Wildtrack

  I explained that I'd crossed the Atlantic twice in Sycorax, which somewhat damped down the hearty atmosphere of bonhomie that Bannister had tried so hard to create. He looked at his watch as though he had urgent business elsewhere. "We'll see you at the party tonight, of course?"

  "Am I invited?" I asked disingenuously.

  "And do bring a friend, won't you? Drinks at six, end time unknown, and tomorrow will be celebrated as Hangover Sunday."

  I promised to be there and, once they'd gone, I spent a happy day fixing the bowsprit against its oak bitts, then bracing it with a bobstay made of galvanized chain. It was hard work, and therefore satisfying. At around four o'clock, when I was tightening the gammon iron's last bolt, Mystique returned.

  I finished the job, washed off the worst of the dirt, then rowed myself out to the anchorage. The American girl had gone down into her cabin so, as I approached, I hailed her. "Mystique! Mystique!"

  "Wait a minute." The voice was sharp. "Who is it?"

  "A neighbour."

  "OK. Wait."

  I was quite ridiculously apprehensive. I wanted to like her, and for her to like me. She must have been washing for when she appeared she had a big towel wrapped round her body and a smaller towel twisted about her hair. She seemed very suspicious of me. "Hi."

  "Hello." I was holding on to Mystique's starboard guardrail and the setting sun, reflecting from the polished aluminum hull, was blinding. I was stripped to the waist. "My name's Nick Sandman."

  "Jill-Beth Kirov. Kirov like the ballet." Close up I saw that Jill-Beth Kirov had a tanned face, dark eyes, and the strong American jawline that my father always claimed came from chewing too much gum. My father always had a theory foreverything and I remembered him explaining the gum theory as we sat having tea in New York's Plaza Hotel. He'd liked to take his children on his travels, and I thought how much the old goat would have liked this girl. I looked to see if she had a wedding ring. She did not. "Do you mind if I don't shake hands?" she asked.

  If she had offered a hand then the towel round her body could have fallen. I solemnly excused her the politeness, and said there was a party at the house tonight and I wondered if she'd like to come as my guest.

  "Tonight?" She seemed somewhat taken aback by the immediacy of the invitation, but I noted she did not immediately refuse. Instead she looked up at Bannister's lavish house. "He's a celeb, right?"

  "A celeb?"

  "Famous," she explained. "A celebrity."

  "Oh! Right."

  "Are you his boatman?"

  "No."

  "OK." She was clearly unimpressed with me, despite my denial of servant status. "What time's this party?"

  "Drinks at six. I gather it goes on most of the night."

  "Formal?"

  "I don't think so."

  "Remind me what the guy's name is?"

  "Anthony Bannister."

  She clicked her tongue in sudden recognition. "The television guy, right? He was married to Kassouli's daughter?"

  "That's the fellow."

  "That was kind of messy." She stared up at the house again as if expecting to see blood trickling down the neatly striped lawn. I watched her. It would be foolish to say I fell in love, but I wanted to. "It might be fun," she said dubiously.

  "I hear you're writing a book?" I asked in an effort to prolong the encounter.

  "Maybe we'll have a chance to talk about it." She did not sound as if she was looking forward to the opportunity. "Thanks for the invitation. Can I leave it open? I'm kind of busy."

  "Of course."

  "Thanks again." She stayed on deck to make sure that I pushed my dinghy away from her boat. "Hey! Nick?"

  "Yes." I had to turn round on the dinghy's thwart to see her face again.

  She was grimacing. "What did you do to your back?"

  "Car accident. Front tyre blew out. No seatbelt."

  "Tough." She nodded to show that as far as she was concerned the encounter was over.

  I rowed back to my wharf, disappointed. I asked myself what I had expected. An invitation to board Mystique? An adolescent sigh and a melting of two hearts into one? I told myself that I was not in love, that all I had done was focus my frustrations on a girl who was a symbol of freedom and release, yet, even as I tried to persuade myself of that good sense, I failed. I tried to turn her wary words into an acceptance of my invitation, and I failed at that too.

  "Gone fishing, Sandman?" It was Fanny Mulder who lounged in Wildtrack's centre cockpit and who must have been watching me talk to the American girl. "Catch anything?" he asked mockingly.

