The Black Tide

She checked there, swallowing hard as though she was struggling to suppress some deep emotion. Then she went on, her voice more controlled. ‘If these claims stick, particularly the Aurora B and the Howdo Stranger claims, then I think Daddy’s finished. He’s underwriting the premium maximum and the family has always taken a lot of the GODCO insurance. I’m not affected, of course. I didn’t start underwriting till this month. But Mother’s been one of his Virgins for years, so both of them are in very deep.’ She put her hand out and gripped hold of my arm. ‘This is what I want you to understand. It’snot the money. The money doesn’t matter so much. We’ll survive, somehow. But I don’t think you quite understand what this means to my father. He’s the third generation. His father, and his father’s father, they were both underwriters here at Lloyd’s. In marine insurance they were the tops. It was their life, their raison d’etre. They lived and breathed Lloyd’s, totally dedicated to the Society.’ And she added, ‘You might even say obsessed. That’s how Daddy is. It’s his life, his whole world.’ She smiled. ‘That and sailing,’ she said, endeavouring to lighten the emotional intensity with which she had been speaking. ‘I didn’t want you to feel…’ She paused, shaking her head. ‘I don’t know how to put this. Our backgrounds must seem very different.’

‘You know nothing about my background.’

‘Oh, yes, I do.’ And when I laughed and told her not to make erroneous comparisons, she said quickly, ‘Last night, after you’d gone, Salty showed us a dossier on you somebody had got out for him — where you’d been, what you’d done. Daddy was impressed. So was I. Especially what you did after your mother died. Did you really go right through Baluchistan and the North West Frontier, to the Khyber and up into the Murree Hills — on your own, when you were only fourteen?’

‘Yes. But it wasn’t like it is today.’

She didn’t seem to hear. ‘And then — this morning — I went to the Overseas League and looked through the newspaper files. I’m only just back from Gib — we’ve got our boat down there, you see — so I didn’t know the details, about the Petros Jupiter, I mean. I’m sorry. It must have been quite terrible for you — seeing it.’

‘Yes, but I’ll get him.’ I said it without thinking, but all she did was nod her head, accepting it as though that were the inevitable sequel to what had happened. There was a long silence. Finally she said, ‘What I wanted to explain…’ She shook her head. ‘No, it’s too difficult.’ A moment’s pause and then she went on, ‘We’re just people, you see. Like anyone else really. I know we’ve got money, a big house, cars, a yacht — but it doesn’t mean anything. Not really. What I mean is … well, when you’re racing, in a force 8 gale with a big sea running, you don’t worry then about whether you’ve got more money than the next guy — you’re too tired, too battered, too bloody scared sometimes.’ She gave me that warm smile, the eyes large and fixed on

mine, her hand touching my arm. ‘I just wanted you to understand. I’m afraid Salty may have got you into something…’

‘I got myself into it,’ I said. I could feel her fingers through my jacket. ‘So no need for you to worry.’

‘Yes, of course.’ She took her hand away, shifting her position, her mood suddenly changing. ‘Daddy will be back at his box now. And I have a boy I promised to see who’s desperate to crew with us in the Med this year.’ She gave a quick little laugh. ‘I’m not sure yet whether it’s me or the boat he’s interested in. Can you find your way back to Forthright’s?’

She left me almost immediately, and I didn’t think about her again until that night. I was all set then, tickets, traveller’s cheques, contacts, everything the marine solicitors could provide me with — a contractual letter, too. And then, alone on the hard iron bedstead in that dingy basement, unable to get to sleep, I found myself thinking about her. God knows, there’d been nothing sexy about her. Quite the reverse, in fact. Just a nice, plain English girl, hooked on sailing and probably half in love with her father. And yet…

There wasn’t a sound to disturb my thoughts. A little room in the East End of London and I might have been in space. Everything deathly still, frozen into silence. No sound of the sea now, no gulls screaming, no rollers thundering. The stillness of death, and my thoughts not on Karen, but on a lump of a girl propped against a case with a gold sword in it belonging to Captain Hardy of the Victory and talking endlessly about how they were just ordinary folk, while I stared

at her tits and wondered what she’d do if I grabbed hold of them, in Lloyd’s of all places!