A Matter of Time (8 page)

Grateful for the momentary distraction from what had brought him here to drink alone, he observed the man. He did not move
with the graceful ease of the others. And he forced himself to smile, when the others were laughing. The thought crossed Colin’s
mind that he was not really a sailor at all. Studying him now, he noted the hardness around his eyes.

All at once the man looked up, caught Colin eye-balling him, and gave him a malevolent stare that made Colin’s blood run cold.
He was definitely not a character one would want to encounter on a dark night! That reminded him that his glass needed refilling,
and he signaled Mike for another Dark ’n Stormy.

Normally on Saturday night the White Horse would be rocking. But the
Norwegian Majesty
had just sailed from the terminal on Ordnance Island and taken with her most of the tourists who’d been wandering the town.
The White Horse regulars were not sad to see her go. Her departure signaled the approaching end of the cruise ship season.
In two more weeks, they could come in here and count on getting a table and not having to wait half an hour for their food.

The other reason for the quiet was that tonight was the beginning of Race Week. Over in Hamilton, the match-race regatta known
as the Gold Cup was about to get underway. Tonight there was a posh reception at the Bacardi
Building in honor of all the skippers who had just arrived, and every nautical type who could wangle an invitation was there.

Colin had two invitations, actually. But he was in no mood to party. On the bar in front of him was a legal document of several
pages. He started to scan the top page, then stopped; reading it again wasn’t going to change what it said.

Well, if he had to be miserable, it might as well be here. Sailors, captains, mates, boatyard workers, sail-makers, pilots—all
regarded the White Horse as their place. The only reason to go anywhere else would be for a little privacy or to impress a
potential client, in which case they might go up the wharf to the more upscale Carriage House, or to San Giorgio’s, whose
Italian cuisine was superb and not too pricey.

Mounted above the tavern’s fireplace was the rear end of a wrecked police boat. The ceiling over the bar was festooned with
buoys and old sailing caps, and the walls were covered with photos and graffiti that meant a great deal to regulars, and nothing
at all to visitors. The former were remarkably tolerant of the latter, however, knowing how much the island’s economy depended
on their cash.

They were especially so, if the visitors happened to be young and female and reasonably pulchritudinous. Indeed, local mariners
were not averse to investing a fair amount of time and Heinekens, convincing them of their seafaring charm. Occasionally it
actually paid off—just often enough to keep the ball in play.

Colin never had to buy more than one round for visitors of that persuasion. His flashing dark eyes and dazzling smile qualified
him as what women considered
“cute.” Men never knew exactly what constituted “cute,” but women always did—and Colin was its definition.

He was not feeling particularly cute tonight, though; he was well on his way to feeling nothing. For the moment, all he felt
was devastated. The documents in front of him were divorce papers.

Amy, his wife of eight years, was suing him, from her family’s estate in Georgia, where she’d taken their eight-year-old son
Jamie. He’d been staring at the papers for two hours and still couldn’t believe it.

“You finally got to her, didn’t you,” whispered Colin bitterly, waving to Mike for yet another. “And now you’ve got her.”

His father had been a charter fishing captain, and his mother had inherited just enough for them to keep the family home in
Somerset and send their two sons to good schools off-island. Colin, who had just turned 30, had followed his older brother
to a prep school named Deerfield Academy. But he’d not followed Ian to Williams College, as after Deerfield had come Lawrence
Academy and Tabor Academy (twice).

Williams might still have been receptive to an application from Colin, as his combined SAT scores were 1470, and his older
brother had compiled a sterling record. But he was more interested in ocean racing than college. In the cockpit of a 12-meter
America’s Cup challenger, his concentration was absolute and sustained (as it had never been at the various academies). All
things being equal, he was one of the finest sailors the island had produced, and Bermuda, like New Zealand, was renowned
for its sailors.

In the days when Rolex used to sponsor the America’s Cup, they traditionally awarded each member of the winning
crew a stainless steel Submariner. In the back of Colin’s desk drawer was a green presentation box containing a Rolex he’d
won but never worn. The other was on his wrist.

His father had died suddenly of a massive heart attack when Colin was 21. As lung cancer had taken his mother six years before,
there was a modest estate. Ian got the house and his father’s boat,
Goodness
, both of which were heavily mortgaged. Colin got the money—$82,000, all that was left after the tuition bills. With it he
bought the boat of his dreams—a Venus 34.

Designed and built in Bermuda, the broad-beamed, gaff-rigged Venus was a superb ocean sailor. Other transoceanic sailing vessels
that dropped anchor at St. George’s Harbour might be bigger, but in heavy weather, none did better than a Venus.

Colin paid top dollar for her and named her
Care Away
. He maintained a one-room apartment in town, which he used mostly as an office, or a place to live when the boat was out
of the water. The rest of the time, it was mainly convenient for stowing stuff, plus it had a shower, which the boat didn’t.

When it came to fitting out
Care Away
, he decided to go for minimum maintenance rather than authenticity. Stevie Hollis, one of the few sailmakers left on Bermuda,
might have brown “tan-bark” sails on his 34-foot Venus, but Colin’s were white. And his bright work was polished stainless
steel, not bronze.

Similarly, following the advice of another captain friend, Stuart Lunn, he decided to go with the best radar, radio, GPS (Global
Positioning System), and autopilot money could buy. As Stuart said, “If you’re going to put
in technology, don’t skimp. When it saves your life one day, you’ll be glad you didn’t.”

But Colin also had a good brass sextant aboard. In the event of a lightning strike, all electronics would be fried anyway—even
the handheld, backup GPS unit in a drawer under his bunk. If that happened, he could still get across the Atlantic the old-fashioned
way, using his Rolex (which gained seven seconds a week), as a chronometer.

