Devil's Rock - Chris Speyer [25]
‘Fine, just keep out of trouble,’ said his father, ‘I’d better get back to number forty-three. They’re meant to deliver the slates for the roof this afternoon. But if you’re thinking of meeting Craig after school, don’t go playing football; remember what the doctor said.’ His father gave him a searching look.
‘Don’t worry, Dad, I’m not stupid,’ said Zaki.
* * *
When he reached the harbour, there was still half an hour to kill before school finished, and even if Anusha hurried, Zaki figured it would take her a further fifteen minutes to get down to the harbour. Zaki hadn’t invented the old trawler he’d told his father he was going to look at; he had noticed her tied up at the visitors’ berth when they passed on their way home from school. He thought he might as well take a look while he waited for Anusha to arrive. He wandered down to the water’s edge. ‘Vigilance’ said the gold letters on the boat’s stern. Zaki’s grandad could remember a few still fishing under sail in the 1930s and spoke with loving respect of seeing them running home, laden with fish, before a southerly gale.
But Zaki’s mind wasn’t on boats, it was on his meeting with Anusha. What should he tell her? Should he tell her everything? Should he tell her about the cave and the skeleton? What about the girl who rescued him and the promise he made her?
Zaki used his good arm to help clamber on to the harbour wall, swung his legs over and sat staring down into the water. His reflection bent and buckled, distorting on the rippling surface. Passing small craft sent larger waves racing to strike the harbour wall and bounce back, bringing confusion to the pattern of ripples, fragmenting his reflection, making his arms, legs, head spring away from each other and then draw back together to reunite. He watched this repeated, hypnotic disintegration and reunification of his body. The sunlight on the water flashed and sparkled and an aura radiated out from his reflected head.
Zaki looked up to rest his eyes from the dazzle of the water and saw that there was a boat making its way up the estuary under sail; another old gaff rigger, but much smaller than the sailing trawler. Was there some sort of old gaffer’s convention taking place in Kingsbridge? Her hull was painted black with a white stripe at the waterline and a snub-nosed pram dinghy with a matching black hull and white stripe trailed behind her.
Zaki knew it took considerable skill to sail all the way to the top of the estuary, the narrow channel of deeper water winding its way down between wide mud flats, the twists and turns of the channel marked only by red and white striped poles. It was one thing to do it in a sailing dinghy with a lifting centreboard, as he and Michael had often done, quite another to attempt it in boat with a fixed keel. She looked like a Falmouth Working Boat, thought Zaki, the sort still used on the oyster beds of Carrick Roads. As the boat came around the next marker post, Zaki saw that there was only one person on deck and he was even more impressed by the skill of her skipper, who now left the boat to look after herself while checking the fenders and ropes were in place for mooring. The next turn would bring her into the cluster of moorings that lay just off the visitor’s berth and Zaki expected to hear the motor start and see her sails come down, but to his surprise she continued on under sail, weaving between the moored boats.
This guy would even impress Michael! thought Zaki.
Emerging from the moorings, with less than fifty metres to go, the skipper loosed the sails and now the wind no longer drove the boat along and only her momentum kept her moving forward. It was the sort of trick old-timers like Zaki’s grandad used, but this skipper looked young, a kid almost,