Saturn Over the Water (29 page)

‘I see him now,’ said Mrs Baro. ‘He is not on a mountain. He is by the sea. He does not seem the right man. But he is telling me in his thought that he is. The old astrologer on the mountain. He must be. His thought is clear and strong. It is too strong. No, no, no,’ she cried almost as if in pain. She waited a moment or two. I could feel her trembling. ‘It is very strange. He is by the sea. It is the Gold Coast. Yes, the Gold Coast. I see only a dirty drunken old man. A fat drunken woman is there. She sits outside. She takes money for him. It is all vulgar and stupid. Yet this is the man. On the mountain he holds the key. No, no, no,’ she cried again, just as she did before. ‘Too strong for me. Please, that is better. I understand. Yes, I understand. I will explain.’ She let go of my hand, and we all stopped hand-holding. She waited a few moments, breathing hard, then looked at me. ‘The day after tomorrow, it must be. You and Rosalia Arnaldos. First you find him there. The Gold Coast. Then he will see you on the mountain. His name there, by the sea, is Pat. That I am certain of – Pat. I heard it and I saw it. Then – something –
ailey
– Bailey – Mailey – I don’t know. But this I know. On the mountain he holds the key of knowledge.’

‘Knowledge of what?’ I asked, not very hopefully. ‘Saturn over the water?’

‘Of course.’ She leant back and closed her eyes, utterly whacked. ‘That is what you want. So you have only to find him.’

‘Aw –
mais
– Madame Baro – ’ This was Mrs Delor, who never stopped making fussing noises until she’d carried Mrs Baro off to bed. We men needed a drink. Joe had beer, Barsac went back to wine, I took a whisky.

‘You will go to look for him of course,’ Barsac said to me. ‘It is a great chance.’

‘It sounds well up the wall to me,’ I said sourly.

‘No, Tim,’ Joe began. But Barsac swept him away.

‘You are a fool, Bedford,’ said Barsac angrily. ‘I am sorry to say this – but you are. Over and over again what this woman has seen has been proved to be true. She saw you and Miss Arnaldos coming here – and said you were already lovers. Last night she saw those flames – and now we know Charoke has been burnt down. She has said for days that all kinds of disasters were coming to these Saturnians. That is why I warned Countess Slatina at lunch today. And too late, I think. Who was the other woman she saw – not Miss Arnaldos but the one in hospital? You don’t know. You know nothing.’ He glared at me. He was almost shouting now. ‘But though you know nothing you are sure what she has seen and what she has told you are not worth your attention. That is how I used to think until I had my lesson. That is how Joe used to think – until he knew better – ’

‘All right, Barsac, all right, don’t shout at me. But look at it from my point of view. First, I’m to go with Rosalia. That’s fine – except that I don’t know where the hell she is. Okay – if Mrs Baro is right – Rosalia’s driving a car – very tired – and in some sort of danger. That’s cheerful news, isn’t it? And how can I go anywhere with her if I don’t know where she is? And if I could go with her – what then? We have to find a boozy old Irish fortune-teller – Pat Something-ailey. And where, for God’s sake? This is the last touch – the one that sends me well up the wall. The
Gold Coast
.’

‘Now take it easy, Tim,’ Joe began again. But once more Barsac swept him away.

‘The Gold Coast – so what is wrong with the Gold Coast – my impatient young friend – oh I know you worry about your girl – you don’t know what you are saying.’ Barsac did a tremendous wrapping-up-and-throwing-away gesture, as if he’d just parcelled up everything I’d said and then chucked it out of the window. He was now immensely calm and deliberate, and he pointed a very long bony forefinger at me. ‘This Gold Coast we speak of now – it is what – perhaps four hundred miles from here – no more. It is the part of the Queensland coast nearest to New South Wales – a place for tourists. Wait – I will show you on a map.’ He went off to find one.

I stared at Joe. ‘
High back Brisbane
,’ I said to him slowly.

‘What’s that, Tim?’

‘Why, you clot, it’s one of the things you put on that famous list of yours.
High back Brisbane
– query. Don’t you remember? All right, it doesn’t matter. But I see what it means now – that the old astrologer, when he’s on the mountain, is high up somewhere not too far from Brisbane. So that fits in. I’ll tell you another thing, Joe. That is, if I’m not boring you – ’

‘Don’t be an ass, Tim. What’s the matter with you? That girl, I suppose. Well, go on, go on.’

