The Seven Sisters (26 page)

‘Actually,’ says Julia, at the end of this macabre evocation, ‘I must say
you
look a damn sight better than you did when I saw you for that first time in London. You’ve lost years. It just shows what a bit of good luck can do. To be honest, I thought you were on the way out and closing down the hatches.’

Candida decides to take this as it is meant, as a compliment. And
as they begin to stir themselves to go to their beds and their packing, Candida tells Julia about the drowning of her engagement ring in the ionized shallows of the Health Club pool. Julia is impressed and amused by this tale. ‘Good for you, Candy!’ she says. ‘Good for you! I don’t know why you married that self-satisfied wanker in the first place. You weren’t pregnant, were you? No, I thought not. Not a virtuous couple like you two. Did he know how to do it, when you got into the marriage bed?’

‘I’ll tell you that story another day,’ says Candida, yawning.

And they weave and wander their way, merrily, nostalgically, sentimentally, arm in arm, along the corridor to their rooms. At school, they hadn’t been allowed to walk arm in arm. Any form of touching, apart from body blows on the battlefield of sport, had been against the rules. As they part, they kiss one another goodnight. They would never have done a thing like that, forty years ago. But the old school tie knots them still, and after all these years, they are pleased to feel its friendly bondage.

In bed, lying awake, Candida realizes that the solution to the problem is death. It always has been, and it always will be. There is nothing to be done about this. Even Hegel must have known that. One can accept it, or fail to accept it. Acceptance is the better choice. The readiness is all. And she is certainly not ready to accept it yet.

The seven sisters exult in their first league out from land

The Transmed ferry is called
Arethusa
, after the nymph of the fountain of Syracuse: she is sister ship to the
Tritone
, named for the horn-blowing sea-god. But there is nothing of the antique or the classical in her line. She is a modern, handsome, heavy-duty, serious vessel, built to carry vehicles and cargoes and illegal immigrants, and she is painted a bright and functional green and white. Valeria drives her passengers into the gaping jaws of the
Arethusa
, and settles their ticketing, and leads them up from the clanking diesel-fumed car deck to their berths. The
Arethusa
, though cheerful in spirit, has little of the expensive brightly illuminated frivolity of the new ocean-going cruise liners of the Age of Idleness, of which they have glimpsed a fine example at anchor in the port of Tunis. They do not
envy the holidaymakers their luxury. On the contrary, they are proud of the business-like simplicity of their craft, which bears witness to the superior gravity of their purpose. For they are pilgrims, not tourists.

Nevertheless, each pilgrim is privately relieved to find that the accommodations are not excessively Spartan. Valeria had assured them that they would not be uncomfortable, and they have come to trust Valeria’s judgements, but one can never be quite sure of what others consider acceptable. There is nothing unacceptable about their two adjacent identical four-berthed cabins on B Deck. Each cabin is clean, and has a porthole looking out to sea, and numbered bunk beds, and a tiny triangular shower room with a lavatory, and a little desk with a little chair, and a supply of sea-sickness bags, and a closet not quite full of inflatable life-saving equipment. What more could reasonable people want? The only problem, both minor and soluble, is constituted by Julia’s excess of baggage, for the storage space is severely limited, but Valeria manages to persuade her to leave most of it stowed in the minibus – Julia cannot want all of it on this short voyage, surely, she suggests, and Julia meekly agrees that this is probably true. Even Julia has succumbed to the benign authority of Valeria.

Once they have arranged themselves – Sally and Mrs Jerrold on the bottom bunks of Cabin 32, with Cynthia and Julia above them, and Anaïs, Candida, Valeria, and the possibility of an empty berth or an Unknown Traveller in Bunk 4 of Cabin 34 next door – they assemble on deck to watch the thrilling commotion of departure. Was it from this vantage point that heartless Aeneas cast his backward glance to gaze at the blazing funeral pyre of Dido, as he set out for Italy? Everlasting enmity she had invoked between the cities of Rome and Carthage, and she had refused to meet him for reconciliation in the Underworld. Aeneas had set forth from Carthage secretly at night, but it is the broad daylight of mid afternoon now, and the air is hot and still and quivering. There is no murmur here in the port from the western winds that blew Aeneas off course to his unintended sojourn in Sicily, though who knows what may greet them when they reach the open sea?

