"Anyway, somebody has to read it sometime," Craig consoled himself and dragged himself down to the heads. While he sat on the chemical toilet he could see his own face in the mirror above the hand-basin.
For the first time in months he truly looked at himself. He had not shaved in a week, and the gin had left soft putty-coloured pouches under his eyes. The eyes themselves were hurt and haunted by terrible memories, and his mouth was twisted like that of a lost child on the verge of tears.
He shaved, and then switched on the shower and sat under it revelling in the almost-forgotten sensation of hot suds. Afterwards, he combed his wet hair over his face and with the scissors trimmed it straight across the line of his eyebrows, then he scrubbed his teeth until the gums bled. He found a clean blue shirt, and then slid along the companionway, hoisted himself to deck-level, lowered the boarding-ladder, and found a place in the sun with his back against the coping of the cabin to wait for Bawu.
He must have dozed, for the sound of an automobile engine made him start awake, but it was not the whisper of the old man's Bentley, but the distinctive throb of a Volkswagen Beetle. Craig did not recognize the drab green vehicle, not the driver who parked it under the mango trees, and came hesitantly towards the yacht.
She was a dumpy little figure, of that indeterminate age that plain girls enter in their late twenties, and which carries them through to old age. She walked without pride, slumping as though to hide her breasts and the fact that she was a woman. Her skirt was bulky around her thick waist, and the low sensible shoes almost drew attention away from the surprisingly lovely lines of her calves and the graceful ankles.
She walked with her arms folded across her chest as though she was cold, even in the hot morning sunlight. She peered shortsightedly at the path through horn-rimmed spectacles, and her hair was long and lank, hanging straight and lustre less to hide her face, until she stood below the yacht side and looked up at Craig. Her skin was bad, like that of a teenager who was on junk food, and her face was plump, but with an unhealthy soft look, and a sick-room pallor.
Then she lifted the horn-rimmed spectacles from her face. The frames left little red indentations on each side of her nose, but the eyes, those huge slanted cat's-eyes with the strange little cast in them, those eyes so dark indigo blue as to be almost black they were unmistakable.
Jan, "Craig whispered. "Oh God, Jan, is it you?" She made a heartbreakingly feminine gesture of vanity pushing the lank dull hair off her face, and dropped her eyes, standing awkwardly pigeon-toed in the dowdy skirt.
Her voice barely carried up to him. "I'm sorry to bother you. I know how you must feel about me, but can I come up, please?" "Please, Jan, please do." He dragged himself to the rail and steadied the ladder for her.
"Hello," he grinned at her shyly, as she reached the deck level
"Hello, Craig." "I'm sorry, I'd like to stand up, but you'll have to get used to talking down to me." "Yes,"she said. "I heard." "Let's go down to the saloon. I'm expecting Bawu. It will be like old times." She looked away. "You've done a lot of work, Craig." "She's almost finished," he told her proudly.
"She's beautiful." Janine went down from the cockpit into the saloon, and he lowered himself after her.
"We could wait for Bawu," Craig said, as he placed a tape on the machine, instinctively avoiding Beethoven and selecting Debussy for a lighter happier sound. "Or we could have a drink right now." He grinned to cover his uneasiness and discomfort. "And quite frankly I need one right away." Janine did not touch her glass, but sat staring at it. "Bawu told me you were still working at the museum." She nodded, and Craig felt his chest constricted with helpless pity for her.
"Bawu will be here-" He searched desperately for something to say to her.
"Craig, I came to tell you something. The family asked me to come to you, they wanted somebody whom you knew to break the news." Now she looked up from the glass, "Bawu won't be coming today," she said. "He won't be coming ever again." After a long time Craig asked softly, "When did it happen?" "Last night, while he was sleeping. It was his heart." "Yes," Craig murmured. "His heart. It was broken I knew that." "The funeral will be tomorrow at King's Lynn, in the afternoon.
They want you to be there. We could go together, if you don't mind?"
The weather changed during the night, and the wind went up into the southeast bringing with it the thin cold drizzling guti rain.
They laid the old man down amongst his wives and children and grandchildren in the little cemetery at the back of the hills. The rain on the freshly turned red earth piled beside the open grave made it seem as though the earth were bleeding from a mortal wound.
Afterwards, Craig and Janine drove back to Bulawayo in the Land-Rover.
"I'm staying at the same flat," Janine said, as they drove through the park. "Will you drop me there, please?" if I am alone now, I'll just get sad drunk," Craig said. "Won't you come back to the yacht, just for a little while, please?" Craig heard the pleading in his own voice.
"I'm not very good around people any more," she said. "Nor am I," Craig agreed. "But you and I aren't just people, are we?" Craig made coffee for both of them, and brought it through from the galley. They sat opposite each other, and he found it difficult not to stare at her.
"I must look a sight," she said, abruptly, and he did not know how to answer her. "You will always be the most beautiful woman I have ever known!
"Craig, did they tell you what happened to me?" "Yes, I know."
"Then you must know that I am not really a woman any more. I will never be able to let a man, any man, touch me again." "I can understand that." "That's one of the reasons that I. never tried to see you again." "What are the other reasons?" he asked.
"That you would not wish to see me, to have anything to do with me." "That I don't understand." Janine was silent again, huddled on the bench seat, hugging herself with that protective gesture.
"Roly felt that way," she blurted. "After they were finished with me. When he found me there beside the wreck, when he realized what they had done to me, he could not even bear to touch me, not even to speak to me." "Jan-" Craig started, but she cut him off.
"It's all right, Craig. I didn't tell you to hear you deny it for me. I told you so that you would know about me. So that you would know that I have nothing left to offer a man that way." "Then I can tell you that, like you, I have nothing to offer a woman that way."
There was quick and real pain in her eyes. "Oh Craig, my poor Craig I didn't realize I thought it was just one leg.- "On the other hand, I can offer someone friendship and caring, and just about everything else." He grinned at her. "I can even offer a shot of gin." "I thought you didn't want to get drunk." She smiled back at him gently. "I said sad drunk, but we should give Bawu a little wake. He would have liked that." They sat facing each other across the saloon table, chatting in desultory fashion, both of them beginning to relax as the gin warmed them and gradually they recaptured some of that long-lost camaraderie that they had once enjoyed.
Janine explained her reasons for not accepting the invitation of Douglas and Valerie to live at Queen's Lynn. "They look at me with such pity, that I start to feel it all over again. It would be like going into a state of perpetual mourning." He told her about St. Giles', and the way he had absconded. "They say it's not my legs, but my head that prevents me from walking. Either they are crazy or I am I prefer to think that it's them." He had two steaks in the refrigerator, and he grilled them on the gas while she made a dressing for the salad, and while they worked he explained all the modifications that he had made to the layout of the yacht.