One for the Gods (The Peter & Charlie Trilogy) (17 page)

Leaving the boat, Charlie and Peter encountered Guy de Sainval. He greeted them with elegant cordiality.

“I’ve been looking for you two everywhere. What
have
you been up to? I’ve called you more times than I care to admit. If you turn into recluses, there will be no point in my staying here.”

They told him about their imminent voyage on
Cassandra.

“That’s the American couple? But how can you? They have no crew. I rather enjoy the yachting life myself, but only with an army of divine stewards at my beck and call. How brave and Spartan of you. And you’re leaving so soon? How lucky I found you. Madeleine is having a party for me tonight. I was determined to have you.”

Charlie and Peter glanced at each other and made simultaneous sounds of polite refusal.

“But you must. It’s in honor of Harry leaving me again. I think this makes the eighth time. He’ll be back, but we must celebrate while we can. Everybody you know will be there. We will make it a farewell party for you. I’ve even invited some very disreputable young men to make sure Jeannot would come. He’s gone quite mad. I hear he arranged an absolutely spell-binding orgy last night.” Guy looked at Peter. “Only a few days ago the mere mention of your name would have brought him running. I think fidelity is your exclusivity.”

“I’m sorry, Guy,” Charlie cut in hastily. “We just haven’t time for parties. We’re getting away first thing in the morning.”

“But this is impossible.” Guy put his hand on Charlie’s arm. “You were to be my campaign for the summer. The
bouillabaisse
was only the preliminary to an absolutely dazzling series of maneuvers. Why should Jeannot be the only one to benefit from your divine visitation?” He flashed them a wicked smile. “Oh, yes, I’m afraid Jeannot and
la petite soeur
Anne have been talking. It cheered me up enormously. The thought of having both of you, since that’s apparently the form your fidelity takes, made me quite giddy.”

“Don’t believe everything you hear,” Charlie said coolly, managing a slight smile and revealing nothing of the anger that shook him.

Guy lifted a silencing hand to him. “Oh, but I want to. Some of the details about you—too delectable, though they didn’t come as a complete surprise. Tomorrow morning? I shall have my bags packed. I don’t think Greece sounds like my sort of country, but there must be some place where the pastures are greener—or the men more like you two.”

“I hope you find it. We’ve got to run along.” Charlie held out his hand and Guy shook it. “Thanks again for the other day.
Au revoir.”

“Au revoir.
You may well say it. We’ll meet again. I’m sure of it.”

Charlie had pulled his hand away and started on to the car before Peter could complete his farewells. He hurried after, cursing Guy and filled with dismay. They got into the car in silence.

“Jesus.” Charlie muttered before starting it. “Pleased with yourself?”

“Sure. I feel like shooting myself again. I’m sorry. Thank God, you’re getting us away from here.”

Charlie was thinking the same thing. What he had done with the French boy had been vile, but he couldn’t exonerate Peter from creating the situation that had incited him. Thank God for the boat. Once on board he would find every means to test the strength of the bonds that held him. If he found a weakness anywhere, he would break free once and for all.

Their departure for Cannes the next morning was silent and furtive; they were like criminals fleeing the scene of the crime. Once away and on the road, their spirits lifted. They both felt the past slipping away behind them. Charlie dropped a hand from the wheel and took one of Peter’s. “God, we’re out of it,” he said. “I never want to get involved with a bunch of queers again.”

“Me too, darling. I’m going to have to start practicing not calling you that.”

“My baby. I’ll be thinking it even if I can’t say it.” They squeezed each other’s hands.

They found their way down to the squalid little port of Antibes at noon the next day, after arranging to store their car and three suitcases of excess clothing.
Cassandra
looked much bigger amid a scattering of fishing boats. Their reunion with the Kingsleys was as excessive as their parting. They felt like the only four people on earth. Charlie and Peter eased their suitcases down the steep companionway that rose from the galley. Now that the boat had become home, they both looked around them as if they had never seen it before, taking possession of it. The galley was quite roomy, compactly fitted, and the same area contained a chart desk where Jack’s navigational equipment was stored. From there, they entered the saloon cabin, which was fitted out like a living room. Bright covers and cushions turned the bunks they would use into divans. There were bookshelves, and curtains at the portholes, and brass lamps and a table fixed in the middle, which folded out into a dining table. Forward was the head, with a deep closet opposite. Beyond that was the fo’c’sle cabin for Jack and Martha.

