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18
They have to cross the square to get back to the harbour. Mid-afternoon, and half a dozen men are playing checkers at the little tables beneath the tamarisk outside the bar. Another handful lean against it, nursing beers, looking dopily from gloom to sunshine. On the far side, as far as they can get from the den of iniquity without ceding territory, the solteronas sit on the edge of the fountain as they have always done, tatting the lace that no one local wears any more and watching with their laser eyes for infractions.
Mercedes’ cheeks burn as they walk. Every eye in the square is trained on Tatiana’s naked thighs. The kaftan barely comes halfway down them. It’s scandalous, really.
Mercedes herself is decently covered in a knee-length dress whose sleeves go to her elbows, but she’s suddenly worried that the damp bathing suit beneath is making the cloth cling more closely than Larissa would like. She casually drapes the towel Tatiana brought for her over her shoulder, to break up the detail, and hurries on.
The solteronas fall silent. Even the click-click-click of their tools ceases. Tatiana walks on, hips swinging with the effort of keeping on her leather flip-flops, as Mercedes scurries past and burns with shame as she hears someone mutter her name.
But who is that? The one dressed like aputa?
Next year’ssirena, for sure, says another. Just look at her!
Oh no, she’s one of Them, says another. The gypsies on the boats.
I thought they kept better care of their girls than that, the Delias.
Have you seen the older one?says a third voice. Are you kidding me? Looks like this one’s going the same way as her sister.
She longs to round on them, to shout in their faces, for she knows her sister. What do you know? she screams inside. Who do you think you are, trashing my sister’s reputation? Just because she’s pretty. Just because she sometimes laughs too loud. Jealous old bitches who missed your own chance and have no pleasure left but to spread poison about girls who still have youth and beauty on their side.
She says nothing. The solteronas have power, and no girl on La Kastellana wants to attract their attention.
Stepping onto the gangplank of the Princess Tatiana feels like the few times she’s been allowed into the castle hall. Festive, exciting and terrifying all at once. She holds her breath as they approach the charcoal-suited security guard who stands at the entrance day and night, but he merely unclips the gate and holds it open without a word. Mercedes dashes past him, half-afraid she will be turned back, and drinks in all the detail she can, to tell Donatella. I’m the first island child on board, she thinks, I’m sure of that.
‘Welcome aboard,’ says Tatiana as she steps off the gangplank. She turns and executes a sarcastic little curtsey, princess-style, and Mercedes laughs. Then she puts her index and middle fingers to her lips, kisses them and presses the kiss onto a huge, shiny anchor that sits on a stand just beside the entrance.
‘What’s that?’ asks Mercedes.
‘That? Oh, that’s for good luck. You should do it yourself.’
‘Good luck?’ She’s never heard of such a thing.
‘Oh, yes,’ she says. ‘We do it every time we come aboard.’
She discards her bag and water gear on the deck as Mercedes examines the unlikely amulet. It’s big – far too big for a boat like this – and elegant. The sort of anchor you see in history books, with its two curved prongs and their arrowhead points. But the most extraordinary thing about it is that it seems to be made of gold.
‘It’s Daddy’s good-luck charm.’ She walks away from her stuff, towards the stern. ‘A souvenir.’
‘Souvenir?’
‘Oh,’ she says breezily, ‘from his first million.’
‘Oao,’ says Mercedes. She’s not sure a million what, but a million is a big number in any currency. She gingerly kisses her fingers and presses them to the talisman – it can’t do any harm, after all – and follows behind.
‘Yah,’ says Tatiana. ‘In the Seventies. Honestly, there were so many family companies run by idiots back then. This was a boat-builder that went under while Wedgie Benn was nationalising everything. He picked them up for a song. An absolute song.’
Mercedes doesn’t really understand what she’s on about, but she’s intrigued anyway. ‘So how he make this million?’
She glances back and sees a door open amidships. A woman in white trousers and a black polo shirt steps out, sweeps Tatiana’s discarded belongings into her arms and vanishes back inside like a weather vane.
‘Oh,’ says Tatiana, ‘honestly. These people, they were so obsessed with building boats and servicing their debts, they totally didn’t notice that they were sitting on some of the Isle of Wight’s primest real estate. Bloody idiots. You could hardly buy a house with what he paid them. It’s a marina now. Like this one. And the warehouses – Georgian warehouses – are super-prime condos for the regatta crowd. Anyway. The anchor was going to be for the last boat they ever built. Sold that for scrap, of course. But he kept the anchor, to remind him.’
‘They had a gold anchor?’
Tatiana turns and gives her a funny look. ‘Doh. No, it’s gilded, stupid. Nobody would have an anchor made of gold. It’d be so heavy it would sink the yacht.’
They emerge onto the bow deck and Mercedes is, for a moment, unable to breathe. The deck, concealed from the land by fibreglass walls, is bigger than her family’s living room. Bigger than their restaurant. An awning casts shade for four whole metres before giving way to a sundeck with padded loungers. At the very tip, built into the prow, there’s a giant bathtub filled with water at what looks like a rolling boil.
