Chapter Three
The next morning, Elle presented herself at the StJohn motor yacht. Loz had e-mailed her photos of Seadancer and she knew she was looking for a vessel about three times the size of the Shady Lady . Even so, she blinked at the height of the white-and-chrome decks rising majestically above her hull.
Not being practised at boat etiquette and there not being a door to knock on, Elle stood at the bottom of the gangplank and shouted. ‘Hello, Loz? Davie?’ She shaded her eyes. She’d walked only a few hundred yards to Seadancer ’s berth but already she was dazzled by the morning sun and felt it like a weight on her shoulders.
A big pair of sunglasses and a curving fringe appeared on the side deck, then Loz’s smile, as big as a slice of watermelon in her shiny round face as she rattled out a stream of exclamations. ‘Elle! You’re early! Come aboard, come aboard, come aboard!’
Cheered by the warmth of her welcome, Elle made her way up the sloping gangplank, its guardrail already burning to the touch. ‘I’ve just come to say hello. I know I don’t start work until tomorrow afternoon.’
Loz treated her to a hot and enthusiastic hug. Her floaty top and cotton shorts were dazzling white in the sun, her flip-flops glittering with silver sequins. ‘Lovely! Davie’s forward, in the shade. Let’s go find him.’
Feeling much higher above the water than when aboard the Shady Lady , Elle filed behind Loz towards the foredeck, where they found Davie slouched in a director’s chair under a blue umbrella, his baseball cap pulled low and his feet propped on a red cool box.
Loz gurgled with laughter. ‘Wake up and say hello to Elle, Davie.’
Davie pushed his cap back on sleek silver hair and blinked. ‘I wasn’t asleep: I was thinking creative thoughts.’ His blue eyes smiled at Elle from a tanned face. In his sixties, now, but still a dude, Davie StJohn was a name that had graced sleeve notes since 1975 as a producer and session musician. Bands everyone had heard of had recorded at his production studio, Saintly John. He was even mentioned on a Pete Frame Rock Family Tree. How cool was that? Nowadays, he spent long periods on board Seadancer while someone else ran things back at the studio.
‘Thinking creative thoughts looks relaxing,’ Elle observed with a grin.
He hauled himself up to kiss her cheek, opened a small locker and pulled out two more chairs to unfold on the shady part of the deck. ‘Sit down and tell Loz your plans.’ He opened the cool box and produced a bottle of mineral water and three tumblers. ‘She’ll get it out of you so you might as well get it over with.’
Loz passed Elle a glass. ‘I’m not that bad. It’s going to be so great to have you here, Elle. I don’t know what to call your role, though. “Steward” sounds very formal.’
Elle widened her eyes. ‘It sounds like someone who has training and experience, too. I’m just domestic help.’
‘You’re an answer to a prayer,’ Loz corrected her kindly. ‘Davie and I are lazy and like being looked after. Why don’t you stay for lunch? We can prepare it together; then you’ll find out where everything in the galley is.’
Elle felt warmed by the spontaneous invitation. ‘Love to. Then I’ll go off this afternoon and find a shop to buy supplies. I have my induction at the Nicholas Centre tomorrow morning.’
‘We’ll show you. Davie can help you carry your bags back to the Shady Lady .’ Loz looked pleased with this disposition of everybody’s time. Davie didn’t object and so Elle didn’t, either. It sounded more fun than finding her own way around.
Kicking off her flip-flops, Loz settled herself comfortably. ‘Tell us about the place where you’re going to volunteer.’
Elle relaxed into her seat. From Seadancer she was treated to the sight of hundreds of boats across the creek glistening under the sun, and her joy in spending the summer in Malta began cautiously to re-emerge. ‘It’s in Triq Bonnard in G?ira. Joseph, who runs the centre, says it’ll take me ten or fifteen minutes to walk from the marina. Schools don’t finish until nearly the end of June so my opening sessions will largely involve sixteen- to eighteen-year-olds who are out of school already. My work with younger children will mainly be supervisory or helping them with the technology, although I’ll run some fun sessions in the holidays. Timewise, my sessions will be dotted around — mornings or afternoons.’
‘I’ve always enjoyed earning money, myself,’ Davie observed. ‘But I admire you for what you’re doing.’
