Chapter 12
Ore
They sat opposite each other, barely an arm’s length apart, across a small exceedingly tidy desk in the captain’s cabin. There was a glass door separating them from where another man in a uniform similar to Daniel’s was sitting in front of a spread of flashing lights, dials and levers.
‘Will we be heard in here?’ Ore asked, gesturing towards the man.
‘Oh no, it’s pretty soundproof in here and First Officer Dudley is a pro; he’ll be focused on the job at hand.’ Ore was reassured, although she only now came to realise that she hadn’t prepared any questions for Daniel, so sure had she been that this particular interview was never going to happen.
She scrambled through her notes, trying to look like she was identifying a specific page, and settled on the list of questions she had hoped to tackle with Chuck at breakfast. She’d have to ad lib a bit.
‘So, Daniel, why don’t we start off by you just telling me a little bit about yourself? How did you end up working for Chuck Regas?’ Pen poised, she offered her most ‘approachably curious’ expression.
‘There isn’t much to it really. I work for an agency and theyneeded a last-minute replacement.’ He seemed to hope that would put the matter to bed, but Ore wasn’t about to be blown off again.
‘Yes, you mentioned that. What exactly happened to the last captain?’
He shifted in his seat before answering. ‘I’m afraid I’m not sure.’ Ore was pretty certain he was lying.
‘Right, so the agency didn’t mention anything to you?’ Even if she knew he wouldn’t cave, it was worth a shot.
‘No, miss, they just give me a call, tell me where and when, and I go.’
‘That must be a lonely life for you.’ It was meant to be a question but it came out sounding judgemental.
He was silent for a moment, and Ore noticed how still he was. No fidgeting this time. He looked away, out the window, and then answered, ‘It can be, yes.’
‘So how did you get into yachting? Not to sound ignorant but I had never imagined that the captain of a mega yacht might be black, and Southern to boot.’
‘Southern to boot? You sound like a New Yorker. I grew up just outside Houston; it’s hardly the Mississippi Delta.’ He spoke calmly but Ore heard that familiar undertone of exasperation. She had heard it coming from her own mouth before, the defensiveness that came from an irrational need to prove you were not a token hire.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to come across like that. I’m just curious.’
Daniel looked at her placidly. She had some winning back of trust to do.
‘Well, I grew up in Southern England, in a place calledMargate. It’s a very white place, so my mum and I got used to being the only black people around most of the time,’ Ore leant forward, and Daniel looked at her intently. ‘Then I moved to London, which was great, and I got used to – you know – having “the community” around. It wasn’t until I went to Columbia and started trying to make it as a journo in New York that I felt that feeling again, of being “the only one” and having to stand my ground when people asked questions about what I was doing in that particular room.’
There was silence. Ore leant back in her seat, wondering what other tactics she might have to get him to open up. The ‘tell me about yourself’ was supposed to build rapport, not completely shut it down.
‘My mom was always broke,’ Daniel said suddenly, though quietly. He looked like he was surprisinghimselfby opening up. ‘There were three of us. Terry is a year older and Maddy is a year younger – than me, that is.’
Ore didn’t dare move or speak, lest she break the spell.
‘My dad left when I was little and we didn’t see him for years. Before I left, we’d started seeing each other again occasionally, and it turns out all that time he was only about fifty miles away, in Lake Jackson.’ Daniel’s gaze was focused somewhere off in the distance, and Ore had to resist the urge to turn around and follow it.
‘I was always into vehicles: cars, trains, boats. Mom used to take us to the museum for an afternoon and leave us there while she did a shift. When she came back, she’d find me in the locomotive section, or the maritime history section or whatever.’
Daniel seemed to remember where he was just then, andlooked almost startled to notice Ore staring at him. ‘Sorry, I don’t know where that came from.’ He began shifting in his chair again. ‘You don’t want to know about all that.’
‘I do,’ and she meant it. She knew none of it would be useful for her story, but she was invested now. ‘Tell me more about that, Daniel.’ He looked away again and she felt her chance slip away. ‘Please,’ she added, in barely more than a whisper.
‘The thing with boats, and cars and trains, is that they’re by and large reliable, and if they’re not, then you know there’s something wrong, and you can fix it.’
‘There’s no hidden agenda,’ Ore cut in softly.
Daniel’s eyes brightened almost imperceptibly. ‘Exactly, they are straightforward and as long as you look after them they will take you where you want to go.’
‘It sounds like you didn’t always get a choice in where you wanted to go?’ Ore was forgetting herself.
‘I spent a lot of my life feeling like I was on a path to somewhere and nowhere, like I knew exactly where I would end up and even if I didn’t want to, it was bound to happen.’ Daniel shrugged. ‘And then I won some build your own boat race competition and ended up at sailing summer camp, all expenses paid.’
‘How old were you then?’ Ore promised herself she would get to more questions about Chuck soon.
‘Sixteen, and then I went back the following year, worked my ass off to pay for it the second time, and the third. And then I met this guy there, Jack, making some extra money over the summer, and he told me all about working on yachts, hooked me up with his captain and got me my first job as adeckhand.’ Daniel exhaled, as if he had been holding his breath for a long time.
‘That’s quite the journey, and now here you are – it’s amazing.’ Ore wasn’t exaggerating. She loved hearing about people who broke the mould that life had cast for them. She liked to think that’s what she was doing too.
Daniel smiled shyly. ‘I don’t know about amazing, but I guess these days, it does feel like it all worked out how it was supposed to.’
Ore hoped he didn’t think she was being insincere. ‘No genuinely, that’s a very cool origin story.’ She made sure to look him directly in the eye when she said, ‘Thanks for sharing that with me.’
