The White Schooner (14 page)

It was a night of dark sky and bright stars, of light wind and the distant murmur of the sea, and closer at hand the clamour of traffic. Black had walked down from the old town, still carrying the stick, limping slightly when darkness did not cover him. He crossed the Paseo Vara de Rey and made for the Avenida Ignacio Wallis, the name evoking memories of a film he’d seen long ago and the abdication.

He got to the Celler Balear before she did and ordered a dry Martini. When it arrived, he leant against the bar dividing his attention between the Martini and diminutive mussels which he prised from their shells with a toothpick. Black liked the Celler. The food was good, the atmosphere authentic and the Spanish staff friendly and good humoured. The barman brought him a second Martini. As Black paid for it, Tino Costa and George Madden came up to the bar. He nodded briefly, the American said, ‘Hi,’ but the Cypriot ignored him. Black, irritated by their presence, turned his back and
concentrated
on the Martini, the mussels, and his problems.

The detail of the planning was settled, the timing balanced against the known factors. Only the imponderable remained, implacable and threatening, among them the dogs. If and when they’d been dealt with, a major problem would have been overcome. There was the possibility of an electronic alarm system, but he doubted it. It would have been
superfluous
. The outer windows were barred, there was the stone wall, the dogs patrolling inside it, and a night watchman on duty. There was no longer the problem of cutting the
telephone
cable because there wasn’t one. That at least had been a pleasant surprise.

Before he saw her, he heard her voice. ‘Hi, Charles. Sorry I’m late.’

She wore a red gardenia in her hair, and her eyes were misty and apologetic. He thought she’d never looked more lovely and wanted to take her in his arms, but all he did was lean on his stick and say, ‘Not to worry. Have a drink.’

Over dinner she was quiet.

‘What’s on your mind?’ he said.

‘How d’you mean?’

‘You’re so quiet.’

She sighed and the lines round her mouth tightened as she looked over to the table where Tino Costa and Madden sat.

‘I thought so,’ said Black. ‘Forget them. It’s a free world.’

‘Is it hell,’ she said. ‘Why do they have to come here to-night?’

He shook his head. ‘For Christ’s sake. Do they own you?’

‘Of course they don’t. Nobody does. But life’s not as simple as you make out, Charles. No one is an island to oneself, independent, uninvolved. Every man and woman in this room is part of a complex structure of human relationships.’

‘What does that long spiel mean?’

‘You
know
what it means. I’ve known you for about ten days. Before that I wasn’t sitting here in a vacuum.’ She leant forward, tense, emphatic, trying to get through to him. ‘Life goes on you know. I couldn’t hang around just waiting for you to turn up. I was—I am like the rest of them.’ She waved a hand round the room. ‘Involved with other people.’

‘Which means your night is spoilt because our friends are watching and will report back.’ He jerked a contemptuous thumb in the direction of Tino Costa’s table.

She nodded over the rim of her glass and he could see she was troubled. ‘It’s partly that,’ she said. ‘Don’t you see, Charles, I can’t just abandon Kirry. He’s done a lot for me.’

For a time he was silent, then he said, ‘I think I understand. I just wish your involvement was with another man, and …’

‘
And
what, Charles?’

‘And for another reason.’

She looked at him despairingly. ‘I told you the other day. If you can’t accept me as I am, forget me.’

‘D’you want me to?’

‘Of course I don’t. Why d’you think I’m here?’

‘Okay,’ he said, suddenly cheerful. ‘Let’s get a taxi and go up the hill and give the Mar-Blau a thrash. Know it?’

‘Yes. But …’

‘But what?’

‘I had thought of an early night.’

‘Forget it,’ he said.

She was silent for some time. Then she sighed again and
looking towards Tino Costa and George Madden she spoke in a low voice. ‘Have you heard about Benny?’

‘Benny?’ he said with forced obtuseness. ‘Who’s he?’

‘Ahmed ben Hassan. Our friend who was seasick in the steamer coming from Barcelona.’

‘Oh, him,’ said Black. ‘No. Why?’

‘He’s been drowned.’

‘Really. Where and when?’

‘A few days ago. Bathing from the rocks below the military hospital. They found his clothes and towel there, but no trace of his body. They think the currents have taken it out to sea.’

‘Poor chap,’ said Black heavily. ‘Was he a strong swimmer?’

