Chapter 5 Nina

Chapter 5

?Nina

The sound of rotor blades is deafening until I slip on the headset James hands me. Silence hugs me, soft and close. A crackle, then I hear his voice.

"Our takeoff slot is in two minutes. But these guys tend to be pretty on it. We should be there in around ten, fifteen minutes."

With that, I feel the helicopter lift beneath us. Beyond the Plexiglas door beside me the tarmac of the helipad recedes quickly, the surrounding grasses and palms flattening in our downdraft. Tortola sweeps out underneath us, its colorful buildings, vibrantly painted buses, and cars winding, now in miniature, through the lush landscape far beneath us. Then our speed increases and we glide over the golden sand halo of the coastline, immaculate powder beaches blending seamlessly into emerald sea as we fly out over the water.

I look back at the island we have just left, with its airport, its connection back to London and my real life, and instead of concern I feel an unexpected lightening. I cannot help but wonder if he, my father, felt this exact feeling. If he felt a lifting at leaving our world and me behind.

The thought doesn't stay long as a gentle nudge from James's elbow redirects my gaze.

He points out his window to the island coming into view in the hazy distance. Virgin Gorda is smaller than Tortola, its luminous sea halo brighter, more unspoiled than the one we have just left behind.

I try to imagine the approaching island as my father must have seen it the first time he caught sight of it, but try as I might, I can't wrap my head around why he would even come here. The studious, kind, easily pleased man that he was. But as Maeve so accurately said, he never did anything without a reason. And I remind myself that I am here to unearth that reason.

On the way to the heliport James had been circumspect about the details surrounding the house. "It appears from the documentation that the property, or at least the land it was built on, was bought a little over twenty years ago. A property management company successfully applied for non-belonger status in your father's name on purchase, and it was granted. The building was then specifically designed and custom-built over a period of three years. I couldn't find any information regarding the specifics of the design and planning though of course the companies involved are all in the public record and if you have the time, and the desire, I'm sure you can track down whatever you need."

My father had the house built from scratch. He has left me one more surprise, one more puzzle to solve.

"Are there floor plans? Blueprints?" I ask James.

"I haven't been able to source original copies. But there may well be within the property. We have recent survey drawings and a valuation markup but not the pre-build architectural drawings. I will, of course, keep digging if that is something you would be interested in pursuing?"

My curiosity to find out if father's name is on any of those architectural drawings is almost too much to bear. As a civil engineer it wouldn't have been too far out of his remit to design a home of his own.

His greatest achievement, certainly the most lauded in the slew of obituaries after his death, was his work on the development of Dogger Bank, the colossal newly constructed offshore wind farm, the largest in existence, that now loomed like so many frozen giants 290 kilometers off the east coast of Yorkshire, England. My father was central to the design of the subsea cable infrastructure and deep-sea monopile foundations for the monolithic 277-turbine-strong farm.

And now the idea that he might have designed a house. A mystery house.

I think of his Edwardian townhouse back in London, locked up and safe pending exchange to a wealthy young couple with three children. I always associated that house with my father. But that's about to change. I am going to see more of him, get closer perhaps to his inner workings.

Maeve was right about something else: he didn't let you in. He loved me, he listened to me, he celebrated life with me, but he didn't let me in. Maybe that is as it should be with a parent? Boundaries. Healthy boundaries. We should not know everything. And yet the idea that I might find out everything, that it might be possible, seems as thrilling as it is terrifying.

—

The landing is smooth. I slip my headphones off aping James as he helps loosen my harness and then his own before opening the door and, rotor blades still thumping, steps out onto the tarmac. He turns, offering me a hand as my hair wildly caught in the downdraft blinds me. I take his hand firmly and follow, exhilarated by the noise and threat of it all.

In the car that waits for us I attempt to straighten myself out.

"Is it far?" I ask as we pull away, the helicopter already lifting across the tarmac and disappearing into the air back to Tortola.

James pulls a face. "No. Everything is close on Gorda."

