Chapter 26
Henry was right, the weather was perfect.
That evening, after a day spent working, napping and reading, I met him down at the marina and sat in his boat, as we pushed off, the sea like a sheet of glass, clouds reflected in the shimmer. The small engine puttered past the harbour walls to the open the sea.
The boat was slightly larger than Lucy’s, the name Brendan painted on the side, and was a wooden construction with a tiny cabin below.
I was sat at the back, Henry was on his feet, balanced on the very edge of the boat, tying ropes.
For some reason, he trusted me with the tiller, the oily ripples from the boat engine making rainbows in the inky sea below.
Henry seemed even more relaxed here than he did on dry land.
Patch was on the seat beside me, his head resting on his paws.
‘We’ll head out towards the island,’ he said. ‘It’s the course that the regatta takes.’ He looked across the sea to where a small boat was topping the surf. ‘Ah, there’s Lucy.’
She was sitting rigid in her boat, holding on tightly to a rope. The wind was picking up in strength, carrying her away from us.
‘She’s doing brilliantly,’ said Henry, shielding his eyes into the early-evening sun, the boat rocking.
‘Now, are you ready to get going?’ He switched off the engine and in the moment of silence, as the seagulls cawed above us, he dropped the sail and then suddenly we were off.
It was a totally different experience to last time, as though we were a stone skimming across the surface.
Henry explained where we were going to go and how we were going to do it.
I held ropes and tied them up and they immediately unravelled like a magic trick, and then Henry retied them, showing me what to do with the over-and-through technique.
He barely moved, just quietly and quickly adjusting the sail, his hand on the tiller, it seemed almost effortless, as though we were part of the whole world around us.
It was hard to put it into words, but I tried to explain it to Henry, shouting into the wind.
He nodded. ‘That’s what living should be like.
Sometimes I think we humans forget we’re just part of the world and we’re not in charge of it.
’ He then sat back. ‘Your turn. Take us over there!’ He pointed towards the horizon, where Lucy was now zigzagging across.
‘Just mirror her course,’ he said. ‘Shadow her.’
And so I did, untying the sail, moving the tiller and allowing it to fill with wind, and we shot off in the other direction as we made our jagged way across.
Lucy was still gripping on to the ropes, nothing like Henry’s relaxed demeanour.
If he had started eating a picnic or set up a game of cards, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
And then she was turning towards us, sweeping in a circle as though swooping around us.
Henry was standing up on the side of the boat. ‘Come on, Lucy!’
‘How’s she doing it? I thought you could only sail in zigzags.’
‘Not if you know what you’re doing,’ he said. ‘She’s sailing again, proper sailing.’ She was gaining on us, and now only yards away. ‘You’re doing really well!’ he shouted over to her. ‘Race? Just a little one? Back to the harbour?’
Her face was suddenly fixed into a determined scowl. I knew that look and that feeling, whenever your brother wants to beat you at something, and she was off, her sails filling with wind, propelled away from us.
‘She’s going to win!’ said Henry, laughing. ‘Come on, Kerry-Anne!’
Our two boats made their manoeuvres, me at the tiller, Henry trimming the sail, and we shot off in pursuit of Lucy, just a little ahead, and I wondered if Henry, if he wanted, could easily outsail her but was keeping back to let her win. Johnny would never do that for me, I thought.
Eventually, we neared the mouth of the harbour and we saw Lucy in Maeve slipping inside the walls.
‘Ah, we lost,’ said Henry. ‘Next time we’ll beat her.’
Henry lowered the sail and there was suddenly complete silence, none of that eardrum whipping of wind, there was just peaceful lapping in the moments before he switched on the engine. It was like that moment between breaths where the world seems to stand still.
We puttered in behind Lucy to our berths in the marina. She was tying up Maeve when we slipped in beside her. My skin felt tight from the sun and my whole body felt warm and relaxed.
‘How are you doing?’ Henry asked Lucy.
‘I loved it,’ she said. ‘It’s all coming back to me. All of it. The freedom of sailing. There is nothing else, is there?’ She was grinning, no sign of the hand-trembling of the other day. ‘Did you enjoy sailing with Henry, Kerry-Anne? He’s not a very good sailor, is he? A bit rusty.’
‘He’s okay,’ I said. ‘I had to take over a few times because he didn’t know what to do.’
‘Actually, Kerry-Anne was the brilliant one,’ said Henry. ‘A natural. Completely understood what we were doing.’ He seemed to mean it as well, as though compliments were something so natural to him. He turned to me. ‘We should go out again?’
‘I’d love to.’
‘I think we all need a drink,’ said Henry. ‘Kerry-Anne?’
‘I couldn’t think of anything better.’