Stacks of Houssness and South Havra beyond, and all the time I was thinking about the ship, how much she would fetch at auction, what it would feel like to be an owner and in business for myself. The urge to achieve something constructive, that creative instinct I had ignored for so long … It had all suddenly become focused on that trawler.
I was so full of plans that it never occurred to me Villiers would turn down my proposition. God! How simpleeverything is when you are walking alone with the sea all round you and dreaming dreams!
But when I got back to my lodgings late in the afternoon I found a long envelope waiting for me; inside were documents for signature with a note from Fuller explaining them. Instead of a loan, Villers had instructed him to acquire the mortgage. This he had done and he was now offering to assign it to me as advance payment for a three-month charter on the terms I had already turned down. But after that he would be prepared to renew it monthly at progressively higher rates. The documents enclosed with his letter were the Charter Agreement and the Deed of Assignment for the mortgage, and there were three copies of each. All copies require the signature of both yourself and the legal owner of the vessel , one copy to be retained by her , one by yourself and the third to be returned to me at the Lerwick Hotel by tomorrow evening at the latest . And the letter went on: We think it best that you negotiate direct with Mrs Petersen. She may well be reluctant to accept you as the mortgagee , or – and this is equally essential to what Mr Villiers and I have in mind – to agree to your captaining the vessel once it is in commission again . In which case , the auction will proceed and the vessel will become the property of the highest bidder.
The mortgage was for £12 000 at twelve per cent interest, and sitting in my bare little room, going over those documents in the fading light, I found it difficult to concentrate on the legal phrases. Was it Villiers or Fuller who had devised the scheme? Not that it mattered, but Villiers I thought – it was so simple, so damnably clever. A cheap charter that committed me to getting the trawler into commission by 20th April and then running her on a shoestring to keep out of debt … and leaving me to fix it all with Gertrude Petersen.
I saw her the following morning and by then I had been over all the arguments. To my surprise she was waiting for me when I came down the track to Taing House. It was blowing hard from the south-west, her fair hair flying in the wind as she took me inside. ‘I was told to expect you.’ She didn’t offerme a chair, and she didn’t sit down herself, but stood facing me, her legs slightly apart as though the floor of the sitting-room was a deck that might heave under her feet at any moment. ‘I saw Mr Fuller yesterday. In the evening. He explained the arrangement to me.’ Her manner was cold and distant and her voice controlled. ‘You have the deeds with you?’
‘Yes’ I said, surprised and relieved that I didn’t have to explain it all to her. ‘What made you see Fuller?’
‘I heard he was looking for a trawler.’ No emotion now, and the grey eyes fixed on me, hard and businesslike. ‘You’re not the only one with ideas about refloating her. Johan is down there working on her now and I have talked with Jim Halcrow.’
‘I see.’ So she had reached some other arrangement with Fuller. But when I suggested this, she shook her head. ‘You think I cut you out?’ A flicker of a smile showed at the corners of her mouth. ‘Hardly. I do not have a master’s ticket, nor does Johan, and neither of us has worked in a shipyard. Jim Halcrow says you have. Is that right, Mr Randall?’ And she added, her eyes narrowed as though trying to make up her mind about me, ‘It is Randall, isn’t it? I understand when you arrived in Sumburgh –’
‘Randall,’ I said. ‘Mike Randall.’
She gave a little shrug. ‘Well, Mr
I was so full of plans that it never occurred to me Villiers would turn down my proposition. God! How simpleeverything is when you are walking alone with the sea all round you and dreaming dreams!
But when I got back to my lodgings late in the afternoon I found a long envelope waiting for me; inside were documents for signature with a note from Fuller explaining them. Instead of a loan, Villers had instructed him to acquire the mortgage. This he had done and he was now offering to assign it to me as advance payment for a three-month charter on the terms I had already turned down. But after that he would be prepared to renew it monthly at progressively higher rates. The documents enclosed with his letter were the Charter Agreement and the Deed of Assignment for the mortgage, and there were three copies of each. All copies require the signature of both yourself and the legal owner of the vessel , one copy to be retained by her , one by yourself and the third to be returned to me at the Lerwick Hotel by tomorrow evening at the latest . And the letter went on: We think it best that you negotiate direct with Mrs Petersen. She may well be reluctant to accept you as the mortgagee , or – and this is equally essential to what Mr Villiers and I have in mind – to agree to your captaining the vessel once it is in commission again . In which case , the auction will proceed and the vessel will become the property of the highest bidder.
The mortgage was for £12 000 at twelve per cent interest, and sitting in my bare little room, going over those documents in the fading light, I found it difficult to concentrate on the legal phrases. Was it Villiers or Fuller who had devised the scheme? Not that it mattered, but Villiers I thought – it was so simple, so damnably clever. A cheap charter that committed me to getting the trawler into commission by 20th April and then running her on a shoestring to keep out of debt … and leaving me to fix it all with Gertrude Petersen.
I saw her the following morning and by then I had been over all the arguments. To my surprise she was waiting for me when I came down the track to Taing House. It was blowing hard from the south-west, her fair hair flying in the wind as she took me inside. ‘I was told to expect you.’ She didn’t offerme a chair, and she didn’t sit down herself, but stood facing me, her legs slightly apart as though the floor of the sitting-room was a deck that might heave under her feet at any moment. ‘I saw Mr Fuller yesterday. In the evening. He explained the arrangement to me.’ Her manner was cold and distant and her voice controlled. ‘You have the deeds with you?’
‘Yes’ I said, surprised and relieved that I didn’t have to explain it all to her. ‘What made you see Fuller?’
‘I heard he was looking for a trawler.’ No emotion now, and the grey eyes fixed on me, hard and businesslike. ‘You’re not the only one with ideas about refloating her. Johan is down there working on her now and I have talked with Jim Halcrow.’
‘I see.’ So she had reached some other arrangement with Fuller. But when I suggested this, she shook her head. ‘You think I cut you out?’ A flicker of a smile showed at the corners of her mouth. ‘Hardly. I do not have a master’s ticket, nor does Johan, and neither of us has worked in a shipyard. Jim Halcrow says you have. Is that right, Mr Randall?’ And she added, her eyes narrowed as though trying to make up her mind about me, ‘It is Randall, isn’t it? I understand when you arrived in Sumburgh –’
‘Randall,’ I said. ‘Mike Randall.’
She gave a little shrug. ‘Well, Mr
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