The Lovers Read online

  ‘But not yet, please!’

  ‘No. Not yet; ten days from now!’

  Suddenly she was shivering. Cavanagh was instantly solicitous.

  ‘You’re cold. Shouldn’t you get a wrap?’

  ‘No, no! I’m fine. It was just . . .’

  ‘Just what?’

  ‘As they say in the country: a goose walked over my grave . . . How soon can we start my diving lessons?’

  ‘Tomorrow if you like. We arrive early in La Maddalena. As soon as your father has paid his courtesies to the Naval Commandant, we can go find ourselves a quiet bay and begin work.’

  ‘Will it be difficult?’

  ‘Easy as falling out of a tree. The trick is to get the drill right and think yourself through it every time, until it becomes automatic. There’s a whole new world waiting for you down there.’

  ‘That’s good to hear. Just now I’m not very happy with the one I’m in.’

  It was the first time she had ever uttered so clear a complaint. Cavanagh, taken aback, could only murmur a platitude.

  ‘But we’re going to change that too, very soon.’

  ‘You make it sound so easy.’

  ‘In the end it will be easy.’

  ‘How can you promise that?’

  ‘I learned it during the war. Before you’ve been in action, you’re scared, day and night. You have no idea what it will be like or how you will behave. Once the shooting starts, there’s no time for questions. The curtain’s up. You’re on stage. You say the lines you’ve learned. You move where your feet take you. It’s that simple.’ He laughed and added a deprecating postscript. ‘I lie, of course. Simple it is, but easy it most certainly is not.’

  ‘That’s probably why you’re better at it than I am. You’re a nice simple man from a big new country. Something gets in your way, you charge at it like a billy-goat and butt it out of the way. On my family crest there is a gryphon, which is a much more confusing animal. It has an eagle’s head, wings and talons; a lion’s body and tail. So how does it get about – walk, stalk or fly?. . . Life can and does get very complicated. And you, my darling Cavanagh, have complicated mine.’ She shivered again. ‘I think I do need a wrap. I’ll go downstairs and get one. You go up to the bridge. I’ll come and kiss you goodnight before I go to bed . . .’

  Oddly enough, that night they all came up in turn to bid him goodnight. Giulia was the first. She gave him a lingering sensual embrace and then hurried away at the first sound of footsteps. The Countess wanted to thank him for an entertaining evening and remind him that they must find an opportune time to talk at length. Farnese wished to display to his Aurora the view from the bridge, with the moon riding high over the dark sea chasms between the mainland and Sardinia. Jackie passed by briefly to tell him that all was shipshape on deck and in the galley. Lenore brought word that Chef was awake, badly hung-over, but in his right mind and grumbling that no one had bothered to wake him for the party. Half an hour later, Leo came up, refreshed after a catnap, to relieve him at the wheel. Cavanagh told him:

  ‘It was a good party, Leo. I’m grateful you suggested it.’

  ‘It did work, didn’t it? Strange! On other voyages when we’ve just been roistering around with on again-off again guests, Molloy has always been good fun. This time, with Farnese and the women on board, he’s been quite different – broody somehow, always on a short fuse.’

  ‘Maybe he’s just scared of getting married.’ Cavanagh tried to be off-hand about it.

  ‘You wish!’ Leo gave him a mocking grin. ‘He wants it so bad it hurts! But not for the sex, although he’d kill anyone he thought was sniffing round his Giulia – which does mean you, Cavanagh! You’re really making a spectacle of yourself, though nobody’s going to tell. We’re all agreed on that.’

  ‘I’m going to tell,’ said Cavanagh flatly, ‘and so is Giulia, as soon as Molloy comes aboard.’

  ‘Jesus H. Christ!’ Leo swore softly. ‘Now that’s a big, big decision to make. If I were you – either or both – I’d give it some more thought. You’ve seen only one side of Declan Aloysius Molloy, the one with the party manners and the golden handshake for the grandees. But there is another one, a real rip-roaring buccaneer with pistols in his belt and a knife in his teeth . . .’

  ‘And you’ve seen him in action?’

  ‘I’ve seen him kill a man in Cuba – in an old-fashioned duel, after a crap game. Hadjidakis was his second . . . It took place in a big private garden . . .’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Last year . . . Down there anything goes. You know that.’

