2 | Robin
Robin Hanson hurries to the rear of the top deck and hangs over the railing, as nausea makes the world spin. She gulps in salt air with her eyes closed, waits for the internal lurch to subside.
Gemma, says the voice in her head. Gemma, Gemma, please, please, please be okay. Please be here. Let me find you.
La Kastellana hovers on the horizon, golden cliffs in a sea of lapis. At any other time this would be a pleasure, being out on the Mediterranean again, in the sunshine, going to a place she’s never been before. But without Gemma she can’t enjoy anything.
Another wave of the nausea that’s assailed her ever since she lost her daughter washes over her. Inactivity makes it worse. While her mind is occupied – when she’s persuaded that she’s doing something – the giddiness fades. But if life makes her stop, if her mind wanders, it bubbles back up. The cold sweeps over her upper arms and grips at her shoulders, and her gorge rises.
The past year has involved a lot of waiting.
*
She had imagined, somehow, that she was going to a place where money bought one beauty. That the celebrated development that’s ‘transformed’ this island into the New Capri would have been done with an eye to the Old Kastellana. But of course she hadn’t been allowing for the tastes of the rich. The new marina is crammed. Row upon row of huge white yachts, every one the same. A hundred billion dollars of identical fibreglass real estate, and a city of concrete and glass to service them, sprawled out across the cliffs above.
A crowd has built up by the gate where the gangway will be lowered. Standing in the midday heat carrying the weight of her backpack seems foolish, so she walks on up to the prow to watch them disembark. The tractor tyres dangling from the ferry’s sides bump, rebound, bump again. The crowd shifts in anticipation.
‘Funny, isn’t it?’ says a voice. ‘The way we rush for exits as though they’ll shut us in if we’re not fast enough?’
Robin turns and sees that a man has settled against the railing. He smiles, pleasantly. A few years younger than her – mid-thirties, maybe, but an oddly mature mid-thirties in his cream linen suit and Panama hat. The skin of a man who’s seen a fair amount of sun. Wispy eyebrows.
Robin nods, all dignity, not sure she really wants a chat.
‘Holiday?’ he asks.
She nods again. She doesn’t want to share her mission with some chancer on a boat. And she doesn’t trust her voice. She still can’t talk about Gemma without emotion flooding her system.
‘First time?’ he asks.
‘Yes,’ she says. Then, because she’s British and cannot be rude, she adds an ‘And you?’ She eyes him doubtfully. He’s almost a caricature of the Englishman abroad. Fair hair cut neat but dull, and all that linen. And his accent is pure public school, which has always made her feel a bit squashed and mistrustful. And brogues. Eighty degrees in this sun, and he’s wearing brogues.
‘Oh, no,’ he replies. ‘I’ve been here many times.’
‘Oh. Friends?’
He shakes his head. ‘Business. I’m a wine merchant. Well, obviously the lines blur a bit in my line of business.’ He laughs.
Why is she talking to this man? As though she really is on holiday, shooting the breeze?
‘I didn’t realise there was a market … ’
He throws his head back and laughs again. One of those men who find the world endlessly amusing. ‘Oh, good lord, no! I’m not buying! That muck’s poisonous!’
‘Oh, really? I’d heard it was good.’
The man laughs again. ‘It’s fine for the tourists, I guess.’
He’s telling me he’s a cut above, she thinks. Doesn’t want me to think he’s hoi polloi. I don’t know why he’s talking to me. I’m practically a walking suburb.
He gesticulates behind them, at the fleet of sleek white yachts, then sweeps his hand up to the villas, the apartment blocks, the hotels. Funny how rich people love white. Must be something to do with showing that you can afford to keep them white. In the end, most of what they do comes down to showing off their money.
‘Ah,’ she says.
‘July’s a great month for trade,’ he says. ‘And of course, this year there’s a great big party up at the castle. I’ve a container coming in tomorrow.’
‘How interesting,’ she says, politely.
He doesn’t really pause to take a breath. ‘You’ve booked somewhere to stay, haven’t you? The place is suppurating with social press and the main hotel’s been booked out for the duke’s guests for three years. Apparently they’ve gone mad outbidding each other for the B&Bs. You won’t stand a chance if you haven’t booked already.’