Rocks, The (35 page)

A
fter their siesta,
Bernie and Luc walked slowly along the dirt road beside the rocks until they came to the little beach called Son Moll. Lulu didn’t like the beach, so she never came with them or took Luc to the beach, even if Bernie was working. He spread out a blanket. They ran in and out of the lapping waves, and built sand castles at the water’s edge.

“Papa! We go see pirates?”

“Yes, Luc,
mon brave
! Let’s go see if the pirates are here today.”

Crouching, wading on his knees, Bernie carried Luc into the natural cave inside the large rock formation that breached like a whale from the shallows at the western edge of the beach. He had to hold Luc up close to his face to pass through a cleft where there was just room enough for their heads above the water between the two Brobdingnagian clamshell rocks almost closed against each other that made the great whale. They reached an inner grotto, where, Bernie told Luc, the pirates used to hide, and could even reappear at any time. Inside the cool space, lit by shards of sunlight from the imperfect joints of the clamshells, the water made chocky, echoing sounds.

“Arrrgghh, me hearties!” Bernie called out. “Avast, Blind Pew!”

“Bline Pooh!” cried Luc.

“Billy Bones! Black Dog! Long John Silver! Show yourselves, ye swabs!”

“Fifteen men!”

“Ah-ha-harrgh! Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest, yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” they sang together.

After a while, Bernie said, “Right, then, young ’Orkins. I don’t see no pirates today, matey. We best be off.”

“’Orkins!”

Clutching Luc to his chest and face, Bernie waded out again through the water that glowed pale blue from the light beneath the rocks. He felt the smooth wet skin of his son against him, beneath his hands, and the life inside this most perfect bundle, and the trust his son felt that no matter how dangerous the cave looked and what might appear there, Bernie would keep him safe.

Luc fell asleep in his arms as he walked back along the road to the Rocks.

Coming toward him, he saw the man he’d noticed several times on this road, walking between the beach and the town. Not a Spaniard, obviously: sandy-haired, northern European–looking, but not a tourist. Thin to the point of emaciation, tanned, threadbare clothes, a decrepit straw hat; he looked like a manual laborer of some sort.

Bernie nodded to him, and the man nodded back as he passed.

R
afael Soller was
on the quay as
Nereid
approached at less than a walking pace. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, his thick arms covered with black hair held away from his body, eager to push off, to catch, to help as needed.

“Bon dia, Gerald.”

“Bon dia, Rafael.”

The boat drifted alongside, squeezing gently against the hemp fenders hanging down the side of the hull. Gerald stepped onto the quay holding the bow and stern lines.

“Give me one,” said Rafael. Gerald handed him the bowline and Rafael wrapped it many times around a small bollard and threw in two knots for good measure. Gerald tied the stern line to an iron ring set in the concrete. They shook hands.

“So, Gerald—” Rafael was suddenly unsure of what to say next. He looked at the Englishman awkwardly. “How are you?”

“I’m all right,” Gerald answered. He looked up at Rafael. “Have you seen my wife?”

“Yes.” Rafael’s eyes flicked over the boat, away from Gerald. “She returned a week ago. I have seen her, but I have not spoken to her.”

“Is she still here?”

Rafael looked up at Gerald and lifted his chin in the direction of the house above the rocks across the harbor. “Maybe at the house. I don’t know.”

Gerald too looked across the harbor for a moment, his eyes squinting as if to focus better. He looked back at Rafael. “Rafael, there was an accident. I’m going to sail to Palma to have some work done on the boat. May I leave some things here with you, in the bar? Some bags, some books? To have them off the boat while the work is being done? I will take them when I come back.”

“But yes, of course. When do you go?”

“Today. Very soon.”

Rafael was surprised. “You are leaving again today?”

“Yes.”

“Then, give me something to carry,” said Rafael.

“No, thank you. I have to pack up. I’ll bring them to the bar later. Thank you.”

•   •   •

G
erald walked around
the port and then along the sandy road beside the shore above the rocks. Past white villas with tiled roofs and shutters closed either for the season or against the midday light.

He opened the iron gate in the wall in front of the large house with sage-green shutters. The house spread around a courtyard and a fountain visible through an inner gate. He pulled the bell knob beside the green front door.

