Perfect Freedom (22 page)

He made a point of finding out how to handle the engine, how to turn it on and off, the maximum speed at which it should be run. He and Robbie were going to have to do their share when they were at sea for several days at a time. He had done quite a lot of small-boat sailing years ago but knew nothing about cruising in the open sea on a yacht this size. He and Angelino discussed getting some sail up but decided there wasn't enough wind to make it worthwhile.

The Coslings had a light lunch under an awning in the comfortable cockpit, with Rico at the wheel beside them. Stuart had taken an immediate liking to the youngster. He was bright and lively, with a winning smile. He had a gold tooth quite far back in his mouth but it flashed when he uttered full-throated laughter. Stuart was glad that there was somebody on board who wasn't too far from Robbie's age—five years or so, no more.

He and Helene went below after lunch to inspect their quarters. There was a pleasant saloon and a comfortable master's cabin aft, and a choice of two cabins forward for Robbie. Old Beppo showed them how to use the rather complicated system of pumps and sea cocks for the washbasin, the head, the shower.

They sailed past Ste. Maxime and St. Raphael and pulled into the yacht harbor of Cannes in the late afternoon. Robbie was waiting for them on the quai.

Stuart was impressed by his appearance. He had just turned seventeen and had filled out considerably since Christmas. He seemed to have lost some of his funny fey quality and moved with a more mature assurance. He was strikingly beautiful. In another year or two, handsome would undoubtedly be the right word, but now his looks still had enough of feminine youthfulness to qualify as beautiful.

The next morning, Stuart went off with Angelino to be introduced to the complications of a yachting life, which turned out to be considerable. By the end of the afternoon Stuart felt as if he were in charge of an ocean liner. Helene, too, had been busy. There was a collection of waterproof suits laid out on deck when he came aboard.

“She seems to think we're going to the North Pole,” Robbie said. Angelino, who had suggested the suits, looked at them approvingly. By noon the next day they were ready to go. The sun was hot and clear; the sea was calm.

They had an early lunch and shortly afterward they cast off their lines and motored out of Cannes' smiling harbor. They expected to be in Corsica the next morning, but for the Goslings who had never before traveled on a yacht, that remained part of a dream. Reality was this lovely bay dotted with other pleasure craft moving back and forth from Cannes to Antibes or the Îles de Lérins. They installed themselves comfortably on deck with Stuart on the wheel while captain and crew disappeared below.

Stuart taught Robbie how to handle the wheel and hold the boat on course. Before they knew it, France was a blue haze behind them and they were alone on the shimmering sea. Stuart felt the air stir against his cheek and his hair was ruffled by a light touch and he looked around him. “By golly, I think we're going to get a little breeze,” he exclaimed. The water was darkening ahead of them. “Hold the wheel. I'm going to call Angelino.”

Angelino responded to the summons by climbing out of the forward hatch. The wind had moved in from the southeast.

“As you wish,
patron
,” Angelino said in reply to Stuart's suggestion that they raise sail. He called Rico and in a moment they were working nimbly around the deck.

“Better let me have the wheel,” Stuart said, taking over from Robbie. He explained everything as he held the boat into the wind and the sails went up, jib, mainsail, staysail. At a signal from Angelino he pulled the boat off the wind and waited as the sails flapped and filled, held, began to draw. He snapped off the motor. In the sudden silence, the boat hovered, staggered slightly, rolled over slowly, and with an upward surge bit into the water. Stuart felt his heart beating with exhilaration. He looked at Robbie and Helene, grinning with inexplicable pride as if he had performed a miracle. Helene, stretched out on a mattress a few feet away, was gazing up at the mainsail. Robbie, beside him, was observing everything with interest. Stuart slapped him on the knee.

“Would you like to take it? It's easy once you get the hang of it.” They shifted places and Stuart continued his instructions. Angelino came aft and gave Stuart a compass reading for their course and threw the log over the stern. He told Stuart to check the mileage it registered if he was obliged to alter course. Stuart was fascinated. They were navigating in open sea.

