From the Past When in the Navy one brown eye one blue each Chapter 6

From the Past When in the Navy one brown eye one blue each Chapter 6

"If you don't say something soon, Mister, I'm going to tip you into the drink. Do not let me bare my heart and you just ignore it," she threatened.

"I honestly don't know what to say, Fiona," Brett said, turning to look at her. The gentle wind on the bows was flipping her hair up and he reached out to tuck it behind her ear. She grabbed his hand and rubbed his palm on her cheek.

"What do you want me to say? Do you want me to tell you I love you? I love you. There I said it. I love you. I. Love. You. And I am a merchant sailor, and you are a member of the aristocracy, and never the twain shall meet. We are the ultimate in ships passing in the night."

Brett's voice was brittle at the end, and he looked away.

"Yeah. Bloody unfair, isn't it?" Fiona answered, laconically.

"You might say," Brett hissed bitterly.

"I don't know how to manage this, either, Brett," Fiona said, gently. "I have to go back to marriage I don't really want to be in. To a life of duty. I mean, these few days with you, they are like a bubble in my life. I would not exactly call it a holiday, not for what I went through to get here. But saying that, I would do it again, for these days with you."

She moved in close to him, and grasped his arm, pulling it around her body and molding herself to him, holding his arm in place.

"And don't say you wouldn't either. At the end of the day, Brett, are we better for having done this? For having these feelings. Or worse? I chose to believe we are better. I have something to measure life against now. You have made me feel things that I have never felt before that I never thought I would ever feel. And here it is, thunderbolt city."

There was more silence. Brett was not struggling to find the right thing to say, he was just drinking at the moment. He was standing with his arm around his woman, his love, looking out at the endless ocean.

"The thing is...the thing is..." she started to utter, then stopped.

"Look, you know, this has to end, right? I have the Duty. I must return to life. There is no future. God knows I wish there were, but there isn't." She paused again.

"And I think we need to make a clean break after this, you know?" She turned to look at him, staring him in the eye, to be sure he was getting the message, and understood why.

"We need to make it quick and brutal. Like ripping off a plaster," she said. He looked at her quizzically.

"Err, band-aid, I think you call them?"

He nodded. He got the point.

"No trying to follow the other. No stalking. You go on with your life and I will go on with mine, and we do not. Look. Back." She poked him to the chest with each word to punctuate her meaning.

"You don't suddenly show up in England, and I won't show up...well... anywhere you are. Promise me, Brett. Promise me you will let this go. Treat this time we had as hallowed ground and never tread on it again."

Brett just stared at her.

"Promise me," she hissed, with intent. "I don't want either one of us to regret this time. But we must end it. And have a pact."

Brett turned away and leaned on the railing, and not looking at her, nodded. Not what he wanted, but he got her point. They were too different.

Eventually, he said, "You've destroyed me for any other relationship, you know. I am serious. How am I going to find another You?"

"I should think so too!" she retorted, smiling again, hesitantly, and then turned into him and pulled his head down into a kiss. "I'm one of a kind, and don't you forget it!"

They kissed again, and it started to get more urgent, more enthusiastic.

She broke it off, and, flushed, said, "Let us take this back to the cabin. We have one more day. Let us make the most of it."

And taking him by the hand, she pulled him down the edge of the deck back to the cabin block.

"The last I saw of your mother, she was walking down the gangplank, scarf around her neck, oversized sunglasses -- she looked like she was just getting off the Royal Yacht Britannia, rather than having just narrowly escaped death a few days before."

Brett sighed as he remembered.

"I couldn't even accompany her. No risk of impropriety, you see. I, like everyone, watched from the deck above. Just a face in the crowd. She did turn around at the bottom and looked for me, but there is no way she would have been able to take me out.

"There was a surprising number of photographers there -- way more Caucasian faces that you'd expect, for a Chinese port. I suspect the UK press had flown some of their guys out there. Naturally, she played up to them all. That was the last I saw of her in the flesh. Some guy came by in a Range Rover for her things later in the day.

"We stayed in port for a full two weeks -- way longer than usual. The owners and chairman of the line who owned the ship flew in, and with the captain, they milked the press for all it was worth. And then, when the furor died down, we loaded up and slipped out of port, bound for New Zealand."

Brett tried to take another drink from his already empty bottle and looking at it suspiciously, he put it down and, making eye contact with both his children, finished, saying, "I spent the next fifteen years going around the world, ship to ship. Ended up a first mate before I retired here. I followed your mother's life for about six months -- your press sure does intrude on you, doesn't it? After six months of abject misery, and discovering she was pregnant with you two...well, my sanity could not take it anymore. So, I just let it go. Left her to her life, to the Duty she chose. I mean, I get it. She did not have much of a choice, but...still...

"She was the great love of my life. Those ten days spoiled me for the rest of my life. I tried to make things work with other women, other relationships, you know? But they... just did not measure up. I knew it was me with the problem, but what can you do?"

He paused, looking out at the sea view.

"And then I met Caroline, who was every bit as damaged and disappointed at life as I was. She had her own story and demons to battle, like me. We gravitated together and made a life, giving each other the space to grieve for the things we'd lost."

"And here I am. And then you showed up. Talk about reopening old wounds," he finished, ruefully.

The kids sat back as he wound down, glancing at each other meaningfully.

"Well, she didn't forget you either. I mean, so many things made sense after Daddy died and she sat us down and told her version of that story. When we were growing up, our bedrooms were all nautical themes. We would get little air fix models -- you know, the little plastic model’s kids make, of planes and boats and what not? Well, all ours would be merchant ships. We never understood till now," Amelia said, after a while, grabbing hold of Brett's hand.

"Yes," agreed Bradly. "Every other holiday, we'd go on a cruise. She used to sit on the little verandas the suites we had were graced with and have tea and stare out into the ocean. She used to say the sea calmed her. She was reliving memories, now you've told us your story."

There was another silence, and then, hesitantly, Brett addressed the elephant in the room.

"How... how is she? Does she ever...?" he said, looking at the ground, almost afraid of the answer.

"Well, she's fine. Older, I am sure. But Mummy always did look after herself. She is quite a spry forty-six-year-old. Did you know we are the exact same age as she was when she met you?"

To be continued