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.I see now that my construction was always flawed.Like a drowning man, I look to its surface where all appears familiar, sturdy and durable, but it cannot save me now; I know the structure is unsound, fatally wounded by one storm too many and sinking before my eyes.That place of safety where I thought to shelter my wife and child was exposed and vulnerable before I even began.What good am I to them now? I was blind not to see that I could never be wholly there for them when I had left so much of myself − more even, than I knew − in a faraway land.The next passage is one that I shall make alone.The air was cold around me when I set out this morning, but the evening has been quite lovely and I am calm.Calypso sways to a gentle swell and I hear it begin.A whisper like the suggestion of a breeze.Ripples across the water.Closer, closer.The memories reach out to me.Lit by neon in the city you smile at me, the night fountains shimmering as you sweep your fingers through the spray.Early morning on the river, ever-changing like the waterfront, the rituals of the past, the shock of the new.The shock of love.White sheets, golden skin.And, as I prepare to slip the lines, I see your face.‘How long have you known, Jimi?’ Harry asked, as her half-brother silently handed the logbook back to her.From this angle it was hard to believe that it was true, that this dandy in his sloppy black cardigan and black skinny jeans was anything to do with her.The heavy hair flopping over his forehead was clearly inherited from his mother and she looked out too from his dark, slanting eyes.Yet something had effected a transformation, some of the strutting confidence had evaporated, making him seem more approachable, more familiar somehow.And when he turned to her, his expression agitated, she knew that he was feeling just as sick and churned up as she was.Divided loyalties.Family secrets.Still, that’s what they had come to sort out.They walked beside the creek until Harry got tired of waiting for him to say something.She sat down on the bank where the tide was low enough for her to dangle her legs over the water.After only a quick look of concern for his designer jeans, Jimi followed suit.‘Harry,’ he began, sounding very nervous, ‘I know how it must have seemed.You must have thought I was only keen to find something to invalidate Matthew’s claim to the boat yard because I wanted something out of it.’‘Well, presumably you didn’t come all this way just to say hello.’‘No, not at first.But look at it this way – you got the lot, I had nothing! I didn’t even know that the Harry Watling I was looking for was dead until I turned up that day.’‘So what were you expecting? That he would turn round and say, “Hi, son! Welcome! Help yourself to half the boat yard?” No wonder you were so disappointed to discover the place was worthless.’His voice was raw.‘I thought I was owed something.I’d already lost my mother, and the man who I grew up thinking was my father drank and smoked himself to an early death with the strain of living a lie.He thought he couldn’t have children, so when I was born he really wanted to believe he was my father.It was only after my mother’s death, when he was going through her possessions, that he was confronted with the brutal truth: the man he trusted, his former business partner, his friend, had had an affair with his wife.’Jimi thumped his fist into the grass and turned to her, compelling her to meet his gaze.‘Can you imagine how betrayed he must have felt? To his credit, he never let on to me about what he knew, but his attitude changed overnight.He could barely stand living in the same house as me.Spent all his nights in the bars or at the gambling tables, trying to forget.He didn’t leave me a penny.So, yeah, I did think I was owed, big time!’Harry exhaled slowly, thinking back to the previous evening.Matthew had waited whilst she read the logbook, as the light slowly leached from the room.He watched her hand shaking as she placed it on the coffee table, nudging it away with one finger before she was tempted to pick it up and hurl it across the room.She had known that her father, drawn to the place where his father had served in the war and where he had been born, had spent many years skippering charter boats in the Far East; but the revelation of his other life filled her with anger and grief.When, at last, she’d finally given vent to the silent sobs racking her body, Matthew had gathered her up and held her to him, rocking her as if she was a child, until she stopped crying.The room was dark by then; and, when Matthew reached across to switch on one of the side lamps, they were reflected in the long night-black glass panels.Seeing herself curled into Matthew, his arm clasping her firmly to him, Harry ached to rest there, drawing comfort from his strength.In the half-light, it was easy to pretend that the tableau in the glass was real.Dragging herself away had been a bigger wrench than Matthew would ever know.