“BIRTHS – to Margaret and Stephen Carron a daughter”

Deerford Gazette, March 1910

Chapter One

March 1930

Nemle chose a seat in the front row. She was not normally a front row person, but today she had a job to do. Today she would become a mentor. Today she would take an apprentice who would be her charge for the next twenty years.

She had met her yesterday, a slim, dark-haired child with enormous brown eyes.

“Not a child,” she rebuked herself inwardly. “A young woman.”

But she seemed a child. She had only just scraped into this year’s intake. Yesterday had been her twentieth birthday. If it had been tomorrow she would have had to wait until the next Gathering two years hence.

“And she wouldn’t have been mine,” Nemle thought with a little flutter of… what… apprehension, excitement, anxiety? She didn’t know. Perhaps a mixture of all three.

The last night of the Gathering was always a grand celebration. For three weeks the ninety Silberay had been together to discuss problems, to share joys, to obtain their next assigned route and for apprentices to attend formal classes. In the morning they would take to their boats and spread out around the water road perhaps not to meet again for two years. Even more important than the celebration though was the ceremony and now the tables of food were moved to the side, the music and the talk were dying down and others were assembling behind and around her..

The Harbour Master and the Apprentice Master mounted the low dais and the gathered Silberay grew silent. In the ceremony to come the progress of the apprentices would be acknowledged. Until they reached their tenth year they were required to attend formal classes during the three weeks of the Gathering and satisfactory results were rewarded by the presentation of a new tunic in the colour of their new level.

Apprentices were the future of the Silberay so it was important to mark their progress at every level but for Nemle, as for many of the others, the two most important parts of the ceremony were the graduation of the final year apprentices and the induction of the first years.

This year five apprentices would graduate, five new Silberay take possession of the boats they had lived on with their mentors, five mentors retire to live their last years at the Harbour. That was a sobering thought. Today she would become a mentor. Would she be ready, twenty years hence, to leave the water road for ever? When she was twenty, seventy had seemed old but it did not seem so now she had reached it. Twenty years a mentor … again the flutter of apprehension, or was it anticipation?

The apprentices were gathering beside the dais. Nemle could see them moving into position all alike in their white shirts and loose brown trousers. There were three first years.

Nemle watched with interest as the first two, a young woman and a young man, were welcomed, spoke the words of commitment and received their tunics, gold-coloured for first year. Then came the third. This one was hers. The girl moved forward, back straight, chin up, ardent, glowing like a candle flame. She turned a little towards the Harbour Master and revealed a thick plait of long dark hair hanging neatly down her back.

“That’s the Carron youngster.” Nemle heard a man behind her. “She’ll be a handful.”

Nemle frowned.

“I, Marheh Carron, promise myself to the Silberay.” The young woman’s voice rang out. “I choose for my life the active pursuit of goodness and beauty.”

“All that passion and melodrama. I don’t envy her mentor.”

“They say she’s very talented.” This new voice sounded a little doubtful.

“All the more reason to come down hard then. Don’t want her to get above herself.”

Nemle went forward then to sign the indentures and welcome her apprentice but the man’s words hung in the back of her mind. “Come down hard” was that how she must treat this shining child?

Marheh stirred and stretched as the morning light crept into the little cubicle where she had slept during the Gathering. Then she remembered what day it was and flung back the covers. Today she would move onto a boat and her life as Silberay would really begin. The three weeks of classes had been, not boring exactly but not exciting either. After all she’d already been on lots of Silberay boats because of her Uncle Jik. He had even let her steer Autumn Wind once or twice on short straight stretches. The other two first years had been older, Tippa was months past her twenty first birthday but they had not really known very much at all.

Jik had told her lots about the history of the Silberay and what they believed so she had found it hard to sit and listen to someone else telling her the same thing when what she really wanted to do was to meet her mentor and start boating. Sometimes she had wanted to argue with the Apprentice Master who seemed to think she was a child who knew nothing but mostly she had remembered to hold her tongue. Jik and both her parents had warned her against showing off.

