Sanctuary Island, June 2001

‘La voilà!’ Leo leans back on his elbows against the
low-slung boom, everything about him jibing at me.
‘Mon Dieu, it looks like La Sorcière’s coming out for a
sail after all! She’s running a half hour late, but that
was to be expected!’

He’s perfectly right, of course. Nothing has changed
between us, not even the bad in-joke of calling me
names in our ancestral French. The shock of unruly
hair has turned white as snow, but under the weath-
ered skin the muscles still ripple smoothly as hand over
fist he unfurls the genoa. ‘So, ma petite sorcière, wel-
come aboard! Or are you going to plant yourself there
on the dock? You do look paler about the gills than I
remember you.’

So intense the rush of déjà vu that I fondly picture
turning on my heel and letting him sail down the Bay
all by his lonesome. Except that I’m seven years older
now. It belongs to another life, that last occasion the
two of us went sailing together.

That was the time I executed a perfect swan dive
over Lizette’s splintered taffrail. Cut the water clean as
a knife and swam all the way back to this same ram-
shackle dock. Can’t even remember now what made