Not here, she told herself. Not here.
But as she sat clipped to the railings with her head tipped back, her hair streaming, screaming with exhilaration, the tears flowed uncontrollably. It was all too beautiful, too perfect, too pure. She had made herself forget this feeling, spent four years suppressing the residual sensation of skating over the surface of the world, but now with the briny spray against her face and the wind tangling her hair into little whipsnakes once more, she was straight back there – in time. With him. In another life . . .
‘Are you crying?’ Linus asked, his hand warm on her arm.
She looked down at him, the wind whipping away her tears. ‘No, it’s just the wind,’ she fibbed, pushing down her heartache with a bright smile, knowing just how much Jack would have loved this moment. This had been their life together – well, not this rarefied echelon, clearly, but the world gliding beneath their feet as they rigged the sail and set the boom. This was what he had lived for. But the truth was brutal and simple and unavoidable – he wasn’t here, and he never would be again. He was gone.
She made herself say it in her head. He’s gone . . .
She saw Emil, clipped to Linus’s other side, watching her as though he detected the lie, and she looked away with a defiant chin-thrust to the air, her eyes closed, willing the past to leave her alone.
‘Hold on!’ Mats, the skipper, suddenly yelled as the boat turned, catching the wind, and in an instant they were aloft, up on the hydrofoils, a metre above the waves. She screamed with shocked delight as she looked down to find they were slicing across the water’s surface as if on a blade. Linus met her widened eyes, screaming and laughing too like they were on a rollercoaster, then looking over at Emil, who was the same, all of them caught in a shared bubble of euphoria. She had never seen him laugh before, she realized, and it changed him completely, lifting away the grim mask of endurance that he so often wore.
She had never experienced anything like it as the boat sliced along, ever faster, the crew slick and professional, oblivious to the spray that soused them as they worked. They looked almost menacing in their all-black Linea kit, working together intuitively. There was no doubt this boat was an eye-wateringly expensive piece of kit, an international player on the professional scene – and a mere toy for a family like his.
She still harboured strong doubts about the ethics of allowing a ten-year-old to believe he owned a multimillion-kroner boat, but she couldn’t deny this was fast shaping into a perfect day. The forecast storms were still nowhere to be seen, but the vanguard winds were playing to their advantage as the crew skilfully manoeuvred the super-vessel into catching it, billowing out the sails and skimming them for miles across the glassy ocean’s surface. They went so fast and so far, she half expected to see the coast of Finland.
Watching the crew in action was a masterclass in elite sailing, the men running full-pelt from one side to the other trying to catch the wind, winching in and out the sails from the grinding stations, leaping across the nets. They were both athletes and commandos, all being dunked repeatedly in the bracing water, the sea breaking over them with relentless force as the boat carved too sharply and deeply on some of the turns; without being clipped on, they would have been overboard, no question.
‘Keeping the platform stable on this boat is more complex than flying a helicopter,’ Emil shouted over the wind to Linus. ‘How many knots?’ he yelled over to Mats.
‘Fifty-two!’
Bell’s mouth opened. That couldn’t be right, could it? Could a sailing boat do those speeds? It would be fast for a speedboat!
‘Remember there’s a child on board!’ she hollered, unable to stop herself, her nerves getting the better of her again. Was this what it was going to be? An accident with Linus on board?
Mats turned back and winked at her. He was a stocky Australian, with a butter-blonde beard and hair tied back in a ponytail, the skin on his broad, planed face pleating thinly as he grinned. He probably wasn’t that much older than her, but life on the ocean didn’t just weather boats. ‘Don’t worry,’ he grinned. ‘I’ve got you.’
It was true, he did make it look easy as he handled the boat with instinctive skill. He was both powerful and light on his feet, issuing orders, hauling the giant helm, making tactical decisions . . . She didn’t notice the minutes clip by. There was too much to watch, always the expectation and then the thrill when the men got the boat exactly where they wanted her and she flew along on her rails again, making them all scream with delight. But eventually, Mats turned to Emil with an enquiring glance and, at his nod, the crew began winding in the sails, the boat dropping back into the water again, it’s speed falling from a sprint to a crawl, and eventually a stop.
