by Julia Jones
“Yeah, yeah. And you’re probably the main reason she’s stuck around Flinthammock all her life. In case you need your nose wiped or your shoelaces tied and you can’t manage to do it yourself because your head’s got jammed in the turret of this lightship. What happened to your mother, I’d like to know?”
He went sheet white. Grabbed a piece of Godwyn to steady himself.
“Oh hell, Dominic, I’m sorry.”
When would she ever learn to stop assuming that everyone would have had two functioning parents? She’d scarcely met any uncomplicated families around here. His mum must be dead or have abandoned him or something.
“I shouldn’t have said that. Please believe me. I’m so, so sorry. It’s none of my business. Total disconnect between tongue and brain.”
He breathed deeply. “Not a disconnect,” he managed, “more like a super-conductor.”
“I am sorry.”
She wasn’t going to make excuses: say she was tense, or tired, or anything.
“Remember this morning?” Dominic was struggling to explain. “The nuclear option? That’s what you called it.”
“Yeah, I remember. So it’s to do with your mum and it’s totally painful. You don’t need to say another word. Of course I’ll use one of the Picos. I don’t understand why I’m stressing about Fritha. Your father said I didn’t know what I’d been given and he’s right. There’ll be plenty of time for me to find out later. I have to remind myself that there is life after racing. Shake hands, Dominic.”
He did everything she wanted. There wasn’t enough water to launch in the creek but they brought the Firefly out of the shed on a trolley and took her to the boatyard slope near the marina sill. Then they put her on a long line that they attached to the frame of the RIB.
As soon as the RIB could float, and there was even a puddle of water over the sill for Fritha, they set off with Dominic towing and Xanthe hard at work. She was reeving on the new sheets she’d bought from the chandlery and fitting a set of almost new – but very old – sails that Martha’s mum had left for her while she’d been away. They were cotton, she supposed, and still nearly pure white, with that sail number 486.
There was something about them that was whispering to her, but she couldn’t understand what they said.
“She fetched them from the watchtower,” was all that Dominic knew and Xanthe was too busy to phone Martha or ask any more.
She felt completely lonely and at the same time absolutely visible. Everything she did was a distraction from the task ahead. She needed to focus on Madrigal.
Soon.
Now.
It was quarter to twelve when Dominic landed her alongside the Mulberry Pier. There was almost no wind and the few wavelets bulged as lazily as setting jelly. The fleet of Little Ships, moored six deep, had run up a rich variety of flags which were hanging lifeless in the still air. The seaxes and the flags of St George that festooned the half-built hotel dangled limply downwards and only the Saxon Holdings banners fixed stiff as wallpaper along the jibs of the massive cranes were able to spell out their message clearly.
There was wind on its way, she was sure of that. The question was when? If she hadn’t been insulting Dominic she’d have had time to check windfinder on the internet. She knew that she was better than Madrigal in a real blow. She was physically stronger for one thing – that ‘classic West African figure’ meant that she was at least a stone heavier. Madrigal was a lake racer. She was sharp and superbly balanced, ready to make Imperium move to the least quiver in the atmospheric molecules.
Would she be good on the tides? Her connection to Saxon Holdings meant she could have been down here, training. And if you knew your currents you could get very close to your fellow competitors in light winds and you could drift alongside hissing like a water-snake, destroying their concentration with nicely planted insults.
“We are sorry, ladies and gentlemen, members of the Hundreth, that it is approaching high noon and the young African racer Xanthe Ribiero (name mispronounced) to whom we had hoped to offer the opportunity to begin to expunge her recent disgrace, has not seen fit to arrive. We extend our condolences to His Excellency the Deputy High Commissioner of Ghana who might have hoped that his country could begin to make some showing in this quintessentially English sport.”
Her arm shot up to wave; she opened her mouth to yell but there was a crackle and a whistle and a new, young voice cut across the Commander’s plummy tones.
