He lifted the cloth off the tray with a hand as hairy as that of a bull
gorilla, but his voice was as lyrical as a girl's, and his eyelashes
curled soft and dark on to his cheek.
bowl of soup, and a pot-all-feu. It's one of my little special things.
You will adore it/ he said, and stepped back.
He surveyed Nick Berg with those huge hands on his hips. But I took one
look at you as you came aboard and I just knew what you really needed.
With a magician's flourish, he produced a half-bottle of Pinch Haig from
the deep pocket of his apron. Take a nip of that with your dinner, and
then straight into bed with you, you poor dear., No man had ever called
Nicholas Berg dear before, but his tongue was too thick and slow for the
retort. He stared after the cook as he disappeared with a sweep of his
white apron and the twinkle of the diamond, and then he grinned weakly
and shook his head, weighing the bottle in his hand.
Damned if I don't need it/ he muttered, and went to find a glass.
He poured it half full, and sipped as he came back to the couch and
lifted the lid of the soup pot. The steaming aroma made the little
saliva glands under his tongue spurt.
The hot food and whisky in his belly taxed his last reserves, and
Nicholas Berg kicked off his shoes as he staggered into his night cabin.
He awoke with the -anger on him. He had not been angry in two weeks
which was a measure of his despondency.
But when he shaved, the mirrored face was that of a stranger still, too
pale and punt and set. The lines that framed his mouth were too deeply
chiselled, and the early sunlight through the port caught the dark hair
at his temple and he saw the frosty glitter there and leaned closer to
the mirror. It was the first time he had noticed the flash of silver
hair - perhaps he had never looked hard enough, or perhaps it was
something new.
Forty he thought. I'll be forty years old next June. He had always
believed that if a man never caught the big one before he was forty, he
was doomed never to do so.
So what were the rules for the man who caught the big wave before he was
thirty, and rode it fast and hard and high, then lost it again before he
was forty and was washed out into the trough of boiling white water. Was
he doomed also?
Nick stared at himself in the mirror and felt the anger in him change
its form, becoming directed and functional.
He stepped into the shower, and let the needles of hot water sting his
chest. Through the tiredness and disillusion, he was aware, for the
first time in weeks, of the underlying strength which he had begun to
doubt was still there. He felt it rising to the surface in him, and he
thought of what an extraordinary sea creature he was, how it needed only
a deck under him and the smell of the sea in his throat.
He stepped from the shower and dried quickly. This was the right place
to be now. This was the place to recuperate - and he realized that his
decision not to replace Mac with a hired skipper had been a gut
decision. He needed to be here himself.
Always he had known that if you wanted to ride the big wave, you must
