Sea Lord

strewn across the cockpit grating.

“It was just business, Johnny, just business.” He sounded miserable, while I was mildly astonished to discover that he had a streak of jelly instead of a backbone. I’d expected one hell of a fight from him, but he was plainly scared. Nor was there any point in hitting him again, because he wasn’t going to fight back. “You’re a creep, Ulf. You’re a real pain in the arse.”

He nodded eager agreement with my judgment. “But you are a real English earl, Johnny, yes?” He had backed to stand beside the mizzen mast at the far end of his cockpit, from where he nodded towards Jennifer Pallavicini to prove the source of his information.

“And you’re queen of the bloody fairies, Ulf. Piss off.”

I had hardly acknowledged Jennifer Pallavicini’s presence though, if I was honest with myself, I knew I’d been showing off to her. These days women might claim that they prefer enlightened men who can change nappies, do the ironing, and whip up tasty little souffles, but in truth I suspect they prefer men who can beat the shit out of loathsome Swedes.

I motored back to Sunflower. The confrontation had made me feel much better, which was some consolation. Two hours later I cast off, hoisted my sails, and did what I had promised to Jennifer Pallavicini.

I sailed away.

Part Three

I sailed away, but I didn’t go south. I went north. It was a bastard of a voyage into the teeth of a nasty wind, and a voyage made worse by a persistent equinoctial gale that tried to drive Sunflower into Biscay. Luckily we had enough westing to weather the two days and nights of wind, but it made the approach to the Channel a long fight against the northwesterlies that followed the storm. Once again I saw Sunflower’s reluctance to go to England: she blew out the clew of the storm jib, the topping lift broke, and a pin came out of a sheave in the self-steering gear. They were all simple enough repairs, but were best done in calmer weather. That weather came as we passed the Lizard. The wind died and there was only a long, long greasy swell from the west over which we crept on Sunflower’s motor.

I passed Salcombe by. I couldn’t face Charlie. He had repaired my boat, provisioned me, and I knew all that generosity had been a vicarious adventure for Charlie. He could not be a sea-gypsy any more, so he had made it possible for me to go back to the deep waters in his place; but now I was crawling back with my tail between my legs. The time would come when I’d explain everything to him, but for now I could not bear to see the disappointment on his face, so I sailed up the Devon coast to the anonymity of the River Exe where I moored Sunflower at a vacant buoy. The sky clouded over at dusk and, by nightfall, it was raining. Welcome to England.

I was woken at three in the morning by an irate man who had just motored from Guernsey and wanted his mooring buoy back. I obliged him, anchoring Sunflower in what seemed like a vacant patch of the river instead. At five in the morning I was woken again as the falling tide grounded me. By seven Sunflower was lying canted on her starboard chine in the middle of a drying sandbank. It was still raining.

It took me the rest of the day to find a pub that could point me towards a man who might just have a spare mooring that I could possibly rent. In the end I found such a man and he didn’t charge me a penny. He was a fisherman whose boat had stayed ashore since the winter. “It ain’t worth the bother,” he told me, “because there’s nothing left out there, not even scruff. They’ve fished it clean! You can spend a week out there and only get a wet arse for your trouble.” I consoled him with a pint, then told him I had to go to London for two days. “Your yacht’ll be safe, boy, never you mind. But put your oars behind my garden shed, otherwise they’ll be stolen, sure as eggs.” I’d rowed the dinghy ashore, because I didn’t want to risk using the outboard and it being stolen while the dinghy was marooned on the foreshore.

I caught a train next morning and, because there wasn’t a spare seat, stood all the way from Devon to London. By the time the train pulled into Paddington I was in a foul temper.

London didn’t help my mood. I’d just spent six weeks in the Atlantic where the greatest inconvenience had been listening to a yellow-bellied Swede, but London was nothing but inconvenience. It was crowded, stinking and self-important. The people had faces wan as curdled milk. They scurried like rats through their noisy tunnels, they littered, and all about them was noise. Noise, noise, Goddamned bloody noise. Trains clattering, taxis thumping, horns and voices and sirens and jackhammers battered the air. I had not visited London in over four years, and I hoped to God I would never have to visit the place again.

I caught a bus to the Strand, then walked to the solicitors’ office. Sir Oliver Bulstrode was not in the building, but would I like to leave a message? The girl at the reception desk was plainly intimating that scruffy men walking unannounced off the pavement were not welcome as clients at Bulstrode, Finch, Finch and McElroy. “I’ll wait,” I said curtly.

I sat down in an ancient leather chair and picked up a copy of The Field.

“Are you a client, sir?” The receptionist was looking understandably alarmed. I was wearing my cleanest jeans, my least dirty shirt, and a pair of fairly new tennis shoes, but I still didn’t look much like the usual class of gold-plated shit that did business with Bulstrode.

“I’m a client,” I said. “My name’s Rossendale.”

“Rossendale?”

“As in Stowey, Earl of,” I said.

There was a pause of two heartbeats. “Would you like coffee, my lord? Or something stronger, perhaps?”

I smiled back at her. It wasn’t her fault that British Rail couldn’t run a railroad, or that I was pissed off with London, or that I was angry at my twin sister, or that I was dressed like a vagabond. “What I’d really like,” I said, “is to take you out to lunch, but as I have to speak with Sir Oliver I’ll settle for a glass of his best Scotch instead.”

Sir Oliver arrived a half-hour later. He’s a plump man with a kindly face, a real Santa Claus of a face, but the benign look is utterly deceptive for, like all the top lawyers, he has a heart of flint and the morals of a rabid weasel. He raised plump hands in astonishment when he saw me. “My lord! I had no idea you were coming! Have I mislaid our appointment?”

“No, Oliver, you have not. This is by nature of a surprise visit.”

“And a very welcome surprise too! Upon my word, what a distinct pleasure this is. I shall cancel my luncheon engagement immediately.” Which was his way of telling me that he would double his hourly fees for this unannounced visit, which did not bother me because I had no intention of paying. Sir Oliver and his partners had sent their children to the best schools and their wives to the most expensive fat farms on the proceeds of the Stowey Estate, and I considered it was high time he did something for me. “I see you’ve been given some whisky,” he said. “Good! Good! Do come into my sanctum, John!” He always greeted me as ‘my lord’, and thereafter used my Christian name to show that he could assume intimate terms with the nobility. The man’s a creep, but a clever one.

He fussed me into his office which was stiff with leather chairs and ancient hunting prints. At weekends he plays the country squire, plodding round six damp Essex acres with a shotgun and a mangy spaniel. “Sit down, John, do! I shall just rearrange luncheon, if you’ll allow me.”

Ten minutes later we were served plates of salmon salad in his office. He opened a bottle of Entre-Deux- Mers. “I was so sorry not to have attended your mother’s funeral,” he told me as he poured the wine. “I had an unbreakable engagement that day, which was so very sad.” He lied, of course. If the Rossendale family had still had any flesh on their bones he’d have been down to the funeral like a shot, but as he thought he’d squeezed us dry then there had clearly been no profit for him in making the journey. “So sad,” he murmured.

“I missed the funeral too,” I said. “I walked out before it began.”

He must have known that already for he showed no reaction, not even to enquire why I had abandoned the ceremony. Instead he smiled beneficently. “I must say, John, you do look very well. Sun and sea, eh? And still as thin as ever! You do put the rest of us to shame.” He paused for a split second. “I thought you were even now sailing into the unknown? So very brave of you, I always think.” He bestowed me an admiring look. In fact Sir Oliver