Floating Madhouse Page 18

  Start a new letter to her today, Michael thought, have it ready for posting at Dakar. If they let us into Dakar of course – which they might not, if they’d heard of Rojhestvensky’s cable-cutting. Perhaps he is mad… He was leaning out over the rail now with his glasses trained astern, seeing the white hospital-ship following at a distance of about two cables, silvered water curling away from that elegant clipper bow. As elegant as a swan – and, extraordinarily, full of Russian girls of noble parentage, following this lumbering herd to God knows what.

  Switch of mind to Tasha, then: the switch being less plain escapism than the thought of returning or not returning to her. And from there to the question in her letter: it started here in Yalta, didn’t it? For you, my lover, wasn’t this really the time and place?

  In the sense of having finally realized how he felt about her, yes, it had been. And in going to the brink – starting what they’d finished or rather continued at Injhavino. As in answering that letter – starting this evening, maybe – he’d admit. But not admit to the state of frustration he’d been in at an earlier stage, resulting in an attempt at flirting instead with her mother – with whom the age-gap though even wider applied in the reverse direction, the thought being – if you could call it ‘thought’ – that in fooling with an older woman one couldn’t be accused or even accuse oneself of taking advantage, or trifling with – or whatever. Anna had been alone – Tasha supposed to have joined them on the terrace, for tea or it might have been for wine, but she hadn’t and he’d made his move really without any thought at all – a spur of the moment, unpremeditated blunder. It had been Tasha, not her mother, about whom he had been – well, meditating. If that could be the word for not being able to keep his eyes off her.

  Eyes or before long – God help us – hands. Which he’d reason to suspect might have been welcomed. By this schoolgirl.

  Anna had pushed herself out of his embrace. ‘Silly, Micky! Aren’t you forgetting I’m married to Methuselah?’

  ‘Well – exactly—’

  ‘What’s that mean? Unless the thought’s insulting… But never mind – don’t look so hangdog… Just tell me though, don’t you find Tasha sufficiently attractive?’

  ‘Of course I do!’

  ‘Well, then?’

  ‘Anna, she’s fifteen years old! Fifteen, for God’s sake! I know, to look at her or talk to her she could be nineteen. But – in fact, a child!’

  ‘If you really think that, take another look!’

  ‘What?’

  That soft laugh of hers. ‘I knew you were right for her when she was nine, you silly man! Don’t you remember? You’d made her angry, and you came to me moaning that she’d probably never speak to you again? You were still very young at that time, of course—’

  ‘Very much attracted to you, as it happens.’

  ‘D’you think I was unaware of it?’

  ‘Amused you, I dare say.’

  ‘No, not amused, but already then wondering if, in the distant future, you and Tasha might not—’

  ‘You told my mother that I bore a close resemblance to your first husband.’

  ‘And she promised not to mention it to you. I’ll tell her off for that. But – yes, as a boy to the man – as you might have been his little brother – it’s true – and still is now. Extraordinary. But we won’t discuss Boris, please. Except I might tell you it’s not Methuselah to whom I’m faithful unto death, it’s him, the memory of him. That’s all I’ll say on that subject. But you and Tasha, Micky – no, wait, I’ll tell you, even though it may sound to you like nonsense – I’m certain Boris knows what a fool I was, how as soon as his mortal back was turned, so to speak—’

  ‘My mother told me that you’d been left in a dreadful situation.’

  ‘A mine of information, is Lizavyeta Andreyevna. Anyway we have to learn to emerge from dreadful situations. And let me tell you, Micky; Tasha won’t make any such errors. All right, so she’s that old devil’s daughter—’

  ‘Prince Igor’s—’

  ‘Technically, poor lamb. What I’m telling you though – strictly between us, please – is that I think of her as Boris’s. As the child I would have had from him. It’s a way of thinking that I find – comforting, that’s all. I’m a very practical woman, Micky – now, I am – and – listen, I’d like nothing better than for you and Tasha to get to really know and love each other. Listen to me – she may be down at any moment; and then we have the Krylovs coming… Micky, I’m thinking of the future, and very seriously. While the conclusions to which you were fairly leaping – I am not offering you my child now as a plaything, to satisfy your – cravings – or hers, for that matter—’

