For the second time in two days, Ric is aware of a distant, mechanical droning; only this time it is much louder and much closer than before. He rolls off his bunk and stands, head up through the main cabin hatch.
A mile or so out, an Aliscafo, which ties the islands and acts as their umbilical to Milazzo on the Sicilian coast, thunders northward towards the town. It is a mean, wailing banshee hastening across a mirror-like veneer; a mad mullah, robes raised, charging along the Mare Siculum in search of the infidel.
There is not a cloud to poison the sky and only the faintest hint of a breeze out of the east. The first aid the little Salvo has applied to the propeller shaft seal has slowed the ingress of water to an acceptable level. But Ric knows he will not be able to leave the island until he has attended to the greater problem and hopes there is a dry dock over in the bay beyond the citadel. In the meantime he makes a note to keep an eye on the water level in the bilge.
He heats up a pan of water with which to make a cup of tea and shaves in what is left. As is the way of things, just as he’s lathered his cheeks a small Rib comes alongside and two youths, wearing T-shirts and shorts and looking more like beach loafers than port officials, greet him casually.
“Salve,” says the leaner of the two sitting in the bow. But Ric loses the gist of what the lad tries to tell him next.
“Scusa,” Ric interrupts, “Non parlo l’Italiano. Parla Inglese?”
“Ah, Si,” he replies, grinning and pointing at the Tricolour of France hanging at the stern. “Inglese!” he adds as though everything is now clear to him. “Inglese,” he repeats and turns to his associate standing at the helm. They bat whatever issue it is they have with Ric back and forth between them in a staccato of conversation, weighing their alternatives.
“Moment, I come,” the spokesman says in stilted English and they motor away towards the beach.
As they near it, Ric sees the woman from the cottage watching them from her customary position on top of the retaining wall.
They greet each other with much smiling and polite recognition. A familiar, but respectful banter passes between the boys and the woman. The exchange lasts but a few minutes and ends with a happy salutation from both sides.
As the Rib passes by the Mara, the spokesman calls, “Is okay. Grazie. Thank you.” And they are gone, speeding off towards the old port.
The woman waves at Ric, then walks back to the cottage and reappears a moment later with a pair of oars. She walks down to the slipway and turns along the gravel beach to where a small inflatable dinghy is lying tied up to the retaining wall. She unhitches the dinghy, drags it into the sea and sets the oars in their locks. Then she slips elegantly on board and rows in the direction of the Mara.
Ric hurries to finish shaving, looking round every so often to gauge her progress. He cleans up as she pulls alongside.
“Good morning to you in the Mara,” she hails, shipping her oars.
Ric bends down through the rail to grab hold of the dinghy. “Good morning to you,” he replies, straining a little. “Please, come aboard.” He steadies the boat while the woman reaches up and places the plastic bag containing his clothes and shoes on the deck.
She is as tall and willowy, as he had at first thought; not as tall as him, but tall for a woman nonetheless. Her hair is long and wavy, like the ripples created when a stone is dropped into a pond from a bridge, and she wears a white linen chemise with the sleeves rolled back and similarly coloured shorts which extend over her knees.
“I am Valeria,” she says, holding out her slender hand for him to shake.
“Ric,” he replies. Her hand is warm, sinewy and slightly calloused, as though she rows often. And he notices the grey of her eyes once more; that grey he has seen so many times, the cold grey of first light. He tries to guess her age, but cannot arrive at a conclusion; she may be in her seventies or even her eighties, but, then again he thinks, she may be younger if life has been unkind to her. “Thank you for looking after my kit.”
“It was my pleasure,” she says, smiling easily.
“Welcome aboard. I don’t have much except for coffee and tea. Which would you prefer?” He stands back to allow the woman to step down into the cockpit.
“Coffee,” she decides, “will be very acceptable, thank you; black, without sugar, as you will make it. I believe there are two kinds in this world: the coffee that the Italian cafés make and the coffee that we make ourselves, but I am not fussy.”
Even though her English is good, Ric notices a slight Italian cadence in her pronunciation. “Well,” he replies, “I can’t compete with the average Italian café, so I am grateful.” He inches past her and climbs down into the cabin to fill the kettle from a large plastic water bottle and, having done so, sets it on the small gas stove.
“You are grateful?” she asks.
