The Bed I Made (30 page)

It had occurred to me that perhaps Pete regretted saying I should come sailing again, and that putting me off was a way of gently rescinding the invitation, but, true to his word, he did call the following Friday. The forecast was better, he said, overcast and not especially warm but with less chance of rain. He was calling from a landline, not the mobile whose number I’d stored; it was the first time I’d seen an Island code come up on my phone.

This time we left the Newtown River and turned to the west. We sailed past the woods that crowded down to the shore along that part of the coast, and then on towards Yarmouth. We passed the shingle bank where I had been standing when I’d watched the lifeboat tow Alice’s scow back in, and I turned my thoughts away. I didn’t want to think about her here, on
Beatrice
; I didn’t like the idea of being in her place.

Pete saw her everywhere, I was sure. He was quieter today, the peace between us somehow different, more melancholy. As we went out by Fort Victoria on the point, I heard a bell tolling, its low funereal sound reaching towards us over the water. It sent a shiver over me.

‘OK?’ he asked.

‘Fine – just a bit chilly. What’s that bell?’

‘It’s in the buoy – Sconce, that one’s called.’ He pointed to a black metal structure rocking slowly on the waves about thirty feet away. ‘If it’s foggy here, you can’t see the channel markers.’

The tolling went on and to me it sounded like a lament for all those who had been lost here – not only Alice but hundreds and hundreds of people, wrecked and drowned, stretching back through centuries. I tried to ignore it but on it went, lugubrious, until it was no longer a lament but warning, premonitory.

With no sun, the water was grey-green. It shifted constantly, the tidal race visible where the channel narrowed between the promontory at Hurst on the mainland and Sconce Point on the Island, the occasional white horse breaking the surface. There was a good breeze for sailing – about a force four, Pete said – and the sails were tight with it. He let me have the helm and moved around on the deck up near the bow putting up a deep maroon sail as well as the main one, pulling the rope hard down to run it up. ‘The spinnaker,’ he told me, coming back into the cockpit.

He was smoking today, which I hadn’t seen him do before. His car didn’t smell of cigarettes, either; I would have noticed. He cupped his hand around the flame while he lit one and then held it out to me. ‘You do, don’t you?’

‘Occasionally,’ I said. ‘Thanks.’

‘I thought we’d go down to Purbeck to see Old Harry.’

‘Who’s Old Harry?’

He smiled. ‘It’s a chalk stack by the cliffs there, part of the same seam as the back of the Island.’ He lapsed back into silence, smoking his cigarette and tossing the butt over the side. I watched him surreptitiously. The Musto jacket had been replaced today by a heavy oiled-wool navy jumper, the collar of a checked shirt just visible underneath. The jeans were the paint-splashed ones but they’d been through the wash: the mud on the knees was gone. He looked more tired than he had last time, older. The circles under his eyes were deep and grey. It was my imagination, of course, but his hair seemed greyer, too, in the short bits above his ears. I offered him the helm but he shook his head.

It wasn’t until after we’d eaten that he seemed to warm up a bit. It was a relief; I’d begun to think that he didn’t really want to be here, that he’d only come out to honour his promise. I’d filled rolls today with roast beef and horseradish, two each, but he wolfed his down so quickly that I pretended I didn’t want my second one and gave it to him. The banana and apple went in similar fashion.

‘Here,’ I said, keeping my hand on the tiller. ‘You take this and I’ll make us some coffee. There’s biscuits, too.’

‘It’s OK, I’ll do it.’

‘No – it must be your turn now.’

It was warmer down in the cabin out of the wind. I filled the tin kettle, then found the matches in the cubby hole above the little stove and lit the ring. There was the sound of the winch up on deck and our angle deepened. I held on to the edge of the sink and steadied the kettle as it rocked on the frame that held it above the gas. Through the portholes on the lower side, I could see only water now.

When the kettle had boiled I climbed carefully back into the cockpit with the mugs. He lit me another cigarette and I sat near him at the back of the boat and listened to the water rushing past, bubbling behind us.

