Short story published in Kurungabaa Journal

SAIL AWAY

By Carole Lander

“It’s time, mate. It really is.”

Phil peered across the desk at his accountant. How long had he been coming here? It seemed like centuries. They had grown old together; shared stories of parenting and grandparenting and, more recently, compared wrinkles and ailments. The difference in their incomes sometimes reared its ugly head but never more than today. Stan had no money problems, Phil was sure of that. He still lived in a leafy suburb on the right side of the river, still had the beach house and a big share portfolio. He only kept the office going for a few old clients like Phil. He’d given a lot of good advice over the years so why wouldn’t he be right today?

“Sell that boat, mate. It’s time you reaped the benefit of all your hard work.”

Phil had been tinkering with his latest yacht since he retired ten years ago. His wife had complained long and hard about his perfectionist trait and harped on about his complaints that a project wasn’t finished because it was never quite good enough. The house he still lived in since she died irritated him. He’d never given the banister that last coat of varnish. There was a shelf missing in the bathroom. He would lie awake at night making lists of jobs still left to do before . . . before what? The answer was inevitable. He would also stay awake wishing his life had been different, pondering on his two marriages, his ungrateful children, the grandchildren he hardly knew and his early retirement forced by arthritis. He’d always come to the regrettable conclusion that he was a grumpy old man and should be more grateful. Then he would list the good things in life and eventually drop off to sleep.

Boats had been important to Phil since he was a child and his earliest memory was of balsa wood aeroplanes made from kits that his mother brought home each time she went shopping in the city. His family lived by the sea so at some point he’d made the transition to making model boats. “He’s good with his hands” was a mantra trotted out by his parents and he’d tried to live up to their belief in him.

“If I hadn’t been good with my hands,” he heard himself saying to Stan, “I might have been a lawyer or even joined your lot.”

“Well, you didn’t Phil and the world’s a more beautiful place for it”.

True, he’d made some memorable pieces of furniture in his time. More so in the days before factories started churning out cheap designs and, worse still, huge foreign stores began marketing flat packs that could be driven home in a car boot and assembled by just about anyone. In his fifties he’d given up the business and taken on contract work making parts of chairs, parts of tables, parts of cabinets. It nearly broke his heart. It certainly broke his spirit. That’s when he bought his first boat, the motivation being that it was a fine old model in need of repair. His nurturing instinct coupled with a deep desire to practise his craft led him to borrow the necessary cash to buy Esmerelda and hire a dry dock so that he could bring her back to life.

“You sold Esmerelda for a good figure,” Stan reminded him. Yes he had and he still saw her occasionally when her new owner sailed into their harbour. He was so pleased with Phil’s workmanship that he kept in touch and even asked him to fix things when needed. After the sale Phil had been like a fish out of water, rattling around at home when he wasn’t at the factory and driving his wife mad. He’d even finished off some of the jobs in the house. But one day, walking by the docks he spotted a ‘for sale’ sign on another yacht – Champion – and he knew things were looking up.

Champion became the new love of his life when his wife passed on. Each day he would go down to the dock and climb up on to her deck. The smells of varnish and freshly cut wood, the salt air; these were a part of Phil’s DNA now. Pity they weren’t there when he was young; none of his children had the interest or the skill to help him. Occasionally they’d come along when a job needed two pairs of hands and sometimes they praised him for his tenacity in these projects. Unknown to him, they frequently told their own children how clever granddad was.

Phil eased himself out of Stan’s comfortable leather chair and shuffled to the door.

“Think about it mate. You’ve still got a good few years in you and you need the cash.”

“I will,” muttered Phil but his heart was in his boots.

Outside the sun was shining, people bustled by making him giddy. He found his car, his keys and his decorum and drove to the dry dock. How could he possibly sell her? She wasn’t even finished.

One of the other regulars sauntered up. Jan was fixing up a similar boat and Phil had become her mentor. He always knew the answers to her questions and enjoyed the role of teacher. Standing together against Champion’s tall keel,Jan noticed how pale Phil was and suggested a pick-me-up. They understood this code and climbed the ladder up to his deck.

“Let me make it,” Jan offered and Phil gratefully sank into the padded bench. The kettle whistled in the galley and a strong cup of tea was soon reviving his spirits. It had become a habit for these two veteran sailors to leave their troubles at home and restrict their conversation to ship-talk so Jan didn’t ask why he looked so out of sorts. Phil tried to concentrate on her description of how she planned to strip her boat back and use a new brand of paint which the manufacturers guaranteed would last longer than one season. He dragged his consciousness away from Stan’s advice and eventually managed to offer some response about the fickle nature of paint and the destructive effects of salt water.

Suddenly he found himself asking Jan if she’d ever considered sailing to New Zealand. They delved into the pros and cons of crossing the Tasman, shared stories of sailors who had tried it and either succeeded or not. In Phil’s head an idea was taking shape and in his heart he experienced a flutter that he thought had died long ago. Looking fondly at her aging friend with his balding head and sagging jowls, Jan assured herself that he was dallying in an imaginative flight of fancy.

To all intents and purposes life went on as before. If Phil’s neighbours thought his step was brisker than usual they didn’t comment. When Jan noticed that he was working harder than usual on his beauty she assumed he was racing against time to finish it and she avoided the delicate subject of death. But when she arrived at the beach one day to find Champion had gone she knew instantly what he had done.

“You old bastard, Phil”, she said out loud.

She was hurt because he hadn’t confided in her or asked her to help. But she knew there were others more skilled than her in launching a boat from dry dock. She also realised that if Phil had told her his secret plans she would have been the voice of reason and warned him of all the dangers. Jan regretted now that they had only talked boats and that she had never really got to know the man.

Screwing up her eyes to look far out to sea, she whispered, “God speed stranger”.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Carole Lander is a Melbourne-based freelance writer. She draws on her eclectic life experiences to write in a variety of genres and has been published in the mainstream media, specialist journals and on a children’s story website. The inspiration for Sail Away was her brother who lives on the west coast of Canada and has an obsession for fixing up boats.