Mistress and Commander

by Amelia Dalton

  I wished Cubby were around. I really missed him. He would have been in his element, able to demonstrate his skills, joshing the divers and teasing the film crew, but Duncan was humourless and dour. It would be up to me and Kate to make it work — again.

  I had organised for the film crew to make the crossing to Mull by ferry and in the dark February evening the streets of Tobermory shone empty and lifeless as Monaco came alongside; there were few ferries in the winter so we had the pier to ourselves. I jumped onto the cold, clammy ladder and climbed up to stand by the bollard. Bright orange lights shone down from the roof of the lifeboat shed illuminating greasy puddles. Kate threw me the bow rope and I made a quick bowline in the plaited orange rope as thick as my arm and dropped it over the high pile. After doing the same at the stern, I left the two of them to do the springs. Avoiding the puddles, I crossed the empty pier, making for the steep track that disappeared uphill into the darkness behind the shed. High above, light streamed from the Victorian turret windows of the Western Isles Hotel, which gazed out proprietorially over the bay. As I neared the stone porch, the heavy wooden door swung open.

  ‘It’s yourself! Aye, they’re here all right.’ Malcolm the manager must have been watching and greeted me with a hint of extra warmth in recognition of the film crew draining his bar in the depths of February. Laughter bubbled into the hall, and I felt suddenly scruffy and dirty, immediately wishing I’d put on something smarter.

  ‘Hello there!’ A neat, tweed-clad fellow in his mid-twenties bounced into the hall and came towards me, hand outstretched. ‘You must be Amelia. I’m Charles, the producer.’ He was just a smidgeon over five foot and not at all what I’d anticipated from our phone conversations. He was embracing Scotland: tweeds, brogues and a whiff of whisky. He was playing his part. A tall girl, a pelmet skirt just covering her bum, martini glass in hand, floated across the polished floor and flung an arm round his shoulders, easing the weight off her pin-thin heels.

  ‘Darling! Where is our yacht? You know I only came all the way up cos you promised me a yacht!’ Her extra two foot swayed over him. ‘Well, maybe just a teensy-weensy bit to be with you. But you did promise me we’d have our own yacht for the weekend.’

  I thought of the sturdy Monaco lying quietly at the pier below. My intuition had been right; the Western Isles Hotel with its Victorian pastiche of tartan carpets, silver candlesticks and the odd stag’s head were just what Tweed and Heels had envisaged.

  ‘If you come over to the window you can see the Monaco down below in the harbour.’

  I dragged apart the heavy plaid curtains in the turret window. There was Monaco, bathed in sickly neon light, not looking in the least bit like a yacht.

  ‘Oh!’ squeaked Heels. A long pause followed. ‘I thought it would be white and shiny, a proper yacht.’ She paused again, considering her options. ‘But she does look big!’

  ‘Darling’ smiled happily and the two of them weaved across the tartan carpet towards the bar.

  It was mostly bleary-eyed people who came on board next morning in the half dark. The only equipment seemed to be one huge camera, almost bigger than the man who protected it. Clucking people away like a mother hen, he tenderly bent over it on the port side of the foredeck. I had recognised his name from the list as one of the cameramen from David Attenborough’s Life in the Freezer, so February in Scotland shouldn’t be a problem for him. Wiry, quiet and much older than everyone else, he had an air of calm detachment. Squatting on deck away from the ropes, hatches and wandering feet, he steadily checked through his well-used dive gear. Most of it was patched and the camera seemed to be covered with strips of gaffer tape. As I coiled up the ropes, I could hear people below, checking out the cabins; others wandered round aft to the crew mess. We were in luck: for February the weather was kind, and though the dark winter morning had barely opened up, it was dry with a light breeze from the south-west, good for diving in the Sound of Mull.

  After finishing their explorations of Monaco, people stood about, staring. There were a couple of men with horn-button duffel coats tightly fastened and a gaggle of girls in leg-enhancing jeans and cute woolly hats. Gloves and mittens clutched steaming mugs of coffee. Kate was on the ball. I worked my way between them pulling the orange fenders over the gunwales, closing the hatches and checking that nothing could slip through a freeing port to disappear into the dark water as Monaco made her way out of the harbour. The low dark shape of Calf Island was just visible to starboard as she headed east up the Sound. I waved up at the wheelhouse at Duncan, but he looked as gloomy as ever.