I consider whether or not now is the time to broach my next concern.

"James, you said earlier my father applied for and was granted non-belonger status in order to acquire the land and build. Does that mean he wasn't seeking full citizenship?"

James frowns at the question, or at least the question implicit within my question. He takes a moment before answering, the lush sun-drenched landscape flashing by as he considers it.

"If you have fears, as many do, around the gray areas of domicile and non-domicile tax obligations, then rest assured your father raises no concerns. There are no additional hidden funds, other than those disclosed in the wishes, so from a legal standpoint—and from a layman's standpoint—everything is as it should be."

I feel something inside me relax. That fear, at least, that my father was involved in something not quite legal, has been taken off the table.

It's James's turn to question me now. I see him teeing up.

"From my brief look into your father's affairs and lifework I see he was an impressive man? A civil engineer? Is that correct?"

"Amongst other things, yes. He was a bit of a prodigy. Maths was his strong suit. Adapted some theories young, and yes, he built turbines, infrastructure. And other things."

"And wrote the crossword?" James says now with a sly smile that I believe is intended to express the sentiment: Come now, don't be modest.

"Well, he set them, yes. For a period. In The Times. Yes." I try to lower my heart rate but I feel my rage building. Talking about Dad like this, to strangers, explaining him to them, is bizarre and awful and I shouldn't have to do it. "He had a lot of passion projects. So—"

"Yes, I read an article," James interrupts, his interest now truly piqued, and I have to squeeze my eyes shut to stop from grabbing his pompous BVI yacht club tie and throttling him. When I open my eyes he hasn't noticed or cared. He continues unfazed. "Yes, The New York Times called him ‘the last of the true Renaissance men': puzzles, codes, word games. And the wind farms, structures, mathematics. I didn't even really understand certain aspects of what he did in the article but overall, very—"

"Yes, yes. Overall, very impressive. He was. Yes. Yes. He was," I say, by rote, echoing James back to himself with a tone I hope expresses benevolent thanks for his opinion on a man he never met but was absolutely everything to me.

I look up to see the car has stopped in front of a gatehouse, the entrance to a walled property.

The gatehouse is shuttered up with no one present to let us in. James seems to snap out of his Renaissance-man-based reverie and I watch professional James, the James I actually prefer, reappears. He turns in the seat beside me.

"This is it. No security team employed at present but I've got a gate fob here." He pulls it from his jacket pocket with an expectant smile. "Welcome to Anderssen's Opening."

For the second time this week I feel my jaw slacken and my mouth drop open. "Excuse me? What did you just say?" I ask, looking at James in disbelief. I sit up in my seat—every fiber in my being alive again for the first time since my father's death.

"Gate fob? Anderssen's Opening?" he hazards.

"You're telling me this house is called Anderssen's Opening?"

He frowns. "Yes, why?"

"Sorry, I must be misunderstanding this." I take a breath before attempting to make sense of it. "That name, is it connected in some way to the area here, the bay, or—?"

"No, no. We're between bays here. Pond Bay is that way," he says, gesturing left. "Mahoe that way," he adds, signaling right. " Anderssen has no significance to the island. It's just a name. Perhaps it had significance to your father?"

I feel a tight knot form inside my stomach. It most definitely did. And it does to me. It is a message, a challenge. My dead father is communicating with me. To leave me a house and name it this—

James is staring at me.

I feel a hot flush in my cheeks as I formulate a response. How to explain—

"Anderssen's Opening is a chess move. A challenge. A very strong, very rare opening move. Adolf Anderssen beat Paul Morphy with it in the 1800s. Anderssen's Opening was sneaky. Is sneaky. You move your least important pawn one square forward and you wait to see what the opponent does next. It's a non-move, a taunt almost. You put the ball in their court—and then you watch and wait to see what they do next."

"Okay," James says, his bottom lip curling. "And does that mean something?"

"Of course, it means something. Everything means something, James. I'm just not sure exactly what this means yet. What he means. But he wants me to find out."