The Lovers Read online

  At seventeen hundred hours he presented himself at the gangway of the Salamandra d’Oro. Molloy was seated on the afterdeck, reading a book, with a tray of drinks beside him. He snapped the book shut and stood to greet his guest.

  ‘Welcome aboard, Mr Cavanagh.’

  Cavanagh walked up the gangway and paused to slip off his shoes before stepping on to the teak deck. Molloy noted the courtesy, but said nothing. He waved Cavanagh to a chair.

  ‘What would you like to drink?’

  ‘I’ll join you with the Scotch.’

  ‘Water? Ice?’

  ‘Please.’

  Molloy made him a generous drink, then raised his glass in a toast.

  ‘Slàinte!’

  ‘And your health too!’

  Molloy looked him up and down with a critical eye, then gave him that sour grin and a grudging approval.

  ‘I must say you scrub up well, Cavanagh. I’m impressed.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be.’ Cavanagh was relaxed and amiable. ‘I don’t know how far the Molloys go back in Boston, but in Australia the Cavanaghs have had lace curtains for three generations.’

  To his surprise Molloy burst out laughing.

  ‘You’re an impertinent young bugger, Cavanagh, but I begin to like you! Lace-curtain Irish! I haven’t heard that in a long time, but yes, that’s what we were too, I guess. What did your people do?’

  ‘My grandfather struck it rich on the Ballarat goldfields; but he had ten children so the inheritance was somewhat dispersed. My father put his share into the liquor business – country pubs in the big towns. My mother taught me manners. I had three sisters to coach me in the ways of women. The Christian Brothers ground religion into me and the Jesuits introduced me to the liberal arts – and they all left it to the Navy to knock the rough edges off me. One way and another I’ve been a lucky fellow.’

  ‘Which makes me wonder why you’re doing this trip the hard way.’

  ‘Hard! This isn’t hard! What am I doing at this moment, but drinking good liquor in good company on a beautiful boat – with half an expectation that I might be offered a job at the end of it.’

  ‘That’s my point. With a background like the one you describe, how come you need a job?’

  ‘Or more precisely, how do you know I’m not some Mediterranean cowboy fresh from drug running or smuggling cigarettes from Casablanca?’

  ‘That’s about the size of it.’

  ‘According to the strict rules of evidence, I could be selling you a can full of smoke. But if you knew the Cavanaghs – and I’m told there are a few cousins and near cousins in Boston – then you’d understand that they’re godly folk who give handouts to the poor and needy, and are hard as iron to their own. My old man – God love him! – had it figured out for all of us. He’d paid for our education, the rest was up to us. I did my law course on a Service Grant and paid my room and board and the rest of my living, working as a barman, a fruit picker and pencilling bets for a bookie at the tracks. That filled up a lot of gaps in my liberal education. I didn’t mention, by the way, that I have French, Italian, German, Greek and Spanish – which may be a help to you.’

  ‘I’m sure it could be,’ said Molloy ‘but right now I want to know how good a seaman you are.’

  Cavanagh fished in his pocket, brought out a battered wallet and laid out the documents on the table:

  ‘Passport, discharge, Service record. They’ll tell you as much as I can.’

  ‘More, maybe!’ Molloy gave a short, barking laugh. ‘I was Navy myself. I used to write these things.’

  Cavanagh sipped his liquor and waited in silence until Molloy handed the documents back to him and announced:

  ‘I’ll walk you round the ship.’

  ‘I’d like that. She’s a beauty. Who designed her?’

  ‘A friend of mine. The best naval architect in Quincy.’ There was a ring of pride in the answer. ‘I had her built in Glasgow at half the price she would have cost me at home. She did her sea trials in the Baltic and her shakedown cruise from Plymouth to Gibraltar. After that we took her round the Balearics and into Alicante. Let’s take a look at the bridge first.’

  The change in Cavanagh’s demeanour was abrupt. He studied every item in the console layout with a cool professional eye, counting off the items, touching each one as he did so.

  ‘. . . throttles, automatic pilot, electric log, depth sounder, forty-mile radar, D.F. loop, medium wave and VHF transceivers, chart index, a full Mediterranean list of pilot books, everything well positioned for a one-man helm-watch. A man would feel very comfortable up here Mr Molloy.’

