Seagulls in My Soup (22 page)

Francisco glanced over his shoulder and smiled before he clambered to the stern.

Amyas subsided onto my berth. He stared straight ahead of him, before he looked at me. Then his eyes crinkled up and the mustache and ears followed into the biggest grin imaginable. “Tristan, do you know how much that is?” His voice was hoarse.

I waved the envelope that Francisco had handed me. I tore it open. Out slid a bundle of notes two inches thick, onto the biscuit tin lid that served as a chart table in
Cresswell
.

“Two thousand dollars, my old friend, and 600 of it for you! By Jesus . . . sorry, mate . . . by Jumpin' Jiminy, you can have
Dreadnaught
looking like a bloody admiral's barge!”

“Oh, I couldn't take all our share, Tristan. You did more than half the work. And anyway, it was all your idea.”

“No, listen Amyas, you take what's left over after we pay the fishing boats and the orphanage. It'll mean you can get your engine fixed ashore. I'll tell you what; if you like, you can take Sissie and me to dinner one evening next week when we return from Formentera. Fair enough?”

Amyas stared into space for a minute, then he said, “Well, that's very generous of you, old chap, but I simply couldn't . . . I mean, after all, what would I do while I'm sailing around if I didn't have my engine to fix, as it were?”

That knocked the wind out of my sails for a few minutes, while I struggled not to laugh. Then I said, “Well, at any rate, Amyas, you can get the whole bloomin' boat painted and new sails and all, and still have enough left over to cruise for a few months.”

“Oh, I couldn't do that . . . it wouldn't be right . . . honest . . .”

I lost my patience. “Well, all right then, Amyas, as senior partner in the Cupling and Jones
Dreadnaught
Salvage Company, which hereafter will be considered dissolved, and as director in charge of finance, I'm paying you your fee for your advice in the firm's recent operations and also a bonus upon your retirement . . . OK?”

Amyas' face drew itself up into a certain dignity. The mustache ends curled up. His eyes brightened. “That sounds reasonable enough, as it were,” he said. “How much is it?”

“Thirty-one thousand, three hundred pesetas. Here, sign this receipt, please; then I can close the company books.”

I wrote a receipt on another piece of toilet paper, Amyas signed it, and thus was dissolved the shortest-lived salvage company ever.

Amyas said, “Don't forget, bring your lady friend to dinner next week.”

“When we get back from Formentera, Amyas,” I said.

Sissie was back in the late forenoon. “Yoo-hoo, Tristan dahling!”

I heard her voice from the otherwise deserted jetty. Nelson growled softly. I put down my book of verse—
Paradise Lost.

I helped her onboard. She was still in her rose-bestrewn finery. Her eyes glowed like new Barlow sheet winches.
“Deah
Tristan!” she bellowed, as I grabbed her arm. “How
did
you manage without me?”

“Oh, it was a bit rough, but we managed it somehow.” I took her parcels.

She was glowing, excited, as she passed down the companionway. “Theahs a present for you, dahling Tristan!” she yelled, “and one for
deah
dahling Nelson . . .”

Nelson glowered at her. Sissie turned around slightly, rocking the boat. Her eyes stabbed at the stove. Three pans, treacherously littered with the remnants of kidney, liver, fish, and chips betrayed me. “Oh you
poor
deah. Just look at this bally old galley . . . Simply awf'ly mmm . . . Well, I s'pose you've been terribly
busy
while Ai've been away, dahling?” She plonked her parcels on the spare berth.

“Bit of reading. Filled the water tanks,” I replied.

“Heah . . .” Sissie handed me an envelope. “A month's chartah fee. Three thousand, five hundred pesetas dahling.”

“Thanks, Sissie. That'll keep us going until I get another delivery. By the way, Willie get away all right?”

“Oh, absolutely. He bumped into one of his curates in Palma airport. They traveled back togethah.” She ripped my present open.

“How delightful for the curate,” I said.

“Spiffing!” she said, as she handed me a red-and-blue-striped tie.

“Just what I needed—thank you, Sissie!” I gasped as she pecked my cheek.

“I simply
knew
you'd like it,” she murmured.

In calm or storm, in rain and shine,

The shellback doesn't mind,

On the ocean swell he'll work like hell,

For the girl he left behind.

