One for the Gods (The Peter & Charlie Trilogy) (25 page)

He sprang out from the hatch and saw him. He had made himself a nest of clothing and blankets on the deck just aft of the seat and was sound asleep. Charlie went charging aft, roaring. “Goddamn son of a bitch! Wake up, you stupid bastard. Of all the fucking asinine—”

Jack sat up dazedly. “What’s the matter? What seems to be the trouble?”

“You’re asleep, that’s the trouble, you stupid shit.”

“Now, take it easy.” Jack shook coverings off himself and slid down onto the seat behind the wheel. “I may have dozed off for a minute—”

“Dozed off? You’ve made yourself a fucking bed. Christ Almighty! I sometimes think you want to sink your goddamn boat.”

“What’s all the shouting about? There’s practically no wind. She can sail herself in—”

“What about that?” Charlie shouted, pointing at the tanker. “She can sail herself right into that. Is that what you want?” Charlie saw that Jack had lashed the wheel. He tore the rope off and shook it in Jack’s face. “If anything’s tied up around here, it ought to be you.”

“I saw that freighter an hour ago. He could see us. That’s what we have lights for. Do you think he’s going to try to ram us?”

“It’s stupid idiocy to go to sleep on the wheel. You have four hours a day when you’re supposed to be good for something. If that’s too much for you, let me know. I’m running the goddamn boat, anyway.”

“Because you want to. I like to see a man doing a job well that he likes doing. I wouldn’t want to depend on you for navigation.”

“Oh, Christ. You head south, you head east, you head south again. Some navigation.”

“Why are you such a bastard, Charlie?” Jack asked conversationally. “I know you’re really a good guy. Why are you such a bastard on the surface?”

Charlie studied him briefly. The skull looked strong, as did the regular weathered features, but he saw a slack weakness around the mouth and despised him for it. Charlie turned from him and scanned the horizon. The sun was just about to do its spectacular run up the sky. He dropped onto one of the benches and stretched his legs out in front of him. “There’s a breeze coming in from the northeast. You’d better be ready to get the boom over. I’ll help you with the sheets. From now on, I’ll stay up here till sunup. You can take over then. Peter will be able to sleep a little later.”

“I’d like you to answer my question. Why do you always want to act the bastard? What makes you think you can get away with it?”

Charlie sized him up with a flick of his eyes. Sinewy. Tough-looking. He hadn’t yet come within that category of “older men” with whom Charlie would consider it unfair to fight.

“The fact is that I
can
get away with it,” he said coolly.

“What makes you want to? That’s the question that interests me. You know, sometimes you don’t seem quite human to me. At the beginning I actually thought you might make a pass at me. I could understand that. That would be human.”

“What in hell are you talking about?” Charlie demanded. All his muscles stiffened, but he remained in his relaxed lounging position.

“You seemed to like me when we met up in St. Tropez. I know about you, of course. I thought you might make a pass at me and I would’ve understood. I wouldn’t have minded. I don’t go for that sort of thing myself, but I understand. It’s a perfectly natural human thing that happens.”

The fact that Jack might actually be trying, in his misguided way, to have a heart-to-heart talk was the only thing that kept Charlie from hitting him. “Whether or not I’m a cocksucker is my business,” he said evenly. “But I’ll tell you one thing. If I were, you’d be the last man on earth I’d come anywhere near.”

“Really? I thought for guys like you, a cock was a cock. I have an idea Peter might be interested. We’re real buddies.”

“You son of a bitch. Are you trying to suggest you want it? Are
you
making some sort of a pass?”

“That would be putting it a bit strongly. After all, Marty is damn good at it. I don’t have to look for it. Still, a change every now and then never did anybody any harm.”

“Christ! I ought to throw you overboard and get it over with,” Charlie said, barely keeping his voice under control and not allowing his body to stir. If he let himself go, he was afraid he
would
throw him overboard.

“You see? You won’t let up, will you? I’m trying to tell you I understand. I thought we could be friends.”

“You haven’t said one word so far that suggests you understand anything about me. And I’m not looking for friends.”

“Suit yourself. But all this he-man stuff, running the boat and everything. You do it damn well. But don’t you think you’re over-compensating a bit? You’re going to knock yourself out.”