‘Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?’ he’d offered, setting down his empty whisky tumbler.‘I’ll be fine in here.You might want someone close at hand if you wake up in the night.’Harry pushed the thought away, knowing that in any case there would be no sleep for her that night.Matthew looked exhausted too.When he dropped a light kiss on her head, Harry bit back the urge to tell him not to go and then watched him walk away.The morning air was still cool, the sun not yet risen, when she found herself wandering over to George’s caravan.The door opened before she’d even thought about knocking, and she knew there had been no sleep for the old man either.‘Bin on watch for you, Miss Harriet,’ he said, sitting her down with a mug of thick dark tea.And then he proceeded to fill in some of the gaps.The passage across the Bay of Bengal was one feared by many sailors for its typhoon zone.On this trip, feelings were running particularly high because Harry senior was in charge of bringing back two things very precious to his business partner, Scott Rutherford: his new sixty-foot yacht and his new bride, Irene.‘Scott wasn’t under any illusions that Irene Tan was starry-eyed about him,’ George had told her, gruff with the effort of remembering what had lain hidden for so long.‘But he knew she needed him and he hoped that love would follow.Irene ’ad been working as a translator and sending the money to her mother, who spent most of her husband’s small pension trying to ensure that Irene got a good education.’‘So Scott was a meal ticket?’George sighed.‘No.It wasn’t as harsh as that.Irene didn’t even want to leave her mother; she’d made up her mind that she would never have the chance to marry, that her duty would always be to her family.And Scott was a very persuasive man; he was always good at getting other people to do things.That’s why your Dad ended up doing all the work, whilst Scott gambled away the profits.’‘Why didn’t she leave him if she’d fallen in love with Dad?’‘Irene had a little sister, Daphne, who was severely disabled.Irene knew that she would need looking after for the rest of her life, and was prepared to sacrifice her own future to do it.But then Scott came along, promised he would pay for Daphne’s care and offered her a way out.’George smiled sadly.‘On the face of it Scott was the prudent choice all right; cool, rational, level-headed and he was, after all, her husband.Your dad, on the other hand, was a wild card, a risk taker, an adventurer [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.I see now that my construction was always flawed.Like a drowning man, I look to its surface where all appears familiar, sturdy and durable, but it cannot save me now; I know the structure is unsound, fatally wounded by one storm too many and sinking before my eyes.That place of safety where I thought to shelter my wife and child was exposed and vulnerable before I even began.What good am I to them now? I was blind not to see that I could never be wholly there for them when I had left so much of myself − more even, than I knew − in a faraway land.The next passage is one that I shall make alone.The air was cold around me when I set out this morning, but the evening has been quite lovely and I am calm.Calypso sways to a gentle swell and I hear it begin.A whisper like the suggestion of a breeze.Ripples across the water.Closer, closer.The memories reach out to me.Lit by neon in the city you smile at me, the night fountains shimmering as you sweep your fingers through the spray.Early morning on the river, ever-changing like the waterfront, the rituals of the past, the shock of the new.The shock of love.White sheets, golden skin.And, as I prepare to slip the lines, I see your face.‘How long have you known, Jimi?’ Harry asked, as her half-brother silently handed the logbook back to her.From this angle it was hard to believe that it was true, that this dandy in his sloppy black cardigan and black skinny jeans was anything to do with her.The heavy hair flopping over his forehead was clearly inherited from his mother and she looked out too from his dark, slanting eyes.Yet something had effected a transformation, some of the strutting confidence had evaporated, making him seem more approachable, more familiar somehow.And when he turned to her, his expression agitated, she knew that he was feeling just as sick and churned up as she was.Divided loyalties.Family secrets.Still, that’s what they had come to sort out.They walked beside the creek until Harry got tired of waiting for him to say something.She sat down on the bank where the tide was low enough for her to dangle her legs over the water.After only a quick look of concern for his designer jeans, Jimi followed suit.‘Harry,’ he began, sounding very nervous, ‘I know how it must have seemed.You must have thought I was only keen to find something to invalidate Matthew’s claim to the boat yard because I wanted something out of it.’‘Well, presumably you didn’t come all this way just to say hello.’