  ‘And you could handle it all?’

  ‘Sure. But to do it properly I’d make myself familiar with your construction and wiring plans.’

  ‘Let’s go look at the engine room.’

  When he stepped into the head-high chamber and saw the twin diesels and the big generators and the banks of knife batteries and switch-gear, Cavanagh gave a whistle of admiration.

  ‘You’ve done yourself proud. Who’s your engineer?’

  ‘An old shipmate of mine, Boston Greek, Giorgios Hadjidakis. Do you have any engine room experience?’

  ‘Very little and very basic. I can read a manual, use a wrench and an oil can and do exactly what the engineer orders in a damage control situation. That’s as far as I go. How many crew do you carry?’

  ‘On the voyage over we had five. Myself, Giorgios, Marcantonio the chef and two deckhands. When our guests come on board they’ll double as stewards, and I’ll be bringing in a cabin attendant for the ladies of the party.’

  ‘By my count,’ said Cavanagh, ‘you’re short one bridge officer. You’ll have very little time to spend with your guests, especially if you’re making long runs and overnight passages.’

  ‘You’re right of course. We do need a third officer. Interested?’

  ‘Eager would say it better.’

  ‘Eager enough to wear a sharp-tongued skipper?’

  ‘Well, now!’ Cavanagh gave him a big smile and a small shrug of deprecation. ‘Let’s say I could offer you enough skill to hone the edge off your tongue, and you’re enough like my old man to teach me the manners I lack.’

  ‘Prettily said,’ Molloy was a little amused. ‘But that doesn’t get you the job. It gets you the next drink and another set of questions. Let’s go topside.’

  ‘After you, Mr Molloy.’

  This time all the questions had barbs in them.

  ‘Tell me about your sex life.’

  ‘With respect Mr Molloy, it’s none of your goddamn business.’

  ‘You’d better be goddamn sure it is my business!’ Molloy’s anger was swift and cold. ‘This is my ship, mister! There’s nowhere off limits to me! So, answer me, man! What’s your preference?’

  ‘Women.’

  ‘Have you ever had any sexually transmitted diseases?’

  ‘No. And I’m bloody careful to avoid ’em.’

  ‘If you were offered the job would you be willing to undergo a full medical – at the ship’s expense of course?’

  ‘Why not? But why should you care?’

  There was a sudden dark anger in Molloy’s eyes and a savage rasp in his voice.

  ‘Because my principal guest is the young woman I’m going to marry. So every man jack about this vessel is going to have a clean body, clean hands and a civil mouth to welcome the lady and offer her the respect and services she deserves. Are you answered, Mr Cavanagh?’

  ‘I’m answered.’ His tone was mild and respectful. Inside an imp of laughter was plaguing him. This was too much altogether. It was archaic, incongruous, overblown, like a bad sermon from a ranting preacher. He waited in silence until Molloy demanded curtly:

  ‘So, do you want the job?’

  ‘I’d like to know what you’re offering.’

  ‘Four months’ contract. Discharge in Antibes. I’m booking a permanent berth here – buying a share in the new harbour. You get seventy-five dollars a we
ek, paid in US currency, which means you do very nicely in drachmas and lire. Ship’s rations, all found. You get two free uniforms and a set of working overalls. You buy liquor and cigarettes from ship’s stores at duty-free prices. You’re insured against accident and sickness while on duty. You will not accept gratuities from guests. An end-of-voyage bonus may be paid for meritorious service. That’s it.’

  ‘When do I sign on?’

  ‘As soon as you present a clean bill of health. Glemot will make a doctor’s appointment for you tomorrow.’ He poured another generous shot of whisky and handed it to Cavanagh.

  ‘Let’s drink to a pleasant voyage.’

  ‘And a happy homecoming! Maybe I could polish up my Greek enough to write you an epithalamium.’

  ‘Which would be what? Instruct me, Cavanagh. I have no Greek and only Mass Latin.’

  ‘A marriage song, a nuptial hymn.’

  For the first time Molloy laughed: an open, happy sound.

  ‘Cavanagh, you’re a clown!’

