She had no idea what he was talking about and didn’t care – she let him fold her into his huge embrace, kissed him and, after they had stood for a long time in silent gratitude, he sat down and wrote the letter to me.
‘You gave me a second chance – a chance for life, a chance for love, a chance for kids. How do you thank somebody for that?’ he said.
‘I suspect that we’ll never see each other again, but always remember, on this date every year we will set a place at our dinner table for you and wait for your knock on the door.
‘Travel safe and may God, by whatever name you know Him, protect you.’
Chapter Fifty
THE FOLLOWING DAY, after my normal routine of exercise and physiotherapy, I took stock of my health. While it was clear my foot was healing, I had to admit that if I ever wanted to regain the complete use of it I had to increase dramatically the amount of work I was doing.
I discussed it with the doctor and, that night – after dinner, with the village in darkness – I ventured out for the first time. Slowly, forsaking my makeshift crutch for a walking stick, I made my way down the narrow streets and along the waterfront, dragging my foot in a strange limp as I became increasingly tired, but forcing it to function.
It was slow and excruciating and, after two hours, I finally made it back through the front gate and collapsed in the living room. The doctor was already in bed, and after I recovered I took the opportunity to search through his groaning bookshelves. At the back, covered in dust, I found a copy of the Bible, presented to him on graduating in medicine by his father.
I looked up the Gospel of St Mark, chapter sixteen, verse six. It was the King James’s version and, even if you are not a believer, the words are still very beautiful. I sat for a long time, thinking about Battleboi and Rachel, and, though I can’t say that I prayed, I was thankful that at least one good thing had come out of the whole terrible enterprise.
The following night, despite the pain and fatigue, I walked the unforgiving streets again. And the night after that, and the night after that. I never saw anybody, I never spoke to anyone – I was a shadow in the darkness, but a shadow growing stronger.
A month later, having ventured further and further afield, I felt confident enough to put my foot to an extreme test – a ten-mile walk along a coastal path and down into a rarely visited fishing village which the doctor said was one of the most beautiful on the coast.
‘Make sure you visit the boatyard,’ he said. ‘They still use the old crafts; it’s the last one working in wood.’
Setting off early on a cold and sharp-edged morning, I hiked through the empty hills of southern Turkey, the smell of pine and the restless sea my only companions and, to my surprise, I did it relatively easily. I was still limping, and I had to rest from time to time – but there was no more of the vicious, debilitating pain, and I knew that my time at the doctor’s was coming to an end.
The coastal path eventually wound down into the village – untouched by tourism, an authentic jumble of cottages and boat-sheds, home to men and women whose lives had changed little in hundreds of years.
After a lunch of fresh seafood in a sleepy café, I made my way to the boatyard at one end of the small cove and found that the doctor was right – it was a lovely thing to see the old kilns aglow, smoke hanging in the air and the artisans bending and shaping lengths of timber as they repaired the squat fishing boats for the next season. Nobody paid me any attention, and I wandered past the stacks of drying wood, thinking about how many great skills the world had lost, how many things of value had passed without any of us even noticing. The old men with their chisels and hand saws were once the most highly paid members of their community, and what had we put in their place? Financial engineers and young currency traders.
I turned a corner – and stopped. At the back of the yard, under a sagging canvas roof, perched high on wooden chocks, was a timber-hulled ketch. She was about seventy feet long, probably half a century old, and even though she was unpainted and her masts hadn’t been stepped, it was clear that she would once have been a thing of beauty.
Whoever owned her had used the almost lost skills of the yard to start restoring her but, by the look of the dust on her transom, they appeared to have run out either of cash or interest. I walked closer and dragged aside part of the canvas roof so that the light fell more evenly on her. I had always thought that there was nothing quite so sad as an abandoned boat, but the work that had been done on the ketch was outstanding, and it gave her a dignity that belied her distressed circumstances.
Thanks to Bill’s lessons on Long Island Sound, I had learned a lot about boats and I knew just by looking at her that she was a craft that could weather almost anything.