  ‘Please – I never suggested—’

  ‘You didn’t have to, did you. And never mind that anyway. As I say, it’s the future I’m looking to. Her future. I want you two to become in your hearts entirely committed to each other. What you do together – today, tomorrow or the day after or next week – that’s for her to say. She’s had my advice and reasoning, be sure of it – and we’re close, as you’ll have realized, she takes notice. In any case, you’re a man of honour – genuinely fond of her, wouldn’t do anything that might bring harm to her – if I didn’t know it I wouldn’t be talking to you like this. You following me, Micky?’

  ‘I miss words when you talk so fast, but by letting them go I get the rest – most of it. But if you’ve given me the reasoning behind what you’re saying, Anna – which I don’t altogether understand—’

  ‘The reason is that Methuselah has plans for her. For himself, I should say, but using her – which is anathema to me and would be hateful to her. So, being warned of his intentions this far in advance, since she still has years of schooling ahead of her, it’s his ultimate intention I have to keep in mind and guard against. He sees her as a saleable – oh, asset. A bargaining chip to win some rich man’s support for that crumbling, barely workable estate. Rich old man’s, if necessary. It’s the answer he sees to a great weight of financial problems – and quite natural to him as a solution; he’s mentioned it several times, and to him it’s normal, proper.’ Her dark eyes intent on his, again querying his understanding; he’d nodded, and she’d continued, ‘I have not told Tasha. I don’t want her frightened and unsure – or at this stage set against her father. He’d guess at once. Keep it to yourself, please. Nothing’s required of you, Micky – you’re going to be away a long time, half a world away, and Tasha’ll be at school, where, for the time being, she’s safe from anything of that kind. Well – I said that nothing’s required, I should have said nothing beyond convincing Tasha – please, please – of your love. Which I’m assuming exists, believe it does – or will – because as far as she’s concerned – at least, as she feels now…’

  Not all that clear, in the emotional flood of fast Russian. He’d got about three words out of five, maybe. Was not expected to commit himself, only to be what she called ‘open-hearted’ with Tasha – and to be around, if he and Tasha both felt that way about each other, in a few years’ time. To stand as an alternative candidate, more or less, the candidate her mother had had in mind – she said – for years.

  Blue sea, hot sky, and the scent of flowers. The house, which they called a dacha, suggesting that it was smaller than it was, was white-plastered, had its foundations on rock and nestled in acres of roses, wisteria, oleander, magnolia, bougainvillea. He’d been there about a week, had a fortnight left of his leave, and that had been the first time in several days that he’d found Anna Feodorovna on her own. It was June, the month of cherries, pears and peaches, and the sea already warm enough for lazy swimming. Steps were cut into the rock leading down to their own private swimming place. Swimming from rock, not sand; there were sandy beaches all along that coast, but this was out to the northeast, closer to Mount Kastel than to the more populated centre of the coastal strip – between mountains and sea – which in the course of the past hundred years had become built up with the palaces and summer
houses of the immensely rich, as well as more modest places such as this. Well – not all that modest…

  No more than Tasha was. Practically naked on that rock, within arm’s length of him. Acting as if she didn’t know the effect it had on him: as if she were a child, baring herself in innocence. And that place entirely private, rocks all round and no sight of it from the overhang above. Other situations too, other moments. Although they weren’t by any means always alone; there were other families close by, friends of long standing, with young sons and daughters. Tasha was extremely popular – so bright, such fun, such marvellous company. He’d found himself wishing she was nineteen. Which she truly might have been, and as many of these others were – all older than her in any case. Nobody seeing her out, either in that crowd or alone with him – that last day for instance, in Yalta itself, lunching on their own in Vernet’s café – nobody could have thought, ‘Oh, what a pretty child with that young man!’ They’d have murmured, ‘Don’t look at once, but have you noticed that absolutely stunning girl?’