  ‘It seems I don’t know as much as I thought I did.’

  ‘Then I’ll give you one more piece of information for free. Molloy likes a stand-up man. That’s why he took to you, you were willing to dare him. But the one thing you can’t ever do is let him think you’re laughing at him. Hadjidakis could do it because Hadjidakis always knew how to promulgate his manhood. He taught him to fight anybody and screw anything. How do you think Jackie and I got this job?’

  ‘I’ve never asked and you don’t have to tell me; but why the hell does Molloy want to marry Giulia and foul up her life?’

  ‘Because he doesn’t see it that way. Don’t you get it? He’s endowing her! With all that macho history, all that money and power and influence. You’re a reading man, Cavanagh. You’d know about Sir Richard Burton – the guy who translated the Arabian Nights and the Scented Garden, who explored the sources of the Nile with Speke and made the trek to Salt Lake City with the first Mormons . . .’

  ‘I know about him, yes! A fabulous adventurer.’

  ‘Who did everything in the no-no book and had a wife who was crazy about him till the day he died. That’s Molloy for you! No way you can read the personal power he wields . . . And you’re going to stand toe-to-toe with him and take his woman away? You’re out of your cotton-pickin’ mind, Cavanagh! I don’t know what Farnese would do to you, but Molloy would have you followed to the ends of the earth and then blown off the edge!’

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘You gave us a break in Elba. I figure we owe you one.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll think about it.’

  ‘You do that – and keep on thinking. What’s the course?’

  ‘Two-thirty. No hazards except shipping and tunny traps, and there’s three hundred fathoms of water under your keel most of the way.’

  ‘It’s a long way down,’ said Leo, ‘especially with a concrete block chained to your ankles! Sweet dreams, Cavanagh!’

  ‘Your ship, mister! Make sure you stay awake!’

  Alone in his cabin he kicked off his deck-shoes and stretched out fully clothed on the bunk. On the bulkhead in front of him was a series of instruments repeating information from the bridge: compass course, engine revolutions, wind velocity. There was also a two-way communication system, with a microphone and speaker just above his pillow.

  Leo’s blunt warning troubled him deeply. He was the more intelligent of the dancing pair. As Chef had once remarked: ‘that one dances with his head as well as his feet.’ He was well educated, shrewd and widely read in some very unlikely areas. So his summation of Molloy’s character, history and intentions – if true, if not invented to scare the new boy – had to carry some weight. Which raised the next important question: how to prove the oracle?

  Cavanagh opened the drawer of the bedside table and took out the leather-bound volume of Hadjidakis’ diaries. He leafed hurriedly through the book trying to isolate any entries for the year 1951. In January of that year, it seemed, while the Salamandra d’Oro was still a-building in the British Isles, Molloy had taken his old yacht cruising in the Caribbean: Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, San Domingo, Barbados. Those were the wild, wide-open days, just after the war, when the tourist exploiters were homing in, with the off-shore bankers and money movers and the mobsters to run the gambling and the girls and the drug traffic, which was just in its infancy.

  For a buccaneer like
Lou Molloy it was open season . . . Hadjidakis had a colourful phrase that summed it up perfectly: ‘wild nights ashore, quiet days afloat with the sea and the wind to purge us clean’. The duel in Havana was recorded, but with an odd, nightmare casualness:

  ‘We’re in the casino shooting craps. Standing next to Molloy is this beautiful mulatto girl. He’s on a run. Every time, before he shoots, he runs his hand up the inside of her thighs for luck. She brings him luck, too: fifty something thousand dollars! Then comes the surprise: this very courtly, very drunk Cuban accosts Molloy and accused him of an indecency on his woman. He demands satisfaction. Molloy says he’ll be happy to talk about it outside. We go outside. On the way out I see Jackie and Leo drinking at the bar. I signal them to follow us, in case there’s a brawl.

  ‘Molloy tries to placate the Cuban. He turns obstinate. He wants an apology. He wants what he calls “a share of the luck from my woman’s loins”. Molloy refuses. The Cuban challenges him to a duel. Molloy tells him he’s crazy; but he persists and his friends back him up. Finally Molloy shrugs and agrees. He names me as his second. He asks the Cuban to put up fifty thousand on a winner-take-all bet. He figures that will scare him off. No way! The man’s got money running out of his ears.

