Painting the placid blues and greens of the Tyrrhenian Sea upon which Ischia floated so placidly was very different from portraying the gray violence of the English Channel. The wind was as native here as the rock outcroppings, the fields of yellow sea oats, and the universally unpaved lanes from which almost all motorized traffic was banned. The wind hummed, sang, or howled. It was rarely silent.
And it changed the seascape from second to second. As Jason set up his easel—he had learned the hard way to make sure it was secured lest it take flight—the dove-colored waves were frothing against the rocks below in rhythmic surges. By the time he had mixed his pigments, the water had become a darker gray, spitting angry foam.
It had all been very frustrating until he had learned how to approximate the shades of dun color and premix them.
Standing on a naked cliff, Jason paused long enough to watch Pangloss in his perpetual exploring expedition, although the dog had covered almost all the tiny island’s three by one and a half miles, including the unfortunate excavation of a neighbor’s flower garden.
The smallest of the inhabited Channel Islands, Sark bore the footprints of stone-age men, Roman conquerors, Vikings, Normans, and invading Germans during World War II. Since the grant of a fiefdom by Queen Elizabeth I and the lord’s right of first night with the island’s brides, all unobserved since long before living memory, were finally abolished, no one was certain if the feudal lord was still required to keep a musket at hand for defense of the island. That was the major change of the century. Or the last several centuries, for that matter. Under elected council or feudal lord, horses and cows still outnumbered the five hundred or so hardy souls who called the hilly, rocky island home. Except for the advent of the bicycle, transportation along the dusty lanes was the same as it had been in the days of Good Queen Bess, lanes that became quagmires with the winter rains. Transportation to and from the island was pretty much the same, too. The Isle of Sark Shipping Company’s vessels were now turbo-powered and steel-hulled rather than wooden sailing ships, making two or three trips a day, but Guernsey was still Sark’s only destination. People still greeted both friend and stranger with cheery hellos.
Here, Jason felt relatively safe. Anyone approaching his house would be on a bicycle, in one of the island’s two-wheeled horse carts, on the back of one of the shaggy ponies, or on foot. True, they would be concealed by the lane being sunken between two rock outcroppings, but it was a good hundred yards from the road to the house, ample time to mount a defense when warned by the sophisticated system of weight and motion detectors.
He had kept this in mind when he had leased the three-hundred-year-old Norman stone cottage on the edge of an apple orchard. The relentless wind had shortened and bent the trees like the rank and file of arthritic old men. Behind the house was the promontory from which Jason was painting today. He had wanted to buy the building, but the Channel Islands’ peculiar real estate laws made purchases by those not living there year-round difficult, in addition to the fact that only about twenty percent of land for sale was on the “open” market—that is, available to nonresidents.
So, he had leased it, moving his entire household from the sun of the southern Italian coast in summer to the gloom and chill of the English Channel in fall. The furniture had survived largely intact, due to Gianna’s close supervision of the packers and movers, all related to her in some fashion no doubt.
Gianna had not fared as well. After ten days of English cuisine and weather, she had begged Jason to forgive her but she needed to leave this place where the fish was salted, meat was cremated, and vegetables were reduced to tasteless mush. And it rained for days on end. Nowhere, she wailed, could one find oregano, cumin, bay, or the other seasonings of her native land. The single store’s selection of wine was a meager and seemingly random selection of French bottles most probably rejected by the better shops in Le Havre, an hour’s airfoil ride from Guernsey. Besides, the grass-fed meat was too stringy to be considered fit for human consumption and the sole butcher had never heard of veal. Admittedly, tomatoes were plentiful, but somehow they were inadequate when compared to those of Italy. Besides, the perpetual damp aggravated her rheumatism, a malaise of which Jason had never before heard her complain.
Jason had summoned one of the island’s two-wheeled horse-drawn carts, onto which he had loaded Gianna along with such possessions as she had wished, including a generous severance check. He followed behind on his newly acquired bicycle until they reached La Maseline Jetty from which all island departures took place. Tears running down her cheeks, she had waved farewell from the deck as the boat pulled out into the Channel, rounded a huge jutting rock, and disappeared.
But not before selecting her successor, Abigail Prince. Mrs. Prince was a grandmotherly type with a Wagnerian bosom, a smile missing a few teeth, and a lineage stretching back to the days the island was governed by the dukes of Normandy. Even though she was a relentless cleaner, she had the English love of animals, managing to overlook Robespierre’s peccadillos and Pangloss’s fondness for sneaking a nap on Jason’s bed when he thought no one was looking.
It had taken her a couple of weeks to abandon her machinations to introduce Jason to the few single women on the island, mostly sorrowful widows or women who for one reason or another had been passed over as the first rounds of marriage rampaged among their contemporaries.
Jason put his brush down on the tray under the canvas and scowled. The damn wind had shifted again, sending spray up from the opposite side of the rocks below. In the past, he would tune out such annoyances by simply turning up whatever he was listening to on his iPod and letting the music sweep him along. Lately he had left his earphones inside, preferring to let the wind’s music play a part in reproducing the slashing waves below.
But that wasn’t the wind.
It was the dog barking.
