by Rachel Green
“At least they caught the bastards.”
Raul lowered his eyes, unsure how to respond, the medal still resting on his hand between them. Margot sighed.
“I’m sorry. It’s all still a bit raw.”
“Of course. I’ll put it in the safe underneath the navigator’s chair. The combination is 1066.”
“The year you were born?”
His eyes flicked upwards, not sure how to take that. Margot leaned in and laughed. “Only teasing.”
Raul left her to freshen up while he went to start on dinner.
Ten minutes later she emerged to find him hard at work in the galley. Pans and ingredients were spread across every surface, and the smell coming off the steaks he was searing instantly made her stomach grumble.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Everything is under control,” he said, and just at that moment emptied a glass of alcohol into the frying pan and promptly ignited it which perhaps was not such a good idea in the confined space of a yacht since it immediately triggered the smoke alarm. He had to jab the button several times to get it to stop. “Perhaps you could choose a wine,” he said, and indicated the cupboard in the corner.
He had a good selection, perhaps fifty bottles. Margot chose a five-year-old Fitou and took two glasses out of the wall cupboard.
“I thought we might eat up on deck,” Raul said. “It’s a lovely evening.”
“Shall I lay the table?”
“It’s already done.”
She felt in the way standing there doing nothing so she went up on deck and sat at the table in the covered area of the cockpit.
“Turn on the switch at the end of the table,” Raul called up from below.
Margot leaned down and found what she assumed was the right one; when she flicked it, ambient light strips came on along the edges of the bench seats and all around the canopy.
“Found it,” she called back, and couldn’t resist smiling. It was quite the cosy haven.
She rearranged the cushions so that she could sit sideways and look out over the harbour, and then poured herself a large glass of wine. She lit a cigarette and admired the view while she smoked it. From this angle the town looked dreamily quaint with all the boats lined up in the marina and the harbourside cafés buzzing with life. On the promenade, the blue and red festoon lighting snaked all the way down to the cliffs on the far edge of the town.
The food was delicious and Margot ate greedily. “I’m sorry I have no dessert,” Raul said when she pushed forward her empty plate. “I wasn’t expecting company.”
“That’s a shame. Pudding’s my favourite.”
His eyes sparkled with mischief. “However, I do have this.”
He shifted the dirty crockery to one side and then raised one half of the table; it turned out to be the hinged lid of a freezer compartment. He reached in and pulled out a tub of Crème Brûlée ice cream. “Only the one tub, I’m afraid.”
“You mean you’re not having any?”
Ignoring her comment, he took two spoons out of a drawer and handed her one. “We share.”
Later, when they’d finished the Fitou, Raul lifted the other half of the table to reveal a wine cooler; Margot had to fight her urge to grin when she looked in and saw that it was full of champagne. This really was her kind of boat. He pulled out a bottle of Pommery and held it over the side, twisting the bottle and shooting the cork high over the water. He poured out two glasses and raised his.
“To new friends.”
Margot clinked his glass. “Cheers.”
The champagne was the final straw and after just one glass they both sank into a postprandial lethargy. Raul laid himself flat on the bench seat, wriggling his back to make himself comfortable while Margot lit another cigarette and blew perfect smoke rings into the air. Live music drifted in from one of the bars as a female vocalist sang to the accompaniment of a Spanish guitar. After the day she’d had this was bliss.
“Who were the chocolates for?”
Raul sleepily opened his eyes. “Chocolates?”
“I saw you buying them in the square.”
He pulled himself upright. He smiled across the table as he retrieved his glass. “You were spying on me?”
“Hardly.”
“They were for my daughter.”
“Is she all right?”
“She’s fine. I didn’t have to go in the end.”
Margot tapped the ash from her cigarette onto an empty plate. She caught him pulling a face and froze. “You don’t mind me smoking, do you?”
He shook his head, though the look suggested otherwise. She had one last draw and then stubbed it out. “I know, it’s a filthy habit. Hugo was always nagging me to quit.”
“We all have bad habits.”
She put the packet away in her bag. How ironic to have him concerned about her health when just a few days ago he’d almost run into her. She sat up to the table and refilled their glasses.
“So what brings you to Argents-sur-Mer?”
“I’m sailing solo around the world. It’s been my ambition ever since I was a boy.”
“How long have you been going?”
“Three months.”
“And where did you start?”
“Cadiz.”
“Cadiz?” Margot raised her eyebrows. “And in three months you’ve only got as far as Argents? At this rate it will take you twenty years to sail around the world.” She hid her smirk inside her champagne glass. It was hard to resist teasing him.
He pulled himself up to sit properly at the table, seeming to relish the chance to respond. “It’s not a race. Life’s better at a slower pace.”
“Is it?”
“If you rush through you might miss all the nice scenery.”
His eyes probed hers. There was a quality to his stare that she found quite beguiling, like he was determined to see right into her and discover her innermost secrets. But Margot hardened her heart. How many other women had he wined and dined like this on his way up from Cadiz, who’d sat in this very seat, enjoying his fancy champagne?
