‘I’m sorry, Mike; the hull is cracked.’
‘Can it be fixed?’ he asked once they hauled it out of the water and Darius had located the damage.
‘Maybe, but it’s a fibreglass hull and will have to go to a special workshop.’ Seeing his disappointment, he said, ‘You know, if you’re really keen on trying this, Michael, I’ll find you a club in London where you can get some proper training.’
The boy’s mouth dropped open. ‘Wicked!’
‘You’d better go and ask your mother. Tell her that it’s my contribution to the medal tally in 2020,’ he called after him.
Natasha was grinning. ‘He’s a great kid.’
‘Patsy worries about him. I think that’s why she volunteered for your work party. She can’t watch him twenty-four-seven and he’s getting to the age for trouble.’
‘Sport is a good alternative.’ She looked at the scull. ‘Was this yours?’
‘It belonged to my father. He was a rowing blue. When I was a kid like Michael, I used to sit in that seat, put my feet and hands where his had been and try to feel him.’
‘You never knew him?’ she asked.
He shook his head. ‘He was a lecturer at the School of Oriental and African Studies. He lived there during the week and came home to the estate cottage where he and Christabel had set up home for the weekends and during the holiday.’
‘That doesn’t sound like a great way to start a marriage.’
‘It was her choice, apparently. She didn’t like London.’
‘What happened?’
‘Not a what—a who. An Iranian student of such shimmering beauty that one look was all it took for my father to lose his head, his reason, his sanity.’
‘Your mother.’ And, when he glanced at her, ‘The name is the giveaway.’
He nodded. ‘My father abandoned Christabel and his unborn child without a backward glance and went to live in France with Soraya.’
Unable to bear the musty boathouse, the memory of that boy trying to reach out to a father he’d never known, he walked out into the clean air, kicked off his shoes and sat on the crumbling dock. These days his feet trailed in the water, soaked into the bottom of his jeans.
Natasha picked her way carefully over the boards and sat down beside him, her toes trailing in the water, waiting for him to continue or not as he wished.
‘My grandfather cut him off without a penny, hoping it would bring him to his senses,’ he said. ‘But he was senseless.’
‘And Christabel? What did she do?’
‘She took it badly, lost the baby she was carrying. A boy who would have been the heir to all this.’
‘Poor woman...’
‘Her parents sold the house across the river and moved away. Gary told me that she’d killed herself.’
‘No!’
‘My grandfather denied it but I was never sure so I did a search a few years back.’ He plucked a piece of rotten wood from the plank beside him, shredded it, dropping the pieces in the water. ‘She lives in Spain with her husband, three children.’