by Wilbur Smith
The projected opening in the trumpet shell expanded, articulating on
jaw-hinges and he was gaping into the deep and terrible maw of some
great predatory sea-creature, lined with multiple rows of serrated
triangular teeth, - shark!
like, terrifying, so he cried out In half-sleep, startling him self
awake, and he rolled quickly on to his side and raised himself on one
elbow. Her perfume still lingered on his skin, mingled with the smell
of his own sweat, but the bed beside him was empty, though warm and
redolent with the memory of her body.
Across the room, the early sun struck a long sliver of light through a
narrow chink in the curtains. It looked like a blade, a golden blade.
It reminded him instantly of Samantha Silver. He saw her again wearing
sunlight like a cloak, barefoot in the sand - and it seemed that the
blade of sunlight was being driven up slowly under his ribs.
He swung his feet off the wide bed and padded softly across to the gold
and onyx bathroom. There was a dull ache of sleeplessness and remorse
behind his eyes and as he ran hot water from the dolphin's mouth into
the basin, he looked at himself in the mirror although the steam slowly
clouded the image of his own face. There were dark smears below his
eyes and his features were gaunt, harsh angles of bone beneath drawn
skin.
You bastard/ he whispered at the shadowy face in the mirror.
"You bloody bastard. They were waiting breakfast for him, in the
sunlight on the terrace under the gaily coloured umbrellas. Peter had
preserved the mood of the previous evening, and he ran laughing to meet
Nicholas.
Dad, hey Dad. He seized Nicholas, hand and led him to the table.
Chantelle wore a long loose housegown, and her hair was down on her
shoulders, so soft that it stirred like spun silk in even that whisper
of breeze. It was calculated, Chantelle did nothing by chance; the
intimately elegant attire and the loose fall of her hair set the mood of
domesticity - and Nicholas found himself resisting it fiercely.
Peter sensed his father's change of mood with an intuitive understanding
beyond his years, and his dismay was a palpable thing, the hurt and
reproach in his eyes as he looked at Nicholas; and then the chatter died
on his lips and he bent his head studiously over his plate and ate in
silence.
Nicholas deliberately refused the festival array of food, took only a
cup of coffee, and lit a cheroot, without asking Chantelle's permission,
knowing how she would resent that. He waited in silence and as soon as
Peter had eaten he said: I'd like to speak to your mother, Peter. The
boy stood up obediently.
Will I see you before you leave, sir? Yes. Nicholas felt his heart
wrung again. Of course. We could sail again? I'm sorry, my boy. We
won't have time. Not today. Very well, sir. Peter walked to the end
of the terrace, very erect and dignified, then suddenly he began to run,
taking the steps down two at a time, and he fled into the pine forest
beyond the boathouse as though pursued, feet flying and arms pumping
wildly.
He needs you, Nicky/said Chantelle softly.
You should have thought about that two years ago. She poured fresh
coffee into his cup. Both of us have been stupid - all right, worse
than that. We've been wicked. I have had my Duncan, and you have had
that American child. Don't make me angry now/ he warned her softly.
You've done enough for one day. It's as simple as this, Nicholas. I
love you, I have always loved you - God, since I was a gawky
school-girl/ she had never been that, but Nicholas let it pass, 'since I
saw you that first day on the bridge of old Golden Eagle, the dashing
ship's captain -I Chantelle. All we have to discuss is Golden Dawn and
Christy Marine. No, Nicholas. We were born for each other, Daddy saw
that immediately, we both knew it at the same time - it was only a
madness, a crazy whim that made me doubt it for a moment.
"Stop it, Chantelle. Duncan was a stupid mistake. But it's unimportant
No, it's not unimportant. It changed everything. It can never be the
same again, besides - I Besides, what? Nicky, what were you going to
say? Besides, I am building myself another life now.
With another very different person. Oh God, Nicky, you aren't serious?
I She laughed then, genuine amusement, clapping her hands delightedly.
My dear, she's young enough to be your daughter. It's the forty
syndrome, the Lolita complex. Then she saw his real anger, and she was
quick, retrieving the situation neatly, aware that she had carried it
too far.
I'm sorry, Nicky. I should never have said that. She paused, and then
went on. I will say she's a pretty little thing, and I'm sure she's
sweet - Peter liked her. She damned Samantha with light condescension,
and then dismissed her as though she were merely a childlike prank of
Nicholas', a light and passing folly of no real significance.
I understand, Nicholas, truly I do. However, when you are ready, as you
will be soon, then Peter and I and Christy Marine are waiting for you
still. This is your world, Nicholas. She made a gesture which embraced
it all. This is your world, you will never really leave it.