“And I suppose the life of an ocean nomad suits you, does it? A girl in every port?”
Raul threw back his head and laughed heartily. “You misjudge me, Madame.”
“Do I?”
“Yes: I’m an aging lothario, sailing the world on one last jolly – is that what you think of me?”
Margot shrugged.
“Nothing could be further from the truth.”
“So what is the truth?”
The twinkle returned to his eye. He emptied his champagne glass in one clean gulp and then leaned in more closely. Holding up the fingers of one hand, he counted: “One, I am not a rich man. Six months ago I sold my house and my business. Carpe Diem is all I have now. Two, I’m nowhere near as old as I look. The stress of bringing up three teenage daughters has aged me prematurely. Three—”
“How old do you think you look?”
“Thirty-two, thirty-three tops.”
Margot spluttered. “Sixty-two more like.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You really are too kind. Three—”
“And how old are you?”
“You should never ask a gentleman his age. Three—”
“Fifty-two?”
“You flatter me.”
“Eighty?”
Now he returned a phlegmatic look. “I’m fifty-five. A man’s golden years. Now, will you please let me continue?”
Margot bit her tongue.
“Three, sailing single-handed around the world is by no means a jolly. It’s a challenging task, even on a yacht as magnificent as Carpe Diem. And four, as for lothario …” He sat back and chuckled again, arms folded over his chest. “No, I do not have a girl in every port. One woman has always been as much as I can handle.”
“Your wife?”
“Yes.”
“So where is she? Afraid she’d go crazy if she had to listen to you rant on for an entire lap of the wor
ld?”
“No. She died.”
“Oh.”
Silence fell like a weight. A hard knot formed in Margot’s throat and it took her a moment to swallow. She put down her glass, eyes lowered. “I’m sorry.”
She watched Raul’s hand move across the table and reach for her forearm. When he squeezed it, Margot looked up and found him smiling.
“Don’t be sorry. It’s been five years now. Life goes on.”
“How did she die?”
“Ovarian cancer. It was all very sudden. Everything was perfectly normal, and then one day I went into the house and found her sitting on the bathroom floor, groaning in agony. By then it had reached stage four. The doctors gave her six months to live; she was gone within three.”
“That’s so sad.”
“But I try not to think about the sad times. We were married for twenty-six years and when she died it broke my heart, but I have so many happy memories to look back on. She blessed me with three beautiful daughters. I couldn’t have wished for anything more.”
He was smiling so warmly Margot couldn’t help but smile back. She turned sideways on the bench again and shuffled so that she could pull her knees up to her chin. Would she ever feel that way about Hugo?
“What do you miss most about her?”
Raul leaned back. “Her smile, perhaps. Even when she was annoyed with me she wouldn’t stay mad for long. She could see through my uncouth exterior to the fine fellow I am at heart.”
“With Hugo it’s the company I miss. We were like two sides of the same coin. I always imagined we would grow old together. Be that romantic old couple you see holding hands. I came here to make a new start but the house feels so empty.”
A distant whoosh made them both turn their heads. Somewhere in the hills a firework had been set off and a rocket was racing up into the night sky. There was a moment of silence before it exploded into a shower of red and white sparks. A cheer went up from one of the bars.
“It’s been almost ten months now but I can’t imagine I’ll ever stop missing him.”
“Grief can be a stubborn old thing.”
Margot heaved a long sad sigh. When another firework went up and it looked like a fiesta was about to begin, Raul rolled back the canopy and they watched the light-show with the last of the champagne.
***
The air started to turn chilly so they went below. It was after eleven and Margot felt sleepy, but Raul wanted to stay up. He got out a mixing glass and filled it with ice from one of the freezers while Margot retrieved a bottle of gin and a bottle of vermouth he had open in the fridge. They were going to make cocktails.
“What are your plans for tomorrow?” Raul said as he poured a good measure of gin and vermouth into the mixing glass. He stirred vigorously, and then garnished two Martini glasses with a pickled onion. The thought he might be trying to get her drunk crossed her mind but Margot had no fear on that score. She’d not yet met a man she couldn’t drink under the table.
“I need to get some quotes for fixing up the house. Why?”
“Would you like to go sailing? The weather forecast is good.”
She shook her head. “I get terribly seasick.”
“I have some pills.”
“They don’t work on me.”
“And yet you swim in the sea …”
“Being in the water is different to being on it. Or maybe I’m just odd.”
Raul made no comment.
In any case, her mind was on other things. She wanted to keep in touch with what happened when the police searched the garage. There would surely be other evidence hidden away in there. How she would love to be a fly on the wall when the police stormed in. It occurred to her that Raul was still in the dark about what she’d been up to and it didn’t seem very fair, given he’d provided her with this safe haven for the night. She waited while he finished the cocktails, watching him pour the mixture into the glasses. Margot had sip and nodded her approval, but then slid her glass to one side.
“I’ve not been entirely honest with you.”
Raul looked surprised. “Oh, about what?”
