Hungry as the Sea (43 page)

She knew exactly how to hunt him beyond the frontiers of reason, to course him like a flying stag, and his fingers tangled frantically in the foaming lace at her throat as he tried to free her tight swollen breasts. She cried out a third time, and with a single movement jerked open the fastening at his waist, exposing the full hard lean length of his body, and her hands were as frantic as his.

“Oh, sweet God, you’re so hard and strong – oh sweet God, I’ve missed you so.” There was time later for all the refinements and nuances of love, but now her need was too cruel and demanding to be denied another moment. it had to happen this instant before she died of the lack.

Chapter 31

Nicholas rose slowly towards the surface of sleep, aware of a brooding sense of regret. just before he reached consciousness, a dream image formed in his sleep-starved brain, he relived a moment from the distant past. A fragment of time, recaptured so vividly as to seem whole and perfect.

Long ago he had picked a deep-sea trumpet shell at five fathoms from the oceanic wall of the coral reef beyond the Anse Baudoin lagoon of Praslin island, it was the size of a ripe coconut and once again he found himself holding the shell in both cupped hands gazing into the narrow oval opening, around which the weed-furred and barnacle-encrusted exterior changed dramatically, flaring into the pouting lips and exposing the inner mother-of-pearl surfaces that were slippery to the touch, a glossy satin sheen, pale translucent pink, folded and convoluted upon them selves, shading darker into fleshy crimsons and wine purples as the passage narrowed and sank away into the mysterious lustrous depths of the shell.

Then abruptly, the dream image changed in his mind. The projected opening in the trumpet shell expanded, articulating on jaw-hinges and he was gaping into the deep and terrible maw of some great predatory sea-creature, lined with multiple rows of serrated triangular teeth,  shark-like, terrifying, so he cried out in half-sleep, startling himself awake, and he rolled quickly on to his side and raised himself on one elbow. Her perfume still lingered on his skin, mingled with the smell of his own sweat, but the bed beside him was empty, though warm and redolent with the memory of her body.

Across the room, the early sun struck a long sliver of light through a narrow chink in the curtains. It looked like a blade, a golden blade. It reminded him instantly of Samantha Silver. He saw her again wearing sunlight like a cloak, barefoot in the sand and it seemed that the blade of sunlight was being driven up slowly under his ribs.

He swung his feet off the wide bed and padded softly across to the gold and onyx bathroom. There was a dull ache of sleeplessness and remorse behind his eyes and as he ran hot water from the dolphin’s mouth into the basin, he looked at himself in the mirror although the steam slowly clouded the image of his own face. There were dark smears below his eyes and his features were gaunt, harsh angles of bone beneath drawn skin.

“You bastard,” he whispered at the shadowy face in the mirror. “You bloody bastard.”

They were waiting breakfast for him, in the sunlight on the terrace under the gaily coloured umbrellas. Peter had preserved the mood of the previous evening, and he ran laughing to meet Nicholas.

“Dad, hey Dad.” He seized Nicholas’ hand and led him to the table.

Chantelle wore a long loose housegown, and her hair was down on her shoulders, so soft that it stirred like spun silk in even that whisper of breeze. It was calculated, Chantelle did nothing by chance; the intimately elegant attire and the loose fall of her hair set the mood of domesticity – and Nicholas found himself resisting it fiercely.

Peter sensed his father’s change of mood with an intuitive understanding beyond his years, and his dismay was a palpable thing, the hurt and reproach in his eyes as he looked at Nicholas; and then the chatter died on his lips and he bent his head studiously over his plate and ate in silence.

Nicholas deliberately refused the festival array of food, took only a cup of coffee, and lit a cheroot, without asking Chantelle’s permission, knowing how she would resent that. He waited in silence and as soon as Peter had eaten he said: “I’d like to speak to your mother, Peter.” The boy stood up obediently.

“Will I see you before you leave, sir?”

“Yes.” Nicholas felt his heart wrung again. “Of course.”

“We could sail again?”

“I’m sorry, my boy. We won’t have time. Not today.”

“Very well, sir.” Peter walked to the end of the terrace, very erect and dignified, then suddenly he began to run, taking the steps down two at a time, and he fled into the pine forest beyond the boathouse as though pursued, feet flying and arms pumping wildly.

