Mistress and Commander Read online

  But I also knew it might be a turning point in my life.

  Two days later, I got out of the house going north on the A74, whizzing past Carlisle and Gretna Green. I had relayed my long call-box discussions with Cubby to John. Decisive as always, he knew they could run a boat and could see the potential from our happy family holidays. I knew he liked the prospect of establishing his own business: it would be his ‘retirement job’, he said. With his knowledge of the financial world, he would set the business up to offer tax advantages and other incentives. We just needed people to invest, not too much, so that a loss would be unmanageable, but enough so we could buy a boat for Kate and Cubby to run. But he told me I needed to meet the National Trust for Scotland, to persuade them to give us the contract: we must have some predictable income from the outset.

  All I had to do was find a boat and acquire the National Trust’s St Kilda contract. Simple!

  In the Trust’s offices in Edinburgh I spelled out our plans. I reminded them we’d be employing Cubby, whom they already knew as reliable, efficient, and above all safe.

  ‘I think it went well,’ I said to John seated in the Flying Tomato. I had a splendid new state-of-the-art toy – a mobile phone. Sitting beside me on the passenger seat, with its erect little black aerial quivering like a running warthog’s tail, it was the size of a small suitcase. Back in 1989 these were early days for mobiles but John, realising I needed to escape from the painful memories of home, had given me a Motorola. I loved it immediately. Not only was it a cutting-edge, stylish thing to have, but I no longer needed to be in the house. I no longer missed my friends or when Hugo called from school: I was released. I clicked the handset back into its cradle and set off towards Oban to tell Kate and Cubby such news as I had.

  ‘We’ll have to see what the Trust actually does,’ I reported later as we sat in the boat’s saloon clutching mugs of tea and ploughing through the chocolate biscuits I’d brought with me.

  ‘Aye, but we’ve not got time to wait,’ was Kate’s anxious reply as she dragged on yet another cigarette. ‘He says we’ve to be off the boat in two days’ time.’ They both looked grey and neither had suggested a dram. Things were too serious. This was their world and had been their home for twelve years. All of their possessions were in the small aft cabin. They had nowhere else to go, no house, nothing of their own. John had told me they might have a claim for unfair dismissal, but even so they would have to leave the Conochbar.

  ‘Well, John and I are going to do everything we can.’ I tried to sound encouraging. ‘And right now I’ll go and get us a fish supper. Something to eat’ll help.’ Jumping up, I grabbed a jacket and clambered over the gunwale onto the boat next door, crossed its deck and was quickly up onto the quay before they had a chance to demur. I was good at ladders by now.

  It was late November and Oban was dark and deserted. Fishing boats slumbered three or four deep along the quay, their masts, a tangle of steel struts, glowed orange in the sodium street lights. The chip shop was not far, just across the square past the station. I walked back towards the pier, clutching the bag of fish suppers. It was warm and soft and reminded me of carrying Diggers; most things reminded me of him. Tired and lost in thoughts of his warmth, I didn’t see the figure detach itself and come towards me along the quay.

  ‘You get your fancy hi’-falooting self out of here. You’re not wanted!’

  Startled, I stopped and stared. Then I began to run, just wanting to get away along the pier back to the warmth and safety of the Conochbar. In my haste, I slipped and crashed down into a puddle of cold stinking fishy water. Who was it? Never, in my tidy, sheltered life had anything like this happened to me before. I’d never been shouted at, or the butt of such venom. With my nose inches from the slippery concrete, I peered between my knees and caught a glimpse of a figure furtively scurrying off, getting quickly away. Frightened, I knelt in the cold, fishy water, trying to get my breath. Eventually I managed to crawl to the edge of the quay, gasping to find enough breath to shout. ‘Cubby! Cubby!’ I wheezed. Up he came, jumping over the gunwales, as light as a shadow, up the ladder and onto the quay.

  There was no one to be seen, whoever it was; they were well and truly gone, not wanting a fight.

