The Sailor

It’s incredible how fate is resourceful and the lives of people intertwine in the strangest of ways. 

Everyone had heard of Christopher in Sundown Bayou, a small fishing town off the coast of southern New Zealand. As a boy, he’d roamed the village on his little yellow bicycle, sometimes alone and wandering and sometimes selling his mother’s homemade jars of preserves. At fifteen, he had sold his bicycle for a small sum, bought a second hand pair of sailing shoes and wasn’t seen again for seventeen years.

Years passed and some things changed, and others didn’t.

March rolled around and the leaves turned. The weather shifted and preparations were beginning for the coming long winter months. The tide was low on a late afternoon when Sam

was hauling in his catch for the day. He needed a lot of fish for Nancy. Something about making pickled fish. Making a face, he yanked hard at his old fishing boat – and then paused.

A warning sensation prickled the back of his neck and on instinct Sam looked toward the horizon. He saw a speck in the distance and knew instantly it was no boat he had ever seen before. It didn’t belong to the village. Dropping everything, he ran to alert the town.

So when Christopher stepped down from his sailboat onto the shores he hadn’t returned to for nearly two decades, it was to half the townspeople gawking at him in almost owlish amazement.

He saw a straw-coloured hair boy standing a little apart from the crowd and correctly assumed him to be the reason for his welcome committee. A young woman, his only crew member, stepped down next to him and a gasp went through the townspeople. Olivia said nothing and showed no surprise, as was her way. She quietly finished securing the boat on land and went back to fetch their meagre belongings.

Christopher learned many things that evening. His mother had finally remarried and moved away. Although deeply heartbroken, Rebecca had showed little surprise at her son’s impulsive exodus.

After all, they do say, like father, like son. Or so neighbours had continually reminded her in attempted consolation. She was now happy, however. With her half-Māori husband and their two daughters. His half-sisters. He’d grinned like a fool when Aunt Anne had told him.

Olivia, he found out, was excellent with children and this warmed the townspeople to her. She had a natural affinity with the young and the old and he watched her quiet watchful demeanour melt away in the face of so many curious faces and questions. He also learned he was an unsteady drunk (he never drank when sailing, which occupied most of his days) and he had developed two left feet when on land. He could barely make it from the pier to the closest B&B without swaying. (To his repeated consternation, Olivia was forced to furtively lend him a hand whenever she thought no one was looking.)

He had also forgotten how much he enjoyed talking.

He found himself entertaining the children and old folks with drunk - but true - tales of his misadventures. Everyone cooed in sympathy when he told them he couldn’t be with a woman for three years because he had been - 

There was a gasp as he said the word. Christopher looked nonplussed. 

“That’s a shame that,” someone announced. 

“Aye, aye,” the men agreed. Many women around the periphery clucked their tongues at this tasteless choice of subject. He ignored them and they were shushed by some of the others. He recounted how he had once worked seven jobs in the span of two weeks and had been fired from all but one. Hunger was a constant companion, he said, morosely. There was a particularly violent pub brawl he had participated in that broke his nose and gave him his cauliflower ear.

Several children hooted and many scrambled to inspect his left ear. Anne, Rebecca’s second cousin once removed, clucked in sympathy.

“Why?” the straw-coloured hair boy asked. Sam. Even drunk, Christopher recalled the boy’s name.

“Why what?” he grumbled, irritated at being interrupted.

“Why were you fired?” Christopher blinked.

“They didn’t like my face.”

“No shit. Why do you keep getting into fights?”

“Because I don’t like their face.” Christopher scowled, the aforementioned face ruby red with both stupor and anger.

Sam glared back, unimpressed, but Christopher found himself in his element and indisposed to explaining himself further. After a moment of debating with himself, Christopher watched Sam

settle onto a spot on the ground where he continued to listen intently and didn’t interrupt again. Sam’s hostile gaze slowly transformed into a glazed trance and Christopher saw that he had

slowly gained the boy’s attention hook, line and sinker. He grinned, toothily.

Christopher’s storytelling secured himself lodgings for the night and food the next morning. The B&B was rundown, in a bad state of disrepair, and really had little to offer in terms of proper accommodation.

“Fresh fish and chips for breakfast. And watered down beer,” his host had thoughtfully added, to which Christopher had grunted but then good-naturedly agreed. Looking around, he found that Olivia had long ago retired from the festivities. He had been too in his cups to notice. Having made fast friends with the Clark’s, Olivia was apparently now the temporary resident of a family of five.

Shrugging, he ambled out of the B&B, making a mental note to check on her tomorrow. And the boy too, Christopher thought. There had been a lost air about Sam, and he had noticed as the

boy got up to finally leave, no one had paid any attention to either his presence or his exit. So much remained unchanged, he mused.

Christopher kept no home. Even growing up in the village, he had felt adrift. It was at sea, where he felt anchored. Over the next few days, the townspeople cagily queried on what his plans were,

suggesting he linger a few months, but he fended off their entreaties. He should go see his mother, he told them. He also wanted to see his sisters for the first time but wasn’t planning on

remaining with his mother’s new family long. He left without telling anyone, as suddenly as the first time, and the Bayou was left strangely silent after his departure.

The town never saw Christopher again and many thought the sea had claimed him. Olivia remained behind with her new family and one day, as she was calling the children in for the night, she saw Sam walking away from the town and towards the shore. She remembered thinking that the boy shared the same restless spirit of her former employer and a disquieting feeling stirred in her heart. She barely slept that night and woke up the next day in a sweat understanding what had happened.

The village had lost Sam too and Olivia knew Christopher had come back for the boy. Many had not made the connection as Sam was known to disappear for days at a time only to turn up one morning and take his boat out to sea as usual. Olivia knew better though, this was different. He was gone, truly gone. She asked around and learned Sam grew up an orphan but was taken in by an old lady for a brief time. He had no place of belonging and maybe with Olivia gone, Christophe took advantage of that as he was inclined now and again to feel lonely. She hoped the pair knew what they were doing – but she wished them well. Wherever they were, they were probably happier than they would ever be here in a small town where everyone knew everyone, and freedom belonged to no one.