"You are wrong, Chantelle. No. She shook her head. I am very seldom
wrong, and on this I cannot be wrong. Last night proved that, it is
still there - every bit of it. But let's discuss the other thing now,
Golden Dawn and Christy Marine. Chantelle Alexander lifted her face to
the sky and watched the big silver bird fly, It climbed nose high,
glinting in the sunlight, twin trails of dark unconsumed fuel spinning
out behind it as the engines howled under the full thrust.
With the wind in this quarter, the extended centreline of the main Nice
runway brought it out over Cap Ferrat.
Beside Chantelle, only an inch or two shorter than she was, Peter stood
and watched it also and she took his arm, tucking her small dainty hand
into the crook of his elbow.
He stayed such a short time/ Peter said, and overhead the big airbus
turned steeply on to its crosswind leg.
We will have him with us again soon, Chantelle promised, and then she
went on. Where were you, Peter? We hunted all over when it was time
for Daddy to go? I was in the forest, he said evasively.
He had heard them calling, but Peter was hidden in the secret place, the
smuggler's cleft in the yellow rock of the cliff; he would have killed
himself rather than let Nicholas Berg see him weeping.
Wouldn't it be lovely if it was like the old times again?
Chantelle asked softly, and the boy stirred beside her, but unable to
take his gaze from the aircraft, Just the three of us again? Without
Uncle Duncan? he asked incredulously, and high above them the aircraft,
with a last twinkle of sunlight, dove deeply into the banks of cumulus
cloud that buttressed the northern sky. Peter turned at last to face
her.
Without Uncle Duncan? he demanded again. But that's impossible., Not
if you help me, darling. She took his face in her cupped
hands. You
will help me, won't you? she asked, and he nodded once, a sharply
incisive gesture of assent; she leaned forward and kissed him tenderly
on the forehead, That's my man, she whispered.
Mr. Alexander is not available. May I take a message? This is Mrs.
Alexander. Tell my husband that it's urgent.
Oh, I'm terribly sorry, Mrs. Alexander./ The secretary's voice changed
instantly, cool caution becoming effusive servility. I didn't recognize
your voice. The line is dreadful, Mr. Alexander will speak to you
directly., Chantelle waited, staring impatiently from the study windows.
The weather had changed in the middle of the morning with the cold front
sweeping down off the mountains, and now icy wind and rain battered at
the windows.
Chantelle, my dear/ the rich glossy voice that had once so dazzled her,
is this my call to you? It's mine, Duncan. I must speak to you
urgently., Good, he agreed with her. I wanted to speak to you also.
Things are happening swiftly here. It's necessary for you to come up to
St Nazaire next Tuesday, instead of my joining you at Cap Ferrat. Duncan
But he went on over her protest, his voice as full of self-confidence,
as ebullient as she had not heard it in over a year.
I have been able to save almost four weeks on Golden Dawn.
Duncan, listen to me. We will be able to launch on Tuesday. it will be
a makeshift ceremony, I'm afraid, at such short notice. He was
inordinately proud of his own achievement. It annoyed her to hear him.
What I have arranged is that the pod tanks will be delivered direct to
the Gulf from the Japanese yards.
They are towing them in their ballast with four American tugs. I will
launch the hull here, with workmen still aboard her, and they will
finish her off at sea during the passage around Good Hope, in time for
her to take on her tanks and cargo at El Barras. We'll save nearly
seven and a half million Duncan! Chantelle cried again, and this time
some thing in her tone stopped him.
What is it? This can't wait until Tuesday, I want to see you right
away. That's impossible, he laughed, lightly, confidently.
It's only five days. Five days is too long. Tell me now, he invited.
What is it All right, she said deliberately, and the vicious streak of
Persian cruelty was in her voice. I want a divorce, Duncan, and I want
control of my shares in Christy Marine again.
There was a long, hissing crackling silence on the line, and she waited,
the way the cat waits for the first movement of the crippled mouse.
This is very sudden. His voice had changed completely, it was bleak and
flat, lacking any timbre or resonance.
We both know it is not/ she contradicted him.
You have no grounds. There was a thin edge of fear now.
"Divorce isn't quite as easy as that, Chantelle. How is this for
grounds, Duncan? she asked, and there was a spiteful sting in her voice
now. If you aren't here by noon tomorrow, then my auditors will be in
Leadenhall Street and there will be an urgent order before the courts.
She did not have to go on, he spoke across her and there was a note of
panic in his voice. She had never heard it before. He said, You are
right. We do have to talk right away., Then he was silent again,
collecting himself, and his voice was once more calm and careful when he
went on, I can charter a Falcon and be at Nice before midday.
Will that do? I'll have the car meet you she said, and broke the
connection with one finger. She held the bar down for a second, then
lifted her finger.
I want to place an international call/ she said in her fluent rippling
French when the operator answered. I do not know the number, but it is
person to person. Doctor Samantha Silver at the University of Miami.