  The fish suppers were good but none of us ate much. Next morning, we woke to find the trawlers between us and the quay had slipped away during the night, off to get on with fishing, so that now the Conachbar was exposed and easy to board. It was time to get out of Oban. Last night’s threat might lead to something worse and we reckoned we knew where it came from. Dispiritedly, we roped Cubby and Kate’s belongings up onto the quay, everything they owned, and the three of us squeezed into the Flying Tomato. With no prospect of work, they would have little to live on for the coming winter; we set off down the coast to Loch Melfort. Cubby’s parents lived in a tiny house next to the pub; they could stay there while John and I worked on the next stages of the plan.

  It was Friday and the start of Hugo’s half-term, which we had decided to spend amongst the distractions of London. It would be more cheerful for us all, better than the emptiness of home in November, soulless without Diggers. Wearily I began the long drive south to join them. The Flying Tomato whizzed down the empty road along the shores of Loch Long, and as ever thoughts of Digby seeped into my mind. But Hugo and John would be waiting. Seven hours later I drew into Park Lane and the pools of crisp light at the entrance to the Intercontinental Hotel. Jumping out, I handed the keys to the liveried doorman who looked down his nose at the small, mud-spattered car.

  Swinging through the revolving glass door into the bright marble foyer I was aware of a distinct whiff of fish and salt trailing behind me.

  Five

  After leaving Kate and Cubby jobless and lodged with Cubby’s mother, I had trawled through endless yachty magazines, the Fishing News and shipping agents’ adverts – no Internet or Google then. Even teatime at home with Hugo had become a boat hunt. ‘I like this one!’ he cried, spotting yet another glossy, white, super-yacht, sleek with sun loungers and awnings. Cubby and I followed up every possibility, scouring the country from Dundee to Devon, zooming around in the Flying Tomato, staying in frilly B&Bs, dreary Travelodges and pubs. It was fun and Cubby, loving the changes of scene and new places, was full of curiosity and interest in all the places we visited, so was the perfect driving companion. But the search was also utterly dispiriting and time was running out. Eight months had passed since Kate and Cubby had left the Conochbar. It had seemed doable, to find and equip a vessel so we could meet the National Trust charter deadline, but the months had slipped away. John had signed the contract and we were already committed to their schedule of voyages. The first group was to be transported to St Kilda early in May. Financially all was organised, our investors would fund the boat purchase, John had prised a loan and grant out of the Highlands & Islands Development Board and the Clydesdale Bank had agreed a marine mortgage, so all was ready.

  But as the date of the first voyage had crept ever nearer, we still had no boat. However, at last a fuzzy photo of a large trawler advertised by a shipping agent in Grimsby had seemed a possibility. ‘Yes, no problem,’ the agent said. ‘Of course you can see her. She’s available for inspections. She’s at her home port in Denmark.’

  Cubby was the key to the venture, and we were completely dependent on his knowledge. Born on the wild west coast island of Jura, when a boy Cubby had helped his father fish the infamous whirlpools of the Corryvreckan, the cauldron of the speckled seas. Together they had heaved up creels of scrabbling lobsters for the gentry, pulling up the heavy baskets by hand from the turbulent dark waters into the bouncing rowing boat. But by the age of twelve he had to leave the little island school of Jura for Oban, the big city. It was everything he hated: no more running wild, squirming through the heather and bracken to sneak up on sleeping deer, no more tickling salmon from the laird’s lochs. After two grim years of boarding with a prim-faced spinster in Oban he had packed his bags and gon
e down to the harbour. He had been at sea ever since.

  We had quickly learnt there would be no compromise on the kind of boat Cubby wanted. His veins seemed to run with saltwater rather than blood and he trusted fishing boats, knew their strengths and what was needed for working in the turbulent North Atlantic waters beyond the Outer Hebrides. Being responsible for lives at sea had confirmed his inflexible views. To have twelve passengers forty miles out in inhospitable seas beyond the reach of rescue services at inaccessible St Kilda – ‘forty miles west of bugger all’ – required a tough, reliable vessel. It had to be a boat that would be safe and have its own back-up systems. Cubby had spelled out his conditions. While he was desperate to have work and a boat to drive, he still insisted things should be done his way. Compromise, on such important issues, was not a word he recognised.

