The Vital Spark

by Carson, Angela

  `You can open your eyes now, Sis, we're all safely in.' His voice came from a long distance, and she opened her eyes with an effort and met Haydn's grin. Unable to face the gleam in his eyes she lowered her own and watched the play of light and shadow on his face as he bent with rhythmic grace to the oars, the brown hollow of his throat moving slightly with the muscle pull under the cream, open-necked silk shirt that topped his chocolate brown trousers with pale elegance. Watching him do this did not help to resolve the battle between what her heart tried to tell her, and what her head said she could not do.... She was still in the same state of uncertainty when she felt the boat turn and bump lightly against the side of the cruiser, then circle it towards a gap in the rail above them.

  `How ?' She surveyed the deck, which seemed to loom miles above them.

  `Up a ladder, it's quite easy. And safe.' Haydn reached for what Lee had taken to be a pile of rope, and now revealed itself as a pair of efficient grappling hooks attached to rope, but in the form of a rope ladder. She felt her scalp prickle.

  `Don't look like that,' Haydn chuckled. 'We'll send Jon first, and if he falls in I promise we'll go back ashore at once.'

  'I wish....' She did not know what she wished. She dared not voice the wish that was in her heart, not even to

  herself. Perhaps least of all to herself.

  `Wish granted,' Haydn said promptly, and he could not know how her heart lurched at his easy words. 'You'll be on deck in two seconds. Just watch Jon, and when he gets to the top of the ladder, follow him up. I'll come right behind you.'

  It was easier than she thought. At Haydn's instructions, she waited until the two boats rode high together on a wave, then reached over and grasped the rope ladder and found a foothold, and waited there until the boat swayed down and upwards again, and she started to climb. Physical activity, she found, helped to stem her thoughts, and she felt happier until she felt a tug on the rope below her, and looked down.

  `It'll break !' she exclaimed. Haydn was climbing behind her. Climbing round her, she realised. He was only one step down, and his greater height made a backing for her, his arms reached round her body and made living guard rails through which she could not fall.

  `It's made of nylon, and it's tested to stand the weight of a dozen like me.'

  So she climbed, trusting him, and in a surprisingly short time she stood on the deck beside him, watched him go aft and untie the light rope from his belt that held the dinghy, and lash it on to the rail to be towed behind the cruiser. And then the boat's engine burbled into soft life, the sound not so obtrusive as she had thought it would be when it was opened up, and it made a pleasant background murmur which nevertheless had the sound of controlled power behind it, then they were nosing out of the harbour, leaving behind the anchored craft and the horshoe of shops that edged the harbour wall, and she knew a fleeting curiosity in case Vince was watching from the hotel steps. He would see them easily from there, and they were close enough for him to recognise them.

  She forgot Vince in the new and exhilarating sensation coming from the deck under her feet as the boat responded to the stronger force of the water outside the sheltering arms of the harbour. It rose to its element like a live thing released from a cage, and Lee leaned against the rail and

  watched the hissing surge of water pass the side of the Sea Mist as the cruiser's bow cleft the waves like an arrow, their hypnotic effect gradually quietening the tumult in her mind, and allowing her to relax and look about her with more interest. For a while Haydn followed the coastline. They passed small bays, the one where they had swum, and saw Polrewin snuggled into the dip in the cliffs.

  `There's the glasshouses, look. See how they shine in the sun.' They waved gaily in case Nell or Ben were looking, then they were nearing the lighthouse, and Haydn took a bearing from it and turned, heading out to sea and away from the familiar landmarks.

  `I wouldn't mind a craft like this myself.' Jon eyed the controls with fascinated interest.

  `You can take her for a bit if you like. Just keep her on the same compass bearing, and see what you think of the feel of her.' Haydn readily handed over the wheel, and joined Lee at the rail. 'How about a cup of coffee?' he asked.

  `Not for me.' Jon wanted nothing more than to be left to enjoy the pleasure of the wheel.

  `We'll bring you one up,' Haydn grinned, and Lee offered,

  `I'll make it for you, if you tell me where the things are.' Suddenly she wanted to make coffee for Haydn.

