‘Here somewhere,’ said Angelo glumly.
Angus ripped off a hunk of bread, sliced some cheese, topped it with a shred of fish and handed it to Angelo, who chewed with his mouth open. Angus filled Angelo’s cup with more wine.
‘She lives here, then? That was quick — a dusky lass, is she, one of the natives? Oh, the north of this land is knee deep in them. Aye, I could see your head being turned by that.’
Angelo realised he had said too much, and to change the subject said, ‘Why’s this ship called the Unicorn?’
‘Because that beast represents the soulmate. It’s a symbol used by the heretics to mask the tenets of their faith.’ He indicated the bookshelf, and when he saw no light dawning on Angelo’s face he said, ‘Look up.’
Angelo tipped his head back and saw that the cabin ceiling was carved with a unicorn as handsome as a thoroughbred horse, its horn long and proud. On its strong back, sitting side-saddle, was a mermaid, with long tresses that swirled around the two figures. Angelo’s jaw dropped further, revealing the mush of food, and he let out a sigh of awe. Nodding in his emphatic way, he looked at Angus, and found himself warming to the captain as he had never warmed to anyone.
‘What faith?’
‘Ah, the faith of love of alchemy, my lad — of silver into gold through the medium of love.’ Angus’ voice rose in exaltation. ‘There’s a counterpart for everyone — alive or dead or yet to be born.’ Then his voice softened and, almost mournfully, he said, ‘Man and woman.’
‘Did you read that in a book?’ Angelo had the sensation his own head was too round, too large.
‘Life is a book. This lass of yours — does she know you fancy her?’
‘No.’ But she does, he thought, for he believed he could conjure her into existence with the wishing of it alone.
‘You mean to turn her head in some way?’
‘I mean to turn her heart and mind.’ Angelo nodded sluggishly, his head loose on his neck.
Unexpected tears welled in Angus’s eyes. ‘What is a man without a woman but merely half a creature. Blooming useless! A man must seek his counterpart and love her like no one has ever loved her.’ He stared, drunk and earnest, into Angelo’s face and they clinked their mugs clumsily. ‘If I had my time again I would not let love slip away. I’d grab my Lorelei, my Lilith, and make her my own.’
‘I will find her,’ wailed Angelo, his tongue thick in his mouth, a string of saliva stretched from one side to the other.
‘You said she was here?’
‘I heard she was sighted in the South Seas. It was years ago but I just know she is here still — or one like her.’ His hands sliced the air for emphasis.
Angus felt the hairs on his neck stand up. His heart skipped a beat and took up a new tempo. He had a sense of foreboding. ‘Well, why don’t you put up a notice? I’m not bad with a bit of charcoal and paper — I could draw her if you describe her,’ he said carefully, his eyes keen.
‘I know every inch of her,’ said Angelo soulfully, ‘but I cannot, for everyone will want her and she’s mine.’ He stood abruptly, but his legs were as frail as a spider’s and he slumped back down in the chair, his head in his hands.
Angus reached out and ruffled his hair, surprised at how soft it felt, like a bairn’s. ‘So that’s why you’re here.’ He smiled. ‘The world is divided into those who are loved and those who are not. I like you,’ he added.
Angelo smiled, for it felt like a pledge, and one he accepted, but he was having trouble staying awake. His bung eye softened and lost its pinched look, his smile slipped, and he fell asleep, with the smile of friendship dangling there.
Angus observed Angelo. What was he to do with this broken man so ambitious for love? A man who had caused another to drown? A man who did not want to stay on the Unicorn and was therefore casting himself outside the protection Angus could offer, out into the wilderness of a land where choices were more chance than design? His chest heaved with a kind of paternal feeling, and he smiled softly at the sight of Angelo’s freckle-specked skin, the incongruous beauty spot on a face that could be called ugly. Angus grimaced for the naïvety of Angelo.
7.
Train Station, modern day
Gilda had not been out of London since her arrival some months earlier on a visitor’s visa that had since expired, and now here she was on her way to Ramsgate at the early onset of a hot spring.
