He didn’t want to; but he did even so.
‘I expect you’re probably tired,’ said Jenny when all was quiet in the sisters’ room.
Joel wasn’t the least bit sleepy, but he wanted to be left in peace. After all those years without a mum, it was a bit much to suddenly find her hanging around all the time.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll go to bed.’
‘When you wake up tomorrow I’ll probably have left already.’
She gave him a front door key.
‘The girls are with a neighbour when I’m at work. So you don’t need to worry about them.’
That was a big relief. The mere thought of having to be with them for a whole day was enough to make him want to run away.
‘What are you going to do tomorrow? Will you be able to find your way round Stockholm?’
‘I have a map. I’ll manage OK.’
He had snuggled down into bed and was just about to switch off the light when she knocked on the door and came in.
‘There’s so much I want to know,’ she said. ‘And no doubt there’s lots you want to know about me. We’ll have to give it time.’
Joel mumbled something inaudible. He wanted her to leave. He couldn’t cope with any more now.
She said good night and left the room.
The whole flat was soon silent.
Joel lay thinking about Samuel.
He missed the snoring that had always come rumbling into his bedroom through the walls.
Joel was on his own now. Although he had Jenny Rydén and two little sisters not far away.
But it was Samuel who wasn’t there. That was what really mattered.
When he woke up next morning, the flat was quiet and empty. Outside, it was overcast but not raining. Joel had breakfast and changed into some clean underwear.
Then he went out.
When he came to the Seamen’s Employment Exchange, the waiting room was full of people. All of them were seamen. They included a few boys who couldn’t have been any older than he was himself. That worried him a bit. Perhaps all the boats were fully manned by now? Perhaps there wouldn’t be a job for him?
When it was his turn he went to the desk and asked if his seaman’s discharge book was ready yet.
It was!
It was dark blue. And had his name printed on the front. He felt as if he were already standing on deck. He could feel the floor swaying under his feet. He felt so happy.
He was forced to sit down so as not to lose his balance.
‘Your first time?’ somebody asked.
‘Yes,’ said Joel.
The one who asked had a freckled face and bright ginger hair.
‘They’ll be calling up soon now,’ he said.
Joel didn’t understand what he meant. Who would be calling up? Calling up what? But he didn’t ask.
The explanation came almost immediately.
A hatch in the wall opened. A man with a sweaty face waved a few sheets of paper in the air.
‘Electricians for Neptun. A bosun, an engineer. The engineer must be experienced. A steward for Lindfjord. And a deck hand. That’s all for today. We’ll be calling up again at ten tomorrow morning.’
Some of those waiting stood up and went to the desk. Others muttered in disgust and headed for the door. Joel understood what happened now. He would be back the next day at ten o’clock.
He could be a deck hand. Or a steward.
His excitement was tangible.
The man with the sweaty face was holding the whole world in his hands.
The waiting room slowly emptied. Joel stayed behind. He leafed through some of the magazines lying on a table. There were adverts for various shipping lines. What a lot of ships! Carrying cargoes of coal and iron ore, bananas and oil.
He was just about to leave when the hatch opened again. The man with the sweaty face stuck his head out and looked round. He was just about to close it again when he caught sight of Joel.
‘What job are you looking for?’ he shouted.
‘I want to be a sailor,’ said Joel.
‘That’s the daftest thing I’ve ever heard. Why else would you be sitting here?’
The man waved a sheet of paper at Joel.
‘There was one more job going,’ he said. ‘The paper had fallen on the floor. The MS Alta is looking for a mess steward.’
Joel held his breath. Thoughts were racing through his head. A mess steward only went on deck in order to empty rubbish bins. He served meals in the mess, did the washing up, made beds and cleaned out cabins. Like a chambermaid in a hotel.
‘I assume you’re not interested,’ said the man, and started to close the hatch.
‘I’ll take it,’ Joel shouted.
The next moment he was standing by the hatch and produced his discharge book.
‘She’ll be docking at Värtahamnen tonight. Be there tomorrow morning at eight o’clock. Ask for the chief steward.’
‘Who?’
The man behind the hatch opened Joel’s discharge book and nodded.
‘Your first voyage, I see. Go on board and ask for the chief steward. His name’s Pirinen. He’s a Finn. But he speaks Swedish. Go and see him. If he likes the look of you, you come back here and sign on. Is that clear?’
Joel nodded.
He was handed the sheet of paper, and the hatch closed.
Everything had happened so quickly that he’d hardly been able to keep up.
First he’d been given his seaman’s discharge book. And then he’d got a posting the very first day.
What kind of a ship was it, this MS Alta?
Joel hesitated. Then he knocked on the hatch. It opened immediately.
The man was wiping the sweat from his face with a piece of newspaper.
‘Are you still here?’
‘I just wanted to know what kind of a boat it was.’
‘Grängesberg line.’
‘Where’s it sailing to?’
The man behind the hatch sighed deeply.
‘How the hell do I know? But it’s an iron ore freighter. So it’ll be going to a port where it can load up with iron ore. And then it will sail to another one where it can unload.’
Liberia, Joel thought. Africa.
He remembered what Geegee had said.
So it was the same shipping line as the MS Karmas.
‘Anything more you want to know? We’re about to close now.’
‘No,’ said Joel. ‘Nothing else.’
The hatch closed once more.
Joel went out into the street.
His first thought was to tell Samuel about it. But that was impossible. He was still on a train somewhere on his way north.
Joel felt extremely excited.
All the ships he’d ever dreamt about had faded away.
Now there was a real one. A ship called the MS Alta, at this very moment heading for Stockholm.
Joel set off walking. Slowly at first, then faster and faster.
On the way to Östgötagatan he bought a picture postcard and a stamp. When he came to Jenny’s flat he found a pen and sat down at the kitchen table.
He wrote to Samuel.
I got my seaman’s discharge book today. And I’ve got a job. On a ship called the MS Alta. I’m off to sea now. See you on Pitcairn Island.
He wasn’t sure about the last sentence.
See you on Pitcairn Island.
Maybe Samuel would think he was being provoked? But he left it anyway. They’d talked about that so many times, after all. Sat poring over sea charts and looking for the little dot in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Where Fletcher and his men had gone into hiding after their mutiny against that cruel Captain Bligh.
That’s what he’d written. It could stay as it was.