She closed her eyes in a sigh of relief. "Thank you, sir." But immediately she forced herself to rally. "No. It's my boat. We'll all do it. But I want Neil out of the way. Is he below?"
"I saw him crawling forward a little while ago." Colin tied his Gloucester hat under his chin and grinned. "That kid certainly understands where his center of gravity is."
"The motion must be horrible in the forecastle. Maybe I should—"
"He'll be fine. You worry too much. You don't want a mama's boy on your hands, do you?" he asked, sounding very much like Sam, very much like a man.
It was still early afternoon, but the sky had a mean look to it: gray and sullen. The rollers were higher now; the wind was blowing the surface of the sea into spindrift. On deck Laura braced herself against the cabin and watched the Virginia's stern lift, lift, and lift some more as Stubby lined up the boat's quarter to take the brunt of the curling wave, which broke underneath and moved harmlessly away, another in an endless procession of mounting crests. Stubby, dauntless ex-truck driver, called out a cheerful greeting and spun the wheel over to the other side.
To Laura his serene ignorance of the danger around him was a source of wonder. He did not see, apparently, that unlike a highway, here there were no scenic overlooks, no quiet shoulders to pull over and rest on, no all-night diners in which to grab a cup of coffee before hitting the road again. No: on the ocean, the road hit you—again and again and again—and if your ship was strong enough, and you were strong enough, you lived to talk about it. Undoubtedly Stubby was strong enough.
She took the wheel from him. "We're heaving-to, Stubbs," she said loudly over the wind. "Stay close to Colin and do what he says. Consider this as a kind of pit-stop," she added with a brave laugh.
It was not until Laura headed the Virginia up into the wind for them to drop the sails that she realized its full fury. Her hat blew off her head and skipped along the deck like a leaf across a lawn; the wind drove salt spray hard into her face, stinging her eyes and making it impossible to see ahead. She felt suddenly demoralized and isolated from the men who were struggling to hold their footing in the lift and plunge of the boat as they brought down the main and foresails and lashed them fast. It took five times longer to get them down; five times longer to set the small scrap of a storm-jib.
It seemed to Laura that there was something personal in the wind's fury, that it had a special grievance against her. She had seen bad weather before, and she knew the Virginia was up to it, but she had never before felt such an element of passion—she could think of no other word for it—in a storm such as the one they were in.
When at last they all went down below, dripping and rather stupid-faced from their efforts, Neil was waiting to take their jackets. Laura realized that they had not been all together in the saloon cabin since the day they'd left New London. They shed their gear rather awkwardly, as if they'd been thrown together from different social strata into a cocktail party. The reason for their diffidence was obvious: even now Colin was being hopelessly, irresistibly indiscreet by lifting what was left of Laura's soggy braid and letting it fall with a plop across her back. It could have been nothing, a friendly gesture, but when two people were suspected lovers ….
"Well! Here we all are," she said with a brightness she did not feel. "The motion is so much better now, isn't it?"
They looked around them, trying to gauge whether it was or not. The smiles came gradually, starting with Colin: it really was quieter below, as if someone had stopped rocking a cradle wildly back and forth while banging on it with a wooden spoon. The Virginia was a hobbyhorse now, bobbing gently in the big swells.
"Can you hear that?" asked Stubby, awestruck. "The Ginny has finally stopped her bitchin' and moanin'. Finally I can hear m'self think."
Billy grinned and gave his friend a shove. "We'd have to be in a tomb for that."
Just then a wave slammed hard against the hull, sending all of them tumbling into one another. By the time they'd unscrambled themselves, the boat was back to hobbyhorsing quietly. Laura looked from Neil's apprehensive face to Billy's, then smiled and said, "Nobody said the system is perfect. After all, the boat is steering herself. But I'll tell you what: we deserve a special treat for this. Will it be honey cakes or tapioca pudding?"
The vote was split. Laura made both, despite the difficulty of cooking below, while the boys played "go fish." Colin had taken himself forward to check the hold, perhaps to ensure that the mood in the main saloon stayed relaxed. Laura did notice the difference: without him there it was more like the old days, when the atmosphere was one of innocent pleasure.
