Miguel-Angel walked forward to stand by his capitan and follow the direction of his gaze towards the last of the features that guided them safely home. ‘It is the Dahlia Blanca,’ the boy said. ‘It guides us home like a lighthouse.’ But he used the word faro, which means ‘beacon’.
‘It is like a beacon to me, indeed,’ agreed Carlos. ‘And in more ways than one. It not only brings us home every night, but it ensures I have a home to go to, eh, Miguel-Angel?’
Miguel-Angel understood the old man’s point, for they had discussed the situation often and in detail. Carlos’s daughter, Pilar, had married a young man named Cesar, who had migrated here from Guadalajara and lacked any charm, skill or ambition that his father-in law could see. But Carlos, a fair man, admitted that few sons-in-law measured up to the dreams of their suegros. For some time the newly-weds relied on Carlos for housing and support while Pilar sought work in the villas and hotels being built on the outskirts of the old town. And Cesar had sought with little success to make the acquaintance of the most successful drug dealers in the barrio. It seemed for a while that Carlos would have to support them all for ever — or at least until he was called home to heaven by Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe.
But then el Americano Señor Bosqueverde — Greenbaum — came to Puerto Banderas, and this had led to Dahlia Blanca being constructed. Everything had changed. Pilar applied for a position there and was made a junior cook-housekeeper, earning a salary that seemed simply fabulous. Cesar most unexpectedly revealed a passion for plants and an ability to nurture them, an ability that might have recommended him to the local jefes narcos had they been interested in marijuana rather than cocaine and crystal meth. He too applied for work and was made junior groundsman, of equal standing in the gardens to Pilar in the house. And on an equal salary. They were able to afford a modest flat high on the hill slopes where the rent was cheap and the air was cool. A flat with a second bedroom for the baby they proposed to have soon. But in the meantime, Carlos occupied it, glad to get out of the two-roomed hovel behind Los Muertos in which he had been born and raised, with its veranda on which he had slept during the days — and nights — while Pilar and Cesar occupied the old bedroom and, indeed, the old bed in which she had been conceived. A veranda which was comfortable enough in the dry season and allowed the newly-weds some privacy, while being convenient to the outside lavatory which Carlos visited several time a night.
‘I am pleased your home is so comfortable nowadays,’ said Miguel-Angel wisely, ‘because you will need to sleep well tonight. The tide will be against us in the morning, but nevertheless we will need to be out early if we wish to have better luck than we had today. I did not say, but this morning I heard Hernan, who runs the Cabo 32 Riviera sport fishing boat, say that these are the last good days. From tomorrow or the day after, we must expect a Día del Diablo. And he wasn’t talking about Día de los Inocentes,such as we might have between Navidad and Ano Nuevo.’
‘I know,’ answered Carlos. ‘It is something in the air. I have also smelt it. The heat, the humidity. There is something bad coming, and soon, I fear.’
‘Do you believe,’ asked the eternally hopeful young Miguel-Angel, ‘that it will be enough, whatever it is, to make the prestamistas, the loan sharks, hesitate to collect everything that you owe them for keeping Pilar?’
The old man swung round to face the boy, unusually animated by sudden, frustrated rage. ‘If you can say such things then I have indeed told you too much and treated you like a man, un hombre, when you are still a child, a critura. Perhaps it would be better if you helped your father, Shipschandler Guerrero, safely ashore in his chandlery if there are bad days coming and you cannot hold your tongue like a man.’
But the boy was used to the old man’s temper. ‘Not so, Capitan,’ he answered gently. ‘It is my place as your mate, your primer official, to carry some of your burden. My father is well able to look after the shop himself and has no need of me there. So I say all that I mean to say. If we are to work well tomorrow before the devil days arrive, and pay the loan sharks enough to keep them quiet for the moment, then no matter how late we dock tonight, we must be up before dawn tomorrow and out even before the tide. That way we will be first to sea, and have the best chance of filling the freezers with blue-fin or swordfish. Or even with sardines.’
‘So long as they are full,’ agreed Carlos. ‘You are right, and I am sorry that I was angry. It is I who am the critura, the child. This is a thing which comes with age.’
‘You are not so old,’ said the boy with a smile. ‘But if you wish to age any further, Capitan, you had best pay attention to your heading or we will collide with the pier and destroy the harbour as well as ourselves. Then we will, as likely as not, join los muertos, the dead, before our time.’
TWELVE
Robin woke next morning to the sound of distant thunder. That and the absence of her husband. Again. There was no hesitation this time, no bleary-eyed contemplation of their splendid accommodation, which was filled with sinister shadows today instead of yesterday’s dazzling sunlight. Shadows that gave an ominous flicker before the threatening rumble echoed over the breathless air once more. And Robin was in action before the ominous sound faded back to silence, rolling out of bed and glancing around as she strode purposefully towards the en suite, muttering, ‘Oh, you bloody man. I know where you will be. And I’d better get up and out PDQ myself …’
They had packed rather than fooled around last night, so she didn’t even need to hesitate over her choice of costume. All she had left out were the toilet bag she shared with Richard and the outfit she proposed to wear aboard Maxima on her fast run south close behind Katapult8. Both were heading for Puerto Banderas a thousand miles away — and out from under whatever cataclysm the atmospheric river close above was preparing to hurl down upon California. Practical, almost indestructible, weatherproof clothing that was stylish, easy to wear and quick to get on and off. Much of it by Aquascutum of London, as she was going cruising aboard a state-of-the-art gin palace. Had she been joining Liberty aboard Katapult8, she would have preferred outfits by Helly Hansen or Gill Marine.
Her mood suddenly as dark as the dim, flickering daylight oozing coolly into her cabin, she shrugged off the confection by Janet Reger that had started their love-play off the night before last and padded into the bathroom where, prompted by the third distant snarl of thunder, she skipped her usual shower and brushed her hair and teeth with perfunctory thoughtlessness before getting dressed and going straight up on to the bridge without even checking Richard’s cell phone for confirmation of his whereabouts.
Richard was standing at the portside window looking away westward, the rigid lines of his frowning face reminding Robin of Keats’s verse as quoted by Nic yesterday … like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes he stared at the Pacific — and all his men … Silent, upon a peak in Darien … Though to be fair she doubted whether the Spanish conquistador had been suited by Gieves and Hawkes or booted by John Lobb — like Aquascutum, the holder of many historic warrants for supplying the Royal family with clothes and shoes not least to the queen this vessel was named after and her husband, the king. The scar on Richard’s cheekbone would have suited Keats’s poetically heroic explorer well enough, however, she decided with a sudden rush of affection, if not the less politically correct conquistador thug of historical reality. She joined him silently, rose on tiptoe and kissed the buccaneer’s scar before snuggling close beside him and following the bright blue dazzle of his brooding gaze.