‘I had to memorise that list, Joe. And now with this
high back Brisbane
, the last item’s accounted for, all ticked off. This is how it went. First name – General Giddings. I saw him at Uramba, then at lunch-time today – he’s a cold war hotter-up, Saturnian in Washington until he moves south permanently. Next – Melnikov – met him in London and at Uramba – Russian hotter-up. Next – von Emmerick – we both knew him at Osparas. Next Steglitz – met him at Uramba, then at Charoke, where all his monkey tricks have been lost in the flames. Then you had
Something
-
Smith
– that’s Sir Reginald Merlan-Smith, English Saturnian – met him in London, Osparas, now he’s here. The one you hadn’t on your list was Lord Randlong – a very smooth large brown rat. Then –
Old Astrologer on the mountain
– we’ve just heard about him.
Osparas and Emerald L
.
–
Charoke
,
Victoria
–
Blue Mountains
– all present and correct.
High back Brisbane
– that’s settled now,
Semple
,
Rother
,
Barsac
, you wrote – and we know about them.
Figure
8
above wavy l
.
– we’ve talked about that. Your last query of all read
Why Sat.?
In short, why Saturn? Well, that’s something we don’t know yet – ’ I broke off because I heard a bell ringing. ‘Somebody at the door, Joe?’

‘Barsac’s along there, I expect,’ said Joe. ‘Still looking for the map. Funny thing about maps – you can never find ’em when you want ’em. Road maps, I mean, not atlases.’

‘Just a minute, Joe.’ I got up and made a move towards the door. Before I could reach it, Rosalia came in, white-faced and smudgy round the eyes. She saw me, gave a little cry, then she was in my arms, sobbing. Joe must have faded away; I never saw him go.

After some kissing and comforting, Rosalia told me what had happened. Everything had been set going by that newspaper the freckle-faced lad had given her before he went off to pick up Barsac and me. She’d begun glancing through it casually, not caring about what Sydney thought was news, and then a tiny item at the bottom of a page leapt out at her screaming. Her grandfather had died. There it was –
death of well
-
known South American oil multi
-
millionaire
– no mistake about it. After the first shock she’d felt she had to do something at once – I’ve come to know this instinctive reaction of Rosalia’s very well now – so she drove into Sydney as fast as she could go, to the South American financial and shipping agency she’d already had some dealings with, through her grandfather, who’d arranged for these people to supply her with money. They’d been trying to find her but of course couldn’t discover where she was. Her uncle in Caracas, as well as lawyers there and in Lima, were trying to find her too, firing message after message to Sydney. She didn’t care about them, not even about her uncle, whom she hadn’t seen for years, but she wanted desperately to talk to Mrs Candamo, to ask her what exactly had happened, what her grandfather had felt, all the sensible human stuff that women care about and lawyers and big business men often don’t. After two or three hours of what sounded to me like a nightmare (though Rosalia took it better than I could) of long-distance communication, with not only different times but a different day at each end, she’d actually got through to Mrs Candamo who’d had to go up to Lima. Her grandfather had died in his sleep, Mrs Candamo told her. And he had left her not only about a third of his fortune but also the Institute itself, without any conditions whatever. Mrs Candamo had asked if I had found her, and when Rosalia said I had, they then said certain things to each other – at about a pound a word, I imagine – that Rosalia didn’t propose to repeat to me.

‘Although he knew you hadn’t gone to Uramba as a friend to them,’ she said, ‘my grandfather liked you a lot, Tim darling. He told me so. You made him so happy when you gave him that sketch. He thought it was wonderful somebody giving him something without wanting anything in return. And if he knows, he’ll be happy about us.’

‘Listen, ducky – have you had anything to eat?’

‘No, darling, nothing. And now I’m with you again I suddenly feel very hungry. But you listen too.’ She took hold of the lapels of my coat and stared hard at me, her astonishing dark blue eyes brilliant behind tears that were gathering again. ‘If I’m going to be very rich now, you won’t be stupid about not marrying me, will you? I won’t have to hang around, will I, just waiting for us to stay somewhere again – as Mr and Mrs Silly Name?’

‘Let’s leave that, ducky. You must eat – ’

‘Are we staying here, Tim?’

