‘I appreciate that, Officer Carter.’ The formality of the exchange had chilled the atmosphere around the table, and the rest of the meal was eaten mostly in silence, with the occasional polite question offered up to the room.
‘So has anyone been to Italy before?’ said Petra cheerfully. Responses were varied and the slightly strained amicability was palpable.
‘I’ll clear the plates,’ said Declan when everyone was done, probably sounding the least enthusiastic she’d heard him all day, and Sofia stood up a little too quickly to help him.
Back in the kitchen, the pair of them silently scraped the plates and Declan began to fill the large sink with soapy water.
‘Don’t worry about those. I can do them in the morning; you must be exhausted after today,’ Sofia said.
Declan put on the rubber gloves and took the plates from her hands anyway.
‘I’ll wash, you dry?’ he suggested. It was such a domestic scene that Sofia felt a pang of homesickness.
‘OK, deal.’
As they got to work, Sofia’s curiosity got the better of her. ‘So how did a black guy from Croydon end up working on luxury yachts then?’
Declan chuckled. ‘That’s such a fair question. Not many Nigerian deckhands about huh?’
‘I mean I haven’t been in the game very long, but I’d assume not.’
‘I actually started off on sailing yachts, went on this holiday to the South Coast with this friend from school and his family, and they were like “boat people”, you know?’
‘White?’ said Sofia dryly, and Declan chuckled again.
‘Yeah, how did you guess? Anyway, I sort of fell in love with it. I was gutted to leave after a week, so I googled “sailing clubs” and managed to persuade my parents to drive me to Portsmouth every weekend to go out on trips.’
‘I grew up around there,’ said Sofia, as she polished the cutlery.
‘Oh for real? So you’re a proper country girl then?’
‘At heart, yeah I guess. I haven’t ever really been on a boat like this though, like a yacht or whatever, but I’ve always been a bit in love with the idea of being “at sea”, you know?’
Declan nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.’ They worked in silence for a minute or so. A familiarity settled around them as they continued with their respective jobs, quiet and comfortable.
‘So anyway,’ said Declan, as he seemed to continue out loud the train of thought he had been riding in his head during the brief silence. ‘I graduated from Durham last year and my parents really wanted me to get a job straight away, so I did this grad scheme thing, and Ihatedit.’ He drained the sink and began peeling off the yellow gloves. ‘So, I quit in January, and they were so mad, but like I started sailing again and met this guy who had just got back from a charter in the South of France, and it sounded sick, so he gave me Captain Mary’s details.’ He leant back against the counter and looked at Sofia with a grin. ‘And the rest is history, as they say.’
‘What did you study?’
‘Economics,’ he said with in a tone that verged on disgust.
Sofia laughed. ‘God, that sounds dreadful,’ she conceded.
‘It was.’
She started to put everything away.
‘And how did you end up here then?’ Declan asked.
‘Oh you know, same kind of deal really, quit my job and ran away to the circus.’ She had expected a laugh, but when he didn’t say anything, she looked over to him and he was smiling kindly, waiting for her to say more.
‘I umm, was kind of burned out I guess, and not very happy and um, I had this weird thing with a colleague there who um...’ She trailed off, suddenly shy and wary of dragging her baggage into this new chapter of her life.
‘It’s OK,’ said Declan, sensing he had asked an innocuous question that could not be met with an innocuous response. ‘You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.’
Sofia was touched by his sensitivity. ‘Thanks, it’s not like a big deal. I just don’t like to dwell or whatever.’
Declan’s grin banished the heaviness from the small room. ‘Well if you ever do want to talk, you know where I am,’ he said cheerily. ‘Thanks so much for dinner – that cabbage stuff was mad tasty.’
