LITMIR.BIZ

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does it matter now anyway? She tipped back her head and tilted it sideways a little, so that her mouth connected with his. The kiss shivered through her.

      He would have put his hands on her shoulders, gently drawn her against him, but Leonie opened her eyes and over the hot metal curve of the car’s roof she saw Spencer Newton. His dark-green Jaguar was parked in the next slot, there was a brown bag of groceries under his arm and Alexander Gull was following behind him.

      ‘Hello, Leonie,’ Spencer said, with his feline smile.

      ‘Spencer, I didn’t know you were up here. Hi, Alexander.’

      ‘We’ve just arrived. I’m taking some supplies home to mother.’ The corners of his smile curled higher.

      Without looking to see his expression Leonie introduced John to them, explaining that he had rented the Captain’s House.

      ‘I see,’ Spencer murmured.

      The men shook hands and accepted one another’s assurances that they would meet again on the beach.

      John drove with his eyes fixed on the road, but Leonie saw a twist of concern around his mouth. She said as lightly as she could, ‘Spencer is Elizabeth’s son. So he’s an old Pittsharbor man, like Tom. Alexander is Spencer’s partner, they have a rather wonderful gallery in Boston. Alexander paints. Hopperish. Not bad, in fact.’

      ‘I thought they were sweet,’ John said, and Leonie laughed and broke the tension between them.

      ‘Oh, Spencer and Alexander are anything but sweet. Spencer is trying to bully his mother and Aaron Fennymore into selling him the land behind the beach. He and Alexander want to build rental condos.’

      ‘I see. That would change the old place, wouldn’t it?’

      ‘It won’t happen. Aaron will never let go.’

      ‘And what about what Spencer just saw?’

      ‘Can’t I kiss a friend who just bought me lunch?’

      ‘Of course. If that was what it was.’

      Neither of them spoke again. When they reached the Beams’ entrance John took Leonie’s shopping out of the trunk and piled it into her arms.

      She said defensively, ‘Marian’ll be waiting for me. There are no cookies for the kids until I get back.’

      He touched her arm. ‘Did something happen back there?’

      Their eyes met. Leonie wanted to acknowledge to him what her words and manner denied. We’re both wary, she thought. And defensive. ‘Yes,’ she said simply.

      He nodded, and turned back to the car.

      She called after him, ‘Thank you for lunch,’ and he lifted his hand in acknowledgement. Leonie’s breath was jagged in her chest again as she carried the bags of groceries up to the house.

      May idly let her paddle rest across her knees and the canoe drifted, the prow turning parallel with the island’s beach. The sea was flat, like oiled glass, and the afternoon sun plastered thick layers of light across the water and over the lip of beach. The rocky crescent reminded her of a mirthless smile and the trees and scrub that fringed it became a throat, opening, ready to swallow. She hoisted herself abruptly, causing the canoe to rock violently, and stepped into the shallow water. Even at only calf-depth the shock of cold made her yelp. The water was always cold here.

      She grasped the prow and dragged the canoe up on to the stones. There was no one else on the island this afternoon, no other boat or beached sailboard and no sign of swimmers or picnickers. Once her canoe was safe above the tideline she hoisted her pack on to her shoulder and began to pick her way across the sand. In the wrack along the water’s edge she found the prehistoric-looking shell of a helmet crab. She examined it and trailed on, holding the thing by the tip of the jointed tail so that it banged dully against her thigh. There were other different shells caught in the washed-up debris. She squatted down to examine their shape and quality before pocketing them or hurling them out into the water.

      Neither Ivy nor John had come back to the house at lunchtime.

      May was used to making meals for herself, but today she had sullenly rejected the option and eaten a pack of Oreos instead. Her stomach was distended and she could still taste the sugar thick in the back of her throat. There was no wind, not even the smallest stirring to ruffle the water or cool her face. Beads of sweat pricked her top lip. She felt sick and solitary, and disgusted with herself.

      It was the day’s motionless hour when time seemed to hang for ever between early and late. Even the shade within the woodland looked bruised and resentful. May dragged a few steps away from the water and sat down in the sand. In her backpack were some more cookies, but she stopped herself from reaching for them. Instead she took out the book she had brought with her, one of the two that she had borrowed from Aaron and Hannah Fennymore. The books that Doone might, or might not, have read. Listlessly she flipped open the warped board cover and began to skim the pages.

      The ship’s log records that the Dolphin sailed from Nantucket on 1 May 1841, under the command of Captain Charles S. Gunnell. She was bound for the Cape Verde Islands and the west coast of Africa with a full crew of experienced officers and good men. Captain Gunnell was recognised as a fair master and a lucky whaleman.

      Among the crew that left the sanctuary of Nantucket harbour on that spring morning was a green hand who had signed up for the voyage only two days before. He was eighteen years old and slightly built, but he assured Mr Gunnell most vehemently that he was a strong worker and ready to learn the whaler’s craft, and that he wanted nothing more than to take his share of risk and reward aboard the Dolphin.

      The boy gave his name as William Corder. The crew-list indicated that he was a ‘down-easter’, a native of Maine.

      The early part of the Dolphin’s voyage was without incident. The new hand did indeed prove to be willing and quick to learn the duties of the ship. He possessed courage enough for a man twice his size, showing no fear when sent aloft to furl a sail. And he could keep his head and secure footing when the ship’s head fell from the wind and the sail filled with enough force to tear a man from the yard and pitch him into oblivion.

      But William Corder was sadly afflicted by seasickness. For all of his first month at sea he struggled with severe attacks, sometimes to such a degree that the first mate sent him to his bunk to groan out the worst of his trouble in peace. This perceived weakness caused some of the more experienced hands to joke about him, and to suggest that his smallness and gentlemanly demeanour would fit him better for a lady’s parlour or a draper’s shop than for the forecastle of a whaling vessel.

      Then, after the first weeks of misery, William overcame his affliction overnight. He awoke one morning in his bunk and told his companions that he would never be ill again. His prediction proved correct. However rough the seas and however viciously the stubby vessel pitched and rolled, William steadily continued in his work from that day forward. He was not a high-spirited young man, never indulging in horseplay or coarse behaviour with the other hands with whom his life in the forecastle was necessarily shared, but he was always good-humoured and willing to apply himself to whatever the officers required of him.

      For his quiet and modest demeanour he slowly gained the respect of his fellows, but their liking was bestowed on him in time for a different reason.

      By the very nature of their arduous life, the whalemen’s clothes were frequently bathed in perspiration, coated with whale oil and grease and dirt of every description, and saturated with sea water. Any cleansing of their few articles of clothing had to be performed with cold salt water and the roughest soap, so this necessary labour was among the least popular of all the deckhands’ duties.

      But William Corder, it was soon noted, went about the business of laundering his clothes in the deftest manner. He would stand up to the wooden tub containing water set aside for the purpose, and rub the soap into his loose sailor’s shirts and breeches in a shipshape fashion that betokened long familiarity with the washtub.

      One

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