Last night had been glorious. She had been too excited to eat much of the party food. She couldn’t keep still long enough. She had spotted the woman who was to be her mentor. Jik had told her she was very lucky but watching as she moved quietly among the older Silberay Marheh could not see why. She was just a little old woman in Silberay uniform.

She had said her promise with all her heart, loudly, so they would know how much she meant it.

She scrambled into her clothes and re-did her plait. Now she had her tunic she looked like Silberay. The soft bag which held all her belongings was almost packed. She tucked her nightdress into the top then stripped the linen from the bed. That had to be taken to the laundry. She gathered it all into her arms and whisked off with it.

She was going to be the best apprentice that ever was. Nemle was pretty lucky really.

Nemle was up early too, dressed and breakfasted and ready to take Day Bringer around to the loading dock by the time the sun was fully above the horizon. She would need to get diesel and water before they set off but that could wait until Marheh was on board and become part of her first practical lesson.

Usually the tasks associated with setting out, the engine checks, the careful untying of mooring lines were second nature but today everything was done as if for the first time, knowing she would be teaching these skills. Manoeuvring out of her mooring she noticed how she used the throttle as well as the tiller to help her reverse and felt Day Bringer respond as she moved slowly and easily through the quiet Harbour waters.

She was just tying up at the loading dock when Marheh appeared from the building which housed the accommodation, extra bathrooms and the laundry. She was carrying a large soft bag and trying to run but the bag kept banging into her legs turning the run into a hop and a skip. Nemle watched her for a moment then bent to finish her mooring.

When she straightened again Marheh was in front of her, eyes shining, a little breathless, the bag clasped in both arms. Nemle smiled a greeting and hoped it would hide the sudden surge of panic that swept over her. What did she know about being a mentor? The advent of this eager young woman would change her life and now, suddenly, she didn’t want her life to change. Then she realised that Marheh was looking not at her but at Day Bringer.

The girl stood transfixed for a few moments then she put her bag down very carefully and stepped across it to touch the dark green hull and trace around the decorative letter D.

“Day Bringer,” she said softly, turning to Nemle. “She’s beautiful.”

“She is a pretty boat,” Nemle said, keeping her voice matter-of-fact. “You’ll be able to help care for her.” She stepped onto the back deck and turned to Marheh. “Come on board and get settled. There’s a bit to do before we can set out.”

Turning, she led the way through the open door and down the four steep steps into the back cabin.

“This will be your cabin,” she said. “Put your bag down here and I’ll take you through the rest of the boat.”

A sudden flash of resentment surprised her into the realisation that she did not want to relinquish her cabin to this new comer, did not want to have to occupy the new cabin that had been created for her in the bow, the work space it replaced gone forever.

She led Marheh through the cabin to the engine room, the big engine shining with her care, just waiting to be awakened. Then they passed the tiny cubicle that housed the toilet bucket and reached the galley with the saloon beyond it. She heard Marheh’s little gasp of delight as she took in the neat, compact space. The morning sun bounced off the water and filled the boat with light. The kettle gently steamed at the back of the stove. Everything that could possibly sparkle did so. The sink and the stove defined the small corner that was the galley. The chimney for stove and fire reached to the roof, black and shining. There were green curtains at the windows with a pattern of wildflowers. The lower sides were panelled in light golden timber, the lining of the roof and topsides was painted a very pale grey-green.  There was a big green armchair and a matching footstool by the fire and a small table and two little benches built against the opposite wall. Beyond that was the door to Nemle’s cabin, firmly closed.

After a few moments Nemle turned to look at Marheh.

“Your new home,” she said.

Marheh’s face shone.

“She’s beautiful,” she said again.

Nemle smiled then.

“She is, isn’t she?”

A moment of silence while Nemle hunted for some more words.

“Would you like to unpack now, or shall we get under way?”

“Get underway,” Marheh said, in no doubt. “But I just have to get my box of clay.”

Nemle stared after her as she turned and hurried away, watched through the window as she bolted towards the accommodation building and disappeared inside then shrugged, went to get the hose and started filling the water tank.