Dwyer went up forward to his cabin and came back with a bottle of gin. Rudolph poured the gin into two glasses and put some tonic in with it.
When he returned to Gretchen and gave her her glass, she made a face. “Gin and tonic. I hate it.”
“If Jean happens to come up on deck, we can pretend it’s just plain tonic. It disguises the smell of the gin.”
“You hope,” Gretchen said.
They drank. “It’s Evans’s favorite drink,” Gretchen said. “Among our many points of difference.”
“How’s it going?”
“The same,” she said carelessly. “A little worse each year, but the same. I suppose I ought to quit him, but he needs me. He doesn’t want me so damned much, but he needs me. Maybe needing is better than wanting at my age.”
Jean came on deck, in tight, low-waisted pink denim pants and a pale-blue cashmere sweater. She glanced at the glasses in their hands but didn’t say anything.
“How’s Enid?” Rudolph asked.
“Sleeping the sleep of the just. She asked if Kate and Uncle Thomas got to keep the rings they gave each other.” She shivered. “I’m cold,” she said and snuggled up against Rudolph’s shoulder. He kissed her cheek.
“Fee-fie-fo-fum,” Jean said. “I smell the blood of an Englishman.”
The tonic hadn’t fooled her. Not for an instant.
“One drop,” she said.
Rudolph hesitated. If he had been alone, he would have held onto his glass. But Gretchen was there, watching them. He couldn’t humiliate his wife in front of his sister. He gave Jean the glass. She took a tiny sip, then handed the glass back to him.
Dwyer came out on deck and began to set the table for dinner, putting out little weighted brass hurricane lamps with candles in them. The table was always tastefully set on board, with the candles at night and straw place mats and a little bowl of flowers and a wooden salad bowl. Somehow, Rudolph thought, watching Dwyer work, neat in his pressed chino pants and blue sweater, somehow among the three of them they have developed a sense of style. The candles winked in their glasses, like captured fireflies, making small, warm pools of light in the center of the big, scrubbed table.
Suddenly, there was a dull, thudding noise against the hull and a chattering under the stern. The boat throbbed unevenly and there was a clanking below decks before Wesley could cut the engines. Dwyer ran to the after rail and peered at the wake, pale in the dark sea.
“Damn it,” he said, pointing, “we hit a log. See it?”
Rudolph could see a dim shadow floating behind him, just a bare two or three inches protruding from the water. Thomas came running out, barefooted and bare chested, but clutching a sweater. Kate was on his heels.
“We hit a log,” Dwyer said to him. “One or maybe both of the screws.”
“Are we going to sink?” Jean asked. She sounded frightened. “Should I get Enid?”
“Leave her alone, Jean,” Thomas said calmly. “We’re not going to sink.” He pulled on his sweater and went into the pilot house and took the wheel. The ship had lost way and was swinging a little in the light wind, bobbing against the swell. Thomas started the port engine. It ran normally and the propeller turned smoothly. But when he started the starboard engine there was a metallic clanking below and the Clothilde throbbed irregularly. Thomas cut the starboard engine and they moved forward slowly. “It’s the starboard propeller. And maybe the shaft, too,” he said.
Wesley was near tears. “Pa,” he said, “I’m sorry. I just didn’t see it.”
Thomas patted the boy’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault, Wes,” he said. “Really not. Look into the engine room and see if we’re taking any water in the bilge.” He cut the port engine and in a moment they were drifting again. “A wedding present from the Med,” he said, but without bitterness. He filled a pipe and lighted it and put his arm around his wife and waited for Wesley to come up on deck.
“Dry,” Wesley said.
“She’s solid,” Thomas said. “The old Clothilde.” Then he noticed the glasses in Rudolph’s and Gretchen’s hands. “We continuing the celebration?” he asked.
“Just one drink,” Rudolph said.
Thomas nodded. “Wesley,” he said, “take the wheel. We’re going back to Antibes. On the port engine. Keep the revs low and watch the oil and water gauges. If the pressure drops or it begins to heat up, cut it right away.”
Rudolph could sense that Thomas would have preferred to take the wheel himself, but he wanted to make sure that Wesley didn’t feel guilty about the accident.
“Well, folks,” Thomas said as Wesley started the engine and slowly swung the Clothilde’s bow around, “I’m afraid there goes Portofino.”
“Don’t worry about us,” Rudolph said. “Worry about the boat.”
“There’s nothing we can do tonight,” Thomas said. “Tomorrow morning, we’ll put on the masks and go down and take a look. If it’s what I think it is, it’ll mean waiting for a new screw and maybe a new shaft and putting her up on land to fit them. I could go on to Villefranche, but I get a better deal from the yard in Antibes.”
“That’s all right,” Jean said. “We all love Antibes.”
“You’re a nice girl,” Thomas said to Jean. “Now, why don’t we all sit down and have our dinner?”
They could only do four knots on the one engine and Antibes harbor was silent and dark as they entered it. No horns greeted their arrival and no flowers were strewn in their wake.
IV
There was a small, insistent tapping sound in his dream and as he swam up from sleep Thomas thought, Pappy is at the door. He opened his eyes, saw that he was in his bunk with Kate sleeping beside him. He had rigged up another section to the lower bunk so that he and Kate could sleep comfortably together. The new section could be folded back during the day, to give them room to walk around the small cabin.
The tapping continued. “Who’s there?” he whispered. He didn’t want to wake Kate.
“It’s me,” came the answering whisper. “Pinky Kimball.”
“In a minute,” Thomas said. He didn’t turn on the light, but dressed in the dark. Kate slept deeply, worn out by the day’s activities.
Barefoot, in sweater and pants, Thomas cautiously opened the cabin door and went out into the gangway, where Pinky was waiting for him. There was a huge smell of drink coming from Pinky, but it was too dark in the gangway for Thomas to tell just how drunk he was. He led the way up to the pilot house, past the cabin where Dwyer and Wesley slept. He looked at his watch. Two-fifteen on the phosphorescent dial. Pinky stumbled a little going up the ladder. “What the hell is it, Pinky?” Thomas asked irritably.
“I just came from Cannes,” Pinky said thickly.
“So what? Do you always wake up people when you come from Cannes?”
“You got to listen to me, mate,” Pinky said. “I saw your sister-in-law in Cannes.”
“You’re drunk, Pinky,” Thomas said disgustedly. “Go to sleep.”
“In pink pants. Listen, why would I say a thing like that if I didn’t glom her? I saw her all day, didn’t I? I’m not that drunk. I can recognize a woman I see all day, can’t I? I was surprised and went up to her and I said I thought you were on the way to Portofino and she said I am not on my way to Portofino, we had an accident and we’re bloody well in Antibes harbor.”
“She didn’t say bloody well,” Thomas said, not wishing to believe that Jean was anyplace else but on the Clothilde, asleep.
“A turn of phrase,” Pinky said. “But I saw her.”
“Where in Cannes?” He had to remember to keep his voice down, so as not to awaken the others.