The Sea is the Sea is the Sea

The last time she rode a ferry, she was nine-years-old and it was an hour long ride from Bacolod to Iloilo, Balto playing from a projector in the main cabin filled with people speaking the fluid roll of Ilonggo, the Filipino dialect she lovingly calls her own.  The water had been a dirty blue with hints of black, and white scattered foam broke the monotony of color.

She remembers the smell of damp and oil and sea, the salted air mingling with her lost breakfast of rice, home-cooked crushed chorizo and fried egg.  The low, steady voice of her father echoes in her ears, and the ghost of the abandoned white plastic is there between her fingers as she recalls the way her stomach tipped like a too-full pail, sending her to the railing, trembling fingers holding on as though life depended on it, neatly cut bangs clammy against her cold-sweat-coated, pre-pubescent forehead.  She thinks now, because she cannot be sure, but that plastic bag must have sailed away, forgotten, with the fuel leak that trailed a dark rainbow behind the whir of the big boat’s engine.

Mel breathes in the chilled ocean air, her dark eyes transfixed on the equally dark sea, half-covered in thick mist, that same scattered pattern of white foam breaking the solid color that gives off the impression of imitation hematite coated with a thin layer of dust.  Beneath her fingers the rail is as old as the one years ago, the paint here peeling off metal from the number of trips from the island to the mainland and back again.  It is colder here than she expected, and her feet, wrapped in thick sports socks feel cool and faintly moist inside her white canvass sneakers.  It is an alien feeling; cold is a luxury where she is from.

She squints, furrowing her brows, her lips set in a serious line as she tries to remember the spelling of the Gaelic word that is scrawled on the side of the ferry.  The man who had taken her ticket had caught her reading it and had given her a winsome smile, offering its translation in the manner of those used to dealing with tourists.  Destination.  How apt.

Back home, she recalls that boats are often named after women: Lourdes, Mara or Christine, or perhaps Neneng, Inday or Salvi.  Why this is the trend, she cannot say.  It seems that vehicles are often referred to as women, the jeepneys that drive circles round the metro sport the same style.  She recalls, not consciously, how should the proprietor own more than one of the sea-faring vessels, numbers were appended to differentiate between which one had left in the morning, which one was still waiting for passengers on the dock, and which one was being treated in the shop.  Jacki 1, Concepcion 2, Baby 3.

A smile touches her lips briefly as she inhales and looks around, noting the amount of space and the number of people that mill around in tight little groups, islands of companionship and familiarity.  The cadence of their voices mimic the lolling motion of the water, and the music in each syllable embraces her.  It is the lilt that reminds her of a place that was hers through her parents and of a tongue that escapes her unless she is surrounded by those who speak it.

This ferry is slightly bigger than the one in her memories, although the main cabin here is smaller, housing only a small snack bar that serves drinks, sandwiches and chips.  She cannot help but think on how while both bear the tired look of frequently used transport, the build of one ship differs from the other.  This one is made to show off the yawning sea, while the one from before looked as though it hoped protect those who dared to travel by water.

She recalls how people were crammed into one of two areas: the room on the main floor or its sister on the second level.  Even at that young an age she compared the experience to that of the sardines she’d watch her mother cook to grace the breakfast table day after day.  In those rooms children darted between legs, conversations were easily overheard, and you could always smell faint sweat on tired bodies.  Narrow walkways wound about these two levels like a terrace overlooking the waves.  The size, she remembered, was just enough for you to walk two abreast; it was meant a corridor for passage, not an open area for mingling.

In this one, the cabin they provide is far to the back.  They serve hot drinks in paper cups, and the strong smell reminds her of too-early mornings down by the dinner table, half-asleep as she would drop a teaspoon of Nescafé instant coffee into mugs of hot water for her parents.

“Will you have coffee?”

She looks over her shoulder and smiles softly, politely shaking her head, hugging herself more to keep warm.  “Thank you, but no,” she smiles again, briefly and blinks against the cold wind, “coffee... it ah... puts me to sleep.” She exhales and drops her gaze, as if turning the world away.

His name is Tate Collough, and she feels indebted to him and his older brother, Shamus, who she knows is somewhere on the deck.  If not for the two of them she would not be on this ferry, still sitting in the rented Volvo on the side of the Irish road, stuck in a ditch, and blaming herself for wrong decisions and the stupidity of minute animals who should know better than to run into incoming traffic.

