The Boat Repair

The boat was called Margit, and she was in a terrible state: forty years old, rotten along the keel, her varnish peeled to bare grey wood. Johan took one look at her and told the owner it would take all autumn and cost more than she was worth.

'Do it anyway,' said Saga.

She came down to the harbour shed every afternoon after work, supposedly to check on progress. She brought coffee and sat on an upturned crate in her paint-spattered overalls, asking questions about rivets and planking and the names of tools, and watched him work.

He was not used to being watched. At first it made him clumsy. Then, slowly, he found he liked it. She listened properly. She asked good questions. She told him the boat had belonged to an old friend who had taught her to sail, and that she could not bear to see it rot.

By October the new planks were in. By November they were sanding together, side by side, the shed full of fine sawdust and the radio playing and rain hammering on the corrugated roof. She was stronger than she looked and more patient than he was.

The night they applied the final coat of varnish, the shed smelled of linseed and pine, and the boat gleamed under the work lamps like honey. They stood back to admire it, shoulder to shoulder, and he realised he did not want the job to end.

'There's always more to do on a boat,' Saga said, reading his face.

She kissed him among the wood shavings. In spring they sailed Margit out of the harbour together, and did not come back until dark.