CHAPTER TWO -- THE NEXT DAY
A Jim and Mary Story
In Bareboaters, Chapter One, Jim and Mary had taken Isobel with them on a sailing holiday. Mary and Jim had ended up making love on deck after watching a couple on another boat. Isobel had been an interested observer, but had got very inebriated while following the action. After falling down the cabin stairs she had prevailed upon them to help her have an orgasm and had fallen into a drunken sleep.
The next morning the boat was a quiet and subdued place. Isobel did not stir from her bunk. Mary was very quiet and pensive and Jim was in shock. Sometimes events take on a life of their own and control passes from the participants to the events themselves. To Jim that was what seemed to have happened the previous night. Not that he felt he had anything to complain about with the way things had turned out. He had enjoyed it. But he certainly hadn't been in control and the evening's escapade was wildly out of character for both for both him and Mary. He wasn't sure about Isobel. There were things in Isobel's volatile personality, occasional fits of bad temper and capacity for excess that were likely to set in motion chains of events over which nobody would have control.
So now the big question was what was going to happen to the rest of the vacation. The three of them were trapped with the consequences of their actions in the small circumscribed world of a 35 foot boat.
Would he and Mary fall out over what had happened last night? And, more worrying still, would it change their relationship, which after many years of marriage was still getting stronger and stronger? Had a third person entered the sexual part of their marriage, and if so what were they going to do about it? Jim thought that unless they were very careful this could be a very real threat to their happiness. And he didn't want their frolic with a drunk to spoil what he realized more than ever was a powerful and precious bond.
Mary wasn't saying much. She had climbed out of their bunk this morning without a word and made some tea. The morning cup of tea was a ritual for them, a few minutes of shared pleasure as they opened their eyes and gathered themselves for the day. On days when they had made love the night before this was an especially warm and close moment. This morning Mary had wordlessly taken her cup and gone and sat on the foredeck. Jim had peered over the coach roof and had seen her sitting there staring at the water with her arms clasped about her knees.
Isobel struggled from her bunk. He thought she looked like shit.
"I feel like shit," she said. "Is that coffee?"
"Tea."
"I don't like tea."
Jim sighed.
"I'll make some coffee."
She was a long time in the head, but when she came out she looked better, face washed but pale, and he had the coffee ready.
"Thanks."
"You've got a hell of a fat lip. You OK?" he asked quietly.
"I guess," she said sullenly, and stumped up into the cockpit.
"What a fucking mess," Jim muttered to himself, and busied himself getting the boat shipshape. On deck the women sat at opposite ends of the boat and kept out of his way. He got the engine started, pulled up the anchor and headed the boat out of the bay without any help from either of them.
He set course for Chatham Bay in the Grenadines. It was their favorite anchorage from previous trips. A broad generous bay, good shelter from the trade winds, rarely more than one or two other boats, no houses and, if you were careful to make sure it was set properly, reasonable holding for the anchor. Mary and he had once made spectacular love under the stars one night in Chatham Bay, out there on the foredeck, where Mary now sat silently with her thoughts.
The crossing was quite rough once they were out of the lee of Carriacou and Mary came back to the cockpit and then went below to lie down. Jim could see her lying on the settee reading a book. Isobel didn't stay much longer on deck either and disappeared into her berth, while Jim tended the boat.
The trades blow from the east and funnel through the channel between the northern end of Grenada and the south side of Union Island. Jim sat alone at the helm as the boat breasted the big rollers, occasional seas breaking over the foredeck and spattering him with a hail of salty water. The sails were taut, and drumming in the wind. Foaming water sped along the sides of the boat. On any other day this would have been a joyous gallop of a sail, but Jim was overtaken by the glum atmosphere on the boat, and his feelings of helplessness. He honestly didn't know what he could do or say that would restore the carefree pleasures of their sailing holiday. Its character had been decisively changed by the events of the previous evening. In fact, he didn't know if, when the women re-emerged from below, there would even be any more sailing holiday.
The chores of navigation, sail trim, and steering kept him busy for some hours, but couldn't entirely prevent his mind from dwelling on their situation. At last, at about four in the afternoon, they glided into the calm waters of Chatham Bay and headed up towards the sheltered anchorage at the north end. Jim furled the fore sail, luffed up into the wind, dropped the main and scrambled to the bow to drop the anchor. He watched for a patch of sandy bottom where he could let it go, avoiding the large patches of grass that covered the bottom of the bay. As the anchor cable payed out he looked around to gauge their position. They were about three hundred yards from the shore; there were no other boats in the bay, and so there was no worry about colliding with another boat if the anchor dragged. In any case, in the shelter of the confining hills, there was little wind and he was not too worried, although it would be nice to swim over the anchor and make sure it was well embedded.
He was surprised to find Mary and Isobel sitting in the cockpit together. He dropped onto the opposite cockpit seat and stared at them. They were both smiling broad smiles at him and Isobel was holding out a drink to him. He didn't move. This was not the unpleasant scene he had been conjuring up in his mind all day. He looked at first one and then the other, bewildered, his jaw slack.
"Take the fucking drink," said Isobel laughing, and thrusting it towards him.
Mary bent over, giggling.
Jim ignored the drink. He had a headache from a long day in the hot sun, most of it spent worrying, and he really didn't see what was so funny. They just seemed to be making fun of him.
"I'm going to check the anchor," he said, and they both hooted with laughter.
"Fuck the two of you," he muttered angrily into his tee shirt as he pulled it over his head.
He jammed the goggles and snorkel on and swam out to check the anchor. The water was cool and soothing as he followed the path of the white rope along the bottom to a big patch of sand where the anchor was nicely dug in. He swam back to the stern of the boat. The swim ladder had been pulled up and there was no way back onto the boat. Isobel and Mary were leaning over the stern. He trod water and looked up at them. Mary was in the blue swim suit and was laughing down at him. The suit was unzipped nearly to the navel. Isobel was in a clean tee shirt that looked a lot better than the bloodied one from last night. She was laughing too and still holding out his drink.
"You're too grumpy to get on the boat," said Mary. "You've got to cheer up."
"I'm not grumpy" he said. "Anyway neither of you have said a word all day, so why should I be the life and soul of the party?"
Mary and Isobel looked at each other in mock shock and burst out laughing again.
"But we've been talking most of the day. Just because you wouldn't have anything to do with us, doesn't mean we can't enjoy ourselves"
He was puzzled
"But after last night?"
"Ah, yes," said Mary. "Last night. We talked about that."
Isobel sniggered and covered her eyes with her free hand.
"I'm sorry about last night."
More laughter from the two of them.
"Well, shit!" he said, sounding angry, although really his spirits were beginning to lift, buoyed by the infectious good humor coming from the deck above him.
"I thought you were both upset."
"We were."
"Well, then?"
"We're women, not men. We talk about stuff, you idiot," said Mary.
"So it's all OK?"
"No, of course it's not. We need to talk to you."
"Well, let me aboard then."
"No!"
"I'm going to drown out here."
