AT 29 (9 page)

Each evening he edged closer to the players, eventually sitting at their feet to watch their hands and study how each instrument was played. Soon he joined in the singing, careful to blend his voice with the others in a way that added melodious tone and countered some of the poorer voices. It took him little time to memorize the words to every song, and there were many. In only a few weeks he began to tinker with the words, adding his own verses that the others did not recognize. Hence, he found himself singing solo as the fiddler played and the others gathered around clapping and dancing. In this, all the crew accepted him and those who shunned him earlier now called him by name and welcomed him among their cliques. With acceptance came whiskey, burning and bitter at first, but soon a nightly necessity nearly as important to Nathan as the music.

One night, a sailor found another fiddle, rarely used and covered in dirt and mildew. He ceremoniously presented it to Nathan just as the others were gathering on deck. It was the first time the boy had ever received a gift and he reveled in the gesture as he took the instrument in his hands. One of the strings was missing and the accompanying bow was bent at an odd angle with its horsehair ribbon loosened at one end.

That evening Nathan took his drink, but did not join in the revelry. Instead, he went below decks and tinkered with his new possession through the dark hours. First he straightened the bow and tightened the bowstring. Then he cleaned and oiled the fiddle, using anything he could find, rubbing the wood over and over. As dawn approached he remained engrossed in his task, eager to bring the instrument into perfect condition before he attempted to play. The missing sheep gut string troubled him because, in this labor of love he, was a perfectionist. He knew he could not summon the best notes without the fiddle being complete.

In the evenings he sat with the other musicians, doing the best he could with his incomplete instrument, dissatisfied with the muted notes although the other sailors had become enchanted with his remarkable playing skill. At other times he turned his attention to the handmade flutes. He quickly learned to play each one and studied their construction whenever he could borrow them from their owners. He determined to make his own and went to the storage area where he selected pieces of whalebone and ivory. Soon, he fashioned instruments that not only produced better sound, but also looked elegant, almost beautiful, in gleaming white. He enjoyed playing them, but not as much as he enjoyed playing the fiddle. Being restricted to just three strings, and unable to get the sound that he knew a fourth string could deliver, gnawed at his perfectionist nature.

In frustration, he fashioned a handmade whale skin string. When he fastened it to the fiddle and tightened it ever so slowly, it fell into its natural position beside the others looking almost like it belonged. He plucked at the string dozens of times, tightening and loosening it until he was satisfied that its tune fell in with the other strings. Excitedly, he reached for his bow and stood with the instrument gently tucked beneath his chin.

As he drew the bow across and back a unique sound filled the space, still imperfect and far from the resonance he desired, but his heart still leapt with excitement. He scurried up on deck to show his shipmates. After all, Nathan was still a boy who had been introduced to something new. He felt a child's elation at the deep thrill discovery brings.

Despite his musical prowess, Nathan never neglected his duties on the whaler. As the months passed he learned everything about the ship. The captain, a man in his thirties, saw promise in the boy. He took him under his wing, showing kindness bereft of the prejudice that Nathan had endured back at Apollo Bay. Consequently, Nathan excelled at his tasks, earning increasing responsibility that eventually included some of the duties more commonly expected of the first mate. His fellow sailors took no offence. Nathan was too innocent to display any form of self-importance. He simply enjoyed learning new things. He loved the feel of the air rushing by whenever the ship caught a strong breeze. He loved the hunt when he could help lower the boats to the water, sometimes being invited to jump in before it was launched at a goliath only yards away in the frothy ocean. He loved the smell of the boiling vats as he joined in cutting away large pieces of blubber and tossed them into the roiling cauldron. He loved it most when the captain took him aside and pointed to the horizon at weather that would soon whip the waters. That is when he would learn another skill as he watched the experts keep the bobbing vessel afloat and safe.