Through the rural meadows the train hummed along, smooth as silk stockings. Gilda recalled riding her bicycle on the surface of the tennis court, the way the velvetiness of the tarseal went through the steel of the bike and into her body. Houses, like sugar cubes, dotted the valleys and green English hills. Trees close to the track whizzed and warbled by with the speed of snowflakes spiralling into a windscreen. She tried to recall what Einstein had said about travelling and time and atoms, but her brain and heart were filled with a headiness that made that mind-bending topic too slippery to hold on to. All she could think was that she was finally going to see him. Him. Her belly fluttered with the conflict of anticipation and dread.
For the umpteenth time she withdrew her antique gold compact from her bag and held the mirror to her face. As the light filtering into the carriage ebbed and dappled through the changing compass of the train, the fleeting buildings and forest, so did her opinion of her appearance: now satisfied, now horrified. Her makeup went from dewy to dry and flaky. It was impossible to know how she would appear to him. She kept checking the mirror in the hope of seeing a confident, fresh-faced young woman instead of the stressed-out, dry-skinned, overly made-up female who stared back at her. She snapped it shut and stared out the window.
She feared she would miss the stop, for how was she to know which one was Ramsgate when so many of the little stations had no sign and the sound system announced all the destinations in a litany and there was no map above the window like on the underground? Signs, she thought to herself and sighed. Have you seen the sign that says: Stop looking for signs? Gilda compulsively rechecked her mirror. She glared at her reflection and snapped the compact shut again. What could she do about how she looked now, anyway? She refused to treat this as anything other than an adventure — for better or worse.
The train approached a town of bleak industrialisation and she hoped it wasn’t Ramsgate. It didn’t look pretty enough; in fact, it appeared sinister. She did not move in her seat, as if her being a statue would make it not Ramsgate. Barely giving a passenger a chance to jump on board, the train pulled away, chug-chug in time with her heart. Gilda had started to wonder of late if the heartpounding she experienced when she first met him was not excitement but fear — a premonition. Her hand flew to her chest. What if that was Ramsgate and she had missed it? She stretched her mouth, moved her tongue, trying to moisten the dryness.
The carriage was empty but for her, and she was grateful for the privacy. She needed to get ready. Be ready. She imagined the scene soon to come. Seeing him again, for him to actually be there waiting. Maybe that was all it would take — for him to see her and for her to see him. This was the last chance she was giving him and maybe the old magic might resurface — he might feel again what she had always known. They loved each other.
She opened her book and tried to read, but the words lifted off the page and danced about, forming themselves into new sentences, clever and mocking. She was going mad. Again. She shut the book, rummaged in her knapsack for her comb and roughly dragged it through her hair. It jagged on her curls, turned waves to knots.
Twenty minutes later a picturesque seaside town with sailboats in the harbour, red doors and thatched roofs on white stone cottages came into view. This is it, she thought. She stuffed her book, mirror and comb in her bag and sat forward on the edge of her seat.
The train arced into the sun and a blaze of light hit off a white tin sign in a meadow: Ramsgate.
They had married in a ceremony planned in twelve hours. He had proposed in a pub toilet with the words: I’ll give you me if I can hav
e you. She had believed him. She arrived in a horse and carriage and a magenta velvet cape. They drank Roederer champagne. They had rings made that day and presented on soft pink rosebuds. And a little over three months later it was over. He left the country in the dark of night.
But worse, her love would not die. The dream would not die. Why hadn’t it worked? Why had her one love abandoned her? Her grief was more seductive than joy. How to get that out of her system? She could not fathom it; her heart broke and everyone heard the snap. Her anguish was too terrible to watch.
When her love letters were returned unopened, when people stopped listening to her, when they feared for her mental health, when she understood she would never be the same again, she realised she had to save herself and she flew to England and here she was. He had agreed to see her.
