Shivering broke thespell. His skin was covered with goose-bumps. He went back to the stern of theboat, hung off the boom gallows with one arm and relieved into the creek. Thenhe stepped down to the cockpit, pushed the heavy teak hatch cover back and lethimself down with the grace that came from a familiar motion. It was a gracehe’d acquired the hard way. When he first got the boat he walked around like itwas a house, slipped on some diesel oil, plunged head-first down thecompanionway ladder, and broke a collar bone. Now he’d learned to move like aspider monkey, particularly in storms when the whole boat rose and pitched androlled like a flying trapeze.

In the cabin he felt hisway to an overhead light and flicked it on. The darkness was filled instantlywith familiar teak and mahogany.

He went forward into thedeck forecabin and found his clothes in the bunk opposite Lila. She hadevidently rolled over since he left. Her shadowy shape looked about the samefrom this side as it had from the other a few minutes ago.

He closed the forecabindoor and went into the main cabin where he pulled open a wood bin-cover, tookout his old heavy brown sweater and drew it over his head. When he pushed thecover shut, the snap of its catch disturbed the silence. He went back to thecompanionway ladder, put the hatch’s drop-boards in place, and slid the heavyhatch-cover shut.

This place needed someheat.

Next to the ladder, bythe chart table, he found matches and alcohol. He carefully brought a little cupfulof the alcohol to a small coal stove mounted on a bulkhead at the other end ofthe cabin and poured the alcohol over some charcoal briquets inside. On thepicture-book shore out there everything was done by magic. They got their heatand electricity without even thinking about it. But in this little floatingworld, whatever you needed you had to get for yourself.