Bowen pretended to have missed this until he saw that the other’s ear was still turned towards him to catch his reply. “Yes,” he said. “No. I like it very much.”
Estoril lay behind them, Bowen ruminated, remote, mysterious and immobile, as they said in the books. Words they did not say in all that many books formed at the threshold of his consciousness. He spoke some, employing a quiet, reasonable tone, into the magic of the Lusitanian night. If he lived he would ever afterward work harder, write more of his own stuff, do more with the kids, live in the United Kingdom. In his belly there was a plucking, a knocking, a shifting like the tide coming stealthily in among rock and weed. First adding “eat and drink less” to his ever-afterward list, he reflected that abroad was held to deepen your knowledge of your compatriots as well as all the other things it was held to do, and felt there might be something in this. In addition, abroad reputedly gave you fresh insight into—wait for it—yourself. So, for that matter, would a sharp go of locomotor ataxia or a visit from the dough-faced Christian physicist who had lived above him in Swansea. And anyway, he already had as much insight into himself as he cared to have.
With a toot and a continuous snuffling rattle, de Sousa drew level with them. He and Bachixa shouted gaily at each other. In the momentary beam of a headlight Bowen saw de Sousa’s big bright eye flashing away at him. It was as if de Sousa knew exactly how Bowen felt and was reacting to the knowledge in exactly the right way. Yes, speaking the old lingo was important all right. At that moment Bowen would have given much to be able to shout, across the variegated gulfs between them, some small message of solidarity or vituperation.
12
“THESE ARE SOME ships of the sardine fleet,” Afilhado said, “restoring their nets after their voyage. Many sardines are eaten by the people here. In the north and central districts, it is cod; here in the south, it is sardines.” His kindly serious face looked rather anxiously round the harbour, weighing up, it seemed, whether to risk overwhelming Bowen with information or to court the danger of leaving him in perplexity on some point. Then he smiled. “Here is something interesting. These fishermen are singing a sea-shanty as they lay out this large net and then place it in folds. By singing in this way they are able to regulate their movements. I think this must be rare now in England, Mr. Bowen.”
Sitting in the little sailing-boat between his sons, Bowen felt impressed and found no reason for not being. The notion that this sort of thing could take place without an invisible accompanying orchestra, without Spencer Tracy and Henry Fonda hanging about or joining in, was a pleasant one, even though very little could be done with that notion once it had presented itself. And if the same thing applied to the authentic toothless boatman who saw to the technicalities of their craft, the Moorish-looking fort that commanded the entrance to the harbour, the undeniably colourful fish-market at the landward end, then it was still worth coming some distance to find that these things were so and not otherwise. Although the scene on view was no more beautiful or significant than, say, a Pimlico bus-garage, yet no conceivable writer or painter (especially painter) could have been trusted to render it honestly: the whole shooting-match would have sunk without trace under the assaults of their “personal vision”, their “comment”, their “subordination of inessentials”. What gave them the idea that they knew what they meant by an inessential, much less could pick one out? Fair enough; but was it worth coming something over a thousand miles to look at this harbour and think these thoughts? Ah, well, now, that was all according, wasn’t it?
Afilhado was conferring with the boatman about something. Bowen could not help calling him Afilhado, even though he had worked out that this was not the chap’s name, but merely the perfect participle passive of the Portuguese verb cognate with “affiliate”, and could thus only be used with propriety by the Bannions, who had adopted him. They had more or less adopted the five Bowens too, come to that, having extricated them from Oates’s establishment and installed them rent-free in a chalet they owned in the mountains that overlooked the coastal plain. Today Harry Bannion had summoned them for lunch, preceding this by the boating party for the male Bowens and a shopping expedition for Barbara under Isabella’s guidance. Sandra Bowen was being stuffed and cosseted by the Bannions’ maids. Some drinks had already been had that morning; more were promised before the meal and more still would beyond question be had during and after it. It was going to be a nice full day. One of the main snags about abroad was that there was normally nothing to do there, unless indeed you turned your back on reason and went on route-marches round foreign Towers of London and Hampton Courts. As soon as you crossed the sea you stopped having any motive beyond the merest whim for being where you were rather than anywhere else. How different when you were taken abroad by the Army, which imposed on you a purpose outside yourself and provided you with a job, a circle of friends, recognised modes of leisure and a coherent attitude to your surroundings—the very things a civilian traveller had to manage without. Well, for the next few hours at any rate these deprivations were going to lose their bite.
“You notice this ship here, Mr. Bowen,” Afilhado’s mild voice was saying. “You notice perhaps it is built in a different fashion from the others. It is higher above
