Two Tides

Craig was nervous when he showed me the marina for the first time. I think I’d expected something charming and toothsome, some old glamour gone to seed, but his boat was capable and wifely and broad.

The causeway between the berths had a central grip of chicken wire stapled flat to the planking and it was ridged every metre with a strip of dowelling that made our handcart ring out sharply as we walked. Sea Lady, Gracie, Taranui, Stoke. Craig pointed and said, ‘Wanker – wanker – he’s an alright bloke but the boat’s just for show – wanker – that boat’s been all around the world, would you believe it – she’s just changed hands, haven’t met the new owner – he’s a wanker – look at that, isn’t she a beauty? – see this one? That’s the boat I’d want if I downgraded to a sloop. Precision, she’s a piece of work. Owner’s a right prick though. And here,’ as we finally stopped, third from the end, beside the Autumn Mist.

She slotted snug between a pair of gin palaces, shining white bridge-deckers with tinted glass and squared-off cabins that sat high and proud in the water and bobbed brightly in the crosswind. The Autumn Mist didn’t bob. There was a weight to her, a low-slung gravity, a guarded economy of pitch and roll that seemed quietly to undermine the jouncing of the boats on either side. She was mute-coloured and scabbed with rust, trimmed with sky blue and antifouled with grey. I saw the new wind vane, mounted above the dented gutting tray at the stern, but the clean whiteness of the fin threw the rest of the boat into poor relief. Her sail covers were patched and tatted and fringed with loose threads. The gaskets hung slack. The cockpit windshield was coming apart from its steel framing. There was a dinghy strapped upside down on the bow and the triple bones of its keel showed darkly silver where a thousand landings had worn the paint away.

I thought about dogs that come to resemble their owners and turned to Craig with the tease already in my mouth, but I was startled to see that he was looking downright anxious. He had turned red and he was flapping his hand strangely, turning his wrist over and over.

‘What do you make of it?’ he said.

I put my hand up to shield the sun. ‘Didn’t you say once? Man can only have one mistress. Didn’t you say that?’

‘That’s the truth.’ He looked pleased, and ceased his flapping. After a moment he said, ‘Meet the mistress,’ and we stood in silence and bucked on our heels against the wind.

‘I’m looking for scratches on the hatch,’ I said.

‘Don’t say that when we get to Furneaux.’

‘Too soon, you reckon.’

‘All the boys in the yard been calling me Scott, or Mr Watson.’

‘Yeah.’

‘That keel’s an inch thick and she’s been to Tonga and back.’

‘Yeah.’

‘The name is from “Puff the Magic Dragon”. Silly really.’

‘Lived by the sea...’

Craig said, ‘I know she needs a paint job.’

‘Sorry,’ I said, repenting. ‘I shouldn’t have said about the scratches.’

‘But antifoul is a fuck of a business. It’s best to find some shallow bay, somewhere that gives you a big margin between the tides, low and high. Got to pop her on blocks and then paint like mad until the tide comes back. Or you can pay for the crane and lift, but you’d be looking at five hundred just for the privilege.’

‘She’s lovely, Craig,’ I said. ‘Really she is.’

‘I been thinking, a dragon on the wind vane,’ he said. ‘Some cheeky dragon with a spade on the end of his tail. I reckon I might like that. Always in my head I called that dinghy Puff.’

He leaned out over the water to grab the stainless braid of the shroud and haul the vessel closer to the marina where we stood. For a second she didn’t move. Craig’s biceps stood out on his arm. Then the great weight rolled towards us, against the grain of her keel, and slowly the gap of water between the marina and the boat narrowed and then closed. The low side of the deck touched the buffered planking with a thud.

‘Jen – my wife,’ Craig said suddenly, as I stepped over the braided rail on to the Autumn Mist and felt the slow dip as she rolled under my weight, ‘she’d be white-knuckled. Any time I tried to take her – she’d sit and clamp. White-knuckled. It’s the way she always was.’

He stepped past me on to the cabin roof to unlock the deadbolt on the hatch and the blond wool of his forearm touched my hand. I was disgusted at myself suddenly and I said, ‘But the badminton, and cycling, and the half-marathon. It isn’t like – I mean, she’s got the things she loves.’

Craig’s keyring was a plastic buoy, to keep his keys afloat if they ever fell in.

‘My marriage,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t – you don’t – Francie – it’s just—’ and then he shook his head and rattled his keys and breathed hard through his nose and said, ‘Cunt-struck. I was cunt-struck when I married her. That’s all.’