  Together we had looked at so many, each seeming so promising from its photo. From dainty, delicate yachts to pathetic, plastic, once-loved, greying family day boats, we’d gone over them all. With unflagging optimism we’d checked one after another broken hulk, mouldy with leaves and moss. John decided it would be more cost effective to send Cubby to Denmark as we knew by now, after months of inspecting rotting hulks, there was no point in the expense of a marine surveyor making the initial inspection. Cubby would know immediately if the boat was just another disappointing, unseaworthy, moulding wreck.

  ‘What do you mean you won’t go? Why ever not?’ John was incredulous. All this effort and money to give Cubby a boat and job and yet the man was saying he wouldn’t go! To John, at his desk in a neat, air-conditioned London office, Cubby’s conditions seemed extraordinary, but even from a distant Scottish phone box, his insistence was clear.

  ‘I’m not going without Amelia. I need her to look after me. I’ve not been away from Scotland before.’

  John was not pleased – the man was saying he wanted to go abroad with his wife! However, it was too late to go back now and he would join us in Denmark a few days later.

  ‘Och, it just won’t do! I’m away to tell him,’ Cubby jumped up from the bunk. ‘I have to tell him. He’s got to ease her in a bit.’ He wanted to go up four lurching decks on to the bridge to tell the captain how to handle his ferry. It was early January and Cubby and I were being tossed about in a pastel-green Formica cabin halfway across the North Sea en route to inspect the boat. It was rough, horribly rough, and Cubby, having never experienced the motion and claustrophobia of an overnight car ferry, was not happy below decks in the confined cabin. He wanted to be out in the air where he felt more at home.

  The big steel lump thundered on, slicing through the dark. As it crashed deep into the troughs between the waves, the whole vessel shook, juddering with the lumbering weight and sheer force of speed. Cubby had never crossed any sea before without being in charge, nor had he had ever been south of Glasgow. Just getting him a passport at the tiny village post office in Loch Melfort had amazed him and caused a stir of excitement.

  But now we were on our way; I was taking him Abroad, to Foreign Parts and as it turned out, he loved the novelty of it all. Strapped below on the car deck was the trusty Flying Tomato waiting for our arrival into Hamburg from where we would drive north to a Danish ferry port named Søndeborg where our possible boat was for sale.

  Cubby persisted: ‘It’s not safe down here. Come on. Let’s away up.’ I rather agreed. The juddering felt really frightening and I thought of the oil rigs scattered across this shallow sea dotting the ferry’s path. Clinging to the handrails, we staggered up the brightly lit, shiny stairwell. The motion became more and more violent as we fought our way upwards, closer towards the bridge, but thankfully Cubby, pausing to stare out of the windows, became fascinated by the gas flares and clusters of lights from the rather too close oil rigs. He pointed out the red-and-green navigation lights of each safety boat as it heaved up and down in the swells, keeping station near its appointed rig.

  Eventually the ferry had slowed down and now in the calm of the River Elbe she cruised into Hamburg in the dark, a crack of dawn glimmering to port. The brightly lit dockyards and the spider’s web of cranes lifting containers onto the decks of the densely packed freighters intrigued Cubby; another new sight for him.

  The Flying Tomato slithered down the car ramp, depositing us on an unknown dock in the middle of Hamburg. Several inches of snow covered the cobbles; it was slippery and still virtually dark. I stared round, anxious not to be skidding down the ‘wrong’ side of the road. Cubby was not a map reader – charts were different – no satnavs then, but eventually we found our way, gingerly negotiating a maze of sleepy suburbs to head north for Søndeborg along the windswept shores of the Baltic. The sky was leaden and oppressive. Everything was colourless, flat and still, squashed by the weight of the cold. No birds, no movement from the neat little red roofed houses, not a sign of life anywhere. As dawn slowly opened up, the harsh white light reflected off the snow giving way to a thin, wintery daylight. Leaving the snow behind, the snug little Flying Tomato ate up the miles while Cubby snoozed peacefully. I pressed on.

  Swooping over a bridge several hours later, we had a view of the small harbour below: there was a ferry alongside the quay and neat warehouses lining the harbour. Søndeborg. Maybe there would be just enough light to find the unknown boat mysteriously named Monaco. We might just have time. In an hour John and our potential investor, Ian, were due at the little airport.