They ascend to the top deck and lean against the rails, gazing at the glittering oily surface of the water, at its mild sheen and its broken shallow sparkling, at the smaller craft of the harbour, at swirling gulls and marching cranes and vast containers swinging dangerously against the sky, like toys in the grip of giant pincers. All is action, movement, embarkation. Whose heart would not lift at such a scene? What painter has not wished to paint this shore? Surely we are bound for some glorious destiny, some sublime destination? Sicily, Naples, Cumae, what matter which?

They are all entertained by the important late arrival of a party of four foot-passengers, who stride along the elevated pedestrian walkway beneath them bearing bouquets, pausing, conversing with animation and much laughter with their farewell committee on the ramp. There are kisses, cries, embraces. This group too is in the highest of spirits. The four of them have the air of those who have just left a long, large, late lunch: they broadcast festivity and well-being. Two men, two women, all of the same middle height, all of the same late middle age, all of the same exuberance – the men could be brothers, though one of them, red-haired, smartly suited, and stout, is clearly the dominant male. His air of self-satisfaction is delightful and his red face gleams with good will. His brother is darker, balder, more moustached; he is in shirt sleeves, he is the joker, he slaps backs and teases and is teased. The women, with their dyed well-groomed hair, their well-cut continental suits, their perilously high heels, their flamboyant and expensive silk scarves, are proud of their men. What are they doing, whither are they bound? They cannot be classical pilgrims, and they do not look like tourists. Perhaps they are on some kind of official trip? But if so, it is clear that for them business is pleasure. They are solid and happy in the fullness of their bodies. They are contented people. Happiness wafts around them, generously, in the hot afternoon air.

Mrs Jerrold watches them for a while, and exchanges appreciative comments on them with Cynthia. Then she moves away from the group, descends a deck, and finds herself a chair in the shade. Her mind returns to Virgil, and, again, to Goethe’s love affairs with and within Italy. He had envied what he saw as the natural happiness of
the southern nations. And she finds herself thinking about Goethe’s death. It is in the nature of things that she, of this travelling group, will most probably prove the first to enter the Underworld, but she does not think she is very bothered about that. She hopes she will comport herself properly and not be a nuisance to others when the moment comes. Accounts differ as to the manner in which Goethe met his death. The legend that he cried out ‘More light!’ has been queried, and even those who accept that these were his last words have interpreted them in various ways. His doctor, Karl Vogel, claimed that he died in great pain, visible fear and mortal agitation. So what avails a lifetime of searching after wholeness and greatness and transcendence? Perhaps Eugene had had the better part, cut off suddenly in his prime.

Goethe had said, somewhere, that the only proper (or was it possible?) response to greater genius is love. Maybe he hadn’t lived up to this precept, but he had been right to formulate it. Mrs Jerrold had never found the original location of this saying, but it had been often on Eugene’s lips. And Eugene had, in life, lived up to it. How he had loved them, Wystan and Dylan and Louis and Stephen and Natasha and Peggy and Jill and all the great and famous ones. Suddenly, as she stands at the rail, she sees him so clearly – a big clumsy bear of a man, shambling, untidy, myopic, affable, with a large round red face, and grey wispy curls plastered over his shining broad-domed head. How the faces of these greater ones had lit up when Eugene entered a room! Eugene the comrade, ever welcome, ever accompanied by good humour, ever willing to stand his friends a pint. Eugene’s friends were, for richer, for poorer, for better, for worse, his friends. He had been a loveable, exasperating man.

Mrs Jerrold closes her eyes in the shade.

Valeria trains her binoculars landwards towards the flat rooftops of the white city, and two storks flap clumsily across the field of her vision. Candida watches the officials below her on the quay, as they redirect traffic, and listens to the mounting thrum of the ship’s engines. Their vessel is gathering its power. Julia has gone below to arrange her nightwear. Cynthia Barclay strikes a pose like a figurehead at the prow, and Anaïs is engaged one deck below in conversation
with a handsome stranger who is leaning on the bar as though waiting for it to open. Sally is now nowhere to be seen, but we know she is on board. She has been feeling rather off-colour again. Maybe she will decide to be sick.

