Seagulls in My Soup (25 page)

He raised his glass.
“SKOAL!”
Down it went. It just disappeared. His adam's apple seemed not to move at all. “Now, you do that!” He rested both his elbows on the table in front of him and glared at me.

I lifted my glass.
“Budreddi drwg ar chwi!”
shouted I, and somehow knocked the bitter liquid down past the back of my throat. My stomach shuddered.

Even as the painter raised his glass again, in marched Sissie, dragging behind her, like a wretched wraith, the sniveling Miss Pomeroy. For a moment, as the acidic wine attacked my stomach and my eyes, and against the sunlight shining through the door, I could not see either of them very well—but I had already sensed Sissie's indignation as she had steamed in.

Sven gurgled down his glass and again reached for a bottle.

“Tristan!” Sissie's voice was distrait.

“Wazzup, love?”

“Ai . . . Ai'm . . . Look!”

“Wazzup?” I peered at Sissie. I could hear Miss Pomeroy sniffling.

“Well, don't just sit theah—look at poor Miss
Pomeroy!
”

Sven took no notice as he poured out another wine for himself. I managed to drag myself to my feet. Miss Pomeroy was hiding her face. Her blue-rinsed hair was all astraggle. Sissie gently put a red, blistered finger under the little elderly woman's chin and lifted her face. La Pomeroy looked as if she had been half-butchered. Both her eyes were closed blue bruises, streaked with runny mascara. On her forehead was another bruise, big and round like a purple goose egg. A great plaster was stuck over one side of her chin. Her lips were split and swollen.

I sucked in my breath. Still Sven sat with his back to us. Sissie started to say “Thet great . . .” I laid a hand hard on her arm.

“Walked into a door and fell down the steps, eh love?” I said to La Pomeroy.

Her head fell onto my tee-shirt. She sobbed. I patted her shoulder. “That's all right, Miss P. Accidents happen in the best-regulated families,” I said stupidly, trying to keep bloody screaming murder out of my voice. “I'll tell you what—why don't you go with Sissie down to the port. They've got some steaks in the fridge in the hotel down there . . .” I nudged Sissie's arm with my elbow, hard.

“She not go nowhere. She my woman!” came a growl from Sven, who still didn't look around.

“They can be back in a hour. I'll ask Alonzo to run them down in his donkey-trap,” I told the Dane.

“She not go nowhere. She stay here!”

I sat down. “Oh, all right,” I said, “but let Sissie go upstairs with her for a while at least.”

“OK, but if I don't hear them up there . . .” He pointed to the bar ceiling with a massive finger, “then I fuckin' kill her!”

I looked at Sissie. She was trembling with rage and fear at the same time.

“Me and Sven's going to have a drink or two together. You take Miss P. upstairs again, eh? Try and make her comfortable or something, lass.”

Sven had his head tossed back, eyes closed. I nodded my head violently in the direction of the port as Sissie stared at me. She turned away from us, leading the half-blinded Miss Pomeroy. As she reached the door I shouted, “Sissie!”

She turned abruptly. “What?”

“I won't be more than an hour . . . It'll take that long.”

With thin little Miss P. sobbing desperately against her shoulder, Sissie passed out under the stares of a hundred locals, gathered, sadly curious, at the door of the Fonda Alonzo. I somehow knew that Sissie was heading straight for
Cresswell
. I also knew that if footsteps were not heard overhead very shortly, the great bully across the table would be after them. I hoped against hope that the Dane had not learned any Spanish. I kept my voice as steady as I could.

“Alonzo!”

“Si, señor?”

“Four more bottles and send your wife upstairs to walk around.”

“Si, señor, inmediatamente—a sus ordenes!”

Soon four more bottles were on the table. Then, for the next hour, the giant lady-killer and I matched each other at swigging the foul, tart vintage, glass after bloody glass, measure for flaming measure, and toast for bleeding toast.

“SKOAL!”

“Budreddi drwg ar chi!”

Again and again and again.

Every few minutes Sven stopped yelling and howling, craftily gazed up at the ceiling, and listened to the footsteps above. Then off again we went, hell-bent to get plastered.

