Uncharted Seas (29 page)

He pulled her on to his lap. They kissed again, drank more champagne and he sighed contentedly. ‘We’ll get the local islander who does parson to hitch us up just as soon as we get ashore. No long engagements, or money to save, or furniture to buy, or anything. And you to make love to all day and all night too. Gee! What a break we’re having after all.’

She stroked his fair hair gently. ‘It is rather fun, isn’t it? To think things have been made so simple for us compared with the trouble and waiting so many couples have to put up with before they can become man and wife. But I want you to be quite certain, Juhani darling, because I’ve had a bit of a past—two husbands already—you know.’

‘Oh, shucks! What’s that matter?’

‘It doesn’t really, I suppose, but I do think you ought to know all about me first.’

‘Aw, what the hell! Haven’t I got you in my arms right now? That’s all that matters, honey. That and keeping you there.’

‘You’ll keep me there all right. You needn’t be afraid about that. But you hardly know a thing about me and I’ve led a pretty hectic life. Juhani?’

‘Yep.’

‘Apart from my two husbands—there have been other men.’

‘Plenty of girls have their fun before they’re married, these days, so that doesn’t cut any ice.’

‘Yes, but with me it was afterwards.’

He wriggled uneasily. ‘Well, let’s not talk about that. Whoever they were we shan’t be running up against them here. We’re starting clean and fresh and straight so the past’s a washout, and nothing in it can come between us.’

A rap on the door-jamb made them swing round quickly. Hansie was standing there; grimed with the dirt of the stokehold from which he had just come. ‘Beg pardon, sir,’ he said a little sheepishly, ‘but Mr. Vedras ’as just relieved me and ‘e asked me to give Mrs. Ortello this
billy doo
’.

Synolda slipped off Luvia’s knee and took the white envelope
which had a greasy thumbmark smeared with coal dust on it. ‘Thanks, Hansie,’ she said laying it on the table.

‘You’re welcome, Mrs. Ortello.’ Hansie grinned and disappeared again through the doorway.

She perched herself back on Juhani’s knee, but he stretched out a hand, picked up the note from the table and gave it to her.

She hesitated, twisting it between her fingers, uncertain what sort of a message it might contain and feeling somehow vaguely reluctant to open it in front of him.

‘Go on,’ he said, ‘don’t mind me. What’s poor old Vicente got to say?’

‘It can’t be anything of importance,’ she smiled, letting it slip from her fingers to the floor as she turned her face to Juhani for another kiss.

He retrieved it quickly and handed it back to her. ‘But, honey, if he didn’t want you to have it at once, he wouldn’t have bothered to send it up. Open it and have done.’

Synolda’s heart began to beat heavily under her breast. She cursed her luck that the note should have arrived at the very moment when she had led the conversation so neatly to the point where she could tell Juhani the awful thing that had driven her to join the
Gafelborg
in such a hurry just as it was sailing. The letter might be nothing more than a simple request from Vicente for a chance to plead his cause with her alone, but she half-feared it would be one of abuse. She could hardly prevent Juhani seeing its contents if she opened it there sitting on his lap. With a little breathless movement she flung it back on to the table. ‘It
can’t
be anything that matters, and I want to talk to you. Vicente can tell me what it is himself in the morning.’

‘Just as you say, sweetheart,’ Luvia replied casually and Synolda suppressed a sigh of relief but, at that very moment, Hansie appeared in the doorway again wiping his hands upon a grimy towel.

‘Beg pardon, Mrs. Ortello. I quite forgot, but Mr. Vedras said would I take him down an answer to that note.’

‘Aw, hell!’ exclaimed Luvia, snatching up the envelope again and thrusting it into Synolda’s unwilling hands. ‘Go on. Get it over with. What in heck does the fellow want!’

Synolda tried to stop her heart pounding as she slit the envelope with her thumb and drew out the single sheet of paper. Her scared glance took in the large clear writing.

Synolda, my lovely one
,

Your poor Vicente’s heart is desolate because he sees that you mean to betray him. I love you so much that I forgive you in advance hoping that tomorrow night, or the next night, I shall be the lucky one again. If I am unjust to you, I beg so much that you will forgive me, and leave the light burning in your cabin so that I may see it through the chinks of the door when I come off the duties at midnight. To spare me agonies, if you can, send word by Hansie, just ‘Yes’ that I may come to you tonight. In the meantime I kiss again in my imagination that adorable mole placed so right below your heart
.