He’d spent the last of his inheritance on the tools he would need to support himself as a shipwright. For Colin had a real
knack for putting broken boats back together again. Whatever nature messed up, he would set right again, and he gradually
earned a reputation that would ensure he always had work if he wanted it—which most of the time, he didn’t.

Except during hurricane season, roughly September through November, when he would work nonstop with relentless intensity.
Wherever a major weather event knocked boats around, Colin could be expected to arrive in its wake. His prices were high,
and while the boat owners and marina managers might object, they always paid. When Colin Bennett fixed them, they stayed fixed.

After that, he took the rest of the year off—dropping down to the Caribbean in January when Bermuda got too cold or beating
up to Bar Harbor in July, when it got too hot. The rest of the time, St. George’s was just fine. Unless or until the spirit
moved him to go somewhere else.

He liked to think of himself as a gypsy of the sea. And then, along came Amy.

9
  
  
the
gleama

It was her roommate Pam’s fault. Amy would never have gone to Bermuda on spring break; Bermuda was where their parents used
to go.
Their
friends all went to Barbados that year.

But her roommate had this thing about Bermuda. Her parents had fallen in love at the Coral Beach Club, dancing under the stars
to the calypso music of the Talbot Brothers. Pam felt compelled to go there, and she could be extremely persuasive.

It turned out better than Amy expected. A lot better. They, too, stayed at the Coral Beach Club, and while there were a number
of old fuds around, and a layer of younger fuds, there was also a younger, with-it group. They played tennis (well) and swam
and did the beach thing, and scootered everywhere—and included Pam and Amy. It was surprisingly fun.

Two days before they were due to leave, they’d been to Hamilton, done the shops, spent a day at the Dockyard and another at
Horseshoe Bay. The only place they hadn’t gone was St. George. But that was a long haul, out to the
east end of the island. “You go ahead,” she begged off. “I’m going to hang here by the pool.”

But Pam had insisted. The Bermuda experience would not be complete without St. George. With a sigh, Amy tugged on her white
windbreaker and tied a white kerchief over her short blond hair. Donning her Jackie O’s, she followed her friend’s scooter
out of the car park.

By the time they took the obligatory pictures of each other in the stocks in St. George’s public square, the sky was beginning
to darken. They ducked into the White Horse for a quick bite. By the time they’d finished their club sandwiches and were ready
to leave, there was a serious downpour going on outside.

For once, it was Amy who took charge. Unzipping the rolled-up hood in the collar of her windbreaker, she put it over the white
kerchief, and was about to lead the way out into the elements, when the young man at the end of the bar spoke to her.

“Not a good idea,” he said, giving her a full-wattage smile. He was so cute that Amy immediately distrusted him, proceeding
toward the door as if she hadn’t heard him.

Pam had, though, and seeing him, she’d hesitated, dazzled by that incredible smile.

“You really don’t want to ride in this downpour.” He said to Amy, still smiling but emphatic.

She ignored him, and held the door open for Pam who was hesitating. “You coming?”

Pam was torn.

“Let’s get going!” Amy declared. “We’re not going to melt! And I don’t feature waiting here all afternoon.”

The young man stood up. “Don’t be dumb!” He nodded towards the window. “It’s the first rain in several
days. It’ll bring the oil up out of the pavement, and the combination will be so slick, it’ll make anything on two wheels
feel like a pig on ice.”

Pam frowned. “Amy, maybe we’d better—”

“
Will you come on?
” Amy snapped, and glared at the
gleama
(their code word for a mega-cute), as if to convey that his was the lamest pick-up line she’d ever heard.

The young man, not smiling now, held up his right arm and pointed to an ugly scar that extended over his elbow. “I got this
on a scooter on a day like this, when I went out with exactly the same attitude.”

Now it was Amy who hesitated. Glancing out the window, she saw torrential rain sweeping across the square.

With a sigh, she capitulated.

He bought the first round. They bought the next, and the third—long after it had stopped raining and begun to dry.

His name was Colin Bennett. He was an ocean racer. He had been to practically every exotic port they’d ever heard of. And
now he had a new boat and was living aboard it. When he offered to show it to them, Pam wasn’t sure. Until Amy pointed out
that it, too, was definitely part of the Bermuda experience. Amy, it turned out, could be as persuasive as Pam.

So the next afternoon (their last), Colin and his captain friend, Stuart, who had a car, took Amy and Pam to the Hogpenny
Pub in Hamilton for lunch. It became an all-afternoon lunch, after which they repaired to
Care Away
. The boat was big enough to afford the couples some privacy, if the girls were prepared to go as far as the guys were prepared
to take them. They weren’t, and the evening ended pleasantly. Bermudians could be gentlemen when circumstances called for
it.

As Stuart drove them back to the Coral Beach Club, Pam nattered away next to him about how wonderful Bermuda had been, just
like it had been for her parents, and how she really loved his island and wasn’t just saying that but really meant it.

In the back seat, Amy let Colin kiss her. To her surprise, she found herself kissing him back—and meaning it. In fact, it
was all she could do to keep the brakes on.

As they said goodbye, Colin asked, “Look, uh, give me your address. Maybe, you know, I’ll write you or something.”

She wrote it out for him. “Well, if you do, maybe, you know, I’ll write you back.” They both laughed.

To her surprise, he did write. Mostly about his boat, and where he was going. The moment she opened it, she turned to the
end, to see how he signed it. “Cheers.” Pretty non-committal. But he
did
write.

So, she did the same. She told him about her upcoming finals, and how strange it felt to be almost done with school forever,
and how Pam was bugging her to do the Grand Tour with her, five-star hotels in all the capitals of Europe, just like her grandparents
had. She had no intention of going, though it might be fun to see Rome.