William Boyd - The Blue Afternoon

'Axel will be waiting for you,' he said to her in a whisper. 'He'll take you to the boat. I'll be there shortly after six.'

She gripped his hands. 'I can't believe this has actually happened,' she said. 'He really believes, I mean he has no doubt I'm -'

'Completely. I saw him, comforted him. He saw you dead with his own eyes.'

'So we're free – really, truly?'

'Yes, my darling.'

He could not hold back, he drew her slightly behind the coach and slipped his arms around her. He kissed her lips and pressed himself against her. Then his lips were on her neck and her hands were on his back, and he smelt her smell. Rosewater. She must have put on some scent. Carried some scent with her. He felt the warmth of her strong firm body down the length of his. Suddenly, strangely, he wished he were a bigger, taller man, as if a greater physical presence were a better guarantee of the protection he could give her, of the care he could afford. He had an image of her turning to this more imposing, bulkier Salvador Carriscant, snuggling into him, sheltering in the lee of his big frame. He was suddenly light-headed with fatigue and accumulated tension. His longing for her ached like a tumour behind his breastbone, a small hot coin of pain. The thought of their life together beckoned him on like a vision, a white arm of road through a verdant and sunlit country.

He helped her into the carriage. She blew him a kiss and did not take her eyes from his until the carriage turned the corner on to Calle Palacio. He stood there alone for some moments listening to the sound of the horses' hooves die away as they travelled through the dark narrow streets of Intramuros towards the San Domingo gate and the north quays of the Pasig, where Axel was waiting and where their new life would truly begin.

Back at his house he could not even think of sleeping. He sat on a cane chair on the azotea watching the lemony dawn light slowly expose the dew-drenched trees and shrubs of his garden. At 5.45 he went through to the bedroom and woke Annaliese. She propped herself on her elbows and stared at him stupidly.

'Are you going already?'

'Yes.' He quelled his impatience. It all had to be handled correctly. 'I want to make an early start. The roads are always bad in the rains.'

She rolled over and hunched into her pillow, closing her eyes.

'Oh, well, if you want to. Say hello to your mother.'

'I will. Goodbye.'

He closed the main door and walked down the worn stone steps to the entresuelos. He walked quietly to the front gate, there was no sign of Constancio or the other servants, the only sound the snort and shifting of the ponies in their stalls. He stepped through the double doors on to the street. Only at this time of the day was there a true coolness in the air, the day's humidity had not had time to build. He felt a slight fresh breeze on his face and neck which made him shiver. He took a deep breath. The rest of his life was about to commence and he savoured the sweetness of the moment in the fresh coolness of the morning.

Around the corner from the Palacio end of the street strode three men, walking not fast but purposefully all the same, the watery citron sun illuminating the brass buttons on their uniforms, making them wink and flash prettily.

' Salvador Carriscant.'

He turned to see Paton Bobby and two other men walking down the street from the other direction. He wondered what was happening and why Bobby referred to him by his full name. He soon had his answer.

Bobby's square honest face could conceal neither his embarrassment nor his intense sadness.

' Salvador Carriscant -'

'What's happening, Paton? What's going on?'

Bobby could not hold his gaze and looked away as he spoke.

'Why did you do it, Salvador?'

'Do what?'

'Kill him.'

'Kill? Kill who, for God's sake? Are you completely -'

'Sieverance.'

'Sieverance…?'

'Shot dead while he was sleeping. Two bullets in his brain.'

Carriscant could say nothing, now.

Bobby turned to face him and seized his arm.

'Paton, you can't possibly think I -'

' Salvador Carriscant – ' His voice was shaky and he had to clear his throat. 'Salvador Carriscant, I arrest you for the wilful murder of Colonel Jepson George Sieverance.'

My first view of the city was a solitary one. Carriscant said he was feeling unwell and stayed below as the SS Herzog steamed slowly up the Tagus towards the docks. There was a fine rain falling and the sky was full of heavy mouse-grey clouds. The buildings of the city rose up from the dull sheen of the estuary stacked on their undulating hills, hunched and nondescript in the murky crepuscular light, the stepped facades and rooftops punctuated here and there by a spire or cupola, the baroque dome of a church or the squared teeth of a castellated rampart.

We docked opposite a building that said Posta do Desin-faccao and the gangplank was lowered. I saw customs sheds and warehouses, railway lines, and along the north shore a great fritter of ships. Then the vast sweep of water and the blurry green slopes rising to the south. A placid traffic of boats-ferries and tugs, launches and fishing boats-crisscrossed the scene. In the air the periodic curse of gulls and the shouts of the stevedores. A smell of oil, of smoke and underlying that something fresh and briny, the presence of the great ocean lying beyond these encircling hills.

Carriscant joined, me on deck. He did look somewhat pasty-faced, I had to admit, and he had shaved himself badly, leaving a furze of grey bristles under his left ear.

'I'm glad it's raining,' he said, thoughtfully, after he had stared at the view for a while.

'Why? It's May and we're in Europe.'

'It suits my mood. Sun and blue skies would have been wrong, I'd have hated that.'

I didn't remonstrate. We leaned on the rail waiting to be summoned for customs, staring out at the damp creams and ochres, the pinks and pale yellows of the terraced buildings, their terracotta roofs turned mauve and brown by the rain.

'To think she's out there, somewhere,' he said, not looking at me.

'I hope you're right. We've come a long way.'

'You've got to help me, Kay,' he said, petulantly. 'I don't need sarcasm, I need help.' He patted my hand on the rail. 'Yours.'

Carriscant, Carriscant. What should I call him, this baffling new presence in my life? My father?… Too uncertain. Or Salvador? Too intimate. The more neutral S. C.? Even after all these days of talk I find my ideas change about him several times an hour. Keep your distance, don't become too involved, watch out for the way he draws you in. Carriscant it shall remain.

We cleared customs quickly as we had little luggage. I had packed two suitcases, having no idea how long I would be away; Carriscant had only one. As we drove in a taxi to our hotel I found myself wondering: what if she has left Lisbon? We were following a trail that was almost ten years old, what if it led us all over Europe? The notion did not perturb me as much as I thought. The fact that I was here was a tribute to my lack of rationality and absence of commonsense; it was a little late to start demanding that logic and prudence be my watchwords now.

Our hotel is the Francfort on the Rua do Santa Justa, middle category, 'a good commercial house' the guidebook says, with a restaurant, and situated some few streets away from the Rossio. We have adjoining rooms on the third floor, quite large and clean with simple functional furniture.

At the end of the corridor is a bathroom. A young man, Joao, who spoke good English, was at reception and most helpful undertaking to secure our identity cards and providing us with the address of a photographer. He had the pale waxy skin of those who work indoors under artificial light and his good features were spoilt by a black tooth in his smile. The elevator was tiny, a small cage of elaborately twisted metal that only just managed to contain the three of us. I stood close behind Joao, his shiny black jacket inches from my eyes. There was a strong smell of camphor coming from him, and in the confined space it set Carriscant off on a sneezing fit that had the small lift rocking.