Your despairing Vicente
.

At the sight of the first words Synolda endeavoured to crumple the note up but Juhani, without any deliberate attempt to read the letter, could not help catching sight of the last line. Instantly he gripped her hand that held the sheet of paper and kept it firm until every word of Vicente’s pointed foreign writing had seared into his brain like drops of acid.

Slowly he let go her hand, thrust her gently from him, and stood up. Staring at Hansie he said in a thick voice, ‘O.K. Hansie, tell Mr. Vedras the answer will be “Yes”.’

‘Sure, sir, sure.’ Hansie gave a puzzled glance at the grey face of his officer and shuffled rapidly away.

The sound of Hansie’s footsteps died out in the distance. For a few moments there was dead silence in the lounge; the utter quiet of the motionless ship at night caught fast in the dread, mysterious weed sea, completely cut off from all healthy, normal things. Synolda broke it. White-faced and shaking, she stared into the grim, golden-bearded mask that Juhani’s handsome features had become.

‘Juhani,’ she stammered.

‘You slut,’ he roared, his blue eyes blazing. ‘You slut. I wouldn’t have believed it!’

‘Juhani,’ she pleaded, ‘Juhani, let me explain.’

‘There’s nix to explain. You’ve had that blasted Venezuelan for your lover only a night or two ago. That’s dead plain from the letter in your hand. Good God, how could you? Just to think of it makes me so I could be sick right now.’

‘Juhani,’ she whispered. ‘It isn’t true. It isn’t true.’

‘Huh! sez you!’ he sneered, and shooting out his big hand he seized the frail fabric of her dress at the neck, ripping it, in one
savage tug, nearly down to her waist. Her right breast remained partially concealed by the torn dress but the left stood out round and perfect. Below it, clearly exposed to view, there showed the tell-tale red mole.

‘There,’ he pointed furiously. ‘You can’t wash that off any more than you can clean your lips of lies. God, just to think the very first time I fall good and proper it should be for a whore. And you made me think you loved me.’

‘I do,’ she whimpered, ‘oh, I do, Juhani.
Please
let me explain. I don’t care one snap of the fingers for Vicente—I—’

‘That’s another lie. You let him sleep with you.’

‘I hate him—I swear I do.’

‘Then you’re more rotten than I thought. You hooked the poor devil just for fun and now you’re driving him half-crazy with jealousy. I wouldn’t have Vicente’s leavings if you paid me and I’ll not see him done dirt either. You led him up the garden. Since you’ve slept with him before you can darn well go on sleeping with him.’

‘But, Juhani, I don’t want to,’ she gasped between her sobs. ‘I’d die rather than have to do it again.’

‘You can damn’ well die then!’ he raved. ‘Vicente wants you—wants you like hell—but I don’t. You’re his woman by your own choice. Now he’s got that message he’ll be along to you at midnight. If he’s not a spineless sap he’ll beat you up for trying to double-cross him. Well, you can yell your head off, but you won’t get any help from me.’

Synolda’s tears ceased as suddenly as they had begun. ‘I won’t need your help,’ she snapped. ‘I’m not letting Vicente into my cabin tonight—or any other night. I don’t belong to him.’

‘Oh, yes you do!’ In his demoniacal rage Juhani’s blue eyes glinted hard as sapphires. ‘No woman’s got the right to do what you’ve done to Vicente and go cold on a man without giving him a break to work it off. I’m taking you down to your cabin now—get that. I’ll have the bolt off the door and lock it—then I’ll send him down the key.’

‘You swine!’ she flared, ‘you rotten swine, how could you? I’ll kill him before I let him touch me.’

He shrugged. ‘Sorry you don’t like the idea. P’raps it’ll teach you not to try making a monkey out of a simple guy like me. Come on now!’

Synolda tried to evade his clutch but he grabbed her by the
back of the neck and ran her towards the companionway. As they slithered down it she called him every name she could lay her tongue to in both English and Spanish but, utterly insensible to her curses and tears, he hustled her into her cabin and flung her sobbing upon the bunk.

