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As Ben was now amusing himself throwing bits of sandwich off the stern, presumably to attract a great white, Aleksey handed off the helm to Squeezy and climbed up onto the deck to let out the mainsheet. After a few moments, a hand came around his waist and he turned, pleased. ‘Catch anything?’
He didn’t think he’d ever seen Ben look more uniquely beautiful. It was just a moment in time—brilliant sea-reflected sun; white sails whipping and cracking; Ben’s genuine joy—and if he could have chosen a moment for it to suddenly end, verdict handed in by the jury, then this would be his definition of heaven, and he was entirely content to go. This was part of his elemental nature, and now he was sharing that with this man.
Ben ran his fingers through his windblown dark hair and grabbed the mast as they hit a swell, laughing at his own reaction. ‘I’ve officially taken back everything I was thinking about your nautical knowledge, by the way. This is my officially impressed face.’
‘Huh. I’ve seen that expression many times before and always assumed that’s what it meant, yes.’
Ben pulled him closer and after a moment’s hesitation, as a lifetime’s knowledge of his preferences was being flouted, went ahead and kissed him anyway.
Aleksey was well aware they were being observed. After all, the entire boat was only thirty-seven feet long, and the cockpit only a few of those from them.
So he kissed Ben back hard for audacity then caught him a headlock and began to abuse his hair. Ben came up laughing and fighting back and that’s when they both heard a click.
Tim had just taken a picture of themfooling around.
Aleksey’s first thought, however, surprised him. It shot straight into his mind that now hedidhave this moment captured forever.
Tim just stared at his screen for a moment and commented to no one in particular, ‘Damn, into the sun,’ and stowed the phone away in his pocket.
* * *
It took nearly five hours in the end, but no one said anything, no mutiny occurred, no captain was put out in a lifeboat to navigate his way home—if they even had either of those.
At the three hour point, there had been some brief anxiety. Ben, at the helm, had spotted dark shapes on the horizon, and had assumed it was a first sighting of La Luz. Upon examination of the charts, however, they’d decided that it was a formation termedLes Dents: a row of high, jagged rocks which were too steep even for bird life to colonise. The closer they got, the more they did resemble teeth. It was as if a giant lower jawbone rose from the ocean, incisors damaged and cracked, molars worn down by the relentless work of waves, until they appeared as if ground sharp with anger.
Aleksey took over as they approached warily. He close hauled the boat when Les Dents were directly in their path. Ben went to the side and peered over.
Aleksey watched him and murmured reassuringly, ‘It is extremely deep here, min skat, don’t worry.’
Ben nodded distractedly. ‘But they’re mountain tops really, aren’t they?’
Aleksey frowned. He had never thought of it this way, but Ben was right. He gazed around at the undulating swells, and for the first time thought about the abyss that lay below: great towering mountains with crevasses and caves, meadows and valleys and these, their summits. He didn’t like this idea and realised that had he thought like this as a child, he might never have swum so eagerly in the ocean.
He checked his charts once more and saw to his surprise that these awful teeth lay due west of their island, almost no deviation from the compass line. He supposed they would be the same landmass if you removed the water. Just mountains running inexorably east.
They sailed past the black teeth, and were back in open water.
When they finally saw their island, the lighthouse on a cliff visible from some distance, a sense of palpable excitement gripped them all.
Aleksey nodded towards the closed cabin door. ‘All hands on deck.’
The dogs were allowed up into the cockpit, and they stood, paws on the seats, faces into the wind.
Squeezy and Ben lowered the sails, and Aleksey motored slowly closer.
His first impression of the island was that it was elegant, an impression that stayed with him and coloured many of his subsequent thoughts about the place. These western cliffs tapered into a natural sea arch, a beautiful curving bridge, which must at one time have had a second arch stretching west from it, but that one had now collapsed along its bridge leaving just a soaring sea stack. Stack, arch, mainland in a graceful line: elegant island.
The white cliffs, from which the arch leaped, soared three hundred feet or so from the rocks at their base, these being pounded by huge swells apparently resenting this interruption to their passage. These powerful, relentless waves had formed hollows and shallow sea caves from which a constant booming sound emerged. Everything was light and movement. The sheer sides were thronging with sea birds. They could see nests, where wheeling adults landed and took off in a never-ending cycle.
And on the headland of the island, standing just before the bridge which arced off in its seeming bid for freedom, stood the lighthouse. It was a weathered matt black, a stark contrast to the brilliance of the white and green and blue around it.
For one moment, the sun must have flicked off the glass panes at the top, for a wink of light struck the boat, making them all look away. They puttered around the stack followed by diving seabirds and saw that the island itself consisted of two unequal areas joined by low-lying, sandy dunes only ten feet or so above sea level. The lighthouse end, therefore, formed an almost isolated promontory and appeared almost barren. The other, larger half of the island to the east in contrast was clearly very lush. This landmass rose perhaps fifty feet in all from the dunes, and was dotted around its coastline with hidden pebbly inlets and sandy coves.
They continued their slow progress down the southern coastline, and as they rounded the eastern tip, Ben suddenly grasped Aleksey’s shoulder and pointed. ‘Boathouse and dock.’
‘That must be the jetty we saw in the photograph.’
He turned the vessel towards these wooden structures.