  Kate was in her element. ‘I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes’ – Wet Wet Wet leaked out from her headphones as she hummed along, pushing slices of onions into the swirling soup that sloshed around the massive saucepan. It was clamped over the big gas burner, one of the remaining relics of Monaco’s Danish identity. Hoping I might cheer up the dour Donald, I went round the stern, pushed up the handle of the steel door into the crew mess and made my way into the wheelhouse, mug of coffee in one hand and a packet of Hobnobs tucked under my arm. Over on the port side, squeezed onto the tiny bench next to the echo sounder, was a good-looking dark-haired man in a dove-grey suede jacket, collar fashionably turned up, his neck swaddled in a tartan scarf. Snuggled against him was another item of arm candy in a blue Barbour jacket, tight jeans and thigh boots. There was just space for the mug next to the compass; I started to make inroads on the biscuit wrapping.

  Duncan muttered in my ear, ‘There’s a problem,’ then stopped for dramatic effect. He could always find something to be miserable about.

  ‘And what’s that then?’ I asked brightly, hoping my cheerfulness might be infectious. Tartan Scarf pounced on the biscuits. Tonelessly and almost conversationally, Duncan went on.

  ‘There’s too many people on board. I counted eight come on board and we’ve the six divers too, that’s fourteen.’ He stopped and looked at me. I breathed out to get control of myself, silently counting to ten.

  ‘Duncan, why did you leave the pier? If you knew there were too many people on board why did you go? Why didn’t you say something then?’ Tartan Scarf and Barbour Jacket were listening, staring at us. This was dangerous. Monaco could lose her licence. Duncan could lose his ticket. Who knew what the Department might do. Boats like Monaco were only licensed for twelve passengers plus crew and there were always people watching, people who would love to have me off the Oban scene. I looked at Tartan Scarf: he was the director and would know who was dispensable.

  ‘I’m afraid we’ll have to put two of you ashore. It’s a real bore and I’m so sorry but six was always the limit. Please could you kindly ask two of your people to be ready to go back to Tobermory in a moment? I’ll take them in the Zodiac now. We’ve not gone far and it’ll only take a few minutes; I can catch you up.’ His dark eyes looked steadily at me. He really was very charming, quite my type or any girl’s type really. The silence stretched out. Slowly he stood up, carefully pulling the scarf closer round his neck and tucking it into the front of his soft suede jacket.

  ‘Ducky!’ he drawled, ‘Don’t ask me! I’m purely Creative!’

  Maybe no one had been counting so early on a winter’s morning from a window in Tobermory.

  ‘It’s all perfect but I just can’t shoot without more light, I’m afraid. It’s simply too dark! Such a pity as the wreck and site are perfect,’ the quietly authoritative cameraman, Colin, told me as we floated above the wreck, a posse of bobbing divers’ heads surrounding us, his camera and gear safely stowed on the floor plates of the Zodiac.

  He was adamant that he wouldn’t use underwater lights: it had to look ‘natural’. While I had provided what they had asked for – a dive on a quickly recognisable wreck – I hadn’t known the parameters about natural light. Of course it would be dark under water in the weak wintry light of February without additional lighting. There was nothing else for it, Duncan turned Monaco slowly back towards Tobermory. The six divers, Kate and I
huddled disconsolately in the crew mess.

  ‘Well, that’s it then. Now what? Ideas anyone?’ I was desperate. I had let the film crew down. They had come up here with high expectations. I needed to find a solution: Monaco’s reputation was at stake and as always, we needed the money.

  ‘Let’s go and do it all in Malta!’ Steve the jovial ‘entrepreneur’ from Teesside and one of our most regular divers suggested. ‘No, I’m serious,’ he went on. ‘I know the diving there well, there are great wrecks to choose from and the sun will be bright even in February. All we have to do is convince them.’ He was a persuasive fellow. Darling, Tartan Scarf and of course Heels loved the idea. Colin the Super Cool Cameraman went with the pay.

  Two frantic weeks later, the bright Maltese sun filtered through the grubby terminal windows, as Steve and I stood by the baggage carousel, waiting for it to grind into life. The shots of divers kitting up, getting into the new black-and-yellow gear in the weak Tobermory sun on Monaco’s deck had been acceptable. But to ensure continuity the same dive kit had to be used for the underwater shots. Six thousand pounds’ worth of excess baggage costs had brought it all to Malta. The agency’s budget seemed delightfully flexible. The film crew had arrived the day before and I’d got a limo to swoosh them to one of Malta’s marble-halled hotels. Darling, Tartan Scarf (now sporting a chic silk ‘pirate’ number) plus of course Heels (still in tight jeans but now with white ‘fuck-me’ boots) were balanced on black leather stools lining the slick chrome bar.

