New Stories

Fortuna's Whim

No matter what your talent, or how hard you work, there’s an element of chance in everything that happens. I’m thinking of this because I’ve come across the journal I kept during my first trip overseas. The Big OE, as they say. I was looking for a later notebook concerning a conference in San Francisco. I needed an address from it but saw first the Big OE journal. Inside the cover was a jewellery sales docket from Capri, on the back of which was written: I pledge 2,000 euros to deckhand David if he sings. Roger Ettick. I haven’t thought of Mr Ettick for a long time.

A lot of students go overseas after they graduate; most to gain a wider experience of the world, a few to escape their student loan perhaps. In my case it was largely because no irresistible job offer came my way. That’s not uncommon when your degree is in classics — ancient history and some reading ability in dead languages are not prized currency, especially here in Aotearoa. I could have carried on with tutoring at the university, but that paid bugger all. Also, classics is all about Europe, isn’t it, and I wanted to visit the places I knew a lot about but had never seen. An enthusiasm for Pergamon or Ephesus seems especially inexplicable to other people if you’ve never been there.

I scraped up enough money for a one-way ticket to Paris and trusted to luck that I would earn enough in Europe to be able to return home. I believe in life as a challenge, not a threat. Paris was great. Old Paris I mean, for the modern suburbs are totally without mystique. After a month or so, I had to move on, though, because money was short. It wasn’t that I couldn’t get work but that everything was so expensive, especially accommodation. I had a closet room in Saint-Denis, nearly ten ks from the inner city, and a job cleaning taxis for the LeCompte company.

One of the drivers for LeCompte was from Valence, and he arranged a job for me there with his brother, who had a business delivering goods from the railway hub. I was able to save money at Valence, which had an interesting and lengthy history, being an important centre in Roman times. From there, I went briefly to Marseilles, which I didn’t like, then to Nice, which I did like very much. Again, a very interesting history, but more importantly I met Celine and Manon in a backpackers there, sisters from La Rochelle who were heading for Turkey. Celine and I hit it off pretty well, very well, and I was keen to go east with them, but Manon said she wasn’t going to trip around there with the pair of us entwined. The sisters were close, and so that was it.

Nice wasn’t the same once they left, and a couple of weeks later I crossed into Italy and got a vineyard job on the terraces above Vernazza. The Cinque Terre is very touristy, and many locals can speak English. I like working outdoors, and in the evenings I could walk down the track with others to a small café in the village where prices were lower: Trattoria Testa di Pesce. Quieter at that time as well, with most of the tourists gone. Seafood, pasta and coffee — not wine, for we could get that cheaper at our work. White wine is what’s made there, and damn good too.

After an early harvest, several of us got laid off, so Mick and I decided to go to Genoa and find work. Mick was from Birmingham and said he was a guitarist and front man in a band there. I never heard him play, or sing, and I didn’t like him all that much, but you link up, then split up, with all sorts of people when you’re on the road. It’s less than a hundred ks from the Cinque Terre to Genoa, but it was a tiresome bus journey that took well over two hours. Almost dark when we arrived there, so we bought a take-away and found a little terrace in the old part of the city, where we spent the night, sitting, talking, sleeping, and not cold at all. I can’t remember anyone coming past us, but twice during the night there was a ferocious cat fight behind the pale-yellow wall we leant on.

Genoa has been inhabited continuously for thousands of years and was one of the great maritime republics, especially in the fourteenth and fifteen centuries. I wanted to see something of the old town for a day or two before looking for work, but Mick was more interested in the modern scene and making some money, and meeting women. We had a drink together in the morning, swapped phone numbers, agreed to check in if either of us found good work prospects, and then went our own way. The main thing I recall of him now is his choking laugh on indrawn breath. Maybe when he settled back in Birmingham, he established a rock band called ‘The Sphincters’ or ‘Doppelgänger Daze’.

Yes, I saw the Cattedrale di San Lorenzo and the underground museum, and late in the afternoon received a text from Mick to say he’d been down to the lesser marina and been offered a job that he didn’t want. The yacht Vagabonda, he said. I still owe him for that tip.

