Chapter Twenty

‘Alice is gone until Christmas, Aoife is taking a holiday, and Chef and I have talked at length. It’s all arranged. I’m closing the hotel for two days.’

‘What? Can you do that?’

‘Already done it. September is our only quiet month. I’m going fishing with Patrick along the coast at Ringaskiddy. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for ages and September is always great for mackerel.’ Thomas was sat at his desk.

She smiled as she pictured the two of them messing about with fishing lines, knowing he was taking advantage of Alice’s absence. Emma would miss him, but she couldn’t deny it was precisely what she’d pictured for him.

She stood in the doorway to his office, leaning against the lintel, which was becoming a habit. ‘I’m pleased you’ve decided to do this.’

He sat back in his chair. ‘Why are you grinning? Do you want to get rid of me?’

She laughed. ‘Far from it. No, I’m happy for you. This is the first time I’ve seen you doing something for yourself and it’ll do you the world of good.’

‘Well, actually…’ He pushed a lid onto his pen until it clicked. ‘I was thinking about asking if you’d like to come with us.’

‘Me?’

‘It’s a chance for you to see a bit of the coastline out on the estuary. It’s really beautiful. But there’s no obligation if you’d rather stay here.’

Emma pressed her lips together to keep from allowing her smile to take over her face. ‘I have a Federation meeting Friday, but nothing until then.’

‘I’ve a delivery of coal Thursday, so we’ll be back in plenty of time for your meeting.’

She tilted her head slightly. ‘Are you sure, though? Wouldn’t you rather talk men stuff while you fish?’

He tapped the pen against a page of figures.

‘I would like to show you somewhere different, and you’d have your own cabin for the night.’

The mention of a night away from the hotel – in his company – sent a ripple of nerves racing across her tummy.

‘I’d love to then, thank you.’

His imperceptible nod was backed up by a twitch of his moustache. ‘That’s settled then.’

She turned to leave him to his papers. ‘You won’t expect me to fish, will you?’

He chuckled. ‘Not unless you want to.’

‘What time do we leave?’

‘We need to be on the boat by eight o’clock tomorrow morning.’

 

Patrick’s fishing boat was far bigger than Emma had imagined.

As she stepped on deck the next morning amongst the coiled ropes that smelt of sea salt, she spotted a set of narrow, wooden steps down into what Patrick had called the galley.

The men were still on the gangplank engaged in quiet, but animated, discussion, so she left them to it and went down inside the boat. She opened tiny wooden cupboards with brass handles and found homes for the food items they’d brought from the hotel. The tiny kitchen was well kept and smelt pleasantly of beeswax.

‘It’s tiny but perfect,’ she called over to them when she went back up. ‘I love it.’

Patrick looked up and grinned. ‘I’ve collected everything in miniature over the years; there’s no meal I can’t make down there. And the best thing: I never have to move from one spot to reach it all.’

Patrick jumped easily aboard. ‘Look, sorry, Emma, but something’s come up and I can’t go. But you’re in good hands with Thomas.’

‘Oh.’ Emma looked from one to the other. ‘Perhaps we should leave it until another time when you can make it?’

‘Rubbish!’ Patrick reversed down to the gangplank and started to unwind some ropes that held the boat to its mooring. ‘The boat’s ready and you’re both looking forward to it. Don’t let my date with the court stop you going.’

Thomas had gone the colour of ash as he climbed into the boat beside her.

‘I’ll be honest with you, this isn’t what I’d planned. He received a telegram from the solicitors in Cork where he’s doing articles and has to attend a case they thought wouldn’t come up for a while.’

‘I’m not sure this would look good, Thomas. What will Alice say, or anyone else, come to that?’ The words were out before she realised they’d labelled what had been an innocent trip into something else.

‘I can’t reschedule as the hotel is already closed.’ Thomas moved past her and coiled the rope Patrick had released.

The little motor at the back of the boat was chugging quietly to itself from where Patrick had started it before updating Thomas a few minutes earlier. Emma, deep in thought, watched the water bubbling on the surface.

‘Take care of her.’ She heard Patrick’s words and wasn’t sure if he meant the boat or her. He waved, then turned around and started walking back to the harbour.

‘Why does this trip now feel wrong?’ Emma chewed the side of her nail.

‘If you’d rather stay back, I would totally respect your choice.’

Emma was torn. She’d been excited about the trip, but now her stomach churned with worry.

‘Let’s put our cards on the table,’ Thomas said. ‘What are you worried about?’

‘You’re a married man.’ She took a step back, as if a little space between them would calm the butterflies in her belly.

‘What’s that got to do with a fishing trip with private sleeping quarters? Treat it like a fairground ride, at sea.’