  ‘We go to his house. The duel is staged on his tennis court. The weapons are a pair of old-fashioned duelling pistols, beautiful things. The referee and stake-holder is his family doctor. He recites the rules and counts off the paces. Molloy fires first and kills the Cuban. He picks up the money and shakes hands with the referee. We walk out, flag a taxi and drive down to the harbour. As soon as we’re on board we up anchor and leave. Molloy gives me ten thousand dollars to divide among the crew. He and I split the forty. He keeps what he’s won at craps. He says we ought to stay away from Cuba for a while. My only regret is that we didn’t bring the girl along with us. Lou tells me that with the winnings we can buy a much better one – even two!’

  Even though he was reading it in Greek, Cavanagh was chilled by the laconic indifference of the narrative and the portraits which it presented of Lou Molloy and the late Giorgios Hadjidakis, his lieutenant and chronicler.

  He had always suspected that there was real reason to fear Lou Molloy, but the true dimension of the man in power and in potential malice had, until now, eluded him; or, rather, he had chosen to delude himself about it.

  Like many others of his generation, he had accepted, without question, the victorious might of the United States of America, and their dominance in global politics and atomic weapons. What he had failed to understand, what he was seeing now, dimly and with little understanding, was that the system threw up both geniuses and monsters, against whom the law was a fragile defence, and for whom the Faustian dreams of wealth, power and knowledge were always within a hand’s reach. In such a society the borderline between criminality and commerce was often indistinct and sometimes invisible. In spite of all the catch-cries of democracy and liberty under the law, the difference between the legitimate exercise of power and the oppression of the subject was sometimes very hard to discern.

  The questions therefore were matters of life and death. Could Lou Molloy pursue him to the edge of the world and blow him off? Very possibly. Would he? Very probably. Which lent a special meaning and a special poignancy to the Contessa’s question: ‘Do you love Giulia?’

  He closed the diary, put it back in the drawer, turned off the light and drifted slowly into a troubled sleep.

  At five in the morning, an hour after he had taken over the helm-watch, he was surprised to see Farnese mounting the steps to the bridge balancing precariously a cup of coffee and a plate of croissants. He was in very good humour.

  ‘. . . I thought I’d come up and keep you company. I did my cadet service on La Maddalena, so I’m a walking encyclopaedia on the whole of the Straits of Bonifacio.’ He set down his cup and plate, then asked. ‘Would you do me a favour?’

  ‘If I can, sure.’

  ‘The harbour entrance to Maddalena is quite tricky.’

  ‘I’ve noticed,’ said Cavanagh vaguely. ‘I’ve been looking at the chart and reading the pilot book. What’s the favour?’

  ‘If you’d allow me, I’d like to pilot you in.’

  It was the shy ingenuous request of a youth and, for the first time on the voyage, Cavanagh warmed to him. He hesitated a fraction of a second and then gave a smiling consent.

  ‘Why not? I’d be fumbling my way through it anyway. You must know it like the palm of your hand.’

  ‘I do . . . but the real reason is that the Commandant’s wife is an old flame of mine and well . . . What the hell! I’d like to impress her with a good entrance. You know what figura means, Cavanagh!’

  ‘I’m happy to oblige.’ Cavanagh was grinning from ear to ear. ‘But for God’s sake don’t bend Molloy’s boat!’

  ‘Have no fear, Cavanagh.’ Farnese was as happy as a schoolboy. ‘I’ll bring her in without so much as a smudge on her paintwork. Where are we now, by the way?’

  Cavanagh pointed to the chart.

  ‘At four this morning we were sixty miles out . . . Now we’ve about forty-five to go. Three hours’ cruising time.’

  Farnese traced the course with the tip of the pencil:

  ‘We come in from the east, past Capo Ferro and then head past Capo d’Orso to the eastern side of the island of Santo Stefano. That puts us right on the ferry lane from Palau which is the easiest way into Maddalena itself . . . If you like I’ll take over at Capo Ferro and you can monitor me as we go . . .’

  ‘Sure! And you can tell me the historic bits.’

