Chapter 3
James rapidly became a regular visitor at the Conways’ home. From Uncle James, he gradually became ‘Unca Jamie’, as Amy took to calling him Jamie. He decided he liked that; he’d never really liked being ‘Jim’, which some people called him. Esther had always called him ‘James’, as did his parents.
It might be thought strange that he and Amy didn’t get romantically involved. If James had thought about it at all, he might have thought it strange ... or maybe not. He just loved the twins, and they thought he was ‘the bees’ knees’. He learned about children’s T/V, children’s books (he found a whole section in the town library, and borrowed from there regularly) the sort of games and songs learned in nursery school ... in short, he started to become, almost, a parent.
It’s not to say he didn’t think about Amy; she was undoubtedly an attractive young woman. Medium height, sturdy in build but nicely shaped with dark hair and eyes ... but they treated each other like ... the brother and sister that was implied by his ‘honorary uncle’ status.
One evening, after settling the twins, she invited him to stay for a night-cap and a little music. He chose tea, while she had some herbal concoction. James’ idea of music was shaped by the late seventies and the eighties, with a little jazz and other ‘easy listening’ music, but Amy introduced him to classical, by putting on a CD of Faure’s Requiem. Somehow, it breached a barrier and James told her about Esther, how in love they’d been and how sad they were never to have children; how she’d been rejected by her parents.
Amy, in turn, told him how she had been rejected by her parents (actually, her mother) and then dumped by the boyfriend who’d caused the estrangement, how she’d got depressed and lost her job, and been rescued by Barry, that she later married over his fierce resistance because he thought he was much too old, how he’d suffered a stroke and recovered, but died when the twins were only three from an aneurysm the doctors hadn’t diagnosed. She said she’d been reconciled to her parents before the twins were born so she had some support from them as well as Jenni ... and how she believed Barry sometimes comforted his children.
She turned to him, her eyes bright with tears, “so I believe you when you say Esther’s spoken to you ... I just wish ... that sometimes he’d speak to me. I miss him, so much.”
He put an arm round her and held her as she wept, weeping himself as well for both their losses.
When he stood to leave, she held him tightly for a moment before kissing his cheek; he kissed her forehead in response.
As Easter approached, he was visiting the Peters one evening; Beth was there, which had become unusual. Over the meal, she turned to James.
“I’ve a favour to ask,” she said.
He looked at her and cocked an eyebrow. “If I can, I will.”
“The Club is starting the racing season Easter week,” she said. “I need a crew. I’m sailing a Wayfarer. At least, I will be if I can find a crew.”
“I’ve never done any racing,” he temporised.
“I haven’t for years,” she said. “I thought I’d give it a go this year, though, but I’ve been caught out. The person I was hoping would crew for me has just got a job in Scotland. She’s just not going to be available.”
“I’d hate ... well ... I just wouldn’t like you to lose because I’m not a very good crew.”
“I don’t like to lose, but I’m not expecting great success in my first season back. You’d be helping me out, and if you don’t like it at least I’ll have a chance to find a replacement.”
“Then, okay, I’m glad to help.”
She smiled. “Thanks, that’s a relief. Perhaps we could get together and get some practice? Are you free this weekend?”
“I certainly can be. Saturday morning?”
“Great! Now ... I’ve not been around much lately. What have you been up to?”
“Not a lot, really apart from work and ‘uncle’ duties.”
“Uncle duties?”
“Amy Conway’s twins,” Jenni interjected, “James did some work for her and they sort of adopted him.”
“They’re great kids,” he said, “I really like them. And Amy ... we understand each other, I suppose.”
Beth’s expression changed; he couldn’t interpret it, but didn’t think it was a happy change.
“How is she?” Jenni asked, “I haven’t seen her for a while. I ought to call.”
“She seems okay to me,” he said, “doesn’t get out much, I suppose. She’s still working on that degree. Still missing Barry ... I don’t suppose that ever goes away. We helped each other, I think.”
“And you?” Marty asked.
“Me? I’m learning to live again. Esther hasn’t shown up since...” I looked at Beth, “we were at the Rocks, but I still think about her a lot. It’s not so raw now. Life goes on. You know, it’s sort of... healing ... just reading bed-time stories to kids? They’re so caring, but so... now ... they don’t worry much about the past or the future. If they think I’m upset, they just come and give me a hug and, you know, it really does help.”
At the end of the evening, as he stood to leave, Beth stood too. “I’d best be on my way, too,” she said.
Outside, she turned to him. “I’ll not hold you to it if you’d rather not crew for me.”
He was surprised. “Why would you think that? I’d love to do it. I’m only worried I’ll not be good enough. I’ll be there on Saturday, for sure.”
“Good! And don’t worry about your skill level ... what I saw of you before I’m sure you’ll do fine.”