It was like coming off a rollercoaster, all of them panting and beaten about by the wind. They bobbed on the water, no land in sight, just deep blue above and below.
‘Oh my God, that was incredible!’ she sighed happily as the crew unloaded the lunches and they were able to unclip themselves and stretch their legs.
‘My butt’s gone numb,’ Linus cried, seeming somewhat delighted by it.
‘Yeah, mine too,’ Emil agreed, copying his son in a strange glute-squeezing dance clearly intended to improve blood flow. Bell grinned, amused as she watched them both. There was a physical echo between them as they jiggled about, trying to outdo each other with their silliness. She thought they probably didn’t see that they had the same walk, or that they both tipped their heads to the side, just a little, when listening, or that they pulsed their index fingers and thumbs together as an impatient tic.
‘Not the most deluxe lunch you’ll ever have,’ Mats said, breaking her attention and handing her a baguette and bottle of water.
‘Oh, thanks.’
‘But weight’s crucial to performance, so we can only bring a minimal load on board.’
‘Especially when you’ve got three bodies sitting as dead weights behind the helm,’ she said self-deprecatingly.
‘Emil’s the boss. He’s no dead weight,’ Mats laughed, as the man himself wandered over.
Linus – having watched the crew running back and forth over the trampolines all morning – followed suit, running with a bandy-legged gait between the cross-members like he was in a soft play centre.
‘Did we bring the, uh . . .?’
‘Yeah, sure,’ Mats said, reaching down and pulling out a magnum of Bollinger. Chilled.
‘Hey, Linus –’ Emil took it from him and shook it up, letting the cork pop in a perfect arc through the air, plumes of champagne streaming out so that Linus was running through mists of effervescence, arms outstretched to the sky. Bell sighed. Any hopes of preventing him from becoming overexcited were well and truly dashed for the day.
‘So a bottle of champagne isn’t considered a detriment to the weight–drag performance ratio, then?’ she asked, as Mats presented a couple of plastic wine glasses too.
‘Of course not. The bubbles keep it light,’ Mats quipped as Emil poured.
Bell laughed.
‘Do the guys want some too?’ Emil asked Mats.
Mats looked back at his team, their lifejackets off now that the boat wasn’t moving, all of them tucking in ravenously to their lunch. ‘Best not. They’ll need clear heads in case we meet those storms later.’
Bell looked at the huge bottle. Surely she and Emil weren’t expected to drink all that on their own?
‘They’re not due till evening, I thought,’ Emil said.
‘Nope. But that wind’s gustier than I’d expected at this point,’ Mats said, thoughtfully casting his gaze over the horizon. It was still bright, but the distinct, sharp seam between sea and air had become blurred, atmospheric conditions beginning to change. ‘I’ll buy them all a beer back at base.’
‘Well, buy them from me,’ Emil said. ‘Put it on the account. You’ve all worked hard for us this morning. We appreciate it, don’t we, Linus?’
‘Huh?’ Linus called, still playing on the nets.
‘Thanks, boss,’ Mats said, echoed by a broken rumble of appreciative voices from the men behind. ‘That’s very generous.’
‘You must be exhausted,’ Bell said as Mats began to eat, tearing at his baguette like a lion devouring an antelope.
‘All in a day’s work,’ he shrugged.
‘You didn’t stop.’
‘Can’t afford to. In a twenty-minute competition, I can make up to 1,100 adjustments to the foils and rudders.’ He smiled at the shocked expression on her face. ‘Did I hear that you’re a sailor?’
She was further taken aback. ‘I don’t know, did you?’
His eyes slid over questioningly to a wide-eyed Linus, who was dangling from the boom. ‘Hmm.’
She gave a small groan and smiled. ‘I was, once. A lifetime ago.’
‘Ah, you know what they say – once a sailor, always a sailor.’
