A Matter of Time (11 page)

Saturday was turnover day in Bermuda’s hotels and guesthouses. Not all guests came or departed on Saturday, but enough did
that places like Sandys House held a weekly welcoming party for new guests late Saturday afternoon before dinner. Often they
served Planter’s Punch because it was such an excellent icebreaker.

Sandys House was essentially an upscale Bed & Breakfast. But the owner, St. John Cooper-Smith, had an arrangement with a retired
chef who didn’t mind cooking on the weekend. This meant that in addition to breakfast, he could offer his guests a modified
plan, featuring a sumptuous evening repast at the end and beginning of most stays, Friday and Saturday evenings.

Ron Wallace and Dan Burke arrived back from their orientation trip aboard
Goodness
, barely in time for a glass of punch before the well-welcomed guests went in to dinner. The dining room had a bay window
at the far end, facing west. This meant dinner guests could appreciate some truly spectacular sunsets as they ate at the long
cedar dining table, at the head of which, his back to the view, sat their host.

Joining him this evening were seven guests who had elected to take advantage of the modified plan, including “our two fishermen
from Cape Cod,” as he welcomed Ron and Dan to the table.

“By the way,” he concluded, when he’d finished the introductions, “do call me by my first name, which, for those of you who
are first-timers, is pronounced—Sin Jin.”

Dan chuckled, suspecting that the day manager had related their banter about the English mangling of names. Speaking of names,
no sooner had Dan been told everyone’s, than he started forgetting them. Lucky thing that Chief of Police was an appointed,
not an elected office, he thought; he’d make a lousy politician. Focusing on the table conversation, he tried to pick them
up in context.

On their host’s left was Maud Brown, a retired stockbroker from Anaheim. Dan put her age at “indeterminate seventies,” though
nowadays with fitness and exercise so much a part of growing older, it was hard to tell anyone’s age for certain. Fitness
was of no particular concern to Maud, though. Before they came in, she’d been smoking a pencil-thin cigar.

In the place of honor at their host’s right (and Dan’s left), was Maud’s distant cousin and frequent traveling companion,
Margaret Chalmers from Philadelphia. Unlike her cousin, Margaret (“Oh, call me Mags; everyone does”) helped herself sparingly
when they went to the buffet on the gleaming cedar sideboard behind him, avoiding frivolous calories. She had high cheekbones
and short-cropped silvery hair, favored tailored slacks, and carried herself with an almost regal self-assurance. Except for
the no-nonsense, steel-rimmed glasses, she reminded
him of Katherine Hepburn in “The Philadelphia Story.”

Ron was across the table from him, and next to him were Jane and Buff MacLean from Sewickley, Pennsylvania, who were embarrassed
that everyone could tell they were on their honeymoon. Jane was a special-needs teacher, taller and older than her new husband.
Normally she was quiet, she assured them, even a bit shy, “but these Planter’s Punches certainly have a way of putting
that
in the closet.”

Seeing their smiles, she assumed they didn’t believe her. “Seriously! My nickname at Sewickley Country Day was Plain Jane
Tremaine.” She paused and giggled. “Oh my goodness! I never thought of that! I guess now I’m—Plain Jane Tremaine MacLean!”

Everyone laughed. So did Jane, who was having a wonderful time, liking all these new friends, adoring her husband. There was
nothing plain about her tonight, thought Dan. All the world loved a lover, and tonight she was radiant, happy as a clam at
high tide, as they said back home.

Too bad the same could not be said of her bridegroom. Buff MacLean, proprietor of a fitness center known as Buff’s Bods, had
long blond hair, blow-dried and sprayed, with sideburns at the length currently dictated by GQ. Dan guessed that the well-defined
pecs and abs under the tight Ralph Lauren Polo shirt (white, to show off his tan) required two hours a day of heavy lifting
to maintain.

That’s just jealousy, he rebuked himself. He might be getting thinner, but alongside Body Beautiful over there, he felt as
shabby as Inspector Colombo’s old raincoat.