Without him there, her heart seemed to roll to a stop, like a car that had run out of gas.
She had expected the smell of fresh-brewed coffee and hot pastry to bring Colin running. When it did not, she said to Neil, "Would you see what Colin is up to, honey?"
"I'd rather not," her son answered tersely. "Can't Billy go?"
For days now Neil had been acting betrayed. Up until that moment Laura had been feeling guilty about it, but just then it annoyed her. Her son was like a little wet blanket, throwing a damp chill over the toasty camaraderie in the galley. "Never mind, then," she said with some asperity. "Billy, would you?"
Billy had just won the last round at cards. "You owe me twenty-three dollars, squirt," he said, pulling a lock of Neil's blond hair. He jumped up, leaned his head in the passageway, bawled out, "Colin! Dessert's on!" and sat back down at the saloon table. "Now pay up or walk the plank," he demanded gravely.
Laura had spread out a damp towel on the table top to keep the plates from sliding and had just laid out the honey cakes when Colin appeared, looking shaken. At the same moment, a glimmer of hazy sun fell through the skylight, throwing his shadow on the painted bulkhead behind him. For an instant she stared at him, suddenly very upset, not understanding why. Then it occurred to her.
"My God! The sun! I can take a sight!" She whirled and dove for the mahogany box in which she kept her sextant, but Colin intercepted her.
"Forget the sun," he said in a low, urgent voice that no one could hear, "and come with me."
Her heart plunged; the boat must be sinking. He had discovered a leak and they were going down. "Yes, of course," she whispered.
"Something wrong?" asked Billy through a mouthful of honey cake.
"Nothing at all. Don't let the cakes get cold," said Colin as he ducked into the passageway.
Laura fell in behind him, and as soon as they were out of earshot she said, "For God's sake—tell me what's wrong!"
"I'd rather show you," he said, his voice taut.
He led her by flashlight to the port side of the cargo hold where they had stowed the two bathtubs: absurdly difficult to secure, the source of many jokes by Stubby back in New London and a round oath or two by Colin. In the flashlight's beam she saw that one of the sacks of cement that they had stowed in the tubs was propped up vertically. The top seam was ripped open; powdered cement was scattered everywhere, mixing with salt water from leaks in the canvas hatch cover into a gloppy mess.
"I assume that the bathtubs were meant as a comical diversion for the customs officer," Colin said. "So that he wouldn't look too closely at the cement."
"What's wrong with the cement? It isn't drugs or opium or anything, is it?" she asked, alarmed. That would certainly explain the three-thousand-dollar delivery fee. That would certainly explain why Mr. Angelina wanted her to take the cargo directly to Pineapple Cay, before they cleared customs.
"Opium! No, child. This is not what opium looks like. Besides, it's headed the wrong way. No, this is cement, all right. But have a look at what's in the cement." He reached into the opened sack and pulled out a small, black, marble-like ball, blew the dust off it, and held it out to her.
Puzzled, she took it from him. In the beam of his flashlight she saw a thin seam around the center of the globe. "Twist it open," he said. "Carefully!"
She did as she was told, bracing herself against one o
f the support columns in the hold, unscrewing the lid with the utmost care and peering inside. Immediately her mind shut down. "Glass?" she asked stupidly. "Bits of red and white glass?"
"Bits of rubies and diamonds," he said wryly.
"My God. My God. My God!"
"Never one to mince words, are you?"
"What are they doing there?"
"Who is Angelina fronting for?"
"I don't know. Mr. Angelina signed all the papers."
"I expect his client, whoever he is, wants to get some of his money out of the country without discussing it first with the IRS."
"But why with us? Why not with a crook or a fence or whoever does that sort of thing?"
"You undoubtedly came cheaper. And you have—have I mentioned this?—an unusually honest face. Which is why our crew looks at us suspiciously whenever they see us together."
Another thought occurred to her. "How do you know I'm not in on—whatever it is."
He took the two halves of the globe from her and screwed them carefully together. "Because you have an unusually honest face."
