She said nothing and they walked to the marina together and she made sure he got aboard his boat without falling into Hamilton Harbour and wrung a promise from him that he would take himself to bed. It was all she could do and she was somewhat reassured that he wasn’t in any condition to do much else himself.
But it was a long time before she fell asleep as she grappled with all she’d found out—and Mike didn’t return to the boat.
She woke at the crack of dawn, though, as Morning Mist rocked gently, and she knew it was Mike. So she lay for a time, wondering what to do, and when she heard no further sounds she thought he might have taken himself to bed and she got up, dressed, and went out to make herself a cup of tea.
But he was sitting at the island counter, staring into space.
‘Oh! Sorry, I thought you…’ She stopped awkwardly.
He turned his head briefly, his eyes faintly amused. ‘Good morning, Sid. You thought I’d what?’
‘Er—gone to bed.’ She twisted her hands.
He looked at her again, for longer this time, taking in her yellow shirt and blue shorts, her neat hair and scrubbed face. ‘I probably should,’ he said at last, and fingered the faint blue shadows on his jaw. ‘And take my sins with me,’ he added with soft mockery.
‘That’s got nothing to do with me, Mike,’ she said although’ her eyes were distressed, ‘but if you’d like me to…move out I will.’
He’d started to stretch but stopped halfway. ‘Why the hell would I want you to do that?’
‘I just thought I—well, I wondered if there mightn’t be some new—arrangements now,’ she finished somewhat exasperatedly and looked at him, annoyed.
‘You mean you thought I’d want to replace you with Karen?’
‘Yes.’
‘Of which you don’t approve at all, I take it?’
‘It’s not my place to approve or disapprove,’ she said stiffly, ‘but I think it’s a lousy thing to do to a friend.’
‘If I’ve done anything to Tim, I’ve done him a favour, friend Sid,’ he said with considerable irony.
‘But I have no intention of replacing you with anyone at this stage. Moreover, they called me up yesterday to tell me the auto-pilot is going again and they’ll be putting it back in this morning, so we’ll be leaving directly it’s done. I anticipate that to be around ten hundred hours, Miss Hill.’
Sidonie stared at him with her lips parted. ‘Do you mean to tell me,’ she said finally, ‘that you’ve broken up Tim and Karen, spent the night with her by all appearances and that’s all there is to it?’
‘Sid,’ he said with a gentle kind of humour that was curiously lethal, ‘more or less but only time will tell whether I’ve broken them up.’
‘But…’ She couldn’t go on.’
‘You feel Karen deserves better despite the fact that she was quite happy to come straight from his arms to mine?’ he queried.
‘No…I mean…you shouldn’t have let her! You’re as bad as she is!’
‘Quite possibly,’ he agreed wryly.
‘I think this is terrible,’ Sidonie whispered.
‘I wonder why I knew you would?’ he said drily. ‘But perhaps it could be a salutary lesson for you, Sid. Maybe now you’ll really understand why you and I wouldn’t deal too well together at all.’
‘Because you…because you…’ The words stuck in her throat.
‘Because I’m a disillusioned cynic? Yes.’ He picked up a set of keys from the counter and fiddled with them in his long fingers for a time. ‘Because it suited me to take advantage of what was being so blatantly offered but strictly on my terms—is that what you’re trying to say?’
She could only stare at him with tears pricking her eyelids.
He threw the keys away from him and stood up. ‘For God’s sake don’t cry,’ he said roughly. ‘Anyone would think you were the keeper of my soul.’
‘No.’ She sniffed. ‘But I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t quite like yourself at the moment, Mike Brennan,’ she added with a level look despite the brightness of her eyes. ‘But I’ll say no more. Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘Thanks—and thank you for that small mercy—no more sermons, I mean.’
She tossed her head and compressed her lips as she went behind the counter and started the tea. It took about five minutes and there was dead silence as he resumed his seat, looking moodier than she’d ever seen him, also drained and disenchanted and as if he’d like nothing more than to be shot of the whole situation.
