‘No.’ Willy shook his head. ‘I’m like Samson,’ he said. ‘My Delilah has cut off my lock of hair. I’m chained to the pillars of the Philistine fortress. All I can hope for now is one last moment of strength …’
‘It seems to me,’ said Simon, noticing that some colour had returned to Willy’s face, ‘that you’re looking much better already.’
‘It’s this excellent soup,’ said Willy.
‘Shall I get you some more?’
‘Would you? That would be kind. And tell the others that I’ll be down for lunch, and that after lunch we might improvise a new scene from my Herzen.’
‘We’ll have to do something indoors,’ said Simon, looking out over the balcony at the darkening sky. ‘It looks as if we’re in for a storm.’
Simon went downstairs with the empty mug, and finding no one else around passed through from the drawing-room into the kitchen. He found an open tin of consomme by the stove and scraped what remained of the brown jelly into a saucepan. He lit the gas, and then doubting that there would be enough soup to fill the mug, he looked away from the stove for a second tin. Instead of a tin of consommé, however, his eyes settled on a bottle of sherry. He frowned because he had made himself responsible for the removal of all alcohol from the house, yet here in the kitchen was an open, half-full bottle of sherry with its cork lying beside it on the counter. He picked it up and emptied it into the basin, threw the empty bottle into the bin and returned to the stove where the consomme was now hot. He poured it into the mug and took it back up stairs.
‘It doesn’t taste quite the same,’ said Willy.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Simon.
‘Rather too meaty. The last lot had a certain je ne sais quoi.’
‘This lot came from the bottom of the tin.’
‘That must be it.’ He sighed. ‘Well, I dare say it will do me good.’
FIVE
When Helen came to fetch Willy for lunch she found that the room was empty. She called for him, looked in the other rooms and then came down to tell the others that he had absconded.
Simon and Charlie set off immediately in the Jaguar but did not have far to go. Willy was sitting alone at a table on the pavement outside one of the bars at the corner of the Boulevard de la Californie drinking his third pastis. The other customers were all crowded inside behind the glass doors, looking up at the overcast sky, then down at the eccentric Englishman who seemed quite careless of the impending storm.
‘I was remembering those lines of Oscar Wilde,’ he said sheepishly to his friends. ‘You know – “Yet each man kills the things he loves …” – and the thought of all that absinthe he put down in Dieppe rather got the better of me.’ He followed them obediently to the car.
Back at the Villa Golitsyn Priss pretended to be angry with Willy, but the pastis had made him so amiable and benign that she gave up being angry, saying: ‘Just don’t drink so much, Will. Stick to a glass of wine at lunch.’
‘Certainly, my dear, certainly,’ he said meekly. ‘I’ll do anything you say.’
While waiting for lunch to be brought to the table, Willy put on a record of a tango, took hold of Helen, and pranced ineptly around the room in time to the music saying: ‘I learned to tango on the rambla in Buenos Aires. Just follow me and you’ll learn it too.’
Pâté, ham and salad were laid on the table for their midday meal. Priss apologized for the cold food. ‘On a day like this,’ she said, ‘we should have had Irish stew, but it’s Aisha’s day off and I had so many other things to do.’
‘We can warm up the wine,’ said Willy, drawing the corks from the two bottles of the usual Provençal rosé which had miraculously appeared on the table. He filled the glasses of his friends, but when it came to his own he left it empty and only towards the end of lunch drank what was now his ration.
Their conversation was general: there was no reference to Helen’s staying or going, none to sin. Even Charlie came out of the hard, melancholy mood in which his experiences of the night before seemed to have put him, but the amiability of the talk was like the closeness of the air – it presaged a storm. Willy’s jollity, though not forced, was measured; and Priss appeared apprehensive because of the very ease with which she had dispelled Willy’s medieval mood.
When lunch was over, Willy got to his feet and suggested an expedition. ‘There’s going to be a spectacular storm,’ he said. ‘I want to watch it. I want to be enveloped by it.’
‘I thought we were going to act a scene from Herzen,’ said Simon.
