The Sun and Catriona (10 page)

CHA
P
TER NINE

The
following morning she was up very early, when the sun had not long risen and the sky was still streaked with the golden light of dawn. She felt oddly tranquil and relaxed and she dressed slowly, taking time over her bath, washing her hair before slipping into one of the sundresses she had bought a few days before. She used little make-up for she had been in the sun a good deal since her arrival in Malta, and she had already acquired a soft, even tan, but for the protection of her skin she applied foundation and a good sun-cream before brushing the tips of her lashes with mascara and touching her lips with a warm, rosy lipstick.

When she had finished, she studied herself critically in the long mirror beside her bed, and couldn’t help feeling a little startled at the sight of her own reflection. Her skin glowed, her eyes were bright, and she looked strangely different from the girl who a few days earlier had been dismissed by the manager of the Calverley Hotel.

At eight o’clock Carmen brought breakfast to her room and she commented enthusiastically on Catriona’s dress, which was the colour of English harebells.

‘It’s very beautiful,
signurina.
You look like a princess. Are you going somewhere nice today
?
’

Her brown eyes were alight with slightly speculative interest and Catriona felt embarrassed. It had obviously not been lost on Carmen that the English girl had been in her employer’s study at a late hour the night before, nor would she have been likely to forget that she had been asked to serve them both with coffee.

She tried to smile casually. ‘I’m just going out for the day. Over to Gozo.’

‘Ah, Gozo! Across the water? You don’t mind?’

‘Should I
?
Will it be a rough crossing?’

Carmen shrugged. ‘I don’t know, but I don’t like to go in boats. And sometimes—yes, it’s very rough. Sometimes there are storms.’ She made a growling noise in her throat, evidently intended to represent a clap of thunder.

Catriona laughed. ‘Nothing is likely
to happen today,’ she pointed out. ‘It’s such beautiful weather.’

The maid looked dubious. ‘It’s much too hot. Maria! In this weather I have a headache all the time.’

Just before half past eight, Catriona went downstairs. She found the front door standing open, and in the street outside a smart Renault two-seater was waiting. There was no one inside the car, but an old woman dressed in black was walking past, and she grinned toothily at Catriona.

‘
Bon giorn,
signorina
.’

Catriona had not yet had time to learn much Maltese, but she understood simple greetings, and she smiled back at the woman.
‘
Bon giorn
,’ she answered swiftly.

Behind her a well-known voice spoke. ‘Excellent. Are you planning to take a serious, scholarly interest in our language, or have you just been glancing through a phrase-book?’

Turning to face him, she tensed very slightly, conscious of the fact that he seemed to be teasing her. ‘I haven’t got a Maltese phrase-book,’ she admitted. ‘I’ve just been listening to people.’

‘How very sensible.’ He was standing still, looking at her, and she began to feel self
-
conscious. ‘That colour,’ he said after a moment. ‘What do you call it?’

She realised that he meant the colour of her dress. ‘It’s—well, it’s a sort of misty blue.’

‘You should wear it often,’ he said coolly. ‘But as an artist you probably know that already.’ Briskly, he opened the car door for her. ‘You have strong sunglasses?’ he asked, looking down at her.

‘Yes, they’re Polaroid.’ She hesitated. ‘My eyes are important to me, and I tend to look after them.’

‘I’m glad to hear it.’ He went round and slipped behind the steering wheel. ‘At sea you will find that the light is very strong.
’

He was wearing a white shirt, open at the neck, and its short sleeves revealed the muscular strength of his tanned arms. She realised that his body had a look of controlled power, usually associated with professional athletes, and she wondered how he managed to stay so fit.

Within a few minutes they had left Valletta behind them, and a short time later they were out on the winding coast road. Already the heat was fierce, and Catriona felt her shoulders burning. On their right, the sea was a harsh line of cobalt blue, but to the left there was nothing but rough scrubland, bare and blistered like the surface of the moon. She knew that they were heading for Marsa, a small harbour at the northern tip of the island. She understood that the
drive would probably take them something like half an hour.

