Book 2, Chapter 16

The doctors had more or less done with me, I'd completed the series of modelling classes and as John didn't need me helping the disabled to dance quite so urgently, since Judy became a regular helper, my dance lessons were mostly a courtesy from him… So everything stopped - just like at school or maybe University after a course or exam? Not in the big wide world I'd joined! In a very short time I'd woven a mesh of obligations, ambitions and simple habits around myself. What appeared to be my proper work, with Ian in his workshop and increasingly with Dad on the new boat, was in fact the simplest to deal with in terms of serious decisions.

Take today for instance. Tomorrow is my scuba lesson and I want to buy a new swimsuit this afternoon after dancing. A month of modelling classes had seen me whittle down my fresh sprouting pubic hair to bikini wax dimensions but was that trim enough? The full Brazilian was not for me being a woman and not a child but maybe a little more should go… and the epilator stripped another ⅛" off each side and the top. What was I listening to as I prepared myself? Spanish language salsa music of course because I knew that, in following Captain Cooks footsteps, by September I would be in Madeira which is basically Spanish speaking (as were my new relatives in the Dominican Republic) and by November in Rio de Janeiro, where in my mind's eye I'd visit Copacabana and Ipanema Beaches and dance Salsa, Samba and maybe even, with the right partner, Tango!

"Venus! Welcome to the dark side!" Those are the words I'd spoken to myself when back in St Barts learning to Salsa. My salsa teacher had given me permission to act; to create this woman who loved to dance. Bill had done the same when he helped me create the woman who made the business choices because she was as real as anyone. Again just 2 weeks ago Jenny gave me that extra push with the Naomi Campbell suggestion and here I was brushed, buffed and bouncing as I went downstairs channeling Naomi through every bit of me, I was a method actor!!

The acceptance of what I was doing popped the acting balloon and made me smile, I think partly in relief that I could turn off the part I'd been playing, and by the time I reached the bottom of the stairs to join the others for lunch I was plain old Venus Williams again.

So much to do and so little time. Litara reminded me that I had more filming to do explaining I would receive an invitation to a 'casting' for a modelling job. The casting and the job were real but it had been arranged that the undercover reporter and girls who'd attended the suspect courses would also be invited and during the casting process a film crew would be on hand trying, with the encouragement of the reporter, to draw girls into comparing experiences of their courses.

Mum and Dad's focus was on the dance classes which they felt had given them a new lease of life, both for the dancing - they were going out dancing later tonight - and for the work as helpers. I suspected a case of 'Empty nest syndrome' but that may have been an egocentric analysis because like Litara they were getting on with their own lives just as I had to.

"Bikini or one-piece?" asked Serena. She, Jenny, Penny and I had gathered around Kelly's counter for a council of war.

"I was told for scuba a one piece was more practical because of all the straps and belts catching and rubbing.

"Boring! We'll look for both! - and that's the way it went - not with me going and quickly buying both but with us arguing over every point! My first choice was vetoed because the pink would clash with the boat's orange and Penny's choice would leave me marked like a waffle iron at the cutouts - I do tan a little! Eventually I bought a pottery necklace I saw in a charity shop and then I went back and bought the first swimsuit I'd picked. Naturally when I got home I regretted both but you can't win every time.

"The law's an ass!" Bill was not impressed for the 'parrot man' had pleaded guilty to both charges - attempted murder of me but with no harm resulting and grievous bodily harm of John but with no intent to harm - and Mr Davis estimated that with good behaviour he could be out as early June 2004 which was when I was due back in the UK for the Transit of Venus as seen at Greenwich with media coverage pinpointing me!

"Maybe Bill but that is over 3 years away and we have a boat to build and a world to be circumnavigated before then." The boat had only been with us 9 days but already work was flat-out focussed on her with Jack taking the brunt of it as the carpenter who was to give me an interior I could live in.

An addition had been made since I saw her up at Deeside and a propellor shaft placed in the stern tube that was part of the original construction but was at first left blanked off. Bill had come to Dad's yard to be part of the crew dropping the small diesel generator into it's compartment in the centre of the boat and stopped to discuss changes for Jack to make so that an electric drive motor could be connected to the newly installed prop shaft.

"This is temporary? When Venus leaves she won't have this motor and prop shaft?" Jack was confused and so was I but Bill explained that boat Mark I was being temporarily used as a test bed for boat Mark II which, being less radical, was more in keeping with the accountants' and sales experts' desires. It seems that while praise was heaped on originals with brilliant concepts the real world was full of things built by committee for the lowest common denominator.

"Don't forget built in protection against being sued," came a voice from the deck which proved to be Mr Davis who, unnoticed had climbed the ladder after us rather than just leaving after dropping by to pass on news of the court case. I'd imagined Mr Davis to be a skilled solicitor but fundamentally just a man who charges by the minute. Wrong! It turns out he's a 'boat nut' using me and the court case as an excuse to have a nose around a boat that was fast spinning off local rumours. Once he had an 'in' he happily joined the design discussion.

Somewhat later I left them to it pointedly muttering so they could hear, "Boys and their toys!"