The wind freshened and whipped up the sea. Sailing close to the wind, the boat heeled like a racer and leaped through the water.
“The old tub is really moving again,” Charlie said after a long silence, with only a faint echo of the excitement he had always displayed when he was pleased with the boat’s performance. An almost full moon gilded the plunging sea. Charlie went on drinking slowly and steadily, taking slugs directly from the bottle. The alcohol contained his emotions and gave weight and depth to his depression. Peter could feel a stubborn determination building up in him that told him he would never get him to rest now. He kissed the side of his face and stretched out on the leeward bench and slept.
Charlie was a machine attached to the wheel, swaying with the movement of the boat and driving it on. He had no idea how many hours he had been holding it when he became aware of a solid shape outlined against the pale sky on the distant horizon. He could see no lights. He had noted on the chart a tiny island off Crete to the east of their course for Heraklion. The wind had been pushing them eastward. If this was the island, it was getting on toward dawn and they had made good time. He was heading straight for it. He looked for the heights of Crete behind it but could see nothing. He decided to get in closer before taking the long tack back to get into position for the approach to Heraklion.
He watched the rock grow bigger slowly as he seemed to rush toward it. He began to make out a line of white at its base. He recognized this as the foaming sea breaking against it. It caused a little tightening of his nerves and he shifted in his seat. He had never liked sailing too close to land. In this case, it was perfectly safe, he reassured himself. The wind would blow them off it. He probably had nearly an hour before he would be really in close. By then, if this was the island he thought it was, he should be able to make out the headlands of Crete and establish their position.
He began playing a game with the boat, heading it up with every small favorable shift in the wind to see if he could pass to windward of the rocky mass in front of him. It would be nip-and-tuck. His hands gripped the wheel hard as he saw them being flung up on what appeared to be steep cliffs if the wind played tricks on him at the last minute or he made the slightest miscalculation. This was silly; games weren’t for boats. Even if he could make it to windward, the risk was unjustifiable. Good sailing sense required that he regard it as an obstacle and keep well clear of it. He held the helm steady. The cliffs drew him. The thought of running up on them recurred and its terror slowly passed. Why not? An easy end to a sad story. The Kingsleys were sleeping. They would never know what hit them. His unwanted child would be obliterated. He savored the peace he had found before in the thought of death. Peter couldn’t live without him. They would all go in one great smash. He thought of the magical moments of the last weeks—the nights at sea under starfilled skies holding Peter close against him, the kiss exchanged unashamedly on the beach at Siros, Peter naked on another beach, his voice clotted with love, saying, “This is what I’m all about, no matter what.” Moments filled with a joy he knew could never be recaptured. His failure, the collapse of his grand design, had crushed some vital element in him. He was tired, so damn tired, tired deep in his marrow. He could never care about anything again. End it. End it all.
He leaned forward and peered ahead. The light was changing. The islet looked much closer. He could just make out the movement of the crashing surf. His heart began to beat more rapidly, but his hands were relaxed on the wheel, exerting only the pressure necessary to guide it. It should be quite painless. If the rocks were as sheer as they appeared to be, there would be the smashing impact as they raced upon them, perhaps a brief battle with the sea, and then nothing. He felt in competent control of the boat and quite rational.
As the night paled to gray, he began to make out the conformation of the steep rocks ahead. He was coming in to windward of a promontory. Beyond it was the headland he had been trying to clear earlier. He couldn’t have managed it; the wind was bringing him right in on it. He leaned forward and touched Peter’s hair. He sat up immediately and smiled and yawned.
“How’re we doing?” he asked sleepily.
“I’m going to smash the boat up,” Charlie said in a matter-of-fact voice.
Peter looked at him and his breath caught. The words meant nothing to him, but Charlie’s face frightened him. It was composed, but in the gray light his eyes looked dead, his mouth was grim, his expression strangely set. He looked old. He had never thought of age in connection with Charlie. It scared him more than what he had said. “What’re you talking about?” he asked when he had taken a deep breath.
“Just what I said.” He nodded forward. “Look.”
Peter stood and looked forward and whirled back to him. “Where are we? What is this?”
“It’s a pile of rock. I’m going to run us up on it.”
Peter tried to smile and his breath caught again as he looked into the dead eyes. “Come on. What’re you doing? What’s the joke?”
“It’s no joke. I’ve had it.”
“Had what? You don’t want to go on with the cruise?”
“I don’t want to go on with anything. This is the way it’s going to end.”
“For God’s sake, have you lost your mind? You mean, you want to kill us all?” Peter started to put a hand out to him, but something about the odd, set expression made him draw back. He sat, his back turned to the land looming up in front of them. “Please, darling. Tell me what it’s all about.”
“I wish I knew. Dying is so simple. Don’t you want to die with me? You’ve often said you did.”
“But the others.”
“I don’t care about them.”
“But you’ve got to. You’re crazy. If you want us to kill ourselves, we’ll take pills or something. Not this.”
“I just don’t care about anything. It’s all over.”
“But why? For Christ’s sake, tell me,” Peter pleaded. “If it’s something I’ve done, I’ve got to know.”