She stepped from the train into an ornate station in 1930s-style pale yellow, mint green, blood red, enamelled cream. She walked expectantly into the foyer. Her limbs moved in a jerky motion over which she had no control. Her hands and feet fizzed and her belly was jelly, her balance off. She looked around; even her vision was warped. He must be outside. She walked out the front into a blaze of sunshine. The heat hit her hard and sweat sprang in every pore and crevice. Gilda resisted peering into her compact and instead searched the platform for him. She checked her mobile for a message. None.
But she wasn’t going to give up hope; not now. For hope had been her food, ever since the day when he stopped looking at her and stopped kissing her. Hope had been her life. He was her husband, yet rejection loomed and followed close on her heels, blooming like a shadow.
She feigned confidence in case he was watching her from a car, or over by the cafeteria, or somewhere else. She didn’t want any of the other people milling around to think she had — heaven forbid — been stood up.
Snippets of lost conversations came to her. We are family now. You would make me the happiest man in the world if you agreed to be the mother of my babies. Why had she hesitated? Why did his face fall so utterly, like a collapsed circus tent, with all the disappointed children smothered inside? Tears before bedtime, a drunk at the wedding had hee-hawed into the night. He’s a wet rag — her Aunt Maggie’s words. Plenty more fish in the sea. Forget him. Forget him, was her cousin Martha’s refrain.
He used to sleep with his arms and legs wrapped tight around her, as if he feared the ending. He’d play the piano in all its Gershwin glory, just to pull her from her task, to draw her to him like the Pied Piper. My wife will have … he exclaimed in restaurants and ordered for her, and ordered her to be a lady. Be a lady. Sit like this. And she would, for she liked to please, and her luck had changed, and he pleased her simply by being alive.
She wondered how she could have been so stupid. She should have known better. Known it was too good to be true.
Gilda hailed a black cab, hesitating for only a second when she saw the driver, pasty-skinned, covered with such an abundance of hair it could pass for fur. He looked growly.
No voice across the parking lot — Wait, I’m here!
She got in the cab. She knew where to find him. Anywhere near boats.
‘Where to, love?’
‘To the marina,’ she said, and wound down the window.
Despite the disappointment that he wasn’t at the station, Gilda refused to succumb to defeat just yet. After all, it was an adventure. No expectations. No matter what, at least she had followed her heart. She knew that happiness was linked with doing the right thing. She told herself a dark mood was not going to help anyone, never had, so she stuck her head out the window like a dog on its way to a picnic, and gulped in the salty air.
Even so, she had never felt less confident or more scared in all her life.
The little village was quaint, in the way it probably had been for years. Cobblestones, whitewashed walls, little malls and tiny avenues, boutiques selling chocolates, patchwork aprons and potpourri. The sun was hot as hot could be, for England was in the grip of a fierce heatwave. The sea and sky blurred together on the horizon. Gilda’s nervousness made her want to laugh, but she knew that if she started she might not stop, and smiled at the thought of herself rocking uncontrollably while a doctor stood over her with a handful of pills. Oh no, she was going to laugh.
The taxi driver pulled the cab up to the marina, where the yachts and sailboats lilted. He turned and opened the divider between them. She was struck by his kind eyes and instantly they almost made her cry.
‘O’right, love? Best you put a sunhat on, or your freckles will be blisters,’ he said kindly.
She nodded, peeled her thighs from the seat and stepped out of the car.
One of Gilda’s idiosyncrasies was that she could not stand heat. She slept nude with just a sheet in all seasons, and as a child she could lie in a cold bath in her snorkel and flippers for hours. She would swim in the winter sea. She was cold-blooded, and it was stinking hot, and she just knew without looking in her mirror that her makeup was running down her face in clay-coloured streaks. She didn’t usually wear it and her application was amateur; she had piled it on like the protective camouflage of mud on a soldier. It didn’t suit her. She glanced about her, then ducked and used the underside of her skirt to blot her face.
Her outfit was all wrong. Usually Gilda concealed rather than revealed, for her presence caused waves that overwhelmed her with unwanted attention. Her energy magnetised people, male and female. Why hadn’t she worn shorts? She grimaced. Overdressed, overstuffed. A red velvet dress, for God’s sake. Too flashy even for the opera.