‘It will be a scene from Herzen,’ said Willy. ‘It’s just the sort of thing they did in the nineteenth century. Sturm und Drang. Let’s drive up into the mountains, to the Saut des Français or to the grande corniche above Eze. We’ll stand on the cliff tops and commune with the spirits of Herzen and Nietzsche.’ He went towards the hall. ‘Come on.’
Priss glanced uneasily at Simon, then at Charlie. ‘What do you think?’
‘Why not?’ said Charlie.
‘Do let’s,’ said Helen. ‘I love thunder and lightning.’
Priss stood up to follow her brother. ‘It is rather spectacular when there’s a storm here,’ she said to Simon.
‘Come on,’ Willy shouted from the hall.
‘We’d better take some umbrellas,’ said Simon.
‘The car’s sure to break down,’ said Charlie. ‘If it even drizzles, she gets water on the distributor.’
‘Then we’ll walk and get wet,’ said Willy.
‘Rather you than me,’ said Simon.
‘Don’t be so feeble,’ said Willy in just the tone of voice he had used at school.
They left the dishes stacked but unwashed in the kitchen and piled into the Jaguar. Helen sat in the middle of the back seat between Simon and Charlie, and Priss in the front next to Willy, who insisted upon driving himself. ‘I’m the only one who can drive,’ he said, ‘because I’m the only one who knows where we’re going.’
‘A mystery tour,’ said Charlie.
‘A mystery tour – exactly,’ said Willy. ‘Even I don’t know where we’ll end up.’
He drove out of the gates of the Villa Golitsyn and down the Boulevard de Cambrai to the Promenade: here he turned left so that they knew at least that they were not going up the valley of the Var. Nor did he turn off at Rhul’s Casino – the route towards the grande corniche. Instead Willy continued along the Promenade, round beneath the castle, past the Hôtel Suisse and the pretty colonnades of the Old Port to the Quai des deux Emmanuels, where he stopped the car by the boat Clöe.
‘Time to change our mode of conveyance,’ he said in a jocular yet hard tone of voice.
‘For what?’ asked Priss.
‘We’ll go out in Clöe,’ he said, ‘and watch the whole coast illuminated by the lightning.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Priss. ‘The boat will never stand up to the storm.’
‘Of course she will,’ said Willy, opening his door and climbing out of the car.
Priss turned and glanced at Simon and Charlie. Her habitually inexpressive eyes now flickered with panic. ‘Stop him,’ she muttered.
Charlie shrugged his shoulders. They all got out of the car. Willy was already standing by the boat: he put the index finger of his right hand into his mouth and then held it up in the air.
‘Not a puff of wind,’ he said. ‘Safe as houses.’
‘The calm before the storm,’ said Charlie.
Willy leaped onto the boat and pulled back the tarpaulin which covered the entrance to the cabin. ‘If you could just help me get the engine going,’ he said to Charlie.
Charlie hesitated.
‘Don’t,’ said Priss.
‘Come on, Charlie,’ said Willy. ‘Don’t hang about.’
Without looking back, Charlie jumped onto the boat, lifted the wooden cover from the engine and began to work on the choke.
‘This is madness, Will,’ said Priss.
‘You needn’t come,’ said Willy, looking
across at her with a mocking expression on his face. ‘Charlie will come with me.’
‘He can’t sail the boat alone.’ She turned to look at Simon, as if appealing to him to stop the expedition.
‘Look, Willy,’ said Simon. ‘I think this mystery tour has gone far enough.’
‘For you, perhaps. You always played it safe.’
‘It’s crazy, Willy. You’ll drown.’
‘Nothing ventured, nothing gained, Milson.’
‘We’re grown-up now Willy. We’re not boys at school any more.’
‘You’re as old as you feel, Milson, and you were always middle-aged.’
‘I’ll come,’ said Helen moving towards the boat.
‘No,’ said Willy. ‘Not you. You’re to stay with Simon.’
‘But I want to come,’ said Helen.
‘You can’t sail,’ said Willy. ‘You’ll only get in the way.’