They all gathered in the saloon amid luggage. Martha had drinks ready. It was very hot. The Kingsleys reported on their trip of the day before, which had been uneventful.

“We got all the stores on this morning,” Jack announced. “What I’m planning is to pull out of here about sunset after an early supper. That should get us to Corsica sometime in the morning. About noon, maybe. I don’t like to put into strange harbors at night. The run should take us about sixteen hours, depending on the wind.”

He had drawn up a schedule of watches, which he now produced. Peter was to be on from eight to midnight, Charlie from midnight to four, Jack the bleak hours from four to eight in the morning. Charlie saw the sense of it. He would be around to keep an eye out when Peter, the least experienced of them, took over in the early part of the night. When Peter relieved Jack at eight, Martha would be there to lend a hand if need be.

“Unless we find a better arrangement, we can stick to these hours for the whole trip,” Jack said, his weathered, rugged features bent over the sheet of paper. “During the day, it doesn’t matter so much, so long as Charlie and I get our sleep. In theory, we three will spell each other at four-hour intervals. I haven’t given Martha a regular watch because she’ll be doing the cooking, and I’ll expect her to help out whenever she’s needed during the day. Is that OK with everybody?”

“It’s pretty soft for us,” Peter said to Martha.

“He apparently thinks we need our beauty sleep. I’m not complaining.”

“I think it’s fine,” Charlie said to their captain. “It’s damn decent of you to take the worst bit.”

“The dawn watch? I love it. Our whole way of living is going to change now, anyway. You’ll see. No more of those stylish ninethirty dinners you’ve been going to.”

“Thank God,” Charlie said.

“You want to come look at the charts?” Jack and Charlie rose and moved toward the galley-chart room.

“I’ll get our stuff stowed away,” Peter said as they left. He turned to Martha. “Show me where to put everything.”

Charlie and Jack leaned over the chart showing Corsica and part of the French coast around Antibes, while Jack did something fascinating with what looked like two rulers fastened together by swiveled bars. He moved them, snapping together and parting, across the chart to the printed face of a compass. “All this is old stuff to you, naturally. That’s our course.”

“Yeah,” Charlie said, reluctant to admit his ignorance. He had never used a chart.

Jack twirled a pair of dividers that moved like a man on stilts across the chart from Antibes to the northern tip of Corsica. “Sixteen hours, if we’re lucky. We do five, six, seven knots with decent winds. It takes a gale to move us any faster. I hope we don’t have too many of those. Have you ever used a mileage log?”

“No,” Charlie said. He didn’t even know what Jack was talking about.

Jack indicated a tubular object with a little propeller at the end of it hanging over his desk. A long cord was attached to it, coiled up neatly, at the other end of which was a clocklike instrument with a little window with numerals in it that obviously clicked around, like a speedometer. Jack tapped the face with a finger. “Always make a note of the mileage reading and the time and the new compass reading whenever you change course. I mean, if the wind shifts or anything. That way, I’ll be able to plot our course pretty accurately. Excuse me if I’m telling you stuff you know.”

“No, I’ve always sailed by dead reckoning. Time, compass and this thing. I should be able to manage that.” He felt physically comfortable with Jack. If their shoulders touched, it was because they were crowded for space and they had to touch. After the past weeks, it was a relief to feel nothing equivocal in the movements of another man’s body.

“I’ll explain it to Peter, too,” Jack said, “but he’ll probably be explaining it to
me
before I get through. It’s amazing how quick that guy is around a boat.”

“He’s quick, all right. I think he’s going to love it.”