James went on his way, with Beth once more taking a significant portion of his thoughts.
Beth went on her way ... wondering. She knew the racing was ... an opportunity to spend time with James. She knew she liked him, thought she was sorry for him – but was nonplussed by her reaction when she discovered he was spending time with Amy, or at least, her children. Not that she knew her well; Amy was Jenni’s friend, really. What she knew was that Amy was a widow, young, attractive, bright ... just all round an appealing woman. Hearing him talk about the twins, realising they were becoming important to him – were already important to him ... why did that bother her? And it did bother her, she admitted to herself.
On the Friday evening, James made his regular call to see Amy and the twins. It was a little late when he got there, so he was just in time for tea ... fish fingers, chips and peas ... a short playtime and bed-time story. Once the twins were in bed, they sat with cups of tea and caught up with each other’s weeks. Amy talked of the problems she was having writing her dissertation ... he mentioned sailing with Beth.
“I like Beth,” she commented, “though I don’t know her really well, not like Jenni. I think she had a hard time, though I don’t know any details. But she seems a pretty special person.”
“I think anyone willing to jump into the North Sea at any time to rescue a stranger must be pretty special,” he laughed, but then turned serious, “but I think you’re pretty special too.”
“Me? Just an ordinary girl who made mistakes as a teenager, but found someone to give me a lot of help.”
“Who was determined enough to take the opportunities handed to her, bright enough to achieve her potential, and attractive enough to seduce a reluctant man into overcoming his reservations and marrying you ... who is making an excellent job of bringing up two delightful children virtually single-handed and still working at a distance-learning degree ... not to mention being strong enough emotionally to support and encourage a devastated, bereaved man.”
She blushed hotly. “You make it sound ... tremendous, but really I just did what I had to do, mostly. For the rest ... I wanted to please Barry.” She looked down, and there was a long pause before she continued, very seriously. “Jamie, are you falling in love with me?”
That gave him pause. He hadn’t allowed the suspicion of romance to enter his head ... with anyone.
“I don’t think so,” he said slowly, “I hadn’t thought about it, actually, but since you mention it, no, I don’t think so.”
She looked relieved. “Good ... I think!” She thought for a moment, “it’s not that I don’t like you. I respect you; I think I love you ... but ... as a brother, I suppose. I don’t think I’m ready for more than friendship with anyone yet, either. I really like having you around and you’re really special to the twins. I’d hate it if we didn’t see you...”
They were both silent.
Then, “I think that’s it,” he said, “you’re too much like a sister for me to think of you romantically ... but you’ve said it; I love you, as if you were my sister. Enough soggy stuff, though! How about continuing my classical education?”
She grinned. “Okay! How do you like guitar?”
“Okay, I suppose; I quite like folk music.”
“Right! Try some Capsberger – Canario, I think.”
They sat and listened, and James felt ... lifted and carried along. When the piece finished, she put on Tarrega’s Recuerdos de la Alhambra. As it came to an end, he stood.
“I can see there’s a whole world I hardly knew existed. Thank you, Amy; but sadly, I must go. I need to get up in the morning to go sailing.”
In the morning, he fought his way into a dry-suit over thermal clothing. Beth, though, just wore a wet suit. It was the first time he’d really had a good look at her figure; there’s no concealing your figure in a wet suit! Damn but she looked good. Of course the obligatory self-inflating life-preservers detracted somewhat...
They had to ‘beat’ against the wind to get out of the estuary as the tide began to ebb, and the water over the bar was very rough; the exercise in snappy and precise sailing, both on Beth’s part as a helms-woman and on James as crew showed they could work together well; that, in fact, they felt as though they were communicating telepathically. They rounded the buoys marking the course, in both directions and using various combinations for well over an hour. When Beth was happy with his performance – and her own, for that matter, they turned to spinnaker drill ... which wasn’t exactly disastrous. It wasn’t good, but it could have been a lot worse ... they could have ended up in the drink. As it was, they, or rather James, only had a tangle of thin fabric, sheet, guy and halliard to sort out a couple of times. She called a halt when they’d been out two hours (not counting getting out there in the first place).
“You’ll need to be a bit slicker than that when we head back in, though,” she laughed, “We’ll be bucking the full force of the ebb!”
Despite the current, they crossed the bar on a broad reach before gybing, setting the spinnaker and planing up Sea Reach. (Need an explanation here? A sailing boat moving through the water is limited in its top speed by the length of the hull; a Wayfarer at sixteen feet has a ‘hull speed’ of five point six knots. However, if designed and handled correctly and there is sufficient wind, a boat can be persuaded to ‘skim’ over the water, resting on the bow wave, the hull mostly out of the water rather like a water-ski; this is called ‘planing’ – the boat can achieve speeds of around twelve knots). James had been in a planing dinghy before, but never for so long.