So blind and bitter was Juhani’s rage he was hardly conscious of what he was doing when he carried out his threat of smashing the bolt off Synolda’s door, locking it, and sending Vicente the key. The discovery that his girl was carrying on an intimate affair with a man like the Venezuelan would have proved a rude shock for any young man in love, however sophisticated. To Juhani, whose experience of women had been very limited, the thought was so unbelievably horrible that it temporarily sent him almost off his head.

The young Finn was not a very susceptible type and, owing to the difficulties of marriage which face a sailor, he had never allowed himself even to think of it until Synolda set her cap at him. The propinquity which had been forced upon them since the shipwreck had placed him in closer contact with her than he had known with any woman near his own age since he had been at sea and, having once fallen for her, he had fallen utterly and completely. Now, this beautiful idol he had placed upon so high a pedestal and clothed in the rose-tinted gauze of so many romantic fancies had turned to carrion at his touch.

He had not attempted to seek an explanation for her conduct. The fact of it was enough to fill him with a nausea that sapped the strength out of his body and left his mind a whirl of tortured emotions.

Returning to the lounge he sat there for some time, his big figure hunched forward, his head between his hands, almost stupefied by anguish. After a little he sat up and gazed round listlessly; his eyes fell upon the bottle of champagne he had been sharing with Synolda and its fellow which still remained unopened. Pouring the remaining contents of the ullaged bottle into a tumbler he tossed it off. Quite unconsciously he was soon following the normal reaction of any healthy young man in such a state of despair. He opened the other bottle, drank half of it,
decided that it had not enough kick to alleviate his misery, got himself a bottle of whisky from the bar, and proceeded, since champagne and whisky do not mix, to get drunk.

How long he sat there he could not have told, but he finished the bottle of whisky and, staggering slightly, moved over to get himself another when he caught sight of the clock; it stood at ten past twelve.

As he opened up the second bottle and poured himself a handsome ration it came to him that, by now, Vicente would have done his shift at the furnaces and be with Synolda or, even if he delayed to wash himself, would be with her very soon. Vivid pictures of them together began to dance in macabre and horrible imagery through his brain.

At one moment he was laughing drunkenly. If she didn’t want Vicente, serve her damn’ well right. She’d made her bed with him before so she could lie and rot in it now. But he didn’t believe her outburst about hating the Venezuelan. How could that be so if she’d already let him make love to her? Juhani felt he ought to have thought of that before; the beautiful slut was probably just beginning thoroughly to enjoy herself with him. He gulped down another drink. Well, he didn’t care. At least, he tried to pretend he didn’t; although in fact the thought of the girl in Vicente’s gorilla-like embrace was utterly maddening to him.

He began to wonder vaguely and painfully what had caused her to go all out with a man like Vicente in the first place. There could be only one reason; she must be one of those abnormal dames who were really medical cases; terribly over-sexed and eager to take on any man who came along. Perhaps she would have taken him that way too if he’d played his cards differently and not talked a lot of hot air about marrying her. She’d been full of warm passion every time he’d embraced her, and probably thought him a mug for having been so slow to take advantage of her obvious liking for him. He
had
been a mug. He saw that now through the fumes of the whisky that were mounting to his brain. If he hadn’t been a romantic nitwit, he would have been just about where Vicente was now, two hours ago. She liked him—he liked her. She was no schoolgirl, had been married twice, and had admitted herself to having had affairs apart from her two husbands. Plenty of women did, Juhani knew, although he had rarely come across them owing to the greater portion of his waking hours, these last eight years, having been spent in the engine-rooms of ships.

He began to rate himself for a prize sucker. Any smart guy would have taken the lovely gift God had seen fit to send him. Synolda with her beauty could offer a poor sailor man a better time than he could ever hope to have from some casual pick-up on a night ashore. He had been plumb crazy ever to think of her as a girl to marry.

The second bottle of whisky was now half empty. The lounge swayed tipsily before his gaze. For a little time his mind went blank until a new thought entered it. Was it too late? Why allow Vicente to have all the fun? Whether Synolda liked him or not she obviously preferred him—Luvia. He had been pretty tough with her, but she was not the type to bear malice. Surely she’d make allowances seeing it was her own doing he’d got so het up. Why shouldn’t he go down, give Vicente the air and make his peace with her? Say she refused to play? Well, that shouldn’t stop him. He’d go nuts if he sat there much longer. To take her body by hook or by crook now seemed the only way to get her image out of his brain.