It took a total of six bottles before the giant finally slumped over. How I managed to keep up with him I'll never know. It must have been the thought of Sissie's disgusted tone with me after I had first toasted the Dane; or my imagining him catching up with them on the road; or the anger that was in me at the insults hurled my way by this bullying idiot; or the recollection of the terrible damage done to the tiny lady's face.

Somehow, with the aid of all the sea gods that ever helped a mariner ashore, I did it. I even managed to pay Alonzo, and then to stagger into the back of his little donkey-trap, and there collapse.

“I sent the
señoras
on ahead,” said Alonzo. “We can pick them up on the road, and all get back to the boat together,
Señor Capitán.
”

I remember nothing else until I woke up in
Cresswell
, on my berth. My head felt as if it had been stamped on by an enraged ox. Groaning, I lifted myself up and stared around. Through the companionway I could see that both Nelson and Sissie were standing guard on the stern. She was still wielding her hockey stick. The thought struck me, even as I stared at the prone body of La Pomeroy on the spare berth opposite, that I had never seen Sissie and Nelson ever do
anything
together before. I groaned again.

“Just a teeny tick, dahling, Ai'll make you some coffee,” Sissie sang out.

That half-sobered me right away. “What?” I moaned.

“Coffee! Your head must be bally-well bursting!”

“Coffee? Don't give me any of that crap—what do you think I am, a bloody Frenchman? For Chrissake, make some tea, and none o' that damned Burma blend, either! I've got to sober up before that bloody great Skywegian oaf does, and get the boat the hell out of here. What's the time?”

“Nine o'clock, dahling. Listen, the lawst ferry's just leaving!”

I nodded toward the slumbering Pomeroy. “Pity she's not on it.”

Sissie rattled a teaspoon in protest. She looked at me.

“Oh, but where would poor,
dear
Miss Pomeroy
go
? Thet
dreadful
foreign brute has jolly well spent all her allowance!”

“Great.” I reached for the tea mug. “Just what I need—a non-paying passenger.”

Miss Pomeroy groaned and rolled over a little. Her face was a mess, like a slab of raw beef, only the colors of a dead octopus.

I relented a little. I stretched myself up, trying to raise my raging head and my aching stomach at the same time. It was dark outside. “Oh, well, we can at least get her over to Ibiza. Maybe something'll turn up. One thing's for sure . . .” I paused for a moment as fifty rusty iron rasps scraped across my brain.

“What's thet, dahling? Oh, poor
deah
—shell Ai put a poultice on your forehead?”

“No, make another cuppa tea, and for Chrissake make it strong.”

“What were you going to say, deah?”

“Wha . . .”

“Before you asked for the tea? You said one thing was for sure.”

I groaned as I sat down again. “Oh, yeah. One thing's for sure—if she stays here she'll be dead inside a month, with that crazy bastard back there.” Another thought occurred to me. “What time did you leave the Fonda, Sissie?”

“About four.”

“I must have left around five, then. And it's nine o'clock now. Four hours since that sod keeled over . . . Christ!” I jerked myself onto my feet. “Come on, he'll be charging down here any minute! Let's get the boat out . . . We've no fuel . . . We'll have to work her out under sail . . . And if there's a northerly . . .”

Sissie chimed in. “The wind's in the east, deah, and rawthah
boisterous.
” With Sissie that meant anything from a fresh breeze to a hurricane.

“Well, at least we can get out of port, then, before that bloomin' human tractor comes roaring down here.”

Even as I said this there was a loud moan from Miss Pomeroy. Sissie laid a hand on her forehead—the bit that wasn't bruised. “Oh,
deah
Miss Pomeroy, nevah you fret—you're safe now. We're bally-well taking you to Ibiza!”

La Pomeroy gurgled through her split lips. But Sissie merely patted the blanket she had thrown over the wounded lady. “Now, now, don't you try to say one
teeny
word. You're in safe,
British
hands now.”

“I wish they were safer,” I commented, thinking of the Great Dane. “I wish they were in bloody China!”

In aches and pains and agony I made my way topsides to untie the mainsail and the jib. I'd just got the working jib hanked onto the forestay when there was an huge commotion under the electric lamp at the end of the jetty. I stared over. “God Almighty, he's here already! Quick Sissie!”