  It had been such a lovely day, that last one, for all the element of sadness in it. He remembered the sea as blue and the air at least as warm as this through which the Ryazan was now ploughing westward – soon, southwestward – with the mass of the squadron out to port, clear of the roads by this time; Ryazan with the Orel following astern of her overhauling the others, following some signalled order from the flagship. Michael remembering, assembling the memories ready for inclusion in the letter he’d start this evening; how from the village that afternoon they’d taken a cab out to Oreanda, and walked and walked, and in the evening sat together on a bench beside the church, looking down at the sea: behind them the mountains, and trees all round, and the chorus of cicadas’ voices. There was an open-air restaurant out there at which they’d decided to have a lobster supper. He’d told her, answering a question about the cruiser he’d be joining shortly as navigator – ‘big ship time’, and a break in his service in destroyers – ‘I’ll be gone about three years. As a matter of fact I don’t care how long – since you’ll be slaving away at school.’

  ‘Finishing school, when that’s over. By the time you’re back I’ll be – oh, heavens, seventeen, eighteen even—’

  ‘Almost past it. On the shelf. Unless I take you off it?’

  ‘Will you be a commander by then?’

  ‘No fear. Only a senior lieutenant. That is a snag, I admit. Be getting a bit long in the tooth, too – twenty-seven, twenty-eight. Tasha, I want streams of letters from you – and I swear I’ll write every week – or thereabouts—’

  ‘In all that time, what’ll you do for girls?’

  ‘Do for them?’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘There’s only one girl, Tasha. I’ll be writing to her, and getting letters from her – if that’s what you mean?’

  ‘Have you had many girls, Mikhail?’

  ‘Hundreds.’

  ‘Seriously!’

  ‘Dozens, then.’

  ‘Truly?’

  ‘No, of course not!’

  ‘But some… Mikhail, put your lips—’

  He told her a little later, ‘No difference anyway, one simply does not reveal, or discuss—’

  ‘If we did it – if I’d allowed myself—’

  ‘Tasha—’

  ‘Could I count on that, that you’d keep it a total secret? God, this is so huge, I doubt I could possibly—’

  ‘One day.’ Kissing. Could have swallowed her whole. One hand where his lips had been; and kissing. Up for air then: ‘And we’ll remember this…’

  In the event, in all the time he’d been away there hadn’t been many weeks in which they hadn’t heard from each other. But in the letter tonight he’d remind her of that last Yalta evening: the lobster and the wine, and the cab-drive home in scented, gathering darkness, kissing, loving – as a man of honour, naturally…

  A howl from a petty officer – that yeoman of signals, the tattoo’d one – ‘Your honour – the flagship’s—’

  Other shouts confused it: but from the head of the starboard column, the Suvarov had turned sharply to port, was charging at the wallowing Kamchatka: who had now put her helm over – which you would, with fifteen thousand tons of battleship coming at you like a charging elephant from a distance of about a hundred yards.

  ‘Stop both engines. Yeoman, hoist…’

  Hoist something. And stopping engines. Michael glancing aloft, seeing a black sphere rushing up Ryazan’s mizzenmast: that was the hoist Zakharov had ordered, telling the hospital-ship astern My engines are stopped. Total confusion in that port column though: the Kamchatka seemed to have saved herself all right; had acted fast enough to be more or less stern-on to her crazed attacker, and the other transports were scattering or stopping or both while the Alexander was leading the other three battleships out to starboard. The cruisers were also turning away – northward – making their escape. Enqvist on his toes, Michael thought – as well he might be, knowing the state of affairs in general and having some instinct for self-preservation… Suvarov by the look of it more just drifting on now than driven – passing between the Kamchatka and the Anadyr with so little room to spare that it had been either sheer luck she hadn’t hit one or other of them or creditable ship-handling in a very quick reaction to emergency.

