Second Honeymoon. Sandra Field

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СКАЧАТЬ Clarence was following his own train of thought. “Then you know what I’m talkin’ about. There’s days I think I should’ve named her Four Devils. But there wouldn’t be much luck callin’ a boat that, now, would there? So Four Angels she is, and more power to her.” With a flourish he spat over the gunwales and revved up the engine. The bow bit into the waves, the wake bubbled from the stern and the wharf fell back behind them.

      For a moment Troy forgot about Lucy and the purpose of his visit in the sheer pleasure of being on the sea again; in the last year and a half he’d lost his enthusiasm for sailing. Then Hubert asked, “Did you come for the long-billed dowitcher?”

      “The who?” said Troy.

      “So you’re not a birder?” Hubert said sternly.

      “I know a duck from a pelican,” Troy remarked, raising his voice over the roar of the engine and the hissing of the sea. He’d always been more interested in snorkeling and diving in the Caribbean than in the birds.

      “Humph. So you wouldn’t know what a shag is, then?”

      A long ago crossword clue flickered through Troy’s memory. “A fish like a herring,” he hazarded.

      “That’s a shag. See that bird flying low over the water?” Obligingly Troy looked to starboard, seeing a black bird with a skinny neck flapping madly away from Four Angels. “That’s a shag,” Hubert went on. “It’s the local name for a cormorant—in this case an immature double-crested cormorant. What made you come to Shag Island if you’re not a birder?”

      Amused by this inquisition, Troy prevaricated, “I needed a holiday. I work in a crowded hospital in a big city and a few days on an island sounded like heaven.”

      “If you’re staying a few days, Keith’ll fix you up with a pair of binoculars. Keith McManus owns the inn. Doesn’t have much to say for himself, but he knows his birds.”

      This was clearly high praise. “Is it a one-man operation, then?” Troy asked with low cunning.

      “Anna helps out—his wife. They’ve got a hired girl this summer as well.” For a moment the fierce old eyes softened. “A real beauty, she is.”

      Spreading his feet on the deck and absently noticing that he’d never lost his sea-legs, Troy said, “And what’s her name?”

      “Lucy Barnes,” said Hubert.

      With another of the explosions of rage that seemed to haunt him these days Troy realized that no one had connected his name with Lucy’s because Lucy was no longer using his name. She’d reverted to her maiden name. As if, he thought savagely, he, Troy, didn’t exist. As though her marriage was better forgotten.

      Hubert was still talking. “…myself if I was forty years younger. You’ll meet her if you’re staying for a while. She and Mrs Mossop take turns with the cooking.”

      Lucy had been the cook on Seawind. “Who else lives on the island?” Troy asked.

      “Mrs Mossop—she’s a widow. Myself. Quentin—he’s an artist; he puts big globs of paint on a canvas and calls it Untitled Composition and the critics rave over it. This new-fangled stuff they call art; I can’t give it the time of day.”

      Four Angels had rounded a headland and was headed due west. On the horizon lay a long island—the small pinnacle of a lighthouse at one end, cliffs rearing from the sea like the blunt head of a whale from the other. Filling his nostrils with clean salt air, Troy asked, “Is that Shag Island?”

      “That’s it.”

      “Not very many people for the size of the island.”

      “I keep the numbers low because of the petrels,” Hubert said.

      “Petrol?” Troy repeated, puzzled.

      Hubert raised his brows heavenwards. “Petrels are birds. Leach’s storm petrels nest on the southern end of the island. So I don’t allow cats on the island and we use a dory to go from this boat to shore, to do away with the possibility of rats. There aren’t any racoons or foxes to prey on them. Too many humans would be just as bad. I decided a long time ago that we’re the most destructive species there is. So I won’t let Keith expand the inn.”

      “How do you keep the guests at the inn from doing any damage?”

      “That’s one of Lucy’s jobs. I pay part of her salary.”

      “So you’re a benevolent despot?”

      Hubert gave a cackle of laughter. “I’ve willed the island to a conservation society, with so many provisos and heretofores it’ll take them forever to sort it out. But in the meantime the petrels’ll be safe. And that’s what counts.”

      “Birds over people?” Troy asked with conscious provocation.

      “Birds and people coexisting,” Hubert retorted with a gleam in his eye. “Non-interference. Respect for the intricacies of nature. I’ll invite you for dinner one evening, providing you don’t mind canned beans, and we’ll thrash it out.”

      “You’re a proselytizer, Mr Woollner.”

      “Hubert’s the name. By the time you leave I’ll make sure you know a least sandpiper from a semipalmated. How long did you say you were staying.”

      “I didn’t say…because I’m not sure.”

      “You’ll stay a while. The island gets you that way. Got me fifty years ago, and she’s been like a mistress to me ever since.” He pulled at his ear, laughter sparking his tawny old eyes. “Less trouble than a woman in the long run, I dare say.”

      They both fell silent as the island drew closer, until Troy could see rocks girdled with kelp, ranks of spruce trees huddled and bent against the wind, and to the north the long sweep of a low-lying field, with drifts of yellow wildflowers between it and the shore. The Lucy he had fallen in love with would be very much at home on Shag Island.

      With a kindling of excitement he wondered if during a summer spent in this wild and beautiful place she’d found herself again…become the old Lucy, the passionate, laughing creature who’d turned his life upside-down when he’d first met her five years ago. Maybe—just maybe—she’d welcome him with open arms, with all the delight in his presence that had always, paradoxically, both nourished and humbled him.

      Clarence cut the engines and Gus went forward to hook the big pink buoy bobbing on the waves. Onshore a wooden dock sloped into the sea; a man was hauling a red-painted boat down it into the water. He clambered aboard, and in a swirl of wake headed for Four Angels.

      “That’s Keith,” Hubert said. “You’ll arrive at the inn nicely in time for dinner.”

      “Where’s your house?” Troy asked idly.

      “I took over one of the bungalows where the light-keepers used to live. Mrs Mossop lives in the other one. Here’s Keith now—hand down the gear first, then get in and sit near the bow.”

      Refraining from saying that boats had been part of his life since he was a boy, Troy did as he was told and introduced himself to СКАЧАТЬ