‘Well, I never did anything at this level. The speeds you can reach, the tech you’ve got . . . it’s an entirely different beast to what I knew.’
‘Different, but still the same,’ he shrugged. ‘You don’t miss it?’
She froze, not wanting to think about how much she missed it. Missed him. A silence stretched, but she didn’t notice.
‘Bell had been sailing the world with her fiancé, but then he died,’ Emil said bluntly, stepping in for her.
Mats’ expression changed from curiosity to shock. ‘Oh jeez, I’m sorry, I had no idea!’
‘Well, of course not. Don’t worry, it’s fine,’ she said in a wobbly voice, forcing a smile as she glanced angrily at Emil, drinking his champagne like nothing had passed. She knew he hadn’t intended to be cruel, but he had delivered the statement so clinically – just facts, no emotion. No filter.
‘Can I . . . ask what happened?’ Mats enquired, his face a picture of concern.
She looked back at him. ‘Cancer. Pancreatic.’
His face fell. ‘Oh God. That’s the worst. My best mate’s brother was diagnosed three weeks after the birth of his daughter; the poor bugger died nine months later. By the time they found it, it had spread too far . . .’ He shrugged hopelessly.
‘That was the same with Jack. He died within four months.’
‘No symptoms either?’
She hesitated, feeling the pinch of blame in the words she must say. ‘. . . Actually, there were some. But he ignored them. We both did.’
Her face must have registered some of her all-consuming guilt because Mats leaned forward. ‘Hey, don’t do that. Don’t make it your fault. I know what it’s like when you’re on open water, normal life seems so . . . improbable. You’re out there, free, seeing the world, and life feels beautiful and limitless; but it can also be really hard and distracting on the waves; there’s no mercy out there. Things get missed or put off. And what the hell can you do in the middle of the Pacific anyway, you know?’
She nodded; she would never forgive herself but she could hear the kindness in his message, the empathy. Something his boss was incapable of. ‘He was only twenty-four. I think we both just thought he was too young and fit to be that sick.’
The pity spread across Mats’ face. ‘Where were you when he was diagnosed?’
‘Here. Sweden. We’d been sailing the Barents, intending to get over to the Caribbean for the winter months. We stopped at Malmö for a few days to stock up; there were these sweets he always liked that you couldn’t get anywhere else.’ She gave a small smile at the memory before it faded again, rubbed out by a harsher one. ‘He collapsed in the street. They took him in to hospital and he never left again.’
‘Jesus,’ Mats murmured, reaching over and squeezing her arm warmly. ‘I’m really sorry. That’s rough.’
‘Yeah.’ She realized her sandwich was sitting, untouched, in her hand. She forced herself to take a bite, but it was like chewing cardboard.
‘So that’s why you’re here, then? In Sweden?’
‘Basically. I couldn’t physically have sailed the boat alone, even if I’d wanted to, and I definitely didn’t want to sail with anyone else.’ She shrugged. ‘Besides, I was in shock for a long time; it had all happened so fast. I sold the boat and bought an apartment in Stockholm with the money and spent a year just staring at the walls. I didn’t work, didn’t go out, barely ate . . .’ She sighed. ‘Until one day, it was raining, absolutely pouring, and I decided to go for a walk. It was the first time I’d been outside in weeks.’
‘You wanted to walk – in the pouring rain?’ Emil asked.
‘Exactly! Those are the best walks!’ she said, seeing his scepticism. ‘It woke something in me, that feeling of the rain on my face.’
‘It reminded you that you were still alive,’ Mats said, getting it.
‘Yeah, exactly. So I began walking every day, even when it was sunny.’
He chuckled at her contrariness. Emil looked confused.
‘Then I advertised for a roommate and got Kris, who’s become my best friend; he’s the brother I never had.’ She glanced at Emil. Did he remember the name, the handsome face? Did he care? ‘He introduced me to his friends, and I started hanging out with them all. And one day I looked around me and realized I’d put down roots, and my life was in Sweden, and that was that.’
‘What about your family back home?’