“It’s only five to twelve and if Xanthe hasn’t made it yet there’ll be a good reason which she can explain for herself. Until then, if you look out on the river now, you’ll see her sister, Maggi Ribiero. Her dinghy’s called Kingfisher. I’m Anna Livesey and I’ll just say that Maggi is also a great sailor in her own right. Any country would be glad to have her in their team but her view is that sailing is a skill and a pleasure and it’s something to share and to celebrate, not something to turn into a sort of war and use any means to bring down your opponents. Like some people I could name.”
Anna had hacked the PA system. Maggi was out there in Kingfisher.
But they were meant to be taking their GCSEs!
Xanthe ran up the metal walkway though the sea of big hats, designer dresses and navy blazers with brass buttons. Everywhere there were seax ties and lapel badges and seax silk scarves tied casually to the straps of expensive handbags.
She couldn’t see her parents. Griselda was there but she was standing with Madrigal’s personal trainer. Only her history tutor, Mrs Oakenheart, a big, blonde, clever woman, smiled and waved. But where was Spray? She needed to get out there and take on Madrigal, take the pressure off Maggi.
Maggi…here…racing! Had their parents gone crazy? They’d never been allowed to miss so much as thirty seconds of schooling to be on the water. Let alone a GCSE exam!
Had she maybe got the wrong date? No, Donny had gone off early this morning before they’d arrived at Gallister Creek. It was beyond her.
“We are an Island Race…” The Commander had got control of the system again. She did her best to tune him out.
Then she saw one of her sponsors, Mr Hutchison Bennett.
“We’ve done as you asked us,” he said, without even saying hi or asking how she was. “I can’t say the board is happy with the new image – there’s no commercial advantage for us in that area – but we’re still backing you, Xanthe, and we’ll give you this one chance. I can’t understand why you’ve left it so late. Hurry along now, your dinghy’s ready, I’ll help you down to the water.”
There was her dinghy. But it wasn’t her dinghy any more.
Spray had been re-sprayed. The cool, Vela-grey hull, so pale you’d call it white, was now black. The dinghy was already rigged and Xanthe could see that the sail scarcely flapping in the calm air had lost the GBR letters that she’d been so proud to earn. In place of the official country code there was a black, five-pointed star.
“It’s a compromise.” Mr H-B was still talking. “We felt you were being unreasonable in demanding a completely new sail made in the Pan-African red gold and green colours. Nevertheless we were prepared to accept that your withdrawal from the GBR squad and your forthcoming application to sail for an unrecognised country did put you in a difficult position. We couldn’t make contact to talk it over so we went ahead as we thought best.”
“But…” said Xanthe. “I haven’t ever…”
“You wrote to us, offering to give the boat back after that unfortunate incident in Weymouth. We hadn’t any intention of withdrawing our sponsorship – we’d heard something of the other side of the story and we were quite ready to sit out the ban with you. We didn’t much like the social media coverage but we’d decided to ignore that as well. Then you messaged us about your decision to search for your roots and you listed the changes that you wanted us to make.”
“I did what?”
She stood comple
tely still and stared at him.
“We couldn’t get in touch with you directly and your mother told us that you needed some time on your own. We respected that and we would have waited. Then we heard from today’s organisers that you were eager to make some sort of public statement. They’ve invited the Deputy High Commissioner.”
“OMG. I am so sorry.” How many more times would she need to say that? “I never thought you would allow me to keep Spray. But the rest of it…isn’t right at all!”
“You don’t mean Spray, do you? You mean Black Star. You were completely definite that you needed your dinghy to have a new name for this new beginning.”
“NO!!”
Mr Hutchison Bennett was a pale-complexioned man with receding brown hair and permanent worry lines. Although his chief executive job with the Port of Felixstowe sent him around the world to the most exotic places, he looked as if he’d scarcely ventured outside his Suffolk office. His grey eyes blinked behind his spectacles.
“Is there something wrong, Xanthe? Have we misunderstood each other?”