‘I’m not good company today,’ he said.

‘You don’t need to talk all the time for that.’

‘It’s her birthday – my wife’s.’

Taken aback, I said nothing.

‘I haven’t been fair with you. This is why I postponed last week. I thought that you wouldn’t want to come three weeks running and I really wanted some company today – you know: to take my mind off it. I didn’t want Chris or my mother; I wanted someone who wouldn’t fuss. I find your company,’ he searched for the word, ‘easy. But now I feel dishonest – like I’ve got you here under false pretences.’

‘It’s OK.’

‘No, it’s not.’

We lapsed into silence again but strangely it felt better, open at least. I watched a yacht coming the opposite way and noticed how much more slowly it was going than we were. ‘Is that because of the wind direction?’ I asked. ‘That they’re just sitting on the water like that, not really going anywhere?’

He shook his head. ‘More the direction of the tide.’ He finished his coffee and put the mug down by his feet. ‘I’ve never asked you why you came here,’ he said. He looked at me directly for the first time all day. In the setting of their grey rings, his eyes looked particularly green.

‘The usual story,’ I said. ‘Love affair gone bad.’

He nodded but didn’t ask anything else. A minute or so passed.

‘You know I said at Chris’s that Dad used to bring us here on holiday? We came for the first time the year after my mother left us.’

He took his eyes off the sail and looked at me again.

‘I associated it with getting your life back together. It was the first place where Dad and my brother and I were at all happy again. It was like a bomb through our family when she went. She’d threatened it – there were arguments and she shouted at him all the time, saying she’d leave – but we didn’t think she’d really do it.’

‘That’s what it feels like,’ he said. ‘Like a bomb.’ He took a small metal clip out of his pocket and looked at it, turning it between his fingers.

There was a sudden gust of wind that seemed to come from a different direction; the sail went slack and flapped wildly; the boat rocked upright.

‘Sorry,’ he said, when he’d got it under control again. ‘I’ll concentrate.’

When we came in sight of the chalk cliffs at Purbeck, they were looming up out of the fine mist that rose from the water’s surface. Gulls and other, darker birds floated round them, landing on ledges worn into the soft cliff face and on the grass that clung to its top. There was Old Harry, a free-standing pillar of chalk as Pete had described, surrounded by the rubble of a partner column that had broken up and fallen into the sea. In the bay that arced round behind it, there was a long sandy beach lined with huts closed up for the winter, keeping a vigil over the smooth water that stretched back to the Island, now lost in the haze behind us.

‘I love it,’ he said. ‘I think it’s one of the most beautiful places on earth. Sometimes when Alice was away I’d come here and spend a couple of days on the boat, just reading and watching the birds and the other boats.’

On the way back, he let me have the helm again, and he tightened ropes and gave me instructions until the boat heeled over so far that I thought the water would start lapping over the lower edge of the deck. We were creaming along, carving a line in the water behind us that I wouldn’t have thought possible without a motor. Pete sat on the edge of the cockpit, his feet on the seats, the wind blowing through his hair. He turned to me and grinned, his cheeks and hands red with the cold and wind, some of the light back in his eyes. This was it, I thought, this was what it was like to be really free, to have just the water and the sea and the sky overhead, to be an element among all the others.

Even the darker clouds gathering behind us didn’t bother me. I loved the way they changed the light over the water, accentuated the line between sea and sky. As we came back up past the Needles – too soon, too soon, I thought, knowing we were heading home – the white of the chalk cliffs there seemed preternaturally bright against the dark water and the body of the Island behind.

Ten minutes later the first rain began to fall. I hadn’t brought either my leather jacket or my ankle-length wool coat; neither had seemed appropriate for the boat. Instead, bearing in mind Pete’s forecast, I’d bundled up in lots of layers and a chunky jumper on top. I had nothing waterproof.

The occasional drops grew more frequent and made dark circles on the wooden decks. My hair was damp now and my hands were stiff with cold on the tiller.