  "Lost any masts recently, Fanny? Gone drifting in the night again, have you?"

  "Not since we left you, Sandman."

  I rowed past him, watched all the way by his knowing and cunning gaze. But I was thinking of other things, of a girl with a strong face and a name just like the ballet. My boat was in the water, and I was ready for love.

  Over two hundred people arrived for the party. Cars blocked the driveway and two helicopters drooped their rotors on the upper lawn. It stayed blessedly fine so drinks were served on the wide terrace that looked down on the river. A rock band played loudly enough to inflict a physical punch on the belly with their sound waves. Chefs carved at joints of beef and ham, the bar was frantic, and the party an evident success from its very beginning. A lot of the faces were famous: actresses, actors, television people, politicians—all enjoying being recognised. Behind the band was a giant chart of the North Atlantic on which a notional route for Wildtrack 's assault on the St Pierre was marked. Matthew's film crew had lit the podium ready for Bannister's announcement. Wildtrack herself was dressed overall with flags and coloured lights, and guests were invited to cross a rickety gangplank to inspect the boat.

  Melissa, in a dress of silk that swirled and floated like gossamer, glimpsed me across the terrace. She greeted me with an affectionate kiss. "Tony wants me to look at his ghastly boat, but I told him I suffered quite enough of boats when I was married to you. How are you?" She did not wait for an answer. "We're staying in some frightfully twee hotel up on the moor. A hundred and fifty pounds a night, and with spiders in the bath. Can you believe it? Did you know I was coming?"

  "Yes. It's nice to see you. Are you with the Honourable John?"

  "Of course I am. He's found a socialist MP so they're agreeing on just how ghastly the miners are. Is that your boat?" She peered down at Sycorax, which huddled a hundred yards away against my wharf. "It looks very dinky. Where are its thingummybobs?"

  "Masts?"

  "Don't tell me, I'd only be bored." She stepped back and looked me up and down. "Haven't you got anything better to wear?"

  I was dressed in flannel trousers, a washed but un-ironed white shirt, and was using an Old Etonian tie as a belt. I was wearing my only pair of proper shoes, valuable brogues, and thought I looked fine. "I think I look fine."

  "A trifle louche, darling."

  "I don't have any money for clothes. I'm paying it all in child support."

  "You'd better go on paying it, Nicholas. I told my lawyer you were planning to sail round the world and he says we might have to nail a writ to your mast. Are you going to do a scarper?"

  "Not immediately."

  "You'd better get the mast ready, anyway. And that reminds me, your cheque hasn't arrived for the children's summer outfits."

  "I can't think why. It was sent by native runner."

  "It had better arrive soon. Oh, look! Isn't that the bishop who wants us all to be bigamists? It's going to be such a lovely party. Just like old times. Doesn't it seem odd to be back in the house? I keep expecting your father to pinch my bum. Would you be a treasure and get me some more champagne?"

  I was dutifully a treasure. There was no sign of Jill-Beth Kirov coming, and every time I glanced down at the anchorage I saw her dinghy still moored to Mystique's transom. I saw the Honourable John deep in conversation with a bearded MP who seemed to be nodding fervent agreement. Anthony Bannister was hav
ing an animated conversation with a young and pretty actress whom I recognized but could not name. As Melissa had said, it was just like one of my father's old parties; nothing had changed, and I felt just as out of place as ever. I knew very few of the guests and liked even less of them. Matthew was present, but was tied up with his preparations for filming Bannister's announcement.

  Dusk came. The last guest had evidently inspected Wildtrack, and the gangplank, which had precariously rested on two inflatable dinghies, was dismantled. A pretty girl accosted me, but when she discovered I was not in television she abandoned me for a more hopeful prey. The bishop was introduced to me, but we had nothing in common and he too drifted away. Jill-Beth Kirov had still not arrived. I saw Melissa teasing Bannister.

  Angela Westmacott, seeing the familiarity with which Melissa treated her man, waylaid me. "Do you mind your ex-wife being here?"

  "I've been pleasurably feeding her champagne. Of course I don't mind."

  Angela edged towards the balustrade and, out of courtesy, I followed. "I'm sorry we had to ask you to move out of the house," she said abruptly.

