Forth into Light (The Peter & Charlie Trilogy) (24 page)

“Has anybody been hurt?” she asked, raising her voice to make herself heard.

“Who knows? I think not here on the port. The clock tower fell down, but mostly into the courtyard where there was no one.”

“Thank God.” They were jostled away from each other and Sarah let herself be carried on, heading toward Lambraiki’s. She wanted to find George as quickly as possible so that the urgency of events would help them over his rage.

She found herself crowded up beside Mike. On the other side of him, she caught a glimpse of the little Swiss who had been making himself so conspicuous on the rocks. Of course. She had known all along.

“Lively little town you’ve got here,” Mike shouted.

She didn’t know quite what manner to adopt with him, but he seemed friendly.

“Where were you when it happened?” she asked. “Did you feel it?”

“Just a few bumps. We were walking along over there somewhere. I saw the tower going over just as we were blacked out. Does this happen often? Have we more in store for us?”

“I hope not. They talk about earthquakes, but there hasn’t been one for years.”

“I suppose that explains this enthusiastic turnout. Do you want me to help you out of this mob?”

“No thanks. I’ll just drift along to Lambraiki’s.”

“I think I’ll look for a lamppost to cling to till this simmers down. Ta.”

The crowd separated them. Sarah saw that lamps had been set out at Lambraiki’s. She moved into the calm oasis of tables. She passed Helen Mansfield and the Greek whore-boy she had just married and spoke to them. She heard Sid Coleman’s voice above the general din and made for it. She found him sitting with Dorothy.

“Hey, isn’t this great?” Sid greeted her. “Have you come to see the victim? We have here a genuine victim of the great 1960 earthquake. Come on, darling. Show the lady your bump.”

Sarah’s hand was laid on the back of Dorothy’s head. There was indeed a bump. Sid told her about the bell tower and of George’s part in the rescue.

“He was here?” Sarah asked.

“Sure. Sure. George the Lion-hearted. He just left a minute ago with Joe and some other children. They’re looking for
champagne.
”

“Has anybody seen Jeff?”

“He was with his pal Dimitri a while ago.”

“Have you heard if anybody’s been badly hurt?”

“They say an old lady fell into her cistern. They’ve gone to pull her out.”

“I’ll just go make sure Jeff’s all right,” Sarah said, rising. “If George comes along, tell him I’ll be right back. There’s a big crack in one of our walls.”

“Hey. No. Really? Hey, did you hear that, darling. The Leightons’ house has fallen down. This is a night that’ll go down in island history.”

Sarah walked the short distance around the bend in the
quai
to the
Meltemi.
It, too, had lamps set out. She started in but as she did so she saw Jeff hurrying across the floor toward the bar carrying a carton. She felt a glow of pride at the sight of him; he looked so grown up and manly in the lamplight. She turned away. He was busy; she didn’t want to be a tiresome mother.

She couldn’t quite approve of Dimitri as a companion for him, but it didn’t really worry her. Being friendly with homosexuals didn’t make you one. When Ronnie had shown a more than casual interest in him, Jeff hadn’t given the slightest sign of responding. He was quite open about liking Dimitri; he wouldn’t advertise it if there were anything unnatural about it. Dimitri’s promiscuous conquests were common gossip; it was a guarantee that he wouldn’t take that kind of interest in a gawky schoolboy. He was after men with money. At least, he wasn’t encouraging Jeff to chase after girls. There would be enough of that later.

She made her way back to Sid’s table and was about to sit when the lights came on. There was a great “ah” of relief from the crowd. The air of crisis immediately passed. The crowd streamed into the taverns and filled every available outside table. Now that everybody was out, they were apparently going to make a night of it.

“I suppose I ought to go home,” Sarah said, without moving. “George may have gone to look for me.”

“A husband going to look for his wife?” Sid exclaimed. “You see, Dorothy? You see, darling? You see how marriage damages the brain? George has gone off on a toot, Sarah love.”

“In that case, I might as well have a drink,” Sarah said composedly. George would hear about the disaster at home sooner or later and come get her.

The great crash reverberating up from the port was followed by a smaller crash in the Mills-Martin house. Charlie and Peter were busy in the dark getting lamps and candles lighted in the efficient routine they had evolved in the course of many power failures. When they were done, Martha took one of the lamps.