Charlie tugged at the string of the starting motor. The engine turned two or three times and then stopped.
‘Stay with Simon,’ Priss said to Helen, pushing the girl towards the older man.
‘Don’t go,’ said Simon, catching hold of Priss’s arm.
She looked into his eyes. ‘I must,’ she said. ‘They haven’t got a chance without me.’
Charlie tugged at the rope again; again the engine turned and died.
‘We won’t be long,’ said Priss, gently removing Simon’s hand which had clutched at her coat. ‘Go to the Old Town and get some gnocchi or ravioli for supper.’
She jumped onto the boat. Charlie tugged at the rope for the third time. The engine turned, faltered, then came to life.
‘Cast off,’ Willy shouted, standing by the rudder.
Simon went to untie the rope from the bollard. Charlie put the boat into reverse gear and it slowly moved back from its mooring.
‘Take care,’ Simon shouted.
Helen started to cry.
‘We won’t be long,’ said Priss again.
Once they were clear of the other boats, Charlie changed from reverse into forward gear. The boat hesitated and then slowly moved towards the entrance to the harbour. Priss waved at the two who were still on shore but Charlie remained crouching by the engine and Willy, standing by the rudder, did not turn to look at either Helen or Simon but stared straight out to sea.
Simon and Helen watched the boat until it was lost to view behind the shop front of a ships’ chandler.
‘Will they be all right?’ Helen asked Simon, still sniffling from the tears which had now stopped.
Simon looked to the east, where the sky was a dark grey, then to the west, where it changed to a greenish yellow – the colour of split-pea soup. ‘It depends how long they stay out,’ he said. ‘And then perhaps there won’t be a storm. It sometimes stays like this for several days …’ But as he spoke there came the first sounds of thunder from the mountains above Monaco. He glanced at Helen. She had a timid expression on her face as if embarrassed to be left alone with him.
‘Let’s get the gnocchi anyway,’ he said.
They drove around the back of the castle and parked the car near the Place St François. They were in the narrow streets of the Old Town when it started to rain. One by one huge drops began to fall as if children were spitting from the top windows of the tall houses. They both looked up: the last lines of washing were drawn in. Beneath, in the street, the boxes of fruit and vegetables displayed outside the shops were hauled in by the shopkeepers. The rain began to fall more rapidly and Simon, with Helen at his side, walked faster to reach the shop where Priss liked to buy the home-made pasta. There was a crack of thunder as they opened the glass-fronted door and squeezed into the small shop.
The shopkeeper, a middle-aged woman, stood at the window watching the rain. She returned to her post behind the counter as Simon ordered first the gnocchi and then a kilo of the multicoloured ravioli which was a speciality of Nice. Helen suggested that they buy a bag of grated Parmesan cheese: again she smiled at him timidly when she proposed this, as if Simon might be angry with her for not taking his advice to leave Nice.
They waited in the shop for ten or fifteen minutes to see if the rain might fall with less force, but it went on relentlessly, and feeling an unspoken impatience to get back to the port from his young companion, Simon decided at last to go back to the car. By keeping to the sides of the buildings they remained more or less sheltered and only got wet as they came out into the Place St François and ran to the car. There they sat for a moment in the two front seats, both puffing to regain their breath. Helen brushed her wet hair from where it had stuck to her face, and wiped the water off her cheek and nose.
They parked the car in the same place on the quai and sat facing the empty space left by the absent Clöe. The other boats bobbed up and down because now there was a wind as well as rain and even in the port the water was whisked up into little waves. The swell in the Baie des Anges was greater: from where they sat they could see the spray thrown up by the waves which crashed onto the rocks beneath the castle.
They were both silent. Helen’s hair now stuck to her head like the sheeny skin of a mole: her small nose quivered when she sniffed.
‘We had better go back,’ said Simon. They’ve probably beached the boat on the other side of the bay.’
‘Let’s go to the Promenade,’ said Helen. ‘We might be able to see them.’
