took Sharkey’s phone out of his pocket, pressed MENU and then went straight into MESSAGES. He looked in the inbox. Someone had left a voice mail. His pulse quickened as he anticipated hearing his father’s voice.
He dialed 100. There were two messages, one saved, the other one more recent. He listened to the saved message first:
Sharkey, I’ve just heard. My friend, that’s the worst luck. Don’t worry. I’m going to sort out Boytjie for you. And I’ll come and see you as soon as I can.
It was Oom Daan’s voice but it didn’t sound like a message to someone who had gone to work in Lüderitz. What was the “bad luck” that had happened to Sharkey?
He saved the message again.
Then he listened to the second message. A voice he didn’t know, a man with a rough West Coast accent:
Sharkey! Sharkey! Do you think you can cheat me?
That voice gave Grant the shivers. Who was it? One of Sharkey’s card-playing Paternoster friends? Or did this message represent something more sinister?
The mist that Oom Daan had predicted was already sliding up the land. It cooled the air and dampened the night sounds. Grant started jogging again, slowly, pondering what he’d just heard.
The messages disturbed him. They didn’t make any sense. He decided rather to concentrate on his plan. What would be the best way to get to Lüderitz? Hitchhike? Too risky. Bus? Man, with R50 000 he could even fly there or take a ship, never mind the bus. Did places like airports use the FLASH system? He wasn’t sure. Where exactly was Lüderitz? He wasn’t sure of that either. Perhaps the best thing would be to figure out a safe way to turn his virtual cash into tangible bank notes before he set off.
The mist reached him, surrounding him completely. He couldn’t see where he was going and his breathing seemed like the only sound in a noiseless world. He shoved the phone back into his pocket and jogged on through the mist. He felt safe in its invisibility. Even if Oom Daan walked right past him, he wouldn’t see him. And now he had an even greater reason not to want to bump into Oom Daan.
How was he going to access the money in Sharkey’s FLASH account? He would have to figure that out in the morning. He ran on, his West Coast instincts guiding him, sure as sonar, through the thick white mist.
Chapter 5
Grant felt the sliding sand of the dunes under his feet and was forced to slow down to a walk. The sandhills were studded with creeping thorn bushes and sharp, slicing reeds. He had to tread carefully because he couldn’t see more than half a metre ahead of him.
He was glad he had to concentrate so hard on each and every step. It took his mind off the whirling thoughts of Sharkey and Oom Daan and losing the house, and instead, put them firmly on the dunes of the West Coast.
On he went, step by careful step; first nudging the path ahead with his toe and then, finding it smooth and free of thorns, trusting his full weight to the still-warm sand.
He had been walking for about an hour when, suddenly, the cottonwool quiet was rent by a snorting, rolling-eyed monster. It reared up next to him, kicking sand up onto his chest and spraying his face with its hot breath.
Grant didn’t stop to think. He ran in the opposite direction, as fast as his legs could carry him through the thick sand, so that by the time he realised that the monster had really only been a dune buck, into whose night grazing he’d accidentally stumbled, he had quantities of thorns in his feet and a painfully thudding heart.
“Bloody fool,” he chided himself the way he’d heard Sharkey do, as he sat down to pull the thorns out. He was alert now, nervous … and cold. He pulled on his anorak and got wearily to his feet again. They were sore and stinging. He turned to face into the mist, knowing that in so doing he would eventually reach the sea.
He certainly didn’t want to wander back into civilisation again and bump into someone from the village.
The mist no longer seemed protective. It rushed at Grant in blowsy billows out of the darkness. Who are you? Who are you? it seemed to whisper at him. For the first time in his life, Grant felt unwelcome on the West Coast. He remembered what Sharkey had said once, “Don’t ever think you know the sea. Just remember, it doesn’t know you”. Now he understood what he’d meant.
Who are you? the mist mocked, unmistakably the master of this night and this place and this time. Grant pulled his woollen cap further down over his ears and eyes so that he wouldn’t have to hear its taunts and see its hostile rushing, rushing.
He walked on and on into the great, white nothing. His toe hit something hard and unmoving and he yelped. The mist was so thick that his cry of pain didn’t travel at all; it was swallowed the moment it was uttered. But the pain in his foot was real enough. He looked down. He had kicked a rock, a big, round rock with something painted on it. He peered closely and a cold shiver started in his knees and ran all the way up his body to the very top of his head. He was staring at a cross.
I’m probably standing on a grave, he thought.
During daylight hours that thought would have bothered him only slightly; but now, surrounded as he was by this wild, white night, it filled him with a sickening horror that deepened to intense terror when the mist cleared slightly and he saw, sailing silently up the beach towards him, a truly ghastly apparition: a ghost ship, full of gawping holes.
Grant’s mouth went dry. The horrible, hulking presence, darker than the night, challenged him. But he couldn’t run away. He couldn’t even move. All he could do was stare and wait for terrible, unthinkable things to happen.
But nothing happened. No headless captain ordered him aboard, no wailing of a drowned crew sounded from the aft deck. The mist swirled in the still night just as before.
That’s when Grant realised that the ship itself was stationary and it was only the mist rushing past it that gave it the appearance of movement. And then he noticed that a big piece of the ship was missing. It’s only half a ghost ship, he thought, puzzled. The more he stared at it, the more puzzled he became, for it was leaning over at a peculiar angle. His fear waned a little and as it receded, a suspicion of a thought crept in to take its place.
“I wonder if maybe …” He marched straight up to the ship and banged it hard with his fist. Flakes of rust drifted down onto the sand. He walked all around the wreck. “It’s only a wheelhouse after all.”
With the rock formations behind it, the deceiving mist and a fear-inspired imagination, the rusting wheelhouse had the appearance of a much larger structure. Grant found the entrance on the far side but could see nothing in the darkness. He plunged his hand into his pocket and felt for Sharkey’s phone. Shaking with the after-effects of fear, he finally succeeded in pressing the button that lit up the display face. With his ghoulish green light he walked about inside the structure. It was the size of a small room and, apart from one hole big enough for Grant to stick his head through, it was weather-proof and sturdy. “This will do for tonight,” he told himself.
Just as he was about to spread out his blanket, the wheelhouse was plunged into blackest darkness. The phone lay cold and lifeless in his hand. Grant was appalled. The battery! He’d been in such a hurry to get away he hadn’t even thought of that. Now how would he access the money in Sharkey’s FLASH account and get to Lüderitz? His legs were aching and he was tired enough to fall asleep right there and then, standing up.
Tomorrow,
