or where he might be, but Jack was experienced on this water, knew the shape of the land and the shallows, knew the ships of the Fleet and might even seek shelter aboard one if he needed it. That might even be his plan for boarding: simply ask and be admitted, as a gesture of friendship. Sailors held to their obligations, even secret ones.
Jack. He tried the name in his head, didn’t like it. Too much came with it. The boy was the boy, and that was that, and if he needed another title then it should be ‘son’.
Son.
A wave took him in the chest, warm water slamming him, wind chilling him instantly until he shivered. His hands were clenched on the wheel of the boat; releasing them was harder each time, and so was closing them. He was already exhausted.
Then he was between the ships, in the lee of a pitted metal cliff which must be the Pride of Shanghai, watching it roll over towards him until it was actually sheltering the speedboat from the rain. The ship was sucking water in along its sides, huge stabilisers churning, and he spun away, leaned on the throttle. The boat almost couldn’t cope, chugged and sputtered as water washed into the exhaust, blasted back out again.
In his mind there was a map of the Fleet, but it was out of date now and nearly useless. He remembered how it had been. He had intended to sit down with Beneseffe – or with someone – and work out an understanding of where the ships should be in relation to one another, how to reach the Elaine in the chaos. Now he was staring into the murk as the water got rougher. He had to get on board something soon, anything, or he would simply vanish below the surface, a stupid footnote, and the boy’s plan would come to nothing. Or, not nothing. Because surely he had taken out insurance against the possibility the Sergeant would not play ball. White Raoul, no doubt, knew it all. Perhaps he had even been Bad Jack himself once. Perhaps that was how it had come about, how it had begun.
The sky howled, a first great blast of thunder. Thunder on the water was different: unmitigated by hills and trees it was a stunning hand of pressure closing in a fist around him. Even over the storm he heard the Pride of Shanghai reverberate.
And the sea answered, in a great whooshing column of white fire. Thermite or phosphorus or maybe both, and all he could think was that it looked as if God was coming up out of the ocean to deliver some kind of appalling justice and: That’s a fuck’s sight better than custard powder.
The Fleet seemed to think so too, because abruptly the night was a blazing webwork of searchlights and incomprehensible demands blared from massive speakers. Circles of white picked out the boiling muddle where one of the Brighton House inflat-ables had been, combustion still going as the incendiary it contained fell down into the depths, then off towards other ships: Was it you, was it you? Did you do this? Why? What does it achieve? What do you know that I do not? What is your operation, your gain?