Charlie’s hands were clenched into fists. His teeth ground together. Don’t do it, he warned himself. Fighting on a boat was too dangerous. He sprang up and came to rest against the hatch door. The release of movement left him trembling all over. He took several deep breaths until he was sure he could speak. He looked astern. “We’ll get the breeze in a couple of minutes,” he said. “You can handle the fucking sheets yourself.”

He lay in his bunk, still trembling with rage. He could save their goddamn lives, but all that really mattered to Jack was that he was queer. He couldn’t resist rubbing his nose in it. He thought of Martha. He could have her anytime he wanted; he was sure of that now. He ought to goddamn well fuck her and tell Jack about it afterward. The shit. An incompetent drunk. All rolled up in his nest like a goddamn baby. He punched his pillow with his clenched fist. Would he be able to go on with the trip after this? Hell, yes. He would simply extend and consolidate his control until Jack was consigned exclusively to his charts. His thoughts returned to Martha. It had become increasingly obvious that she wanted him, though she remained so easy and open and undemanding that he still hadn’t had a moment of feeling crowded or hemmed-in by her. She was his faithful lieutenant, almost as dependable as Peter. She had none of the predatory quality he associated with women. She was the most attractive female he had been on such intimate terms with. Her body was beautiful, her face sweet and appealing, her eyes adoring. He had the impression that making love with her would be a soothing, opulent celebration of physical pleasure. Something to think about. He had never known such selfless love. It commanded attention, reminding him of what he had said to Peter about needing air. It would put Jack in his place; he would have nothing left but technical title to the boat.

She was there, just a few feet away beyond the bulkhead. He was strongly tempted to go to her now. They would be as private as if they were locked in a hotel room. Jack couldn’t leave the deck. Peter was asleep. In any case, Peter wouldn’t mind. It had always been understood between them that Charlie might want a girl. He hadn’t so far, but it could happen. He imagined the welcome she would give him and tugged at the silken pouch he wore and adjusted the sheet to cover himself and give his sex room to expand. It did so as he thought of how often he had caught her eyes looking at him there.

Neither he nor Peter ever stripped for bed on board. They both always woke up with erections. Their brief underpants offered meager concealment. Their sheets often slipped off them. Martha came and went while they were sleeping; it was very likely that she had seen them both in all their glory. If so, it hadn’t satisfied her curiosity. Her eyes were always on him, sometimes searching out his own, more often on his mouth as he spoke or roaming his body and settling on his crotch. Yes, it could happen. He wished he thought Jack would really care.

Shortly after noon, they sighted Stromboli. It was easily identifiable: a plume of black smoke rose into the sky above its high peak. Within an hour, the morning’s breeze had died entirely. They lay in a flat, leaden sea, the rigging creaking slightly, as motionless as if the boat had been set in cement.

They lay thus the rest of the day, with Stromboli smoking in the distance off their starboard bow. One of the rare areas of agreement between Charlie and Jack concerned the dubious practice of swimming off the boat unless it was anchored, but it was stiflingly hot and they threw a ladder over the side and swam frequently, keeping within easy reach of the boat.

They lay motionless all night. There was a faint glow in the sky where Stromboli was. By midmorning the next day, it seemed to all of them as if no breeze would ever stir again. They were fixed for all eternity in this flat seascape, the black hull set in an expanse of leaden sea with Stromboli daubed in on the horizon. Charlie rigged an awning over part of the cockpit with a spare jib. He waited till they were gathered for lunch before raising the question that was on all their minds.

“How long are we willing to go on sitting here?” he asked.

“We don’t seem to have much choice,” Jack said.

“I think we should set a limit on it. Tonight. Tomorrow morning at the latest.” Charlie addressed Peter and Martha. He had adopted a policy of addressing Jack directly as little as possible.

“And then what do we do?” Jack asked.

“Turn on the motor, for God’s sake. It’s there for a purpose.”

“That’s out of the question,” Jack asserted. “I have to keep the fuel for getting in and out of ports and any real emergencies that might turn up.”

“How much fuel do you have on board?” he asked Martha.

“I don’t know exactly,” Jack said. “That is, I use the motor so little that I’ve never figured out how much running time I get on a gallon.”