The suddenness of his agreement to meet her and her uncertainty about his feelings had infected every simple decision. Too late, can’t do anything about it now, she admonished herself, and headed down the stone steps to the marina. The steps, steep and shallow, had no rail and had been built into the stonemasonry of the retaining wall hundreds of years ago. They were worn in the middle and it was an awkward descent in her ridiculously high boots.
The wharf was serene and the fresh sea air lifted her spirits. She envisioned — willed — what a wonderful day it would be if only he were here somewhere, but deep down she could feel the truth like silt in a river. She knew he probably wouldn’t show, but she had to go through the motions.
The marina was locked and a guard stood in a cubicle.
‘Hi,’ she said to him. ‘I’m meeting someone here. Perhaps you know him — he has brown eyes and probably a nice tan and he’s taller than me. I met him a while ago in New Zealand and I’m here just for a bit and he said he would meet me.’ The old shame showed in her face, the inferiority of the jilted.
‘Oh aye, and what’s the vessel’s name?’
‘Um, I’m not sure. Perhaps you know him through his name: Allan Hyde?’
The guard shook his head. ‘Nope, but look, I’ll give you the gate codes and you can go in and have a look.’
‘Oh, thank you,’ she breathed. He handed her a note with digits on it. She smiled and hitched her knapsack on her shoulder. Inside it had toiletries, flash knickers and other paraphernalia a young woman might carry if she expected to see her estranged husband, whom she loved dearly, for the first time in a year.
She searched for him among the masts and flapping sails, feeling conspicuous and too tall. This was the scene in which she imagined them living as a couple. That had been the plan. They would sail the seven seas, her taking photos and raising babies to swim before they could walk and pepper their speech with foreign words. Their children would eat olives and garlic-covered snails without batting an eyelid. They would be gorgeous.
Her heart started to race. Was that him? Could it be? She moved closer to a super-yacht where a man on deck was winching down a sail. Was that his back, his adorable caramel back? Just as she raised her hand the man on the deck turned and she saw it wasn’t him. She felt foolish and — something else — relieved? She realised that part of her didn’t want to see Allan. That all she wanted was for him to want her, to relieve the pressure
, to vindicate her. Too much had hinged on her getting married.
She knew it was time to end the saga. She wanted to be free. The last few months in London had been great: new perspective, new city, new experiences, new lovers. Gilda had discovered she wasn’t as broken as she had thought, or maybe she had mended.
She walked a little further along the dock, past the white and blue yachts with their tinted windows and plush décor. She wandered in a circle as if she were lost in the bush, and eventually came back to the man at the guard gate.
‘Any luck?’ he asked her while he wound a rope around an iron bar set in the wood of the pier.
She shook her head. She knew Allan wasn’t going to show, and she felt oddly all right with it. At least I got to see this quaint village, she thought, and smiled in a relaxed way.
But he still might show …
She shaded her eyes from the sun and her bag rang. Gilda dropped it, crouching inelegantly as she searched for her phone, willing it to keep ringing. Her black lace knickers and toothbrush spilled to the ground.
‘Hello?’
‘It’s me.’
‘Allan?’ Gilda’s muscles turned to liquid and her heart raced, in ‘flee’ mode. Sweat sprang.
‘Where are you?’ His voice was hard.
‘I’m at the marina.’
‘Prove it.’
‘Well, the ocean is behind me and I think the yacht club is that big white building on the hill in front. Where are you?’ Gilda glanced at the guard, who waited for her, and, disturbingly, eyed her.
‘I’m not there, I never was there, and in half an hour I’m changing the number on my phone so you can never reach me again.’
‘Oh, okay, I’ll call you back then,’ said Gilda, trying to hide the effect of Allan’s words, but she was horribly embarrassed. The guard had probably heard every word. She shoved her stuff in her bag, said to the guard breezily, ‘Change of plans,’ and ran back along the wooden wharf to the gate. She fumbled and cursed the lock and, once through, ran up the nearly vertical stone steps. In a normal frame of mind she would have had to pause partway for breath, but she was angry. Once up on the parade she rang his number. He answered.
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