  ‘I’ll tell you now.’ Farnese was bright as a brass button. ‘Maddalena was where Bonaparte suffered his first defeat in 1793. He was only a lieutenant then, second-in-command of a French artillery company which had been landed on the next-door island of Santo Stefano to bombard and capture Maddalena. The resistance, however, was too strong. The French general had no stomach for a fight. He left. Bonaparte had to follow him, leaving stores, guns and some of his men. Some say it was that first defeat which made him, later, a glutton for victory. Ten years later Nelson arrived. He used the Straits of Bonifacio and Maddalena itself as a base from which to blockade Toulon. He renamed the area Agincourt Sound, and begged the Lords of the Admiralty to take possession of Sardinia itself for England. His words were taught to us in class. Let’s see if I can remember them . . . Ah yes!. . . “This, which is the finest island in the Mediterranean, possesses harbours fit for arsenals and of a capacity to hold our Navy within twenty-four hours’ sail of Toulon. It is the summum bonum of everything which is valuable to us in the Mediterranean. Here we are the healthiest squadron I ever sailed in . . .”’ Farnese laughed. ‘Well, those are just bits and pieces of what he wrote. But his lords and masters would have none of it. However, Nelson did leave a kind of farewell gift – a pair of silver candlesticks and a crucifix for the church, all engraved with the Brontë arms. I can arrange for you to see them if you like . . .’

  ‘I’d like that, thank you.’

  ‘And while we’re here, Caprera’s worth a visit. That’s where Garibaldi ended his days. The island is kept as a national monument . . . It’s no distance: you can walk across on the causeway. The flowers should be beautiful now, not only here but all over Sardinia, lavender, asphodel, red saxifrage, rock roses . . .’

  ‘You sound as though you love the place.’ Cavanagh coaxed him quietly.

  ‘I love Sardinia, yes; because it’s still wild, beautiful and untamed. I hate it too, because it’s so backward and brutal to its people. Up in the Barbagia, the families of goatherds put their children to work at a tender age. They live like troglodytes under the angles of rocks and they feed on cornbread and goats’ cheese, while their landlords live on the mainland and are blind to their misery. I’m one of them, I have to tell you, because my father bought holdings here, but they bring me little but shame. The people are stern and closed and there is a deep anger that sometimes flashes out like a dag
ger drawn in the sun – a bronze dagger, Cavanagh, made by the people who built the nuraghi and fled inland away from the sea raiders.’

  He broke off and laughed, as if ashamed of his eloquence. Cavanagh begged him:

  ‘Please, don’t stop. I’ve travelled half-way round the world to connect myself with these things. When you talk like this, you make them come alive.’

  ‘I make myself come alive, too.’ Farnese was suddenly moody. ‘I confess to you, Cavanagh, it is much easier to tell you stories than to flog myself into ecstasies with Aurora Lambert.’ He threw out his hands in a gesture of comic despair. ‘That’s ungallant, I know. I should have better manners – and more sense than to be chasing second-rate actresses! What about you, Cavanagh? What’s your experience with women?’

  ‘Limited; but on the whole, pleasant. Maybe it’s the family I was brought up in, but mostly I’ve had pleasure with women – though, God help me, I’d never claim to understand ’em.’

  ‘No thoughts of marriage?’

  ‘Until recently, no. As a student I couldn’t afford it. For a travelling man it didn’t seem necessary.’

  ‘But now, you’re ready to contemplate taking a wife?’

  ‘That’s an old-fashioned phrase,’ said Cavanagh. ‘I’m not sure I’ve ever approved it as a definition of a love match, which is what I’m contemplating and hoping for.’

  ‘With or without benefit of clergy?’

  ‘With for preference. Without if need be; always provided the lady is willing.’

  ‘The lady in question being my daughter Giulia?’

  ‘Since she’s free to deny both the answer and me – yes!’

  ‘Thank you for telling me.’

  ‘Thank you for asking, sir. And now since there’s no one here but thee and me, can we not discuss the matter in a civilised fashion?’

  ‘What else do you think got me away from a warm bed and an eager woman at five in the morning? By all means let’s discuss it.’

  ‘All cards face up? No platitudes, no exhortations?’