After eighteen months the fully laden ship arrived in Amsterdam to off-load its booty in exchange for payment from the Dutch investors who had underwritten the voyage. Nathan was now sixteen and as skilled as any whaler who had been to sea before him. As he joined his shipmates on shore he stayed close, overwhelmed at the huge city with its miles of paved streets lined with stately stone buildings fronted by gas lamps that showed the way at night. His pockets jingled with coin for the first time in his life, but he had no idea what to do with his new found wealth.

Most of the sailors headed to the brothels for long days of drinking and nights of wickedness with the exotic women who patrolled the parlors. Nathan tagged along in his innocence, not knowing what he might encounter, but afraid to strike out on his own in this prosperous city of fast moving carriages and bustling people. When his companions entered a gaudy house he cautiously followed, but he soon found it to be a place of rancor and brawling. Other sailors from other ships, already well oiled with beer and more, constantly taunted his mates, baiting them in strange tongues that Nathan could not understand. His youth and size stood out among the others and soon the foreign sailors turned their attention to him. Nathan knew nothing of fighting as he held his stein filled with beer tight in his fist, fearful and nervous.

One of the foreign sailors, himself almost as tall as Nathan, sidled up to the bar and forced his way between the boy and his fellow shipmates. The affront was obvious and Nathan looked at the man more in fear than anger. The fear was well founded when, with a sweep of his burly arm, the stranger tipped Nathan's stein, spilling its contents
over the boy's face and down inside his frock. Anger and embarrassment flashed across Nathan's face as the older man laughed mockingly and rubbed his hand roughly over the youth's nappy hair. Nathan looked over at his fellows for help, but to his surprise they paid no attention. Not so, the foreigner's friends. Some gathered close, waiting.

Slowly, Nathan brought his hands to his face and wiped the beer from his eyes, suddenly unafraid. With unexpected swiftness he whirled around to face his antagonist and brought the stein up and into the startled man's face. With ferocious force the container shattered across the man's nose, bringing forth a shower of shards and blood. As the man staggered back, Nathan was on him with a stealthy viciousness that belied his youth. The boy's fists flew with punishing fury into the foreigner's cheeks, eyes and gut so fast that the older man had no chance to defend himself. In seconds, he slid to the filthy floor unconscious.

The maelstrom that followed was merely a blur. Stunned brawlers lay all around the floor of the dingy bordello, most put there by the fists of a sixteen year old half aboriginal boy who, before that moment, had never thought to defend himself from the prejudice he had endured for most of his life. Yet, in those brief minutes of chaos he brought forth all of the resentment that had built up in his heart during his years of segregated childhood in Apollo Bay. His fury met no match from the men who tried to confront his fists.

He emerged into the late afternoon sun unhurt, but aiding two of his mates who had joined in only to take a thorough beating on his behalf. Nathan's only memory of the event was supreme satisfaction. His legend among his fellow sailors was sealed once and forever from that moment on. In the evening his reward came packaged in a small fiery woman who taught him the pleasures of her profession with an interest she had not shown other men in a very long time.

Over the week that followed, Nathan explored the vast city, mostly alone, but no longer fearful or uncertain. In the huge square that fronted the train station he found delight in the many musicians and singers who came to display their skills for a few coins tossed into colorful cloth at their feet. He was mesmerized by the delicious sounds and equally transfixed by the assortment of instruments he had never seen nor heard previously. As with the playing of the flutes and fiddles on the ship, he studied how the performers plied their tools, watching with all of his concentration as their hands and fingers flew along openings or across strings to produce combinations of chords and notes.

With his sailor's wages he determined to solve his remaining vexation with his fiddle by purchasing a proper sheep's gut string, maybe four new ones altogether. And, if there were money left over, he'd buy any other new instrument he could afford. He found a music shop and spent hours poring through dusty English songbooks, featuring lyrics he could read, and musical symbols he could not. In other parts of the cavernous store he found all manner of instruments from brass horns of every shape and size, to guitars, violas and beautifully crafted violins. In rapture, he caressed each one, holding them in his hands and running his fingers over the mechanics of the horns and the polished wood of the stringed instruments.

