Geoffrey Jenkins - A bridge of Magpies

'I didn't send her to the bottom. I blew her sky-high.'

A charge of plastic explosive under the seat of his pants couldn't have lifted him quicker off his stool.

'Christ! You! You?'

'Yes. Me. Mel'

Without being able to shift his eyes from me, he said to Gigi, 'Get me some of that whisky you keep stashed away for Americans.'

She gave us both a startled glance and scuttled away. Byron said slowly, holding out his right hand, 'I want to shake the hand that threw away a million dollars in a flash of flame-pool! Like that.'

Cut it out,' I replied. 'Don't get melodramatic. I had enough drama from the Press at the official inquiry into the sinking. From everyone, in fact That's why I'm here.'

`You were kicked out-cashiered?' Byron's voice was full of awe and admiration,

Gigi came back with the whisky and a light which she placed on the bar counter.

'No I wasn't. I quit. Of my own free will. The Navy was on my side. All the way. But there was a king-sized ruckus over the Walewska. The tanker company sued the. Government for millions. The court hearing went on for months and I was target number one. By the time it was finished I' d had the lot of them. Sure, I would have got another ship but I didn't intend to be strung along for the rest of my life at the end of a radio asking, "Please sir, may I do this, please sir, may I do that?" I was the captain of the frigate and I made the decision. I stand by it.'

'Fit for independent command,' murmured Byron.

'You're stuffed full of other people's cast-off phrases'

He shrugged. 'If the cap fits So, because you' don't like other people's querying your actions and decisions, you pulled up stakes and quit-to Santorin? An ex-Navy captain sailing aimlessly from nowhere to nowhere?'

'Just that. I was fed to the back teeth with the whole bunch of them: inquiry, Navy, lawyers, the lot. Anyway, who the hell are you to tell me what I should or shouldn't do?'

He touched my hand wonderingly. 'A million dollars up the spout!'

'If you go on fiddling with my hand I'll begin to think I'm Lady Macbeth or you're a lady-boy:

'Not in front of Gigi, please Struan!'

The wine-it had that fire which seems to be at the heart of all wines from volcanic soils -started to give me a warm feeling about Gigi; and I was wondering how to get rid of Byron, who was concentrating on the whisky, when Gigi exclaimed:

'Here's Ari now!

'Telegram for you, Boss. You must hurry.' He was puffing and grinning as if he'd run all the way down Thera's eight hundred steps. He clutched a buff envelope Only drachmas would loosen his grip.

'How'd you know, you little bastard? – you can't read.' '

Mister Tsaras said hurry. It's from overseas,' He offered the envelope. 'Money in advance, Boss.'

'Cape,' said Byron. 'I'll bet on it.'

He was right. Although I was half ready to accept that it might be, I nevertheless felt an odd contraction in my stomach 17 when I saw that the office of origin was Cape Town. It had been sent two days previously and read: 'Your mother critically ill. Imperative you come at once. Groot Schuur hospital.'

'It's my mother,' I told them. It says, come at once.' ' Where is she, Boss?' asked Ari.

'Cape Town. It's five thousand miles away. I can get a plane direct front Athens.'

'Is she bad, Struan?'

I caught myself staring at Gigi's breast and wondering when I' d see her again. For a beach-comber Santorin hadn't been a bad bit of beach.

'Critical. That was two days ago.'

Byron said. 'First you've got to get to Athena It's 150 miles. It'll be a hell of a beat right into the teeth of the meltemi. My boat's got an engine and I'd take you except I' ve got an appointment on the Turkish coast…'

'Thanks all the same, Byron. I'll make out under sail. Pity Santorin doesn't run to a steamer service,'

'Does it say what's wrong with your mother?' Gigi persisted. `

No. I'd guess a stroke, at her age.'

'The other brothers and sisters can be with her… in case. You needn't go.'

'There aren't any other brothers and sisters. I'm the only son.'

'And your father?'

'Killed in the war.'

'I'll come and help you sail the Orga, Boss,' Ari chipped in. 'Free. No charge.'

I looked at the pinched, pert face, surprised and touched at the generous gesture. He'd miss me-for a day or two. '

Thanks, no, Ari. You'd be left stranded in Athens after I'd gone. I can't tell how long be away.'

Byron assessed the sky. 'You'll have to make a long haul towards Therasia before you'll weather the entrance to the bay, Struan.'

'Yes, the sooner I get cracking, the better. Right now.. there's nothing to keep me.'

Gigi turned the light away so that I couldn't read her eyes.

'No, there is nothing to keep you.' She went on, speaking almost to herself, 'I wish you'd been drunk tonight then 18 you couldn't have gone. Tomorrow, when you surfaced again, it would have been too late.'

I'll come back, Gigi. The Cape doesn't hold anything for me any more.'

But she wouldn't reply: just went and prepared some food for my trip to Athena

Gigi, Byron and Ari waded into the warm sea and pushed the Orga clear of the flange of rock which made the easy mooring. Ari chattered excitedly, while Byron passed on some local sailing lore; but Gigi simply stood there with the water swishing round her bare legs. When I brought the stern round and called goodbye she didn't wave or say anything. The meltemi was ripping directly into the great bay and I set out, as Byron had indicated, on the long pull towards Therasia Island in order to strike through the bay's entrance to the open sea. The business of getting sail on the clumsy old calque took time and when I looked back all I could see were the lights of Gigi's bar shining against the backdrop of the great cliff.

I set course for Athens-and the Cape.

The Boeing jumbo jet banked for the landing at Cape Town and I had a glimpse of Table Mountain through the overcast. A fine, cold rain was blowing off the ocean on a southwesterly gale-a typical, miserable Cape winter's day. The sight of the great mountain pitched a load of associations at me and made me depressed. The long tiring air journey – Athens, Lisbon, Las Palmas, the Bulge of Africa, Angolaadded its own quota of discouragement. I wondered if I should have come: I would probably arrive too late to find my mother alive. The rain splashed against the plane's windows, a reminder of days at sea on the bridge. I made a derisive comparison between that Cape of Storms sea -a cold, grey, wicked mass, throwing a punch of three thousand miles of open water behind it-and the Aegean. The meltemi was a woman's wind compared with a Cape buster, and the tideless waves breaking on the picture-postcard islands had no more guts than a junkie.

Maybe my contempt for the classic sea had showed itself by the way I had hurled my old calque into the meltemi after I'd left Santorin; I used a dozen seaman's dodges to avoid the deadly tack and tack-about into the teeth of the same wind which once had blown the Greek heroes from Troy. I had finally reached Athens only a few hours before a Cape flight was due to leave. In the rush I hadn't managed to have my one thin tropical suit smartened up, and it sat crumpled and untidy on me. I hadn't a tie but had bought a black string bootlace thing off a plane steward. The other passengers' eyes told me I looked like a kinky beach-boy. After the landing, I was checking through the usual formalities. The sluicing rain on the way across the tarmac from the plane to the terminal building hadn't acted as the best of valet services to my suit and hair. They were soaked. I stood by while an immigration official examined my pass. port. He gave me a considering look, reverted to my photograph, regarded me again, then went off to an inner office. 20