  "It was time I moved out." I wondered why Angela had suddenly become so solicitous of my comfort. Her long hair was twisted into a pretty coil at the back of her narrow skull and she was wearing a simple white dress that made her look very young and vulnerable. I supposed that such a simple white dress probably cost more than Sycorax 's mainsail.

  She looked at her diamond-studded watch. "Tony's going to make his announcement in forty-five minutes."

  "I hope it goes well," I said politely.

  Angela looked at me coldly. "I should have spoken to you before, Nick, but things have been very busy. Tony will make the announcement, then introduce Fanny. I'd like you to be next. You won't have to say anything."

  "Me?" I glanced towards the dark shape of Mystique and saw that Jill-Beth's dinghy was no longer there, which meant she must have left her yacht, but I could see no sign of her on the terrace.

  "Tony will introduce you after Fanny," Angela explained pedantically.

  I looked back to her. "Why?"

  She sighed. "Please don't be difficult, Nick. I just want to have on film the moment when you're named as Wildtrack's navigator." She saw I was about to protest, and hurried on. "I know we should have talked earlier. I know! That was my fault. But please, tonight, just do as I ask."

  "But I'm not going to navigate."

  She kept her patience. Perhaps, as she claimed, she had overlooked the small matter of my agreement, but I suspected she had preferred to try and bounce me into Bannister's crew. By catching me in company and presenting me with a fait accompli she gambled on my spontaneous acceptance. She clearly feared my refusal, for she fed me a passionate argument about the advantages of ending the film in the way she wanted; how it would knit the two programmes together, and how it would offer me a double appearance fee as well as the fame of being on a winning team. She then painted an heroic picture of Nick Sandman, victorious navigator, encouraging the handicapped by his achievement.

  I shook my head. "But I'd be about as much use to Bannister as a pregnant pole-vaulter."

  That checked her. She frowned. "I don't understand?"

  "I told you before; I'm not a tactician navigator, and that's what you need. You need someone who'll hunt down every breath of wind and trace of current. You need a ruthless taskmaster. I hate that sort of sailing. My idea of sailing is to bung the boat in front of a convenient wind and open a beer."

  "But you're a brilliant navigator," she said in protest. "Everyone says so."

  "I can generally find the right continent," I agreed, "but I'm not a racing tactician. That's what Bannister needs. For me to be in his crew just wouldn't be honest, or fair."

  "Honest?" She bridled at that word.

  "I really hate making yachts go fast for no other reason than to win races. So it would be excessively dishonest of me to pretend that I cared about the St Pierre. I don't. And I fear I don't really care about your audience ratings, either."

  The last comment touched her to the quick, perhaps because it attacked the holy grail of television producers. "You're so goddamned righteous!" There was anger, almost hysteria, in her voice that had been loud enough to attract embarrassed looks from the nearer guests.

  "I just like to be truthful," I said gently, thereby hoping to deflect the threatening storm.

  But Angela's patience snapped like a rotted hawser. "Do you really want my film to be truthful? Because the honest truth, Nick Sandman, is that you're nothing but a privileged public-schoolboy who chose the mindless trade of soldiering because you didn't care to exert yourself in the real world. You were wounded in an utterly pointless war, fighting for a quite ridiculous cause, and you probably went down there like an excited puppy with a wet nose and a wagging tail because you thought it would be fun. But we won't say that in our film. We won't say that you were a vacuous upper-class layabout with a gun, and that if it hadn't been for a stupid medal you'd be nothing now, nothing! And we won't say that you're too proud or too stubborn or too idiotic to make a proper living now. Instead we'll applaud your sense of adventure! Nick Sandman, eccentric rebel, refusing to recognize life's misfortunes. We'll say you were a war hero! Doing your bit for Britain!" Her passion was extraordinary, unleashed in a corrosive flood of emotion that lacerated the evening and appalled the terrace into an awed silence. Even the musicians ceased playing. "And the real truth, Nick Sandman, is that you can't even be an eccentric rebel without our help, because you haven't got a boat. And when you do get it, if you ever get it, you'll be finished inside six months because you'll run out of money and you'll be too lazy to earn anymore! Is that the truth you want my film to tell?"

  A very embarrassed Bannister appeared at her side. "Angela?"

