The Harbour

The boy was not sure what it was about that particular morning which called him down to the harbour again. Maybe it was the shade of blue the sky was in the first light that reminded him, or the illuminated clouds that seemed to trail down in that direction. Perhaps it was the song the starlings on his window ledge had chosen to wake him up to as they jumped and pecked at the glass, or maybe it was just the prospect of being in the house when the family woke up that pulled him to his feet and shook the sleep from his head.

He dressed warmly; layering was the key, he pushed his bare feet into old leather boots. There was no point in wearing socks, he would hang his feet in the water regardless how cold it was. Slipping out the back door silently, he would not be in attendance when the house came to life, stirring and grumbling like a big angry machine, turning over and revving disruptively again and again. No, he would be far from the angst of all that activity. He whistled as he walked, a tuneless universal melody, enjoying the feeling of the frozen gravel crunching under his boots.

As he skipped proficiently down the rocks to the harbour, he noticed a huge flock of seagulls circling overhead. They were hungry, he thought. The boy was hungry too, but then, the boy was always hungry. He was at that age when hunger was insatiable and growing seemed to erupt overnight. It was a confusing age that deemed him neither child nor man, neither their belonging nor his own person. He was still a slave to their conventions, and yet he was not one of them. Still, he thought, things were going to change, he would see to that. It had been almost a year and it was about time. His stomach rumbled angrily, but it was his soul that was hungriest.

Scooping handfuls of pebbles from the pathway, he filled his pockets and ran down to the dock. As he ran, he felt an overwhelming sense of freedom and elation. He wished it could always be like this. The fingers of the wind tore at his hair and scratched at his eyes, as they watered, the boy let out a high-pitched hysterical madman's laugh. It was a strange alien sound, but it did not matter; there was nobody there to hear him.

The plank walk was old and precarious at the best of times. In places there were pieces missing, or rotted away to extinction. However this held no issue with the boy. He had been running up and down this plank walk since he was five years old. He knew every weakness, every knothole, every inch of slippery green moss that lived on the edges of the walk. And he had never fallen once. Not like the little sisters who squealed and grabbed at each other giggling and shrieking, they had no respect for the sanctity of the harbour. There had been many tears and cries for sympathy, grazed knees and hands, and stupid dinosaur plasters. The older brothers had never ventured down here, at least not as far as the boy knew. They were more interested in beer and girls and having sex in the back of the father's Volvo estate. The boy did not look up to the brothers as other boys looked up to their brothers. He did not aspire to being a drugged up, sex crazed, beer lout. He did not much like the brothers, and he knew they did not care much for him either.

The plank walk bobbed up and down gently, in time with the motion of the water. The peaks of the water's ripples glistened like cut diamonds as they caught the early sun. The boy knelt at the edge of the concrete before the walk and dipped his fingertips into the water. It was freezing but felt almost warm as it licked at his numb hands. On his hands and knees at the edge of the water, the boy surveyed every last detail of the harbour: it was like a scene on a postcard. Getting up, the boy dusted down his damp knees. There were little indents in his hands where the gravel on the ground had imprinted themselves: in his lifeline, love line, mount of Venus. But the boy did not believe in fate. He made his own fate.

The boy proceeded up the plank walk, expertly, unfaltering, never once looking down or looking back, only forwards to the future, his future. When he was three quarters of the way along the plank walk, he stopped. Here, there was a space amongst the rows of boats where the little blue yacht used to be. The boy had loved that yacht. Every day, after school he had run to this place to meet his father, to stand on the deck of the little boat, to hold the wheel in his hands with his head held high and his eyes closed tight. Feeling the familiar rise and fall of the water under his feet, breathing in the smell of life. In his dreams he stood alone, on the vast ocean with this wheel in his hands, he was the captain of the yacht. There was no one around for miles and miles, just the immense stretches of clear cold blue. He would look out into the endless sea, and see water forever. He was not afraid to be alone: To be alone and to be lonely were two different concepts, as far removed from each other as the depths of the seas and heights of the skies. And the boy knew both. Separately.

The boy had not been here since the yacht had gone, but he remembered it all. He could not forget. His brain was made in a way that never allowed anything he had ever experienced to escape. It was all absorbed, internalised and memorised. He was pleased he did not forget. Not like the mother, who forgot everything, even his birthday each year. However, that in itself held no great grievance for the boy, he did not concern himself too much with the trivialities of such festivities. Christmas, Easter, anniversaries, birthdays and all the suchlike held no great joy for the boy. They were simply an empty shell of short-lived excitement, all phoney and forgotten as quickly as they had come. The only annual event he looked forward to with any sort of excitement was the summer holiday from school: a seemingly endless period of unstructured freedom. The siblings would whine and moan, complaining of boredom and 'having nothing to do.' The mother would be tearing her hair out in handfuls having all these kids under her feet. The boy however, never complained, was always occupied, always content.

The boy made his way to the end of the walk and sat down, removed his shoes and dropped his feet into the water. The coldness sent a shiver through the boy, but soon he grew used to its familiar stroking and it comforted him. When he was here he was invincible, the only love he knew was here, and that protected him. Here he was safe, here he had security. Here there were no screaming faces or angry fists. Here he was free to be whatever he felt.

Reaching into his pockets, he began to draw out the pebbles he had collected. One by one he tossed his offerings far out into the water. He had been perfecting this action since he was five years old and he was now able to make the pebbles skip up to six times before eventually disappearing.

He had saved this one for today. It was truly a beauty: The size of a quails egg, completely smooth and deep red in colour. This was the stone his father had pressed into his palm the first time he had brought the boy to the harbour. The first time his father had gently held his son's hand and guided him down the slippery plank walk. The first time his father had awed the boy as he showed him how to make the pebbles dance over the surface of the water. This stone had been here even before the boy knew, even before he was different. He paused, holding the stone in his right hand for a moment, feeling the cold weight of it in his hand. He considered the notion of keeping this stone. It was his first and surely the best. Closing his eyes, the boy imagined being on that small blue yacht once again, feeling the bob of the water, rising and falling beneath him. Love was as similar an emotion as hate. He was not a hateful boy, he just could not forget: His father's face as they took him away, going down to the harbour and finding the little blue yacht gone. For all that boat stood for, his hopes, his dreams, his childhood. But he did what he knew he must; reaching his arm back he released the stone through the air, slinging it as hard as he could like a catapult. It skipped three times across the surface of the sparkling waters before finally sinking into the depths of the harbour to settle amongst all the brothers and sisters the boy had sacrificed over the years. Today was the final offering, he had given his last pebble. Looking down into the deep grey waters of the harbour, the boy thought, if he looked hard enough he could almost see the shadowy figure of a man.