“He needs you, Nicky,” said Chantelle softly.

“You should have thought about that two years ago.” She poured fresh coffee into his cup.

“Both of us have been stupid – all right, worse than that. We’ve been wicked. I have had my Duncan, and you have had that American child.”

“Don’t make me angry now,” he warned her softly. “You’ve done enough for one day.”

“It’s as simple as this, Nicholas. I love you, I have always loved you – God, since I was a gawky school-girl,” she had never been that, but Nicholas let it pass, “since I saw you that first day on the bridge of old Golden Eagle, the dashing ship’s captain.”

“Chantelle. All we have to discuss is
Golden Dawn
and Christy Marine.”

“No, Nicholas. We were born for each other, Daddy saw that immediately, we both knew it at the same time – it was only a madness, a crazy whim that made me doubt it for a moment.”

“Stop it, Chantelle.”

“Duncan was a stupid mistake. But it’s unimportant—”

“No, it’s not unimportant. It changed everything. It can never be the same again, besides –”

“Besides, what? Nicky, what were you going to say?”

“Besides, I am building myself another life now. With another very different person.”

“Oh God, Nicky, you aren’t serious?” She laughed then, genuine amusement, clapping her hands delightedly. “My dear, she’s young enough to be your daughter. It’s the forty syndrome, the Lolita complex.” Then she saw his real anger, and she was quick, retrieving the situation neatly, aware that she had carried it too far.

“I’m sorry, Nicky. I should never have said that.” She paused, and then went on. “I will say she’s a pretty little thing, and I’m sure she’s sweet – Peter liked her.” She damned Samantha with light condescension, and then dismissed her as though she were merely a childlike prank of Nicholas’, a light and passing folly of no real significance.

“I understand, Nicholas, truly I do. However, when you are ready, as you will be soon, then Peter and I and Christy Marine are waiting for you still. This is your world, Nicholas.” She made a gesture which embraced it all. “This is your world, you will never really leave it.”

“You are wrong, Chantelle.”

“No.” She shook her head. “I am very seldom wrong, and on this I cannot be wrong. Last night proved that, it is still there – every bit of it. But let’s discuss the other thing now,
Golden Dawn
and Christy Marine.”

Chapter 32

Chantelle Alexander lifted her face to the sky and watched the big silver bird fly, It climbed nose high, glinting in the sunlight, twin trails of dark unconsumed fuel spinning out behind it as the engines howled under the full thrust. With the wind in this quarter, the extended centreline of the main Nice runway brought it out over Cap Ferrat.

Beside Chantelle, only an inch or two shorter than she was, Peter stood and watched it also and she took his arm, tucking her small dainty hand into the crook of his elbow.

“He stayed such a short time,” Peter said, and overhead the big airbus turned steeply on to its crosswind leg.

“We will have him with us again soon,” Chantelle promised, and then she went on. “Where were you, Peter? We hunted all over when it was time for Daddy to go?”

“I was in the forest,” he said evasively. He had heard them calling, but Peter was hidden in the secret place, the smuggler’s cleft in the yellow rock of the cliff; he would have killed himself rather than let Nicholas Berg see him weeping.

“Wouldn’t it be lovely if it was like the old times again?” Chantelle asked softly, and the boy stirred beside her, but unable to take his gaze from the aircraft, “Just the three of us again?”

“Without Uncle Duncan?” he asked incredulously, and high above them the aircraft, with a last twinkle of sunlight, dove deeply into the banks of cumulus cloud that buttressed the northern sky. Peter turned at last to face her. “Without Uncle Duncan?” he demanded again. “But that’s impossible.”

“Not if you help me, darling.” She took his face in her cupped hands. “You will help me, won’t you?” she asked, and he nodded once, a sharply incisive gesture of assent; she leaned forward and kissed him tenderly on the forehead. “That’s my man,” she whispered.

“Mr. Alexander is not available. May I take a message?”

“This is Mrs. Alexander. Tell my husband that it’s urgent.”

