They looked at me very oddly at the check-in desk. I was wearing a pair of my oldest deck-shoes, duck trousers which were stained with varnish and linseed oil, and a tatty blue jumper over one of the unwashed Army shirts I’d found in the bergen. It was my cleanest shirt. “Any luggage?” the girl asked me.
“None.”
But my ticket was valid, and my visa unexpired, so they had to let me on.
I went with excitement. I forgot Bannister and I forgot his threats because a girl with bright eyes and black hair had summoned me to Boston.
It was raining at Boston’s Logan Airport. There was no Jill-Beth. Instead a chauffeur with a limousine the size of a Scorpion tank waited for me. The chauffeur apologized that Miss Kirov was unable to be personally present. He was civilized enough to overlook my lack of luggage and the state of my clothes. The US Immigration officers had been less courteous, though a phone call to the Military Attaché at the British Embassy in Washington had finally convinced them that I had not come to corrupt the morals of the Republic. I rather hoped that I had.
In which hope I was driven south through a thunderstorm.
We drove to Cape Cod. I remembered, as we crossed the canal, how I had sailed Sycorax down this waterway to the East Boat Basin six years before. I’d had a crew from my regiment on board and we’d all been awed by the glossy boats amongst which Sycorax had seemed like a poor and shabby relation.
Now, taken deep into the Cape, I was wafted to a hotel of unimaginable luxury where I was expected and, despite my appearance, treated as a most honoured guest. I was shown to a door that carried a brass plate inscribed “Admiral’s Quarters”, but few admirals could ever have lived in such sybaritic splendour. It was a suite of rooms which overlooked a harbour. I had a jacuzzi, a bath, a bedroom, a living-room and a private balcony.
I went to the window. My father had always loved America; he loved its freedom, its excesses and its shameless wealth. I found the Republic more frightening, perhaps because I had not inherited my father’s talent for manipulating cash. I stared now at the busy harbour where boats that cost more than an Army officer could earn in a lifetime jostled on their moorings. The rain was clearing, promising a bright and warm evening. A motor-yacht with a flying bridge, raked aerials, fighting chair and a harpoon walkway accelerated towards the sea, while behind me the air-conditioning hissed in the Admiral’s Quarters. It all suddenly seemed very, very unreal; like a splendid dream that will end at any moment and return the sleeper to a commonplace reality. I turned on the television to find that the Red Sox were four runs ahead at the bottom of the eighth with three men on base. A printed card planted on the television set assured me that Room Service could bring me the Bountiful Harvest of the Sea or Land at any hour of the Day or Night. I felt as though I was drowning in casual affluence. There was a shaving kit laid out for me in the bathroom, a towelling robe waiting on the bed, while in one of the walk-in cupboards I found my old brogues which had been re-heeled, then polished to a deep shine. The sight of them, and the memory of the last time I had worn them, made me smile.
There were also four pairs of new shoes sitting alongside the brogues.
Above the shoes, and hanging in protective paper covers, were clothes. There were two dinner-jackets; one white, one black. There were slacks, shirts, unnecessary sweaters, even a rain-slicker. Some ties hung on a door-rack and I noticed, with astonishment, that my old regiment’s striped tie was among them. A label was pinned on to the regimental tie: “With the Compliments of Miss Kirov.” At the bottom of the paper slip was the legend, ‘Kassouli Hotels, Inc., a Division of Kassouli Leisure Interests, Inc.’.
I suppose I’d really known right from the moment when I’d opened that thick creamy envelope in Sycorax’s cabin. I’d known who had paid for the ticket, and who wanted me in the States, but I’d deceived myself into thinking that it was love; as bright and shiny and new as a fresh-minted coin. Of course it was not. It was Kassouli.
The compliments slip only confirmed it, but still I thought I could pluck my fresh coin out of the mess.
The telephone startled me.
“Captain Sandman? This is the front desk, sir. Miss Kirov has requested us to inform you that she’ll come by at seven o’clock with transportation. She suggests formal dress, sir.”
“Right. Thank you.”
He enjoined me to have a nice day. On the television the batter hit a grand slam home run, the ball rising so that the picture was shattered by the starburst of stadium lights. I turned the set off and drew a bath. It was madness, but I had volunteered to come here because of a girl. I felt my right leg trembling and I feared that the knee would buckle, so I lowered myself into the bath and told myself that there was no need for apprehension, that it was an adventure, and that I was glad to be here.
My sense of unreality, that I was a sleepwalking participant in a sleek dream, only increased when Jill-Beth arrived. She came in a white BMW convertible, and was wearing an evening dress of black and white speckled silk. She had a triple strand of pearls beneath a lace shawl. Her hair seemed glossier and her skin more glowing than I remembered. “Hi, Nick.”
“Hello.” I was shy.
She laughed. “I knew you’d choose the black tux.”
“I’m sorry to be so conventional.”
“Hell, no. I like a black tux on a man. You don’t want to look like a waiter, do you?” She leaned over and gave me a quick kiss. “How’s the jet lag?”
“As bad as yours, I imagine?”
“I feel great. You’d better, too, because we’re partying.” She accelerated the BMW from under the hotel’s awning. It was a hot sticky evening, but, though the BMW’s hood was down, she had the air-conditioning on full blast so that my legs froze while my chest became sticky with sweat.
“I didn’t bring much money,” I said warningly.
“A thousand bucks should see you through the night.” She saw the expression on my face, and laughed. “Hell, Nick! You’re Kassouli’s guest, OK?”
“OK,” I said, as though I’d known all along that it was Kassouli who’d plucked me across an ocean and not love.
Jill-Beth swung into a marina entrance where an armed guard recognized her and opened the gate. We drove past a row of moored motor-cruisers, each the size of a minesweeper and each with an aerial array that would have done service to a frigate.
“La-la land,” I said, echoing the comment Jill-Beth had written about me in the file that Bannister had shown me.
Jill-Beth instantly understood the allusion, and laughed. “Did you see the files?”
“Only those that Bannister wanted me to see.”
“That figures. Were you offended by what I wrote?”
“Should I have been?”
“Hell, no.” She waved to a man on board one of the moored cruisers, then offered me a deprecating smile. “I guess I’m not exactly flavour of the month with Tony Bannister?”
“Not exactly. Nor am I.”
“Tough.” She swung the BMW into a parking slot opposite a berth where a white cutter was moored. She put the gear into neutral and kept the motor running as she nodded at the yacht. “Like it?” I knew that make of boat, and liked it very much. She was called Ballet Dancer and had been built on America’s West Coast; a 42-foot cutter with a canoe stern, bowsprit, and the solid, graceful lines of a sturdy sea boat. She was made of fibreglass, but had expensive teak decks and rubbing-strakes. “Yours?” I guessed.