‘I earned money in IT. I was appalled when I received my redundancy notice because, like every other wage slave, I judged my worth by my salary slip.’ Elle sank deeper into her chair. She hadn’t slept well, over-aware of the gentle swimming motion of the boat. And of Lucas sleeping in a cabin only a few feet away. ‘But when I began to job hunt, what excited me were the openings abroad. Dubai, Canada, Germany. The idea of applying for overseas jobs opened my mind to possibilities. I noticed on online forums that the people who were most enthusiastic about their travelling were those who were volunteering. I’m not quite adventurous enough to volunteer in Africa or India but I asked Simon what he thought about me finding a voluntary post here. He’s been mad about Malta since he bought the boat.’
She paused to smile. ‘He offered me the use of the Shady Lady and asked around for someone who might want to give me a part-time job. Which was you.’
Davie toasted her with his water glass. ‘The world’s your oyster if you’ve got no ties.’
Elle laughed. ‘Then I hope my oyster is more about pearls than grit.’
Presently, Loz took Elle on a tour of the boat, keeping up a stream of chatter. Four big cabins had their own bathrooms, a smaller cabin was more modest, and the stateroom boggled Elle’s mind with its run of lacquered wardrobes and drawers, two squashy sofas and a king-sized bed. The main saloon was equally as impressive, with glass doors that opened onto the foredeck just behind where they’d been sitting. Above that was a sky lounge, a gorgeous room with only glass walls between it and the breathtaking glories of the marina.
They ended the tour in the galley, so that they could wash the salad. By the time they’d eaten lunch with a civilised couple of glasses of red wine, sipped coffee and renewed their sun cream, any shops that might have shut for siesta would have opened again. They left Seadancer sunbathing at her mooring and wandered through the gardens to the road.
Elle was pleasantly surprised by what she found. ‘I didn’t realise there would be so many shops close to the marina.’
‘It’s a residential neighbourhood, which works out well for the yachties.’ Loz paused at a rack outside a shop to pick up a straw hat with daisies dancing around the brim. She popped it on Elle’s head and stood back to admire. ‘You’re such a pretty girl you’d probably look good with a paper bag on your head, but that really suits you.’
Elle made to put it back on the rack. ‘I don’t like hats.’
‘Better have one,’ advised Davie.
Loz nodded. ‘It’s not even hot, yet. Only about twenty-seven Celsius today. It could be forty in July and August and if you don’t protect yourself you’ll be scarlet, in agony and probably heaving over a bowl.’
‘OK,’ Elle sighed. The hat was cute enough, with a brim that turned up at the back, and she bought a pair of sunglasses with green mirror lenses to go with it.
When they arrived at a grocery store with a Wall’s ice cream sign outside, Elle enjoyed the mix of familiar and unfamiliar products and filled her basket with salad stuff, ham, cheese, bread, eggs, butter, milk, cereals and a few tins and packets.
‘Drinking water,’ said Davie, puffing as he hefted a pack of six big bottles. ‘Don’t drink from the boat’s tanks.’
‘Of course,’ said Elle, gratefully. ‘I’ll have to remember to keep my supplies up.’
Slowed by the stultifying heat, they wandered back to the marina, Elle and Loz each toting two shopping bags and Davie staggering in exaggerated exhaustion under his load of water.
Loz put in a sudden stop as they neared the Shady Lady . ‘Oh my,’ she breathed. ‘I think Keanu Reeves is on Simon’s boat.’
Lucas was lounging on the cockpit seat, facing the shore. He wore only a pair of black board shorts, his skin golden in the sunlight, feet bare, the ends of his glossy black hair blowing around his jawline as he concentrated on something he held in his hands.
‘Oh yes.’ Elle prickled with annoyance but swung her shopping bags with studied unconcern. ‘Simon’s nephew’s living on the boat, too.’ She said it loud enough for Lucas to hear.
Slowly, he looked up, and his inscrutable gaze locked on the trio as they approached.
Elle made formal introductions. ‘Loz and Davie StJohn, meet Lucas Rose. Lucas, these are Simon’s friends, Loz and Davie. Simon lined me up a job with them.’
Lucas smiled his easy, charming smile, which Elle hadn’t seen much since her arrival. ‘Simon’s mentioned you.’ He put down what looked like three gauges on a thick stick of liquorice, and with a stride and a jump arrived on the quay without having troubled the gangplank. He took the water from Davie, swinging it easily across to the platform. ‘Coming aboard?’