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. Alexander.” The secretary’s voice changed instantly, cool caution becoming effusive servility. “I didn’t recognize your voice. The line is dreadful, Mr. Alexander will speak to you directly.” Chantelle waited, staring impatiently from the study windows.

The weather had changed in the middle of the morning with the cold front sweeping down off the mountains, and now icy wind and rain battered at the windows.

“Chantelle, my dear,” the rich glossy voice that had once so dazzled her, “is this my call to you?”

“It’s mine, Duncan. I must speak to you urgently.”

“Good,” he agreed with her. “I wanted to speak to you also. Things are happening swiftly here. It’s necessary for you to come up to st Nazaire next Tuesday, instead of my joining you at Cap Ferrat.”

“Duncan—” but he went on over her protest, his voice as full of self-confidence, as ebullient as she had not heard it in over a year.

“I have been able to save almost four weeks on
Golden Dawn
.”

“Duncan, listen to me.”

“We will be able to launch on Tuesday. It will be a makeshift ceremony, I’m afraid, at such short notice.” He was inordinately proud of his own achievement. It annoyed her to hear him. “What I have arranged is that the pod tanks will be delivered direct to the Gulf from the Japanese yards. They are towing them in their ballast with four American tugs. I will launch the hull here, with workmen still aboard her, and they will finish her off at sea during the passage around Good Hope, in time for her to take on her tanks and cargo at El Barras. We’ll save nearly seven and a half million.”

“Duncan!” Chantelle cried again, and this time some thing in her tone stopped him.

“What is it?”

“This can’t wait until Tuesday, I want to see you right away.”

“That’s impossible,” he laughed, lightly, confidently. “It’s only five days.”

“Five days is too long.”

“Tell me now,” he invited. “What is it?”

“All right,” she said deliberately, and the vicious streak of Persian cruelty was in her voice. “I want a divorce, Duncan, and I want control of my shares in Christy Marine again.”

There was a long, hissing crackling silence on the line, and she waited, the way the cat waits for the first movement of the crippled mouse.

“This is very sudden.” His voice had changed completely, it was bleak and flat, lacking any timbre or resonance.

“We both know it is not,” she contradicted him.

“You have no grounds.” There was a thin edge of fear now. “Divorce isn’t quite as easy as that, Chantelle.”

“How is this for grounds, Duncan?” she asked, and there was a spiteful sting in her voice now. “If you aren’t here by noon tomorrow, then my auditors will be in Leadenhall Street and there will be an urgent order before the courts.”

She did not have to go on, he spoke across her and there was a note of panic in his voice. She had never heard it before. He said, “You are right. We do have to talk right away.” Then he was silent again, collecting himself, and his voice was once more calm and careful when he went on, “I can charter a Falcon and be at Nice before midday. Will that do?”

“I’ll have the car meet you,” she said, and broke the connection with one finger. She held the bar down for a second, then lifted her finger. “I want to place an international call,” she said in her fluent rippling French when the operator answered. “I do not know the number, but it is person to person. Doctor Samantha Silver at the University of Miami.”

“There is a delay of more than two hours, madame.”

“Tattendrai,” she said, and replaced the receiver.

Chapter 33

The Bank of the East is in Curzon Street, almost opposite the White elephant Club. It has a narrow frontage of bronze and marble and glass, and Nicholas had been there, with his lawyers, since ten o’clock that morning. He was learning at first hand the leisurely age-old ritual of oriental bargaining.

He was selling Ocean Salvage, plus two years of his future labour – and even for seven million dollars he was beginning to wonder if it was worth it – and it was not a certain seven million either. The words tripped lightly, the figures seemed to have no substance in this setting. The only constant was the figure of the Prince himself, seated on the low couch, in a Savile Row suit but with the fine white cotton and gold-corded headdress framing his dark handsome features with theatrical dash.

Beyond him moved a shadowy, ever-changing backtime that ground of unctuous whispering figures. Every time Nicholas believed that a point had been definitely agreed, another rose-pink or acid-yellow Rolls-Royce with Arabic script number-plates would deposit three or four more dark-featured Arabs at the front doors and they would hurry through to kiss the Prince on his forehead, on the bridge of his nose and on the back of his hand, and the hushed discussion would begin all over again with the newcomers picking up at the point they had been an hour previously.