Simon started the engine and drove the car back towards the Villa Golitsyn. The wind was now strong: the palm trees on the Promenade were bent over by the force of the wind, and tables and chairs had been blown over. He drove slowly past the hotels, and Helen looked out over the turbulent water for Clöe, but such was the spray and the mingling greyness of both sky and sea, that nothing was visible at all.
‘I want to get out,’ she said.
He stopped the car and she ran in the rain to the edge of the pavement by the beach. Simon remained in the car, watching the wind blow her dress against her body. She stood there in the storm for three or four minutes looking out to sea. Then there came a wide flash of lightning which lit up the whole horizon, and a loud crash and crackle of thunder. She turned, and dodging the cars which crawled along the Promenade in the rain, came back to the car.
‘They’re not there,’ she said, sniffing from the cold, the wet, and fresh tears. There isn’t a boat in sight.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Simon. ‘They may have beached the boat already, or have taken shelter in Villefranche.’
They drove back to the Villa Golitsyn. Helen ran ahead of Simon into the house as if the others might be already there. Simon followed with the gnocchi and ravioli. He closed the front door behind him and saw Helen’s anxious face framed in the arch into the drawing-room. ‘They’re not back,’ she said.
‘No. They’re probably in Villefranche. They’ll telephone.’
While Helen went upstairs to change out of her soaking clothes, Simon lit a fire in the drawing-room. As he crouched, fanning the flames, he could hear the hiss of hot water running through the old pipes as Helen took a shower. When the fire was alight he too went up to his room. The rain had abated but the wind was still strong. One of the shutters to his window had again broken loose from the clip which normally held it fast. It was banging against the wall. Simon opened the window and stretched around in the wind and rain to secure it. He then took a bath and changed his clothes.
Helen was kneeling in front of the fire when he came down again. She was drying her hair at the blaze, her neck bent as if waiting for the executioner’s axe. She leaned on her elbows and fluffed her hair with her hands. Simon stood watching her, studying the two girlish calves sticking out from beneath the hem of her red dressing-gown, and the two hockey-playing heels jutting up from the half-worn slippers.
It was now around six. The black clouds blocked out the mellow light they could usually expect at that time of day so Simon turned on the lights and Helen, who had not realized he was there, gave a start. She lifted her head and clu
tched at the front of her dressing-gown.
‘Are they there?’ she asked.
‘No.’
Simon poured himself a drink from a half-empty bottle of wine and sat down by the fire.
‘I hope nothing’s happened to them,’ said Helen.
‘I’m sure they’ll be all right.’
She sat back on her heels – the hockey-playing heels – and with a puzzled, wistful expression said: ‘You know, it occurred to me that Willy might want the boat to be wrecked or capsize or something like that.’
‘Why?’
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘For the excitement, I suppose.’
‘Yes. Priss said he liked drama.’
‘It would be terribly dangerous, though, wouldn’t it? In a storm like this?’
‘Priss is a good sailor.’
‘I know. And so is Charlie. But it is a bit mad, isn’t it, going out like this just before a storm?’
‘Crazy.’
She smiled. ‘He is mad, isn’t he?’
‘Completely.’
‘I know I don’t know many people, but I don’t think I’ll ever meet anyone else like Willy.’ Again she smiled but not at Simon: she was smiling to herself.
Later she went upstairs and changed into jeans and a jersey while Simon washed up lunchtime’s dishes. At nine he cooked the gnocchi, made a sauce and a salad dressing. ‘We may as well eat,’ he said to Helen.
‘What can have happened to them?’ she asked, chewing the skin from around the nail of her thumb. ‘I mean, if they were in Villefranche they’d have telephoned, surely?’
‘They may have had to land on the Iles de Lerins.’
‘Isn’t there a telephone there?’
‘I shouldn’t think so.’
‘Shouldn’t we wait for them?’
‘They may have supper there.’
‘OK, then. Let’s eat. I’m starving.’
Neither went to bed. They sat playing Scrabble until one in the morning, when Helen, without a word, curled up on the sofa and fell asleep. Simon turned out some of the lights, put some new logs on the fire, then went back to his armchair, where he too dozed off.