Read Online The Forever Girl by Alexander McCall Smith - Free Book Online

never seen himat the tennis club before.
    He was holding his car keys and he fiddled with these as he replied. “I don’t. I was driving past. I noticed your car.”
    She caught her breath. It was not accidental; he had sought her out.
    He waited for a moment before continuing. “So I thought I’d drop by. I was going somewhere else.”
    “Yes?”
    “I sold the yacht and bought an old powerboat. It’s seen better days, but it goes. I don’t know if you’d heard.”
    She shook her head. “No.”
    “I thought maybe James had mentioned something to Clover. He’s terribly proud of it.” He slipped the keys into his pocket. “They seem to spend a lot of time together, those two.”
    “They’re very friendly. There’s a bit of hero-worship going on, I think.”
    He smiled broadly. “Oh? Him or her?”
    “Girl worships boy, I think.”
    “Childhood friendships,” he said. “They might not find it so easy when they hit adolescence. Friendship becomes more complicated then.”
    “Your boat …”
    “Is nothing special. I can’t afford anything expensive. And it’s not a sailing boat like the one David and I went out in. It’s a knockabout old cruiser with an outboard that’s seen better days. It can get out to the reef and back, but that’s about it.”
    She said that she thought that this was all one needed. “Where else is there to go?” she asked.
    “Precisely.”
    “Those great big monsters …”
    “Gin palaces.”
    “Yes. Why do people need them?”
    He smiled. “They can go to Cuba. Or to Jamaica. But it’s really all about extensions to oneself, to one’s ego. Those are look at me boats.” He paused. “I was just heading over there. To the boat. Why not come and see it? We could go over to Rum Point. Or out to the reef if you liked.”
    She had not been prepared for an invitation and it took her some time to answer. She should say no; she should claim, quite rightly, that she had to go to the supermarket. But now, in his presence, she found it impossible to do what she knew she should do.
    “How long would it take?”
    “As long or as short a time as you want. Fifteen minutes to get there. Ten minutes to get things going. Then forty minutes out and forty minutes in, depending on the wind and what the sea’s doing.”
    She looked at her watch.
    “What’s everybody doing?” he asked. She realised that this was his way of asking where David was.
    “I think that Clover’s with James. Out on their bicycles, I think. Billy’s at that dolphin place with Margaret. David’s working.”
    “Does he ever take any time off?”
    “Sundays, usually. Otherwise … no, he’s pretty busy.” She looked at him. His eyes were registering pleasure at what she said.
    “How about it?”
    The sea was calm as they edged out into the sound. They had boarded the boat in the canal along which he moored it – a thinstrip of water that provided access to four or five rather run-down houses. Dogs barked from the bank as the boat made its way towards the sea; a large Dobermann, ears clipped, kept pace with them, defending its territory with furious snarls.
    She pointed to one of the houses. “Who lives in these places?” she asked.
    “You can tell from the dogs,” he said. “That Dobermann belongs to a man who owns two liquor stores, and a bar.” He made a calming gesture towards the dog. “Dogs are aspirational here. Like boats.”
    She laughed. “That’s his boat there?” She pointed to a gleaming white vessel. A towering superstructure was topped with a bristling forest of aerials and fishing rods.
    “Must be.”
    Once in the sound he opened the throttle and the boat surged forward across the flat expanse of sea. The sky was high and empty of all but a few cumulus clouds on the horizon, off towards Cuba. The water was a light turquoise colour, the white sand showing a bare six feet below. Here and there, patches of undulating dark disclosed the presence of weed. In the distance, a line