‘There isn’t one. I was an only child and my father was much older – his marriage to my mum was his second; he died when I was thirteen and my mother died six years later.’
Emil was staring at her. ‘When you were nineteen.’
Good maths, she wanted to quip, but she bit her tongue. ‘Yes.’
‘That’s why you flunked your exams and didn’t go to uni.’
She swallowed. Tact really wasn’t his thing. ‘. . . Yes.’
‘So you went sailing round the world instead.’ It was as though he was putting together a picture in his mind, arranging her life story to a sense of order. Good luck with that . . .
‘There’s no greater escape,’ Mats said, nodding. ‘I reckon I’d have done the same.’
Bell smiled at him, grateful for the affinity, and he winked back.
‘So then, the question is – we know how you got to Sweden, but how exactly did you end up here, on a shabby boat like this with us reprobates?’ Mats joked. Still, he shot an enquiring glance in the direction of his boss in case he took umbrage at either ‘shabby’ or ‘reprobates’. Emil’s sense of humour could be unpredictable – it didn’t always show up.
‘I met Hanna in a cafe one day after my walk. The twins were babies and she was struggling to feed them and keep this chicken amused,’ she said, ruffling Linus’s hair lovingly. He had finally finished with his exertions and was sitting beside her, picking the filling out of his baguette. ‘So I offered to help and the next thing I knew, I had a job.’
She saw Emil had stopped eating, his baguette barely touched in his hands, listening to the story of how she came to be here – on his boat, in his family’s life – the conversation an echo of the one they’d had that night on the little boat about Destiny. ‘Funny, isn’t it, how you end up in places? Never in a million years would I have predicted this.’ She motioned to their simple champagne lunch, the sleek carbon hulk of the vessel.
‘Tell me about it,’ Mats said. ‘I’m the proverbial wanderer. I don’t do more than a season anywhere.’
‘No? Where’s next for you?’
‘New Zealand. I’m part of the team for the America’s Cup next Spring.’
‘Oh wow! That’s incredible.’
‘Yep. Living the dream. I’m leaving in a few weeks, actually. Sailing myself down to Auckland to start getting things in order.’ He looked at her. ‘Are you going to stay in Sweden, do you reckon?’
Bell patted Linus on the head. ‘Well, certainly until this one becomes a teenager and refuses to sit on the naughty step any more,’ she joked. At least, she had intended it as such, but the words tapped a wellspring of deep emotion she hadn’t known was there. Talking about this wasn’t in the least bit funny.
‘And when you’ve outlived your usefulness? Go travelling again?’
‘Yeah, maybe,’ she shrugged lackadaisically, trying not to acknowledge the sense of panic that idea stoked in her. The thought of leaving her life here – her friends, her little apartment, the Mogerts, Linus especially . . . He blinked back at her, his green eyes deep and soulful, so like his father’s.
It was impossible to imagine it, not having him or any of them in her life any more. It was true, she hadn’t envisaged this version she was living without Jack; but she had found perfect strangers and moulded them into a family of her own. They were all she had. They were all she was. They were her life now.
She looked over at Emil, seeing his sense of separateness like a cloak upon his shoulders. She got it, suddenly. She understood why he was so intent upon getting his family back, and why he couldn’t move on; his dogged refusal to let Hanna go or to concede defeat to Max. It wasn’t down to ego or will or a rich man’s spoiled whim. It was simple. Without them, the man who had everything, had nothing.
‘Okay, is it clear?’ she yelled down.
Emil looked back at her. ‘We’re in three-hundred-metre depth! What do you think could possibly be in your way?’
The crew laughed, whether from obedience or genuine amusement she wasn’t sure.
She cringed. ‘A whale?’
They all laughed harder, even Emil. ‘It’s fine.’
‘Okay then, I’m ready,’ she said, facing the horizon, her gaze high, arms by her sides.
‘Wait! This better not just be a dive. You said this was going to be good!’ Mats hollered. ‘Unless you’re going to do a penguin dive?’
