As the search for Luke went on, the pace of ordinary life in the four fishing villages slowed and almost halted. The talk about what could have happened to Luke and Donovan ended like a dripping standpipe, finally fixed. There was nothing more to be said. The counting of the days stopped too—at first, there was discussion of how long a man could survive at sea without water, without food, and there were stories of men long forgotten, except that they had gone to drift. These two men were fishers, it was pointed out. They had their gear. Luke and Donovan would be able to catch fish and turtles and even seabirds. They would not starve. Then the older fishers would warn about the emptiness of the deep sea, how difficult it was to catch fish when the seafloor was too far beneath the surface.
Everyone knew the limitation was water—that without water there were only a few days of life left to a man trapped in an open canoe. And everyone saw the high white sky over Treasure Beach that held not a single rain cloud. When the fifth day passed, talk about food and water ceased. Slowly the groups of people who waited for the return of my brother and the man called Donovan dispersed, but although it was not easy to see, the villagers still waited behind closed doors.
By the sixth day after Luke went to drift I was tired of the aimless search. I had never found the sea to be a lifeless place, but in the search for my brother it held a blankness that made me want to leave Great Bay. To occupy the blazing hours I thought about what it would be like to live in the middle of the island, perhaps in Mandeville, at the top of a hill with the sea only an idea, a story, a blue blur at the end of vision. Maybe Jasmine would leave with me and we could make our lives in a gentler place of green, a place with cool nights and flowers around a small house. But I could never see what I might do in such a place.
Today is my sixth day on Portland Rock and I am thinking of the sixth day of the search for my brother. I am on a rock, he was in a boat. Water Bird is lost. I am sick of the taste of sea snails and whelks. I want a full bottle of Red Stripe beer or Stone’s Ginger Wine. I want a plate full of curry goat and rice. I want the sight of other people, the softness of a bed, the shelter of a roof.
22
Lloyd lay on his bed, alone at home, his arms behind his head. He had dried his clothes on the beach near the fort before returning home. He had washed from the bucket in the yard and eaten half of a stale bun found at the back of the food cupboard. He longed for chicken and rice, maybe even some breadfruit, a big plate of cooked food swimming in gravy. He wished again for a cell phone—he could call Dwight, tell him he was back, boast of his adventures.
His body felt used up as if the sea had sucked something from him. He thought of the black sea eggs pot fishers used as bait, handling them in gloved hands, putting them in the pots along with orange peel and coconut, punching them open with a spear before the pot was lowered into the sea. They had yellow yolks, like the eggs of chickens, which drifted through the water in faint trails, attracting fish to swim into the pot and become trapped there. Gramps said sea eggs were important because they ate the weeds on the reef.
Once, snorkeling on the reef at Lime Cay, Lloyd had seen a starfish chase a sea egg in the slowest of slow motion, eventually crawling over the spines of the sea egg, holding it fast against the floor of the sea to crush and eat it. An egg that moved, an egg that ate, an egg with defenses that could still be beaten. Gramps had told him how the black sea eggs had all died off one time, for reasons no one knew. Lost at sea he might be, but Lloyd was sure his grandfather still lived. The boy closed his eyes and he slept.
He woke when he heard the front door open. His mother was back. “Lloydie?” she called. Her voice was calm. And then he realized the flaw in his story—he had returned from his fictional fishing trip as crew with neither fish nor money. He pretended to be asleep. He sensed his mother standing in the doorway but she did not call his name again. He heard the clanking of pots and the rustling of plastic bags. She had brought home supper. Joy and hunger rose in his chest. He was home, he was out of danger. His mother was a safe harbor; they had been together for a long time, from his birth. She had shared all his hours, all his days and nights, waking and sleeping. She was always home at night. Their house was a steady, safe place, the opposite of being at sea. His mother made it safe for him, safe for them both. He hoped she had brought home chicken and rice. He heard the crackle of something frying and he was starving.
He got up from his bed and put on an old T-shirt. He went into the small living room, filled with the smell