“You haven’t done anything, baby. Neither have I. That’s the trouble. I wanted something better for us. It’s no good.”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about. We’ve got to get somewhere we can make sense together. Then it’ll be any way you want it.” He spoke lightly and persuasively, struggling against the tripping of his heart. He didn’t want Charlie to feel his fear or do anything that would create a sense of conflict. If his mind had slipped, if this was some sort of breakdown, Charlie might be capable of anything to win a battle of wills. He must make him feel unopposed. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of land closing in on the port side. “You can do anything you want with us. Don’t you see? You can’t get the others into it.”
“Why not?”
“You don’t have the same rights with anybody else that you have with me. It’s not fair to act as if you had.” He reached out to Charlie’s hand on the wheel to test its determination. “Please come about. Damn it; if I’m going to die I want it to be with you, the way everything’s always been. They’re not good enough to die with us.” He saw a flicker of interest light the dead eyes.
“Take your hand off the wheel,” Charlie said flatly.
Peter did so and his heart skipped a hammering beat. For an instant, he thought he might have won. He saw Charlie ease the helm. He was apparently just testing it. He held to his collision course. “Damn it,” Peter burst out in desperation. “I don’t want to do it, but if I get the Kingsleys up here maybe you’ll see how impossible it is.” Perhaps they would shame him into sanity. Peter wondered if he could bring himself to use force as a last resort.
“Do anything you like,” Charlie said. He reached down to the locker under the seat where tools were kept and pulled out a wrench.
Peter watched with growing fear. He sprang up and ran forward. He paused for a chilling moment, looking ahead. The sea hurtled itself onto jagged rocks. The force of it flung water into the air, curtaining the steep cliffs behind. He
could hear the deep pounding of it. He could feel in his bones the impact they would make. There would be a great splitting and crashing. They would all be hurled against rocks, torn, battered, crushed. How long did they have? Five minutes? Surely, ten minutes at the most. He dropped down the companionway. He was back in a moment. Jack followed. He clambered out on deck looking bleary and aggressive.
“What in hell’s going on?” he demanded. He looked forward.
“Jesus Christ!” he shouted. He came rushing back toward the wheel. Charlie lifted the wrench.
“Watch your step, Jack,” he said as if this were an ordinary occasion.
Jack gave him an instant’s calculating scrutiny and turned and ran back to the hatch. He disappeared and was back with a knife.
“I’m going to count ten,” he shouted. “If you don’t come about, I’m going to cut all the sheets loose.”
“You would, you poor idiot,” Charlie called back. “Can’t you see what that would do? We’ll be washed up on that point over there. Do you prefer going slowly?”
Jack hesitated for a second and then made a rush for him. Charlie swung the wrench and clipped him across the side of his head. He crumpled into the cockpit. Peter hurried to him and pulled him forward out of the way and stretched him out on his back. He picked up the knife and put it on one of the benches. He turned back to Charlie.
“I’m going to take over,” he said quietly. His eyes sought Charlie’s. Charlie was looking fixedly forward. His regard shifted and their eyes met. Peter’s voice broke as he burst out, “You’re not a murderer, goddamn it! You’re out of your head. I won’t let you do this. It’s all right for me. Maybe even Martha. But not Jack. We hardly even know him. It would be plain pointless murder.” He started toward him.
Charlie lifted the wrench. “You saw what happened to him.”
“We don’t hurt each other,” he asserted staunchly. He made a grab for the wrench.
Charlie yanked it up and brought it down, sideways and out, and flung it into the sea. “Get the jib sheet,” he snapped. Peter scrambled to obey. Charlie made a lunge for the main sheet.
“Ready about. Hard alee!” he called. He planted his feet and spun the wheel. Unexpected dangers were suddenly all around them. The momentum of the speeding boat brought them sliding up and around to within a few feet of barely submerged rocks he hadn’t noticed. For a shuddering moment, they hung in the wind, bucking and rolling while they edged toward disaster. Then the sails took the wind on the other tack, the bow lifted and surged forward and they fell off heavily while Charlie eased the main sheet, adjusted the helm and set them on their course. He saw Martha hovering in the companionway, looking pale and in substantial in the ghostly light.
“Take over,” he ordered Peter curtly without looking at him. “Crete’s off there somewhere. I’m through.” Jack was stirring. He stepped over him and brushed past Martha as she emerged from the companionway, and went below.
He lay in his bunk trembling from head to foot, his eyes open, staring at nothing. It kept him from thinking. It didn’t prevent the feeling of failure from spreading deeper and deeper into him. He had come so close. His body still vibrated with the pounding of sea against rock. Peter had found just the right words to cripple his will, as always. It all remained now to be picked over and sorted out and arranged into neat manageable patterns for the future. He closed his mind to it; he had nothing new to contribute. He had failed to achieve the resolution of death. Somebody would have to find a new point of departure.
