Page 107 of A Shore Thing

“We could feed Mr. Bicycle Man to the shark instead,” said Jenny gravely through the spokes. “The shark might like him better.”

Jago sniffed and nodded. He tugged Deighton’s leg as Jenny tugged the wheel.

“Madam!” Deighton called to their mother, a touch of panic in his voice. “Madam!”

Kit angled his body away, tuning out the sounds of the tussle, which anyway merged with the general clamor on deck and the noise of the engines below. He studied the approaching landmass, houses clustered near the harbor, a verdant hill rising behind, topped by St. Mawes Castle. He’d first seen the castle at the National Gallery, in a painting by Turner. The canvas was washed with late-summer light, the sails of the pilchard boats like sheets of beaten gold, the hulls rosy, and the beach rosy too, flecked with silver fish.

The light today shone strong and clear, and the wind came fitfully from the west.

He imagined Muriel in the ship’s prow, saw the scene as though it were a painting—not by Turner. No one could match Turner’s sensitivity to landscape, but he peopled his canvases with puny, awkward figures, dismissible poppets, and the painting Kit pictured dwelled on Muriel herself. He styled her like the Lady of Shalott, in a medieval kirtle, hair unbound, but she didn’t lie dead-pale in her boat, embowered by flowers of mourning. She stood proud and her dark eyes looked with unswerving brilliancy and directness on the world.

This went deeper than mere imagining. He was painting, albeit inside his head. He began to tingle all over, a combination of his own sudden giddiness and the restless salt breeze. If he did manage to put down real pigment, he’d weave all of his feelings into his brushstrokes. Muriel as the Lady of Shalott would draw the gaze with her beauty, but her eyes would ultimately direct the viewer’s away.

Look with me, not at me. Her eyes would beam this message. Let me show you what I see.

A shark. Slug spawn. Seaweed. The rainbow’s end. The evening star.

He laughed aloud—didn’t he eschew romantic delusions? He needed to remember that she saw him, and that she might not see him as he wanted to be seen.

She might not see him as a man.

He sobered at once. The tingling became a sting, and he hunched his shoulders against the wind.

He wasn’t a Neanderthal. Or a chappie. He hadn’t been a schoolboy, bullied and bullying, taught to dominate his emotions by dominating others—human or animal. He felt glad of it. Most days, he wouldn’t wave a wand and make himself his parents’ beloved baby son at birth. Most days, he was bloody glad he’d been a Sister, and a sapphist.

Had been.

He wasn’t either now.

Did Muriel understand that, really? Perhaps the party had been a mistake. He needed a clean break. An existence that began the day he moved to Cornwall.

His stomach knotted, and when he soothed himself with the thought that it didn’t matter what Muriel understood—she sailed out of his life by September—he felt it wrap around itself and pull into a hurting figure eight.

He’d rather the Mutton Wheelers make him sick than his own mind. He turned his attention back to the deck. Both children were gone. Their mother was likewise nowhere in sight.

He raised his brows musingly at Deighton. “I’d have heard the splash if you’d thrown anyone overboard.”

Deighton pointed with his very square chin. A nearby parasol, held over a seat at a suspicious angle, began to giggle.

“They’re hiding.” He smiled an evil smile. “Up for a bit of fun?”

“I should have clarified,” said Kit. “I’m not for throwing anyone overboard.”

“Forget the brats.” Deighton pulled at the brim of his cap. “This is about you and me. Let’s race to Mevagissey.”

Kit tightened his grip on his Rover.

He could say no, of course. Swallow his pride. Take the ribbing. Seem that much weaker. That much more womanly.

Dash it all. He didn’t believe in those correlations, in that way of thinking.

But he was already saying, “Let’s.”

24

“I wish there were still wolves in England.”

Griffith’s statement hovered in the dark wood, tempting fate.