She does not need to look too much at Tate to note the features of his face: dark hair worn long to the nape, the waves in it soft and windblown.  His face, she marvels, seems perpetually serious with a touch of the sardonic, thick brows only adding to the intensity of clear blue eyes.

“Tea then?” He offers her another cup and she hesitates before nodding and accepting his little gift in her hands, mouthing a soft, “thank you” before she lifts the lid to sniff at the heated water flavored by flecks of some herbal concoction. “If you’ll be finding it too weak, Jamie’s got stock of milk and sugar out back. You just go and help yourself to some.”

The warmth is seeping through the thick, waxed paper cup and into her fingers as she listens to his voice wash over her.  When she looks up to him, she pauses and that he is looking out to sea, eyes steady over the water as hers had been only minutes before.  She watches, lifting the cup to her lips just as he sips on his own.  His hands are a workman’s hands—thick and callused for someone who looks not much older than she.

She does not know what to say.  She remembers how quiet she was in the car after they pulled over just hours before, asking if she needed help, offering her the opportunity to hitch as they were going the same way.  She is quietly grateful and apologizes silently to no one in particular for whatever fears she entertained at the thought of catching a ride with two foreign men.  She gives thanks to little blessings that seem to be granted to her in small amounts.

It is Tate who breaks the silence a heartbeat-and-a-half later, one hand slipping into his wool jacket as he leans, sideways on the rail.  The coffee he’d meant for her is half-gone already.

“What brings you to our little slice of earth?” He asks, eyes assessing her in that well-practiced manner of one used to casual conversation. “Not that many cross the world to Brighid’s Cross. Few know of it, if ever at all.” 

He is curious about her—their little hitchhiker, all quiet and distant and guarded, and finds no need to sidestep for politeness’ sake; he is falling back into the easy straightforward inquiry acquired early in his childhood.  When he sees something flicker in her eyes—hesitation, by the way she swallows and wets her lips—he cannot help but feel troubled for this little girl who has the look of one who omits details as a precaution.

Her eyes wander away from his and back to the sea, and Tate sighs to shake his head.  “I was merely curious, lass,” he finishes the coffee and crumples the cup, holding it inside his fist as he leans forward again, against the rail.  “Tourists are few on our little island.” He glances to her and gives her a kind smile when their gazes meet.  “Nothing to see, really.  No standing stones or the like.”

It is in the ease by which he talks to her that makes Mel relax enough to set a slightly trembling hand on the clammy rail wet with sea spray.  She pauses, breathing in the cool air and wishing it warmer, choosing her words carefully, before she clears her throat so that her voice comes out full and steady.  “I’m visiting a friend.”

Her mind wanders back to two girls exiting the ladies’ restroom at the far end of a Makati bar and resto, arms linked while they talk.  Sige na, the mock-whine tinged with laughter belongs to her. It is her best friend’s dispedida two years before. Pack me in your maleta. They’ll never know. There is more laughter and she pulls away to walk backwards down the seemingly clear aisle between the used and unused tables. It’s in this memory that another friendship is cemented.  It is the first meeting between strangers: one, a girl hoping to one day venture out of the gates of her home country, the other, a boy bit by wanderlust; a foreigner captivated by an unsung paradise not that far from Hong Kong.

“Mel would be short for Melina Pilar then.”  He says it in a crisp tone that makes her turn to him.  It is the second time today that someone new knows her name.  The first was at the airport where another man had been waiting with her rental.

Tate’s grin is fleeting, but he shakes his head and gives her a once-over, the kind that people make when they know of you, no matter how little.  “The whole island will be wanting a good look at you.”  He chuckles and then stops, giving her another kind of smile.  “Take no offense to it.  You’re Paddy-boy’s guest.  You’ll be welcome from the rocky beach to the upper fields.”  He breathes in and looks into the fog; Mel follows suit and stands straighter, small still beside him, despite pulling up to her fullest height.

“Small island?” All fingers but her thumbs are stuck in her back pockets.

“Big island—small community.  We barely come up to three hundred.” She watches the changes on his face, he squints as if peering through the mist.  “If you know anything at all about close-knit communities, Miss Pilar, you’ll know that one man’s business is every body’s damned business when generations go back long enough.” He winks and the teasing humor in his voice goads a smile out of her. 

She does not tell him, but she knows a bit of small communities, though they are snatches of summers whiled away in the province of someone else’s youth.

