Sea Lord

“It surprised me, I confess.”

“It isn’t true. So don’t tell people it is. My father bred laboratory rats and my mother was a marriage guidance counsellor before she did a bunk with one of her clients.”

He was sceptical. “If you say so, Johnny.”

“I do say so.”

“Then I must believe you.” He sipped his lemonade. “And if this mistaken man returns, what do I tell him?”

“To take a flying fuck at the moon, of course.”

“It has often occurred to me,” he said blandly, “that in Sweden we do not have such an offensive language as in England.”

Poor bloody Sweden, I thought. “You haven’t seen me, Ulf.” I laid it on the line for him. “You understand that? I don’t exist. I’ve vanished.”

“I understand, Johnny. Trust me.”

I didn’t care who searched for me. I just wanted to be left alone.

Or almost alone. I lingered a few days in Horta, trying to sense a pattern in the Atlantic weather and hoping that some girl would offer herself as Sunflower’s crew. The delay also gave Ulf a chance to inflict himself on Sunflower. He told me that her cockpit drains were inadequate, her bow fairleads misplaced, and that her self-steering lacked robustness. He told me to replace the aluminium whisker-poles with carbon fibre rods and when I asked him how the hell I was supposed to find carbon fibre rods on some remote islands in the middle of the bloody Atlantic he told me to buy sailboard masts. It was actually a good idea. That’s the trouble with Ulf; he’s usually right, but contrariness makes most people do the very opposite of whatever he advises. He advised me to give up smoking, so I puffed pipe smoke at him till he left.

That evening I met a Dutch girl who was almost persuaded to jump her friends’ yacht to cross the Atlantic with me, but next morning she thought twice about it before disappearing northwards to mother and safety. I began to think about leaving myself. It wasn’t really the season for a southern run across the Atlantic, and the weather charts were not helpful, so I decided I should sail south, far south. I remembered how Joshua Slocum had set out to sail round the world from west to east, but, chased by pirates off the African shore, had abruptly decided to go east to west instead. If such whimsical decisions were good enough for Joshua and Spray then they were good enough for Johnny and Sunflower, so I dragged out the charts of the southern oceans. There was a river on the coast of Africa where I’d once made some friends and where I knew I could find provisions. Sunflower, despite Ulf’s gloomy prognostications, was in fine fettle and ready to go.

So, next morning, I bought wine, cheese, fresh fruit and vegetables. I had decided to leave at nightfall. I finished provisioning at midday, sent Georgina and Sister Felicity a postcard, then went down to the cabin to sleep. It was hot and the smell of varnish still lingered in the close air. It was made worse by the odour of powdered boric acid which I’d scattered in the bilges as a lethal present to the Azorean cockroaches. I wore nothing but a faded pair of denim shorts, but I was still sweating. I’d closed the companionway to make a sleep-inducing darkness, but instead of sleeping I lay fretfully awake. I listened to the lap of water on the steel hull and tried to let it lull me into drowsing.

I had just succeeded in dropping into a half-doze when someone stepped from the quay ladder on to Sunflower’s deck. I swore at the interruption. With any luck it was only someone mooring their boat alongside, but then I heard the footsteps climb down into the cockpit followed by a tentative knock on the closed washboards. “If that’s you, Ulf,” I shouted, “get lost.”

“Mr Rossendale?” It was a woman’s voice.

I slid off the bunk and shot back the companionway. The sudden brightness of the afternoon sun made me blink at my visitor. I was so astonished that at first I thought I was sleeping and this was some dream apparition. “Good God in his merciful heaven,” I said in greeting.

“Good afternoon,” said Jennifer Pallavicini.

“Hello.” I didn’t know what else to say. Nor, evidently, did she because her customary certitude had deserted her. She was desperately ill at ease, perhaps because, instead of being in an air-conditioned art gallery, she was on a tiny island in a scruffy yacht with a man she had recently accused of being a thief. She looked cool enough, despite the wretched heat, in a loose white blouse and a pair of bleached designer jeans, but there was a timidity in her eyes that seemed unnatural to this chillingly capable girl. I rested my forearms on the washboards. “I’ve been wondering,” I said irrelevantly, “how come an English girl has a name like Pallavicini?”

“My father was Italian, of course. My mother’s English.”

“ ‘Was’?” I asked.

“My father died ten years ago.”

She said it almost defiantly, as if challenging me to find the right response. I grunted some dutiful regret, then slid the washboards out of place and dumped them on the chart table’s chair. “I can offer you tea,” I said hospitably, “rotgut Azorean wine, Irish whiskey, beer, orange juice, or instant coffee.”

“I haven’t come to be sociable, Mr Rossendale.” That was said with a touch of her old asperity.

“Then stay thirsty, damn you.” I poured myself a mug of the rotgut wine, took it and the bottle to the cockpit and sat down. Jennifer Pallavicini remained standing. “Sir Leon sent me,” she said, as though it entirely explained her presence.

“I thought you’d come because you found me irresistible. Or was it to apologise?” I saw the flash of angered pride on her face. “Oh, for God’s sake, girl, sit down and have a drink. I won’t poison you.”

“Tea,” she said as she sat. “Please.”

Neither of us spoke as I made the tea. This was evidently not to be a very jolly meeting. I remembered she drank her tea without either sugar or milk, so I served it black with a slice of lemon. She thanked me. I asked her how she had known where I was.

“Sir Leon alerted all the ports where you might be found. We had a man here some days ago, and he arranged with a Swedish yachtsman to tell us if you arrived.”

Ulf, I thought, the smug, treacherous, bloody bastard. I hoped his precious yawl sank. I didn’t say as much. Instead, because of the searing heat, I rigged the awning over the boom to shade the cockpit. If Jennifer Pallavicini was grateful for my solicitousness, she didn’t thank me.

I sat down and sipped my warm wine. “Presumably Sir Leon is making one last desperate appeal to me?” She did not reply and I shook my head. “I didn’t steal the bloody thing. I had nothing whatever to do with it.”

She ignored my denial. Instead, and in a very fervent voice, she asked whether I had liked the Van Gogh.

Her question, and the sincere tone in which it was asked, took me by surprise. “Yes, I did like it. Very much.” I smiled. “It was like a splinter of sunlight hanging on the wall.”

“He was good at colour,” she said dispassionately, “perhaps the best of them all.”

“I used to go to my mother’s room to look at it,” I went on. “She didn’t approve of my doing that, but she didn’t approve of much that I did. In the end she kept the East wing locked to stop what she called my trespassing.”

“But you could pick the locks?”

“Indeed I could, Miss Pallavicini, and I frequently did. Does that make me a thief?”

She did not answer. I suddenly wondered whether she really was ‘Miss’ Pallavicini. She wore no rings.

She saw my glance at her hands, and seemed amused by it. In turn she examined me. I was sweaty, scarred, suntanned and filthy. I supposed she was a girl who liked her men ponced up with armpit anti-fouling and eau-de- Cologne, which rather spoilt any chance I might have with her. Sitting there I realised that I really did rather want a chance with her, but that could have been mere disappointment at being turned down by the Dutch girl.

“We checked your story about the boat’s name,” Jennifer said suddenly. “You were telling the truth.”

“Thank you, your honour.” I mocked her by tugging at a sunbleached forelock.

She stared quizzically at me. “How do you make a living?”

“With these.” I held up my hands. “In a month or two I’ll be in waters where there are no boatyards, no chandleries, no sail-lofts, but enough broken yachts to need a slew of skills. I’ll mend engines, tension rigging and rebuild hulls. If I can’t mend it, then it’s probably broken for life.”