He said very little during the journey, but it didn’t matter. For the first time she didn’t feel that his silence was intended to convey hostility.

They passed small, weatherbeaten watch-towers, originally built as part of the island’s defences against possible Turkish invasion. Once, the square keep of a mediaeval castle loomed up beside them, blotting out the sun. After a time they reached St Paul’s Bay, and Peter, without taking his eyes off the road, indicated the small island on which the saint was said to have landed.

‘According to legend—and to historians—St Paul spent some time here,’ he told her. ‘He converted the Roman governor of the island, and for a while settled down in a small villa, just up there in the hills.’ He pointed to some rocky ground just above the little town. ‘The villa has recently been excavated, and early Christian symbols have been found, proving that St Paul probably did live there.’ He smiled slightly. ‘Not that the people of the villages need that sort of proof. They have always known.’

The road began to climb, winding steeply through sandy hills strewn with umbrella pines, and then it descended again to another wide bay, the Bay of Mellieha. Here the beach was long and golden, littered with sun umbrellas, and the spot was obviously a tourists’ paradise. There was a village of Mellieha, neat and well ordered like most of the villages Catriona had seen, but it clung to the southern arm of the bay, and beyond, save for a solitary modern luxury hotel, there were few buildings.

‘Once,’ the Count told her, as they cruised along a
low-lying road that ran beside the beach, ‘the Turkish fleet attempted to make a landing here, but they were defeated. There was a massacre, and it’s said that the waters of the bay ran crimson with their blood.’

Catriona shivered. ‘How horrible!’

He looked faintly amused. ‘People should learn not to trouble their neighbours.’

‘But was it necessary to resist the invaders with quite so much brutality?’

‘If one had no wish to be massacred oneself—yes. No doubt it was necessary.’

She turned her head to look at him. In another age he, too, could have been cruel and ruthless. It was all there, in the strong, aggressive jaw, the narrow mouth, the aquiline nose. She realised now that it was one of the things, that night at the Calverley Hotel, which she had sensed about him. He was descended from mediaeval warlords—harsh, merciless men whose sunbaked island had been a constant battleground—and it showed clearly in his face. She wondered what it might have been like to be at the mercy of a sixteenth-century Count Vilhena, and involuntarily she shivered again.

Beyond Mellieha they climbed another hill, the road twisting alarmingly past dry fields, a few carob trees and a second lonely fortress. It took them some time to reach the summit, but when they did an amazing panorama lay spread in front of them.

Below was the gently rounded tip of the island, and the tiny harbour of Marsa. There was a small landing-stage and one or two buildings, but otherwise the rocky shoreline had not been scarred by man, and it had an unspoilt, almost primitive look. The
encircling sea was the colour of amethyst, deep and vivid, a shock to the senses. Catriona leant forward, gazing through the windscreen. Beyond the sparkling water, following the line of the horizon, there was a hazy, rose-coloured blur that looked almost like another island. She stared, fascinated.

‘That shape over there—it’s like a mirage,’ she said a little breathlessly.

Peter spared the distant blur a momentary glance. ‘That’s Gozo,’ he told her briefly.

‘It’s beautiful.’

He said nothing. Slowly they descended the hill, and in a rough car park near the landing-stage they stopped. Rather violently, he jerked the handbrake into position.

‘We’ll leave the car here,’ he said. ‘It will be safe enough, and my boat is not far away.’ He climbed out, Catriona following his example, and they started walking towards the shore. A white steamer was just pulling away from the landing-stage, and he explained that she formed part of the Government-run ferry service.

‘There are several steamers,’ he told her, ‘all of them equipped to carry cars and lorries as well as foot passengers. For them, the crossing takes a little less than half an hour, but it won’t take us quite as long as that.’

She followed him across the road that led down to the landing-stage. Already one or two cars had begun to queue, waiting for the next ferry, and she wondered how their occupants were going to stand the heat. Stumbling after Peter, she gazed across the water at the haunting, beckoning outline of Malta’s sister island, and a line from Keats began to run
through her head.
Faery land
s forlorn
...