  ‘I am that!’ Cavanagh grinned, ruefully. ‘My old man stuck the label on me a long time ago. My mother – God rest her – made a virtue out of it. “A clown,” she said, “makes people laugh; so he has his proper place in God’s universe. It’s your drunken buffoons I can’t tolerate.”’

  ‘Wise woman.’

  ‘She was. I miss her.’

  ‘Do you have any steady woman in your life?’

  ‘I’ve a lot of women friends; but none I’d call a friend of the heart.’

  ‘I should warn you,’ Lou Molloy surveyed him with genial malice, ‘you’ll be seeing a lot of ports on this trip, but we won’t be lingering too long in any of them. In harbour, half the staff is always on duty to serve the guests, and those off duty stay within easy call in case we want to make a quick getaway. So your playtime will be strictly limited.’

  ‘I expected nothing different.’ Cavanagh was a model of good humour. ‘It’s a small price to pay for a berth on a beautiful ship – and on a lovers’ cruise no less!’

  ‘And just so you’ll never say I didn’t give you a true bill of goods, there’s some dirty work to be done before we put to sea: scouring bilges, checking all the toilet systems, bleeding water from the fuel tanks. Giorgios Hadjidakis is a hard man to please.’

  ‘And I’m the new boy; so he’ll have me swimming in grease and bilge-water.’

  ‘That’s about the size of it, Mr Cavanagh. But you’ll have the midnight watch, so you’ll breathe the clean night air and get the stink of diesel out of your nostrils.’

  ‘The Lord giveth,’ Cavanagh intoned with mock solemnity, ‘the Lord taketh away. For seventy-five bucks a week all found, the skipper doth what pleaseth him. Amen.’

  Declan Aloysius Molloy let out a huge bellow of laughter.

  ‘We’re well met, Cavanagh! If you’re free of the pox and your lungs are clear, you’re hired! When you meet your shipmates ask them about me, they’ll tell you I’m a bad man to cross, but I look after my own!’

  ‘I’m happy to hear it,’ said Bryan de Courcy Cavanagh. ‘My thanks for the job and your hospitality. I’ll report for duty the moment I have the doctor’s certificate in my fist. I bid you goodnight, sir.’

  He saluted smartly, picked up his shoes and walked down the gang-plank without a backward glance. He sat on a bollard while he slipped on his shoes then set off down the marina, whistling the jaunty little tune which is called ‘The Low-backed Car’. From the afterdeck Lou Molloy called after him.

  ‘My father used to sing that tune to me. Five dollars if you know the words, Cavanagh.’

  ‘You’ve lost already, Mr Molloy! ‘Twas my mother that taught them to me!’ And to prove it, he began to sing in a clear, true baritone.

  When first I saw sweet Peggy,

  ’Twas on a market day,

  A low-backed car she drove and sat

  Upon a load of hay.

  The song rang out, sweet but alien across the sleepy little port. The sea birds rose clattering from their roost along the ramparts.

  Declan Aloysius Molloy smiled happily to himself as he watched his new bridge officer stride jauntily down the dockside. He believed in the luck of the Irish, who were the favoured children of the Church, beloved by the Pope and by God. This young sprout of the Cavanagh clan was the latest proof that God looked after his own.

  Bryan de Courcy Cavanagh also believed in the luck of the Irish, but he was a mite more sceptical about divine intervention in his personal affairs. Even in his own short life he had met a dozen Lou Molloys in as many settings and aliases: wearing the black cassock of the Brothers or the clergy, or a bookie’s check suit at the track, making secret corner-of-the-mouth talk at the Hibernian Club or bluffing their way out of a brawl with the shore patrol in Trincomalee.

  All of them had the same leery eye, the same ready smile, the same dash of the bully and the opportunist. Sober, they could charm the birds out of the trees, drunk or with the black angers upon them, they were bad and dangerous company. In love? Come to think of it, he had never seen one of them in love – which accounted for his shock at Molloy’s sudden ranting outburst about his bride-to-be, which also raised the question of who she was and where she came from and why Lou Molloy was making such a song and dance about his late spring wooing.

  Properly speaking, Cavanagh admonished himself, none of it was his business. For seventy-five bucks a week, all found, in a soft berth, he should be deaf, dumb and blind – and if Lou Molloy wanted to marry Medusa herself, so be it, Amen! Alleluia!