It was a hassle to get to the marina, but the sun stayed up for ages at that time of year. I’d never had anything to do with boats. Lots of people overseas found that odd. Just because we live on islands in New Zealand doesn’t mean we’re all sailors, but I suppose people knew about our yachting success. I was expecting a boat with sails but was to learn that the yachts of rich people in Europe are usually not sail driven at all but are like big launches. After a lot of traipsing around and many abortive queries in English, I found the berth of the Vagabonda, which was blue and white, impressive, but only one of many such pleasure craft in the marina. I couldn’t see anyone on board, but the simple gangway was down, and I went to the top of it and called out, ‘Hello, anybody here? Hello.’ No answer, just the water slopping on the hull and, strangely enough, a small drone that hovered low before heading off over the boats towards the city. I called again, and a man came on deck from the enclosed section, approaching until his face was closer to mine than I was accustomed to from a stranger.

‘So, what business?’ he said calmly.

‘A friend of mine met someone this morning who said there might be a job going.’

‘Where do you come from?’ ‘From New Zealand.’

‘All Blacks,’ he said. ‘Yes.’

‘You’re on your own?’ ‘Yes.’

‘Come and sit down,’ he said, and he led the way to a wooden table with deckchairs. The table had a shiny brass tube at its centre to anchor it.

That was my first meeting with Tullio Altamura, who was the skipper and who was proud of having been born in Polignano a Mare. Tall for an Italian, dark, lean and an experienced captain on tourist and private craft, which accounted for his good English. I was to learn also that he was called skipper, or captain, to his face, and Arab behind his back.

Tullio told me that the deckhand they’d signed up in Valencia had abruptly left the night before, and they were due to leave Genoa in a day’s time. He asked me what experience I had with boats. I was tempted to lie but told the truth. He asked me what jobs I’d had since coming to Europe, and as I answered he lifted my backpack from the deck to assess its weight. There were only three crew, he said: himself, the cook and the person I wanted to be, who from his description was a sort of general rousie. It sounded fine to me, I told him, as long as I didn’t have to sign up for much more than a month.

‘You seem all right,’ Tullio said after a pause for another close scrutiny of my face, ‘but I can’t be definite until Mr Ettick returns. There’s only Luka and me on board. All the others are in the city. You can wait if you like or come back in an hour or so. If you wait you could go below and ask Luka for a drink.’

I sat on the deck and watched the sun going down and people begin drifting back along the marina to their vessels, loud in conversation, vigorous in gesture and with a walk of assurance. Tullio was busy elsewhere on the boat and there was no sign of any Luka. It was dusk when Mr Ettick and his party returned to the yacht, eight of them all together, and as an uninvited stranger I didn’t want to be found sitting in a deckchair. I took my pack and stood on the deck a few paces down from the gangway. The people looked at me as they boarded but kept on talking amongst themselves. The four women retreated inside, while the men made for the deckchairs. Tullio appeared almost at once and said something to one of the men, who walked over with him. A well-built man in yellow summer trousers and with his greying hair combed back over his head and a splendid watch on his left wrist.

‘Mr Ettick, this is David who wants to take Raul’s place,’ Tullio said. ‘Is he okay?’ Mr Ettick asked.

‘I’ve talked with him,’ said Tullio. His manner to his employer was respectful, but not as an inferior.

‘Where are you from?’ Mr Ettick asked me. ‘New Zealand.’

‘Hiking about, eh?’ he said, after a glance at the backpack, and before I could reply he turned to Tullio. ‘If you’re happy, that’s fine by me. I just hope he doesn’t bugger off suddenly like the last one. Ask Mr Brownlee to get him to sign up and whatever.’ He turned back to me. ‘We can have a talk tomorrow. I’m with guests now. David is it?’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and thank you very much.’

