Saddle the Wind (74 page)

From Adriana, Blanche’s glance moved to Gentry. He had nothing now. His factory had gone. As had his hotel. All of it reduced to piles of rubble. As had Alfredo’s
properties. All gone. Totally destroyed along with everything else in the city.

Moving on from Gentry’s still face, Blanche looked around her at the other passengers, and she realized dully that there was no way of knowing who had been rich, who had been poor. Now for the most part they were all the same. Men who had once been millionaires now sat side by side with those who had had nothing; hardly any of them now were able to claim more than the blankets or ragged clothes that covered their nakedness.

How transitory everything was, Blanche thought. One could spend a lifetime searching for some kind of security and it could be lost in a moment. Could nothing material be depended upon? In a single night a whole city had been wiped out, and along with it the happiness and hopes and fortunes of thousands upon thousands of people had been destroyed. And so many dead. She thought again of Alfredo. And it seemed now that perhaps she could understand him. Ever since she had known him he had been constantly driven to recover what, through his lack of ability, he had lost. And his desperation had wrought changes in him that had almost destroyed him even before the wave had taken him.

And Marianne. Gone too. Beautiful, warm, generous Marianne – who had had everything to live for. Now to be buried in a mass grave with no one there to mourn for her.

Blanche’s eyes shifted back to rest once more on Gentry’s face. And there was a bitter irony here. There had been so many times in her life when she had dreamed of such a situation – that of finding herself with Gentry – and at a time when they were both free.

And it had happened. And now that it had happened it somehow did not matter any more. She loved him
still, desperately, but beyond that she seemed to feel nothing. And she felt that she could not even weep over her loss.

She stood holding on to the rail, a young woman in the remains of a torn, filthy, bloodstained coat, blonde hair hanging loose and matted about her shoulders, the skin of her hands cut and grazed beneath their covering of grime, one eye bruised and discoloured, her gaze dull with a weariness that was close to a weariness of life itself. Sighing, she thrust her hands into her pockets. In her left pocket she felt the rings that she had taken from Marianne’s fingers. In her right pocket she found the loose coins she had put there when preparing to leave Alfredo. She withdrew her hand. There were three centimes, and the gold sovereign that John Savill had given her when she was a baby.

She stood staring at the gold coin. It was what she had begun with … She had come full circle.

‘Blanche …’

It was Gentry’s voice – a little cracked, a little hoarse, but still his voice. Putting the coins back in her pocket she turned and bent to him. ‘Gentry …’ He was gazing up at her. He was going to be all right.

He looked from her face to that of Adriana who peered at him. After a moment he asked, frowning:

‘– Marianne … ?’

Blanche was silent for a moment then she fell to her knees beside him.

‘Oh, Gentry …’

His hand came out from beneath the blanket, closing around hers, gripping her tightly. Tears flooded his eyes and spilled over, running down over his temples to be lost beneath the blood-stained bandage. Blanche felt her own tears spring to her eyes, distorting the image of his face.

They remained there like that while Blanche wiped at his stained cheeks with the tips of her fingers. At last their tears ended, dried in the salt wind. They would survive. They were safe now. They would be all right. She clutched more tightly at his hand.
We shall survive
.

Adriana had moved to the rail and now stood looking out across the waters of the Straits.

‘Mama, look,’ she said, ‘– you can hardly see it anymore.’

Turning, still holding fast to Gentry’s hand, Blanche saw that the ship had swung around, that the Messina shore was swiftly receding behind them. Up above her head the gulls wheeled in the clear sky.