  `In here, look.' He led the way down to the day cabin, and opened a door and showed her a kitchen in miniature complete with everything she needed.

  `It's like a dolls house kitchen.'

  `Galley,' he corrected her. 'You're at sea now.'

  He opened a cupboard, and sorted out the dry ingredients.

  `I forgot to bring milk.'

  `There's plenty here.' It was tinned, but she was not disposed to be fussy about such things today.

  `Mind when the coffee boils, she's a bit lively.' Lee staggered, unused to the movement of the boat, and stepped back on to Haydn's toe.

  `I'm sorry,' she apologised hastily, and clutched at the end of the cupboard for support. She missed and staggered

  again as the boat tipped alarmingly, and Haydn laughed and put an arm round her, and drew her to him.

  `Hang on to me instead, I'm softer to fall against.'

  `I'll get used to it.' She felt breathless, suddenly.

  `Used to what?' His arm tightened, and she looked up and found his face disconcertingly close to her own. There was a cleft in his chin. She had noticed it the last time he kissed her.... She did not know what to answer, and he saved her the bother. He kissed her again, lightly, laughingly, on her 'mouth and then again on the tip of her upturned nose, and she lifted her face eagerly, just as the coffee boiled over.

  `We're not going to be allowed to get used to this,' he grinned. He reached out a long arm and rescued the dark liquid, and poured it into a flat-bottomed jug. He poured the tin of milk into another, put three serviceable crock mugs into a tin tray, and said,

  `I'll carry these up. You follow me,' and left her to climb the stairs after him, and blame the movement of the boat for the uncertainty in her legs, although in her heart she knew it was not the fault of the Sea Mist at all, even if it did put solid planking beneath her feet when she least expected it, and removed it when she most wanted it. In desperation she sat down on the deck and stretched both legs full length in front of her.

  `You're a landlubber,' Haydn accused her, and she retorted mutinously,

  `And proud of it. At least the land doesn't heave up and down like this.' She accepted her mug of coffee, and wondered why he watched her so keenly while she drank it.

  `Another?'

  `Please, that was lovely.' She surprised a look of relief on his face. 'What's the matter?'

  `I wondered if you were feeling seasick, that's all.'

  `Of course I'm not.' Heaven forbid ! she thought, horrified. That would be the last straw. She wished he had not put the thought in her mind, then she forgot it when Haydn drew her to the rail and pointed out a school of porpoises on the other side of the Sea Mist, escorting the boat, and playing with happy abandon while they swam.

  `I thought there'd be nothing to see, so far out as this,' she commented.

  `There's always something to see.' He showed her different seabirds busily fishing in the waters; laughed with her as they watched together while one swallowed a fish that seemed much too large and surely, Lee thought, must choke it, but it went down at last, and the bird dived for another, then the long dark streak of land that was the Channel Islands showed up like a pencil line on the horizon, and Haydn left her at the rail, and took over the wheel again from Jon.

  `They're company, aren't they?' She followed him, unwilling to be left by herself, her mind still on the porpoises and the seabirds. What had Haydn called them? Como-rants?

  `I'm never lonely when I'm on the Sea Mist.'

>   He spoke abstractedly, his attention on the rapidly looming land, and Lee watched fascinated while the seemingly impregnable cliffs broke up into fissures-that soon became small bays, with houses and people showing as they got closer in, and then they were heading towards a harbour that looked from where they were to be much like the one at Tarmouth, its friendly arms reaching out to welcome them, and they came to rest in quiet water again, and there was the business of descending the rope ladder, and getting into the dinghy and being rowed ashore, so that there was no time to think. People called out to Haydn as they passed, waving greetings across the water, for this was his home and these were his friends, and she and Jon were the strangers now.