When Mr Ettick walked back to his friends, Tullio told me that Mr Brownlee was one of the guests, but also Mr Ettick’s lawyer. ‘The one with the striped shirt and smoking,’ he said, ‘but we won’t bother him until tomorrow. I’ll show you where you’ll sleep and let you meet Luka. He does the cooking, and you’ll be odd jobbing for him a good deal.’ It didn’t take long to see all of my accommodation: a coffin next to both the engine room and the galley. Luka Pelosi was small and furtive, maybe because he had a bad stutter. Pelosi meant hairy, and that was ironic because Luka was so bald his head shone. He was preparing tomatoes and onions for the next day, and Tullio said that would be one of my jobs when settled in.

I found there were other jobs as well, lots of them, ranging from cleaning the heads to handling the mooring ropes and securing the gangway, from washing the dishes to taking the guests’ best laundry ashore when in port, and later retrieving it. There’re lots of jobs on a luxury launch, even a relatively modest one like the Vagabonda. One of the things that did surprise me was how much direct contact I had with the Etticks and their guests, and I think that was because Luka was embarrassed by his stutter. I usually brought out the meals and supplied the drinks, as well as running the errands in port and answering queries at any time. Luka always accompanied me, however, when we were provisioning, because he had Italian, Greek and some English, despite the stutter.

Tullio’s explanation of my duties wasn’t exhaustive. Basically, I was expected to do everything asked of me by anybody on board. A process of learning by experience, and that included gaining some understanding of the people I served. I’ll leave a description of Roger Ettick till last, despite his formal suzerainty. Mrs Ettick, Raquel, was a pleasant, staid woman who was easily satisfied, but always oppressed by the heat. She found it slightly difficult, I think, to adjust socially to her husband’s achievement of wealth comparatively late in life. The Hapazes were better matched: Bernard, outgoing, cultivated and the majority shareholder in a printing company; Virginia, convivial, knowledgeable and with an enthusiasm for ruins. The sharing of that interest with me was minimal, however, because of our respective status on the yacht. Of the guests, the Hapazes were my favourites. The Wrights were the least interesting. Noel Wright was easy to overlook, deficient in originality, a prattler with no apparent talents and present, I think, only because he had considerable family money to invest. His wife, Susan, laughed a lot and often changed her clothes several times a day. I found myself wondering how rich people meet up and become friends. The Etticks, Hapazes and Wrights were very different folk.

Dylan Brownlee was also an Ettick guest, but as Tullio had men- tioned, with the additional affiliation of being Mr Ettick’s lawyer. A heavy, precise man, who often stayed on board when we were in port and used his computer to continue his work. He allowed himself five cigarettes a day and took conspicuous pleasure in each of them. No doubt he had clients additional to Roger Ettick. I never felt his Christian name suited him. It had lyrical connotations that were quite out of place. He was a watchful man and had considerable presence. Dominique, his wife, was younger, the most attractive woman on the yacht, and generally everywhere else as well, but never flaunted it. The awareness, however, gave her a calm assurance, and she had a slow smile that persisted, even when the occasion for it had passed. She didn’t especially dress to enhance her appearance. There was no need for that: somehow your eyes tended to rest on her.

All of these people became outwardly familiar to me, but some allowed more connection than others. We were gathered together, especially when the Vagabonda was at sea, and, despite my humble role, interaction was inevitable. When in port, there was release, and occasionally couples or foursomes took trips and stayed away for a night or two. Other times they all went, leaving Tullio, Luka and me on the yacht. These were the best times because I was able to make my own limited expeditions to sites, galleries and museums. There was little opportunity for such visits when the guests were on board, but I was an employee first, of course, and tourist a far second.

I didn’t grumble. We moored in interesting places, all of which I would have been happy to visit on an itinerary of my own — after Genoa there was Livorno, Civitavecchia, Cagliari in Sardinia, and then Capri. No, the thing that marred the trip for me was that Roger Ettick enjoyed mocking me in front of the others. I’m not sure of the reason for his dislike — perhaps my education, perhaps my youth, perhaps to emphasise that he was head honcho. Maybe it wasn’t dislike, just that he didn’t think I mattered.

