Friendship before Relationship

Friendship before Relationship

I remember I had a schoolboy crush for Linda Pearly, along with every other young stud in the school. I twice worked up the courage to talk with her, but that courage was lacking whenever she came close.

Linda’s dad, Jack, a decorated sailor, had served aboard H.M.S. Kelly under the command of Lord Admiral Mountbatten, did not appreciate my young interest in his daughter.

At age eighteen, wanderlust finally enticed me away from the island, returning only to visit my parents, attend a marriage or two, celebrate birthdays, or, as in this case, to pay my respects at a funeral being held in Oban. When I entered the church, guiltily late, the pews were filled with burly fishermen, dad among them, all looking uncomfortable in ill-fitting suits. I quickly found and hugged dad, who hadn’t brought mum for reasons I’ll explain later. Linda was standing next to her dad at the front of the church, holding him steady, not because of grief, but alcohol intoxication. Dad had told me a couple of years earlier that Jack didn’t much care for his brother and would need a stiff drink before attending his funeral. Jack came home from the war and crewed on different trawlers until he could purchase his own, with the financial help of his brother, Sid. They didn’t work well together.

In the years since last seeing Linda, one thing was beyond argument; she was no longer a girl. A silk black scarf covered the top of her head, while the chocolate and caramel tinted hair poured down her back. It was strikingly beautiful. I couldn’t look away.

After the service, in the courtyard, with mourners departing, I approached her. Softly spoken. “Hello, Linda, it’s good to see you, though I’m sorry it’s under such sad circumstances.”

She removed the black silk scarf. “Harry! I hardly recognized you…a beard!” She said. I’m not surprised by her comment. The beard had taken dad aback when I arrived. I was a scrawny kid when I left the island and now, ten years later, I’m a bigger scrawnier kid.

The most noticeable difference in Linda was the development of breasts, cleavage evidenced when she steadied herself on my arm, bending to hook a small pebble out of her shoe. Once straightened, pushing her shining hair over her shoulder. “Don’t move, Harry. Let me just get hold of dad. I’m afraid he’s a little worse for drink. He started at 6:00 a.m., this morning,” she said, turning and stepping away, grabbing her dad by the arm and leading him away from embarrassing himself with the vicar. I felt for her, watching her father tilt, brought upright on her arm. “Dad, this is Harry, you remember, right? Frank’s son.” If he remembered me, he didn’t acknowledge the fact.

This girl, once a freckled and skinny Linda Pearly, is now a beautiful woman, and despite her dad tottering on her arm with grief and not a little whisky, chooses to stand and speak with me.

“Dad had a drink this morning. He and uncle Sid weren’t close,” she said, still smiling at mourners passing. I felt bad for her, watching her father tilt, and brought upright on her arm.

“So — rumour is you bought a yacht, Paladin, I heard?”

Fancy that, Linda Pearly inquiring about me. “Yes, though I’ve better equipped her in the past months, she’s quite something now,” I said.

She smiled. That is when it hit me, like a train on rails inside my chest, a shudder remembering a long ago feeling that exploded inside my body. I didn’t know what was happening, and just like that feeling back in the old schoolyard, I had to get away.

“Anyway, great to see you. I’m so sorry about your uncle Sid.” I folded my lips in, nodded politely, and turned to walk away when she put her hand out to reach me back.

“You left the island without saying goodbye, and now you cannot talk to me for a few minutes without hurrying away. Harry, whatever did I do to you?” she said, as if her father was a mirage hanging on her arm, and the cheeky grin that accompanied her question fairly rocked my legs.

Oh my God, do you have time to listen to all that you did to me?

“I’m only home for a couple of days, and want to spend some time sailing,” I explained.

“How about taking me with you?” She asked. Here’s what I thought. God was in his Heaven and all was well with the world. I looked up at the skies.

“Have you done any sailing?” We started walking toward Jack’s car, and I helped put him into the passenger’s side.

“You think I can’t handle it? I’ll get dad home to bed, and meet you at the harbour.” She pushed her shoulder’s back, not intentionally accentuating the fullness of her breast, and saluted. “What time on board, skipper?”