What was sad about Buff was that he was trying so
hard to be happy—or at least give the appearance of being happy.

The sunset had been a disappointment, obscured by a low layer of approaching clouds. And now, as it grew darker outside, the
window on Dan’s left began to act as a mirror. In it, he could see the reflection of the real mirror over the sideboard behind
him. Which meant that he could see Buff’s face without the latter realizing that he was being observed.

Buff’s expression, when no one was looking in his direction, became worried, impatient, almost tortured. Whatever was on his
mind, it was not the joys of wedded bliss.

The last guest, to Dan’s right, was Laurent Devereux. The Frenchman, sixty-ish, was director of an import-export firm headquartered
in Paris. Next week he would lead a seminar at a global communications convention to be held at the Southampton Princess.
He had left the City of Lights a week early, he told them, because he was
très fatigué
. And what better place to rest and mentally prepare for
la bataille
, than this
charmant pied-à-terre
, so far from the Princess, where he would be instantly
engagé
, and rest would be
impossible
.

To Dan,
Monsieur le Directeur
did not appear all that tired, but perhaps the French gauged fatigue differently. There was no denying his Gallic charm,
and to judge from the sidelong glances that the older ladies present were throwing him—what, jealousy again? No. Well, maybe.
Put Brian Dennehy next to Louis Jordan, and who would any woman look at?

Well then, did he harbor an aversion to
Les Français? Mais non, pas du tout!
He took his wife to every subtitled movie she wanted to see. He liked the old ones;
films
noirs
, Peg called them. Their gritty realism had it all over Hollywood, and their tough guys—Gabin, Montand, Belmondo—seemed a
lot tougher than the homegrown variety.

But the last French flick, a
Palmes d’Or
-winning attempt at bringing Marcel Proust’s life to the screen, had been deliberately obscure, something Dan considered obscene,
the height of French
hauteur
. Watching it, he had tried to imagine anything more painful, like sticking needles in his eyes.

Feeling a twinge of guilt over where his thoughts had gone, Dan turned to Devereux. “Did you, by any chance, see the new Proust
movie?”

With an expression of faint distaste—as if he’d just sampled a vintage he would ask the
sommelier
to return to the kitchen—Devereux shook his head. “I’m afraid,” he said with a charming smile, “I’m really too busy for the
cinema.” And he turned back to his plate.

Nice put-down, Frenchie, thought Dan. Maybe, after all, he was a bit of a Francophobe.

It was not long before the guests became friends—not unusual at Sandys House, where the return rate was 95 percent.

More details began to emerge. Their host’s modified RAF moustache really was an RAF moustache. Barely 20, Flight Lieutenant
Cooper-Smith had interrupted his Oxford education to fly with Transport Command in the Burma Theater. Ms. Brown, the stock
broker from Anaheim, had anticipated every major downturn of the market—including the present one. Her grateful clients referred
to her as “The Unsinkable Maudie Brown.”

Margaret Chalmers had rowed at Wellesley, as had her daughter. Her brother had rowed with Grace Kelly’s
brother when they were members of Philadelphia’s Vesper Boat Club.

Ron Wallace told about his boat-swapping arrangement with Ian Bennett, to which St. John observed, “I went to school with
Ian’s father.”

Dan revealed he was the Chief of Police of a village not much bigger than Somerset, which had become so quiet that he’d not
thought about it once down here.

Jane MacLean was a birdwatcher with a life species list of more than two hundred, to which she’d added six entries in the
short time they’d been here.

When attention shifted to her husband, he perked up and informed them that membership had increased 30 percent since he’d
opened his fitness center four months before. But, as noted Dan in the window/mirror, the moment the spotlight was off him,
the smile vanished. Indeed, in the past hour he’d begun sneaking glances at his watch.

Stop it, Dan chided himself; this is a vacation, not a stake-out! But it was no more possible for him to stop than for a bird-dog
to ignore a scent. And Dan’s nose was telling him something was awry here.

