Chapter 18
The following morning at breakfast, I was again leafing through the morning newspapers eating my soda bread and jam, as well as reading texts and emails. There was one from Finnuala.
We have secured premises!!!! We will be there if you would like to call in and see us. It’s a warehouse on Laundry Lane. Matty found it for us. Sheila is bringing her spare kettle, so there will be tea and we’re moving this morning. F.
There was also an email from the man from the local county council, responding to my enquiry about a possible start-up grant.
I emailed him back, asking to meet me at lunchtime at the new premises on Laundry Lane.
I felt a little fizz in my stomach, that snap, crackle and pop of a plan forming.
I’d forgotten how much I liked a start-up.
‘Good morning!’ It was Lucy. ‘Sorry to land on you so early,’ she said. ‘I know I’m a pain in the hole and all that and you probably like being on your own and talking to no one and not having to make polite conversation with people like me.’
‘We don’t have to be polite,’ I said, pleased to see her. ‘Anyway, I’m an early riser back home.’ Lucy sat down on the seat next to me, leaning back into the cushions. ‘My alarm usually goes off at 5 a.m.’
‘I didn’t even know there was a 5 a.m. So, the clocks go back that far? Wow. I’m sure that will come up in a pub quiz one of these days.’
I laughed, and then offered her some of my breakfast. ‘Have you eaten?’
‘Oh, God no. I don’t eat until midday. I can’t. I think my body was only made to work optimally from lunchtime onwards. Anyway, so…’ She paused. ‘I need a favour… a big one. Massive.’
‘How massive?’
She gave it some thought. ‘It depends. Quite? Large to the point of unwieldy? Do you suffer from seasickness?’
‘Not that I’m aware of.’
‘Do you like being in close proximity to seagulls?’
‘Not if I can help it.’
‘Life jackets? Where do you stand on them?’
‘I would wear one, rather than stand on it.’
‘Right answer. Look, I was wondering if you might want to come sailing with me today. Seeing as you are in need of a holiday and perhaps have a little time on your hands, if sailing might be something you would consider.’ She sighed.
‘Okay, I lied. It’s not for you, it’s for my benefit entirely.
I don’t have anyone else to come out with me today as everyone is working.
And I need moral support because I’m hoping to go sailing today.
First time in nearly a year. Maeve’s all ready to go. ’
‘Your boat?’
Lucy nodded. ‘She’s been in Henry’s yard for the last year.
But if I am to ever sail again or ever enter the regatta, I have to try today, because if I don’t do it this year, I really don’t think I will ever sail again.
It’s now or never. I just need someone to provide emotional ballast.’ She paused. ‘Have you ever sailed?’
I shook my head. ‘I think we must have been the only ones in Boston that didn’t. My grandmother always said boats were dangerous. The only boat she ever took was the one to America and apparently she spent the entire time below deck, feeling ill. And of course she’s right. Have you seen Titanic?’
‘I love that film. I mean, there was room on the door and I don’t understand why Rose didn’t make room for Jack, but anyway… hopefully there aren’t any icebergs in the Irish Sea.’
I had to say yes. ‘I’d love to.’
Lucy seemed delighted. ‘I think I’m about to get my life back. I mean, not yet… but I’m on the right path. I hope. Thank you.’
‘At least let me finish my breakfast, so I can be weightier ballast.’
She picked up a slice of bread and jam. ‘Actually, I am peckish. We don’t want to go sailing on an empty stomach. What clothes do you have? Any shorts?’
I shook my head. ‘Only jeans. They’ll be okay, won’t they?’
Lucy looked horrified. ‘Have you ever sat in a pair of wet jeans?’
‘Never.’
‘It’s possibly the worst thing that can happen to a human, sartorially speaking anyway. Wet jeans. Urrgh. Like some form of ancient torture, you start recoiling from your own clothes. You need shorts. I can’t believe you don’t have a pair of shorts.’
‘I need to buy a pair. I saw some in the window of a shop in the village.’
‘Nell’s,’ approved Lucy. ‘You’re going to look like a native before you know it.’
* * *
Nell’s did indeed have a fine array of shorts, from short-shorts to long-shorts, to the kind of shorts someone from Stepney might wear, to ones favoured by clowns and everything in between.
I picked a few off the rails, along with some sweatshirts, a pair of sandals and another linen shirt, and tried them on in the changing room.
‘Need any help?’ called the assistant.
