‘Well at least there’s someone at home,’ he said, awkwardly throwing a conversational pebble into the silence ponding between him and the young woman by his side.
She made no reply.
He took her hand and gave it a brief encouraging squeeze. ‘Nearly there, Miss Petrovna. Three thousand miles and three years — but you’ve made it!’ He spoke with a cheerfulness he couldn’t feel.
Sensitive as he’d become to his companion’s moods, the captain interpreted the barely audible response as a mew of distress and his resolve began to crack. He had avoided saying farewell — he was embarrassed by emotional leave-takings, especially those made in public — and there was nothing more to add.
Even so, he launched into one last speech. ‘Look, Miss … um, Anna … there’s still time to change your mind. You don’t have to do this yet. Come home with me.’ After the slightest pause, he resumed: ‘My wife would make you very welcome. Joan is a fine woman — she’d care for you. Get you properly on your feet. Our family doctor is no slouch and he’d rally round, I know. It needn’t be for long. Just as long as you choose.’
She turned reproachful eyes on him and shook her head in regret.
The captain realized with a shock that he’d experienced the same devastating rejection years before. How many? Well over twenty … He’d been no more than a boy in short trousers. He’d been tramping the moors with his father when they’d come across an injured otter. A very young female. His indulgent old pa had allowed him to carry the animal home in his jacket. He’d cared for her, fed her, watched her grow strong and mischievous. And always closing his ears to the concerned parental advice: ‘Wild creatures, otters. Never think you can house-train ’em. Taking little things, of course, but you shouldn’t get fond of ’em.’
The day came when she escaped from her pen and wrecked his mother’s kitchen.
He hadn’t waited for his parents to tell him his duty. It was clear. He’d taken her back into the wild himself, choosing a spot where he knew the fishing was good and there was a thriving otter colony. On the river bank he whispered goodbye, never really thinking she would leave him.
Pain had gathered and lodged in his young throat like a ball of india-rubber, threatening to suffocate him, as he watched her leap with delight into the water, dive, surface, dive again, swimming away from him. He’d turned, swiping at the tears in his eyes with the sleeve of his rough sweater, and begun to blunder back home across the meadow.