Quayside

The posts by the quayside are rusting. They used to, I think, be painted green. But now  they are mostly rust coloured, with hints of its former greenness.  On the flagstones are fragments of nut-shells, remnants of cigarettes, smalls oases of weed popping up in between the stones. The debris at the corner of the pier have become old friends that I greet everyday. An old tractor tire half out of the water. Rocks half covered in moss. Plastic bottle moving with the waves, battering rhythmically against the rocks.

  

Our boat is placed well away from the smelliness of the fishing boats, on the other side of the pier. We sit there in the evenings. With the gentle “gloop gloop…swoosh…gloop gloop…swoosh” of the water against the pier. The peaceful humming thrum of a boat a little ways away.  I liked to look at the masts, ropes leading down to furled sails, half-visible, half-silhouetted against the evening sky.  Soft light with only a hint of sun.  It was one of the few times I could relax. Where I didn’t have to talk. Struggle to communicate.

The harbor water changed depending on the wind. Sometimes it was like polished old glass. Surface smooth with gentle dips and flaws.  Sometimes it was skin with goosebumps. Sometimes a tablecloth where an errant dish had pushed up the surface in rolls.  When the water fell against gently sloped concrete, instead of the “gloop” there’d be a sound almost like the crash of tiny breaker.  A miniature “swoosh” and swirl of bubbles. Like the sound of a paddle slicing into water and pushing its way through.   

I look, half-envious, at the people with boats of their own.  Though boats scared me. They terrified me. The weight of responsibility of piloting them. Boats were also like people. They’ve histories like people. Personalities like people.  They aged like people.  Sometimes you think a boat is immobile, but if you watch long enough, they move.  In a slow rhythm that doesn’t entirely match the movements of the boat next to it. I like objects that are like people.

A Gardia Costiera boat always moored near us. No. CP22022. F carefully avoided ever looking at it. Sometimes a boat from the Aeronautica Militaire would moor as well.  Lord knows what they did in these quite waters. Sometimes one of the big ships would start up. Or a big ferry like the Paolo Veronese. Getting ready to load up its trucks and move on. And I would sit and listen to the deep deep base thrum of the engines. Almost waiting for a resonance within me. Like the thumping you feel inside when you’re in a club. There was a response…but more subtle than my response to a beat. It wasn’t a thumping  in my chest.  It was a heightening of the senses.  As if something momentous was just about to happen. Military menace of machinery in the air. 

The Veronese is beautiful. The clean lines of her hull only briefly marred by the gushing exit of water through small holes near the waterline.  Llifeboats crafted in white and tan at the sides, and a smaller one at the rear. Two sleek funnels on the two sides. Two masts. Its rear doors into her hold like a giant maw with trucks lined-up waiting to drive in. Her engine is guttural. Steady. Unlike the rise in frequency of the sound of an approaching car, or the receding drone of one going away along the quay. Or the nervous zip and clatter of motor bikes.