“In spades! But it’s none of it your fault. You’ve been totally amazing! It’s all mine for simply assuming that you’d dump me. And then for going off-air and leaving other people to write the scripts. Oh, Spray!”
“Not Black Star then?”
“No! Never! I was never going to go racing anywhere else. GBR is the best in the world. Why would I not want to be among the best?”
Mr Hutchison Bennett looked pleased for a moment. Then his worry lines were back. “You’ll withdraw from today’s event in that case? I’ll square it with the board. You’re too late anyway.”
There was a burst of patriotic music then the Commander’s voice came booming back. “…so we will leave the police to do their duty in searching for the stolen smack and we will not hasten to judgement over the involvement of this embittered young girl and her deluded friends. Once again, Your Excellency, ladies and gentlemen, veterans, distinguished guests, members of the Hundreth, I bid you welcome to the Saxon Shore!”
There was some applause. The way people clap when they can’t be bothered to put down their glass.
“We are gathered to commemorate a great national event and we are also at the outset of a major new project which will regenerate this forgotten corner of our country. You can already see the progress we have made developing these redundant blocks into a unique mix of luxury hotel living and serviced executive apartments that will gaze onto a floating armada of historic vessels.”
Blah! Blah! They wouldn’t be gazing at Igraine or Fritha and not Godwyn either, as long as Dominic held his nerve.
“These empty fields will provide the venue for battle re-enactments and exercise to drill the youth of today into a compliant force ready for any occasion that they may once again be needed to repulse the invader. We will not tolerate the un-English, the slackers or the vagrants, and today I am able to inform you that we have permission to re-dedicate the ancient chapel of St Cedd to the warrior gods of old mythology.”
She could see him cloned across a range of big screens, his white hair flung back, his face looking out as if onto a new dawn. She longed for Anna to pull the electronic plug on him.
“So, for your appreciation today we have invited the best of our home-grown sailors to race round my own island of Oveseye. They will be led by that brightest English talent, our own Madrigal Shryke. Her former rival has shirked this challenge. There will be no Black Star.”
Xanthe looked at Mr Hutchison Bennett and he shrugged.
“I suppose you’d better…?”
Then she looked at Black Star, her own beloved Spray, re-branded without her knowledge or consent.
“Young members of our island race, racing around an island. The finish line is before you and the first race will be judged on normal handicapping rules. But today we commemorate a defining moment in our national consciousness – when our Little Ships played their decisive part in bringing our own folk home from a foreign shore. For today, the newly sponsored Saxon Dynamo Grail has been placed in the chapel of St Cedd. There is a second race. Speed alone will count.”
There was another burst of static as if Anna was trying to get through. It stopped abruptly.
“Meanwhile lunch will be served to our distinguished guests and the youngsters must set off as swiftly as their ancestors. The Blue Peter is flying. They have four minutes.”
Four minutes? And Spray still on the trailer.
“Sir Hubert sent his daughter’s rigger over. You only have to run her down to the water.”
Madrigal’s team had set up her dinghy’s equipment? Oh great!
“I’m sorry. I’m not going to.”
But even Mr Hutchison Bennett seemed to have been infected by the Commander’s speech.
“I think you must.”
“No,” she shouted back, leaping back down the sloping gangways. “Sorry. We’ll talk about everything later. I’ve got an alternative statement that I’d like to make.”
Fritha – whose name meant peace. She’d use Fritha – never mind that she was many times slower than the modern dinghies. She couldn’t remember the Firefly handicap rating. Corrected time might help her position in the race round Oveseye but there was no chance of her beating Imperium on speed.
Somehow none of it mattered. Fritha was the boat for today. She must have known it all along subconsciously.
The wind was coming. Sudden random gusts were sending catspaws across the water. She saw a lady catch her hat and laugh. A dinghy from one of the sailing schools gybed and was over. The smacks were taking in their topsails.