  The harbour was thick with trawlers tied up alongside every quay and jetty, two or three deep. Each looked exactly the same as the next. The same shape and the same colour: all a uniform pale sky blue, with a red waterline and white superstructure. I stopped the car on the edge of a quay and peered through the windscreen, wondering how to find her. Cubby, aroused by the whiff of fish, opened his eyes, tapped his tobacco tin and gazed round: ‘Aye, that’ll be her, just there.’ Even in the fading light, with just a sweeping glance round the harbour, he could pick her out. I turned the Flying Tomato along the quay and stopped just at the edge so the headlights could light her up. Fishing a torch from under my seat, I jumped out, but my legs skidded straight from under me. Slithering inelegantly across the cobbles on my bum, I came to a stop with my legs dangling out over the edge of the quay, above the boat. Everything was covered in a clear film of solid ice. Cubby stood happily rolling a cigarette, entirely at home on slippery surfaces, ‘Are your legs no longer working?’ he enquired, grinning.

  Lit by the car headlights, she could be seen quite clearly, the white superstructure and dark windows of the wheelhouse staring out blankly. Under them, stretching across the whole width of the wheelhouse were big red letters, M O N A C O.

  It had seemed a curious name from the start, and not at all Danish, but for passengers on the west coast of Scotland it would be unusual and smart: just what I wanted. As I took her in, a movement on the deck caught my eye; Cubby was already on board, tucked down at the side of the deck. Kneeling under the bulwark just by the frames, he was stabbing at the wooden deck with his horn-handled fisherman’s knife. Purposefully he jabbed at the planking, trying to dig the steel blade into the wood; I slid carefully over the gunwale and stood beside him, holding my breath.

  During our many fruitless drives, I’d listened to endless lectures on different woods for decks and hulls, on rot and worms. The effects of worms, types of worms, thin worms, fat and burrowing worms. I’d learnt about sun on deck timbers, suitable timbers for frames and decks, timbers for planking, about caulking and hanging knees. Now, standing there as the headlights threw deep shadows across the deck, I wondered if we’d come on another wild goose chase.

  He looked up, stony faced, before allowing a smile to creep across his face. ‘Aye, aye,’ he grinned. ‘She’s fresh! Let’s be going.’

  ‘Fresh’ I knew was a top compliment. His knife hadn’t sunk into the planking; the deck at least was not soft and rotten. Tomorrow we’d get a proper look at her but so far it was encouraging. A little knot of excitement tightened in my stom
ach as we headed for the airport to meet John and Ian.

  While we waited for their plane, we grinned at each other. The knot tightened further as the warmth of the terminal seeped into me. Relieved, I wilted on the plastic bench, drained from the cold, the sleepless ferry crossing and the drive from Hamburg. All around happy families chattered and squabbled as they awaited the plane from Copenhagen bringing Dad home to little Søndeborg for the weekend. Suddenly the whole airport was plunged into the pitch blackness of a power cut. No café lights, no blue computer screens, just a distant faint glow from the runway lights and a dark stunned silence in the Terminal. Somewhere in the little hall a sheep started baa-ing loudly and urgently. Baa! Baa! Baa! It grew more and more insistent. Lighting was restored, the power cut over, lights flickered back on, bathing red plastic seats and waiting families in a bright, harsh glare. Everyone looked about, staring around. Where was it? Officials scurried around; parents and children looked under benches. There was pandemonium while everyone searched for the sheep – a sheep loose at the airport. We’d all heard it. Where was it? I glanced at Cubby as he watched the bustling officials. His lips twitched under his neat moustache and I remembered his stories of his life on Jura, mimicking gulls, cows and sheep.

  Into the chaos strolled a calm, city-suited John, accompanied by a tall gangling man in a grubby anorak. Synthetic fur crept along the hood: this must be Ian. I knew he was a major investor and one of our esteemed directors brought in when John had set up the company. Having taken a number of trips with Kate and Cubby while they ran the Conochbar, he’d mentioned he would be interested in any future venture Cubby might be involved with, so here he was. John and Ian had met for the first time a few hours earlier at check-in for the flight. I’d given each of them a copy of the Fishing News. It seemed a more appropriate way of identifying a shareholder involved with a decommissioned fishing trawler than a red carnation.