He was overjoyed when he found that he had enough money to purchase four fine strings for his fiddle and hurried back to the ship to attach them carefully, lovingly to his prized possession. He spent hours tuning and retuning the fiddle, delighted at the precise
sound he could finally produce. Above deck, while the other sailors continued to patrol the streets of the city, he played softly for himself, creating melodies and testing different notes and timings until he had committed the best to memory. Then he went on to a new melody, doing the same as he added more personal creations to his repertoire. The thought of putting his works on paper never occurred to him. They were in his head never to be forgotten.

He learned much about sailing and staying alive on the hunt through the northern oceans. In the long sunlit days near the Arctic Circle he labored alongside his mates, continuing to thrive at the many new skills he was called upon to master. His stature had grown in the eyes of all who witnessed his fighting prowess in Amsterdam.

The whaling was prosperous as well. The ship traversed the seas for three months adding fresh kills to its stores and lowering the barque deep into the water. On orders from the captain, Nathan was shown the ways of harpooning, soon becoming responsible for one of the bomb lance guns fired from the bow. His size and strength proved essential to the efficiency of the kill. The captain was pleased at the number of whales successfully brought alongside the ship.

The captain also took the youth inside his cabin for long hours of instruction on navigation and map reading. Then he tested his student by giving him the responsibility to set various courses through passes and along shorelines. Nathan loved every minute because he loved to learn and he wanted to become the best at everything he did. He became knowledgeable about every facet of managing the ship. The first mate, a pleasant man of fifty-eight who had already signaled that this would be his final voyage, gladly welcomed Nathan as his partner so that all aboard soon realized the big youth would be shouting the captain's orders on the next voyage.

As August approached, fearful of the huge storms that would soon blow up from the southeast, the fully laden ship sailed south from Greenland then west along the New Foundland coast and downeast to the port of New Bedford, Massachusetts. His two mentors hovered near the helm, closely watching as Nathan carefully brought the vessel to dock. New Bedford was the home base for many of the men and Nathan was surprised to see dozens of women and children gathered dockside, shouting and waving as the ropes were fixed tight to huge wooden pillars. The stay in this thriving fishing community would be short, just a week to offload barrels of oil, collect its value in currency and sail on to Nantucket where the captain lived with his family.

Nathan joined with the few sailors who had no family in New Bedford, offloading the ship's hold during the day and drunkenly carousing the town's vast assortment of bars at night. When the unloading was complete he was invited to join the captain as he met with brokers to negotiate fair remuneration. Nathan said nothing during the testy bargaining that took place in a warehouse just off the docks. He realized that his position beside the captain signaled his meteoric ascent to first mate.

Cindy Crane was the kind of woman other women despised, beautiful, charming and smart. Men naturally turned their heads when she walked by. I wanted to hate her, but she had no guile
.

- Alice Limoges

Cindy Crane didn't know what to make of her new boss at Blossom Records. He certainly didn't look like the typical recording industry mogul. He was older, maybe in his late fifties with wisps of gray hair covering an otherwise bald head. His face contained deep frown lines at the sides of his mouth. He didn't smile much. He wore a suit to work everyday with brightly colored ties, always matching nicely with the colors of his shirts. She wouldn't say he was handsome, but even with rimless glasses perched on the bridge of his nose and an average stature, just under six feet tall, he had an air that appeared debonair, at least to her, a confident executive look.

She liked the sense of purpose he brought the moment he arrived. Daisy's routine was whimsical with no regard for profit or loss. It could be fun at times, but it was rudderless. Cindy preferred structure with goals and measurements that could signal success or failure. The departure of Daisy had been followed by a year of uncertainty. No one was sure what to do. Cindy was no different although she dutifully kept to her responsibilities. She knew that Jimmy Button was the company's bread and butter and she attended, with sharp eyes, every one of his concerts. Of course, they lived together, so it was easy. Loving him was the hard part. In Miles McCabe she sensed that business discipline was coming to Blossom. The information he demanded was focused on performance and she, for one, welcomed the change.