‘With an overnight,’ Emma added.

‘I have no intention of—’

‘Of course! I’m not suggesting you had. Ohhh…’ Emma put her head in her hands. ‘If only Aoife was here.’

Thomas was getting into the swing of activity on the boat and untying different ropes near the boom. ‘You think you need a chaperone?’

She looked back at him and realised how ridiculous she was sounding. ‘I’m sorry. You’ve never given me any reason to doubt you. It’s fine. Let’s go and see these fish.’

‘Right you are, Captain.’

They spent the next half hour negotiating the harbour and began to head into the mouth of the river where there were fewer boats. The sun was warm and Emma slipped out of her fitted jacket, which she folded neatly and placed on a bench towards the stern of the boat. The breeze cooled her skin through the cotton of her blouse. After they’d gone a little way along the coast, Thomas threw the anchor over the side. She heard the metal chain clanking against the hull.

He had disappeared a few minutes earlier but now stood in front of her wearing only a bathing suit. ‘Coming in?’

Mortified, she didn’t know where to look. ‘Er… no, no, I’m fine sitting here.’

She’d never seen a man’s bare legs before, nor a set of arms and shoulders as shapely as those which flexed as he moved things to locate the set of rope steps Patrick had shown him.

The stripy material of his suit followed the contours of his body, leaving very little to the imagination, and she caught her breath as he stepped up onto the side of the boat before diving in head-first.

She gripped the bench with knuckles which turned white and waited for him to resurface, which he did within seconds, releasing a Whoop! of delight. Drips from his hair sparkled in the sun as he trod water.

‘You should come in – it’s refreshing,’ he said, panting.

She laughed. ‘You mean freezing.’

The idea of feeling the weight of the sea against her limbs she found both terrifying and exhilarating, but there was no way she could take any more clothes off in front of him. She looked away, back out to sea and the way they had come. She listened to the regular splashes of his swimming strokes and soon, from the corner of her eye, saw him swim his way around the boat.

Seeing Thomas playing like a child, watching him relax and have fun, was having a strange effect on her. She’d assumed going out on the boat with him would simply be a change of location, that she would be watching the man who ran the hotel do his thing but on a boat. But this wasn’t the hotel Thomas she’d been getting to know. She sat and watched him in the water, one minute diving below the surface, then turning to float on his back. This was a different man completely, and one she found intensely attractive. Her tummy fluttered again as she tried to focus on the gentle sway of the boat. She lay down on the bench and looked up at the sky. A seagull balanced on the top of the mast. Its surprisingly large body jolted in time with its high-pitched yack yack yack as it called to its entourage circling overhead. They must be hoping for fish scraps, although they’d have to wait until Thomas had finished swimming.

‘Now, that was good.’ Thomas re-appeared over the side of the boat. ‘Can’t remember the last time I did that.’

She pushed herself upright, surprised by the heat her skin had absorbed. The view of the coastline from the water was one of rugged inaccessibility. Rocks jutted through the surface near the water’s edge at peculiar angles like a baby’s first teeth. Coastal birds soared out from the land mass, flew in circles before landing on ledges in the hillside, camouflaged and out of sight.

Her blouse was stuck to her skin and had become transparent. She looked around, but the only place to hide was below deck.

Thomas rubbed his wet hair with a towel and seemed not to notice her discomfort. ‘Shall we have a lemonade to cool down?’

‘Do we have any?’

‘Patrick always buys it for his fishing trips. There’s a cooler in one of the benches below, I’ll go and look.’

Within half an hour her blouse had dried and they’d eaten the crabmeat sandwiches he’d prepared in the hotel kitchen that morning. There was no shelter from the sun, neither in the sky nor from reflections which sparkled on the water. Eventually she dared to discard her skirt to sit cross-legged in cotton drawers. Her mother would be horrified, but she’d never know. It wasn’t like she had to include these details in her next letter and it wasn’t as if the seagulls could fly across the Atlantic and betray her.

Thomas even persuaded her into the water at one point and helped keep her afloat, his hand supporting her belly while her hands grabbed at handfuls of water. Her legs turned to jelly with the effort of kicking and she was grateful that he couldn’t possibly know what effect he was having on her. Mouthfuls of salty water each time she laughed resulted in Thomas ditching the swimming lesson. He helped her back to the rope ladder at the side of the boat.

‘Remind me not to let you on the rowing team. Swimming is a big part of the training.’ He laughed as they stood dripping in close proximity on the deck.