He beats it north, he runs far south,

He doesn't get much pay,

He's always on a losing game,

Chorus:
And that's the Sailor's Way.

Main chorus:
Then it's goodbye my little Marie,

We're off to sea again.

Sailor Jack always comes back

To the girl he's left behind!

—from “The Sailor's Way”

This is a capstan and pump chantey, but it was also sung as a “fore-bitter,” that is, even when work was not being done—which was rare. This chantey is unique in that the haulers joined in singing the last line of the verse along with the chanteyman.

“So how were things in Majorca, Sissie?” I asked, as she fondly showed Nelson a new bright-red doggie bowl she'd bought for him. Nelson softly growled at her and the bowl as though it were poisoned.

“Oh, simply
spiffing!
Deah Willie, of course, just as you said, dahling, didn't like Palma much, but then neither do Ai. All the bally
noise
and the
dreary
traffic, and all those simply
dreadful
little hotels going up. Oh deah . . .” Sissie's forehead creased as she closed her eyes and shook her shoulders. Then her eyes sprang open, and she was
British
again. “Tea, dahling?”

She didn't wait for a reply. Kettle in hand, she went on. “And those
ebsolutely peasanty
little men on the street—shocking! Honestly, dahling, one would think they'd nevah seen a woman before, the way they carry on . . . so persistent, I mean—so awf'ly bally
boring!
Poor
deah
Willie hardly knew
what
to do.”

“They weren't chatting him up, were they?” My eyes must have gleamed.

“Oh, no . . . Well, hardly . . .” She frowned for a moment, then half-apologetically smiled. “Well, not until we got on thet
dreadful
omnibus to Pollensa. Willie did so
awf'ly
want to see
deah
Robert Graves'
charming
villa, and this shocking
harridan
—I mean she was
antediluvian,
my deah—sat next to us. She was from one of those simply
obscure
Scandinavian places that awful chep Ibsen used to write about, and she was dragging around this poor little—well, you reahlly couldn't say
cheppie,
dahling—
person,
who looked sort of terribly
prole,
and he was so
pimply
 . . . and his
purple
shirt!”

I grinned over my tea mug. “Don't tell me he felt Willie's knee?”

“Well, my
deah
Tristan,
ec
tually Ai don't know
what
happened. You see Ai was too
dreadfully
preoccupied stopping this dratted
cockerel
—it was in a
bawsket
undah the bally seat in front of me—from pecking at mai jolly old
feet.
But quite suddenly deah Willie simply
insisted
on stopping the blessed omnithing and
alighting
—I mean, dahling, right out in the middle of
nowheah.
” Sissie's eyes crinkled as if in pain. “And we had to get a sort of lift in this ancient
farmlorry,
and when we arrived, dreadfully exhausted, we found thet
deah
Robert Graves was away. Awf'ly naice villa, though . . . oodles of palm trees and things . . .”

“So you got back to Palma—then what?”

“Well, my deah, it was long awftah midnight when the omnithing finally
oozed
back to the city, and
deah
Willie and I couldn't find a taxi-cab, and we had to jolly well
plod
all the way back to the bally hotel, and all these
ghastly
little men simply
scurrying
the streets and all these
dreadful
hussies loitering about. It was all so sort of
primeval,
rawther like something out of one of those
terrible
continental
opera-things,
you know?”

“Carmen?”

“
Eb
solutely!” she exclaimed. “Oh, deah Tristan, how simply
clevah
of you!”

Sissie gazed at the picture of the Queen for a moment, then said, quietly, “It was
rancidly
un-supah, my pet, and
deah
Willie was so
dreadfully
upset, and I had to almost
smothah
him to jolly well prevent him from dragging some of those
sordid
little hussies along to a restaurant for sup-pah, and all the bally while these simply
beastly
little men were sort of
breathing
at me! Finally one of those
awf'ly
naice policemen of theahs trotted along and escorted us back to our hotel . . . Oh,
deah!
”

I was smiling to myself. “What's up now, lass?”

“Oh, why do those little cheps
do
it? Ai mean, it's not as if theah were no sort of awf'ly jolly
decent
gals around, is it?”