  ‘Amelia! Great to see you! You made it OK!’ Charles bounced down from the shiny stool and air-kissed my cheeks. ‘It’s all good, all good. Come on! We’re browsing the optics. We’ve started here and we are carrying right on down to the end!’ Multi-hued bottles stretched along the back of the bar, disappearing into the distance; it would be a long night.

  Steve and I had already been in Malta for a couple of days looking for a substitute Monaco. But that proved impossible. Instead we had a brightly painted neat little flotilla of wooden boats. They bobbed against the quay waiting. Air bottles were full, weight belts, fins, masks and suits, all were ready. Divers loafed about the quay or stretched out in the sun; no one was in a rush. No tides here in the Med to account for and after all everyone was on an expenses-paid holiday.

  Eventually, the minibus appeared, disgorging a rather grey and sickly-looking bunch. Only Colin looked sharp, glancing at the sun, the deep folds of his tanned face softening a fraction in the hint of a smile.

  Darling, Fuck-me Boots (now swopped for leggings and gold sandals – she was learning) and Tartan Scarf eyed up the little flotilla.

  ‘We’ve three of these little boats; the other two are just over there. Colin and his camera can have one, I’ll go with the divers in another and you can have the third just for yourselves.’

  ‘Ah. But where’s the Monaco? Where’s our trusty trawler?’ moaned Charles. ‘I thought she’d be here?’ He’d have no wide decks to pace, no cosy wheelhouse for coffee and biscuits, and worst of all no comfortable cabin to sleep off his hangover. Monaco’s charms became greater by the moment.

  Tartan Scarf gulped. ‘Darlings!’ he eventually screeched. ‘You’re not seriously suggesting I go out in that? Charles, daaarling, you know you can manage without me. You know how sick I get and look it’s wobbling even now!’

  Darling, it seemed, had hidden depths and curiously became deaf.

  The little flotilla bobbed out of the harbour and rolling gently in the slight swell. We swayed across the lazy sea making for a cluster of jagged limestone rocks. Even in the February sunshine the sea was a glorious Mediterranean blue and the limestone piercing white. Tartan Scarf leant over the side feeding the fishes; Darling, now also a sickly pistachio colour, had his gaze firmly fixed on the horizon. Colin coolly checked his camera: the discomfort of both the producer and director were of no concern to him; he would do the same professional job wherever he was, Arctic or Antarctic. Steve had dived many times on a neat little fishing boat which the canny Maltese had sunk specially in a nice shallow spot: it would be a simple, sun-lit dive onto the wreck. Resting upright on the pale sand, she waited below in ten metres of clear water; even from the surface I could see the superstructure.

  The lads gently descended to fin around the mast like a May Day dance. They finned smoothly through the hull to pop up one by one from out of the fish hold, rising effortlessly through the hatch and then drifting down like confetti onto the bright sand whilst Colin hung motionless, filming from a distance. It only needed one dive: easy.

  The noise of twelve fins slapping onto a marble floor echoed through the lobby: Slap! Slap! Slap! Filming all done, Steve and the divers marched in single file through the hotel still fully clad in black-and-yellow dry suits, masks and fins, breathing noisily through snorkels. The gear had to be washed in fresh water before it could be freighted back to Oban and a shower had seemed the simplest solution. The black-and-yellow aliens slapped on towards the lift. Eyes lifted up from knitting, hands paused over chess pieces. Escaping the English winter, the hotel offered a cheap heated alternative to the loneliness of old age and the inhabitants of God’s Waiting Room stared in amazement as the divers paraded through the foyer. Over the sound of the tinkling little fountain came a woman’s high-pitched voice, ringing with disapproval.

  ‘Oh! That’s it. They’re divers of course! I told you, darling, they weren’t ordinary people.’

  Eighteen

  Would he recognise me, I wondered, as I eased myself to the front of the throng waiting in Arrivals at Glasgow airport. I could remember him quite clearly. His cheerful round little face, the penetrating eyes and soft Irish voice. I was taking a big risk.