Beth took them up river, well past the landing; they dropped the spinnaker, gybed again and headed in to beach on a patch of shingle next to the slipway. As they tidied the boat, James told Beth;
“I’m impressed! That was as neat a piece of boat-handling as I’ve ever seen.”
“That’s nice of you, thanks! I was pretty pleased with it myself. And I have to say, you did really well. I don’t think you’ve got a thing to worry about. The spinnaker handling will come with practice – it went well enough coming up river. Right now, though ... I don’t know about you, but I’m hungry.”
After lunch, they headed out again on the last of the ebb. For the non-seamen out there, low tide is particularly nasty over a bar; there can be as little as eighteen inches of water and what there is gets very rough. Fortunately it was still a reach over the bar and they were able to raise the centre-board about halfway and didn’t touch bottom.
They practised round the buoys for another couple of hours, after which James thought they were getting fairly slick.
“Well, not too shabby,” was Beth’s comment, “nowhere near national standards yet, though. Might manage a place next weekend. If not, we’ll just have fun.”
This time as they crossed the bar wind and tide were more or less in the same direction. It wasn’t smooth, but it was much easier than before and the run up the river was helped, not hindered by the current. They still used the spinnaker, but dropped it before reaching the narrows just below the slipway. With wind and tide in the same direction it was actually a slightly harder task to get to the slipway, but Beth managed it with panache. They got the dinghy on its trolley and back into the boat park, rinsed off with fresh water – the sails bent-off, folded or rolled as appropriate and packed away (they’d need drying later) and they changed into normal clothes ready to go home.
“Thanks, Beth, for asking me ... I’m whacked, I ache in places I didn’t know I had, but it’s been fun. I’ve really enjoyed the day.”
“Not at all, I asked because I needed a crew, and you’ve done very well indeed. Don’t you mind not being at the helm?”
“I told you before, I know when I’m in the presence of superior ability. In fact, I reckon you’ve got a gift! A talent I’ll never have.”
She looked at him and decided he was being sincere in his praise. “You’re too kind,” she replied, “if I looked good, it was at least partly because you did the right thing at the right time.”
“Oh, well,” he laughed, “if we’re done complimenting each other ... are you busy this evening?”
“Nothing special ... why?”
“I wondered if you’d like to join me at the White Horse for a meal?”
Beth froze. “I...”
“It’s just ... I don’t want to go home and cook, and it’d be nice to have your company for the evening.”
Beth was just about to ask ‘what about Amy?’ when she heard herself day, “okay, that’d be nice. I’m tired too.”
“If we meet there at six-thirty, it’ll give us time to change and we’ll be ahead of the rush.”
The White Horse serves good quality, satisfying, pub food; they had a good meal and talked over their day on the sea. They discussed communication in the boat and procedures; Beth explained the usual division of responsibility in a racing dinghy and some of the rules. “But it’s my responsibility to make sure we obey them,” she said at the end.
James wanted to keep her talking. “How do you know Jenni?”
“Oh, I was down at Ipswich wet-dock, watching them do a harbour stow. I thought the barge was fascinating and I just stood, gaping at them. Jenni came ashore for something and I suppose she saw me looking, and came over to talk to me. Next thing I know I’m invited on board and offered a berth as third hand, unpaid of course. I’m between jobs at the moment, so what did I have to lose?”
“What did you do before?”
“Oh, I worked in an office.” The crisp ending to the statement said rather clearly ‘and I don’t want to talk about it, thank you.’
“Any prospects?”
“A few. I’m alright for a while anyway ... one reason I’m getting back into racing ... I’m doing something for me, just for me.”
“That’s good ... but you’re doing something for me too, you know.”
She smiled slightly, “That’s good, but I’m really doing it for myself and you’re doing me a favour. If it’s helping you, that’s a bonus.”
When they separated, it was still quite early. James was a little tempted to call on Amy, but decided she would probably be making the most of the peace and quiet to get on with some studying, so he just went home and had an early night.
Beth, though she went home, found she was in no mood to sleep despite being very tired. James was on her mind and she was confused. She’d been on the point of telling him why she’d left her job, but something held her back. She thought he was ... involved ... or at least, becoming involved with Amy ... and Amy deserved a good man, support to help with the kids. She couldn’t think why he’d be interested in her; perhaps it was just gratitude? Or maybe he just wanted a friend? He was a good crew, no doubt about it, quick and neat. They’d have a decent chance at the weekend ... In the end, she got out a bottle of sherry that had been lurking in a cupboard since Christmas (not her favourite tipple) and settled down to drink and listen to the Rolling Stones ... followed by Status Quo. Eventually, much later she realised her eyes were drooping and she was nodding, and she took herself to bed where she slept poorly.