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There was nothing much Rudolph could say to that. He had been the necessary accomplice. They were both guilty as charged.
But the week on the sea had been so healing, the wedding so gay and optimistic, that he had consciously put it all from his mind. He was sorry that the sight of Wesley at the wheel, brown and agile, had made them both, inevitably, think about Billy.
“Look at him,” Gretchen was saying, staring at Wesley. “Brought up by a whore. With a father who never got past the second year in high school, who hasn’t opened a book since then and who’s been beaten and hunted and knocked down and lived ever since he was sixteen with the scum of the earth. And no questions asked. When Tom decided the time was right he got his kid and took him to another country and made him learn another language and threw him in with a whole group of ruffians who can barely read and write. And he’s made him go to work at an age when Billy was still asking for two dollars on Saturday night to go to the movies. As for the amenities of family life.” She laughed. “That boy sure has his share of elegant privacy, living in the next room to a little English peasant girl who’s his father’s mistress, with his father’s illegitimate child in her belly. And what’s the result? He’s healthy and useful and polite. And he’s so devoted to his father Tom doesn’t ever have to raise his voice to him. All he has to do is indicate what he wants the boy to do and the boy does it. Christ,” she said, “we’d better start rewriting all those books on child care. And one thing that boy is sure of. No draft board is going to send him to Viet Nam. His father will see to that. I’ll tell you something—if I were you, as soon as Enid is big enough to walk around this boat without falling overboard, I’d send her over here to let Tom bring her up for you. Lord, I could use a drink. Tom must have one bottle of something stashed away on this Woman’s Christian Temperance Union vessel.”
“I imagine he has,” Rudolph said. “I’ll ask.” He got up from his chair and went forward. It was getting dark and Wesley was putting the ru
“Weddings don’t happen every day,” Rudolph said.
“They sure don’t,” Wesley said. “It’s a lucky thing for Pa they don’t. His constitution couldn’t stand it.”
Rudolph went through the saloon to the galley. Dwyer was washing lettuce in the sink and Kate, no longer dressed for celebration, was basting a roast in the oven. “Kate,” Rudolph said, “has Tom got a bottle hidden away down here somewhere?”
Kate closed the oven door and stood up and looked troubledly at Dwyer. “I thought he promised you we’d be bone dry all the time you were on board,” she said.
“That’s all right, Kate,” Rudolph said. “Jean’s in the cabin with the kid. It’s for Gretchen and me. We’re up on deck and it’s getting nippy.”
“Bu
Dwyer went up forward to his cabin and came back with a bottle of gin. Rudolph poured the gin into two glasses and put some tonic in with it.
When he returned to Gretchen and gave her her glass, she made a face. “Gin and tonic. I hate it.”
“If Jean happens to come up on deck, we can pretend it’s just plain tonic. It disguises the smell of the gin.”
“You hope,” Gretchen said.
They drank. “It’s Evans’s favorite drink,” Gretchen said. “Among our many points of difference.”
“How’s it going?”
“The same,” she said carelessly. “A little worse each year, but the same. I suppose I ought to quit him, but he needs me. He doesn’t want me so damned much, but he needs me. Maybe needing is better than wanting at my age.”
Jean came on deck, in tight, low-waisted pink denim pants and a pale-blue cashmere sweater. She glanced at the glasses in their hands but didn’t say anything.
“How’s Enid?” Rudolph asked.
“Sleeping the sleep of the just. She asked if Kate and Uncle Thomas got to keep the rings they gave each other.” She shivered. “I’m cold,” she said and snuggled up against Rudolph’s shoulder. He kissed her cheek.
“Fee-fie-fo-fum,” Jean said. “I smell the blood of an Englishman.”
The tonic hadn’t fooled her. Not for an instant.
“One drop,” she said.
Rudolph hesitated. If he had been alone, he would have held onto his glass. But Gretchen was there, watching them. He couldn’t humiliate his wife in front of his sister. He gave Jean the glass. She took a tiny sip, then handed the glass back to him.
Dwyer came out on deck and began to set the table for di
Suddenly, there was a dull, thudding noise against the hull and a chattering under the stern. The boat throbbed unevenly and there was a clanking below decks before Wesley could cut the engines. Dwyer ran to the after rail and peered at the wake, pale in the dark sea.
“Damn it,” he said, pointing, “we hit a log. See it?”
Rudolph could see a dim shadow floating behind him, just a bare two or three inches protruding from the water. Thomas came ru
“We hit a log,” Dwyer said to him. “One or maybe both of the screws.”
“Are we going to sink?” Jean asked. She sounded frightened. “Should I get Enid?”
“Leave her alone, Jean,” Thomas said calmly. “We’re not going to sink.” He pulled on his sweater and went into the pilot house and took the wheel. The ship had lost way and was swinging a little in the light wind, bobbing against the swell. Thomas started the port engine. It ran normally and the propeller turned smoothly. But when he started the starboard engine there was a metallic clanking below and the Clothilde throbbed irregularly. Thomas cut the starboard engine and they moved forward slowly. “It’s the starboard propeller. And maybe the shaft, too,” he said.
Wesley was near tears. “Pa,” he said, “I’m sorry. I just didn’t see it.”
Thomas patted the boy’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault, Wes,” he said. “Really not. Look into the engine room and see if we’re taking any water in the bilge.” He cut the port engine and in a moment they were drifting again. “A wedding present from the Med,” he said, but without bitterness. He filled a pipe and lighted it and put his arm around his wife and waited for Wesley to come up on deck.
“Dry,” Wesley said.
“She’s solid,” Thomas said. “The old Clothilde.” Then he noticed the glasses in Rudolph’s and Gretchen’s hands. “We continuing the celebration?” he asked.
“Just one drink,” Rudolph said.
Thomas nodded. “Wesley,” he said, “take the wheel. We’re going back to Antibes. On the port engine. Keep the revs low and watch the oil and water gauges. If the pressure drops or it begins to heat up, cut it right away.”
Rudolph could sense that Thomas would have preferred to take the wheel himself, but he wanted to make sure that Wesley didn’t feel guilty about the accident.
“Well, folks,” Thomas said as Wesley started the engine and slowly swung the Clothilde’s bow around, “I’m afraid there goes Portofino.”
“Don’t worry about us,” Rudolph said. “Worry about the boat.”
“There’s nothing we can do tonight,” Thomas said. “Tomorrow morning, we’ll put on the masks and go down and take a look. If it’s what I think it is, it’ll mean waiting for a new screw and maybe a new shaft and putting her up on land to fit them. I could go on to Villefranche, but I get a better deal from the yard in Antibes.”