  Galikovsky produced the answer then: bawling from the after end of the bridge, ‘Signal from Knyaz Suvarov, sir: steering engine failed…’

  13

  Dakar looked attractive enough, after a week at sea, but from two previous visits Michael knew it would be hardly worth setting foot on shore. Except just to stretch the legs, breathe tepid air with jungle fragrance in it instead of funnel-smoke. Following the rest of the squadron one had had plenty of that – in mostly windless or near-windless conditions, there’d been fringes of the smoke trailing virtually to sea-level. And when you got your own funnel effluent, through a gust of wind overtaking from astern, when you were steaming at the best speed the squadron as a whole could make – eight knots was how it averaged out, after two thousand miles interspersed with breakdowns – it could be choking, nauseous.

  For the past few days they’d been rocking over a heavy swell, but that was gone now, in the shelter of Cape Verde. November 12th, this was: Dakar in the lenses of his binoculars a cluster of whitish buildings amongst palms, with a forefront of light-coloured, sea-washed foreshore, background of dark forest and inland heat-haze. Sea flat as a skating-rink, air treacle-ish. They’d be in there and anchored, he reckoned – checking the time by the beautiful little watch Anna Feodorovna had given him – by about eight p.m. Zakharov had warned his officers and ship’s company that the admiral would probably want coaling to commence immediately.

  The Orel still glided swan-like in this ship’s wake. As far as Michael knew there’d been no communication with her; but he’d heard Radzianko telling Zakharov that he thought a young cousin of his was quite likely to be on board – she had volunteered as a nursing trainee with that order and her family home was in the southern Ukraine. So if there should be any opportunities for socializing with the sisters…

  ‘It’s not likely,’ was Zakharov’s response.

  Zakharov’s bleak look. Graven-image look. Radzianko seemingly not discouraged, smiling as if that was exactly what he’d hoped to hear: or perhaps as if he knew better. It was a thickness of skin, Michael suspected, enabling him not to give a damn how others saw him. Plus a degree of interest in those nurses as compulsive as Rojhestvensky’s determination to get this assembly of old wrecks out to the Yellow Sea.

  Even knowing – as Rojhestvensky must have – that the odds were he’d end up leaving it there. One could see it in imagination: black hulls embedded in the silt, fishes and crabs exploring…

  Tasha or Anna Feodorovna getting the news how, then? By telegram from Prince Ivan in Petersburg? It would be news of Zakharov’s demise of course, not of one’s own.

  The battleships were dropping
their anchors shortly before eight p.m. This close inshore the scent of rotting vegetation was overpowering. There’d be mosquitoes by the million: Michael was reminded of them by that stink. Smoking was the best defence against them: preferably a pipe. Zakharov had taken over the conning of the ship from his navigator and was leading the Orel off to port, where the two of them would anchor on their own – Enqvist having taken his cruisers the other way, to drop their hooks inshore of a waiting crowd of German colliers. Ten of them: and in fact not all that much waiting going on: activity already discernible on several of those foc’sls, with colliers weighing anchor before the customers had even secured their own. Pre-arranged by Rojhestvensky, of course – doubtless to get coaling under way before the French told him he couldn’t. Nothing here to stop him, anyway – nothing visible, certainly no warships. The last sight of those British cruisers had been north of the Canaries four days ago.

  Ryazan stopped engines. Orel diverting further out to port – to anchor with the Ryazan between her and the rest of the squadron. Ryazan’s engines churning astern for a few seconds, taking some of the way off her, then stopping again. Silence, and cessation of that vibration. Only a slow forward drift, and the distant sounds of other ships’ cables rattling out. Zakharov’s quiet order then to Burmin, and Burmin’s yell of ‘Let go!’ through the megaphone he’d had ready, and from the foc’sl the crash of a hammer knocking the slip off. A splash, roar of chain cable rushing out; by the time it had slowed and quietened the Orel had let hers go too – no more than half a cable’s length on Ryazan’s beam. Voices in this bridge were audible again by then: Zakharov moving to leave the bridge, telling Burmin, ‘Both – the cutter and a whaler. Whaler to take me to the flagship, cutter to raise steam and stand by at the boom. Rig the boom and the gangway starboard side. If we’re to start coaling now, tonight…’