“Er, do you mean the traditional clothing?”
“Precisely.”
“That should be delivered to the wharf before evening. Do you wish me to check on it?”
“It might be a good idea, thank you. Which reminds me-your cheque.”
He received the slip of paper and tucked it away in his billfold. “It has been an interesting experience, Miss Russell.”
Interesting. Yes. “I understand you won’t be coming on the Harlequin with us.”
“I find I have neither desire nor need to leave my city. Although I will admit, were I to do so, your enterprise might be the one to prise me away.”
I took a cautious sip from my cup, and reached for the sugar. “I don’t think I ever heard how you came to be involved in the first place.”
“A connexion through that office you just saw. They arrange for translations of business documents. I have skills in English and French, and I can work the hours I like. Poetry feeds the soul, but does little to nourish the body or keep out the rain.”
“So Mr Hale contacted you through the translation service?”
Pessoa struck a match, squinted at me through the resulting smoke-cloud. “Indirectly, I believe. He has a friend in London, a solicitor for whom I have translated any number of documents. The friend gave him my name and, when I received his enquiry, I decided that I could as easily do vocal translation as written.”
“Was it Mr Hale himself who wrote to you, or his secretary, Miss Johns?”
“I should imagine it was she, although I don’t remember precisely. I have exchanged letters and telegrams with both.”
“Would you have the letters?”
“Undoubtedly. Although they may have a poem or notes for a story on their reverse side by now. I tend to make full use of all the scraps of paper that come into my possession,” he explained. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, my predecessor in the job quit rather unexpectedly, leaving one or two tasks unfinished. I’d like to ask her about them, if I could only find her.”
“Yes, I did wonder at the abrupt stylistic changes in the last communications I had from Mr Hale. That would explain it. But if you’re asking, no, she gave no indication that she was leaving, much less where.”
“Ah well, we’ll make do. Perhaps I shall see you on our return to Lisbon, Mr Pessoa.”
“I should enjoy another of our discussions, Miss Russell. Although I don’t imagine I shall be accepting a position as live translator again. Once was an experience; twice would be somewhat … disruptive.”
“Well, I shouldn’t think most translating positions would be as innately disruptive as working for a film crew.”
“You certainly have your work cut out for you, Miss Russell,” he agreed, with a definite twinkle coming from behind those spectacles.
The twinkle nearly loosed my tongue: I was hit by a powerful urge to tell the man who I was. Knowing that he was sitting knee to knee with the real-life wife of the storybook Sherlock Holmes would send Fernando Pessoa/Álvaro de Campos/Ricardo Reis/etc. into throes of intellectual and poetic ecstasy, and give him a lifetime of material for his theories of deliberate pretence and personal identity. But however much I liked the fellow, I did not know that I could trust him.
And so we ended, with Fernando Pessoa taking out his pouch to fashion another cigarette, every bit as enigmatic as he’d been when I’d first met him, eight days before.
* * *
I did not get to bed that night, and as a result, drew a line through the final item on Hale’s list-“check hotel rooms for items left behind”-at ten minutes after nine on Saturday morning. I’d even managed to scribble a brief letter to Holmes, telling him of the change in plans and reminding him that if the Harlequin went down at sea, my most recent Will was at the solicitor’s.
Of course, absolute chaos seethed at the wharf. Edith’s mother was frantic because her diabolical child had contrived to leave their passports in a drawer: I handed her the documents (which had, rather, been thrust into the farthest reaches of the bed). Bibi was in a fury because someone had stolen her pearl hair-clasp that the Duke of Edinburgh had given her: I assured her it had merely worked its way into a chair’s cushions, and held out the bag in which I had placed it, along with three frilly undergarments, an ivory-handled hair-brush, a pair of belts left on a hook in the bath-room, one red patent-leather shoe, five silk stockings, and a number of objects from the drawer of the bed-side table, which I took care not to examine too closely. Hale spoke in my ear – shouted, near enough – that he’d forgot to tell me that Major-General Stanley had drunk himself into a near-coma the other night and was in no shape to go anywhere, so he’d hired a replacement; that Will-the-Camera was going to need to take over one of the cabins to develop any film shot on board; that Will’s assistant, Artie, had another nervous collapse and was currently in a Lisboan sanatorium; and that he’d brought on board two sail-makers, who would also be available for sewing costumes if Sally needed them.
A dozen similar near-catastrophes and pieces of news assaulted me. Most of the problems I could deal with then and there, sending the complainants up the gangway onto the boat.
Unfortunately, the crowd soon thinned, a feather bed was successfully folded and inserted into the companionway with only a minor eruption of down, the last parcels were brought aboard (including, yes, Mr Pessoa’s traditional Portuguese dresses), and I was left with no distraction from what lay before me.
A very small boat, wasn’t it? And despite being in rather better condition than I’d anticipated, and showing signs of very recent and highly aggressive cleaning, it was still an old boat, and laden with a distressing number of chronically excitable people. My gaze travelled unwillingly down the twin masts (they did look more nearly parallel, didn’t they?) seizing on the occasional encouraging sign of a new rope and a gleam of varnish. The masts and beams showed no obvious sign of rot, the fore mast appeared to have a full complement of sails, and the aft mast, although naked of canvas, seemed to have the rest of its rigging in place. There were even a few scraps of fresh paint, one of which was her name.
“Ready to come aboard, Miss Russell?”
The high voice brought my eyes down to my next immediate challenge: the deck itself. La Rocha stood at the far end of the gangway, his meaty hands gripping the top of the bulwarks. His teeth were bared in a grin, and he exuded a most proprietary air. A pirate king, in all his particulars.
“Mr La Rocha-” I began.
“Captain.”
I sighed: another actor who had fallen in love with his character. “Won’t that rather confuse matters? I mean to say, the Harlequin’s captain may object.”
“I am Harlequin captain, Miss Russell.”
My jaw fell open. I felt it drop, and could only stare, but he just grinned all the wider. “Mr Fflytte buy Harlequin, I sail it for him. What, you think I was schoolteacher, maybe?”
“But, I thought … a fisherman?”
“Yes! On ship. Ship just like this, once. Come, Miss Russell. Everyone else on board.”
Yes, that was the rub, wasn’t it? Everyone else: all the people for whom I was responsible. I stood gaping up at him, wondering why I felt as if a spider had just invited me to see his nice web.
I took a deep breath, and set my foot on the worn gangway.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
MAJOR-GENERAL: As I lay in bed awake,
I thought I heard a noise.
EVEN WITH THE tide sucking us towards the open sea, it took us forever to reach it.