I tried to hold in my enthusiasm— couldn’t. I checked my watch — noon. “Be at the harbour by one, the tide will be set.” I didn’t look back, half afraid if I did she wouldn’t be there. Linda Pearly on my yacht! I’m certain mourner’s noticed the smile on my face as I fled the church cemetery with a song in my heart.

Clouds threatened as I climbed aboard Paladin, moored under the rainbow colored houses and shops of Tobermory Harbour. Dad had always encouraged my love of sailing, teaching me from aged eight.

I had half an hour to make final preparation. The clouds threatened as I climbed aboard Paladin, moored below the rainbow-colored houses and shops of Tobermory Harbour. Father had always encouraged my love of sailing, teaching me from age eight. At seven am, I had come aboard to prepare Paladin for the sail. Everything stowed securely. Floorboards and batteries firmly secured, cleared access to all through-hull fittings, bungs tied or attached — checked charts. Fully stocked first-aid kit, drugs for seasickness, and pain, as well as antibiotics. Plenty of spares in the first-aid kit.

When her voice resonated on the misty afternoon air, I was taken by surprise. In my efforts to greet her, I tripped over a can of caulking and went sprawling. She laughed hysterically. That was the moment clouds dispersed and sunshine happen. Cliché, right? But fucking true. I kid you not. Her blue and white ringed t-shirt matched perfectly the navy shorts and deck shoes. She wore her hair swept back into a pony-tail. There had always been, even with freckled cheeks, something uncommonly perfect about her face.

She took a moment to look round. “She’s so beautiful,” praising the lines of Paladin. And it felt right. The shoulder bag she carried fell gently to the deck. I was still trying to regain my lost composure.

“Sorry about that, didn’t see it, great — welcome aboard. How’s your dad, Linda?”

“He’s been drunk since six am, Harry.” I felt my eyebrows curve upward. “It’s okay, its a numbing the pain of guilt.”

“Okay,” I said, not totally sure what she meant, “I think we’re just about done. I came earlier this morning to make ready. Why don’t you put your bag in the cabin.” Linda picked up her purse and stepped toward the cabin, disappearing below deck.

With everything checked and ready, I undid the mooring ropes and gently ran up the engine and reversed from the pontoon. The sun was outwitting the clouds for the moment but in the distance, more are building — the wind is stiffening on the Sound.

Linda appeared again and sat at the bow, legs dangling over the side. I had the weirdest feeling about her being on the boat; that finally Paladin was finished, not because of her condition, because Linda Pearly was sitting at the bow. We slipped away from Tobermory, and were soon under sail toward Ardmore Point. Linda came back. We chatted.

“Where are you living?” I asked.

“Glasgow, of all places,” she answered. “I hate it, but that’s where I need to be right now.”

“No-one can ‘need’ Glasgow,” I said.

She shrugged her shoulders and replied in a matter of fact way. “I’m afraid I do. For several years, after you left, dad had started to beat up on mum. I had began work in Oban. They haven’t spoke since the day we left the island. A week aunt Peg phoned, saying Uncle Sid had died. Mum wanted to attend the funeral for aunt Peg, as they always got on so well, but she couldn’t face dad again.” Linda looked round the yacht and with a brightened tone in her voice, said, “So, give me a job to do.”

Jack Pearly was a hard man. Linda’s mother, to all who know her, is an angel. She kept a small clothes shop on the bend of the harbour. Now sadly missed by the women, who would go more for a chat than anything. It wasn’t a thriving business but it was the most patronized shop on the harbor front. It’s now a sandwich shop.

Most everybody in the town knew Jack had a cruel streak. Before he retired, he employed more than seventy men on his fleet of trawler’s and no-one crossed him, no-one who depended on him for work anyway. The thing about Jack is this, he had never laid a single man off, even in the worst of times and the men in the town know this, so there is a kind of professional respect for him, but not with the women. Women don’t forgive abuse. When dad asked mum if she wanted to attend Sid’s funeral, the answer was short. Neither Sid or Jack were kind to their women.