‘Oi!’ she grinned. ‘Just you wait. And don’t give him here ideas!’ She winked down at Linus, standing behind her, then took a deep breath. ‘Right, count me in.’
‘Three – two – one!’ they all cried, and she walked forward two steps, raised her arms up and leapt . . .
The men were cheering when she surfaced a moment later.
‘A reverse pike?’ Emil asked, looking shocked as she swam over to him, away from the diving point.
‘Agh, I was a fraction out on the entry. But you know, it’s been four years, so . . .’
‘Where did you learn to do that?’
‘I lived on a boat for three years. Getting into the water elaborately becomes a vital source of amusement, believe me.’
They were treading water, his eyes looking particularly startling against his tan and slicked-back hair and she realized it was a good thing he wore his shades so much. He might have dismissed their night together, but she hadn’t. Couldn’t. ‘Well, I guess you really have raised the stakes,’ he said, looking impressed.
‘My turn!’ Linus hollered, and they turned to see him standing on the edge of the boat.
‘What are you going to do?’ she called up.
‘The penguin!’
‘No!’ she said quickly. ‘It’s too high from there, you’ll hurt your head!’ But she was too late. With his arms pinned to his sides, he dived in head first. ‘Linus!’ she chided, as he surfaced seconds later with a triumphant look. ‘You could have hurt yourself!’
‘But I didn’t!’
‘But you could have done.’ Her nerves were frayed again. One moment dormant, the next tingling.
‘But I didn’t. I’m okay.’
‘You did a great job, bud,’ Emil said, interrupting them, playing good cop again, overruling her. ‘Right, my turn. You can decide what I do this time.’ He turned away and swam over to the boat, hauling himself onto the ladder, muscles taut as he heaved himself out of the water.
‘Do the penguin!’ Linus cried. ‘See if you can do it as good as me.’
‘Okay then.’ Emil walked across to their diving-off point.
‘. . . Is that a good idea?’ she called, as he positioned himself at the edge, peering down into the endless blue.
He gave her a quizzical glance. ‘I’m not ten.’
The crew, sprawled on the nets, chuckled. They were resting, some of them napping, before the inevitable exertions of the journey home.
‘No, but – I mean . . .’ She didn’t want to say it out loud, to make a big thing of it in front of the other men. ‘You don’t want to get a headache.’
‘I’ve already got a headache. I always have a headache.’
For some reason, this prompted another laugh, and before she could protest further he sprang forward, his body like a blade. It was a good dive, and he popped up seconds later to cheers, but she thought she saw the minute tightening of the muscles across his face.
‘Let’s do it together!’ Linus cried, fast crawling back to the boat.
‘Okay, sure.’
‘Do you think that’s a good idea?’ she asked again, quietly, as he went to swim past.
‘Bell, what are you, the fun police? I’m having fun with my son. Could you let it be?’
‘I’m just worried –’
‘Well, don’t be. I’m not your concern.’ He blinked at her, droplets on his face.
‘All right. Whatever,’ she mumbled, kicking away and watching as he swam to catch up with his son. He was right. She was overreacting to everything, as jumpy as a cat.
She watched as they went again and again, trying different combinations of dives and jumps – screwdrivers, penguins, backward dives, bombs, side dives, tucks, pikes, bellyflops . . . She knew the impacts were making Emil’s head ring, she could see it on his face every time he surfaced, in that split second as he gasped for air before he could ready a smile. But he was right. She wasn’t his keeper. He was a grown man who could manage the risks to himself, a father going to any lengths to bond with his son.
It was working, too. She saw it in the way Linus maintained eye contact as he talked now, his laugh was readier, he was hungrier; crucially, he was getting a bit cheekier as he became more relaxed.
‘Bell!’ They were both looking at her. ‘Jump with us.’
‘Really?’ she asked sceptically. She’d been treading water for ages and was a little chilled, her skin wrinkling quickly. But she swam over and climbed out. ‘So what are we doing?’
‘You choose,’ Linus said. ‘We can’t think of any more.’
She thought for a moment. ‘Well, I guess we could try the spinning top.’