“That's one of the oldest questions around, Sissie. Anyway, I wouldn't wonder at the bloke who does that now and again. If I were you, I'd wonder at the feller who
doesn't.
”

Even as I said that, Lieutenant Francisco climbed onboard
Cresswell
. I called to him to come on down. He descended and saw Sissie, who still looked pained. I introduced Sissie to Francisco. He clicked his heels together at the bottom of the ladder, gently took hold of Sissie's brown, calloused, and wilting hand, raised it delicately as he bowed, and lightly brushed it with his lips. Sissie almost dissolved into the paintwork.

“
Señora,
I am at your feet, enchanted,” murmured the young officer. Sissie was too breathless to say a word. She seemed somehow to hang in space as her Boedicea-blue eyes glazed at him and her mouth fell half open.

In his fairly good English Francisco said, “
Señor
Tristan, the Mother at the orphanage is ready to receive you, and begs that you and your friend Amyas . . . and the
señora,
I hope . . .” (he flashed sex and slavery at Sissie, who almost moaned in a transport of feminine fluster) “ . . . will join her and her staff for lunch at one o'clock?”

“Of course we will,” I replied. (Never turn down comestibles and booze.) “Delighted, Francisco. Will you be coming, too?”

“I have that signal honor,
señor,
” he said.

Sissie suddenly remembered that she was British. “Would you like
tea,
Lieutenant?” she purred breathlessly.

“Señora, your tea will be to me as the drink of the gods,” said Francisco, as full of Spanish flannel as a Ganges blanket.

Sissie smiled weakly at him. She glowed in a subtle way; her Saxon reaction to his Iberian charm oozed out of her like red-gleaming iron slag seeping out of a Bessemer blast-furnace. I studied her face for a moment as she stood over the teapot. Her eyes were half-closed. There was a dreamy smile on her lips, and her dumpy chest heaved as she reached one hand up to pat her frizzy ginger hair.

Of course the cat was coming out of the bag, now. Francisco would tell Sissie the tale of
Dreadnaught
—well laced with Hispanic charm and decorated with Castilian embroidery. Now that Sissie was under the spell of a
real
charmer,
deah,
dahling Skippah could go to pot. I silently slid up the ladder and headed for Amyas and
Dreadnaught,
to collect the engineer-poet and bring him back for lunch at the orphanage. I left Francisco to put Sissie
au fait
with the stirring tale of
Dreadnaught
's demise and resurrection, and to drink “the drink of the gods.”

“ . . . best
Burma
tea, from Fortnum and Mason's,” I heard Sissie purring as I jumped onto the jetty.

An hour later, at the orphanage, where we arrived in Francisco's navy jeep, about fifty kids were lined up to greet us, with four nuns in command. The kids were all ages, from about two up to twelve or so; boys and girls, all dressed in blue uniforms. The girls' gym-slips reminded me of Sissie's. But it was a sad moment as we passed them, at least for me, even though the kids were dutifully smiling and looking their best. The Reverend Mother was gracious and more than grateful for the money which was handed over. I had left it to Francisco to do this, as I thought it would be less embarrassing for the Mother to accept it from the Spanish navy, and from a Catholic, than from we Britons—an Anglican, a Calvinist, and a . . . a delivery skipper.

The meal we had was simple—a salad, broiled fish, potatoes, and afterward a custard pudding. The wine was excellent—a vintage Marques de Riscal. The table had no cloth; the plates and glasses were set out on its clean, well-scrubbed top. The meal was served by older girl-orphans, who looked, although serious-faced, contented with the honor. They did not seem awed by the Reverend Mother at all—in fact their demeanor reminded me of my own sisters' attitude toward our mother, so long before in Merioneth.

The hall where the meal was taken was, surprisingly to me, starkly simple. It was a long, whitewashed place, with a high roof supported by massive timbers. The only decoration was a small, dark wooden cross on one wall. The windows were set high, and were clear glass, through which sunbeams streamed.

At first the conversation was a little stilted. Only the Mother, among the nuns, spoke English, and so we managed as best we could in Castilian, with me trying to interpret for Sissie. After a short Latin grace the Mother was effusive in her gratitude, but I told her she should reserve it for the little general, and that the wooden beams above our heads reminded me of a ship's timbers.

