A Matter of Time

by David Manuel

  She shivered again. It was cold in here, despite the fire Eustace had laid in the hearth. She looked up at the portrait of her father above the cherry wood mantel, next to the huge Hagerbaumer of a covey of quail breaking cover in the early morning. Avery Baxter was resplendent in his red Abercrombie & Fitch tweed shooting jacket and chamois vest with its shotgun-shell buttons. He was standing in a pine grove alongside a horse-drawn shooting wagon, with his prized Holland & Holland cradled in his arm. Seated at his feet, looking alert, were his two German shorthair pointers, Panzer and Blitzkrieg.

  “You’re such a snob,” she murmured at the portrait. If it were just that, she thought, smiling sadly, she could probably endure this penance vile, to which she had sentenced herself and Jamie. But the side of her father that had always chilled her, despite his efforts at genial behavior, was beginning to show again. He always got his way eventually, and it was beginning to look like he had, once again.

  A small noise behind her, made her turn. It was Jamie, in from playing. “Mommy? I miss Dad. I miss our boat.”

  “I know, dear.”

  The boy looked at her, head tilted. “We are going home soon, aren’t we?”

  “I don’t know, darling; we’ll see.”

  “I hate it when grown-ups say, ‘We’ll see.’ It’s such a cop-out! They want to say no, but they don’t have the guts!”

  “Stop talking like your father.”

  “I miss him.”

  “You said that.”

  He frowned at her. “Well, I want you to know it! I want you to consider that, when you make your decision.”

  “What decision?”

  “About what’s going to happen to us.”

  She sighed and shook her head. Their thirty-year-old, eight-year-old. “What are you talking about?”

  “I heard you guys.”

  “Heard—what?” she asked, suddenly dreading the answer.

  “The fight, about what was going to happen to me.”

  “Jamie!” she exclaimed, reaching out to enfold him in her arms. “I’m sorry!”

  He pulled away. “You guys never fight. Then you did, and now we’re here.”

  She was at a loss for words.

  Her son wasn’t. “I just want you to know: This place sucks!”

  “That’s an ugly expression.”

  “Dad uses it. A lot.”

  She sighed. “It’s almost supper time. Why don’t you go play computer games.”

  Scowling, he nonetheless turned and went down the hall. Avery Baxter had done a shrewd thing in anticipation of their coming. He had hired an electronic games consultant to fill a room with the games young people played—all the latest, all the best. And Jamie, in spite of himself, had been impressed.

  But he still thought the place sucked, she reminded herself. How did she feel about it?

  It’s a little late to be wondering about that, she rebuked herself. I mean, since you’ve just done something that will make this “home” for the rest of your life.

  Oh, God, if only he would call!

  Down the hall came Eustace, gently bonging the four dinner chimes with the padded mallet.

  “What did you do this afternoon, Jamie?” asked his grandfather, when they were all at their places.

  “Played computer games.”

  “All afternoon?”

  “No, sir,” said the boy, poking his peas, “after I’d played with Blitzen.”

  His grandfather smiled. “His name is Blitzkrieg.”

  “Blitzen, Blitzkrieg, whatever.” The boy shrugged and did not look up.

  “It’s an important distinction,” his grandfather went on, with a patient smile. “One is the name of a reindeer, the other is a concept that revolutionized modern mechanized warfare.”

  “Oh,” the boy responded, still not looking up.

  “Oh?” his grandfather persisted.

  Jamie slammed his fork down, sending peas in all directions. “Okay, I’m sorry, all right?” he blurted out. “I won’t play with Blitzen any more.”

  He turned to his mother and shouted, “You remember what I told you about this place? Well, it does! Big-time!” And with that he ran from the table.

  Her father took a bite of fat-free salad and chewed thoughtfully. “What did he say about this place?”

  Amy sighed. “He just misses his father. He’ll get over it.”

  She did not tell him the exact quote, because she was beginning to believe that Jamie might be right.

