A Sea Change by J. R. Salamanca

Author:J. R. Salamanca
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tantor eBooks

“Are you in love with him?” I said.

“No bloody fear. I just keep him in the back of my mind as a possible solution.”

“Solution to what?”

“To my particular problem.”

“What is your particular problem?”

“Life. Hand me the bottles, will you? Did you bring a glass?”

“No.”

“Bloody lot of help you are. I’ll just have to mix them inside of me, then.” She lifted the champagne bottle, took a long glugging drink out of it, set it down and followed with an equal portion of stout, after which she issued a great whistling sigh.

“How did it work out?” I asked.

“I think I did them the wrong way round. I’ll have another go.” She reversed the procedure, winding up by blowing out an unswallowed mouthful of champagne in a fine spray that sprinkled our hair and faces.

“Oh, lovely. Champagne rain. God, it’s marvelous out here, isn’t it? Are we getting close to Africa?”

“We can’t be far away.”

“I thought not. I keep thinking I hear drums. Or perhaps it’s just the blood in my ears. It does that when I get drunk. Sounds like a bloody water closet.” She turned her face toward the open sea. We had rowed almost to the tip of Cap Ferrat, and in the open water beyond the arm of the little bay we could see now the periodic rotation of a great beam of light sweeping over the black swells. It cast a broad slanting plane downward through the dense sky from some point at the extremity of the Cape, circling out to be buried in the Mediterranean darkness, then reappearing, momentarily, above our heads. Gwynyth watched it gravely.

“It’s a lighthouse, I suppose. At the tip of the Cape, it looks like. I didn’t know there was one, did you?”

“No.”

“Do you suppose they’ve turned it on for us?”

“Possibly,” I said. “They may have given us up for lost.”

“I say, do you think they have? Would your wife mind about this?”

“She might be just a little annoyed.”

“Well, perhaps we’d better not mention it. Go back separately, or something. I don’t want to go smashing up your marriage. How long has it been, anyway?”

“Twelve years,” I said.

“Twelve years? Really? God, is it possible to live twelve years with one human being? I wouldn’t have believed it.” She set her elbows on her knees and her chin on her fists, staring down at the darkly gleaming water. “What was I doing twelve years ago? Galloping down Church Street, I suppose; in pigtails, with a parcel of books under my arm. And here you were out in the back garden in the moonlight, proposing to Margaret.”

“Not in the back garden,” I said. “On a boat.”

“Really? Like this, you mean?”

“Not like this, no. A sailboat.”

“How extraordinary. Are you going to propose to me, then?”

“That’s not what I had in mind.”

“Oh, blast. Nobody ever proposes to me. It’s because I smell, I suppose.”

“Do you mean to say no one ever has?”

“Lord, no. Not that I mind, you know. As a matter of fact, if anyone

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