When they went on from Corsica the next day, they had become prisoners of the sea. Each morning, something forced them out of their bunks at dawn. The gentle motion of the boat was soporific and they were no sooner up than they went to sleep again. They ate. They slept some more. By the time the sun had set they were yawning. Stuart, who was taking a regular watch on this leg of the voyage, found that it required an enormous effort of will to stay awake until midnight when Rico relieved him.

Stuart drew Rico into the family circle. From the moment of their meeting, Rico displayed a touching admiration for everything Robbie did or said and Robbie accepted his admiration with a show of indifference. This was Stuart's first opportunity to observe Robbie at close range with somebody who was more or less a contemporary and he hoped before the trip was over to understand what lay at the root of his son's friendlessness and know whether there was anything he could do about it. Helene thought Stuart was making too much fuss over Rico. Why would Robbie take any interest in him?

Robbie was enchanted by him. The possibility that it might show in front of his parents overcame him with shy embarrassment. He was supposed to be above anything so common-place as the boyish fun he felt in the sailor boy's company. He had never known anyone like him, never been treated with the cheerful comradely affection that Rico offered him. When Robbie was alone with him, which he managed to be with increasing frequency as the cockpit became his parents' home base and the forward deck was left to the crew, his manner was transformed. He laughed freely, encouraged physical horseplay, teased as mercilessly as he was teased. He didn't even mind Rico's endless prattle about girls. When Robbie snubbed him in front of his parents, he hoped his eyes told him that he didn't mean it.

Rico's compact body was a marvel of athletic efficiency when he strode the deck dealing with ropes and sails. Robbie wished he didn't always wear a thick jersey and pants. He wanted to see how his body worked. His drawing hand itched to sketch him, not as an artistic challenge—his art teacher at school had told him he had gone beyond life class—but in order to take possession of him in a private personal way. He learned how to be useful so that he could work alongside him. Rico had a way of taking his hand to lead him along the narrow part of the deck that made his knees go weak. He was a good deal taller than the sailor, which compensated somewhat for their age difference. He had found out that Rico was twenty-three. Rico's French was mostly Italian and Robbie's Italian was labored, so they spoke English together; it was part of creating their own world for themselves.

His parents had always told Robbie that he was an American but he knew little of the land of his birth. He felt French, or at least a native of the small part of France that his father owned. With no real nationality, no friends, and a minimal family, his connection with the world around him was often tenuous. Suddenly there was an enormous connection with Rico. The cruise, which Robbie had thought of in a scholarly sort of way as an interesting opportunity to see some of the wonders of the ancient world, had become a dazzling delight.

The weather continued favorable. After an uneventful three-day passage, they arrived at Capri where they lingered several days, the Coslings at a grand hotel on the heights, the sailors on the boat in the little port below. Stuart arranged to include Rico in several of their outings. He was always full of laughter, helpful in saving them from being cheated, and rapturous over every pretty girl he saw, insisting that they were all eyeing Robbie longingly.

They sailed on southward, past Stromboli and the sinister Liparis, through the Straits of Messina. They ran along the coast of Sicily with Etna sloping mistily up and up and away from them. Robbie sat forward staring at it all one morning.

Stuart glanced at him with interest from time to time. The passionate absorption in his gaze was impressive. He wondered what was going on in the mind that he should know so well.

Robbie's mind was gripped by the surge of his emotions. Something about the mysterious soaring immensity of the volcano made a direct connection with his spirit. He felt as if he too were soaring, as if he were being lifted up and out of himself toward some ultimate fulfillment. It was nothing he wanted to express in paint. It was all around him, in him but existing independently of his will. What was it? What made his body feel so sensitized that it seemed to be expanding? What made his heart leap up in strange bursts of exaltation? Why did his mind keep trying to pin down some elusive inexplicable longing? He felt as if he were on the threshold of a final enormous discovery about life, a secret he had shrunk from but which drew him on irresistibly now.

“Have you decided where we're going to put in for the night,
patron
?” Rico asked Stuart during the course of the morning.

“Angelino thinks we might make Syracuse if the wind holds up but it'll make a long day. I think I'd rather stop at Catania and go on tomorrow.”