After a minute, the boy opened the door. “Oh, it’s you,” he said. Despite the unruly carrot-colored thatch of hair and the smooth, freckled face of a twelve-year-old, he gazed at Gerald with the freighted appraisal of someone cognizant of the entire range of human failing. A tall, large-boned woman in her late thirties appeared beside him. She glared at Gerald.

“Cassian, leave us,” she said firmly.

With a retreating glance, the boy disappeared.

“Oh,
Gerald!
” said Milly Ollorenshaw. She stepped just beyond the doorway, pulling the door half-closed behind her.

“Hullo, Milly. Is she here?”

“She saw you come in on the boat and she left. She doesn’t want to see you.”

“How is she?”

“As I told you on the phone—she’s alive, thank God!”

“I must talk to her, Milly—”

“I don’t know what you could possibly say. How
could
you have
abandoned
her like that? After what happened? And what do you think Tom and I thought when you telephoned from Sardinia asking if we’d heard from Lulu? We were frantic! I don’t know what to say to you, Gerald. It was
unspeakable
of you.”

He’d phoned once, from Cagliari. He’d been told by both Tom and Milly that Lulu had arrived back in Mallorca but did not want to speak with him. “Milly, I understand that Lulu couldn’t know where I went and what I did, and so you don’t either. I did it for her. I had to get them away. And I did. It took a bit of time, I know. But when I went back, she wasn’t there.”

“Did you think she’d be sitting there, knitting you a cardigan?”
Milly shouted at him. She was furious. “She was
naked
, Gerald! She had to beg for clothing! We had to send her money! I don’t know
what
you did, Gerald, and more to the point, nor did Lulu. She only knew that you’d gone and left her there!”

“I know. I came back as soon as I could. I can explain—”

“Gerald!”
She took a deep breath and looked at him with not entirely unfriendly distress, sadly. “Whatever you have to say doesn’t alter what happened to Lulu. It doesn’t alter the fact that you left. Do you understand that? No explanation will change that.”

Gerald was silent, pale.

More gently, Milly said: “Once someone loses trust, that’s it, Gerald. It’s gone. It’s broken. You can’t repair it with explanations. You can’t wheedle trust back from someone. She will never forget that you left. Whatever your reasons . . . well, they don’t matter, don’t you see? It doesn’t alter anything. I’m sorry, Gerald. Do you remember what I told you? Lulu needed someone whom she could
trust
. That was
all
she needed—but she needed that.”

Gerald looked down at Milly’s enormous feet in dirty plimsolls. He looked up at her. “When will she be back?”

“She’s gone off in the car with Tom. She doesn’t want to see you. You should go.”

He drew something out of the pocket of his trousers and held his hand out. “Will you please give her this.”

It was a roll of film.

“What is she supposed to do with that?”

“Please ask her to have it developed.”

“Why?”

“It will show her what I did. I know it doesn’t change what happened to her, but it will show her why I left—I got them away, you see, otherwise I don’t know what would have happened—and . . . well, it’ll show what I did.”

Hesitantly, Milly reached out and took the roll.

“Do have her develop the film. Please.”

“I’ll give it to her, that’s all I can do,” said Milly. “Now I must ask you to leave, Gerald. I’m sorry. We’ve all been enormously upset, as perhaps you can imagine.”

Unhappily—generous by nature and unused to being dismissive—Milly turned away and closed the door.

Gerald went out through the gate and walked quickly away toward the harbor.

•   •   •

H
e unloaded
four bulging sail bags, and a small bag of Lulu’s clothes, from the small yacht and carried them to the Bar Marítimo across the field of black fishing nets that had been spread out to dry in front of the fishermen’s storage caves. They were heavy with books. He and Rafael heaped them against the stone wall in the narrow back room beside demijohns of wine and crates of beer. He returned to the boat and came back with a wooden tool chest, his typewriter, and the varnished dovetailed box holding his sextant.

“You won’t need the tools in Palma?” asked Rafael.

“I’ll have most of the work done by the yard’s carpenters. I expect they’ll have their own tools.”

“Yes, of course.”

•   •   •

R
afael stood
on the quay as Gerald hauled aloft the stained brown mainsail, held to the mast by wooden hoops. The canvas flapped idly in the light wind.

“I’ll take the line now, thank you, Rafael.”

Rafael untied the line he had knotted earlier, unwound it from the bollard, coiled it quickly, and threw it to Gerald, who dropped the coil on the deck. The yacht drifted slowly off the quay. The two men were still close enough to talk quietly.