‘Very. He used to swim far out. He was an Olympic swimmer once. Maybe it was his heart or cramp or something. Who knows? Anything can happen in the sea.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Black, shaking his head. ‘Poor chap.’

The taxi chugged up the hill towards Los Molinos, past the barracks where
Todo
Por
la
Patria
showed up boldly in the headlights and made Black think how such exhortations meant different things to different people: and why not
Todo
Por
el
Pueblo
?

Then an old shed of breeze-blocks and stone loomed up, the white patch on its wall crudely lettered Mar-Blau, Flamenco Night Club, beneath it an arrow. The taxi turned right, following the arrow, and they bumped along the road,
climbing
and turning. It stopped, they paid it off and went into the Mar-Blau.

A waiter showed them to a table well back from the floor and took their order. Black found Manuela’s hand and squeezed it.

‘Happy?’ she said softly.

‘Yes.’ He sighed with content.

There was a breeze from the sea and the candles on the tables cast flickering shadows. A girl with a guitar and a flowing dress was singing an Andalusian song, stamping her feet, her eyes and teeth flashing defiance at the crimson
spotlight
. Pergolas surrounded the tables on two sides, a line of Chinese lanterns marked the bar, and to its left a terrace of tables rose to meet the slope of the hill; at its summit, the tiled roof of a
finca
, a windmill, clumps of cacti and aloes, were silhouetted against the rim of the night sky.

The girl from Andalusia finished her song, the spotlight switched to mauve and picked out the letters CHE COMBO on a drum in the background, and from the group behind it came the strains of
La-La-La
to remind the tourists that Spain had won the Eurovision song contest; underlying its cadences, the distant buzz of voices from the tables round the floor sounded like angry bee swarms.

‘Like it here?’ asked Black.

‘Heaven,’ she said. ‘I adore sitting under the night sky.’

The music stopped and the waiter came up with a
coñac
and soda-siphon for Black and a Coke for Manuela. When he’d gone Black said, ‘Know what? I’ve left the stick in the taxi.’

‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘I’ll prop you up.’

‘Actually, the ankle’s better. I think I can manage.’

‘So I noticed.’

‘You didn’t say anything.’

She leant forward impulsively, laughing. ‘Didn’t want to spoil your act.’

Black felt the muscles in his stomach contract. ‘
My
act
! What d’you mean?’

‘You’re a man, Charles. You made the most of that ankle. Got loads of sympathy.’

So that was it. His tension drained away. ‘Well, it was bloody sore.’

‘I’m sure it was.’

Ché Combo got going again and the lights went down. Black leant over and kissed her, feeling absurdly romantic yet knowing there could be nothing more than this moment. ‘Come and dance. You’ll have to support me.’

‘I’ll do that,’ she said and pressed his arm.

When they got back to the table he called a waiter and ordered more drinks. Later, when he was paying for them, he felt her tug on his sleeve.

‘Oh, God,’ she said in a small voice. ‘Look who’s arrived.’

‘Who?’ said Black, counting the change.

‘Kirry.’

The Greek was weaving his way through the tables towards them. His emphatically checked suit, the mauve shirt and orange tie, the magenta silk handkerchief lopping generously from the breast pocket, and the gilt band on the Havana cigar were colourful touches of vulgarity, as familiar to Black as the dark perspiring face; but he thought the Greek’s smile
lacked conviction.

‘’Allo, there!’ Kyriakou called as he approached. Manuela smiled and murmured a subdued, ‘Hi, Kirry.’

Black nodded unenthusiastically.

The Greek leant his hands on their table, his eyes on Manuela. ‘Aha,’ he said. ‘So thees is why you cannot meet Kirry to-night. You tell me.
Kirry,
I
have
just
dinner
with
him.
Then
I
make
early
night
.’ He looked at his wrist watch, pushing back the cuff of his coat with an elaborate gesture. ‘An’ now is one o’clock.’

The Greek was trembling. Maybe drink, Black thought, maybe not. He’s got this girl in his hair. If only he knew. He’s got nothing to worry about.

Manuela shrank back in her chair, silent, fearful of the scene that was coming.

Black said, ‘She wanted an early night. I talked her into this.’

‘Aha,’ said Kyriakou, hands on hips, cigar clenched firmly in strong white teeth. ‘Is that so?’ He glared at the Englishman.