‘God knows. What with worrying about you – and other things that have happened – I haven’t even given it a thought. Half a minute – I’ll call Mrs Delor – she’s Barsac’s sister and it’s her bungalow.’

‘I know – and I thought I’d never find it. Oh – one thing I did. I sent that lovely Mercedes back to the garage and told them I wanted one of those cars that are made here and look like everybody else’s. It’s dull – but safer – ’

Ten minutes later she’d met Mrs Delor and Joe, had had a quick wash and brush up, and was ready to deal with the tray that Mrs Delor brought in. While she ate, Barsac and I did a kind of double turn telling her all about Mrs Baro and her second sight or whatever it was and what we had to do to find the old astrologer-fortuneteller-magician on the mountain. Tired though she was, and, as I knew, still deeply troubled and grieving, she took it all better than I’d done. (In a way Rosalia believes anything, the crazier the better, but her feet, as feminine as the rest of her, are always on the ground.) When she was told we’d have to start looking for a drunken old Irish character in this Gold Coast place, she gave me a wide and wonderful grin that turned my heart over. And she was very good with Joe.

‘Tim told me about you, Mr Farne,’ she said. ‘No, I can call you Joe, can’t I? Well, Joe, now that you’re here – and he’s talked to you – he won’t feel now that he’s been a flop. That’s what he said he’d been – a flop. Now it’s different. Oh!’ She looked round at us, her eyes a blue blaze of excitement. ‘I have an idea. It would be marvellous. You, Joe – and you, Mr Barsac – both of you – you must go back to Uramba – to the Institute. No, please – listen before you start shaking your heads. Now it’s
my
Institute. No more what-do-you-call-it – Saturn over the water – no Soultzes and Schneiders and all those creepy types. It could be a
good
institute, couldn’t it?’

Joe and Barsac looked at each other, wonderingly then hopefully. Before either of them could speak, Mrs Delor took charge, looking very solemn.

‘There is something I promised Mrs Baro I would say to you, Miss Arnaldos. When I took her to her room she thought you would come here tonight – she was not sure when she spoke to us all here – and she asked me to tell you that now you are in a great danger. You must be very careful, she said. And you can understand why – if the Institute is yours now. Ah – but you are tired. You must stay here of course tonight. Now how shall we arrange it?’

‘She must have my bed,’ said Joe.

‘No, no, no,’ said Barsac. ‘You are also a guest. I am of the family.’

‘I’m not, Rosalia,’ I said. ‘But I assure you that if I’d a bed – ’

‘Be quiet, we all know about you.’ Mrs Delor was quite gay on this subject. ‘It is easy to see what is going on. But tonight you will be on the sofa here. Now let me see – ’

But Rosalia hadn’t to take anybody’s bed, nor I the sofa. This was the moment when Mrs Baro came in, wearing an old crimson robe that would have been good value for any Lady Macbeth in the sleep-walking scene. But to be honest, there wasn’t anything funny about it at the time, and I didn’t blame Rosalia for letting out a little shriek.

‘I am sorry, my dear,’ she said to Rosalia. ‘But you must go at once.’ She turned to me. ‘You too. I went to sleep but then I woke up. I saw them. There is no mistake. They know you are here. They are coming for you. I know this. You must go at once.’

A whirring brassy noise from a corner of the room made me jump and turn. The old clock there was only striking midnight and it was at least ten minutes fast. But it had a nice sense of the dramatic.

18

I insisted upon driving – Rosalia couldn’t do any more and fell asleep almost at once – and I’m not going to pretend I enjoyed it. I’m not as good a driver as she is, for I no longer run a car in London so I’m out of practice. This Australian car she’d switched to was new to me, and certainly no Mercedes. Our combined gear, mostly Rosalia’s, just about filled it up and weighed it down at the back. I’d been given the road map that Barsac had gone to look for, and there’d been time to take a glance at it with him before we left. But once on the road I didn’t even try keeping to a definite route. I got out of the mountains but kept well away from Sydney on my right, never went as far down as the main road near the coast but travelled more or less parallel with it, along minor roads, roughly in a direction north by east. After we’d done about eighty miles, I went up what was no better than a dirt track, came to an open space surrounded by immensely tall straight trees, and packed it up for the rest of the night.