Bernard Cornwell - Wildtrack

There were also four pairs of new shoes sitting alongside the brogues.

Above the shoes, and hanging in protective paper covers, were clothes. There were two dinner-jackets; one white, one black. There were slacks, shirts, unnecessary sweaters, even a rain-slicker. Some ties hung on a door-rack and I noticed, with astonishment, that my old regiment’s striped tie was among them. A label was pinned on to the regimental tie: “With the Compliments of Miss Kirov.” At the bottom of the paper slip was the legend, ‘Kassouli Hotels, Inc., a Division of Kassouli Leisure Interests, Inc.’.

I suppose I’d really known right from the moment when I’d opened that thick creamy envelope in Sycorax ’s cabin. I’d known who had paid for the ticket, and who wanted me in the States, but I’d deceived myself into thinking that it was love; as bright and shiny and new as a fresh-minted coin. Of course it was not. It was Kassouli.

The compliments slip only confirmed it, but still I thought I could pluck my fresh coin out of the mess.

The telephone startled me.

“Captain Sandman? This is the front desk, sir. Miss Kirov has requested us to inform you that she’ll come by at seven o’clock with transportation. She suggests formal dress, sir.”

“Right. Thank you.”

He enjoined me to have a nice day. On the television the batter hit a grand slam home run, the ball rising so that the picture was shattered by the starburst of stadium lights. I turned the set off and drew a bath. It was madness, but I had volunteered to come here because of a girl. I felt my right leg trembling and I feared that the knee would buckle, so I lowered myself into the bath and told myself that there was no need for apprehension, that it was an adventure, and that I was glad to be here.

My sense of unreality, that I was a sleepwalking participant in a sleek dream, only increased when Jill-Beth arrived. She came in a white BMW convertible, and was wearing an evening dress of black and white speckled silk. She had a triple strand of pearls beneath a lace shawl. Her hair seemed glossier and her skin more glowing than I remembered. “Hi, Nick.”

“Hello.” I was shy.

She laughed. “I knew you’d choose the black tux.”

“I’m sorry to be so conventional.”

“Hell, no. I like a black tux on a man. You don’t want to look like a waiter, do you?” She leaned over and gave me a quick kiss. “How’s the jet lag?”

“As bad as yours, I imagine?”

“I feel great. You’d better, too, because we’re partying.” She accelerated the BMW from under the hotel’s awning. It was a hot sticky evening, but, though the BMW’s hood was down, she had the air-conditioning on full blast so that my legs froze while my chest became sticky with sweat.

“I didn’t bring much money,” I said warningly.

“A thousand bucks should see you through the night.” She saw the expression on my face, and laughed. “Hell, Nick! You’re Kassouli’s guest, OK?”

“OK,” I said, as though I’d known all along that it was Kassouli who’d plucked me across an ocean and not love.

Jill-Beth swung into a marina entrance where an armed guard recognized her and opened the gate. We drove past a row of moored motor-cruisers, each the size of a minesweeper and each with an aerial array that would have done service to a frigate.

“La-la land,” I said, echoing the comment Jill-Beth had written about me in the file that Bannister had shown me.

Jill-Beth instantly understood the allusion, and laughed. “Did you see the files?”

“Only those that Bannister wanted me to see.”

“That figures. Were you offended by what I wrote?”

“Should I have been?”

“Hell, no.” She waved to a man on board one of the moored cruisers, then offered me a deprecating smile. “I guess I’m not exactly flavour of the month with Tony Bannister?”

“Not exactly. Nor am I.”

“Tough.” She swung the BMW into a parking slot opposite a berth where a white cutter was moored. She put the gear into neutral and kept the motor running as she nodded at the yacht. “Like it?” I knew that make of boat, and liked it very much. She was called Ballet Dancer and had been built on America’s West Coast; a 42-foot cutter with a canoe stern, bowsprit, and the solid, graceful lines of a sturdy sea boat. She was made of fibreglass, but had expensive teak decks and rubbing-strakes. “Yours?” I guessed.

“Mine. I always wanted to be a ballet dancer, you see, but it doesn’t help if you’re built like a steer.”

“You should have qualified then.”

She smiled at the compliment. “I grew too tall. Anyway, I prefer sailing now.”

“She’s a lovely boat,” I said warmly. Ballet Dancer had the good look of a well-used boat. You can always tell when a boat is sailed hard; it loses its showroom gloss and accretes the small extra features that experience has demanded. Ballet Dancer ’s cleats and fairleads were worn, there were extra warps neatly coiled in her scuppers, and there was a ragged collection of oars, poles and boathooks bundled beside the lashed-down liferaft. The teak decks and trim had faded to a bone white. In a month or two Sycorax would have this same efficient and weathered look. “She looks beautiful,” I said.

“And all mine,” Jill-Beth said happily. “Paid off the final instalment last month.” She switched off the BMW’s engine and opened her door. “Coming?”

I followed her on to the floating pontoon and watched as she disconnected the shoreside electricity and unlooped the springs.

“We’re going out?” I said with surprise.

“Sure. Why not?”

It seemed very odd to be crewing a boat while dressed in evening clothes, but that was evidently Jill-Beth’s plan. She started the engine.

“You want to take her out, Nick?”

The boat’s long keel made it hard to turn in the marina’s restricted water, but I backed and filled until the bow was facing the channel.

Once there Jill-Beth unrolled the genoa from the forestay, then hoisted the main. I’d never seen a girl in evening dress rig a yacht before. “The trick to it,” she said happily, “is a damned good anti-perspirant.” She came and sat next to me in the cockpit where she opened a locker. “Champagne?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

The evening had been sparked with a spontaneity that matched the irresponsibility of flying the Atlantic. I felt happy, even light-headed. It was cooler out on the water where the small wind spilt down on us from the mainsail’s curve. “How does she compare to Sycorax? ” Jill-Beth asked.

“ Sycorax carries more windage aloft. The gaff, all those blocks and halliards, the topsail yard. So she has to have a lot of metal underwater. That makes her stubborn.”

“Like you?”

“Like me. And like me she’s not too hot to windward, but I don’t plan to fight my way round the world.” A motor-cruiser surged past us. There was a party in evening dress on its covered quarterdeck and they raised their glasses in friendly greeting. I could see the first stars pricking the sky’s pale wash where an airliner etched a white trail. “Thank you for the air ticket,” I said.

“ Nada .” Jill-Beth grinned. “Isn’t that why white knights rescue damsels in distress? For a reward?”

“Is this my reward?” I asked.

“What else?” She touched my glass with hers. The wake of the cruiser jarred Ballet Dancer ’s double-ended hull and made Jill-Beth’s champagne spill on to my black trousers. She wiped the excess off.

“I like you in a tux. It makes you look elegantly ugly.” I laughed. “I think it’s the first time I’ve worn a tie since they gave me the medal.” We passed a moored boat which had a smoking barbecue slung from its dinghy davits. The skipper waved a fork at us and we raised our champagne flutes in reply. I thought how the pleasure of this evening compared to the bitter paranoia of Bannister’s life; the jealousies and ambitions, the sheer squalidness of his suspicions. No wonder, I thought, that his American wife had tired of it. Had she wanted to come back to this elegant coast with its sprawl of luxuries?