He would keep me standing behind the deckchairs when they ate on deck. He would ask me for information he knew I wouldn’t know and would cut abruptly away during my response to resume the closed conversation of the table. He often pointed out my ignorance of things maritime, disparaged my accent, which he called Ocker, and mocked my few clothes. ‘What a surprise,’ he’d say, ‘our David is wearing his jeans and his blue T-shirt.’

A couple of times he asked me to do the haka for them. My school has a haka that I remember well, but I knew he wanted to make fun of it, and me, so I didn’t perform any haka on the Vagabonda. He was a bit of a prick was Roger Ettick, despite the entrepreneurial skills he must have had. No wonder the last deckhand had jumped ship at Genoa. I could see that some of the others were uncomfortable with Mr Ettick’s little games. Dylan Brownlee and the Hapazes, in particular, often refused to join in, even supported me, but it was a difficult situation for any of the guests, so I treated the jibes as jokes, which minimised Roger Ettick’s pleasure.

One afternoon in the harbour of Cagliari when the others were ashore, Dylan Brownlee talked to me briefly about it. He was working on the deck, at the table with computer, papers, a spreading straw hat above his small-featured face.

‘Wait a moment, David,’ he said when I had brought him a coffee. ‘I want to say something about Mr Ettick.’ He lit a cigarette in his usual deliberate, indulgent way, leaned back from the computer, gazed over the bobbing and glistening harbour for a moment as if surprised to find himself there, and then looked up at me. ‘Mr Ettick has you on sometimes, doesn’t he. It’s just his way, and don’t worry about it. He thinks it’s an entertainment for his friends. I hope you don’t take it to heart.’

‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘I don’t let it bother me.’

‘He’s been looking forward to this trip for a long time. He wants everyone to be cheerful, so he tries to be funny. Goes a bit far at times without realising it. You’re enjoying the voyage, though?’

‘I am, yes.’

‘You’re seeing a lot of places special to you and getting paid a bit as well.’

‘I wish I had more time to get about when we’re in port,’ I said, ‘but you can’t have it both ways, I guess.’

‘That’s right. Here I am, too, in Cagliari and working on the computer instead of being with my wife and the others enjoying the sights and local wine. Anyway, I just wanted to say that about Mr Ettick so you don’t take anything too seriously. And thanks for the coffee.’

Tullio noticed what went on as well. He said to let it wash over me and that people like Mr Ettick felt built up by putting other people down. He’d met plenty like that in his job. He told me that Roger Ettick wasn’t anybody all that special and that the Vagabonda was a chartered vessel, not a private yacht. Tullio had known a lot of rich men, many with a lot more money than Mr Ettick and better manners. He said to simply do my job and smile. Tullio’s status on the boat was unique: he was an employee, like Luka and me, but also the captain whose word was law on so much. He mixed with the Etticks and guests as an equal but often chose his own company and rarely accompanied them when ashore. He seemed often to have his own friends and objectives in the places we visited.

Capri was our destination after Sardinia. One of the reasons I was glad to get there was that for the first time on the voyage I was seasick. Normally, we had good knowledge of the weather and stayed in port if things were likely to get nasty, but that time we were caught out and it was rough stuff. In the end, I was dry retching and the muscles of my stomach ached. Most of the others suffered too, including Mr Ettick, and there was satisfaction in that, but Tullio and Luka of course were unperturbed. However, the more important reason for my pleasure on reaching Capri was its place in antiquity. What a history. Capri has been inhabited since the Neolithic and a resort since the time of the Roman Republic. Augustus developed the island with temples, villas and gardens, and later Tiberius did the same. I visited the ruins of his Villa Jovis. Capri has it all really, not just the history, but the climate and natural beauty as well. No wonder it’s drawn so many rich and notable people over the centuries.

The morning after we arrived, when Mr Ettick was on the deck alone, I asked him if I could have a word. He wasn’t having any breakfast except coffee. Still feeling seedy, I guessed, and wished I had left any request until later.

‘Okay, what is it?’ he said.

‘I wondered how long we were likely to be here.’

‘Sick of the place already, David?’ and he laughed. ‘Give Capri a chance, surely.’