“I’ll go see if the children are all right,” she said.

“What was it? Is anything wrong?” Judy asked.

“I felt a slight jar just before the lights went out,” Charlie said. “Didn’t you? I guess it might have been an earth tremor.”

Peter was at the telescope beside the loggia railing. “I’m not sure I’ve got this damn thing pointing in the right direction, but the clock tower seems to have disappeared.”

“Is that what made all the noise? Come on. We’d better check the house.” Charlie handed Peter a lamp and they excused themselves to Judy as they set off on a tour of the premises.

As soon as they were out of sight, Charlie dropped an arm around Peter’s shoulder and pulled him close and kissed the side of his face. “She’s a honey. She’s very self-possessed, but she’s obviously mad for you.”

“You think that about everybody. Silly darling.”

“It’s usually true. Tell me about Jeff.”

Peter did so, making light of it, but not leaving anything out. “So I let him take his clothes off for a minute to pass judgment on his cock. Very presentable. I was sort of like an old madam breaking in a new girl. He’s a total virgin.”

Charlie removed his arm from Peter’s shoulder as they started up a flight of stairs. “I suppose he hoped you’d be the first,” he commented when Peter had finished his story.

“No, he’s too sensitive and intelligent to’ve thought I’d be interested. Anyway, it was obvious I wasn’t, right from the start. We’re like family to him, and heroes. He says he thinks about us doing all sorts of wild things together when he jerks off. He’d faint dead away if he saw you naked. He’s a bit mental about cock. He literally worships the phallus, preferably monumental.”

“Another recruit for the cause. I guess it’s surprising, even though we expected it. You’d suppose a kid growing up here with the locals would absorb the local attitudes—play with boys maybe but keep your eye on the ultimate goal, an obedient bride. It isn’t as if there were a great taboo against a touch of homosexuality.”

Charlie returned a hand to Peter’s shoulder. The twinge of outrage he had felt at the thought of Peter and Jeff naked together was only a pale reminder of what he would have felt once upon a time. Storms. Probably lying in wait to get Jeff off by himself because he always had to take over any experience that might have touched Peter sexually. Even allowing the boy to worship his “monumental phallus” lest there be any question of its preeminence. God. And now all he felt was a mild displeasure that Jeff had been granted the privilege of seeing Peter naked. Peace and tranquillity. Is this what he had been striving for during the years when he had adopted any wile or stratagem to subdue his jealousy? Was it possible that jealousy had once been capable of pushing him to the edge of murder?

He thought of Peter’s infidelity—the first salvo in that summer of the heavy guns when they had discovered Greece with Martha and husband. Charlie had lost count of his own infidelities during the separation imposed by Peter’s military service, but he hadn’t been able to allow Peter even one. Nor had he been satisfied to simply break up Peter’s affair; he had had to do so by taking Peter’s French lover for himself to establish, as always, the supremacy of that monumental phallus. It had always been ready to swing into action in those days if crisis threatened. He had deployed it for Martha primarily as an egotistical retreat from the dead end into which Peter’s infidelity had seemed to have led him.

The jealous rage in him had been channeled finally into the bounds of safety, but the effort had brought an element of calculation to his love, an atrophy of spontaneity, a reinforcement of the cold core of self-love that had always been in him. He longed to love as Peter loved, freely, courageously, without guards.

He squeezed Peter’s shoulder and laughed. “You’re a saint,” he said to resolve the Jeff episode in his mind and dismiss it. I’m not sure I’d trust myself naked with an attractive and worshipful youth, though I can’t imagine finding myself in such a spot.”

“You know how queer you’ve turned me. That adolescent girlish look he still has. If I want somebody girlish, I’d rather have a girl.”

They laughed together. “You’ve found a beauty,” Charlie said, appeased. Wiles and stratagems. He had known that his insane jealousy wouldn’t extend to women. He had made a “man” of Peter, gambling on the probability that it was too late for him to find genuine fulfillment with a woman. He had made himself safe from the possibility of being hurt. Peace and tranquillity. Was that what he had really wanted?