There is a delay of more than two hours, madame.
Tattendrai, she said, and replaced the receiver.
The Bank of the East is in Curzon Street, almost opposite the White
Elephant Club. It has a narrow frontage of bronze and marble and glass,
and Nicholas had been there, with his lawyers, since ten o'clock that
morning. He was learning at first hand the leisurely age-old ritual of
oriental bargaining.
He was selling Ocean Salvage, plus two years of his future labour - and
even for seven million dollars he was beginning to wonder if it was
worth it - and it was not a certain seven million either. The words
tripped lightly, the figures seemed to have no substance in this
setting. The only constant was the figure of the Prince himself, seated
on the low couch, in a Savile Row suit but with the fine white cotton
and gold-corded headdress framing his dark handsome features with
theatrical dash.
Beyond him moved a shadowy, ever-changing backtime that ground of
unctuous whispering figures. Every time Nicholas believed that a point
had been definitely agreed, another rose-pink or acid-yellow Rolls-Royce
with Arabic script number-plates would deposit three or four more
dark-featured Arabs at the front doors and they would hurry through to
kiss the Prince on his forehead, on the bridge of his nose and on the
back of his hand, and the hushed discussion would begin all over again
with the newcomers picking up at the point they had been an hour
previously.
James Teacher showed no impatience, and he smiled and nodded and went
through the ritual like an Arab born, sipping the little thimbles of
treacly coffee and watching patiently for the interminable whisperings
to be translated into English before making a measured counter proposal.
We are doing fine, Mr. Berg, he assured Nicholas quietly.
A few more days.
Nicholas had a headache from the strong coffee and he found it difficult
to concentrate.
He kept worrying about Samantha, For four days he had tried to contact
her. He had to get out for a while and he excused himself to the
Prince, and went down to the Enquiries Desk in the Bank's entrance hall
and the girl told him, I'm sorry, sir, there there is no reply to either
of those numbers.
There must be, Nicholas told her. One number was Samantha's shack at
Key Biscayne and the other was her private number in her laboratory.
She shook her head. I've tried every hour.
Can you send a cable for me? Of course, sir.
She gave him a pad of forms and he wrote out the message. Please phone
me urgently, reverse charges to, He gave the Queens Gate flat and James
Teacher's rooms, then thought with the pen poised, trying to find the
words to express his concern, but there were none. I love you he wrote.
I really do.
Since Nicholas's midnight call to tell her of the carriage of cad-rich
crude petroleum, Samantha Silver had been caught up in a kaleidoscope
whirl of time and events.
After a series of meetings with the leaders of the Green-Peacers, and
other conservation bodies in an effort to publicize and oppose this new
threat to the oceans, she and Tom Parker had flown to Washington and met
with a deputy director of the Environmental Protection Agency and with
two young senators who spearheaded the conservation lobby but their
efforts to go further had been frustrated by the granite walls of big
oil interest. Even usually cooperative sources had been wary of
condemning or speaking out against Orient Amex's new carbon-cracking
technology. As one thirty-year-old Democrat senator had pointed out,
It's tough to try and take a shot at something that's going to increase
the fossil fuel yield by fifty percent.
That's not what we are shooting at, Samantha had flared, bitter with
fatigue and frustration. It's this irresponsible method of carrying the
cad-rich through sensitive and highly vulnerable seaways we are trying
to prevent. But when she presented the scenario she had worked out,
picturing the effects on the North Atlantic deluged with a million tons
of toxic crude, she saw the disbelief in the man's eyes and the
condescending smile of the sane for the slightly demented.
,oh God, why is common sense the hardest thing in the world to sell? she
had lamented.
She and Tom had gone on to meet the leaders of Green-Peace in the north,
and in the west, and they had given advice and promises of support. The
Californian Chapter counselled physical intervention as a last resort,
as some of their members had successfully interposed small craft between
the Russian whalers and the breeding minkes they were hunting in the
Californian Gulf In Galveston, they met the young Texans who would
picket the Orient Amex refinery as soon as they were certain the
ultra-tanker had entered the Gulf of Mexico.
However, none of their efforts were successful in provoking
confrontation with Orient Arnex. The big oil company simply ignored
invitations to debate the charges on radio or television, and
stone-walled questions from the media.
it's hard to stir up interest in a one-sided argument, Samantha found.
They managed one local Texas television show, but without controversy to
give it zip, the producer cut Samantha's time down to forty-five
seconds, and then tried to date her for dinner.
The energy crisis, oil tankers and oil pollution were joyless subjects.
Nobody had ever heard of cadmium pollution, the Cape of Good Hope was
half a world away, million tons was a meaningless figure, impossible to
visualize, and it was all rather a bore.
The media let it drop flat on its face.