“Yes,” he calls up, “for your not being fussy. The Mara doesn’t extend to anything as grand as a coffee-maker, but I do have a cafetiere and some freshly ground coffee. Well, ground anyway. I’m not so sure how fresh it is; I don’t enjoy the luxury of a fridge.”
“Oh, yes, of course, I know.”
What she has said doesn’t strike him as odd to begin with. His initial reaction is to think it is merely her use of English which has confused him and that she has probably meant him to know she would take it for granted his amenities are limited. But then he realises she must be Valeria Vaccariello, the woman Camille has mentioned in his letter.
Once the kettle has boiled and he’s filled the cafetiere, he picks out a mug. “You know the Mara,” he says.
Valeria smiles again, a warm reassuring smile which suggests she is pleased with him: “Yes, I know Mara. And because I know Mara, so I must know her owner, Camille. Last autumn was the first for many years he has not visited. I hope he is well.”
“He is,” Ric replies, “or rather he was when I last saw him in the back end of last summer.” And, though he is reluctant to tell her what happened in Corsica and, particularly the sequence of events that led up to his leaving, he understands he must explain how he has come by the Mara, otherwise she will be suspicious of him.
“Camille has,” he begins slowly, “decided to call time on the Mara. His years have finally caught up with him and he told me he no longer has the energy to look after her. He thought the Mara would be better off in younger hands. He asked me to give you a letter.”
Ric retrieves the letter from the drawer of the chart table and passes it to Valeria. He expects her to open it, but instead, she hesitates and examines it briefly, her brow furrowing in concern as though the letter might contain bad news.
She realises Ric is watching her closely: “And not a day too soon. I was always pleased to see him. Two winters before, when he was last here, I was taken with the feeling that I would not see him again. I did not know it for sure; I just felt it in my heart.” She pauses and smiles a little wistfully, before putting the letter in the pocket of her shorts. “Age is a blessing granted only to the fortunate few. But, like all blessings, it comes with conditions.” She falls silent for a moment.
“You’ve seen Camille often… over the years, I mean?”
Valeria hesitates and studies her long, elegant feet, the toenails of which are painted a bright red. “Usually in late autumn he would come. And if he did not come in the autumn, he would come in the spring on his way home.”
“So the Mara is known here?”
“Naturally, the Mara is well known throughout the Mare Siculum; from here to the Calabrian coast, down to Messina and along to Palermo. Mara and Camille; they are one and the same.” She raises her head and studies him for a few seconds, as though she is placing him beside Camille.
Ric wonders whether the woman has enjoyed a casual liaison with the old boy. “The two young lads in the Rib, what were they after?”
“Oh,” she wakes from her imaginings, “they wanted to know if you had reserved the mooring.”
“And?”
“I told them you had only arrived last night and that it would be sorted out later.”
“So, where do I go to do that: to sort it out, I mean?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry,” she dismisses, and adds with a confident dose of certainty, “they will not ask again.”
Ric pours her coffee, passes her the mug and wonders what she said to the boys that it might incline them not to bother him again.
She examines the mug, giggles and sips; clearly she has drunk from it before. “Your coffee is good,” she proclaims, “much better than Mosca’s.”
Now that she has referred to the old fox by his nickname, Ric is more certain that he is in the company of a friend.
Valeria is watching him again, watching and reading his thoughts, and studying the small, red birthmark above his right eye. “Mara is sick?” she asks.
He likes the way she refers to the old sloop as though she were an acquaintance rather than a rudimentary construction of wood, metal and sheet. “Yes,” he replies, nodding. “It is as you said: the blessing of age, but with conditions. I’ll need to get her out of the water. Is there some place I can do that?”
“Of course,” she replies, but she doesn’t go so far as to tell him where or how he is supposed to go about finding out where.
“Thank you, that is good coffee,” she repeats as she hands him back the mug. “And now I must be going. Perhaps if you would like to take me to the beach, you can return using my small boat. You are welcome to use it while you are here.”
Ric raises his eyebrows in pleasant surprise, “Thank you. That will make life a lot easier. You must have got to know Mosca pretty well if he stopped off here so many times, though I’m not sure what I’ve done to deserve such kindness.”
She stands up and looks down at him: “Oh yes. I know Mosca well enough.” Her smile glows warm: “And, as to deserving kindness? Don’t worry, Ric. This is Lipari. This is how it is here.”