Spray loved heavy weather and so did Xanthe: she’d never sailed Fritha in anything other than the most favourable breeze. She’d have to trust her. All she needed to do was to get out there and join the race.
Dominic had left and the Firefly was trapped on the wrong side of the pier. Someone arriving even later than Xanthe had moored a small motor cruiser on the outside. However could they do that! Should she take Spray after all? Ignore the unwanted makeover, trust that her gear had not been set up to fail? She was undoing the motor boat’s stern line even as she rejected the idea.
“What d’you think you’re doing? Leave that warp alone. Sir Hubert told me I could moor here.”
“I can’t help that. I need to get out please. This is my dinghy. I’m in the race.”
The man looked at her. She saw his recognition. “You’re that…girl.”
“I’m Xanthe Ribiero and I need to make the start.”
“You’re violent and you’re in trouble.”
“Utter rot.” A familiar voice, used to being heard. “Heaven knows what you thought you were doing when you moored that tub on the outside of a wooden dinghy. Now you can make yourself useful. You can pluck her off and pull her out into the stream. She needs to get to the start.”
It was Griselda. “Hullo Xanthe. What a fantastic find! Get on with it, man. Don’t just stand there gawping.”
And when he still hesitated she took action. She was across the Firefly and into the motor boat and telling the owner to get his engine on while she attended to the lines.
“Okay, Xanthe, get your mainsail up. F 486 – utter magic! I never thought I’d see that again. The Blue Peter’s down. You’ve got less than a minute.”
Even before Griselda finished speaking, Xanthe heard
that distinctive wailing sound. The All-Clear. The race had begun.
“Hmph,” said Griselda, “That was a fraction over-sharp, I’d say. Never mind. Do your best. You needn’t be afraid to reef. That was Elvström’s trick in ’48.”
Elvström? ’48?
As she hardened in her sheets she heard Griselda shout. “Where’s Spray?”
“Still on her trailer.” Xanthe shouted back. “She’s Black Star now and I don’t trust her rigging
.”
But her words were snatched by the rising wind. The club racers and all the sailing school dinghies were streaming upriver. And that could be Maggi in Kingfisher, way out on the starboard side of the line.
Fritha was slipping through the water as if she’d been oiled, not varnished. This was the dinghy she’d dreamed.
The wind was wildly fluky. Violent puffs from varying directions interspersed with moments of complete, disconcerting calm. Xanthe sat forward, blessing her new smooth-running sheets, loving the dinghy’s responsiveness and poised like a hawk to take full advantage from every shift.
The fleet was beginning to stretch out on the long upwind leg. She could definitely see Maggi there with the leaders.
“Okay sis, you’ve bunked off school. I’m shocked, so I’d better be keeping you company.”
Everything was coming together. Xanthe was a racer; this was what she did. She felt she was breathing pure happiness as she and Fritha began moving up the order.
Her new tacking system was good. If she eased the mainsheet slightly, cleated it, then used the jib, she could almost accelerate as she came round. She passed dinghy after dinghy as their skippers made mistakes in the complex conditions. The leaders weren’t getting away from her. One or two might even be coming back slightly.
Not Imperium though. Imperium was way ahead. She was sporting an enormous red seax on her sail and treating the race as if it was a procession. Madrigal must have made a super-perfect start. The only person not to be surprised by the over-early signal?
The wind dropped away again, almost to nothing. Xanthe stayed still, using her weight and her helm as little as possible. Only her head and her eyes moved as she searched for those elusive puffs. Everyone else was doing the same: sitting still, keeping watchful, trusting the tide to carry them upriver towards Oveseye and the first mark.
A familiar purry engine almost made her jolt. It was Miranda and her owner. Miranda with passengers: Siri and Kelly-Jane, Martha – and Iris Farran!
The Commander came cruising close beside her. Much too close. He had a colourful Seax streamer and a race official’s pennant flying from the varnished flagpole on Miranda’s short aft-deck.