But still she said nothing as she slid a cup and saucer towards him. It was he who broke the silence.
‘I may not quite like myself at the moment,’ he said abruptly, ‘but what you might not understand, Sid, is that those are the games someone like me plays with women, willing women. If you imagine Karen will be at all demolished, perish the thought, my dear,’ he said curtly. ‘If she doesn’t worm her way back into Tim’s embrace, she’ll find someone else. Whereas you haven’t got the faintest idea what it’s about and would only get terribly hurt. I’m going to bed.’ And he ignored his tea and walked away, with deadly impatience stamped into every line of his body, to his cabin.
‘All right, take her out. I’ll set the foresail.’
It was eleven hundred hours actually as Morning Mist slid out of Hamilton Harbour with Sid at the wheel. Mike had slept for a couple of hours then disappeared—to make his peace with Tim Molloy, Sid had hoped, but had no way of knowing. He’d come back laden down with fresh fruit and vegetables, fresh bread and some of the bakery’s famous meat pies, and the auto-pilot man had arrived at the same time so that their opportunity for conversation had been severely limited. Which was just as well, she thought. I wouldn’t know what to say to him or even if there’s anything l want to say to him at all. But she’d been unable to help wondering whether Karen would appear on the scene and what kind of a fuss might ensue—she was by no means as certain as Mike that Karen would be willing to play this particular game by his rules. But there’d been no sign of her and she’d breathed a sigh of relief.
So what happens now? she wondered as she cleared the wall and entrance leads and steered the yacht into the Dent Passage and discovered herself feeling a little shell-shocked.
‘Sid!’
‘Yes?’
‘You’ll have us aground if you’re not careful—haven’t you got the chart with you?’ he called from amidships where he was making preparations to hoist the mainsail.
‘No. Oh! Sorry, I must have been dreaming…’ She swung the wheel.
‘Sid,’ he yelled, then muttered to himself, left the sail and came back to the cockpit. ‘What’s the matter?’ He took the wheel out of her hands. ‘Can’t you see that sign? It’s there for the express purpose of preventing yachts from catching aircraft on their masts. That’s the end of the runway, you little idiot!’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said confusedly. ‘Of course it is. I just feel a bit—I don’t know.’ She swallowed. ‘I think it’s all been a bit much for me…’
He cast her a narrowed, intent look. ‘Do you want to go back? Is that what you’re trying to say?’
‘No… No, but…’
‘Are you quite sure, Sidonie?’ he said through his teeth.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. After a moment she opened them and said steadily, ‘Yes. I’m fine now. You can put the sail up, I’ll turn her into the wind.’
Half an hour later they’d cleared the passage, set a course and he came down into the cabin and looked at her rather intently as she sat at the chart table. ‘How do you feel now?’
‘F…quite good. Sorry about that. I see you’ve changed your mind about Scawfell.’
‘Yes—I’ve been thinking, the long-range forecast is good, the winds are right-north-easterlies—there’ll be some moon—I’m tempted to run through the night and however long it takes.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Where to?’
‘Middle Percy.’ He glanced at her
with that same narrowed look, however.
But Sidonie’s eyes suddenly shone with excitement. ‘What an adventure,’ she said in a hushed voice. ‘Does that mean we’ll have to take turns at the watch and so on? Do you plan to sail all the way?’
‘If possible, and dodge all the islands and reefs in between,’ he teased. ‘But I’ve done it before. Of course how far we can sail without motoring at all depends on the wind and whether we need to get out of any heavy conditions that can crop up despite the most favourable forecasts. Still on, Sid?’
‘I couldn’t think of anything I’d like to do more,’ she said with a sudden wide, eager smile.
He grimaced and patted her on the head. ‘You’re a strange kid, Sid. Am I forgiven?’
She sobered.
‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked,’ he said ruefully.
‘Mike,’ she tried to choose her words with care but then shrugged a little defeatedly, ‘perhaps you’re right. There could be lots of things I don’t understand.’