‘No, it’s just that I’d like a whole day off if that’s all right with you. I’m keen to go up to Anacapri and visit historical sites there, other places too. So much to see here that I’ve read about.’

‘Always the scholar, eh. Hoping to discover a bag of gold coins, or Caesar’s skull, make yourself famous.’ I could have said something about Caesar’s skull but kept quiet and smiled. ‘Look, we plan to be here for four or five days,’ he said. ‘You get your work done and if Tullio’s happy, then you can run off for a few hours. Not a whole day, though, there’s still meals, and you can’t expect Luka to do everything while you’re gazing at pottery and bones.’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘I could do with more water,’ he said. ‘My stomach still isn’t right.’

Tullio was more helpful. He arranged it so that I was given a full afternoon off, which would follow a morning doing jobs for him in the town. The chores didn’t exist, and that day was one of the best for me during the entire voyage. The Villa Damecuta, Blue Grotto, chairlift to Monte Solaro, Munthe’s Villa San Michele and so much more. I met Bernard and Virginia Hapaz in Anacapri, and we talked there for some time.

Conversation was easier, more equal, away from the Vagabonda, and it was in the afternoon, so no problem if they mentioned it to Mr Ettick. They even invited me to have drinks with them, but that may have created awkwardness when we were back to an on-board relationship. We talked history, and they were interested in where I’d been in Europe and what places I still wished to see. Greece was wonderful, Virginia said, I’d enjoy it there.

I wonder where the Hapazes are now and how the way the voyage ended has affected them. A pleasant, intelligent couple, whom I observed rather than got to know.

I saw two others from the yacht as well that afternoon, not in Anacapri but down again in the main town. I was having a coffee by a small dribbling fountain after a shorter-than-I-wished visit to the Ignazio Cerio museum, and I saw Roger Ettick and Dominique Brownlee walking on the other side of the small square. On the way to join some of the others, I supposed. Dominique at ease in a loose, pink dress; Mr Ettick turned towards her, talking to ensure her attention. Off the yacht, he seemed smaller, less significant.

That evening, Mr Ettick, Tullio and the other guests had their meal on the deck as usual, even though we were moored quite close to a larger craft on which a party was taking place: music, loud talk and laughter, people moving about, some looking over to the Vagabonda and its comparatively staid group around the dinner table. The juxtaposition only made Mr Ettick more determined to maintain an independent presence, and he put his back to the party-goers and talked more loudly. Noel Wright prattled away as usual too, but no one took much notice of him. Presumably he never realised how little he was listened to. Mr Ettick told me to get champagne — Bollinger, which was Dominique Brownlee’s favourite. Drinking Bollinger was Roger Ettick’s way of giving the finger to the party-goers, I supposed. Also, he kept me busy in attendance more than usual, perhaps to emphasise to the party-boat that he had minions.

After the meal, when darkness had fallen and only those craft in the marina that were lit up could be discerned, and scales of light glittered and slid on the restless water, Mr Ettick and the others continued to talk and drink. Mr Ettick worked to hold attention, but at times some of his guests were surreptitious observers of their more flamboyant neighbours. Only Dylan Brownlee seemed disengaged with what was happening on either vessel and sat quietly, looking towards the steady lights of Capri, and with a napkin over his champagne glass to show he wished for no more.

As an entertainment, Mr Ettick asked me again to perform a haka, and again I said that I didn’t know one — untrue — but to keep the refusal light-hearted I said I’d sing our national anthem if he’d make it worthwhile.

‘How much is the going rate?’ he said. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever heard the New Zealand anthem. Has it got kiwis in it?’ I told him there were no kiwi, but that god was in it and that raised the price. ‘One thousand euros. Is that enough?’ he said.

‘Two thousand, and it’s a deal,’ I said. The others enjoyed the joke, and I wanted to keep on Roger Ettick’s good side, for I hoped that when I signed off from the Vagabonda there might be a bonus. I knew too that, essentially, I was being demeaned, exhibited like a dog walking on its hind legs.

‘Done,’ he said, raising his voice and hands in emphasis, and the Wrights laughed a lot. A good deal of champagne had gone down.