‘That would be lovely.’ Loz beamed, flushing coquettishly, thrusting her shopping bags at Davie while she shuffled towards the edge of the dock as if she didn’t know quite how to broach the gangplank. Obligingly, Lucas offered his hand, which made Loz’s cheeks even pinker as he steadied her over the eighteen inches of dead calm water that lay between boat and shore.
When four people and the shopping had been transferred successfully to the saloon, Lucas got hospitable with fruit juice and water from the fridge as Loz sought his views on the Shady Lady , the marina, the island, the Malta heat and how great it would be if Loz and Davie were still on the Seadancer when Simon came over from the States in the autumn. ‘Your uncle’s as mad as a box of frogs, but such fun. Do you know many people here? We’re having a little party on Friday — why don’t you come? Any nephew of Simon’s is a friend of ours.’
As they chatted, Elle carried the shopping bags down the galley steps. She’d been too busy and unsettled to do more than glance into the compact galley till now. It didn’t take her long to locate the fridge but she found it was jam-packed with bottles of beer and water.
She glanced over at Lucas. ‘Where does the food go?’ She gazed around in case another fridge might be tucked away. There was a cocktail cabinet in the saloon, but she knew it wasn’t chilled.
‘I eat ashore.’ He returned to answering Loz’s stream of questions.
Elle began removing bottles from the fridge and standing them in the little sink. The boat was rolling gently and she didn’t want bottles doing the same.
Lucas cut into his own discourse. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m clearing my half of the fridge.’ Turning her back to him, she searched out a pack of antibacterial wipes from one of her carrier bags and set about the top shelf, half of the middle shelf and half of the door compartment, before stowing away her perishables and some of the bottles of water Davie had hauled from the shop.
Then she began opening cupboard doors and drawers. Apart from a drawer of cutlery and a cupboard containing matching plates, bowls, mugs and glasses, most were empty of anything but dust. She chose two to wipe before stowing the rest of her shopping.
Job done, she went back up to the saloon and took a seat next to Davie listening quietly as Loz continued to interrogate Lucas. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye once or twice but Loz was demanding most of his attention.
‘Are you here for a holiday?’ Loz twiddled the ends of her pale brown hair as she hung on his answers.
Lucas shook his head. ‘No, I’m working here for a few months.’
Loz brightened. ‘You’re not a skipper, are you? Because we sometimes hire a skipper to take us out. We can sail the Seadancer but it’s a lot of hard work, so we often get someone.’
‘I’m a divemaster at a scuba school,’ said Lucas.
Elle found herself turning to look at him in surprise. In all the exultation, swiftly turned to panic and disappointment, of her arrival, she hadn’t asked what had brought him to Malta. She’d been too taken up with the scale of the disaster of his being there and the threat to her lovely new life plans.
Apart from the facts that Lucas had left his job in events management and headed to California to learn about running a vineyard and be Simon’s business guru, she hadn’t really known what he’d done with his life since he’d stormed out of hers. ‘A diver?’ she questioned. ‘Since when?’
The dark eyes swivelled her way. ‘Since a couple of years ago. I took up scuba recreationally and got hooked.’
Loz jumped back in. ‘There are loads of instructors on the island because the diving’s popular with the tourists. The Med’s not like the Red Sea but it’s pretty good.’
Lucas smiled. ‘I’m a divemaster, rather than an instructor. The divemasters have all the fun while the instructors take all the responsibility.’
Loz giggled. ‘What did you do before diving?’
‘I worked for Simon at his vineyard for a while.’
‘And before that?’ Loz pressed.
Lucas picked up his drink and finished it in long, slow gulps, his Adam’s apple working. Then he looked into the empty glass. ‘Before that doesn’t matter.’
Elle felt herself recoil.
* * *
Loz paused. ‘Oh. OK. Sounds mysterious.’ She waited, but Lucas just smiled enigmatically, because most of his attention was focused on his own words ringing in his head. Caustic. Dismissive. Insulting, too, judging by the way Elle’s smile had vanished like a popped bubble.
He tried to convey with his eyes that he hadn’t meant that to sound quite as shitty as it had, but Elle’s expression reminded him of a cat just before its tail began to lash. She explained to Loz, ‘What Lucas is referring to is that before he went to America, we were together.’
Loz’s eyes widened to saucers. ‘You’re joking.’ She looked from Elle to Lucas and back again. ‘You’re not joking!’
Elle laughed. At least, her face made the right movements for laughter. But Lucas could read her better than that. The hurt in her eyes, the tightness of her fingers on the edge of the seat cushion, the rigidity of her spine. The spine he used to trace with his tongue . . .