‘The what?’ Emil frowned.
‘I’ve only done it as a two before, but I’m sure it’ll work as a three. We just need to make sure we jump out far enough. We jump in as a circle, but spinning.’
His frown deepened. ‘Spinning?’
‘It’s important to hold on tight or it’ll break up when we enter the water. So hold your arms out and clasp mine, at the elbow there –’ She held hers out and felt his hand grip her upper forearm. ‘Linus?’ She looked across to join up on the other side, but she had only a split second to process his mischievous face as his hands shot forward and pushed both of them off the boat.
There wasn’t even time to scream as she and Emil landed side-on in the water, instantly surrounded by millions of tiny bubbles hissing and fizzing around them that cleared as quickly as they’d come. For a moment – just one – his face was all she could see in the deep blue sea, his sad eyes not hidden for once by the armour of his shades. Away from the crew’s chatter and Linus’s over-excitement and the billionaire boat, there was just peace and stillness as they looked at each other underwater. No distraction, no filters, no hiding.
The air in their lungs made them buoyant and they popped up to the surface, the real world coming back into full colour and sound.
‘Linus!’ she hollered, remembering her indignation. ‘You are a cheeky monkey!’
The weather was fully on the turn. It was still bright and warm, but the wind had picked up and the clear skies had become heavier through the afternoon, the razor-line of the horizon now blurred into indistinction.
Mats didn’t like the look of it and had ordered the crew to get ready to set sail again. Bell was sunbathing on a towel; she didn’t need to tan, but it gave her an excuse to be out of the way – both of the crew, and Linus and Emil beside her, who were now deep in conversation. Or rather, Linus was machine-gunning Emil with question after question about the boat: ‘What’s a Code Zero spinnaker?’; ‘Can it tip over?’; ‘Has it tipped over?’; ‘Have any men gone overboard? Have any men been lost at sea?’; ‘Have any drowned?’; ‘Why aren’t you skipper?’
Bell was listening with one ear open, and heard Emil stall at that last one.
‘Can’t you sail any more?’ Linus pressed.
‘I can sail, of course, but a craft like this is technical and highly physical.’
‘So you’re not strong enough?’
There was another pause. ‘It’s not just a question of strength, Linus.’
‘What, then?’
‘. . . Well, obviously I could do it.’
She heard the sound of footsteps.
‘Your dad’s right, little man,’ said the Aussie voice. ‘I know it might look easy, but trust me, this isn’t for amateurs. This is an expensive boat. It can go four times faster than the wind. It’s best to leave it to professionals, and you guys just clip on and enjoy the ride.’
There was a small silence and then Emil spoke. ‘Well, I don’t have to do that, clearly.’
Bell heard the silence and turned her head, seeing Mats frozen in a crouch in front of Linus, holding out his bespoke, all-black Linea life jacket. ‘Well, no, I didn’t mean you . . .’ But his hesitation betrayed evident uncertainty.
‘Will you skipper us home, then?’ Linus asked him, green eyes shining with the wonderment that accompanied his new-found father’s every move.
Bell felt her stomach tighten. Linus wasn’t challenging his father; he was investing his hopes in him, which was worse. She sat up, her dread growing again.
Emil smiled tightly. ‘. . . Sure. Why not?’
Mats looked back at Bell for help – as though she had any influence over him! Several of the crew stopped what they were doing and looked up with sceptical expressions, low hisses as they whispered below their breath. But if Emil heard their doubts, it only served to make him more determined.
‘Yes, that’s a great idea, in fact,’ he said, warming to the idea. ‘Well done, Linus. Will you be my first mate?’
Linus gasped so deeply, Bell thought he was going to sneeze. ‘Oh, can—?’
‘No!’ she said, so quickly, she was sitting up and positioning herself between the two of them, her hands automatically outstretched onto his shoulders and holding him firmly. Emil’s gaze went to them as before, but this time she didn’t remove them. ‘No.’
