Medusa by Hammond Innes

whether the equipment for the extra bathroom in another of the villas in our care had been flown in yet, had I remembered about completing the forms for customs clearance, and the accounts to settle with two of our suppliers. ‘You know, I’m really looking forward to beingback. Lying here with nothing to do but read and listen to the radio and think.’ And she added darkly, ‘I’ve had all the time in the world to think these past few days.’ And almost without a pause: ‘Did Gareth come and see you before he left? No, of course – I remember. He said it was bad enough seeing me, feeling it was his fault I’d lost the child, and though I told him I might have lost it anyway, he still said he couldn’t face you. You told him it was his fault. I have a distinct memory of that.
Why the hell didn’t you stay with her?
you shouted at him, and accusing him like that …’
    Her voice trailed away. Then suddenly she said, ‘Did you know, he came up through the lower deck –
Ganges
, Dartmouth, the Fleet Board. Just like Papa. It makes a difference, doesn’t it? You’re more vulnerable then. Everything that bit harder. No admiral ever came up through the lower deck that I can remember. And it wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault.’ Tears welled. I went to comfort her, but she pushed me away. ‘I know what you think. And you’re probably right. I’ll never have a child now.’
    I didn’t know what to say. Life doesn’t make sense. There was Petra who didn’t want a child, but would almost certainly have no difficulty if she did find herself with a bun in the oven. And Soo’s mother, she had had five, one every two years, regular as clockwork. Then, being a devout Catholic, she must have gone on strike. That was probably why Soo and her father had been so close.
    It was almost dark by the time I left the hospital and cut down the little hairpinned gut that led to the waterfront. I could see the catamaran before I had even parked the car, a broad cabin top spanning the whole width of the twin hulls, her single mast standing very tall and overtopping the dock sheds. She was moored outside of a big yawl, and when I asked permission to cross over to the catamaran, an American in a blue jersey, half-glasses perched on his nose, poked his head out of the doghouse. ‘Sure. But there’snobody on board. They’re over at the cafe-bar across the road.’
    I asked him where he was from and he said, ‘Newport, Rhode Island, via Gibraltar and Ibiza.’
    I swung my leg over his guardrails, crossed the foredeck to stand by the shrouds looking down on the long, slim line of the two hulls, their bows poking out from the broad foredeck platform, a safety net slung between them.
    â€˜Good trip,’ he went on. ‘We made it across the ditch in just over sixteen days, almost all of it under sail.’
    A woman’s head appeared in the hatch, grey-haired like the man. ‘That cat belong to you?’ she asked.
    â€˜I wish it did.’ I jumped on to the cabin top, moving aft across the top of it to drop down into the cockpit. There was a swivel chair for the helmsman immediately aft of the wheel and a console full of dials – engine revs, speed through the water, true and apparent wind speeds, just about everything anybody could want, and though the door was locked, I could see through the glass panel that the whole arrangement was repeated in the saloon, which was broad and spacious, running across the ship with a semi-circular settle, a big folding table and steps leading down into the hulls on each side. Compared with the old
Santa Maria
the accommodation was so grand it was more like a house, and around the chart table, on the starb’d side, there was everything a navigator could wish for, radar, sat-nav and Decca, ship-to-shore radio telephone …
    â€˜Quite a machine, eh?’