  Monaco had been at Bangor, in Northern Ireland, following Cubby’s idea that a cruise on the colourful Irish coast would be a change and probably a good seller, but that was eighteen months ago and now he was not here. Instead, Monaco had Murray. He’d been working at a fish farm when the bush telegraph reached Ullapool that I still hadn’t found a permanent skipper; the west coast was hardly a big pond. At the time he had seemed a good find, had the right qualifications and was personable in a dark, hairy, gypsy-like way. Kate seemed to like him too, so I had been optimistic, but it had become increasingly apparent he was lazy. Mysteriously, whenever I appeared, something had always cropped up which had prevented him from doing the maintenance. He was also an arrogant chauvinist enjoying the regular wage, Monaco’s position and hard-earned goodwill. He had no idea I thought him useless. Having done the maintenance myself, I could see what had been missed. But I had no choice: the other options were an even less appealing bunch, so Murray had stayed whilst I set about looking further afield.

  Sitting to one side, watching a well-oiled Murray loudly hold forth on Scotland and all its glories, I noticed the Irishman. He was watching Murray, and me, as he nursed his pint of Guinness. Boredom and irritation must have shown on my face. Cubby had been right: Monaco was full and our passengers were also in the bar. Some looked surprised, possibly wondering if tomorrow’s scheduled cruise through the tidal entrance of Strangford Lough would be on. We all knew Murray was unfamiliar with this stretch of coast but he’d boasted loudly over dinner about his ability to work in new places, bragging about how demanding the tidal streams were in the entrance to the Lough. But right now he didn’t have the appearance of someone who would be clear-headed in the morning.

  My fellow watcher stood up, Guinness in hand. He was small and slightly bowlegged, a little Irish leprechaun, I thought with a smile.

  ‘You could do without that,’ he said, nodding his head across the room at the raucous group where Murray held court. I didn’t want to discuss him; I had nothing nice to say.

  ‘Is this your part of the world?’ I asked, thinking I’d take advantage of his local knowledge.

  ‘Nope, from further south. I’m after coming from Ballymoney.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’ve no idea where Ballymoney is, but it sounds like a useful place to
come from!’

  He grinned. ‘I saw you come in this afternoon,’ he went on. Monaco always drew attention. ‘I’ve the blue dive boat across the harbour. You’re welcome for a coffee in the morning. I reckon you’ll have time.’ Again, he nodded his head in the direction of Monaco’s skipper. ‘There’ll be no early start by the look of that lot.’

  Next morning, I sauntered round whilst Kate made breakfast for the passengers. I was wondering about his quick assessment of the previous night. Of Murray there was no sign. He clearly had no idea how thin the ice was.

  It was five months later and here I was waiting for the leprechaun at Glasgow airport. Monaco had a Christmas and New Year charter, a booking John was adamant I should not turn down. RAF divers were good, disciplined and paid immediately, plus it might lead to future groups.

  ‘No!’ I had really put my foot down. ‘I know I’ve got the qualifications now but a mid-winter dive charter is tricky and needs a much better boat handler, with more experience than me. Kate is off too, so I’ll do the cooking if you insist but I’m not taking on all the responsibilities.’

  Murray, by refusing to work over Christmas, had signed his own dismissal and Connor the Irishman had come to mind. I remembered he had told me how he taught at one of the Irish yachting colleges and I knew he had skippered a dive boat for years. To my surprise, he’d agreed and suspiciously I wondered why. He’d never been to the west coast, knew nothing of Monaco and he made it quite clear it would be up to me to run the engine, operate the hydraulics and air compressor to fill the divers’ bottles and of course do the cooking. He would ‘drive’.

  The leprechaun appeared at last: flat cap pulled down, he sauntered out of Arrivals. I’d forgotten how small he was.

  ‘Hello, Connor, did you have a good flight?’ He grunted and gave a nod. He had seemed easy, chatty and friendly in Bangor, but maybe he was already regretting coming. ‘I’ve booked us into the Travel Lodge near Stirling. Not exactly the Ritz, I know, but it’s on the Oban road and we’ll need to get going in good time in the morning. There’s a lot to get ready. I’ve asked Hughie to bring the fuel at eight. There’s the beds to make up, stores to get and the fresh-water tanks will need filling. I expect the divers’ll arrive about three, before it gets dark.’