A moment passed in which she thought he was going to berate her again, defy her in front of all these men, but then – either because he saw the madness of what he was suggesting, or he clocked the unwavering defiance in her eyes – he relented. ‘On second thoughts, you’re probably too light, bud; the wind’s got up.’
They all looked up at the darkening sky. The clouds were gathering quickly, and she’d sailed through enough storms to know they wouldn’t outpace this one. They had overstayed their time here. ‘You’d best stay clipped by the rails with Bell. I don’t know what your mother would do to me if I told her we’d lost you at sea. She’s pretty scary when she gets mad.’
He winked and Linus laughed, and Bell could see he seemed to revel in the familial intimacy implied in such a scenario. His father and mother, together in a story; together in real life? Was this the first time such a thought had occurred to him? Even with the excitement and novelty that Emil had brought to his life, Bell knew he had still only ever seen Max as his father. Until now.
‘Let’s go,’ Emil said, looking first at Mats and then casting pointed looks at the crew, who all nodded reluctantly at this management takeover.
The atmosphere was different on the way back: the dizzying joy that had accompanied their playful, boastful, ‘faster, faster’ sortie on the way out had become muted and tense. The crew seemed to be working twice as hard as they had on the outbound leg, and several times, Bell saw Emil shout an order that made them stop in their tracks and look at one another quizzically, before Mats would countermand it with either a tiny shake of his head or give another under his breath.
Emil didn’t seem to notice, his gaze pinned to the horizon. He had planted his legs in a wide-legged stance, but as the swell grew, it became harder and harder for him to remain stable. He didn’t have either Mats’ strength or his balance. Linus was clipped in beside her and she threw urgent glances Mats’ way, but he could only shrug, feeling as helpless as she did. Emil was the boss. This was his boat.
They cut a jagged path over the sea, turning erratically as Emil struggled with the power required to work against winds of this force. The men were repeatedly knocked off their feet, jumping up again and trying to undo mistakes; they were sailing upwind now, and Emil was just performing a gybe when the boom swung round with dangerous force and almost caught one of the men. He ducked, only just in time.
It was a near miss, but there was no time to count any blessings as another gust caught the sails violently. It was the kind Mats had been able to harness on the way out, lifting them onto the hydrofoils and out of the water – but they weren’t yet out of the turn, and the sail was instead forced leewards, towards the water. Immediately, the far side of the boat began to lift.
They were going to capsize.
Bell screamed, hooking one arm around the rail and grabbing Linus with her other. They were clipped on – that was keeping them safe. But if the boat went over, they’d be tethered underwater. Not safe.
‘Hike out!’ Mats yelled and the crew raced, as one, across the width of the boat. They were like marines on a commando course, powerful and hunched, hands and feet scrabbling over the nets before they clipped onto the rails in a seamless leaping movement and stretched their bodies at full lengths over the side of the boat, leaning out as counterbalances. Bell saw them strain as the sail’s tip skimmed the very surface of the water on the opposite side. If it dipped below even for a second, the speed and torque would drive the sail deeper downwards and they would go over.
Linus screamed and she grabbed him as tightly as she could, the deck now like a wall below them, anything loose skittering over the surface and down into the churning water, as for several agonizing seconds, the boat glided on its side in a terrifying, perfectly held balance – the sail flat on the water, the men straining as they arched back as far as they possibly could.
And then, suddenly, it gave. The men won out and the boat crashed back down onto both keels, making Bell cry out again. She had known this was going to happen, something bad. She had felt it coming. But there was still no time for recriminations. The crew were instantly moving again, dispersing and grinding in the jib.
‘Emil!’ Mats hollered over the wind, racing over to Emil at the helm and gripping the column as he tried to balance. Standing in the middle of the boat like this, he was unclipped and vulnerable. ‘Let me take over, man. That was too close. This swell is pretty big now.’
But Emil stayed staring at the horizon, making no move that he had heard.
‘Emil? Did you hear me? Let me take over! I can take it from here!’
Emil glanced at him. ‘No!’
