With an element of pride the man admitted that they had.
They spoke for a brief while, the wife remaining silent, the husband reticent but polite, his English a little reserved. Parson learned that they had come from Sicily, and before that they’d hopped along the coast of Spain. In one month they would complete the loop and return to Gibraltar, unless they decided to go to Sardinia, where the boat would be handed to another crew to bring back to Bordeaux. ‘I don’t want this to be work. I work hard enough.’
Parson offered to shake the man’s hand. ‘I understand,’ he said almost with a wink. ‘Paul. Paul Geezler, and you?’
The man introduced his wife, Pamela, and himself, Paul.
‘Another Paul!’ Parson laughed. ‘What’s the chances? Sounds nicer in French, of course.’
They talked business. Paul about exporting, Parson about working as a manager for one of the world’s largest hospitality providers, although, he said, ‘it’s the worst kind of business right now.’
Parson ordered the couple another bottle of wine, mostly to bring himself back to the script he’d decided — what he needed to say. ‘This is good. I mean it’s good we’ve met,’ he said. ‘Because I’m thinking about making a similar journey myself. I’m serious.’ He started to laugh. ‘I’ve always wanted to sail, but I don’t have any experience. So what does a man need to do if he wants to go to Spain or Sicily…’ He allowed the idea to float as a possibility. ‘I was hoping someone would take me on as crew, train me, or let me just outright pay. I’m serious. This isn’t about money. Maybe you know someone who’d be interested? Maybe you should think about it yourselves? I’m completely serious. Take me to Spain. Why not? Or maybe you know someone? Let me tell you where I’m staying.’ He wrote the details down for Le Meridien, and noticed their expressions change from blank refusal to curiosity. ‘Think about it. See if you know anyone. I work hard. I’m like you. I want experience. I’ll give you my name again.’ He wrote out the name in capitals, P A U L G E E Z L E R. ‘Nobody ever spells that right. You should hear the names I’ve been called.’
* * *
Back on the promenade Parson sought out L’Olympia. Light shone from the lower cabin. A bottle with glasses stood on deck. A plan for the late evening. A small rope cordoned off the walkway and he felt the exclusion of that one thin line. He couldn’t judge if he’d done enough, or too much.
5.4
Anne waited for word from her husband. She calculated the time difference and counted the hours, working the shift between Malta and Turkey and New York. She thought to go to the airport but decided against this and felt herself constrained by the apartment, the view of the bay spoiled now, irrelevant. Eric wasn’t answering his calls, couldn’t or wouldn’t she had to ask herself; her husband also was playing shy, and she left messages for both of them, alternating calls; at turns angry, self-mocking, bemused, confounded. What does this mean, she asked herself, this disrespect from her husband and her son? What exactly was going on here?
She spoke with Mark in the afternoon and instantly forgot her irritation. ‘I thought this might happen,’ she said. ‘Didn’t I warn you? I had an idea. I knew. He didn’t call, and he usually calls. He calls me from the airport when he’s going somewhere.’ She closed her eyes for a fraction of a second, a tell-tale flutter. ‘Usually. He usually calls me when he is going somewhere.’
‘What are we supposed to do? How long are we supposed to wait? Do we report this? Is there a required period?’
His questions suggested that she would know the procedures and she waited for him to ask outright: What did you do last time?
‘Why don’t you ask? Why don’t you ask me? Do you think this is deliberate?’
‘I think it’s a mistake. I think this can be explained. I don’t need to ask you that.’
‘But his father? What if this is deliberate?’
‘He’s never done anything like this before. There will be a simple explanation.’
Her husband’s attempt to soothe only increased her alarm. ‘You’re right,’ she said, ‘I’m being stupid. It’s just one day. One day. I think we can wait. Allow him to contact us before we jump to any conclusions. I called the airline and they said he hasn’t changed the ticket. But this isn’t unusual. Do you know how many people miss their flights each day? It’s in the thousands. They regularly over-sell because this is not unusual.’ Anne pressed the receiver hard to her ear. ‘He’ll like it when he gets here. And the view.’ She hesitated, not wanting to speak at all, but hating the silence. ‘This happens all of the time. There was someone else at the airport waiting for someone who wasn’t on the flight. This happens all the time.’
They agreed to wait one more day, and when she hung up Anne felt the weight of the next day already upon her and decided she could not sit in the apartment.
The phone rang as soon as she set it down. Her husband’s voice sounded unexpectedly close: ‘The university, they’ve tried to call me at work. I have a message asking me to call back at eleven, that’s four hours. I’ll contact you as soon as I know what this is about.’
The news had to be repeated. She couldn’t understand the logic: why would he receive a message about her son through her son’s university? When the core of the information struck her — there is a problem — she hung up.
* * *
Anne left the apartment knowing that if she hesitated she would change her mind, and the hours would pass at a painful drag and she would frustrate herself. She kept the phone in her hand, and checked that the signal was still active, and that the batteries were still charged. Immediately on the street she had no idea what to do with herself and thought that if she needed to return home to New York, or possibly someplace else, she should stay near the apartment. Stopped in the entrance, a small marble-faced hallway, she debated what to do and decided not to pack until she knew that she had to. Such a gesture would show a lack of faith and pre-empt any information the university had to tell them. She followed a path toward the village and the port, the church below strung with bare white bulbs that outlined the windows, the entrance, the single tower, and illuminated the square. But all this prettiness soured in her eye and she suddenly resented being alone. How perfect this could otherwise have been. Around her the fields were divided into small landholdings, too tiny to be of practical use. As she came to the portside she found a crowd gathered facing the darkening sea.
Firecrackers had sounded off all evening, giving the night an uneasy edge. Anne caught the first salvo as a reflection in the windows of the houses and bars along the front, a bright cascade, quickly fading to a supple reverberating pop. Again and again fireworks sparked across the harbour, skewing the sea and sky in a strange perspective. When one display ended another began further along the coast, and when that ended another started closer still behind them. Rockets fired over the church and spangled wide above their heads; the crowd leaned back to follow the sparks and showers above them, the light flattening the upturned faces.
She held the phone against her chest and felt it ringing.
‘He’s missing.’ Her husband’s voice came clear above the crackle of fireworks. ‘Eric hasn’t been seen for five days. His tutors called from Turkey. The last they saw of him he was at their hotel. This is five days ago. They’ve reported this to the police. At the moment they don’t know anything. There’s no reason to believe that anything bad has happened. It doesn’t look like he’s in trouble.’