‘No, not at first.But look at it this way – you got the lot, I had nothing! I didn’t even know that the Harry Watling I was looking for was dead until I turned up that day.’‘So what were you expecting? That he would turn round and say, “Hi, son! Welcome! Help yourself to half the boat yard?” No wonder you were so disappointed to discover the place was worthless.’His voice was raw.‘I thought I was owed something.I’d already lost my mother, and the man who I grew up thinking was my father drank and smoked himself to an early death with the strain of living a lie.He thought he couldn’t have children, so when I was born he really wanted to believe he was my father.It was only after my mother’s death, when he was going through her possessions, that he was confronted with the brutal truth: the man he trusted, his former business partner, his friend, had had an affair with his wife.’Jimi thumped his fist into the grass and turned to her, compelling her to meet his gaze.‘Can you imagine how betrayed he must have felt? To his credit, he never let on to me about what he knew, but his attitude changed overnight.He could barely stand living in the same house as me.Spent all his nights in the bars or at the gambling tables, trying to forget.He didn’t leave me a penny.So, yeah, I did think I was owed, big time!’Harry exhaled slowly, thinking back to the previous evening.Matthew had waited whilst she read the logbook, as the light slowly leached from the room.He watched her hand shaking as she placed it on the coffee table, nudging it away with one finger before she was tempted to pick it up and hurl it across the room.She had known that her father, drawn to the place where his father had served in the war and where he had been born, had spent many years skippering charter boats in the Far East; but the revelation of his other life filled her with anger and grief.When, at last, she’d finally given vent to the silent sobs racking her body, Matthew had gathered her up and held her to him, rocking her as if she was a child, until she stopped crying.The room was dark by then; and, when Matthew reached across to switch on one of the side lamps, they were reflected in the long night-black glass panels.Seeing herself curled into Matthew, his arm clasping her firmly to him, Harry ached to rest there, drawing comfort from his strength.In the half-light, it was easy to pretend that the tableau in the glass was real.Dragging herself away had been a bigger wrench than Matthew would ever know.‘Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?’ he’d offered, setting down his empty whisky tumbler.‘I’ll be fine in here.You might want someone close at hand if you wake up in the night.’Harry pushed the thought away, knowing that in any case there would be no sleep for her that night.Matthew looked exhausted too.When he dropped a light kiss on her head, Harry bit back the urge to tell him not to go and then watched him walk away.The morning air was still cool, the sun not yet risen, when she found herself wandering over to George’s caravan.The door opened before she’d even thought about knocking, and she knew there had been no sleep for the old man either.‘Bin on watch for you, Miss Harriet,’ he said, sitting her down with a mug of thick dark tea.And then he proceeded to fill in some of the gaps.The passage across the Bay of Bengal was one feared by many sailors for its typhoon zone.On this trip, feelings were running particularly high because Harry senior was in charge of bringing back two things very precious to his business partner, Scott Rutherford: his new sixty-foot yacht and his new bride, Irene.‘Scott wasn’t under any illusions that Irene Tan was starry-eyed about him,’ George had told her, gruff with the effort of remembering what had lain hidden for so long.‘But he knew she needed him and he hoped that love would follow.Irene ’ad been working as a translator and sending the money to her mother, who spent most of her husband’s small pension trying to ensure that Irene got a good education.’‘So Scott was a meal ticket?’George sighed.‘No.It wasn’t as harsh as that.Irene didn’t even want to leave her mother; she’d made up her mind that she would never have the chance to marry, that her duty would always be to her family.And Scott was a very persuasive man; he was always good at getting other people to do things.That’s why your Dad ended up doing all the work, whilst Scott gambled away the profits.’‘Why didn’t she leave him if she’d fallen in love with Dad?’‘Irene had a little sister, Daphne, who was severely disabled.Irene knew that she would need looking after for the rest of her life, and was prepared to sacrifice her own future to do it.But then Scott came along, promised he would pay for Daphne’s care and offered her a way out.’George smiled sadly.‘On the face of it Scott was the prudent choice all right; cool, rational, level-headed and he was, after all, her husband.Your dad, on the other hand, was a wild card, a risk taker, an adventurer [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]