Jack Pearly was an abusive husband.

“We’re in good shape right now, are you hungry? I have bacon and eggs, I can make an omelet, not much good at anything else,” I admitted.

“Sounds great, I haven’t had anything since a slice of buttered toast at five am. How about I go look in the galley,” she said. I wasn’t about to be a better host and insist I cook. It is hard to find a useful menu of what to eat. So often eating at sea is a matter of weather, sea conditions, and the cook’s mood!

The forecast, often wrong in this part of the world, predicted stiffening breezes. It was all going rather well and as if to prove the point, I caught a rare sighting of the Waverley, last seagoing paddle steamer in the world, resplendent in new paint and going at a fantastic speed — maybe fifteen knots with no wake whatsoever. I called Linda. “Come and see this beautiful old maid,” I yelled. She came carrying toasted tuna sandwiches. “I found cans of tuna in storage,” she said and looked to where I was pointing. The Waverley was not waiting around. She’d put a quarter-mile between us. “Oh, Harry, I miss this place so much.” I got it.

I could not explain any of it. I wondered why, on the very same day, a memory of the past had returned to haunt me.

Linda had fled, hiding among the steeples and the domes and the brick buildings. She had forgotten her life, the scent of the sea, the laughter of her life. Instead, through love for her mum, she was living the comic opera of a life lived in the city. Nights spent in an apartment, socializing in crowded electric bars, while the candle of her island youth is growing pale.

Linda wasn’t looking to be loved, only reminded. There isn’t a man alive who wouldn’t value her company on a yacht or in a bed, and she knew it. I’m not a man to betray her trust.

There is no need to go out and find the world when sailing Paladin. I’m embedded in it, constantly exposed to it, watching it reel past me minute by minute. So when Linda spied a pod of minke rising and blowing, splashing at the bow a foot or two beneath us, was all it took to see this glorious woman again find herself in a marvel-filled world. Gannets swung across, flying toward the Minch in search of fish. I looked at Linda, hair flying, a woman so instantly, physically happy to be on a big sailing yacht that is starting to drive and live on the wind.

A month later I received a letter, addressed to my parents home. The return address was, Isle of Barra.

Harry —

All afternoon, I remember the sun shone down on my head, the breeze ruffling our napkins when we had lunch. In the evening, you handed me a huge wooly sweater against the cooling wind.

I envy you. You are out there, living your life. I am here. I will wait for a visit, now that I live on Barra. It’s right to wait, sure that the sun is always rising on your world. Our hearts met, not romantically, but enough to converse and care and laugh together. Left to our own devices, there was no suspicion, we were living in the memory bank, the history of the mind. Your heart will hear it now. I cannot convincingly tell myself all that you have come to mean to me, something prevents that completeness. Fear, maybe.

I have loved and still love a woman. Our love is something mystical and beautiful and bigger than any cloud I ever touched. She came alone. She came as if I had been chosen. She came to show me a world I had never understood. For all these years I believed and continue to believe that she came for a reason but that reason has never been made clear and with each day it seems I’ll never know. Nor care.

After ten minutes, Harry, she changed my entire life, turning me left and right. I’d had two relationships with men. When each one left me, I never looked round to see if they waved. I never saw them again.

I asked God to prove to me if it was right that the spirit of a woman can be loved. Perhaps there can never be a past life, as indeed we will never live a future life. This is truly it, what is happening now is what I have, there can be no more, either I grasp it and hold it dear, or let it go and spend my lifetime wondering.

I want to believe there was a reason we met at the church, to ask what you thought about my world? I had no other way of explaining what was happening in my life right then. There seemed no tactful way of saying this to you, but you had no idea how long I’d been searching for the natural peace of love in my life.

You might have felt romance, I don’t think so. I think we were bound to collide in the space we call our world at some point. I sought not to change you in any way, simply to know you and love you for who you are, as I will hope you’ll love me.

Her name is Allison. Do come visit.

Love, Linda