Another thought occurred to her. "Are there more?"
He gave her a rather crooked smile and said, "I don't think so. Part of the top of this sack was sewn up with different string; that's why I went probing in the first place. The others look untouched." He plunged the marble globe back into the cement and laid the sack against the slope of the claw-footed tub.
"What do we do now?" she asked, her eyes as dark and round as the marble ball.
His answer was a Gallic shrug. "Beats the hell out of me."
Chapter 13
They returned to the main saloon and Laura poured coffee with shaking hands for them both. This was a complication she had neither sought nor needed. Smuggled gems! The only thing she'd ever smuggled was a few cases of Scotch, like everyone else in America.
"Find that rat finally?" asked Stubby.
"No ... no, he was too fast for us, I'm afraid," she answered, seizing on the explanation.
"Geez. He's too big to be that fast. But I suppose he must be. He gave me a hell of a start when he ran across my berth the other day, I can tell you," Stubby confessed. "I don't think much of going eyeball to eyeball with a rodent that size."
"You don't have to keep blabbing on about him!" Neil said. He hated rats.
Just then the Virginia, slipping sideways a bit, allowed a huge roller to slam into her port bow, knocking her off course and sending her crew flying. Two of the coffee mugs crashed to the floor, Colin was hurtled across the cabin, and Laura barely missed being flung into the still-hot wood stove.
"Jiminy, we're in for it now," said Billy, jumping up to look out a porthole. "It's got blacker out all of a sudden."
"Is it a hurricane, Mama?" asked Neil in a very small voice. He was asking his mother, but he was looking at Colin. Everyone, including Laura, was looking at Colin.
But it was Laura who said brusquely, "Of course not, silly. Just some bad weather. If it were a hurricane—"
"If it were a hurricane, mate, you'd know it without asking," said Colin, and everyone, including Laura, breathed a sigh of relief.
Still, it was not reassuring to see Colin walk over to the barometer and tap it. "Still falling. Well, my friends, I don't know about you, but I could do with a little nap. Don't mind me. Just go right on with your card-playing." He climbed over the saloon seat and into the pilot berth, where he stretched out fully clothed, obviously staying ready for action.
Everyone took it as a sign that the weather was going to worsen before it got better. Depressed, the little group began to disperse, each to his own berth to rest while there was time.
Laura pumped salt water into the sink to wash down the baking pans. She had become very quiet, overwhelmed by the feeling that she had stepped out of the bounds of ordinary prudence, somehow taking everyone with her. After the others left, she smiled forlornly at Colin and said, "Are you sure you want to be left alone with an adulterous smuggler who's despised by her own flesh and blood?"
He was lying on his back, his arms folded behind his head, watching her work at the galley counter. "I think I can stand it," he said softly. "Come here to me."
She did, taking her place at the seat just below his berth. "I don't know what to worry about first," she confessed. "The storm; the gems; you and me and everyone ..."
He put a finger to her lips. "You know you can't do anything about the weather. The boat's battened down; we have to ride it out. The gems? Maybe we'll keep a couple as a kind of finder's fee; we ought to think about it. Or we can sew the bag back up and mind our own business. As for you and me—I know exactly what to do about us, only we have to wait until everyone is asleep. I love you, Laura." He hesitated, then said, "You never say you love me."
"I never think of it," she answered slowly, not looking at him. "Any more than I consider breathing."
****
Laura and Colin had agreed between them to keep a watch and let the crew sleep. Colin was to have awakened her in two hours. Of course he did not, and when she awoke it was dark. The wind was still howling through the rigging, lashing halyards and pennants against the masts with a viciousness that offended her. Sam had always told her not to "take it personal," and here she was, doing just that.
What have I done? she demanded of the powers that be. Is it so bad that we deserve this?
When Laura opened her cabin door to the saloon, there was Colin: sitting in the lee settee, his legs pulled up and braced in front of him, smoking his pipe filled with Sam's tobacco. The kerosene lamp directly above his head threw him into dim, golden relief against the spartan wood furnishings of the saloon, and Laura found herself enchanted, all over again, by him.