‘And some things I hope you never do,’ he said drily. ‘Well, shall we devise a roster? And I’ll take you through the charts; we can put our way-points into the GPS and generally prepare ourselves for this voyage of discovery.’
CHAPTER SIX
THE next couple of days were the most exciting of Sidonie’s life. There were nights of moonlight on a dark sea, of being totally in charge while Mike slept; the shush of Morning Mist slicing through the swell of a pink-tinged dawn, of islands that came and went, birds that crossed their path, spray on her face, salt on her skin and exultation in her heart.
Days of working with parallel rulers and dividers as well as precision instruments such as the GPS, compass and radar, which were all she had to guide her at night although Mike had started to teach her about the stars and celestial navigation.
Days of watching a master at work as Mike set the sails to gain the maximum benefit from a wind that sometimes dropped to below ten knots, sometimes swung round to the south and slowed them right down to barely moving. A master who seemed to know by heart about the cross-currents and tidal sets in the area and could usually identify, any blip on the radar at a glance. Days and hours of watching him slough off the moodiness and that alter ego of a devastatingly attractive, sophisticated but hard and withdrawn man who had turned Karen’s head so completely, who had used her perhaps no more than she deserved, but all the same…
Lovely days.
‘I’m getting so good at this I can’t believe it!’ Sidonie said excitedly as she placed a perfectly cooked meal of scrambled eggs and bacon before him on their second morning. ‘I know it’s pretty basic but all the same.
‘All the same indeed,’ he murmured, his eyes laughing at her. He’d just done a four-hour watch from three to seven, the darkness to dawn one, as they called it, and his jaw was blue with stubble, his eyes tired despite their amusement. ‘You’re looking pretty bright for someone who did the graveyard watch, Sid.’
She grimaced. ‘I read poetry to keep me awake.’
‘I’ve always found one has to be particularly awake in the first place to do that.’
‘This was Edward Lear and I read it out aloud. Nonsense should be read out aloud, I feel. Did you know he was the youngest of twenty-one children?’
Mike raised an eyebrow. ‘No—that could certainly bring out a nonsensical streak in one.’
‘Well, I’ve wondered about that.’ Sidonie paused and waved a forkful of bacon thoughtfully. ‘As an only child myself, I’ve often thought I might have been a more practical person if I’d had some brothers and sisters, but if you go on Lear it doesn’t seem to work that way. But then again he could have been both practical and had this marvellous streak of nonsense; I don’t know.’
He pushed his plate away and reached for the coffee-pot. ‘I wouldn’t worry about it too much. In some respects, mechanically-wise, for example, you’re extremely level-headed. And you can be trusted to do a graveyard watch on your own, and even come up smiling and with breakfast after only four hours of kip. That,’ he said seriously, ‘is a very worthy attribute in a girl.’
‘And that,’ she said with a mischievous little smile, ‘is a bit like being damned with faint praise for any self-respecting girl, although of course I appreciate it entirely.’
He laughed. ‘Sorry. I——’
But she wouldn’t let him go on. ‘I was only teasing,’ she said gently.
His eyes softened as they rested on her. ‘By the way,’ he said after a moment, ‘I was serious about trying to get you a job,—you’re probably wondering what contacts I have; I won’t bore you with them but they’re there.’
‘Mike——’ Sidonie took a deep breath ‘—I have to tell you Tim told me what you do for a living. I wasn’t going to mention it but now it seems sneaky to pretend I don’t know although I gather you’d much rather I didn’t know.’ She frowned. ‘That sounds awfully convoluted, doesn’t it? But do you know what I mean?’
‘When did he tell you this?’
‘When he was feeling rather maudlin and had had too much to drink. I—’
‘I suppose he told you about his sister as well,’ he said drily. ‘He can always be relied upon to trot that out when he gets drunk.’
‘Yes, well, he did. But that’s got nothing to do with me. If you could help me to get a job, though, I’d really appreciate it—and I won’t say another word on the subject,’ she concluded hastily.
‘Do you mean to tell me it doesn’t arouse the slightest curiosity in you, what I do for a living, Sid?’ he drawled.