‘In writing,’ Mr Brownlee said, finally showing interest and playing his expected part as legal eagle.

‘Done!’ Mr Ettick said, even louder, and he wrote quickly on the back of a sales docket lying on the table, then flourished it.

I sang badly, was mockingly applauded, resumed my subordinate role and moved back again from the group. In case I was needed, I waited on the warm deck by the cabin door, watching the jostling throng not far away on the party-boat, rather than my companions, who were talking of destinations still to come and when it would be best to leave Capri. In the end, though, they were outlasted by the party-boat people, who were more numerous, younger and had obviously drunk greater amounts, even if not of the quality of Mr Ettick’s Bollinger.

Raquel Ettick, Susan Wright and the Hapazes retired to their cabins first, later Noel Wright and then Dominique, so that only Tullio, Mr Ettick and Dylan Brownlee were left. Mr Ettick continued to talk with authority; Tullio contributed amiably, but with a certain detachment; and Mr Brownlee concentrated on his last permissible cigarette of the day and looked to the party-goers on the adjacent yacht. It was almost midnight when the three men went inside, and I was left to tidy up and take stuff to the galley. I picked up the docket with Mr Ettick’s promise of two thousand euros. I knew it wouldn’t be redeemed, but it could serve as a memento of my time on Vagabonda.

When Luka and I finished in the galley, we sat on deck again. With the lights off, he and I could relax in deckchairs, observe the party-boat without being noticed ourselves, eat potato chips and nuts at Roger Ettick’s expense, share what remained in a bottle of champagne. There was more wind than usual, and the marina vessels bobbed at their moorings as if impatient to be on their way. I could see many lights of various colours, some in a dance, those of the town further off fixed in location, but shimmering nevertheless, and growing fewer up the mountain side.

Luka’s English wasn’t great, but his stutter was less severe when he relaxed, and I was surprised by how much he knew about the places I’d visited on Capri that day. Luka was a very ordinary guy, but I wasn’t in a position to feel superior to anybody. It was late when we went below. The party was still going on not far away, but less frenetic, less noisy, although I did hear a splash and cheering, so I assumed someone had taken a plunge. I heard someone go out onto our deck again too and wondered if Dylan Brownlee wished to have a secret smoke before morning. Before sleep, I had a quick look at some of the day’s photos on my phone. I made a file of them when back home and still look at them from time to time. Mixed emotions.

Despite being late to kip, Luka and I had to be up earlier than the others so that all was prepared for them. Things were very quiet on the party-boat, which was unsurprising. Tullio appeared in the entrance of the cramped galley where I was helping Luka and asked us if we had seen Mr Ettick. Neither of us had since the night before.

‘Mrs Ettick doesn’t know where he is,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t there when she woke this morning and doesn’t think he’s been in the bed at all. He never goes ashore by himself this early, so I’m not sure what’s going on.’

Tullio and I went on deck to check again. We looked over to the party-boat. Its lights were off, and the only movement was the rocking of the yacht itself. Tullio stood on the gangway and looked along our line of the marina.

‘He never said anything to me about going anywhere early, but who knows with him. Don’t say anything to the others, but David, you go and walk along the docks in case he’s walking there somewhere.’

Tullio didn’t seem worried, so I wasn’t much concerned either. Mr Ettick always pleased himself without much concern for others. I left the Vagabonda and walked along the nearer extensions of the marina. There was little activity at that time in the morning and no sign of my employer. There were crafts of all sorts and sizes, from one-man sailing yachts to private launches that looked as if they could cross oceans with ease. The Vagabonda was just an ordinary member of the assembly.

When I returned, everyone was on deck with their attention centred on a distressed Mrs Ettick. Tullio looked at me as I came aboard, and I shook my head.

‘His phone’s still here,’ he said quietly. ‘All his stuff ’s still in the cabin.’ It was awkward for me as the deckhand to offer emotional support to Mrs Ettick, but I went over and said I hoped her husband would soon turn up. She gazed at me for a moment, nodded and turned to Virginia Hapaz for comfort. Tullio and Mr Brownlee talked together, and then Mr Brownlee told the others that they’d waited long enough, and it was best the police were called.