I stepped out from behind the curtain. ‘Do I look ridiculous? I mean, I now know why I haven’t worn a pair of shorts since I was eleven.’
She looked me up and down. ‘What’s wrong with them?’
I turned and looked in the mirror. ‘My knees are knobbly.’
She shook her head. ‘Not knobblier than anyone else’s. I think you look amazing.’
I posed again, this time jutting my hands into the pockets.
She smiled. ‘Ah, now you’re feeling better. You’re jiggling.’
‘Jiggling?’
‘Yes, I see all sorts when people try on clothes. If there’s a jiggle, people usually buy.
Or they go away and think about it and then are back with the old credit card by closing time.
And I have another that might suit.’ She passed over a different pair of shorts – red ones!
– and a different sweatshirt. ‘Try these. Different look. See if you jiggle about when you see your reflection.’
I tried not to jiggle, but I felt even springier in these shorts, as though I could do things like climb mountains or get a tan, or go sailing.
‘On holiday?’ she asked, when I had piled the clothes up beside the cash register.
‘Kind of,’ I said.
‘Wait, are you Kerry-Anne who is working with the knitting women?’ She held out her hand.
‘Jessica, good to meet you. We can stock some of the jumpers. When you have the stock, let me know and we could do a window display. My boss, Nell, was already talking about it. You’re very welcome to Sandycove. ’
There was a bowl of scrunchies on the desk, and I slipped a few of them into the basket as well because they’d be handy with my non-straightened frizz. I handed over my card.
‘I actually feel excited to change into them,’ I said.
Jessica looked surprised. ‘But clothes should make you feel like that,’ she said.
‘You should be excited to get dressed. They aren’t just things to keep you warm, they’re also one of the most powerful ways to present yourself to the world, but more importantly to yourself.
Dress how you want to dress, make yourself happy first.’
It had been a long time since I’d felt that way.
I’d been wearing trouser suits during the working week and jeans and a blazer for weekends.
I didn’t have anything more relaxed. On my last vacation with Caitlin in Miami, we wore our swimsuits, a sarong tied around our bodies, and flip-flops.
That was three years ago now and I had become an even more buttoned-up version of myself ever since.
Once I’d changed back at the hotel, I followed the directions to the marina and walked along the seafront until I saw rows and rows of white fibreglass boats tethered in their berths.
There was a huge hangar-like building on one side of the marina and painted onto the corrugated wall was ‘Richmond Boats’.
On the other side of the water was a small wooden building, the words ‘Eddie’s Boatyard’ on the side.
Lucy was waiting for me on the jetty, holding a coil of rope in one hand, and floating in the water beside her, on the other end of the rope, was a very pretty, small wooden boat, its mast soaring upwards.
The name Maeve was painted on the side at the front, and at the back was a motor, its blades sticking out of the water.
Inside was an old bucket and sponge, along with life jackets.
‘It’s now or never,’ she said. ‘Please say never.’ She gave a nervous laugh.
‘Now,’ I said.
‘I thought you might say that.’
‘How do you feel?’
‘Like I’ve forgotten how to sail,’ she said. ‘How does wind work, what is the sail for and how on earth do we not sink right to the bottom?’ She quailed a little at the thought.
‘Physics,’ I said, confidently. ‘That’s the answer to everything.
’ I felt myself taking charge a little, despite now feeling far more nervous than I had before.
Why wouldn’t we sink right to the bottom?
I was about to get into a boat with someone who said she’d forgotten how to sail.
‘Shall we get going?’ I went on. ‘We don’t have to go far.
’ Across the bay, away from the harbour, the sea looked choppy, a breeze forming whitecaps.
Lucy nodded. ‘You’re right. I have to do it. No choice.’
‘You’ll regret it if you don’t.’ I wondered if I was the one who would regret it.
Lucy stepped aboard, handing the rope to me. ‘Let’s do this, right?’ Her mouth was more grimace than smile. ‘Ready?’ she said, handing my life jacket to me. ‘Right, you push us off and then jump in.’
‘Jump in?’
‘Yes, jump in.’
‘You mean…?’
But Lucy was fiddling with the engine as I somehow pushed the boat a yard from the jetty and then realised that if I didn’t jump now, I would fall in, and so somehow I leapt aboard, landing in a heap at the end of the boat, and quickly righted myself before all dignity was gone.
‘All right?’ asked Lucy.
‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘You?’