“Don’t take the prying too personal,” there is quiet wisdom in his voice, behind eyes that seem briefly unsure.  “Paddy’s well-loved, and the islanders mean well.” He tucks his hands away again, and looks out onto the water as if there is something more there than dark and blue and grey.  “His interests interest the rest of us, if you catch my meaning.”  He meets her eyes and she feels that probing gaze, gentle but firm.  “Paddy’s an open-book; that man is.”  His voice trails a little, and when he speaks again, it is as if Tate is musing and does not really mean for her to hear.  “Which is why we wonder... why we didn’t hear until late of you.”

Silence settles the way they do in movies, and she sets her hands back over her chest; the cup now discarded in the nailed-down trash bin that is set behind one of the thicker metal posts holding up the roof above their heads.  Her fingers curl in over her heart. When she opens her mouth, her voice is scratchy, that she clears it twice before starting her sentence all over again.

“Did you grow up with Paddy?” The wind is blowing again, around them, whole and wide.  Her fingers clamp down on her swirling hair.  “He told me about Brighid’s Cross, but hardly anything of the people there.”

Tate inhales and shakes his head.  “Grow up with Paddy? No.”  But a breath later he reconsiders his words: “Though... in a manner of speaking, you might say I did.” He pauses and runs a hand through his hair, his fingers gently patting the locks that curl around his nape.  “My ma... she was an islander until she married my da and moved with him to Boston.  Shamus was born on the cross, I in America.  We moved back about the same time Paddy came to the island.”

He glances back and her eyes follow his to see Shamus sharing a cigarette with the man Mel recognizes as the one who took her ticket.  “You’ve met Jamie.  He said you were looking a wee bit young for traveling all alone.”

He breathes and clears his own throat.  The air seems damp enough to drink.  “In any case, your man came to the island when he was sixteen.  His ma was an islander too, and his da a man from up north in Belfast.  Writer, if I’ll be remembering the details right.  Died a year before.”  He pauses and then muses again, his voice soft and sadly lilting to the memory.  “Mrs. O’Riley, I used to remember her saying that her love there,” he tilts his head to her, as if he is speaking to her in secret.  “She used to say that he’d gotten caught up in things that were over his head.”

Mel cannot remember a time when Paddy spoke to her of family, though Brighid’s Cross he spoke of as home.  “She passed on two years after.”  Tate smiles at her, a kind, sad smile that says some unspoken thank you, for no other reason than just saying so.

A gull sweeps by, its cry making Mel think of a flock of maya birds that she once saw arcing over the shanties seen from the LRT on the way back from school.  Its wings are spread wide, as if embracing the world it passes over, and she follows the trail it makes with her eyes to find herself overcome with a sense of awe as the mist opens up.  The island is there, growing with each inch closer.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” She hears his smile.  She cannot speak, and the ferry’s horn blows a thick blast of sound, and her world is carved away; she has crossed over to another place.

The long stretch of land is a mix of many shades of green, bluish now in this late hour.  There is a lighthouse—a shade of grey standing on what seems to be a miniscule patch of dark, stone land, waves curling at its base.  At the smoother base of the island, a small town stands, glimmering under the frail, fading light of the sun.  There is an uneven, half-submerged stretch of beach, and beside it sits the docks where tiny, shadowed figures seem to be waiting to greet those who are coming in from the world outside.

When she looks again, the lighthouse is closer, and much larger than she might have imagined.  The grime from the sea clings to the rocks beneath, algae and barnacles bunched like smashed decorations.

So many firsts in one day, she thinks, the voice musing in her head clear and yet not wholly her own.  Her first out-of-country trip.  Her first solo-drive down an unfamiliar road.  Her first time hitching a ride with strangers.  Her first lighthouse.

“If you’ll be needing a ride, you’re free to join us.” Tate’s voice is overpowered by a second blare from the ferry horn and Mel is distracted as she catches sight of a familiar form stepping out from a small shack and onto the expanse of port.  It is her heart that catches, not her breath, cliché as that may be; and her feet pull her forward towards the front of the boat.  There is no smile on her face, just a hesitant mask that cannot remember why she is here.

She is quietly willing him to look up and at her, to let go of that glinting silver he has in his hands: the lighter that she remembers all too well.  Her hands feel a cramp coming, her fingers are all but stiff but she rests these upon the rail, the paint still peeling and rough.