Night Over Water - Ken Follett [100]
“Hell!” she muttered. She felt crushed. Had she gone through all this for nothing? But she was not yet ready to give up, not by a long shot. “There must be something,” she said. “I don’t need a bed. I’ll sleep in a seat. Even a crew seat would do.”
“You can’t take a crew seat. The only thing vacant is the honeymoon suite.”
“Can I take that?” she said hopefully.
“Why, I don’t even know what price to charge—”
“But you could find out, couldn’t you?”
“I guess it has to cost at least as much as two regular fares, and that would make it seven hundred and fifty bucks one way, but it could be more.”
She didn’t care if it cost seven thousand dollars. “I’ll give you a blank check,” she said.
“Boy, you really want to ride this airplane, don’t you?”
“I have to be in New York tomorrow. It’s ... very important.” She could not find words to express how important it was.
“Let’s go check with the captain,” the boy said. “This way please, ma’am.”
Nancy followed him, wondering whether she had been wasting her efforts on someone who did not have the authority to make a decision.
He led her to an upstairs office. Six or seven of the Clipper’s crew were there in their shirtsleeves, smoking and drinking coffee while they studied charts and weather reports. The young man introduced her to Captain Marvin Baker. When the handsome captain shook her hand, she had the oddest feeling that he was going to take her pulse, and she realized it was because he had a doctor’s bedside manner.
The young fellow said: “Mrs. Lenehan needs to get to New York real bad, Captain, and she’s willing to pay for the honeymoon suite. Can we take her?”
Nancy waited anxiously for the reply, but the captain asked another question. “Is your husband with you, Mrs. Lenehan?”
She fluttered her eyelashes, always a useful move when you were hoping to persuade a man to do something. “I’m a widow, Captain.”
“I’m sorry. Do you have any baggage?”
“Just this overnight case.”
“We’ll be glad to take you to New York, Mrs. Lenehan,” he said.
“Thank God,” Nancy said fervently. “I can’t tell you how important it is to me.” For a moment her knees felt weak. She sat in the nearest chair. She was embarrassed about feeling so emotional. To cover up, she rummaged in her handbag and took out her checkbook. With a shaky hand she signed a blank check and gave it to the young man.
Now it was time to confront Peter.
“I saw some passengers in the village,” she said. “Where would the rest of them be?”
“Most are in Mrs. Walsh’s pub,” the young man said. “It’s a bar in this building. The entrance is around the side.”
She stood up. The shaky spell had passed. “I’m much obliged to you,” she said.
“Glad to be able to help.”
She went out.
As she closed the door she heard a buzz of comment break out, and she knew they were making ribald remarks about an attractive widow who could afford to sign blank checks.
She went outside. It was a mild afternoon with weak sunlight, and the air was pleasantly damp with the salty taste of the sea. Now she had to look for her faithless brother.
She went around to the side of the building and entered the bar.
It was the kind of place into which she would never normally go: small, dark, roughly furnished, very masculine. Clearly it was originally intended to serve beer to fishermen and farmers, but now it was full of millionaires drinking cocktails. The atmosphere was stuffy, and the noise level was high in several languages: there was something of a party atmosphere among the passengers. Was it her imagination, or was there a faintly hysterical note in the laughter? Did the jollification mask anxiety about the long flight over the ocean?
She scanned the faces and spotted Peter.
He did not notice her.
She stared at him for a moment, anger boiling up inside her. She felt her cheeks flush with rage. She had a powerful urge to slap his face. But she suppressed her fury. She would not show him how upset she was. It was always smarter to play it cool.
He was sitting in