Two Cups on the Bridge Wing

Tomorrow we will be close enough to California to smell it. Today was the last full day of the Pacific, and I wanted to mark it.

The Pacific has been, for nearly three weeks, the whole world. It has been grey and silver and navy and slate. It has given me a spare Saturday, a gale, a sailing boat in distress, an albatross, and a great deal of time to think. I have thought about very little of consequence. I have enjoyed that enormously.

Goulash, again

It is Tuesday, so there was goulash. The goulash has returned from its rest with a renewed sense of purpose and, Elena hinted, slightly more paprika. Several of the older crew had seconds, almost in relief. Big Kev had thirds and was observed to close his eyes.

The sunset

Priya came off watch at eight in the evening, which tonight was roughly half an hour after sunset. I knew this because I have, I am a little embarrassed to admit, begun to know her watch schedule better than my own.

I took two coffees up to the bridge wing a few minutes before the end of her watch. One with milk for me, one black for her, because she does not take milk, and she does not take sugar, and she does not take nonsense. I put both cups on the rail and waited.

The sun went down into the sea behind us, enormous and orange, and turned the whole wake gold. The sky went pink, then purple, then a deep blue with one star in it, which Priya later told me was a planet, and which I said I did not mind about.

She came out a few minutes after the end of her watch, saw the two cups, and stopped.

"One of those is mine," she said.

"One of those is yours."

She picked it up. She leant on the rail next to me. Not touching, but closer than the rail strictly required. And for a while we drank our coffee and said nothing at all, which is one of the things I have come to like best about her.

A question

Then she asked, without looking at me, whether I was getting off in Long Beach.

I did not understand at first. Long Beach is a port call, like Rotterdam, like Busan. Then I realised what she meant. Long Beach is in America. From Long Beach, home is a short flight. A person who had found himself with some free time on his hands, and who had used rather a lot of it already, might reasonably decide that this was a good place to stop.

"No," I said.

She looked at me then.

"I have a cabin," I said. "And a cat, apparently. And a trivia title to defend. And Tiny wants a photograph of whatever I drive in Long Beach. And there are four biscuits I owe somebody, and I would like to pay them off in my own time."

She considered this for a long moment.

"Good," she said. And then, quieter, "Good."

That was all. It was enough.

The shore leave plan

Later, back to business, she told me she has been given shore leave on our second day in Long Beach, from late morning until late afternoon. I said I planned to hire a car and drive somewhere along the coast, preferably fast, and certainly with the roof down, because I have not driven since July and I am beginning to have dreams about gear changes.

"You will need supervision," she said.

"Will I?"

"You have not driven for nearly four months. You have spent that time at sea. You will forget which side of the road you are on."

"I have lived in America for years. I know which side of the road I am on."

"I will come anyway," she said. "To supervise."

And then she finished her coffee, put the cup back on the rail beside mine, and went inside, and I stayed out on the wing a good while longer than I needed to, looking at two empty cups in the starlight like a man in a film.

Container was in my cabin when I got back. She had pushed the shore leave forms off the desk onto the floor and was sitting on the spot where they had been. I think she has worked out that something is about to change.