He lay in his bunk for several hours. The trembling stopped and a great inertia followed it. He was aware of activity above. Several times, he felt a small urge to go up and see if everything was in order. It was a reflex reaction; it didn’t mean that he really cared. Several times, he was aware of Martha passing back and forth to the forward cabin. He could tell by the way she dragged past him that she would have been glad for a word from him, but he didn’t move a muscle, isolating himself in his inertia.
At last, he registered that the motor was running. His mind maneuvered the boat into position as it reversed and idled and churned forward. The motor was cut and the boat was silent and motionless. In a little while, Peter was beside him, bending down and touching his knee.
“Are you all right?” he asked with cautious concern. “I think we’d better go ashore. I’ll do something about a bag later.”
Charlie sat up and threw his legs over the side of the bunk. Peter handed him a fresh shirt and trousers. Charlie removed the things he was wearing and dressed. When he was ready, Peter put a hand on the waistband of his trousers and rocked him cajolingly. Charlie lifted the hand away and went aft through the galley and climbed up the companionway. There was no sign of the Kingsleys. Ashore already? Peter put a hand on his arm and he went to the gangplank and teetered down it. He was aware of being in a crowded, dirty, citified port. Trucks and trolleys clattered by. After the weeks of sunbaked, whitewashed, sea-girt villages, he had forgotten that this was the way the world looked. They crossed a street and a square and entered a building where Peter conferred at a counter. They climbed stairs and entered a bare, hot bedroom. Peter locked them in. There was a chair. Charlie sat in it. Peter moved around behind him and touched his hair. He put his hands on his shoulders and pressed them.
“So. Here we are,” he said after a long silence. “Do you still want us to kill ourselves? I’m almost ready to when I see you like this.”
“It’s too late even for that.”
“What are we going to do? Jack won’t allow you back on board.”
“The feeling is mutual.”
“The trouble is, I can’t let them down. They’d be stranded here without at least one of us. We’ve talked about it. I’ve offered to go back to Piraeus with them. They can find a professional captain there if they want to go back to France. It was always understood that we might have to leave them in Piraeus.”
“Poor Peter. Aren’t you bored having to clean up after me?”
“I’m just doing what I know you’d want when you can think about it straight. We don’t let people down. No matter how much they know about us, they can’t understand it’s like being married. If one of them was put off a boat, the other would go automatically, but it can’t be like that for us. They take it for granted that I’ll stay with them. I think I have to.”
“Why not?” Charlie sprang up and took a turn around the room. “You talk about being married as if there was something good about it. Look at the Kingsleys.”
“We’re not like that. That’s what makes it so hard to take. Can you imagine what it’s going to be like being alone with them?”
“Everything passes.” Charlie slumped down on the end of the bed and subsided once more into lethargy. “Nothing ever matters very much. When are you leaving?”
“I told them I wouldn’t go until I’m sure you’re all right.”
“You’re apt to have a long wait. I feel as if I’ll never be all right again.”
“Oh, God, can’t you try to help me understand it? All I can think is that I’m to blame somehow. Was it wrong of me to react the way I did to Martha?”
“Of course not. I wanted you to. Don’t ask me why.”
“I know I wasn’t very encouraging about having her living with us. I was thinking about it last night. I’m beginning to see what you were getting at. We can talk about it some more later. I think she really is in love with you.”
“Oh, God. You don’t understand anything. Well, there’s no reason why you should. I don’t understand very much myself. I don’t want Martha to be in love with me. If you think I was getting at something worth talking about, you take over. She gives you a good time in bed. You’ll have the trip back to work on it. Maybe you’ll manage to make some sense together. I certainly couldn’t, but she’s still pregnant. It’s your child as much as it is mine, no matter what she thinks. Take it from there.”
Peter dropped into the chair Charlie had vacated. “Where would I t
ake it? You say she gives me a good time, but that was only because you were there and you seemed to want it. You do know that, don’t you? If you want the truth, the thing that really excited me was being naked with you and having erections and kissing each other and everything in front of somebody else. It was like making a public announcement at last of all we mean to each other.”
“God. Bodies. I’m sick of them. They don’t tell us anything we need to know.”
“Ours have always told us a lot we’ve wanted to know. About each other. Don’t forget that.”
“I think maybe I want to. I honestly feel as if I never want to touch you again.”
Peter took a quick deep breath and swallowed hard and clenched his jaws to hold back the tears that started up in his eyes. “Then I really will kill myself,” he said in a strangled voice. “Is Martha that good?”
“Martha? Can’t you understand? I certainly don’t intend to touch her ever again.”
“But why? What happened? I’ve never been afraid of losing you to a woman, but you’ve liked her a lot. You’ve told me what it means to you to be having a baby.” Peter looked at him and again was scared by what he saw. The expression Charlie had worn on the boat had returned. He stared through Peter.
“I don’t want the baby,” he said slowly. “I never want to see it. That’s what I found out last night.”
For a moment, Peter was riveted to the chair. Then he was kneeling in front of Charlie, gripping his hands. “Oh, Christ! Why didn’t you tell me? No wonder you wanted to kill us all.”
Charlie gazed into the devoted eyes with a rekindling of interest. “You understand?” he asked incredulously.
The Peter & Charlie Trilogy Page 67