I, however, had been watching with an eye to the physics of the problem, and finally took pity on the poor Hon Terrence. “You know,” I pointed out, “if you leaned back far enough, it might force all the weight onto the flat of the skis. It’s when the tips dig in that you get in trouble.”
Four handsome young faces stared at me, but only one with an expression of hope. “You think so?” Terry asked.
“One would have to be strong enough to fight the pull. And the person driving the boat would need to control the speed, too. That’s a lot of factors to balance.”
To my astonishment, he took the remark as an offer. He reached down and seized my hand, yanking me to my feet. “Great! Let’s try it.”
I snatched back my hand. “Oh no, I’m not risking two dislocated shoulders, thank you very much. And I was hoping to see your friend Bongo.”
“Oh, he won’t be here for hours. And I’ll do the skiing. You can drive.”
“I’ve never piloted a boat before—well, not one like yours.”
“You can drive a car, can’t you? Bright girl like you, we’ll be zipping all over in no time.”
He seized my hand again—so I grabbed my hat and let him pull me along.
Terry was, in fact, a clever teacher, with little of the patronising attitudes one becomes accustomed to in a lesson involving males and machinery. Perhaps he was merely so eager to get on with the challenge of skis on water, he forgot he was showing the details of ignition, throttle, and acceleration to a girl.
I killed the engine only once.
Out on the water, I practiced a series of gradual accelerations. When I was satisfied that I understood the sequence, if not the actual speed required, I let him jump into the water with his two wooden planks and the length of rope.
The first failure was mine, when I took off too fast for him. The second was his, when he failed to lean back. The third attempt saw him teeter upright, hold for a count of one, two—then make a spectacular somersault with both skis flying.
He was laughing in exhilaration when I brought the boat past him again, and grabbed the trailing tow-rope.
Half a dozen more attempts, and he was skiing, on the water, upright, in the centre of twin sprays taller than he.
Water-skiing had come to the Lido.
* * *
—
I made the Hon Terry stop before he drowned of exhaustion. He couldn’t make it on board without my help. As I made for the Excelsior pier, he lay belly-down over the motor-housing, chin on forearms, telling me what he’d learned and how Buff and Jiggles had been doing it wrong and how it might be easier with a wider ski. When he finally ran dry, I ventured a question about Bongo.
“Bongo?”
“Yes, your friend, remember? We were going to ask him about the Cinderella from the other night?”
“Right! Yes, Bongo—oh, I think he’s gone.” I came a hair’s breadth from wrapping the anchor rope around his neck and shoving him back over the side. Fortunately, I delayed long enough for him to finish the thought. “No, that’s next week, Puffer’s the one leaving today. Bongo had to go hold the hand of an aged aunt, or a bank manager, or something. He should be back—ah, wait. Yes, you’ve conjured the devil!”
I followed his gaze to the Excelsior’s decorative wharf, where a dozen or more nicely endowed young men leapt about, arms waving in wild approval. Terry sat upright—stifling a groan—and swung his feet onto the passenger seat, both arms slowly rising up for a return salutation. One of the greeting committee was indeed remarkably tall, and his head noticeably under-sized.
“Oy!” The boys at the dock having come into shouting distance, Terry shouted. “You lot see that? I told you there was such a thing—all you need’s a brilliant driver!” And to me he added, “Go ahead and take her in here; they’ll move her into the harbour before dark.”
As the Runabout nudged up against the structure, Terry jumped stiffly out—to be boosted onto the shoulders of his mates and carried in triumph down the boards. They’d have carried me, too, had I not clung to the wheel and threatened to dive over the side. I watched them go, keeping a close eye on the elusive Bongo—at which point Terry won my undying love and devotion by catching his friend’s attention and sending him back to me.
Bongo loomed. I felt like climbing up onto the engine housing to keep from getting a crick in my neck. But Bongo was a simple soul, the kind of retriever-dog, country-house, tweed-and-shotgun Englishman one did not expect from (I had gathered from the gossiping hordes) the son of three generations of mine-owners.
“Terry said you wanted to talk to me?”
I introduced myself and stuck out my hand. He eyed it, causing me to wonder if he’d ever shaken a woman’s hand before, but gamely wrapped his paw around mine and let me move his arm up and down a few times. “Lovely to meet you, Bongo, thanks for coming back. Yes, it seems a friend of mine was at the ‘do’ last Saturday. Terry said you’d spotted her—you called her ‘Cinderella’?”
“You know her?” His face took on a look of such pleasure and longing, it was painful to witness. “Oh, she’s the most…I saw her and thought…I couldn’t believe such a creature…”
“Terry said you followed her when she left. Did you by any chance see what direction she went in?”
“Oh, I tried, I really did. When I saw her, I…Oh, it took me all night to…I’d just worked myself up to going over and seeing if she’d dance with me when I realised she was gone. Gone! I ran out of there so fast I knocked over a couple of waiters, and started grabbing people until they’d tell me which way she went. I got to the harbour just as she was pulling away, she and that dark girl in the evening suit. I ran—and I run fast—but when they got to the water and opened up, I lost them. It was dark,” he explained sadly, as if to say that had it been daylight, he’d have followed them across the lagoon.
“Which way did they go?”
His left hand came out, pointing to ten o’clock. Which, although it eliminated only half the lagoon, still helped.
But first: “Um, Bongo—James: About this Cinderella. I’d forget about her, if I were you. I don’t think she’s really interested in men.”
“Oh, I know. A creature like that, she floats above the world. But even girls who float on air sometimes need a fellow to, you know. Buy them dresses and pet kittens and whatnot. She’d come to love me, I know she would.”
All I could do was thank him and send him back to Terry’s procession of triumph, now a beach-full of cheering strangers. As the dock’s attendant tied off the ropes of the pretty little Runabout, I reached out a hand to run it idly up and down the polished wood.
What a grand afternoon. All that practice would make it so much easier, when the time came to steal my new friend’s boat.
Chapter Thirty-eight
AT HALF-FOUR IN THE AFTERNOON, as Holmes was longing for tea (and, he suspected, the American for a cocktail), Linda walked in. Not that she hadn’t been walking in and out all day, along with half the people, pets, and servants in the palazzo, but this time she was alone, and this time her face was uncertain.
“Cole, dear, there’s a…gentleman wanting a word.”
“He can’t have one, he’ll have to take a sackful,” Porter said, then noticed her face. His hands came off the keyboard. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, nothing at all. He’s perfectly polite, charming even, just—” She gave an embarrassed laugh. “Well, those outfits they wear, they’re a bit…”
“Intimidating?” Holmes provided.
“Exactly. The Fascisti, dear. You know, black, black, black. As grim as New York in January.”
“I’ll come down in a minute.”
“Actually, Cole, do you mind—that is, I thought I’d bring him up. If that’s all right?”
Even Holmes could see that Linda Porter did not want this intruding Blackshirt mingling with her guests as the cocktail hour got under way. He was not surprised when Cole stood up and said, “Oh, it’s time we were stopping anyway. Bring him along.”