Mats looked aghast. ‘Look, man, fire me when we get back if you want, but this is a technical ride –’
‘I said no! I told my son I would skipper us back, and that’s what I’m going to do!’
‘Dude, it’s because of your son I’m taking over! He’s ten, for chrissakes! Look at him!’
Emil turned around, taking in the expression on Linus’s face. The wonderment and awe of even twenty minutes earlier had gone, and he was now rigid with terror.
Emil’s face went slack, his hands lifting off the helm. ‘Linus!’
Mats moved fast, stepping in and clipping himself on. ‘Go and sit down!’ he yelled, before his eyes widened so that they were more white than brown. ‘Look out!’
He grabbed Emil’s lifejacket, trying to pull him down as he lunged for the floor, but Emil saw nothing but his son’s terror. He didn’t see the boom coming, and it caught him above the left ear. He crumpled like an autumn leaf.
‘Emil!’ Bell screamed, scrabbling on her hands and knees to try to reach him as Mats staggered up again and got a hand to the wheel. He was standing in a wide straddle above Emil’s limp body as he struggled to gain control of the boat. The wind tossed them both about like they were paper bags.
‘Have you got him?’ Mats yelled, checking she had a hand on Emil’s lifejacket before he freed his harness from the steering column. Linus was crying now. Bell tried to drag Emil towards her, out of Mats’ way, but he was out cold and a dead weight. He was unsecured to the boat except by her left hand. One large wave would be enough to wrench him from her grip, free-falling in the boat, overboard . . . She looked up desperately. The crew were leaping across the nets again, in full defence mode as the swell grew. There was no one to help.
‘Look out!’ Mats yelled, and she tightened her grip as hard as she could while a large wave rocked them, the forward momentum pitching the boat – and Emil – forward. She strained to hold on to him, giving a cry as his full body weight was held in place by her one hand – then, in the next instant, the wave passed and the boat rocked back, sliding him straight towards her, limp and inert.
‘Oh my God!’ she gasped, immediately clipping him to their rails and stretching out her legs so that she could lay his head in her lap, to protect him from any further impacts. She checked him for signs of injury. He wasn’t bleeding, that she could see. No open wounds. But he was unconscious again, from a head injury. Oh God. Oh God.
Linus was sobbing.
‘Emil, can you hear me?’ She shook his shoulders. ‘Emil? Wake up. You’ve got to wake up. You hear me? Linus is here. You son needs you.’ She looked across at him. ‘Linus, talk to him. Let him hear your voice. He needs to hear your voice.’
Linus stared down at the unconscious man. ‘Em–’ He stopped. ‘Dad? Can you hear me?’
Emil groaned, his eyes flickering.
Linus gasped. It had worked? He was coming round? ‘Dad!’
‘Emil?’ Bell asked. He looked up at her, clearly stunned. ‘What’s my name, Emil? Tell me my name.’
He hesitated, seconds ticking past as nothing came. Then: ‘. . . Ding-dong.’
It wasn’t supposed to be a joke, clearly, but a laugh escaped her anyway, the relief tangible. ‘Yes, that’s right. Ding-dong Bell.’ What he’d called her that first night together. He remembered that?
Linus was gripping her arm, and she looked into his frightened eyes. ‘Is he going to be okay?’
‘Yes, he’s going to be okay. It’s probably just a concussion.’
‘But –’
She knew what he couldn’t say – that this had to be worse than that. He’d only just emerged from a seven-year coma; he couldn’t sustain another traumatic head injury without devastating consequences, surely?
‘I know, but he’ll be okay,’ she lied; she knew nothing of the sort. ‘He’s only just got you back, Linus. He won’t leave you now.’ She looked at Mats’ back, seeing the strain in his shoulders as he struggled against the wind. It was beginning to rain now, the deck becoming slippery. ‘How long?’ she called over to him.
Mats turned, seeing the patient dazed on the ground. He shrugged, helpless to do more. ‘An hour?’
An hour before he could see a doctor. She looked down at Emil – his head in her lap, staring back at her with a bewildered blankness – and tried to smile.