She shrugged. ‘It’s a bit of a pain, ending up in the same boat, but it’s happened so we just have to get on with it.’
‘Oh my.’ Loz’s eyes were full of sympathy when they rested on Elle. When they moved to Lucas they became surprised, curious, but devoid of the frank approval she’d been beaming his way until that moment.
Davie was staring at him, too. ‘Probably time we went,’ he said, shortly. ‘Thanks for the drink.’ He drained his glass.
Elle jumped up to let him scoot out of his seat as Loz thanked Lucas politely for his hospitality. They both followed Elle out of the cabin, across the plank and onto the dock.
Lucas leaned forward to watch through the open door as the older couple clustered around Elle.
Loz was smiling uncertainly, touching Elle’s arm sympathetically.
Davie’s hands were on his hips. He frowned, talking rapidly, indicating the Shady Lady with his head. He looked like a protective dad.
Loz nodded along emphatically to whatever Davie was saying.
Elle, arms folded, was half-smiling, shrugging, nodding, then shaking her head. He could imagine her part in the conversation. Yes, I’m fine. Yes, honestly. No, I can put up with him. It was all a long time ago. You don’t have to worry.
Because that was Elle. Self-contained, self-reliant. Not letting people in.
It had been one of his regular complaints, that she always treated people as if they were going to fail her. Now, for the first time, he wondered whether her reluctance had actually been a defence mechanism.
Back in the day, sure that he could cure her of this trait if he could get to the bottom of it, he’d been caustic. ‘It’s as if you think everyone will let you down. Even your parents.’
She’d laughed shortly. ‘You have to bear in mind how my parents reacted after I made a mistake.’
‘The mistake being Ricky?’
‘Yes.’ She was never forthcoming on the subject of Ricky, the guy, ten years older than her, who she’d married in a registry office, straight out of university, without inviting her parents. He could see how that would go down badly with any parents, let alone the controlling kind, like Elle’s, and though he was aware that there was a layer of steel under Elle’s soft sweet skin, her actions had seemed uncharacteristically rebellious.
When pressed, she’d expanded reluctantly. ‘You know what my mum and dad are like. No understanding or compassion over my errors. I learned young never to own up because I dreaded their cutting remarks and mean silences. Marrying against their wishes was obviously going to create an absolute storm of those things so it seemed easier to at least enjoy the wedding. Without them.’
The subject of marriage hadn’t come up again until, a year later, he’d made his unfortunately business-like proposal and she’d been underwhelmed.
He should have made it absolutely crystal clear that Elle was the most desirable woman on the planet and, because he loved her, he would have proposed even if his plans hadn’t made it expedient. Wincing at the memory, he told himself aloud, ‘You were an idiot.’
On the quay, Elle was still listening politely as Loz and Davie discussed her situation. For an instant Lucas contemplated bowling out there and warning them that they were setting themselves up for failure if they thought they could predict Elle’s reactions.
Just look at how she’d reacted when he’d tried to fix things by suggesting the big wedding he’d been sure every girl lusted after. ‘I’d rather get married without telling anyone. We could go to Vegas!’ Elle had countered.
But he’d refused to hurt his parents by deliberately excluding them, even though they disdained the bride’s first marriage. He didn’t embrace their assumption that a wedding involved a marquee on a manicured lawn, but Elle’s Vegas idea struck him as mean, or even a hint that it was all his offhand proposal deserved. Or all that befitted a second husband . . . ?
His jealous curiosity about her past had spiked.
Rather than admit his fears, he’d resorted to, ‘What the hell would your parents think of being sidelined a second time?’
Elle had recoiled and become almost as reluctant to talk about marriage to Lucas as she was about her marriage to Ricky. She’d looked perpetually unhappy.
She was looking unhappy again, now, while Loz and Davie exchanged uncertain glances over her bare head. Loz and Davie had put their hats back on while the flowered thing Elle had come in wearing was on the helm seat.
If she stayed out there much longer, he’d toss it out to her. She wasn’t dark-haired, like him, with skin that tanned. She’d just come off the plane and her milky complexion could turn to radish before she even realised that the sun had rubbed its fiery fingers over her.
But then Elle began saying her goodbyes, stepping across onto the boat, waving to Loz and Davie.
The moment that she slipped back into the saloon, he did the right thing. ‘Sorry,’ he said.