“That so? Very wonderful,” Rico said gleefully. “I have girl in Catania. She like me. Very good girl.”

“Tell me if there's any place you want to stop along the way. We usually could work it out,” Stuart suggested.

“Hokay,
patron
. Is all right if Robbie come with me? Anna has a sister. Family very proud if he come. Just poor peoples, but very good.”

“I think he'd be delighted,” Stuart said.” “It's nice of you to include him.” He could imagine Robbie hurting the lad with a brusque refusal. “You mind holding on here for a while?” He left the sailor and went forward to where Robbie was sitting on the cabin gazing landward.

“Rico just told me he wants you to go with him tonight to see some girls he knows,” Stuart said. “That is, if we put in at Catania. Do you want to?”

Robbie turned to him vaguely as if he'd been awakened from a dream. “What?” he asked vacantly. “What about Rico?” Stuart explained more fully about Rico's proposal. Robbie wasn't surprised that Rico wanted to take him with him. There was an unspoken bond between them. They would do everything together. “Do I have to?” he asked with his customary show of indifference. “Why can't he go see his girl friend by himself?” Why did Rico have to see a girl? Why couldn't he have suggested their just going ashore together? Robbie hoped his father would urge him to accept.

“Don't go if you don't want to but it might be fun. Anyway, be nice to him. He admires you.”

“When you put it that way, I suppose I'll have to go,” Robbie said, unhappy that the decision had been left up to him. He would suggest to his mother that he had been given no choice.

Catania was hot, drab, and dirty. Once the port formalities had been taken care of, Stuart returned to the boat to suggest to Helene that they have a quiet evening aboard. He found her in the cockpit, preoccupied with Robbie's outing.

“Why do you insist on his being so friendly with that boy? You don't know what sort of foolishness he might get Robbie involved in.”

“Don't be silly. Rico's a decent kid. Besides, I didn't insist. I left it entirely up to Robbie. I didn't even know if he'd decided to go.”

“Oh, he's going, but only because you want him to. You know Robbie has no interest in that sort of thing.”

“What sort of thing? You make it sound as if he'd fallen in with pimps and harlots. Don't worry about it. The little bird must fly out of the nest some time. Sit here and I'll make us a drink.”

Helene responded with a reluctant smile and allowed him to tuck cushions behind her back. While Stuart was getting the drinks, Rico came out on deck scrubbed and resplendent in immaculate white pants and jersey, his curly dark hair plastered to his head.

“I don't want you to be late,” she said when he joined her.

“Late? Not late. Nothing in Catania for to be late,” Rico said with a laugh.

“Not after midnight at the very latest. You understand?”

“Very good,
patronne
,” he said. Stuart appeared with drinks and Robbie followed, looking smart in flannels and sport shirt and scarf.

“By the way,” he asked Rico loftily, “what makes you so sure these people are going to be home waiting for us?”

“Where else they be?” Rico replied with simple logic. “Poor people stay home. They wait for beautiful rich boy from yacht.”

“Well, if we're going we might as well go,” Robbie said hastily, blushing with pleasure. Nobody had ever called him beautiful before. Rico scrambled up onto the quai and offered his hand to Robbie to help him up. They waved to Stuart and Helene and set off, Robbie tall, elegant, and indifferent, Rico trotting happily at his side.

Once they had passed through the gates to the docks, Robbie let himself be carried away by the new delight of being alone with his friend. He wanted to run his fingers through Rico's hair to restore his curls' usual windblown look but restricted himself to throwing an arm around his shoulders. He withdrew it hastily as he felt his knees go weak.

“I'm glad you asked me to come,” he said, looking into laughing eyes. His glance dropped to firmly modeled lips. Rico was a film-star bandit, roguish and devil-may-care. “You sure it's all right, your taking me with you?”

“Oh, they so glad to see me they no care who I bring.” He roared with laughter. “You. Me. Friends, yes? We go together.” He put his arm through Robbie's and hugged it to him. Robbie's head swam. Being with Rico made him feel so free; again he experienced the sensation of soaring out of himself. He wished that the family had moved or the girls had left home, and then they could have dinner together alone. Girls were a nuisance.