  At last the safe, solid feel of cobbles met her feet again on another harbour wall, and unlike the deck of the Sea Mist they did not heave up and down, until she remembered what Haydn had said, and the memory made them seem to waver before her eyes. 'I'm never lonely when I'm on the Sea Mist.. . Did that mean he, too, regarded the seabirds and porpoises as company? Or did he take with him other companions—human ones? It was a four-berth boat, and he said he liked room to move about when he was afloat. But two people on the Sea Mist would still leave

  plenty of room without feeling crowded. Perhaps he brought someone else with him sometimes, a friend. Maybe a woman friend?

  `This way.' Haydn put his hand beneath her elbow, steering her in the right direction, and she went with him bemusedly, hardly hearing what it was he said.

  For the first time in her life, Lee knew what it was like to feel jealous.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THOUGHT we'd look round the nursery first, then go home and have lunch with the family afterwards.' Haydn ushered them towards an open runabout waiting at the end of the harbour wall. Lee noticed the driver wore the same uniform as the van driver who had come to Polrewin, and he greeted Haydn with the same evidence of pleasure.

  `Is it far?' Jon clambered in.

  `About a couple of miles, and it's a steep climb away from the shore.'

  Lee took her seat between the two men in silence. She had not taken into account the fact that she might meet Haydn's family. For some reason, the possibility had not occurred to her. She had looked upon the visit purely as a business trip, and found the sudden, more personal aspect of it disconcerting. She had concentrated so hard on keeping an eye on her brother, for fear his enthusiasm might run him into another grandiose scheme that they could not afford, that no other possibility had seriously entered her head. It was natural for Haydn to wish to visit his family while he was on the island, it had just not occurred to her, that was all. And now she was here, dressed in a trouser suit and a plain sweater—suitable for the sea trip and a day round the nursery gardens, but not for lunch with strangers, and Haydn's family at that. She felt as vexed, and as vulnerable, as she had on the occasion of their first lunch at the Royal Anchor.

  Her first sight of the nurseries themselves did nothing to reassure her. The vehicle climbed steadily, following the coast, and giving them a breathtaking view of the harbour as they drove, and then it was cut off by a bend in the road, and the terrain flattened out, and what seemed like acres of glasshouses confronted them. Lee caught her breath. She knew Scotts was a big nursery, but she did not realise it was quite so large. The road ran alongside it for some

  time, and then they turned in at a manned gatehouse, with a striped barrier across the path, on top of which sat the familiar, kilted piper. It lifted at the behest of the gate security man, and with scarcely a pause they swept along clean gravel paths and drew to a halt beside a low, square, brick building with a thatched roof. A fair-haired girl with a clipboard of papers in her hand came out of the door, and stopped when she saw Haydn.

  `The driver phoned from the harbour to say you were on the way, Mr Haydn,' she smiled in a friendly fashion at Lee. 'Coffee's on its way to your studio.'

  `Thanks, Brenda, it'll be very welcome.' Haydn jumped on to the gravel and held out his hand to help Lee down. `Follow me,' he told them. 'We'll have our coffee first, then start on our trip round the glasshouses.'

  Lee followed him. She stole a glance at her brother's face. Jon looked dazed, and her heart sank. In his present mood he would be open to any suggestions Haydn might make.

  `This is our office block.' Their host waved his hand at the whole thatched building, and once inside, the cottagy look vanished. Glass-fronted offices showed busy staff, in superb working conditions, Lee had to admit, and one long room where two white-coated people, a man and a woman, worked with looks of absorbed concentration on their faces.

  `That's the lab,' Haydn explained casually. 'You'd find that interesting, Jon, they're setting out plants grown from frozen rose seeds.' He spoke directly to her brother, and Lee stiffened resentfully. 'They subject the seed pods to a very low temperature to simulate an artificial winter, then when they're planted they grow quickly.'

  `Baby rose bushes !' Lee forgot her anger at being ignored, and peered eagerly through the glass, her nose pressed close against it with undisguised interest. The girl inside the transparent panels looked up and smiled, the same friendly, happy response of the other staff, and Lee knew a moment of quick envy. It would be good to work in an atmosphere like this. Haydn seemed to draw the same response from everybody, she thought. Everybody, that

  was, except herself. He must find her as prickly as a hedgehog. She shrugged the thought away. Whatever the message the waves tried to tell her as they drummed against the harbour wall, the need to protect Polrewin's interests still remained paramount in her mind.