“All the marine engines I’ve ever heard of never use much more than a gallon an hour. The Straits of Messina are about fifty miles away. I checked the charts. What do you do on the motor? Six or seven knots? Let’s say seven or eight hours on motor—maximum. You’ve certainly got eight gallons of fuel on board.”

“Of course we have,” Martha put in. “The tank’s enormous.”

“That’s not the point,” Jack objected. “The point is we’ve got to conserve fuel for when we really need it. I’ve heard it’s very difficult to get in the Greek islands.”

“We’re nowhere near the Greek islands yet, and never will be, at this rate,” Charlie pointed out. “You can get fuel in Catania. The pilot book says so.”

“Charlie’s right, darling,” Martha said. “We’ll all go mad if we sit here another day.”

“Oh, I know you can all out-vote me. Charlie’s our household god. If he says turn the motor on, we turn the motor on. This is one thing I’m not putting to a vote.”

“Don’t be silly, Jack,” Peter said. “We all know you’re the captain when it gets right down to it. Hell, it’s your boat. I don’t know anything about it, but you wouldn’t want to sit here for a week, would you?”

“It’s not a question of what I want. This is a sailboat, not a motor yacht. You do what the wind permits. Anybody can get to Greece on an engine.”

“God, the mystique of the sea,” Charlie said with heavy irony, raising his eyebrows at Peter.

“You don’t understand what Charlie’s saying,” Martha said to Jack, looking at Charlie. “He just wants to put a limit to how long we wait. We could all relax and stop holding our breath for the slightest puff of wind.”

Charlie looked into her eyes and nodded almost imperceptibly. Somehow, their eyes made more of it than he had intended; he had committed himself. Her lips parted and her eyes dropped and he guessed that she was blushing, though it didn’t show through her tan. There was still the question of whether he really wanted it.

“You’re wasting your time,” Jack said with finality. “This is one time we’re going to do it my way. I’ve got perfectly sound reasons. No motor.”

Charlie sprang to his feet and ran forward to the bow and dived into the sea. He struck out for Stromboli. He wanted to get as far away from the boat and Jack as possible. It was intolerable to be subject to his whim. He swam with a fast vigorous stroke and moved rapidly away. He continued to swim after he heard Peter calling him. He went on when his lungs were straining for air. He was going slower but he pushed himself on with arms and legs that were beginning to ache. He was a good swimmer, and he swam until his chest was heaving for air. He stopped and gulped air in great, rattling gasps. He could barely move his arms and legs enough to keep himself afloat. He shook his head feebly to clear his eyes and looked back.

He was shocked to see how far he had traveled. The boat looked very small in the distance. He was too far away to see any movement on it. Would he be able to make his way back? Of course. Don’t panic. Just lie out and float until you’ve got your breath back. He did so while his chest heaved and gasped for air.

The sea felt infinitely vast and deep around him. He was touched by a tremor of fear. His mind conjured up pictures of Homeric monsters beneath him. He fought himself into a vertical position.

His breath began to come in sobs. He felt too small. It was unnatural and horrifying. As long as he kept moving in relationship to the boat, proportion was partially restored. Away from it. Toward it. The trick was not to care. If he could force himself on a little farther, his body would rebel, he wouldn’t be able to keep his head above water, it would be over quickly. He would be scarcely aware of its happening.

He experienced a great loosening of inner tensions. Death. Nothing. Why go on searching? What difference did any of it make? Let it all go. He had thought of doing away with himself once or twice in the past but always with terror and despair. This was quite different; this was a total yielding to the appeal of nullity, a great easing of all strain. Why go on pushing and prodding at Peter’s life? Why fight Jack? How could he consider, even half-heartedly, a further involvement with Martha? It was all so unimportant. He became aware of his aching body and his gasping lungs. It was too much trouble to go back. Wait here until he could move more easily. Push on just a moment longer than he had before. And then oblivion. It felt so restful that he forgot to move his arms and legs and his head went under. He came up coughing and choking. If he stayed out here much longer, he wouldn’t have to make the decision. He shook water out of his eyes. As he did so, he caught a glint of gold in the sea somewhere between him and the boat.