Bernard Cornwell - Wildtrack

“We’ll go somewhere in her together, Jimmy.”

“Maybe.” I think he knew he was dying, and that he would never sail out of sight of land again.

Angela did not come for the launching, which was why we enjoyed it. After the ceremonial throwings-in we all went swimming, then finished the champagne as we dried in the late-afternoon sun. We stole strawberries and clotted cream from Bannister’s fridge, then more champagne, and that night I sat on the river bank and stared at my boat in the water. I admired her lines and I dreamed the old dreams of far-off seas that were now so much closer. Sycorax still had no masts, rigging or sails, but she was afloat and I was happy.

I could afford to forget Angela’s insistence that I sailed in Wildtrack ’s crew; I had my own boat in the water again, and that was enough.

I slept aboard Sycorax that night. I’d cleared my room in Bannister’s house and carried my few belongings down to the wharf. I made a space on the cabin sole where I could spread the sleeping bag. I cooked soup on the primus and ate it in my own cockpit. It did not matter that Sycorax was a mess, that her decks were a snake’s honeymoon of tangled ropes, or that her scuppers were cluttered with tools, timber and chain; she was floating.

I woke the next morning to the good sound of water slapping my hull. I went topsides to see Wildtrack ’s gleaming white hull with its broad and slanting blue streak moored in the channel. She must have come upriver on the pre-dawn tide, and Mulder and his crew were stringing flags up the forestay, doubtless ready for the night’s party. Mystique was still off her mooring.

Later that morning Bannister and Angela arrived with the first of their house-guests. Angela ignored me, but Bannister strolled down to look at Sycorax . He brought two of the guests with him, which was perhaps why neither of us mentioned the St Pierre, nor my eviction from his house. This was the first time I’d seen Bannister since his holiday, and he looked very fit, suggesting that freedom from the studio programme had been good for him. He treated me with a jocular familiarity, though I noted that he took pains to mention my VC to his two friends and the medal went some way towards redeeming my reputation that had been spoilt by my raggedly stained appearance. Bannister stared up at Sycorax ’s mainmast which I’d stood against the boathouse wall so that the linseed and paraffin in which I’d soaked it could drain down to the heel. “You wouldn’t feel happier with a metal mast, Nick?”

“No.” I said.

“Nick’s a traditionalist,” he explained to his friends; a London couple. The woman told me she was an interior designer and thought my boat was ‘cute’. The husband, a stockbroker, opined that Sycorax was a splendid sort of boat for knocking about the Channel. “Just the ticket for a jaunt to Jersey, what?”

I explained that I’d crossed the Atlantic twice in Sycorax , which somewhat damped down the hearty atmosphere of bonhomie that Bannister had tried so hard to create. He looked at his watch as though he had urgent business elsewhere. “We’ll see you at the party tonight, of course?”

“Am I invited?” I asked disingenuously.

“And do bring a friend, won’t you? Drinks at six, end time unknown, and tomorrow will be celebrated as Hangover Sunday.” I promised to be there and, once they’d gone, I spent a happy day fixing the bowsprit against its oak bitts, then bracing it with a bobstay made of galvanized chain. It was hard work, and therefore satisfying.

At around four o’clock, when I was tightening the gammon iron’s last bolt, Mystique returned.

I finished the job, washed off the worst of the dirt, then rowed myself out to the anchorage. The American girl had gone down into her cabin so, as I approached, I hailed her. “ Mystique! Mystique! ”

“Wait a minute.” The voice was sharp. “Who is it?”

“A neighbour.”

“OK. Wait.”

I was quite ridiculously apprehensive. I wanted to like her, and for her to like me. She must have been washing for when she appeared she had a big towel wrapped round her body and a smaller towel twisted about her hair. She seemed very suspicious of me.

“Hi.”

“Hello.” I was holding on to Mystique ’s starboard guardrail and the setting sun, reflecting from the polished aluminium hull, was blinding. I was stripped to the waist. “My name’s Nick Sandman.”

“Jill-Beth Kirov. Kirov like the ballet.” Close up I saw that Jill-Beth Kirov had a tanned face, dark eyes, and the strong American jawline that my father always claimed came from chewing too much gum.

My father always had a theory for everything and I remembered him explaining the gum theory as we sat having tea in New York’s Plaza Hotel. He’d liked to take his children on his travels, and I thought how much the old goat would have liked this girl. I looked to see if she had a wedding ring. She did not. “Do you mind if I don’t shake hands?” she asked.

If she had offered a hand then the towel round her body could have fallen. I solemnly excused her the politeness, and said there was a party at the house tonight and I wondered if she’d like to come as my guest.

“Tonight?” She seemed somewhat taken aback by the immediacy of the invitation, but I noted she did not immediately refuse. Instead she looked up at Bannister’s lavish house. “He’s a celeb, right?”

“A celeb?”

“Famous,” she explained. “A celebrity.”

“Oh! Right.”

“Are you his boatman?”

“No.”

“OK.” She was clearly unimpressed with me, despite my denial of servant status. “What time’s this party?”

“Drinks at six. I gather it goes on most of the night.”

“Formal?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Remind me what the guy’s name is?”

“Anthony Bannister.”

She clicked her tongue in sudden recognition. “The television guy, right? He was married to Kassouli’s daughter?”

“That’s the fellow.”

“That was kind of messy.” She stared up at the house again as if expecting to see blood trickling down the neatly striped lawn. I watched her. It would be foolish to say I fell in love, but I wanted to. “It might be fun,” she said dubiously.

“I hear you’re writing a book?” I asked in an effort to prolong the encounter.

“Maybe we’ll have a chance to talk about it.” She did not sound as if she was looking forward to the opportunity. “Thanks for the invitation. Can I leave it open? I’m kind of busy.”

“Of course.”

“Thanks again.” She stayed on deck to make sure that I pushed my dinghy away from her boat. “Hey! Nick?”

“Yes.” I had to turn round on the dinghy’s thwart to see her face again.

She was grimacing. “What did you do to your back?”

“Car accident. Front tyre blew out. No seatbelt.”

“Tough.” She nodded to show that as far as she was concerned the encounter was over.

I rowed back to my wharf, disappointed. I asked myself what I had expected. An invitation to board Mystique? An adolescent sigh and a melting of two hearts into one? I told myself that I was not in love, that all I had done was focus my frustrations on a girl who was a symbol of freedom and release, yet, even as I tried to persuade myself of that good sense, I failed. I tried to turn her wary words into an acceptance of my invitation, and I failed at that too.

“Gone fishing, Sandman?” It was Fanny Mulder who lounged in Wildtrack ’s centre cockpit and who must have been watching me talk to the American girl. “Catch anything?” he asked mockingly.