Free Lifeboat by Zacharey Jane Page A

ordered, found a sun umbrella on another table and moved it over to shade her. It was all done quietly, without a word between them. Much like on the lifeboat, I imagined.
    â€˜This seems like good news,’ he said, in reference to my discoveries.
    The woman looked out to sea.
    â€˜I think it is,’ I said.
    â€˜And very kind of this librarian to go to so much trouble for strangers such as ourselves,’ he added.
    â€˜So you may be English,’ I said ‘or at least your father was, if this writer is your father.’
    Her accent was English, but with him she conversed most fluently in Spanish. His accent was neither Spanish nor English. Indeed, I had trouble pinning it down to any particular country. It could have been French, but that of a Frenchman long gone from France, and he spoke only a few words in that language. Or rather, I had only heard him speak a few, and I had a feeling that he understood more than he was prepared to admit.
    Our only lead seemed to be that of her father, which in her more positive moments she felt was memory, not just a dream, but she could not tell where one ended and the other started.
    The weekend approached, signalling the end of my first week with them and the beginning of my last. I tried to ignore the feeling of panic which arose whenever I remembered the deadline – if I could just get one confirmation, perhaps my boss would extend the period of the investigation.
    The weekend also meant two days away from the office, usually a time I spent sailing, my weekly treat, but this weekend it felt like time lost. Nor did I relish the idea of spending the weekend at work. So I decided to take them with me. I was an officer of the government after all, and an old man and woman would hardly seem like a security risk. It was unorthodox, but surely acceptable under the circumstances. However, I did not plan on telling my boss.
    After they ate we returned to the compound. They had spoken little; she still looked dazed. The common room was empty and as I left I saw her curl up into a battered old cane lounge and close her eyes. He stood at the far end of the room, staring out of the window, a stance that was becoming familiar to me.
    Apart from the old cane lounge, a dozen wooden chairs and tables decorated the room, and a few greasy decks of cards were stacked on a shelf, next to some shipping magazines. Despite the furniture, the room looked bare. The walls were green and shiny, a particular shade of green I dubbed ‘public lavatory green’, unbroken by anything but a list of regulations glued lopsidedly by the door. I felt sorry to leave them in such stark surroundings, but hoped that I may soon return with better news.
    All I needed was a weekend security pass. I looked for the chief of security. He was not in his office. Enquiry revealed that he was at the docks, dealing with an emergency on board a foreign freighter. As it was, this emergency worked in my favour.
    The freighter arrived that morning, containing produce to be unloaded immediately, due to a damaged generator in the main cool room. The vessel had been attacked by one of the pirate gangs that infested the channels of the northern islands. The freighter waited in a small bay for a week, while the engineers repaired what they could, and then sought refuge in our port. The harbourmaster admitted the vessel to port despite a discovery that the majority of the ship’s crew did not hold the correct papers to enter our country; they were not members of the maritime workers’ union, nor did they hold work visas. Such an oversight by the captain and the mate was not above suspicion. Their crew, it turned out during interviews, worked for a fraction of the cost of accredited crews. The maritime union was a strong one which did not take poaching on its territory lightly.
    The dockside was in uproar. Every illegal crewmember was to be incarcerated until the correct paperwork could be sorted out. The