‘They’ve got the resources to find out where Roger is,’ he reassured Mrs Ettick.

‘Why would he go away?’ she said. ‘Why would he? Something’s happened, I know.’

‘I’ll get in touch with them,’ said Tullio. ‘Luka and David will get coffee and something to eat for you all before they arrive.’

Only one policeman turned up, but surprisingly promptly. In Italy, I found government employees in general dislike to be hurried. The more you push, the more uncooperative they become. Wearing an open- necked shirt and minimal insignia, unlike so many Italian police, the policeman looked younger even than me, but his dark moustache proved his adulthood. He quickly established that Tullio was the man to deal with, and they talked together in their own language, and the policeman made notes and used his large-issue mobile. He then went quickly through the boat. The only other person he spoke to was Mrs Ettick, but not to much effect, for his English wasn’t great and she didn’t speak Italian. When the policeman left, Tullio said we all had to go to police headquarters at eleven o’clock if Mr Ettick hadn’t returned.

He didn’t turn up, so as a party we caught taxis to the police station and gave our statements, showed our passports and had our photographs taken. There Tullio was our manager, just as he was on the boat.

We had lunch at the Verginiello restaurant in Capri, the first time all of us had been together for a meal off the Vagabonda, and afterwards went back to the yacht as the police wished. We weren’t there much more than an hour before a different officer arrived, older, more formal in uniform, and he told Tullio that Mr Ettick’s body had been found in the water beneath a projection of the marina only a hundred metres from our own boat.

It was terrible for his wife, of course, and a shock to us all. She didn’t want to stay on the yacht any more, and all of the guests decided they would go with her to a hotel for support. She kept saying she wanted to fly home straight away and take the body too, but the police said she couldn’t do that. Tullio encouraged her to contact her family and have someone fly to Naples, and Mr Brownlee said he’d help with that.

All the guests gathered up their belongings and went off into the town, Tullio with them to make sure they got settled. I never had the chance to say something to Mrs Ettick, and felt bad about that, but the whole thing became a muddle — emotion and a sense of disbelief overwhelming normal behaviour.

Luka and I were left on the boat with not much to do until Tullio returned. We tidied the cabins, not sure when they’d be used again and later sat together in the deckchairs usually occupied by others. The breeze had died and the Vagabonda had only a slight roll, affectionately nudging the empty tyres on the dockside. Luka wore a sunhat to protect his bald scalp from the fierce sun. It had been Dylan Brownlee’s and offered to him when Mr Brownlee bought a new banded one in Cagliari. The sunhat sat well down on Luka’s head and emphasised his small size. We talked about what had happened to Roger Ettick and how it might have come about. Whether he’d fallen off the Vagabonda and the body had drifted away, or if he’d gone ashore and something had happened there. I wondered whether the people on the party-boat might have seen something, maybe even Mr Ettick had gone over there, although that wasn’t likely. I hadn’t thought to mention the party to the police, but Luka said they knew. Mr Ettick wasn’t a likable man, not to me anyway, but it was an awful thing to happen, and I told Luka I supposed he must have had too much expensive bubbly and with the yacht pitching a bit had done a header overboard. Luka gave his small grimace smile.

‘With a help, you think so?’ he said, the first two words sounding like ‘wither’.

‘Who would that be then?’ I thought it was his form of humour. ‘How long you been on board?’ said Luka.

‘What do you mean?’ ‘Talk to captain,’ he said.

I could do that not long after when Tullio came back. The voyage of the Vagabonda was over, of course, at least as far as Mr Ettick’s charter went. Tullio said we would have only one more day in Capri and then — unless the police disagreed — we would sail to Naples, where Mrs Ettick, the Brownlees, Hapazes and Wrights could catch flights for a sad dispersal. He told me I’d have to finish in Naples, too, and that he and Luka would wait there to see what the charter company wanted them to do next.