The sun moved round the sky and later in the afternoon the shadows lengthened. The skin across her cheeks was tight where the sun had dried away the sea, leaving a salty residue. Thomas caught three mackerel and showed her how to boil seawater and collect the distilled droplets to drink. He cooked the fish, turning them over in a blackened pan sizzling with butter, and they ate the flaky meat with their fingers. Emma had never eaten such fresh fish.

When the sun dropped even lower, Emma leaned over the side to watch undulations in the water’s surface. Mini waves slapped against the wooden planks of the hull, painted the same blue as the sky had been before it darkened to the wool of policemen’s uniforms. As the boat turned slowly in the breeze, and out of the glare, she could see the fishing line disappear through the surface a few yards across the water and heard Thomas mumbling to himself, ‘Here we go… yes.’

He wound in the reel and soon a wriggling silver body hung above them in the evening light, its individual scales glittering like jewels. He swung it towards him and held it, taking the hook from its mouth and dispatching it swiftly before holding up his prize.

‘Well done – that’s breakfast sorted,’ she said.

When darkness finally crept silently upon them, they went down into the galley and Thomas lit the paraffin lamps.

‘You’ve gone red.’ Thomas pointed at her exposed shoulders in the warm glow of the light. The oily smell of paraffin was not unpleasant. Rather fitting, she thought as Thomas sat on the portside bench across from her. His arms were smudged with the efforts of the day, but she’d never seem him so relaxed and happy.

Their feet were only inches apart.

She turned her head to put her lips on the hot skin of one shoulder. ‘They do feel a bit prickly.’

But she found she didn’t care. Nothing could ruin the day.

Thomas dunked a cloth into a bowl of cold water and laid it across Emma’s left shoulder.

‘Oooosh.’ She winced before appreciating the sensation. She sat back and closed her eyes. ‘That’s really nice.’

Although her cotton bloomers and corset had dried fully, and it was warm inside the boat’s galley, goosebumps grew on her skin as trickles of cold water ran down her upper arm and dripped from her elbow onto her thigh.

She started to shiver.

Thomas retrieved a blanket and wrapped it round her. She wondered, not for the first time, where she was expected to sleep, and asked him about it.

‘There’s a berth at the front there which you can have and I’ll…’ he indicated the floor and smiled, ‘roll that blanket into some sort of mattress.’

‘Now I feel awful,’ Emma protested.

‘You don’t need to. Honestly, I’ll be fine.’

There was nothing more she could say so instead elected to enjoy the gentle movement of the boat and the close proximity of Thomas’s knees against her own. It was easy to pretend they were the only people alive. For those first few months, he’d been no more than a guide and the owner of the hotel where she was staying. But since the summer, he’d become a friend and someone who really cared about what she was doing.

There was something magical about being out on the water, away from reality. She could pretend things were different here, and as he moved around the galley, bending and stretching to reach cupboards, the desire to pretend grew stronger. She squeezed her hands together in her lap, fighting the overwhelming desire to touch his face, his shoulders, his chest, to feel the shape of his arms on the palms of her hands. She wondered what kissing him might feel like, whether his moustache would tickle her and whether she would search out his tongue like Martina had told her she should do one day.

‘Want to share this beer?’

They looked at the bottle Patrick had left on a shelf.

‘I don’t think I should,’ she said.

‘Why’s that?’

She didn’t answer.

‘I’m sorry to have put you in a difficult position. I know it was selfish of me to want you to come, but I thought you would enjoy it. And you have.’

She watched his hand splayed over his thigh and resisted the urge to place her own hand on top.

‘I’ve loved it,’ she whispered.

He opened the beer and took a swig.

She pulled the blanket more tightly around her, stood and walked to the doorway that led to the cabin, hoping he couldn’t hear her heart hammering inside her chest. ‘Right. Well, I’ll turn in for the night and leave you your space.’

‘Goodnight, Emma,’ Thomas said, and she looked back.

Her shoulders were burning again. ‘Could you do the cold-water thing one more time, please?’

She was shocked to find herself walking towards him and not away to the privacy of the cramped room in the bow of the boat.

Thomas obliged and she waited once more for the water to trickle down her arm. She shivered, but not from the cold, and stared into his eyes. His return gaze didn’t falter.

This was trouble and she’d caused it. She should turn around and walk away.

He lowered his head a little and paused. Instinct found her reaching round the back of his head to pull his face closer. She inhaled before his lips met her own. They were warm and when he pulled away, she kept her eyes closed in the hope it hadn’t simply been her imagination. He kissed her again.

She let him tilt her head back and gave in to the passion which surged through her. Her tongue knew what to do and as her body responded, she wasn’t sure whose moan of pleasure passed between them.

‘This is wrong of me, so very wrong. We should stop,’ he whispered into her ear.

‘But how can something so wrong, feel so right?’ She pulled him closer still.