No reply.

“SISSIE!”

Sissie stuck her head up over the top of the companionway ladder. “Yoo hoo?”

“Get your ass up here as fast as Christ will let you, girl—that bloody Skywegian is heading straight down the jetty, and . . . Wait a minute, that's funny—he's got the local coppers with him.”

There were three Guardia Civil on the island. Two of them, both big men, were right now trying to hold onto the giant Dane. Sven was shrugging them off as he stumbled along, like a bear tossing terriers.

“Slip the mooring lines, fast!” I shouted, but Sissie was already at them. She threw the untied lines onboard and heaved
Cresswell
away from the jetty before she leaped onboard. I started to haul up the main halyard, but was stopped by a high, piping voice:
“Señor! Señor! Espera!
Wait!”

It was a big police sergeant waving at me. His mate was still arguing with Sven at the root of the mole, clutching now and again at the Dane's poncho, trying to hold him back.

I let go of the halyard. The boat was now about eight feet from the jetty. Too far for anyone to jump onboard, I reckoned quickly. “What's the matter,
señor?
” I hollered against the wind, as innocently as I could.

“This gentleman says you have his wife onboard, but we know him. Alonzo has told us how he treats her. We know, too, that it's not his wife. He has been . . . living in sin!” He removed his black leather hat and wiped his brow.

“She's very badly beaten-up,” I shouted, my hands cupped around my lips. “I'm going to get her to a doctor in Ibiza! Anyway, it's true that she wasn't his wife. She was his . . . paramour!”

“That's all very well for a woman, living in sin,” shouted the sergeant. “I mean they're easily led, aren't they? But for a man—an artist!”

While the sergeant was giving me his lecture on comparative morality, Sven was howling in the night gale at the top of his voice, waving his arms around violently, and steadily approaching the boat as the sergeant's colleague tried to hold onto his giant frame.

First he was shouting and bawling in Danish, then he broke into English as he neared the spot under the lamp on the jetty opposite to where the boat was floating free. “That's my woman you got there, you English bastard! You stop or I fuckin'
kill
you! I sink your boat! I murder that whore of an English lady!”

“Miss Pomeroy is going to see a doctor!” I hollered back, both at Sven and the policemen.

“I give her a doctor! She need a fuckin' doctor when I finish, OK!”

The huge painter ranted and raved. He tried to jump into the harbor to reach us. Both policemen were upon him. The sergeant stepped back and drew his pistol from its holster. He pointed it at Sven. Sissie and I, horrified, gazed at the scene. We saw Sven stop. We watched as he glared at the sergeant. He started to stagger toward the policeman. The sergeant shouted something. Sven stopped again. The sergeant shouted again.

A group of fishermen who had been crowded on the jetty, watching, all suddenly rushed up behind Sven and jumped on him. With the police private and the fishermen all hanging onto him, Sven went under, but it took another five or six minutes before, still struggling, they had him down on the jetty with handcuffs on his wrists and the police private's Sam Browne belt strapped tight around his ankles. All the while Sven hollered and screamed, until, when he was securely lashed up, a fisherman dumped a fishing net over him. Still he bellowed, moaned, groaned, and tried to lash out with his hands and feet.

The sergeant somehow recovered his leather hat, which had fallen into the harbor water, and laid it down on the stone jetty to drain. As he wiped his brow again in the moonlight he breathed so hard that I could hear it twelve or so yards away. “Despicable! Living in sin!” he shouted again to me. “But this isn't the problem,
señor
!”

“Que hay, entonces?
What is it, then?”

“
Señora
Puig is . . . in a certain condition! There are complications! Her child is not due for another month! The island doctor is away at a conference in Palma! The ferry is gone! The telephone lines came down in the storm yesterday! We cannot raise anyone on the radio transmitter! We can't hear them, in Ibiza, and we don't know if they can hear us!”

“So, what do you want? Shall I tell them when I get to Ibiza?”

“No,
señor,
we have
Señora
Puig down here now! She's in the hotel! She has . . . much pain! Her husband, Antonio Puig, is here with her now! For the love of God and the blessed Virgin,
señor,
can you take her with you to
Ibiza?
”