“The fire wasn’t an accident. Someone threw a petrol bomb through my window.”
He swallowed his mouthful and stared at her, eyes widening to the size of saucers. “A petrol bomb?”
“That’s what the police think.”
He seemed baffled. “But why on earth would someone do that?”
Margot locked eyes with him. She may have only known him for a few days but she was confident she could trust him. She told him the whole story, omitting no detail. Raul listened with increasing incredulity until by the time she’d finished he had a hard time closing his mouth.
“What on earth possessed you to get involved with people like that?”
“I wanted justice for Aswan. The police weren’t interested, what else was I to do?”
“But why put yourself in so much danger?”
She exhaled in annoyance. “I’ve just told you. The only mistake I made was giving my details to the car hire company. I should have been more careful.”
Raul tried to blink the surprise out of his eyes and abruptly sat back, pointedly shaking his head. “I can’t decide whether you’re brave or foolish.”
“Maybe I’m both.”
“Or completely reckless.”
She tutted, tired of having to keep explaining herself. “If we all just sit back and do nothing people like that will keep getting away with it.”
“Unfortunately, people like that are pretty scary.”
“They don’t scare me.”
“Well, they ought to.”
Margot stiffened her resolve. She leaned across the table. “No, Raul. They’re just men. Overgrown boys. They’re cowards and bullies and we shouldn’t give in to them. People being afraid of them is what gives them their power. But someone has to stand up to them.”
“And you’re the one who’s going to do that?”
“Yes! If I have to.”
“And if you get yourself killed in the process?”
“Then I’ll die knowing I tried to make a difference.”
Raul got up from the table and walked to the far end of the galley, rubbing the back of his neck in frustration. Margot observed him with curiosity, surprised by how concerned he seemed to be.
Neither of them spoke for a while. She didn’t want to argue with him but he had to understand. When he returned to the table, Margot tried to bring him round with a friendly smile.
“It’s nice that you’re concerned but I’m not naïve.”
“I never said you were.”
“I feel very strongly about this. My husband gave his life trying to do what he thought was right.”
“But that was his job.”
“Job or not, it’s motivation that counts.” She breathed in. “ ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ ”
“Now you’re quoting John Burke at me?”
“John Stuart Mill, actually. It’s based on an earlier quote: ‘Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends than that good men should look on and do nothing.’ ”
“Well lah-di-dah. Is that a fact?”
“Political Science was part of my law degree.”
He narrowed his eyes. “That hardly seems fair.”
She smiled again. Finally, Raul smiled back. “All I can say is I’m glad I’m on your side.”
“You wouldn’t want me as an enemy,” she said immodestly and downed the remainder of her cocktail. Raul had nothing more to add.
A yawn crept up on her. Margot covered her mouth with a hand and then stretched her arms. “Anyway. It’s been a long day. I’m off to bed.”
He nodded. She left him to clear up the cocktail things.
In her cabin, Margot unpacked her overnight bag and set out her toiletries on the bathroom shelf. She spent a few moments studying her reflection in the mirror above the sink, dismayed by the black rings aro
und her eyes. This time last night she’d been doing the very same thing in her bathroom at home. What an eventful twenty-four hours it had been.
She got ready for bed and then sat on the mattress, testing it for firmness. It was very comfortable, as were the pillows. When she laid down her head and closed her eyes, however, sleepiness abandoned her. She sighed, and tossed onto her other side. Her eyes switched focus to the door. Raul’s cabin was at the opposite end of the boat and she probably wouldn’t have heard if he’d gone to bed, but she had a feeling he was still up.
She lowered her feet to the carpet and crept to the door. There was no sound, apart from creaks from the hull as the boat rocked gently on the water. She eased open the door and went silently out. Raul was still seated at the table, exactly where she’d left him, staring sadly into the bottom of his Martini glass. Perhaps ten seconds passed before he noticed her and looked up.
“Is everything all right?”
“I just came out for a glass of water.”
“There are some bottles in the fridge.”
He made a move to get it for her but Margot told him to sit back down. She filled a tumbler and drank half of it while she was still at the counter. She turned to face him, and smiled.
“I’m sorry I called you an old fool the other day.”
He shrugged. “I’ve been called worse.”
She could imagine. “It wasn’t your fault. I shouldn’t have been swimming out so far.”
“I would have been mortified had I actually run into you.”
Margot had another sip of water. “The other day, when I thought your boat had gone, I assumed I’d frightened you off.”
“You really think I scare that easily?”
“I can be quite intimidating when I want to be.”
She waited, hoping he might come up with a sparring retort, but he seemed content to just look at her. Never mind. Margot poured the rest of the water away. “Goodnight, then.”
“Would you have been disappointed if I had gone away?”
“You flatter yourself.”
“Yet here you are.”
There was another pause. Margot’s mind was fading fast but she couldn’t let him have the last word. “It was either this or Madame Barbier’s spare room and her husband snores terribly.”
“Maybe I snore.”
“You do and you’ll be going over the side.”