Abruptly Buff got to his feet and announced, “I’ve got to—take care of something.”

“What, darling?” asked Jane, startled.

“Just—something!” He tried to smile, as if it might be a surprise for her, and departed into the night.

The others quickly resumed conversation, to minimize his bewildered bride’s discomfort.

Their host now turned their attention to Laurent Devereux, and Dan wondered what pearls the Frenchman might cast before them.
But Devereux was saved by the bell, or more precisely, the electronic melody of
Für Elise
on his cell phone. Holding it to his ear and frowning at the poor reception, he excused himself and went outside.

“Why don’t people leave those things in their rooms!” exclaimed Maud.

“Look who’s talking!” jibed her cousin.

“What do you mean?”

“Maudie, dear, you took three client calls outside!”

“Well—that’s different!”

Everyone laughed, and the dinner party, for that’s what it had become, went merrily on. Dan was tired. He imagined others
were, too, but no one wanted to miss the fun. It was 10:30 before they finally got up from the table.

He wondered if anyone else had noticed that neither Buff nor the Frenchman had returned.

13
  
  
once in love with amy

Alone at his end of the White Horse bar, Colin Bennett was slowly sinking into the slough of despond. Idly he watched the
group in white, as one of them, the older one, detached himself and went outside to use his cell phone. In the mirror behind
the bar, Colin could see him out there, making his call. No, he was no ocean sailor. In a few moments he came back in and
rejoined his group, glancing at Colin, who quickly averted his gaze.

Colin signaled the bartender, Mike, for another; six ought to do it. But so far, instead of blurring the past and blotting
the pain, the rum seemed to be sharpening the eight-year-old images.

There had been a succession of girls before Amy, each convinced that she would be the one to change him. Get him to give up
his vagabond ways, settle down, raise a family, act responsibly. Put her before the boat. Each had given up in despair.

Amy Baxter was different. Fiercely independent, the daughter of a Georgia paper baron, she’d known nothing about boats. And
turned out to be a natural. She’d gone with him up to Bar Harbor, where they’d whiled away the
summer, and she’d become a first-class sailor. In late August, as the first tropical depression formed and began heading
west along the Tropic of Cancer, they’d dropped down to Bermuda to see which way the wind was blowing, as it were.

Here in the White Horse, he’d tried to give her the option of not accompanying him further. “From here on in, it’ll be all
work and no play. I’m at it, soon as there’s light to see by—a good hour before you even think about getting up. And I keep
at it till the light’s gone. And it’ll be that way for three straight months.” He paused for emphasis. “I usually drop ten,
twelve pounds.”

She’d listened solemnly, because he was being solemn. But it was obvious she wasn’t buying it.

He tried harder. “And getting there—wherever there is—will be no fun at all. I’m not hunting hurricanes exactly, but I do
intend to ‘git there, fustest with the mostest,’ as it were.”

She smiled. “Nathan Bedford Forrest.”

He looked up, surprised. “How’d you know that?”

“I majored in history—
Southron
history,” she said, tilting her head. “What I want to know is, how’d you know?”

“I’m familiar with your Civil War. Or should I say, the War for
Southron
Independence?”

“Call it what my granddaddy did: the War to Repel the Northern Invader. But you didn’t answer my question.”

He closed one eye and squinted at her out of the other, like Robert Shaw playing Teddy Tucker in “The Deep.” In a rum-soaked
brogue he muttered, “Aye, girl, Bermuda was the main rendezvous of the blockade runners.” He shrugged. “My granddaddies kept
your granddaddies in the fight.”

“I never knew that.”

“Then you probably didn’t know how close Britannia came to intervening on your behalf. Had she done so, she would have based
her Atlantic fleet here, at her wee outpost off the Carolinas.”

He shook his head. “But ye’ve distracted me, girl. I was telling you why you didn’t want to come with me on my next venture.
If I’m going to where a hurricane’s just been, I’m going to have to cut close behind it—
very
close behind it.”