  She shook him off. There were tears in her eyes; tears of pure rage. "I'm trying to help you!" She hissed the words at me.

  "Goodnight," I said to Bannister.

  "Nick, please." He was every bit as excruciated as his guests.

  "Goodnight," I said again, then backed off from the two of them. The guests were turning away in the clumsy pretence that nothing had happened. I saw that Jill-Beth Kirov had arrived, but she too turned abruptly away from me. Everyone was awkward, looking away from me. The evening, which had been such a success, was suddenly foully soured, and I was the focus of the embarrassment.

  Then Melissa knifed through the crowd. "Nick, darling! I thought you were going to dance with me?"

  "I'm leaving." I said it quietly.

  "Don't be such a bloody fool." She said it just as quietly, then turned imperiously towards the rock group. "You're paid to make a noise, not gawp at your betters. So strum something!"

  A semblance of normality returned to the terrace. Melissa and I danced, or rather she danced and I rhythmically disguised my limp. I was furious. Angela had disappeared, leaving Bannister with his actress. A whispered rumour that Angela was suffering from overwork circled the terrace. I forced myself to dance, but was saved from the indignity by the sudden collapse of my right leg that spilt me sideways to clutch desperately at the flagpole.

  "Are you drunk?" Melissa asked with amusement.

  "My leg's still buggered up."

  "We'll sit." She took my arm and steered me to the terrace's edge where she lit a cigarette. "I must say that loathsome girl was quite right. You did go off to the Falklands with a wet nose and a wagging tail. You were frightfully bloodthirsty."

  "I got paid for being bloodthirsty, remember?" I was massaging my right knee, trying to force sensation back into it.

  Melissa watched me. "Poor Nick. Was it an awful little war?"

  "Not awful, just unfair. Like playing soccer against a school for the blind."

  "It was awful, I can tell. Poor Nick. And I was beastly to you. I thought your leg was cured?"

  "It is, most of the time." But not now. My back felt as if it was being harrowed by fire, while my leg seemed nerveless. I felt the ol
d panic that I would never be functional. I knew I'd never be fully fit again; I'd never run uphill with a heavy pack or step down a wicket to drive a ball sweetly through the covers, but I did want to be functional. I wanted a leg that would hold me on a pitching foredeck while I changed a staysail. It didn't seem much to ask, and for days it seemed possible until, quite suddenly, like now, the damned knee would disappear beneath me and the pain would start tears to my eyes.

  Melissa blew out a stream of smoke. "Do you know what your problem is, Nick?"

  "An Argentinian bullet."

  "That's just self-pity, which isn't like you. No, Nick, your problem is that you fall in love with all the wrong women."

  I was so astonished that I forgot my knee. "I don't!" I protested.

  "Of course you do. You were quite soppy about me once, and you're just the same about that sordid little television tart who's just clawed you."

  "That's ridiculous."

  Melissa laughed at my shocked expression. "I saw you fancying her before she exploded in your face. You always fall helplessly in love with pale blondes, which is extremely silly of you because they're never as vulnerable as you think they are."

  "Angela isn't vulnerable."

  "But she looks it, which triggers you. I know you, Nick. You should settle for some sturdy girl with whacking great thighs. You'd be much happier."

  "Like that one?" I said, rather ungallantly, for Jill-Beth hardly fitted Melissa's prescription. The American girl was dancing with Fanny Mulder and, to my chagrin, seemed intensely happy to be in his arms.

  Melissa watched till Jill-Beth and Mulder were swallowed up by the other dancers. "She'd do," she finally said, "except you prefer your women to look like wounded birds" She sighed. "Lust is so frightfully inconvenient, isn't it? Do you remember when we first met? You were positively festooned with weapons and smothered in camouflage cream. You looked endlessly glamorous; not at all like the sort of man who'd ever worry about a mortgage." We'd met at the Bath and West Show where my regiment had staged a display. Melissa's father, a retired brigadier, had insisted on giving the officers a drink in his hospitality tent where I'd been dazzled by Melissa. Who now shrugged. "I don't understand lust at all. That bishop probably does." She waved her cigarette towards the bishop who, in clerical purple, was dancing with a girl who seemed to be wearing nothing but a sequinned fishing net. "Do you know he groped me?"