With no one around they went and sat on the bench and quietly watched the free water show before them. Through his binoculars Doug could see birds nesting along the margins of the reeds but he wasn’t thinking of the wildlife at that moment; he was thinking of his careful rehearsals of what he should now do and what he should now say, what he had played out in his mind countless times. As nonchalantly as possible he announced that one of the objectives was smeary and the lens cleaner was in the binoculars case.
‘I’ll get it,’ said Ruth. ‘Is it in the pannier?’
‘Yes, the right-hand-side one.’
Ruth fumbled in the saddlebag and found the binoculars case. Inside it was a small, square box with a domed top covered in deep red velveteen with tiny golden lettering printed on the lid stating Chang of Hong Kong. It seemed odd to Ruth that he should keep the microfibre cleaning cloth in such a posh box. She pushed the small golden catch and the dome flipped open. She gasped, incredulous at what she saw. Her free hand clamped over her wide-open mouth. She couldn’t speak and couldn’t move. Her stare was locked onto a large solitaire diamond set in a modern gold setting. It was stunning. She was gobsmacked. From behind his binoculars Doug asked her if she would marry him. Her tears were instantaneous. They cascaded down her cheeks like a violent river of white water. All she could blurt out was that she was older than him. Doug smiled and patted the part of the bench beside him to encourage her to come and sit down.
‘Can I take it that that’s a yes?’ he asked tentatively.
When there was no response from Ruth other than sniffs and unintelligible mumbles he took her left hand and tried to slide the engagement ring on her ring finger but she was wearing her new birthday present cyclist’s gloves and the ring would only slide on as far as the first knuckle. He was bemused. His plan had forgotten the blessed gloves! He started laughing and Ruth joined in. They stayed locked in a tight embrace for some time while she whispered her acceptance of his offer and told him that she loved him. He removed the offending glove and slid the ring fully onto her finger. She looked at it this way and that and asked finally if it was one of “theirs”.
‘If you mean one of the gemstones I found in my pannier when I came back from Switzerland?’ he said, ‘then yes it is one of them. In fact it is the one from the bag of marbles that I inadvertently crushed with my heel when I dropped it on the train floor.’
‘And which letter was it in “The quality of mercy is not strained”?’
‘It was either the “r” in mercy or the “r” in strained! I chose it out of the thirty stones because it was the one that brought us together and, by the way, it just happened to be the largest and most brilliant.’
‘And you manœuvred me into retrieving it from the very pannier in which you had found it. I’m so pleased you did,’ she smiled, ‘and I’m so happy.’
They rode on the remaining distance to Tudor House. Dismounting by the entrance, they locked their bikes and stowed their helmets and gloves and walked into what had once been a grand entrance hall of the local squire’s large and impressive residence but had long since been converted into a hotel lobby of a chain of small and intimate hotels offering fine dining to both residents and day guests. Waiting in the lobby were four day guests: Rosemary, Paul and SP with his wife.
‘Can we go in dressed like this?’ asked Ruth, pulling down on the legs of her padded shorts to cover as much of her thighs as possible, ‘and I don’t even have a comb!’
‘To me you look wonderful just as you are,’ replied Doug, ‘and yes we can go into the restaurants with our friends as the hotel management have agreed. And one further thing, we’ll be coming back here next Saturday to get married. You can comb your hair then and wear a white dress if you wish but you won’t look any better to me then than you do right now.’
With glasses charged with fine champagne the six took their places around the circular table and studied the menu.
‘Incidentally,’ murmured Ruth, ‘what did you do with the other twenty-three gemstones?’
‘I disposed of them in an utterly creative way,’ he replied enigmatically. ‘You may read about them one day my darling and if you do, pretend you know absolutely nothing about the subject!’
***
The thrum of the two powerful inboard diesels as they powered the sleek, white, deep sea fishing vessel outside the waters off Hong Kong Island was music to Paul’s ears. A keen angler since childhood, he never dreamt that one day he would go big-fish angling for black marlin. The grand fishing trip was a gift from Doug and Ruth on their wedding day, an expression of their thanks for all his valuable and unstinting help and friendly advice. He had been bowled over by Doug’s generosity but had accepted without demur. It was a chance not to be missed. Met at the airport by the same young man in another immaculate white open-necked shirt, he had been transported to Aberdeen, on the coast, a small resort out of which the private charter boat operated and where he would stay for four nights. The boat had been chartered for three mornings solely for Paul. On the first morning out they had gone after Chinese Seer fish, hugging the northern coast to an area which the experienced Chinese sea captain knew to be a fertile fishing ground. On the second morning they ventured south, catching grouper and dorado, and on the final day they motored due east to deeper waters in search of marlin. The fighting chair was positioned in the boat’s central fishing cockpit offering unobstructed access to the water on all three sides of the cockpit. With his limited English the Chinese captain directed Paul into the chair and a crew member fastened and tightened the straps to hold him firmly seated against the weight and vigour of such large and powerful fish which were often more than two hundred kilos in weight and three metres in length. There was soon sporadic activity on the line, pulling and straining on Paul’s arms in sharp and brutal but short-lived tugs. He was grateful for his well-adjusted harness. Eventually the hook took hold of a victim and the catch was slowly wound in with the assistance of one of the crewmen while another stood by at the gunwales to haul it in over the side where it splashed down kicking and wrestling and flipping on the deck. Sweating profusely and with a bright red face from the exertion, Paul unstrapped himself unhurriedly from the chair, his sight of the trophy fish masked by the two crewmen squatting over the marlin. It was in fact a blue marlin but by the time it had taken Paul to remove the harness and take the few paces in a choppy sea across to where it lay it had been swapped for a black marlin that they had caught just after dawn that day and Paul had failed to notice the one he had actually hauled in being rolled over the side back into the sea. The captain had followed his instructions to slit one side of the prepared marlin along the line formed by the meeting of the black and silver scales from the mid-point of the first dorsal fin to the start of the second and to insert twenty-three gemstones into its innards. Paul didn’t see it until its flesh had been pushed back firmly into place and the fish rolled over onto its other, pristine side.
The captain smiled, his yellowing teeth showing from behind creased lips. He clapped loudly, repeating “big fish” and “well done” several times.
‘We prepare it to sell at the market,’ he said. ‘Get much money.’
Without ado a crewman cut off the wide tail and slit the fish from behind the gill plate to the anus with the tip of a dangerous-looking knife. He pulled back the flesh, exposing the lattice of bones. From behind them, as if in a barred cage, sparkled white and blue and green stones glinting as the sun caught their facets.
‘Full shit Sherlock,’ shouted Paul, pumping the air with both fists, ‘full shit.’
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