Free The Boatmaker by John Benditt

boatmaker walk up the road to the inn looking grimy, confused and out of place. But in the red heat of her room, among the crumpled sheets and the sweat, her confidence is harder and harder to find. And so she puts every ounce of her will into draining his cache.
    Days later—he’s not sure how many—the boatmaker finds himself at a wooden table sitting across from a large man wearing a broad-brimmed black hat, black coat and trousers stretched tight across his flesh. His face is ruddy and yellowish, the glow of a man who has fed well, drunk well, smoked well. His black clothing is summer weight, elegant despite his bulk. His thick graying sideburns dropdown his cheeks and rise to meet on his upper lip. He waits, fingers knitted on his black vest, in no hurry, as he watches the boatmaker try to drink coffee from a white mug.
    They are sitting in a large room with two lines of tables, their surfaces darkened by years of spilled food and drink. The sides of the room are open above waist level; awnings outside offer shade. The smell of the sea fills the room.
    The boatmaker looks at the light from overhead reflected on the surface of his coffee. It reminds him of the moon on the nights he sailed. He wants to pick up the coffee and drink, but he knows that when he does, his hands, which he is holding together under the table, will shake like an otter’s tail. He curls over his stomach, waiting for the spinning to stop and the burning to subside.
    â€œSick, eh?” asks the man in the black coat, sipping his coffee: a normal, healthy man after a hearty breakfast. The idea of food makes the boatmaker wish to die. Like a thoughtful walrus, the large man whistles breath through large teeth to cool his coffee. “We’ve all been there. Though perhaps not so far in as you.” He appraises the man across the table while he lets the coffee run down his walrus gullet.
    The boatmaker knows he can’t lift the mug with one hand, but he wants coffee so much he doesn’t care. Hereaches one hand toward the handle, the other steadying his arm. He begins to raise the cup, all his vital force concentrated on not spilling. The mug shakes and some of the hot liquid dribbles onto the stained table anyway. But he manages to get the mug to his mouth and slurp a little.
    More coffee spills as he uses both hands to set the cup down. He feels he’s going to be sick, but he fights that. He may tremble like a maple leaf, he may have to reach for his coffee with both hands, but he will never allow himself to be sick in front of this fat man who looks like a bull walrus sunning itself on a flat rock.
    â€œWe’ve all been there. And it’s not a problem. But the thing is, we can’t have fighting on Big Island . The drinking, what you do up to the Mandrake with Elise and Enrik—that’s your business. No one cares about that.”
    â€œEnrik?”
    â€œThe innkeeper. Her husband. Don’t tell me you don’t see him up there, scurrying around in his nightshirt. Elise and Enrik seem to go their separate ways. But somehow it turns out they’re always together—and more than it would appear.” The walrus whistles through his teeth onto his steaming coffee.
    The boatmaker wants to throw up whatever is in him, which can’t be much. But it’s not what the walrus is telling him that is making him sick. So they are married andworking together. It doesn’t matter. Not at all. The boatmaker felt what he felt. She felt it too. He knows that. He reaches with both hands for his mug and manages to get it to his mouth without spilling more than a little pool.
    â€œWe don’t care about that. Elise is Elise. She does what she does. Or perhaps I should say: She is what she is.” He sets his coffee down, gives a fat walrus smile, showing tusks. “That’s as may be. No one’s going to change that. But the thing we don’t take to on Big Island is fighting