"Hello," she said, happy that he was there. "Is everyone still down?"
"I think so. Billy came aft a while ago to see if there was anything he could do, but there wasn't." He held out his hand to her.
She sat next to him and he put his pipe away and curled his arms around her, wrapping her in his warmth. "Thanks," she said. "For letting me sleep it off. Tired?"
"Average amount." He nuzzled her sleep-tumbled hair, breathing her in. "I'm impressed with your vessel. She's riding this out beautifully."
"Hmmn. Were there any ships?"
"I might have seen a running light off to port once; hard to say."
She closed her eyes and sighed, moved by the pleasure he was giving her as he dropped light kisses on the curve of her neck. "Who'd be out on a night like this?"
"Lovers and other insane persons, I imagine," he answered, his voice a little huskier. "Maybe smugglers."
"That explains us, then; we're all three." They were quiet a moment, and then she said, "It doesn't seem any worse out."
"Nope."
"But it doesn't seem any better."
"Just a typical nor'easter." A wave clubbed the Virginia almost as he said it, sending the schooner reeling from the blow, making her shudder and shake off the sea before she climbed doggedly back up into the wind again.
Laura turned half around to face her lover. "God—listen to it. Feel it, Colin. Doesn't anything faze you? The boat is being cruelly punished and I don't know where we are and I'm scared, I really am, and all you say is: 'typical.'" She shuddered, much as her ship had done, to throw off the oppression of fear.
He kissed her forehead. "It's my way of whistling past the haunted house, darling. I've been sitting here, waiting, practically willing you to wake up and open your cabin door, because I wanted to hold you, and I wanted you to hold me." He added with a self-conscious smile, "Call it affirmation in the face of chaos."
"That does sound better than 'fear,'" she agreed. She kissed him, drawing comfort from him as she always did, marveling at how much in sympathy they were. More and more she felt that they were two parts of one whole. Without him she could no longer function, any more than a boat could without a rudder, a typewriter without keys.
Her sigh was heavy. "What are we goin
g to do, Colin?" she asked in a softer and somehow more hopeless voice.
He understood the real meaning of her question. "You have to give him back the Virginia, and then leave him," he said flatly.
It was a pail of cold water on her emotions. She gasped and said, "We've been married nine years."
"And I've loved you nine lifetimes!" he shot back, suddenly fierce. "Listen to me, Laura. We are not two ships passing in the night. Wherever we go, whatever we do, it's going to be together. We'll steal if we have to, beg if we must, but we will be together." He kissed her again and again, whispering her name, battering her resolve with it, destroying everything in her that was not desire. "Come to bed with me," he urged, his voice blurred with love. "Let me love you …."
He pulled her to her feet and together they made their way to Laura's cabin, half-hurled there by the boat's periodically violent motion. It was an absurd time to make love, at the height of the storm, and yet it was the best time. They needed to prove, at least to one another, that they were not willing to stand meekly waiting, hats in hand, for the gods to permit them to continue on their way.
****
Neil awoke from an awful dream: something was on top of him, dark and formless and with scary, beady eyes, and he thought it might be Stubby's rat. He cried out, or thought he did, and wet his pants—or thought he did; when he felt around his horsehair mattress he realized the whole thing was soaking wet. The back of his shirt was wet, and his trousers, and his hair. Disgusted, he sat bolt upright, bracing himself with his hand on the inside of the hull. The planking was soaked: a sheet of salt water ran freely over his hand and trickled down his arm, and he realized that the leak—the stupid, stupid leak—was back.
The deck leak above him had plagued his whole life. He remembered it from when he was two; he learned the word "wa-wa" in a rainstorm by pointing to the trickle that was coming through where the deck was cut around the bulwark stanchion. Over the years the leak came and went, and this summer it was back. His father had shown him how to fix it, and Neil thought he'd done a pretty good job this time. But that was for a sea that didn't come crashing down on the bow, the way it was doing now. He held on to the bunkboard as the Virginia's bow lifted high up, higher than he ever remembered, and fell.
By The Sea, Book Three: Laura Page 13