It was strange that night, just the three of us on board and little service required. Tullio squashed into the galley for a while, and the three of us talked as Luka made frittata. Tullio and Luka argued in a friendly way about the ingredients, and there was mention of the bottles of Bollinger that remained. The decision was it would be disrespectful to drink champagne on the evening after Mr Ettick’s death. We took the meal to the deck and ate there together. None of us pretended to be overwhelmed with grief, but it was a subdued night. A man we’d been living alongside, a man who had been employing us, had died, unexpectedly and unpleasantly. Fortuna had struck. Of all the old gods, Fortuna is the most unpredictable — the goddess of chance.

Mr Brownlee boarded the yacht late next morning to pay us and talk about leaving Capri the next day. He said the police had given permission, and we could sail in the afternoon unless any new information about Mr Ettick’s death prevented that. Afterwards, he talked to each of us individually at the table and paid us in cash. There was a receipt to be signed and an agreement concerning the abrupt ending of the voyage. I was paid more than I expected, and I suspect the others were too.

‘I’m sorry, David,’ he said. ‘A tragic way for things to end and no explanation whatsoever, but I hope you go on to happier times in your travels. Put it behind you as best you can.’

The four of us sat together and had coffee and crêpes, Mr Brownlee wearing his new banded sunhat and Luka wearing the former one. We must have seemed an oddly assorted foursome: Dylan Brownlee still very much the precise, English lawyer, despite his holiday clothes; Luka wrinkled, reduced, uneasy in speech and posture; Tullio Altamura from Polignano a Mare, tall and dark, with the serene gaze of a skipper. And me in jeans and T-shirt, with long hair bleached by the sun and a bulge beneath the shirt because of the canvas pouch in which I carried my passport and credit card. I was almost paranoid about them. I haven’t a photo of us there that day, but the image is sharp in memory. Even the sun’s glitter on the brass stanchion of the wooden table. One of my tasks was to burnish that.

Tullio asked Mr Brownlee if there would be legal and business complications because of the nature of Mr Ettick’s death, and the answer was yes.

‘It’ll keep me busy a while, but he was an orderly man, and we’ll get through it. I’ve been his adviser for some years, and this is a nasty way to have it finish. The best thing is that it’s a close family, so Raquel will have support. One of the daughters is flying out. Anyway, there’re still things to be sorted here, but I’d appreciate it if you made sure all’s set to leave tomorrow afternoon. We’re keen to get across to Naples as soon as we can. I’ll keep in touch with you.’

He took up his leather satchel and went off without looking back. We watched him walking away down the marina, wearing light-weight, floppy trousers as usual and his new sunhat. I never saw him in shorts.

‘It can’t be easy to have a beautiful wife,’ said Tullio. ‘Sempre pericolo,’ stuttered Luka.

‘What’s that?’ I asked.

‘Nothing at all,’ said Tullio. ‘Seabird words.’

Dominique Brownlee was a good-looking woman all right, but I didn’t see that as any disadvantage at all for a husband. It was only thinking about it later, when I was by myself in the afternoon, having coffee again in the same small square in the town, that I recalled seeing Dominique and Roger Ettick walking there together, and how intent he seemed on her.

There was no objection from the police to our brief trip from Capri to Naples the next day. Mrs Ettick kept to her cabin, the other women often in attendance, and little conversation among any of us. We were thinking ahead, already with an acceptance of separation. The weather remained superb, but we seemed different people.

After I left the Vagabonda, I decided to go on to Salerno, where I found work gardening and mowing lawns in municipal parks for several weeks before moving on to Brindisi, and then across to Greece. I never saw any police, or newspaper, reports about Mr Ettick’s death, never met any of those people again. There’s still the journal though, still the docket with Roger Ettick’s unredeemed pledge of two thousand euros, and still the deckhand memories of the voyage, although no full understanding of the outcome. I remember now, thinking of that time, how the engine would throb and whine beside me if we were voyaging at night, and the pitch and roll of the boat that took time to become accustomed to. Some other deckhand will have that coffin bunk now and serve another set of rich people easing their way from one Mediterranean port to another, but just maybe Tullio Altamura from Polignano a Mare is still at the helm.