‘There’s an old oilskin of mine in the locker by the chart table,’ he said. ‘Here; I’ll take that while you go and put it on. You can’t get wet – you’ll freeze.’

He slackened off the ropes a little so the boat was at an easier angle and I went down into the cabin again. I took the cushion off the seat and opened the locker, unleashing a fustier version of the damp, diesel smell of the hull. Underneath a couple of life jackets was a yellow water-skin. I took it out and dropped the lid back down.

It was only when I shook it out that I realised the jacket was too small to be his. He wouldn’t have been able to get his arms into it. As I held it up in the dim light, out of view of the hatch, I knew it must be Alice’s.

‘Find it all right?’ his voice came down.

‘Fine – thanks.’ I hesitated. Clearly he’d thought it was his – they must have had similar ones. He’d think it odd now if I reappeared without it but, on the other hand, I felt a fierce opposition to putting it on, both for his sake and mine. I didn’t want to wear her jacket and how would it make him feel, if I came up wearing it? But was it worse not to put it on, to make a fuss and make him feel uncomfortable that way? Maybe acting normal was the thing to do.

Time was passing. In the end, I took a snap decision and put it on.

I knew I’d made a mistake as soon as I climbed the steps back up. He’d been smiling but when he saw the jacket, the obvious size of it, the smile dropped from his face. I stopped, unsure whether to carry on or go back down and take it off.

‘Are you coming up?’ he said. ‘You can’t stand on the ladder.’

I came quickly up and sat down in the corner of the cockpit, at a distance from him. He didn’t offer me the helm again and we didn’t talk. Instead he ran us up the Solent so tight to the increasing wind that I had to hold on to the edge of the seat. The water hissed past. Every time I moved even slightly, the stiff material of the jacket creaked, making its presence felt, and its damp smell got into my nostrils. I wished I could take it off and throw it over the side, watch the bloody thing disappear in our wake. He didn’t look at me.

By the time we got back to the river at Newtown, the rain was falling steadily. I went below and took the jacket off as soon as we reached the mooring, shoving it back under the life jackets and only just resisting the urge to slam the lid down after it.

I’d thought we’d come in early but the tide was some way out and the viable channel had shrunk and was now bordered with banks of stinking mud. The surface of the water flashed with circles as the rain fell heavier and heavier. My jumper and hair were soaked. There wasn’t enough water left further up the creek to take the dinghy back to its original place, and the outboard whined as its propeller caught against a rock on the bottom. ‘Fucking hell,’ he said, loudly enough to be audible over it. He throttled down until we were creeping upstream. Neither of us said anything. Finally he brought us to the only ladder at the quay that was still accessible. Its bottom rungs were slimy with weed and I almost lost my footing and fell backwards.

As we bumped up the lane, avoiding the worst of the potholes, the atmosphere improved slightly. The swarm of Canada geese was quiet, huddled together and subdued by the rain. ‘I almost feel sorry for them,’ he said. ‘Almost.’ I looked at him quickly and detected a hint of apology in the lift at the corner of his mouth.

In Yarmouth, he pulled up at the end of the passageway to let me out. ‘I’m really sorry,’ he said, staring straight ahead. ‘It took me by surprise – the jacket.’

‘No, I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know what to do.’

‘I didn’t realise it was hers in there; she hadn’t been on the boat for such a long time.’ His voice sounded tired. ‘Look, I’d completely understand if you didn’t want to come out again but – if you’d like to, you’ve got my number.’

‘Thank you. And thank you for today. It was good – really.’

The keys in the ignition jangled as he touched them. I took it as my cue to go and plunged out of the car back into the rain.

Later on, after supper and a bath that almost banished the chill that had worked its way into my bones, I rang Helen. I felt slightly better about the afternoon now but I had the old impulse to lay my feelings out and let her light shine on them. I also wanted to tell her what I suspected – knew – about Richard, I couldn’t put it off any longer. Both her home number and her mobile went straight to voicemail. It was Saturday night, though; what did I expect? Other people went out.