Near the water’s edge, about a hundred yards from the road, there was a smart, white-painted boathouse and close to it a private jetty had been constructed. Both, it seemed, belonged to the Vilhena family. Alongside the jetty a graceful white launch lay rocking on the morning tide, and as they walked towards her a small boy who had been sitting cross
-
legged in the shadow of the boathouse scrambled to his feet. Running to catch up with them, he said something in Maltese, and the Count placed a hand in his trouser pocket. There was a glint of sunlight on silver, and the boy smiled widely, revealing flawless teeth.

‘
Grazzi
,
signur
.’ Clutching his booty, he backed slowly away, as if withdrawing from the presence of royalty, then he turned and scuttled out of sight round a corner of the boathouse.

‘Who was that?’ Catriona asked, amused.

‘The grandson of my boatman. This launch,
Sultana
, has been afloat for half an hour. He has been watching to make sure that she could not be stolen.’

‘Was there a chance that she might have been?’ Catriona asked.

‘Not the slightest possibility. We have some extremely sophisticated security devices, and the most experienced thief would be unwise to tamper with them. But Joseph must not be deprived of employment. One day, with encouragement, he will turn into a fine boatman. Or, at least, he will become a useful worker in my shipyard.’

He placed a hand beneath her elbow, and she stepped into the launch. As she sat down she discovered that the seats were surprisingly comfortable, and
she noticed, too, that the craft had evidently been equipped with very little thought for expense.

Lightly, Peter swung himself down beside her, and with a roar the engine came to life. He swung the wheel and they moved forward, curving away from the jetty. White foam sparkled behind them and they plunged a little, becoming entangled in the wake of the ferry steamer. Catriona felt a sharp thrill of excitement.

‘You are a good sailor?’ he wanted to know. She saw that he was smiling slightly.

‘I’m not likely to be seasick, if that’s what you mean. My father took me sailing quite a lot.’

‘Excellent,’ he smiled dryly. ‘I shan’t have to put you ashore.’

Gathering speed, they headed out to sea. Malta
—
and the slower moving ferry steamer—had fallen away behind them, and the world consisted of sea and sky. Spray hung in the air, as they seemed to bound over the sparkling water. Peter handled the launch with casual confidence, and Catriona realised that he was probably as much at home in a boat as he was on dry land. After a time, partly to break the silence between them, she asked a question.

‘How long have your family been building boats
?
’

‘My father started the business, after the last war. We had lost a lot of money, and it was a time when if one wished to survive one had to be practical. Fortunately, my father was a practical man. Fishermen on his Gozo estates had been building their own boats for centuries, but left to themselves they would never have been able to develop their skill into a commercial asset. My father had the imagination and the business sense to turn the thing into a thriving
industry. After a time he brought in additional workmen, young, specially trained boatbuilders. We started to produce small yachts, and a few years later began developing motor cruisers, too. Soon we were selling all over the world. At the moment we concentrate mainly on cabin cruisers and racing yachts.’

‘It all sounds very interesting,’ Catriona said. ‘Quite a responsibility, though.’

‘It means a lot of work, yes. I need to keep a fairly close eye on things.’

‘You must work very hard.’

She saw his hands tighten on the wheel. ‘What else is there? Life without work is pointless.’

She opened her mouth to say something, to protest aloud that he was wrong, but then she remembered the things he had said the night before, and checked herself in time. Peter did not make any effort to expand his views.

Gozo was much closer now, and she could see that it was an island of high, rocky cliffs. There seemed to be more vegetation than she had noticed in Malta and there were even
woods running down to the beach. In fact, it was the most romantic-looking place she had ever seen. They were moving in quite rapidly, and it wasn’t long before the cliffs were looming above them. Over to their right a large village climbed the slopes behind a fairly mode
rn
-looking harbour, and she could see that the ferryboat was headed that way, but they had a different destination. They turned westwards, along the coast, and as they did so their speed dropped.