“So, you will come back, when, in a week or so?” asked Rafael.

“Yes. It depends on the work. But I’ll see you soon. Thank you for your help, Rafael.”

“It’s nothing. Go with God, Gerald.”

The yacht made a slow U-turn, and Rafael now saw on the other side of the hull a gash of blue paint, streaks of dirt, and a depression where two planks were cracked halfway between the deck and the water sliding by.

“Now I see it,” Rafael called, walking down the quay to stay abreast of the boat. He pointed toward the broken planks. “The work that needs to be done. What happened?”

Gerald leaned out and looked down at the damage, as if noticing it for the first time. He shrugged. “An accident. A fishing boat.”

Nereid
was gathering speed. Her course wove through the moored fishing boats past the end of the breakwater. She was sliding past the houses above the rocks. Gerald stood on deck at the stern and looked up at the house with the green shutters.

•   •   •

G
erald walked
into the Marítimo three days later.

“Gerald!” said Rafael. He looked out at the port; he hadn’t seen the boat come in. “So soon? You come from Palma?”

“Yes. I came on the bus.” Gerald seemed subdued. He sat down at a small table.

“On the bus?” said Rafael as he poured Gerald a Cognac. “And the yacht? They are doing the work, in Palma?”

“I lost the yacht,” said Gerald.

“What?”

“She sank.”

“She
sank
? The
Nereid
?”

“Yes.”

Rafael stared at Gerald. “Your boat—she is gone?”

“Yes.” Gerald raised the glass to his mouth and drank the burning liquor.

Rafael was filled with disquiet. He had been aboard
Nereid
many times; he had drunk wine and Cognac with Gerald in the little cabin, seen his charts and his sextant and heard Gerald’s ideas about the navigation of the ancient Greeks. The Englishman was a sailor of a type Rafael had never met; he knew more about the sea and navigation than his father’s oldest friends, who knew only the waters around Mallorca. Gerald was English, a race famous for its sailors; he had sailed from England, itself a feat, and he had sailed the little
Nereid
without an engine all over the Mediterranean with one hand on the tiller and a book in the other, and it was the last thing Rafael could imagine that Gerald could ever lose his yacht, even in a storm—but there had been no storms.

“Where did this happen?”

“Off Cabrera. In deep water.”

Rafael poured himself a Cognac. He knew the loss of the boat was a disaster for his friend, and like the death of a loved one. He was hesitant to press Gerald for the details.

“How, Gerald?” he said finally.

Gerald’s eyes squinted and he looked out over the port. “The damage was worse than I’d thought. She came down hard on a wave and started a plank below the waterline. I only had time to put the dinghy in the water and get in before she sank. I managed to get to the shore, but the dinghy got quite badly smashed on the rocks and that sank too.”

“My God,” said Rafael. He stared furtively at Gerald as you stare at a man whose wife has drowned. What would he do without his boat and all his books . . . “But what incredible luck that you unloaded your books and the other things.”

“Yes,” said Gerald.

“Then . . . what will you do, Gerald? Where will you go? You can stay here, in the back, for a few days, of course, but then . . . ?”

“Thank you, Rafael.” Gerald drained his glass and rose. “I’ll find something.”

When Gerald reached the door, Rafael said, “Where are you going now?”

“I’m going for a walk.” Gerald smiled at Rafael, as if to reassure him.

•   •   •

G
erald would not see
himself reduced to Rafael’s kind offer to put up among the crates and demijohns in the back of the Marítimo. It wasn’t going to be like that.

In one of his sail bags, he’d packed the rubber canvas groundsheet that had been part of his naval kit on shore maneuvers. With this and a few other essentials, he made camp under the small pines above the shore at Cala Espasa, to the north of Cala Marsopa. He made small fires of pine and scrub oak that snapped inordinately but burned sufficiently to heat tins of beans, and he slept tolerably well wrapped in his groundsheet. He was on maneuvers again.

When he woke in the mornings, he read beneath the pines from the small Cambridge editions of Marcus Aurelius (always immediately useful) and scraps of Hesiod. Not a compulsive adventurer—Hesiod’s only sea voyage was from the city of Aulis, on the Strait of Euripus, to the island of Euboea, a crossing of just under two hundred feet. Yet Gerald admired the Greek poet’s seamanlike instincts about when came “the timely season for men to voyage” and when they should remain in port.

What, he wondered, would Hesiod make of this season?