He presided over the most peculiar household he had ever encountered and it was as staid and proper as any he had known in his native Philadelphian suburbs. Had anybody ever gone mad from a surfeit of stability? Occasionally, surrounded by love and the visible evidence of his success, he wondered why he was living. Happiness? Of course he was happy, sanely, suffocatingly happy. There had once been a fire in life that had threatened to consume him. Sometimes, he could still feel it flickering deep within him and he would almost will it to leap up, burn, cleanse, destroy, leave him raw and exposed to the terrors that stalked mankind, to be one once more with the world he had disciplined into subjection.

They reached the studio and held their lamps aloft and saw that it was in order. In the soft light, Peter looked no older than when they had first met. Charlie’s breath caught at his beauty and his chest strained with the fierce pride of possession that was the most passionate element in his love for him. Charlie put his hand on the back of Peter’s neck and pulled him to him so that they were facing each other.

“You’re not to be believed. I swear you haven’t changed in the slightest since I first got you out of your clothes. Twenty-one years. It’s incredible.”

“You’re doing all right.” Peter laughed. “You’re much handsomer and I’m twenty-one times more in love with you.”

Charlie exerted pressure on his neck. “If you have a late night, I’ll see that everybody lets you sleep in the morning.” He waved his lamp toward a picture on an easel. “I’m going to have to get up at dawn to rebuild with the blue. You were absolutely right. I see it now.”

They kissed lightly and turned back toward the rambling house. Peter was obviously eager to get off for the evening on his own with the girl and Charlie shared his expectant pleasure vicariously. Peter was the pulse of life that vitalized the whole house. Taking an active compassionate interest in George’s money troubles, prancing about naked to help a young friend sort out his sexual confusion, picking up an enchanting girl on the port. In varied and enthusiastic contact with life, on his own up to a point, just as Charlie wanted him to be. Even so, he wondered if he would be so sanguine about Jeff if he himself had ever had any erotic stirrings toward the boy. As a matter of fact, the girlishness Peter had mentioned, lurking behind the nascent masculinity of the features,
had
struck him as singularly appealing at times. Masturbatory fantasy figures and phallic worship? No. The reign of the monumental phallus was over.

In the lower room they found that one of Charlie’s larger works had fallen off the wall. They inspected it, Peter more carefully than Charlie, found no damage and returned to the loggia.

Martha had already rejoined their guest. “Sleeping like angels,” she reported. “What
is
all the hubbub down on the port?”

“There seem to be a lot of people out,” Peter said, his eyes gazing with delight at what lamplight was doing to Judy. “Maybe there was more of it down there. We’ve got solid rock under us.”

“I hope nobody’s been hurt,” Martha said.

“I’ll check when I take Judy down, but I don’t get the feeling of disaster somehow. Come on. Let’s have a drink while we wait for the lights to come back. My God! Do you feel something? It’s cool. There’s a breeze coming up.”

They had just been settling down on the loggia after dinner when the crash had brought them all to their feet. They settled down once more. The evening had gone very well, full of easy conversation and quickly flowering intimacy. Peter wanted Judy to himself now, but he sat near her and watched her while she talked to Charlie intelligently about his work. A great “ah” rose to them from the port when the lights went on. Martha and Peter went about blowing out lamps and candles, chatting casually. They agreed they had never seen the
quai
so crowded.

Charlie rose. “You’re going to have to excuse me. I’ve got to be up for the first light in the morning. It’s the only time I can see color properly here.” He went to Peter and put a hand on his shoulder. They smiled into each other’s eyes. “If you see Cochran, congratulate him for having survived Hattie.”

Peter laid his arm along Charlie’s and they stood in a loose embrace. He was aware of the girl’s eyes on them. “Get a good sleep. This breeze will make a big difference.”

“Have fun, mate.”

They broke apart after exchanging another amused private look. Charlie went to Judy and took her hand. “Make him bring you again. It’s been nice.” He turned and kissed Martha on the cheek as he left.

“There’s something I want to speak to you about,” she said to his retreating back. “I’ll be right up.” She made a warmly cordial fuss of her farewell to Judy. Peter saw that the girl responded with none of the wariness he had noticed in her earlier. The evening had worked out just as he had wanted it to.