  17 the beater

  The White Horse’s chief bartender came down to Colin’s end of the bar. “Phone’s for you,” he said, nodding at the kitchen end of the bar.

  “Who is it?” asked Colin.

  “How should I know?”

  “Aye, me sainted mother, God rest her soul, warned me never to talk to strangers.” Colin squinted at his friend. “Michael, me lad, now tell me: Is it man or woman?”

  “It’s a man,” said the bartender, wiping his hands on a bar towel. “Take the call or I’m hanging it up.”

  “I don’t care to talk to a man. I want to talk to a woman. One woman. My wife.”

  Mike relented, knowing as all the White Horse did, that Amy had left him, and that was why he was in here, tying one on. “Well,” he added with a smile, “it sounded like there was a party going on behind him, if that makes a difference.”

  “Makes all the difference!” exclaimed Colin, grinning, as he walked down to the phone and picked up the receiver.

  It was Anson Phelps. “Colin! I’ve been looking all over for you, man! You must have your cell phone turned off. Called your apartment, called the harbor master to find out if you were on your boat—why aren’t you over here?”

  Colin could hear the band at the Bacardi reception. Under any other circumstances….

  “I asked them to send you an invitation; didn’t you get it?”

  “Didn’t check my mail,” he lied.

  “Well, come on over!” cried Anson. “It’s a great party! Everyone’s here—Dennis, Murray, Magnus, Neil, Neville, Chris—they’re all here! And they’re wondering why you’re not.”

  “They are?” Colin was touched that his mates from Australia and New Zealand wanted to see him.

  “Yeah, man! The Aussies and Kiwis only get here once a year. They want to see their main man in Bermuda. Where’s the Beater, they keep asking.”

  Colin chuckled. The nickname had originated with his nephew, when Eric was six. He’d taken the boy along on a fitted dinghy race, which he’d won. “Uncle Colin!” cried the delighted boy. “You’re the beater! I want to be the beater when I grow up!” The crew in his dinghy and the adjacent dinghy had heard this, and he’d been “The Beater” ever since.

  He decided he owed him the truth. Anson was one of his ushers, and the Rolex in the drawer was the result of his picking him for his crew ten years ago.

  “Amy’s left me.”

  “Oh, man! That’s not good. I thought you guys were forever.”

  “So did I.”

  Anson thought for a moment. “Look, I was going to talk to you about something important, and—well, maybe it’ll help. At least, to get your mind off things.”

  Colin gave a rueful laugh. “Let’s see if I can guess: You want me to crew for you next week.”

  There was a pause. “You’re amazing!”

  It was not so amazing. Each year in October, the best ocean racers in the world met in Bermuda for the Gold Cup—five days of one-on-one match racing, until on Sunday afternoon (a week from tomorrow) only one captain was left standing. Since the boats—International One Design—and sails were provided by the Royal Bermuda Yacht Club, the Gold Cup was the closest thing to a test of pure skill that it was possible to find.

  Eight skippers were invited, usually those with the highest international ranking. For them, entry fees were waived, but that was the only inducement. No appearance money was needed to draw them. They came because, if you were convinced that the captain did not exist w
ho could beat you in a fair race (and all considered the Gold Cup to be the fairest, best-run regatta on the planet), then Bermuda was the place to prove it.

  Sixteen other captains, unseeded, had to pay for the privilege of battling it out, to see, after a round-robin of match-ups, which of them would face the seeded captains. For the unseeds, this was their entry into the game. If they did well, the world would know that there was some hot talent coming up. And sometimes an unseed won, beating the best of the best (that year).

  Invariably one IOD hull might be a shade faster in heavy wind, while another might have the edge in lighter conditions. Therefore, each day’s contestants drew lots to see who would be in which boat. There was also a weight limit—which resulted the previous year in the heaviest skipper riding around the island in a rubber suit, to sweat off enough pounds to keep all three of his crewmates.

