her round stately homes where she ’ d gawp at the silver and oil paintings and lawns, and once in a while George would pick up an atmosphere. Happy ones, sad ones, downright creepy ones, maybe all of those in different rooms, and usually stronger in places like the nursery or the servants ’ rooms in the attics. Hardly ever in the grand, gilded staterooms. Her mum said it was because she was psychic and born with a caul over her head, but then her mum had some pretty weird ideas. George just knew that people leave something of themselves when they go.
She shivered, and tried to persuade herself it was the damp. The saloon was musty. It looked and felt empty. Book racks with no books. An old, iron stove, black and cold like the coal scuttle beside it. Teak woodwork, dark with age, grey with dust.
‘ Sleeping cabin through here. ’ Jack had to stoop beneath the deckhead. He opened a narrower door in the forward bulkhead, to one side of the stove. George peered around him at a cramped space with a single berth port side, and a narrow double to starboard. Both had leeboards fitted to stop you falling out in rough weather, and they looked coffin-deep without their mattresses. A hole in the deckhead showed where the mast had been. A tarpaulin had been stretched over the gap, but damp had come in just the same, making a puddle of slime on the deck around the void where the mast had been stepped.
‘ This was my bunk, as a boy. ’ Jack put his hand inside the single berth and felt upwards, making a metallic rattle against a curtain rail. Leeboards and curtains, very cosy. The atmosphere was stronger here. Soon she ’ d be able to put a name to it.
‘ Can you imagine what it was like, for a boy? ’ Jack ’ s smile broadened into a grin, his guard slipping. ‘ Sailing off to adventure? Channel Islands? One summer we went round Brittany into Biscay. ’
‘ Just the two of you? ’ She was a big boat for two people to go cruising in , especially if one of them was a kid.
‘ When I was older, in my teens perhaps. Day sailing only, and Grandpa was stronger, back then. We both knew what we were doing. ’
‘ People say he was a pretty wild sailor. Took risks. ’
‘ Not with me, he didn ’ t. ’ Jack sounded defensive.
‘ It was before my time, anyway, ’ George shrugged. ‘ Chippy Alan would know, if you want some local stories. ’
‘ Chippy Alan? ’
‘ Shipwright. Works here … ’ She stopped when she saw loss in his eyes. ‘ You really loved him, didn ’ t you? ’
‘ Grandpa … ’ Jack ’ s voice faded away then started again, more strongly. ‘ Grandpa opened up horizons. He gave me permission to be myself. ’ He turned away.
‘ Fo ’ c ’ s ’ le through there? ’ George nodded at another door, leading further forward. Jack pushed it open.
‘ Stores. Sail lockers. There ’ s another pull-down bunk in there, but it ’ s not comfortable. It ’ s where they put the paid hand when the owner employed a crew. ’
The ‘ bunk ’ wasn ’ t much more than five feet long, wedged in behind a thick metal pipe that must have run from the anchor on deck to the chain locker below.
‘ I suppose that ’ s what they mean by sailing short- handed, ’ she quipped.
He had a smile that started small but broadened, lifting his face. George felt she ’ d been given a glimpse of a sweeter person hiding inside that dour exterior.
‘ So I ’ d have one hull of a problem. ’
And he could come back at her. It wasn ’ t great humour from either of them, but it broke the ice. Then she remembered his wedding ring and led the way back into the saloon.
‘ Will your family restore her? She ’ d be worth a fortune, done up. ’
‘ Grandpa wants to be cremated on board, at sea, and for Draca to be scuttled. ’
‘ Feck, what a waste! ’
‘ It ’ s also illegal. I checked. The authorities aren ’ t keen on half- burned bodies washing up on the beaches. Besides, ’ he ran a finger over the table, leaving a shiny trail through the dust, ‘ I don ’ t think I could do it. This ship is Grandpa. He bought her as a wreck and spent years restoring her. It would be like killing him all over again. ’
The atmosphere in the boat caught George for a moment, and she shivered again. It lurked in the background, just enough to make her uncomfortable. She sniffed, trying to make it out, but smelled only damp and rot and a hint of stale tobacco. It was as if she was in someone ’ s house without permission, knowing that the owner would be back soon. She stood still for a moment, trying to decipher this mood, and lifted her fingers to touch a deckhead beam. Here, where the dust hadn ’ t settled, the wood glowed a rich, dark honey. The impression was stronger through her fingers, and she closed her eyes, listening. She had the sense that if that absent owner came back, he wouldn ’ t like her and she wouldn ’ t like him, but the boat was waiting for him. And it was definitely a ‘ him ’ .
Weird. Jack Ahlquist was standing beside her as she opened her eyes and dropped her hand, watching her with grey, gentle eyes that looked tired in the shadows of the cabin. She turned and made for the companion ladder up to the deck, still not sure why the boat made her so uncomfortable. Anyway, she had a boatyard to run.
II: GEORGE
Eddie Ahlquist didn ’ t get the fireship funeral Jack said he wanted, but a bog- standard cremation. George went, to represent the boatyard, but got there early because the buses weren ’ t convenient. She had over an hour to kill sitting on a bench outside a crem that had as much soul as a drive-through McDonalds.
Her mum had it right, although George had been young enough to sneer at the time. When her mum knew she was dying, she asked for a woodland burial, and chose a wicker coffin that creaked like a picnic basket when they lifted her. Her new-age girlfriends wore bright, Indian- print dresses, and burned joss sticks and candles in jam jars at the graveside. They ’ d all grown up in the Flower Power hippie era, and somehow never left it. One of them even brought finger cymbals. They wove yellow celandine flowers into her m um ’ s hair before they closed the coffin. Strange how colours stick with you, even though George always remembered her not in yellow but in shades of silver and violet. They glowed like a Mum-shaped photo frame around her memory.
That happened, with people she knew. Colours, that is. Her mum talked about auras, which made George laugh because she made it sound like people walked around all lit up like a Christmas tree. She wished her mum had lived long enough for them to have had a proper conversation about that stuff. It was just that some colours seemed to fit when she thought of people. They told her about them, the way they told her that Eddie was going to die. On her bench outside the crem , George watched Jack Ahlquist arrive, and when she thought about him he had strong reds, moody blues and sad greys. Interesting but dangerous.
Then an older man came who could only be Jack ’ s father and Eddie ’ s son. All of them sandy haired, big boned and strong jawed. Jack ’ s dad shepherded people outside the crematorium, shaking hands, the man in charge. He had the thick neck of someone who pumped iron, and a mouth that was a thin, straight line. When he smiled, the line got wider but didn ’ t curve upwards, it just got bracketed by folds in his cheeks, sharp as the triangles on a navigation buoy.
George stayed on her bench because she didn ’ t know anyone there apart from Jack, and he was busy with family. No one else came from the boatyard, not even Eddie ’ s old sailing cronies. He ’ d lost a lot of friends in recent years, but that was sad.
George could learn a lot from watching people. At first, everyone looked the same. All in black, all with that funeral look as if they wore a passport photograph where their faces should be. She could make out the Ahlquist crowd, all hugs and kisses except Jack, and then there was an older man and two women who stood a bit apart, both more smartly dressed than the rest, and the only