The safe house

whitetipped. I could see squalls rippling across the slatey water. Michael tipped his head back.

‘Mmm. Good sailing weather.’

I didn’t like the sound of that. Out in the estuary I could see the single small shape of a white-sailed dinghy, tipping alarmingly so that it seemed to stand up out of the water. There was no one else around at all. The horizon disappeared into a misty greyness. It was the kind of day when it never became completely light; a dank gauze lay across the water.

Michael pulled the thick green tarpaulin off his boat (a Wayfarer called Belladonna, he told me, because of her black spinnaker; I didn’t ask what a spinnaker was). He leaned into the bottom of the boat and pulled out a life-jacket.

‘Put this on. I’ll just get her rigged.’

He shook a large rust-coloured sail out of a nylon bag and started to push long flat sticks into pockets in its fabric.

‘Battens,’ he explained. ‘The sails would flap all over the place without them.’

Then he unhooked a wire from the base of the mast and cleated it into the top of the sail; the bottom be threaded through the boom – I knew the name for that – and fastened firmly.

‘That’s the mainsail,’ he said. ‘We won’t actually haul it up until we push her into the water.’

The next sail he buckled to another wire which he unclipped from the mast. He attached its outer edge to the forestay with lots of small hooks and left the sail puddled on the deck. Then he pulled a long rope through a hole at the base of its triangle and trained the ends along either side of the boat, pushing each through the handles, and tying a knot shaped like a figure of eight to stop it escaping. Finally, he produced a small black flag, tied it to a string secured to the mast and pulled it up until it wavered and then jerked into place on the mast’s tip.

‘Right, let’s pull her into the water.’

I was struck by his air of authority. His hands were strong and meticulous, his concentration was all on the job. It struck me that he must be a good doctor, and I wondered how many of his patients fell in love with him. Together we pulled the Belladonna, still on the trailer, down to the water’s edge, where Michael pushed her into the choppy waves while I held the rope.

‘Don’t worry about getting wet,’ he called as he clambered into the boat and started putting the rudder in and hauling up the slapping expanses of sail. ‘You’ll actually feel warmer once there’s a bit of water between your suit and your skin.’

‘Right,’ I said in a quavering voice and waded into the sea, painter in my blue hands, which stung where they hadn’t turned numb, for I’d forgotten my gloves. ‘When?’ I yelled.

‘What?’

‘When will I feel warmer? Ice is coursing around my body, Dr Daley.’

He laughed, his even white teeth gleaming, the sails rolling wildly around him. Suddenly, as first the front sail and then the back one were pulled up the mast, the boat stopped jerking around and strained purposefully; it was no longer like holding a twitching kite; more like holding a dog who is eager to be off.

‘Push her nose out a bit,’ Michael called. ‘That’s the way, and then jump in. Jump, I said, not fall.’

I landed in the bottom of the boat, flapping like a fish, and hit my knee. The boat keeled immediately and water slopped over the side. My face was about six inches above sea-level.

‘Come over to my side,’ instructed Michael, who did not seem unduly alarmed. ‘Now, sit on the side here, beside me, and put your toes under that strap there, it’s called the toe strap. That way if you lean out you won’t fall in.’

He was holding the tiller in one hand, and with the other he leaned forward to push down the centreboard and gathered in the rope attached to the small sail and pulled it taut. The sails stiffened and I could feel the boat lose its sluggish sideways drift and pick up speed. Indeed, it picked up far too much speed for my liking.

‘Right, Sam, while we’re on this tack and the wind’s quite gentle…’

‘Gentle!’ I squawked.

‘It won’t really pick up until we’re around the point and out into more open waters.’

‘Oh.’

‘All you’ve got to remember is that we are using the wind to take us where we want to go. Sometimes it will be coming from the side, and that’s called reaching; sometimes it will be right behind us, that’s called running. And sometimes we will be almost going into it…’

‘And that’s called falling over, I suppose,’ I croaked.

He grinned at me.

‘Your only job is to hold this jibsheet’ – he tossed the rope attached to the small sail into my lap – ‘and control it. The more we go into the wind, the tighter you pull the sail in. When we are running, you let that sail right out. When I shout “Go about”, all you have to do is let out the sail, and then pull it in on the other side. I’ll look after everything else. Right?’

‘Right.’

‘There are some spare gloves in the bow.’

I edged forward to get them, but the boat suddenly keeled further over.

‘Lean back; no, Sam, lean back so we keep the boat upright. Sam, back.’

I leaned and I felt as if I were suspended over the water, held only by brittle toes. My hands crabbed in the cold, my curved back ached, my neck lolled so that if I rolled my eyes I could see the water underneath me, alarmingly far down. The centreboard was lifting out of the water; if I looked forward, I could see water on the other side slopping into the boat. I shut my eyes.

‘We’re going about, Sam. When I say “Lee-oh”, you pull your rope free and let it flap. Then you move swiftly across to the other side as she swings around. Got it?’

‘No. If I move, the boat’s going to fall over.’

‘Capsize.’

‘You fucking call it capsize; I call it fall over.’

‘Don’t worry, Sam, we’re not going to capsize; it’s not so windy.’ I didn’t like the patronizing patience in his voice.

‘OK, let’s go!’ I shouted and tugged the rope out of its cleat. The sail flapped wildly, the boat bucked, the noise was deafening. I lunged into the middle of the boat and tripped over the centreboard. Michael pushed the tiller across and calmly stepped over to the other side, pushing my head down as he did so. The boom whipped past just above me; Michael pulled in his sheet, then mine. The noise subsided, the flapping ceased, the boat lay flat and trim on the grey water. I moved over to join him. If my hands hadn’t been stiff with cold they would have been shaking.

‘Next time, why don’t you wait until I say Lee-oh?’ he said mildly.

‘Sorry.’

‘You’ll soon get the hang of it. This is all right, isn’t it?’ The boat was quite level now and scudding along with its sails bellied and taut. ‘Just sit back and enjoy it. Look, there’s a heron. I often see it when I’m sailing. Over there’ – he pointed to a distant outcrop of rocks in the dark water – ‘is Needle Point. That’s where two currents meet. Very tricky area; especially at spring tide.’

‘We’re not going there now, are we?’ I asked nervously.

‘I think,’ he replied gravely, trimming his sail, ‘that we’ll save that for another day.’

For a few minutes, as long as the Belladonna kept on that course and all I had to do was sit still and watch the water coursing by and Michael’s steady profile, fair hair slicked away from his high, calm forehead, I did almost enjoy myself. The waves slapped underneath us in a steady rhythm, a finger of sun pointed through the leaden sky. Another dinghy passed behind us and the two sailors raised their gloved hands in a comradely fashion, and I managed to wave back, a cheery smile fixed to my face. Once we even had something approaching a conversation.

‘You hate to be in someone else’s hands, don’t you?’

‘I don’t actually trust that many people’s hands,’ I replied.

‘I hope you trust mine.’

Was he flirting? Because this wasn’t very good timing.