  For himself, he was planning a celebration. He would take Marie-Claire into Cannes. They would dine in a small but chic Indochinese restaurant, and then try their fortune at the casino. Afterwards, win or lose, they would climb to his attic room in Madame Audiberti’s pension and make what Marie-Claire called, in her Corsican dialect, little love-games, which in English translated into long and very passionate encounters. Marie-Claire had already told him she would regret to see him leave Antibes. On the other hand she was betrothed to a Corsican cousin, and was working to supplement the modest dowry her father had promised. So, much better to make a happy ending than a messy one, no? With which simple proposition Bryan de Courcy Cavanagh had no quarrel at all. His own Irish luck was holding better than he deserved.

  Within forty-eight hours, he was signed on to the ship’s manifest and took up residence in the crew’s quarters of the Salamandra d’Oro. Giorgios Hadjidakis, lean, dark and laconic, introduced him to his shipmates:

  ‘. . . . Leo and Jackie, deckhands, bunk-mates, members of the Corps de Ballet in the Boston dance ensemble . . .’

  They were a good-looking pair, lithe as cats, muscular as feral animals. Leo was the spokesman and his speech was brief but loaded.

  ‘Welcome aboard Bryan. Good to have some young blood in the forepeak . . . Anything we can do to make you comfortable . . . anything at all.’

  ‘Thank you Leo. Thank you both.’ Cavanagh offered a firm handshake and a guileless grin. ‘Which of you is the helmsman?’

  ‘I am,’ Leo blushed and bridled at the admission. ‘Jackie’s the front-of-the-house person. He knows how to pour wine and which side to serve the vegetables and how to keep the Chef happy in the kitchen.’

  ‘Our Chef.’ Giorgios made the announcement with a spartan dignity. ‘Our Chef is Signor Marcantonio Caviglia, late of the Grand Hotel du Lac, Lugano, Switzerland.’

  ‘I offer you my most profound respects, maestro.’ Bryan de Courcy Cavanagh was already in vein with the occasion. ‘I was bred in Australia, which rides on the sheep’s back, and where the most important and highly paid functionary is the shearers’ cook. He lives and works at great risk, since hungry shearers have been known to turn violent. So maestro, you have my respect, my very great respect.’

  ‘And if you, my friend, have any special dietary needs . . .’

  ‘Thanks for the thought maestro. I’ll try to spare you any problems.’

  The introductions over
, Hadjidakis spelt out the laws of his narrow kingdom.

  ‘Topside and aft, Lou Molloy is God. Down here in the forepeak, I, Giorgios Hadjidakis, am God’s anointed. There’s not much space, so we eat, sleep, shave, shower and use the head according to the roster pinned on the door. We don’t like noise. We don’t make arguments. We stow our gear neatly and dump our dirty laundry in the container provided. Each man’s locker, his drawer space and his bookshelf are sacred. Any problems or questions?’

  ‘None. I’m house-broken and Navy-trained.’

  ‘That’s what you told Lou. That’s what Lou told me. So here’s the programme. First light tomorrow we take ourselves out for a little cruise. On the way we pump the bilges and flush out the sewage-holding tanks. After that you get down under the floor boards and sluice down with disinfectant. While you’re down there, you’ll inspect the drive shaft bearings and glands, and make yourself familiar with the plumbing and electrical layouts. By the end of the day we’ll have the whole plant greased and polished so that you could eat your dinner off the engine-blocks. How does that grab you, Navy man?’

  ‘Right where I live,’ Cavanagh assured him cheerfully. ‘I like a tidy ship. Lighten up, Mr Hadjidakis. Stop trying to scare me. I’ve been hazed by experts. Besides, some of my best friends are Greeks.’

  He offered his hand. Hadjidakis hesitated a moment, then a reluctant smile dawned on his dark saturnine features. He accepted the handshake and offered an invitation.

  ‘Chef and I are eating ashore tonight. Would you like to join us?’

  ‘Sure! I’d like that; but seeing I’ve just signed on, Mr Molloy might want . . .’

  ‘Lou’s spending the next two nights in Monte Carlo. You’re not rostered for duty until tomorrow. Besides, it’s the custom of the ship: on the Salamandra d’Oro we embalm you first and let you die afterwards!’