“True enough, Captain Jones. They came from the ships of the Moors, which were sunk here in the harbor in the early fifteenth century,” the Mother replied.

“Of course they were great sailors, the Arabs,” joined in Amyas, whose Spanish was excellent. “They were the first, really, to manage to head more or less into the wind . . .” He hesitated. I figured that he was trying to think of a Spanish equivalent for “as it were.” Then he went on. “Of course,
we
invented steam, though. Good job, really—otherwise we'd probably be speaking Arabic now . . .”

And so we sailors, ignoring Hero of Alexandria, got the conversation rolling, and Amyas managed to mention just about every Spanish shipbuilding yard and engineer of note from the past hundred years of so. After a while the Mother happened to remark that the orphanage water-pump was not functioning too well, so Amyas and I spent a good hour in the cellar after lunch, taking the pump to bits and fitting it with new glands, which Amyas cut from an old leather belt.

As he worked away dexterously he said, “Your lady friend is quite . . . charming, as it were, old chap.”

“Sissie's glad to be back from Palma.”

“You didn't mention anything yet? I mean what we talked about yesterday . . . about her coming onboard
Dreadnaught?
”

“No, haven't had a chance yet, Amyas.”

He looked relieved. “Good, I'm glad,” he said, as he tapped a washer home around the pump shaft. “I wouldn't want her to see
Dreadnaught
until she's a bit more . . . cozy, as it were.”

There was silence for a moment, except for the tapping of the hammer. Then I said “I think you're right, Amyas. I'll talk to her . . . no, a better idea is if we wait until we see you again when we return from Formentera. I can put up with her for another week or so. No sense in rushing, mate.”

“No. We ought to be a bit diplomatic. After all, she
is
a woman. Have to be a bit diplomatic with 'em. Funny creatures . . . Don't want to let her think we're arranging things for her, as it were . . .”

I didn't get a chance to reply. Francisco and Sissie and the Reverend Mother all trooped into the cellar.

“Such delightfully
sweet
children,” gushed Sissie. “Oh, what a
dreadful
pity you and Amyas couldn't see them at theah lunch—so awf'ly well-behaved. Oh what a ghastly shame
deah
Willie and
dahling
Miss Benedict couldn't have . . .”

Amyas switched on the pump. It worked perfectly. A mere perspiration of water from the shaft glands, just as it should have been. The pump whined away as Sissie's voice faded. The Reverend Mother beamed as she handed Amyas, Sissie, Francisco, and me a tiny silver crucifix each. I still have mine.

On the way back to the harbor in the navy jeep, in between Francisco's charming the pants almost off Sissie, I told her that we were sailing for Formentera again the next day. “Too bloody dirty in Ibiza harbor. I've cleaned the waterline about ten times since we arrived here, and it's almost as bad now as it was yesterday. I've only to fix the new bowsprit on and
Cresswell
will be all ready.”

Sissie somehow managed to drag her eyes and attention away from Francisco. She grabbed my arm as the jeep bounced along into the lower town. “Oh,
dahling,
Ai'm
so
glad. Ai'm
eb
solutely, awf'ly
thrilled!
”

“What about?” I asked. I had thought she would have been sorry to leave Ibiza while there was a possibility of Francisco coming onboard.

“Oh, deah . . . Ai've been so
frightfully
fretting . . . in a
dreadful, awful
 . . . reahlly a
paroxysm
of . . .
anxiety,
dahling.”

“Oh?” I wracked my brain about this for a moment as the whitewashed walls flashed by. Then I gave up. “Why?”

Sissie turned her head, her hair flying in the wind. Her eyes were damp. She patted my arm. “Oh, silly old me!” she cried. “Ai
do
get these
dreadful
turns . . . Ai reahlly don't know
what
to say, my pet . . .”

“Come on, Sissie, for Chrissake, what's biting you? Is it something here in Ibiza? Is it some bloke getting on your wick?”

She half-laughed, and slapped my arm harder now. “Oh, no. It's . . .” She left the rest unsaid.

“What the heck is it, then?”

“It's poor, dahling
Miss Pomeroy!
” she burst out. “Ai simply cawn't get her out of my mind. To think of her in the grubby hands of thet great, hulking
beastly
fellow, thet dreadful
foreign
brute! After all, she is
British,
dahling!”