‘Never better.’ Her skin was grey, her eyes glassy, her jaw clenched as she steered us through the marina and out of the harbour. I noticed her hands were shaking. Not just a slight tremor but properly trembling, like a dog outside the vet.
‘Everything okay?’
‘Grand! Grand!’ She didn’t smile, frowning and biting her lip, before unfurling the sail.
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Just be here.’ And then she did something with a rope, and Maeve hovered for a moment before a loud whoomp. The sail filled with wind and we shot out to sea.
Lucy’s grip on the tiller was so tight her fingers were white.
Despite the trembling hands and the set jaw and the frown, we zigzagged around the bay as Lucy carried on tying ropes, her hands still shaking, her eyes set out to sea, her jaw set determinedly, and I was struck by how brave she was, and that sometimes there was nothing you could do except white-knuckle it. Literally.
Ahead was a large crumb of land which had a tower on it and a small harbour.
‘What’s that?’ I shouted out, above the sound of the wind.
‘Sandycove Island!’ shouted Lucy. ‘It’s beautiful there. We used to go for picnics all the time.’
Being on the boat, chopping about the waves, was exhilarating, and if I hadn’t been so worried about Lucy, I would have enjoyed myself more.
The perspective from a small boat looking at the shore seemed to turn everything upside down, the world was suddenly completely different.
The people, houses, trees, cars, dogs, all so small, and the only sound out here was the lapping sea and the distant caw of evil-looking seagulls.
When we arrived back at the marina, we punted back to the jetty and tied the boat close to the boatyard.
Lucy hopped out of the boat, the rope in one hand, and tied us up.
‘Oh my God… oh my God!’ She was grinning.
‘Thank you! Thank you! If you hadn’t come out with me today, I would never have gone.
I mean, all those months of staying inside, watching crap television…
eating crap food and feeling like my world had ended, and I never thought I would sail again. But it’s all thanks to you!’
‘No, it’s not… you did it.’
‘No, I didn’t. Well, I did. We both did. But if you hadn’t said “now” as in “now or never” I would have gone for “never”. But it’s as though I have my life back. Or something so important to me has come back to me. Like I lost a leg and it’s regrown…’ She paused. ‘Is that a terrible metaphor?’
‘Well…’
But she was still smiling. ‘I don’t care. That’s how I feel. Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’ I felt absurdly pleased.
The sail had been far and away better than I could ever have imagined and I had felt much safer than being in a car on the freeway.
Especially when Johnny was behind the wheel.
Granny Annie had been wrong. Boats weren’t the dangerous things she’d always told us they were and I’d loved the peace and simplicity more than anything, the sound of the wind in my ears, the sunlight dancing on the sea, the feeling of skimming over the water, and then the zigzagging.
So perhaps Titanic wasn’t a blueprint for all adventures at sea.
‘Do you want to come out again?’ went on Lucy, excitedly. ‘Have you got the bug?’
‘Any time you need emotional ballast, I’ll come out with you,’ I said. ‘That was completely exhilarating.’
She smiled. ‘Oh, I’m not a bad sailor. It’s nice to know I can still do it, so thank you. But you have to get Henry to take you out. It’s a whole different experience with him. You don’t even notice he’s doing anything, and then you realise you’re already halfway to France.’
My nose and my forehead tingled from the sun and the sea air.
My freckles would begin to pop, I realised, having spent most of my life trying to keep them at bay.
I had put on my SPF that morning, but the sun had been so strong out there, reflected off the sea, and I’d been more distracted by the feeling of bouncing on top of the waves, to even think that sun = freckles. It was too late now.
‘How long are you going to keep working in the café?’ I asked Lucy as we walked back to the village together, me to meet Finnuala at the new premises and Lucy to start a shift in the café.
‘As long as I need to. I know I should go back to my previous life and I could pick up design work easily enough. My friend Ellie has her own PR company, and she used to always send work my way.’
‘I have a job for you.’
She looked at me. ‘The knitting circle? A website?’
I nodded. ‘Exactly.’
She gave it some thought.
‘You’ve gone sailing now, next step is the rest of your life,’ I pressed. ‘And this is just one small project.’
‘Who will write the text?’
‘I can work on it. But I think Finnuala has a way with words, it would be nice to have it in the local vernacular. And…’ I paused for effect. ‘After all, it’s your grandmother’s jumpers. You’re doing it for her.’
She smiled at me. ‘I’m going to have to say yes, aren’t I?’
‘You are, I’m afraid. Sorry about that.’