Robin was not certain she approved of the restaurant’s overly familiar name — her mother’s father had been an occasional visitor at Chartwell after the Churchills had retired there; like Sir Winston and Sir William Russell Flint, he’d been a noted watercolourist. But she’d certainly approved of the decor, the table, the view and the food. And the fact that, chopper or not, Nic Greenbaum and his daughter Liberty had been seated at the table waiting for them when they arrived. They’d proposed that the Mariners should join Nic on a cruise down to his new property in the Mexican resort of Puerto Banderas. They’d been dressed to the nines, in acquiescence to the five-star restaurant’s exacting dress code. And with a bottle of the most divine domestic Chablis chilled to perfection, all ready and waiting.
Robin rolled out of bed on that thought and paused, looking at herself in the mirror, her right hand automatically patting the pale, not quite Rubenesque curve of her tummy as she wondered how much she regretted the cordon-bleu but calorie-laden oysters Rockefeller and beef Wellington with asparagus and truffle mash she had consumed, along with rather too much of the Chablis. Richard had also tucked into the oysters — though he had chosen to share a chateaubriand steak with Nic, while Liberty had settled for the Ahi tuna and green salad. The girls chatted about sailing, for which they both had a passionate expertise and on more than one occasion had been fierce rivals, while the boys discussed the business that had called the Mariners to cross the pond — and the North American continent behind it.
As ever, thought Robin, there were several situations that overlapped, all of which could, with luck, be dealt with in the next few days before the Mariners snatched a bit of R&R time in Mexico. Richard’s huge container vessel Sulu Queen, inbound from Hong Kong, was due to dock in the port of Los Angeles multiuse terminal soon after midnight. If all went to plan, she would be emptied of her cargo of Chinese iron within the day. Iron produced in Guangzhou then shipped down the Pearl River to the huge Kwai Tsing container terminals and on to the Heritage Mariner vessel, destined to support the renaissance of the US’s West Coast shipbuilding industry now that the voracious appetite of China’s domestic house boom had slowed so suddenly. The plan was to turn the huge vessel round within the day, Robin knew. A day during which Richard was due to go aboard her and discuss matters with her captain, Captain Sin Heng Son, while the hull was reloaded with containers full of machine parts, top-end domestic appliances, disassembled motorcars from the General Motors Advance Automotive Division in North Hollywood, several thousand gallons of California wine in bottles of various shapes and sizes, and several farms-worth of biologically engineered corn, soy, alfalfa and beets. All due to be loaded within forty-eight hours so Sulu Queen could turn round and sail again, and all destined for various parts of China’s society, economy and agronomy; a virtuous circle of trade negotiated by Heritage Mariner’s office in Jardine House, No. 1, Connaught Place, Hong Kong Central. Richard had been holed up there for most of the last few months while Robin had taken care of the day-to-day business back in London.
That day — today — was also one in which Nic wanted to show his old friends round his latest toy, a multi-billion dollar gin palace yacht called Maxima, built for him by Edminston at the Dunya shipyards in Turkey, which had just been delivered via the Panama canal and run up past Mexico and the Baja California to the Long Beach marina not far from Sulu Queen’s berth.
Nic had explained that he needed Maxima here at this particular moment for two reasons. First, to run his guests — starting with the Mariners — down to his palatial new property in the burgeoning holiday destination of Puerto Banderas on the Pacific coast of Mexico, where Richard and Robin were hoping for the promised rest and relaxation they needed at the end of a hard year. Secondly, to be available while Liberty and her crew tested the Katapult8, the latest in a series of super yachts that currently held the Fastnet trophy, as well as the Admirals and the Americas Cups. They, in turn, were designed and built by Heritage Mariner themselves, and were also in the marina beside Maxima. Both were under twenty-four-hour armed guard. It was at this stage of the conversation that the girls joined in most forcefully, just as the maître d’ regretfully brought to their attention that the restaurant was otherwise empty, the kitchens were closed and the waiters wanted to go home to bed.
The oysters, perhaps, explained the fun and games that had ensued immediately on the Mariners’ arrival at their suite after dinner and a farewell coffee with the Greenbaums in the Observation bar, where they’d put their immediate plans for the next day in order. Or perhaps it was the ambience, after all, Robin allowed — the excitement of imagining themselves as Edward Windsor and Wallis Simpson, Fred and Phyllis Astaire, Bob and Dolores Hope or Spencer Tracy and Greta Garbo, all of whom had crossed the Atlantic aboard. Though, on this occasion at least, Miss Garbo most definitely did not want to be ‘alone’.
They had christened the bed, being circumspect in their love-play as the walls were notorious for carrying sound from one suite to another. They’d remade it, giggling like naughty schoolchildren. They’d showered, individually and regretfully — unable to indulge in their usual foolery beneath the faucet because the facilities were so cramped. Then they had wrecked the bed all over again before falling asleep, full and — as Robin thought to herself as she crossed the suite the next morning — fulfilled. She hadn’t quite made it to the bathroom door before her cell phone on the bedside table started ringing. Safe in the knowledge that no one except the occasional passing seagull could look in through the portholes, she returned to the bedside and picked up the phone. Richard’s face filled the screen. ‘Where are you, lover?’ she asked.
‘I’m on the bridge. Robin, you’ve got to see this!’
‘As soon as I’m fit to be seen myself,’ she promised.
TWO
Richard Mariner had been up and about for the last two hours of the last good day. Though he, like Robin, had no idea how fast and how fully things would go downhill in the all too immediate future and how many lives, including their own, would be at risk. Full of beans since five a.m., probably because it was lunchtime in his head if not in his still well-lined stomach, he had carefully peeled himself away from the somnolent Robin, patted her right buttock gently but proprietorially, and done his best to slide some of the bedding over her pale pink curves. Then he’d tiptoed into the bathroom, showered and shaved before dressing and slipping out, like a student playing truant, to explore. He’d wandered through the grand vessel on a self-guided tour, from the aft engine rooms several decks down with their huge steam turbines, through the engine starting platforms, gazing at the massive turbine turning gears, through the emergency steering stations, onwards and upwards. His fey Scottish ancestry had failed to alert him to any of the ghosts that famously haunted the spaces that he visited — just as it failed to warn him how deeply into death and destruction he and those he loved would be swept within the next few days. Instead, the more he had discovered the more he had fallen in love with this grand old lady, as though she harboured nothing unsettling from the past or the future.
At this precise moment, as he broke contact with Robin, Richard was in heaven. Or, he reckoned wryly, as close to heaven as he was ever likely to get. He was also in the past, though not as far back as Robin, who was fancying herself as Grace Kelly now rather than Dolores Hope, or the coincidentally named Robyn, the second Mrs Astaire — as she luxuriated in the shower, lazily lathering herself with the green tea and willow soap provided for the purpose, and wondered whether she should summon room service with a bracing cup of English Breakfast tea before she went aloft.