  No one was supposed to have an edge, but of course, everyone tried for one anyway. And there was a way. Two years ago, Dennis Connor had persuaded local ace Paula Lewin, a skilled captain in her own right, to set aside her own ambitions and join his crew. He wanted someone familiar with the capricious, unpredictable, knock-you-down winds that bedeviled Hamilton Harbour, where the two-buoy course would be laid out.

  This year Anson wanted the same edge. The stakes were enormous—infinitely higher than the $20,000 first-prize money. Most of the seeded captains, who would be competing against one another in the upcoming America’s Cup, were also the chief fund-raisers for their respective syndicates.

  Anson Phelps, who had won one Cup and would be one of the favorites in the next trials, had already raised $60 million for his Marblehead syndicate. That was enough to put one newly designed hull in the water. But to be truly competitive, they would need a second boat, a stalking horse to race against in preparation. That, plus crew, plus all expenses for two years, would take another $30 million—and it would have to be fresh money from unknown sources, since the syndicate’s members were tapped out.

  It was up to Anson to find that money. And since all of them were beating the bushes for new backers (sometimes the same bush), if he did well here, it would obviously make his job much easier. That’s why he wanted the edge that Colin could give him.

  Colin had given up ocean racing to concentrate on his family. Except—at the moment his family was on the verge of extinction.

  “Colin?” Anson’s voice came over the phone. “You there?”

  “Oh, yeah, sorry, man.”

  “Well?”

  “Got to think about it.”

  “You’re still the best, man. Still the Beater.”

  Encouraged by the fact he’d not said no, Anson sweetened the pot. “Come with me, and I’ll make you crew chief for the next Cup.”

  Colin could feel his competitive juices starting to run. He may have given up racing, but racing had clearly not given up on him. Still, he hesitated.

  “All right, Colin!” exclaimed Anson, playing his ace, “come with me next week, and if we win, and I can raise the dough for a second boat, you get her. You can have her wheel.”

  Colin’s eyes widened. If he’d ever dreamed of skippering an America’s Cup contender, this was the next step. “How long before I have to let you know?”

  Anson roared with laughter. “That got you, didn’t it! Figured it would! Come on over here, and we’ll have a drink on it.”

  “Give me your cell phone number. I’ll call you in an hour.”

  Anson gave it to him. “Don’t take any longer than that, man. There’s half a dozen onions around here who’d give their right arm for the chance. But I want the Beater.”

  “I’ll call you, man,” said Colin, hanging up.

  Behind the bar, Mike was about to make him a fresh drink, but Colin shook his head. “Nope, got to think now.”

  What he wanted to do was call Amy, and ask her what she thought. He went out into the night, to use his cell phone.

  He started to dial the number for Live Oaks, then stopped, frozen by the memory of The Fight.

  It happened ten days ago, the night after she’d gotten back from settling her father at home, after his bypass surgery. At first, it was just a squall on the horizon, no bigger than a man’s hand. If only he’d thought to look at the barometer…. But he was just glad to have her home. She’d never been away for two weeks before, not even to see her mother at the end. Jamie spoke for both of them, when he cried, “Yay, Mom! Swiss Family Bennett’s back together again! Let’s take Care Away out for the rest of the day to celebrate!”

  Colin grinned and turned to his wife. “Honey?”

  Amy was not smiling. “I’ve got a wicked cold.” She frowned. “Why isn’t he in school?”

  “He asked if he could stay home to welcome you, and I thought that was about the best reason for missing school I’d ever heard of!”

  “Better than your reasons, when you kept skipping school?”

  “Huh?” Colin looked at her, surprised

  “I don’t think he should miss school if he’s not sick.”

  Colin sighed. “Okay, bad call. You want to go sailing, or not?”

  “Not.”

  That was how it began. It ended after Jamie had gone to bed.

  “Honey, what’s the matter? You’ve had your knickers in a twist ever since you got home.”