For reasons known only to Pangloss, he had begun barking at anything that moved: a meandering cow, the postman on his bicycle, even the occasional tractor going to or from the field—the only motorized vehicles permitted on the island. Yelling at him to hush did no more good than howling at the moon might have.
At first, Jason thought the mutt had unearthed another mole, though how the tiny animals survived in Sark’s rocky soil was still a mystery. But no, it was something in the lane hidden by the rocks.
Jason’s right hand reflexively went to the Glock in its holster at his back. Slipping from rock to rock, he quickly made his way back to the cottage. The angle of the sunken road gave him a clear advantage and he reached the back door before anyone could have made it from the road to the house.
He dashed through the kitchen, catching Mrs. Prince red-handed in pouring a bowl of cream for Robespierre from the morning’s milk delivery, a luxury she admitted only enhanced the cat’s sense of entitlement. Surprised at his sudden appearance, she watched him take giant strides across the single room that served as dining and living room toward the rough wooden staircase leading to his bedroom, the only room on the second story.
Oblivious to anything but his own comfort, Robespierre continued his dainty sipping of his treat.
Reaching his bedroom, Jason pulled aside the curtains that covered the one window facing the road. The added height enabled him to partially see into the sunken pathway. He was looking at a horse in the harness used to pull one of the island’s two-wheeled wagons, a vehicle that served to haul freight or people.
A wagon would be hard pressed to carry more than three adults, including a driver with the local knowledge to find Jason’s house. There could be no more than two intruders unless others were infiltrating his property by the orchard. A quick glance showed naked tree limbs supplicating an unheeding sky. No sign of human life.
Good. Two he could handle if need be.
He knelt, rolling up a woven hearth rug, a local product the former occupant didn’t think worth the effort to take with him. It was perfect to conceal a modification Jason had made. Underneath the rug, a rectangle had been cut into the wooden floor. Lifting the specially modified boards, Jason was looking at a small arsenal.
A Heckler & Koch PS61 with scope, identical to the sniper’s rifle he had used in Africa; a Striker Street Sweeper shotgun, whose stubby barrel and rotary cylinder gave it the appearance of a handheld Gatling gun; and a Mac 10, a banana clip already fully loaded and inserted into the machine pistol. Besides extra ammunition, the cache was supplemented with a half dozen grenades, both fragmentation and flash-bang; a vest of Kevlar body armor; and his killing knife. Since access to the Channel Islands was only from France and the UK, both Common Market countries, no customs or immigration controls existed. The weaponry had been shipped from La Havre.
He chose the Street Sweeper, checked to make sure there was a full complement of twelve-gauge shells in the cylinder, and dropped the boards back into place.
Before descending the stairs, he took another look out the window and stopped, dumbstruck.
Shit!
He reversed his course to furiously replace what he had removed and cover the hiding place with the rug. He was just smoothing it out when the front door opened downstairs.
He heard voices, feminine voices, but could not make out the words. He went downstairs.
Maria stood just inside the door. Behind her was a white-haired older man Jason didn’t know. The rough tweed trousers stuffed into rubber wellies suggested he was local. He had a suitcase in each hand.
“Well, Mr. Peters,” Mrs. Prince asked, “will you be extending a proper greeting to the young lady who’s come all this way or not?” She nodded toward the man in knee boots. “And Mr. Frache there is getting no younger while he waits.”
Jason momentarily wondered who employed whom. Maria correctly interpreted his expression and let a smile at his confusion creep across her face. Pangloss, suffering no uncertainty, bounced back and forth from Maria, barking joyfully. Finished with licking an empty bowl, Robespierre demonstrated the aloof disinterest only a cat can display.
Jason stepped around the dog, whose exultant glee belied the fact this woman had been out of his and his master’s life for nearly half a year. Ingrate that he was, Pangloss seemed to become increasingly delirious in his happiness with every second.
Reaching for the two suitcases, Jason said, “I’ll take those.”
Mr. Frache set them down and stood, looking at Jason expectantly. “That’ll be eight quid, six.”
Maria shrugged, doing a poor imitation of being embarrassed. “I barely made the connection at Heathrow, didn’t have a chance to change currency from euros to pounds before catching the flight to Guernsey.”
“I assume you paid the ferry,” Jason said sourly.
“They took a credit card. Mr. Frache here wants cash.”
“And what if I hadn’t been here?”
“But you are. Jason, don’t be like that. I thought you’d be glad to see me.”
He was.
But he would be damned if he was going to admit it this easily. Other than an occasional text, he had not heard from her for months. She had not even acknowledged receipt of his new location, much less acknowledged that she cared. Now she appeared unannounced, certain he would take her in. Let her suffer a few minutes.
“If you want me to go away, just say so.”
“If I do, who’ll pay Mr. Frache to take you back to the ferry?”
She stared at him, he at her. Later both would swear the other broke into laughter first. Whoever it was, an instant later, they were embracing.
Jason never remembered Mrs. Prince making some excuse to visit the small local market as she joined Mr. Frache, closing the door softly behind her. In fact, Jason remembered little other than the wild, joyous, noisy lovemaking that occupied the rest of the afternoon.
Tomorrow there would be ample time for accusations and explanations, justifications and excuses. Home is not always a geographic location. It is, as Pliny the Elder observed nearly two millennia ago, where the heart is. Maria was home.