Medusa

The weather was set fair for the moment and next morning, standing at the open window in the blazing sun, drinking my coffee, I could hardly believe it, the twin hulls so beautiful, such a thoroughbred, lying there to her reflection, no wind that early in the morning, the surface of Mahon harbour absolutely still.

I called Soo to come and look at her. ‘We’ll take her out under engines as far as La Mola, wait for the wind there.’ But she had promised to pick up one of the Renato girls at their vineyard farm beyond St Luis and picnic on the limestone rock ledges of Cala d’Alcaufar. Carp appeared with the semi-inflatable from the direction of the naval quay, the aluminium bows half-lifted out of the water as the big outboard thrust the tender close past the Club Maritimo, the metal masts of the yachts alongside the pontoon winking in the sun as they bobbed and swayed to the sharp-cut wake.

East Coasters tend to keep their emotions under control, but though he didn’t show it, I sensed Carp’s excitement as the two of us scrambled aboard and got the engines started and the anchor up. He had never skippered anything like this before and the fact that I had put him in charge of the boat had done wonders for his ego. He had bought himself one of those baseball-type hats with a long America’s Cup peak and he couldn’t stop talking as we motored out past Bloody Island, rounding the northern end of it, bare earth showing where Petra had trenched beyond the great stone capping slabs of the hypostilic chamber she had been excavating. The water was so still we could have nosed in for her to jump on board.

She would have loved it, but two days after Soo had left hospital I had had the unpleasant task of taking a telex out to her camp with the news that her father had been badly injured in a car crash. A vacant seat on a charter flight had enabled her to leave that same afternoon. We had not heard from her since, and now, sitting there at the wheel, driving the big catamaran close-hauled past the La Mola fortifications, I missed her. It was such a perfect day for trials, the wind coming in from the south-east and building up through the afternoon, so that the B and G instruments showed us touching fifteen knots as we ran back into the harbour under full main and spinnaker, the spray flying, the sun shining, the wind hard on the side of my face. And the boat behaved perfectly. Nothing more to do to her, except a few replacements to the rigging, a little fine tuning.

‘I’ve talked to Miguel on the phone,’ was Soo’s greeting as I came in, tired and elated. ‘He’ll have a word with you on Monday, after the Albufera ceremony.’

‘What’s his problem?’ I asked, pouring myself the Balearic version of a horse’s neck. ‘We’ve paid him for the work to date.’ I was thinking of the speech I had promised Jorge Martinez I would make. In the excitement of getting Thunderflash ready I had forgotten all about it.

‘It isn’t the money,’ Soo said.

‘What is it then?’

‘It’s the work. He’s short of work.’

‘What does he expect?’ With the vandalism that was going on, builders were finding life difficult. ‘He’s lucky to have a villa to complete.’

‘That’s the trouble. Evans has told him to stop work. He and his two mates have moved into the ground floor and Miguel’s been told to clear the site. Anything still to be done they’ll do themselves. The agreement, you remember, was that we’d employ him to finish the building.’

‘You may have told him that. I didn’t.’ I went over to the window, propping myself on the desk top and enjoying the ice-cold fizz of the brandy and ginger ale, my mouth still dry with salt. The lights were coming on, the old town showing white above the steps leading up to the Port Mahon Hotel and the Avenida Giron. ‘He’s got no claim on us at all.’

‘He thinks he has.’ And Soo added, ‘A matter of honour, he said.’

‘Oh, bugger that,’ I told her. ‘There’s nothing in writing. I saw the lawyers early last week.’ But in the end I agreed I would have a talk with him. ‘It’s not far from Albufera to Codolar Point. We could easily run over there either before or after the ceremony and see what Evans has to say about it, if he’s in residence. Do you know if he is?’

‘Miguel says not. He moved in with his two mates, did a quick do-it-yourself job making the lower half habitable, then brought the Santa Maria round into the bay at Arenal d’en Castell and the following morning they were gone.’

‘When was that?’

‘Last week. Friday, I think.’

‘Then they should be back by now. Nobody stays out fishing off Menorca two weekends at a stretch.’