A good deal of Black’s caution had evaporated with the
coñac
, and he found the Greek’s dramatics tedious. ‘Yes, it is,’ he said yawning. ‘So what?’

Kyriakou’s eyes reflected disbelief that this man could so have insulted him. And then, as the hard fact registered that he
had
, his eyes clouded and his hand moved towards the soda-siphon. But Black beat him to it and the Greek’s fingers closed on air.

In the dim light of flickering candles, the combo swinging and throbbing its gay melody, Black, his right hand round the neck of the siphon, sat watching the Greek warily.

Kyriakou must have had second thoughts for he backed away from the table, puffing and blowing, to stop and stab with his cigar in Black’s direction. ‘You make beeg mistake, my friend, if you think you can take my girl.’

Trembling with emotion, he gave Black a final glare of hate and stumbled away. But the drama of his exit was spoilt by the bottle of wine he knocked off a nearby table. Its occupants were dancing, so with a characteristic flourish the Greek peeled a one-hundred peseta note from his wallet and fluttered it down on the table.

Because he knew he’d nearly been in a fight Black was tense, but the incident was not without humour and he was
closer to laughter than anger. Beside him Manuela, pale and silent, shut her eyes, and he could hear her laboured breathing.

He said, ‘
Are
you his girl?’

‘No.’ She looked at him tearfully. ‘I’m not anybody’s.’

The taxi rattled down the road into Ibiza. To its right the high walls of the citadel hung like dark screens below the lighted windows of the houses in D’Alt Vila.

I’m tired and the
coñac
or the row with Kyriakou or
something
has given me indigestion, he decided. It would be good to be alone at this moment, to belch, to scratch, to fart, and to have no recollection of the night.

But Manuela is next to me. I can hear her sigh. She is worrying, so I hold her hand. She is thinking about
tomorrow
and the day after and all the other days because she’s got herself hooked by this dope-peddling bastard who fixes her ‘trips’ or whatever they call them. And she is basically a nice girl. Much nicer than I am. But she is trying to escape from something and she never will because she’s not tough enough. I think she’s in love with me, if there is such a thing, and I suppose I am with her, if there is such a thing. But nothing can be done about it and I no longer really have any excuse for messing about with her. I’d like to be a Kagan; serious, unbending, so committed that there are no margins for lapses, so dedicated that even humour is
eschewed
, let alone thoughts about women and sex and one’s future; so consecrated that the mind is not deflected from its houndlike pursuit of the objective by trivialities like
beautiful
sunsets, the flight of geese, or seas breaking on rocky headlands. And I am tight, and that’s why these thoughts go tumbling inconsequentially through my mind. But to-morrow I will shed this frivolous mood, I will pick up my resolve where I dropped it, and I shall leave this island with what I’ve come for or bloody well die in the attempt. And
that
I mean, so held me God, and
that
I swear in the name of my forefathers. But all the same I hope I don’t—die, I mean; or even find myself stuck in some foul smelling gaol.

And what is that you are saying, my little Manuela?

‘Ah, here we are. Of course. How stupid of me.’

The taxi had stopped in Calle Mayor. He paid it off and saw from his watch that it was almost three o’clock. The
calle
was deserted and dark but for the dim glow of on occasional street
lamp. The night air carried the stench of drains. He took her arm and they went up the steps and along a lane, turned right into another, then left, and came at last to the narrow alley high up on which crouched the tired old house where she lived.

The lane was steep and at the top he could see sky—and that was their first mistake—for he saw them coming out of a
doorway
, two of them, about fifty yards ahead, dark shapes blocking the stars, moving towards him.

The big man reached him first—and this disregard of Clausewitz’s principle of concentration was their second mistake—for, as he lunged, Black stepped aside and kicked the Cypriot’s genitals hard and accurately. Tino Costa doubled up and screamed, and Black slipped behind him and with the edge of a stiff palm chopped at the back of his neck.

These two movements occupied perhaps three seconds. It took about two and a half more to raise the Cypriot’s right forearm and fracture it across his knee. That left Kyriakou, and to him the Englishman was kinder, administering only the kick in the crutch, an area to which he felt far from well disposed. Then, largely for aesthetic reasons, he lifted the fallen Greek’s head in the crook of his arm and gave it two black eyes.