  She glared at him. “I hate that expression! It’s a crude, vulgar cliché—like a lot of the things you say. Just because we live on a boat, doesn’t mean you have to sound like—”

  “Like what? A boat bum?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Well, I think we’d better,” he said evenly, studying her. “It’s your father, isn’t it.”

  “If we’re going to talk,” she went on, ignoring what he’d just said, “I want to go back to this business of school. We’ve got to take Jamie’s schooling seriously if he’s going to have a chance to go to prep school off-island.”

  “Off-island? Why on earth would he want to do that? You want him to go to college? He can get in any college, in England or the States, right out of Hamilton Academy. But all he wants is to become a sea captain as soon as possible.”

  “Like you.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “He’s only eight! Most boys grow out of their boyhood fantasies, like wanting to be fighter pilots.”

  “Or boat captains?”

  “Or boat captains.”

  Now he was mad. And hurt. “It was good enough for you once!” he shouted, then caught himself. “Ames, what is it?”

  She took a deep breath. “It’s just that I see things—differently now. Maybe I had to get off this boat, to get some perspective, after eight years.”

  “Eight pretty good years.”

  “They were good,” she admitted. “But maybe they could have been better. Much better.”

  He was beginning to suspect where this was coming from. He sought her eyes. “Why do you want him to go to prep school off-island?”

  She would not meet his gaze. “Because maybe he needs some perspective, like I did. And the sooner, the better.”

  “You want him to go to Deerfield, don’t you.”

  “Why not? You and your brother did.”

  “Yeah, and we both wound up captains, like our father.”

  “Well, maybe he won’t. Maybe he’ll want something better.”

  That really hurt, and she knew it. He did not trust himself to answer.

  She did not feel the same compunction. “I just think he should have the same opportunity you had, even if you booted yours away.”

  “Well, we’re getting downright bitchy, aren’t we!” Again he caught himself. “Amy,” he pleaded, “this isn’t you. It’s your father talking. And he’s filled you full of his—” he narrowly avoided the crude, vulgar cliché that leapt to mind.

  “He may have talked to me,” she cut in sharply, “but what he said makes sense!”

  Colin sighed and shook his head. “He got
ten to you, Ames; can’t you see that?”

  “All I can see is someone who’s too selfish to give his son the same opportunity he was given.”

  Colin flung the rest of his coffee over the side. “Oh, I see where this is going! To save the kind of money it would take to send him to Deerfield, I’d have to work all year long.”

  “You mean, like everyone else?”

  “You’re hittin’ pretty hard there, ducks!”

  “You said Sandy Harrison offered you a partnership in his boatyard.”

  “Is that what you want?” Colin shouted. “Me to spend all winter scraping barnacles off rich people’s yachts, and all summer teaching their brats how to sail?”

  “Well, how did you expect to pay for Jamie’s education?”

  “Never really thought about it,” he replied honestly.

  “Well, if you had?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.

  “Don’t know,” he shrugged. “Guess it could come out of the trust fund.”

  “My trust fund,” she corrected him. “You want to spend my money on our son’s education, because you don’t want to work hard.” She looked at him, her head tilted. “You know, you really are a boat bum!”

  “Well,” he said standing up, “you don’t want to live with this boat bum any longer? Fine! Go back to Georgia!”

  “Maybe I will.”

  He spat out a string of crude, vulgar clichés, and she left that night, taking Jamie with her. That was ten days ago, and now the divorce papers had arrived.

  He stared down at the cell phone and decided to make the call. No matter what she might say, she could not make him more miserable than he felt right now.

  18 always in love with amy

  Shivering in the night air, Colin stared down at the illuminated face of his cell phone. The number for Live Oaks was on the screen, but the strength of the signal left something to be desired. When he tried walking south towards the water, it grew even weaker. He went in the opposite direction, and it improved—enough to make the call. He pushed the talk button, the phone rang, and Eustace answered. “Baxter residence.”