They returned to the saloon and Martha left them to prepare lunch. Peter was emptying a suitcase into a locker above one of the bunks.

“I’m just shoving everything in together,” he announced cheerfully.

Martha served them a lunch of salad and cold meats and fruit. Peter and Charlie ate with the care of weight-watchers, the Kingsleys with less restraint.

“You’ll have to do better than that,” Jack said. “We agreed to divide the food-and-wine bill by four. You’re cheating yourselves.”

“It’s the price we pay for being able to go on wearing our old clothes,” Peter said. “You’re obviously one of those people who can eat all they want and never put on a pound.”

“He’s infuriating,” Martha said, looking at Charlie. “I’m always planning to get rid of five pounds, but he sets such a bad example. Don’t let him undermine you. You both have such beautiful figures.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Charlie said with a smile. “If I say the same about you, it’ll sound as if I’m just being polite. But it’s true. You’ve got the kind of body I like to draw. Really marvelous.” He said it sincerely but impersonally, and she accepted it in the same spirit with a flattered smile that wasn’t in the least flirtatious.

They sat about and chatted for some time after lunch. Peter volunteered to help Martha clean up the dishes. Eventually, Jack went off to clear papers with the port authorities. Martha went forward to her cabin and closed the door. Peter and Charlie smiled at each other and gave a quick glance around and exchanged a brief kiss.

“Well, I guess we’re going to Greece,” Peter said.

“Who would’ve ever guessed it?”

“We have a fabulous life. It’s going to be better than ever now. We’ve left all that behind us, haven’t we?”

“I think so. I want to.”

“So do I, except to go on being so horribly sorry I let it happen.”

“I know you are, baby.” Changing the subject, he said, “We might as well take the car back to that garage and leave it.”

When they returned on foot, Jack was on board. He roamed restlessly about the boat, communicating a sense of imminent departure. He disappeared for some time into the cramped engine room behind the companionway. He reappeared on deck forward where they heard him thumping at something. They went up to join him and see if they could be useful. He was checking the dinghy where it was lashed to the roof of the cabin housing. There was some shade on the deck now from the gentle rise of the town. Jack took Peter forward to the mainmast, where he began to explain the rigging and the routine for raising sail. Charlie glanced down the hatch and saw Martha’s head. He perched on the top step of the companionway and she looked up at him with a smile.

“I suppose you’ll feel you’re back in the nursery, having dinner at this hour. I do,” she said, removing things from cupboards. “Do you want a martini?”

“I don’t think so. Too strong.”

“We always have them. A bad habit we’ve brought with us from New York.”

She set about her preparations. Jack and Peter came back and joined him in the cockpit.

“It looks as if we’re going to have a beautiful night,” Jack said. “The barometer’s dropped a bit, but that doesn’t seem to mean anything around here. We have one beautiful day after another and the barometer goes on rising and falling as if that’s what it’s being paid for.”

Martha handed up an iced shaker and glasses. “Is Peter going to have a martini?” she asked.

“No. We’ll have whisky. I’ll come down there and do it if you’ll show me where things are.” Charlie let himself down the companionway and stood beside her. She showed him the icebox and where the bottles were stowed. He chipped ice and put it in glasses. He pumped water into a small pitcher. He found a bottle of whisky. He brushed against her a good deal; he hoped she didn’t think he was doing it on purpose. He put everything out on the deck at the top of the companionway and joined the others in the cockpit.

He poured drinks for Peter and himself and they drank and talked together as the sun lowered in the sky. Martha joined them and Jack gave her a martini and refilled his own glass. The Kingsleys’ martinis went quickly. They had had three when Charlie and Peter were starting their second whisky. Charlie had observed that they were steady drinkers, but he had expected this evening to be different. It wasn’t wise to try to handle a boat drunk at night, and they were definitely getting drunk. They were beginning to make little mistakes with their words, and Martha’s laughter was becoming rather unrestrained. Charlie and Peter glanced at each other and lifted their eyebrows. Martha filled Jack’s glass once more and emptied the shaker into hers, waiting for the last drop.