  `I didn't know you experimented.' Jon lingered beside the glass-fronted laboratory.

  `We're experimenting all the time,' Haydn retorted. 'We have to, to keep abreast of the market. In a way, my own contribution is an experiment,' he admitted. 'We haven't tried a mail order business before, and there are quite a number of snags to be ironed out. A distribution centre on the mainland is an urgent priority that must be dealt with before the next season starts.'

  Polrewin !

  Lee's guard slid back into place with an almost audible click. It must have been a rare piece of good fortune for Haydn, she thought bitterly, when Jon invited him to stay with them, to find not only the place he was looking for, but a man he knew he could trust, and who would be willing—or gullible enough—to take on his distribution for him. Not if I can help it! she thought grimly, as she moved away from the laboratory window and followed Haydn along the corridor.

  `My studio's through here.' He opened a door at the end and stood aside for Lee to enter. She stepped through, curious to see where he worked. She liked his quarters on the Sea Mist. She was in accord with his choice of colours, but they were surprisingly bare of any personal adornment. She had not seen any photographs or books lying around on the boat, or any of the paraphernalia one would expect its owner to personalise his possession with. His studio might reveal more of the man himself, and she looked around her interestedly. The conditions his staff worked under were unusually good, and as he was the son of the owner his own quarters here might be expected to show some opulence. She had seen Vince's office, once, at the Royal Anchor, and it was the last word in luxury.

  Compared to Vince's office—even compared to the con-

  ditions of the general offices they had passed through outside—Haydn's studio was spartan. Plain parquet flooring met her feet in place of the expected carpet, and instead of a desk, a wide, flat-topped bench-like structure took up the entire length of one wall, under half of which filing drawers bore neat labels.

  `They hold all my negatives.'

  Strangely, there were no photographs adorning the walls. Lee looked round, hoping to see some evidence of Haydn's work, but the walls were bare. A picture window took up the wall opposite to the table, and gave on to a view of part of the harbour and coastline. Beyond that, the plain emulsioned walls held an almost monastic appearance.

  `They make ideal backcloths for throwing up shots of any photographs
I take,' Haydn explained, interpreting her look. 'If you put a slide through a projector, it shows up any imperfections instantly. Here's my darkroom.' He opened a further door into a room which had a scrubbed quarry floor. 'But we're letting our coffee get cold.' He drew forward two plain wooden chairs with horseshoe-shaped arms, devoid even of a cushion, which Lee found to her surprise when she sat down were extraordinarily comfortable. She snuggled back and found the back and arms fitted perfectly where she most needed support.

  'I'll introduce you later to the man who made these for me,' Haydn answered Jon's outspoken appreciation of his own seat. 'He does all our carpentry for us. He made the table, too, it's solid walnut.' The natural shape of the log had been left as it was, and the wood held the glow of loving polish: 'Shall I pour out, or will you?'

  `I'd like to.' Lee was not just being polite. The Royal Doulton service on a silver tray was the only touch of luxury in the room.

  `It's my one extravagance,' Haydn admitted, reading the sparkle in Lee's eyes and the rapt look on her face as she handled the fine, delicately patterned china with a reverence that betrayed her own addiction. That at least was something they had in common, she thought; on everything else they seemed to be at cross purposes.

  `I suppose you don't call the Sea Mist an extravagance:

  scoffed Jon, and Haydn answered him with perfect sincerity,

  `No, and you wouldn't either if you lived on a comparatively small island. I told you, we do a lot of trade with the Continent, and Dad's been glad to use me as a leg man during the last year or two, the trekking backwards and forwards is getting a bit beyond him now.' He accepted his coffee from Lee, and went on, 'In time saving alone the boat will pay for itself over a period of a few years. Waiting for scheduled services wastes days at a time, and with the Sea Mist's draft I can take her right into the heart of the Continent on the canals and rivers. A boat is fast, it makes an ideal mobile office, I can discuss business without having to bother to entertain, and come and go as I please.'