‘Well, that would be a lie—were I to tell you that,’ she said cautiously. ‘But it wouldn’t be a lie to say that it hasn’t aroused what Tim described as the fatal fascination that causes women to throw themselves at your feet, or words to that effect, in me. For two reasons: something like that had already happened to me, as we both know, although we’ve dealt with it and resolved it, and secondly, it’s probably very much like any other job, at times boring and repetitive. And possibly not as dangerous nowadays as a lot of people think,’ she said prosaically.
He stared at her then a reluctant smile twisted his lips. ‘Talk about being damned with faint praise,’ he murmured, ‘but of course you’re right, Sid.’
‘Then——’ she looked at him gravely ‘—is it all right to talk about it? ‘I won’t if you don’t want to or if it’s going to make you moody and—whatever, only the thing is, I’d very much like to know a bit about it. What it’s like finding an aircraft’s limiting Mach number for example, whether‘ you prefer to fly sub-sonic or supersonic planes, how much of the draughting and designing you’re involved in before you actually test the prototype. And, while I may have sounded a bit withering about the danger, I’m sure there can be some, and some absolutely thrilling moments too.’
‘Out of the mouths of babes,’ he said and shook his head wryly. Then added, ‘Am I very often moody and—whatever‘? Downright bloody-minded perhaps?’
She considered. ‘I wouldn’t say that.’
‘Thank you,’ he replied with irony. But he went on, ‘There are two kinds of flying—the really high-tech stuff, and the simple pleasure of taking up a single-engine light plane. I enjoy both and, if you really want to know about Mach percentages, pass me a pencil and a piece of paper. It’s all to do with the speed of sound or the sound barrier and how close a subsonic aircraft that hasn’t been designed to fly through it can get to it before it becomes uncontrollable.’
An hour later he pushed the bit of paper away and stretched but Sidonie was glowing. ‘It’s absolutely fascinating, isn’t it?’
‘I’ve ‘always found it so,’ he agreed with a straight face.
‘Please tell me how you got started,’ she begged.
‘I joined the air force.’
‘Had you always wanted to fly?’
He grimaced. ‘Always. Much to my parents’ disapproval.’
‘Why?’ She looked at him wide-eyed.
> ‘My father was an accountant and my mother—well, if she had one abiding passion it was gardens and gardening. They were very settled sort of people; apart from going to work, quite often the most exciting thing they did was their fortnightly visit to the local library. To have produced…me always came as a bit of a shock to them, I think.’
‘Did they put all sorts of obstacles in your path?’ she queried knowledgeably.
‘All sorts,’ he concurred with a grin.
‘So—were you an only child too, Mike?’
‘Uh-huh.’
She paused. Then she said with a frown, ‘Do you know what I think? I think only children have to use their imaginations a lot, which is why we might end up wanting to spread our wings so much and do different things.’
‘What about Edward Lear?’
‘He could be the exception that proves the rule!’
‘He could indeed,’ he agreed amusedly.
‘So that’s why—well, it could also be why you’re as bit of a loner,’ she said slowly and thoughtfully.
‘I bow to your wisdom in these matters, Sid. What makes you think I’m such a loner, though?’
‘Aren’t you?’
For some reason his eyes narrowed then he shrugged, ‘Perhaps.’
She stood up and collected plates. ‘And now you should get some sleep. By my calculations we should be abeam of Prudhoe Island shortly and we could even make Middle Percy early this afternoon.’
‘You’re spot-on, kid.’
But as it happened she wasn’t.
She noticed the bank of cloud building to the south-east at about midday, and the eerie way the light north-easterly dropped almost completely—presage often, she knew, to a change, and suspected it might be a vigorous one behind the front of clouds. She also suspected it might have taken the Department of Meteorology by surprise because it hadn’t been broadcast on the last weather forecast she’d heard. But even she was unprepared for the swiftness with which it came through, a thirty-knot south-easterly like a bullet, and in a few minutes she had sails flapping and Morning Mist slewing untidily in a rising sea. ‘
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