Bloody Passage

‘Is it all right?’ she said.

‘Perfect.’

She folded her arms and leaned on the bar. ‘What do I know about you, Oliver? Really know?’

I raised my glass. ‘Well, for a start, I drink Irish gin.’

‘You write,’ she said, ‘or at least you once showed me a detective novel under another name and claimed it as yours.’

‘Come on, angel,’ I said. ‘If I’d been lying I’d have chosen something good.’

‘You have a scar on your right shoulder and another under the shoulder blade that suggests something went straight through.’

‘A birthmark,’ I said lightly. ‘Would you like me to describe yours? Strawberry and shaped like a primula. Back of the thigh just under the left buttock.’

She carried straight on in the same calm, rather dead voice. ‘An American who could just as easily pass as an Englishman. A soldier because you did let slip at Justin’s party that night in Almeria that you’d been in Vietnam, although you’ve never mentioned it since. An officer, I suppose.’

‘And gentleman?’

‘Who can half kill a professional heavyweight boxer twice his size in two seconds flat.’

‘Poor old Gatano,’ I said. ‘He shouldn’t have joined.’

She seemed genuinely angry now. ‘Can’t you ever be serious about anything?’

She moved to the end of the bar as if to put distance between us, took a cigarette from an ivory box and lit it with shaking fingers. She inhaled deeply once then stubbed it out in the ashtray.

There was a direct challenge now as she turned to confront me. ‘All right, Oliver. This afternoon. What was it all about?’

‘I haven’t the slightest idea,’ I told her with perfect truth.

For a moment I thought she might make a frontal assault. Instead she hammered on the bar with a clenched fist in fury. ‘I’m frightened, Oliver! Scared to death!’

I moved to take her hand. ‘No need to be, I promise you. Not as long as I’m here.’

She gazed at me, eyes wide for a moment, then sighed, shaking her head slightly, and moved across to the window. She stood looking out into the night, arms folded in that inimitable way of hers, rain drifting across the terrace.

‘Rain, rain, go to Spain, never come my way again,’ she said in a lost little-girl voice.

I moved in behind her and slid my arms around her waist. ‘Come to bed.’

‘Do you know what’s the most frightening thing of all?’ she said without looking round.

‘No, tell me.’

‘That man out there in the marsh. He was a professional, you said so yourself, and yet he didn’t stand a chance, did he?’

She half-turned, looking up at me. I kissed her gently on the mouth. ‘Come to bed,’ I said again and took her hand and led her out of the room.

I came awake from a dreamless sleep to find her gone. The windows to the terrace stood open and the white nylon curtains rose and fell in the gray light of dawn. I reached for my watch. Six-thirty.

I got out of bed, found a bathrobe and went into the living room. There was no sign of her there either, but somewhere a car door banged. I went out on the terrace and looked down to the drive.

The Alfa stood outside the garage. Simone was standing beside it dressed in slacks and sweater. A black leather suitcase was on the ground at her feet and she was stowing another behind the driver’s seat.

‘Good morning,’ I called cheerfully.

She looked up at me. Her face was very pale and there were faint shadows under each eye as if she had not slept too well.

She hesitated and for a moment I thought she was going to get into the car, but she didn’t. Instead, she put the second suitcase inside and came toward the outside steps, her feet crunching in the gravel.

I returned to the living room, went behind the bar and poured myself a large gin and tonic. A bit early in the day, even for me, but I had a feeling I was going to need it.

She paused at the window, looking in. I raised my glass and smiled brightly. ‘Join me for breakfast?’

But she didn’t smile. Not then or later. I don’t think it was in her anymore.

‘I’m sorry, Oliver,’ she said. ‘I’d hoped you wouldn’t waken.’

‘What, not even a note?’

Her voice was full of pain, ragged and unsteady. ‘I can’t take it – not any of it. What happened yesterday afternoon especially.’

She shuddered visibly. I said, ‘Where are you going to go?’

‘I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter. Paris maybe. Do you mind if I take the Alfa?’

I wasn’t angry. There wouldn’t have been any point. I said, ‘You were going to anyway.’

‘I’ll leave it in Almeria. At the station.’

‘How are you for money?’

‘I’ll get by.’

I dropped to one knee behind the bar and prised up one of the ceramic tiles. Underneath was a black tin cash box containing my mad money, just in case of emergencies. An old habit. I counted out ten one hundred-dollar bills and put them on top of the bar.

She didn’t argue, simply walked across and picked them up. She looked around the room for a long moment and there was an infinite sadness in her voice when she said, ‘I was happy here. For the first time in years I was truly happy.’

I said, ‘One thing before you go. That night after Langley’s party when I passed out on you. Well, I didn’t. I just wanted you to know that.’

She said bitterly, ‘Damn you, Oliver! Damn you to hell!’

She walked out, her footsteps echoed across the terrace. I poured myself another large gin with a steady hand. From somewhere a thousand miles away a door slammed. There was a pause, the engine started and then she was gone.

So that was very much that. And why worry? As a great man once said, a woman was only a woman. I raised my glass and found that my hand was not so steady after all and that would never do. I put the glass down very deliberately on the bar top, went into my bedroom and found a pair of bathing shorts. Then I went out onto the end terrace and descended the three hundred and twenty-seven concrete steps which zig-zagged down the cliff to the beach below.

The morning was dull and grey and the white sand cold to my feet as I crossed to the boathouse by the small stone jetty. I opened the door and went in. Skin-diving being closer to a religion with me than a sport at that time, I carried a pretty comprehensive range of equipment. Everything from my own compressor for recharging air bottles to an Aquamobile.