There is a hooting and a wailing and announcements are made in several languages. Visitors are requested to go ashore. A dashing little pilot ship called
Ascanius
comes alongside, like a sleek neat fish-dog, to shepherd them out to sea. Hawsers are uncoupled and coiled around capstans, and with a creaking and a groaning
Arethusa
frees her bulk and pulls away from the dock, and begins to inch slowly and heavily towards the open sea. Candida is transfixed by the metaphor of release, of departure. She watches the shifting line of the shore, the swelling of the horizon, and her heart is ready to break with joy. How blessed she has been in her life! As she stands there, what she at first perceives as great dark moths swirl and drift towards her and settle on her hair and her arms. They are not moths, they are large light black flakes of soot, the size of butterfly wings, issuing from the four stacked funnels of the
Arethusa
. They are pretty and endearing. She allows them to settle upon her as though they were living things. She does not think of the flakes from Dido’s pyre, and the smell of Dido’s burning flesh. Later, perhaps, she may, but now she does not. She is too happy now to think of death.

‘Put out to sea, ignoble comrades. Our end is life. Put out to sea!’

Once the link with land is broken, the watchers above descend to see what fun is to be had below. They discover Julia in the corridor of B Deck speaking with their steward, who is a grizzled and weather-beaten and elderly Neapolitan with a rich dark voice lower than the grumbling of gravel, a voice of bass majesty. Julia says she has negotiated extra hanging space in some mysterious private quarter to which he has allowed her special access: she pleads that she has done this only for the sake of her comrades. The steward admires Julia. Her old fires flare up brightly. They speak the same language, these two. Julia is happy. She has been saluted by a man who has himself seen some action. Her pride is satisfied, and so is his. It has been a satisfactory negotiation to both parties.

It seems that a fourth voyager has joined Valeria, Candida and Anaïs in their cabin, for they discover there, modestly placed under the desk, a small, neat travel bag, which belongs to none of them. It has appeared as if from nowhere. It is made of a pale soft greenish leather, and it is neither old nor new. Its owner is not in evidence, but the bag promises well. It bears a label with an address in Sorrento, and the name of its owner, Anna Palumbo. It is, they think, a pretty name. What will she look like, their Anna? Will she become their friend? They have only one night at sea, so if they are to become friends, it must be done quickly.

Valeria has warned them that the food on the
Arethusa
is not up to the standard of the food at the Hotel Diana. It is canteen-style self-service, with prepaid coupons. There is a restaurant but she does not advise it. What she advises is a sundowner in the Caravaggio Lounge next to the DiscoBar on A Deck, where they will have a good view of the sunset. This will fortify them against the dull plateful of pasta and cutlet that will inevitably follow. There is no point in queuing early for this meal, as other passengers will, for the food gets neither better nor worse with waiting. It is always tepid, and there is always enough.

So there they assemble, as the sun lights a pink pathway towards them over the darkening sea. Yes, Valeria assures them, if they keep a lookout they may see dolphins. They are friendly to humans and they like to follow the boats through the water.

Which of the women on board is their cabin-fellow Anna? Can they guess? Is she looking out for them, as they for her?

Candida is happy to be in company, to be one of a group. She is glad she is not Anna Palumbo, travelling alone. She is glad she is not travelling with her one-time husband Andrew Wilton. She wonders if he has taken the trouble to find out her destination and her route. She wonders if there has been any news from Ellen. She does not think it likely that there can be anything much wrong with Ellen. It is much more probable that Andrew had been using her name as a pretext to satisfy his curiosity. But one cannot be sure. Candida is not given to worrying much about her daughters. They do not worry about her, and she will not worry about them.

But she cannot help but think of Ellen, for there, on the wall of the Caravaggio Lounge, is a series of framed photographs of the building of the
Arethusa
in a Finnish shipyard in 1995. The
Arethusa
had been assembled in the shipyard of Turku, on the southwest coast of Finland, and here are pictures to prove it, with shipbuilders building, and smiling officials in mayoral chains and fur hats, and champagne splashing. There is even an atmospheric picture of a Finnish forest in a bloody sunset in the snow. The
Arethusa
has sailed far from the land of winter to the sunny Mediterranean and the Tyrrhenian Sea.