Man on Fire

by A. J. Quinnell

  Laura was more outgoing. A casual observer might have thought she dominated the marriage, but that was a surface impression. She was a big woman and confident of her intellect, and even if Paul had allowed it, she was wise enough not to take advantage of his seeming mildness. But her character had more facets than Paul's, she sparkled brighter, and her interests and curiosity ranged wider.

  Joey mostly took after his mother, his inquiring guileless mind allied to overt goodwill. He would be attractive to women, Creasy decided. They would be drawn to his dark good looks, which would undoubtedly arouse maternal instincts.

  He wondered about the girl, Nadia. She was working as a receptionist in a hotel on Malta but would be returning at the weekend, and staying to help her family on the farm.

  Guido had told him that she had married an English naval officer and gone to England, but the marriage had failed a year before. Creasy remembered her vaguely at Guido's wedding. A teenager, with the same quiet good looks as Julia. He hoped she wouldn't present any complications. So far, the situation was good.

  In the morning he would start training. He didn't want complications.

  He turned over the tape, and Dr. Hook sang of an old drunk in Brooklyn and a plea to be carried a little farther. Just a little farther.

  He reached the long ridge overlooking the bay at Marsalforn and stopped for a breather. Sweat had darkened his track suit. The sun was still low-only an hour old, and the bay, sheltered by the surrounding hills, was shaded. He sat on a low stone wall and drew in air deeply. His body ached-all of it, muscles protesting in hurt astonishment at the sudden activity. He reminded himself not to overdo it. A pulled muscle now would set his program back days or weeks.

  He had risen just before dawn and worked through a set of exercises, following the old Legion routine, but he had curtailed them, starting gently.

  Then he had taken a cold shower and gone downstairs. He had been surprised to find Laura already in the kitchen, and said so.

  "I go to early Mass at five o'clock," she had answered, smiling. "Someone has to pray for all the sinners in this family."

  Creasy had smiled. "Pray for me too, Laura," he said lightly. "I've done my share of sinning."

  She had nodded, suddenly serious, and looking at the small gold crucifix hanging from his neck.

  "You are a Catholic?" she had asked, and Creasy had shrugged.

  "I'm nothing very much."

  She made him a big mug of black coffee and, as he sipped, Paul and Joey had come in, dressed for the fields.

  "I'm going for a run," Creasy had said, "and then for a swim. Can I help you on the terracing later?"

  The farmer had smiled and nodded and led the way outside, pointing down the hill to the sea.

  "When you want to swim, follow that path. There's a small cove there and you can swim off the rocks. The water is deep, and it's private. It can only be reached through my land or by boat."

  Laura had told him to come in for breakfast after his swim, and the thought of both the cool water and the food brought him back to his feet, and he retraced his steps at a slow trot.

  The small cove was secluded and the water deep and clear. The limestone of the shore had been eroded from beneath, and a flat ledge jutted out over the sea. Creasy stripped off and plunged in. He swam about a hundred meters out into the north Comino channel. The small island looked beckoningly close, but he knew that it was almost a mile to its nearest point. Later, when he became fitter, he would swim over there; and later still, and fitter still, he would swim there and back.

  At the farmhouse Laura cooked him a huge breakfast of ham and eggs, and fresh warm bread spread with the island's clear honey. She sat and drank coffee and watched with satisfaction as he silently cleared his plate.

  She remembered him eight years before, when he had come with Guido-just as silent then. He looked older now and infinitely weary. Guido had told them on the phone how close he had been to death.

  She had grown to love her son-in-law as a natural son, and when Julia had been killed, she had grieved for her daughter, and for Guido.

  She remembered the night before the wedding.

  Guido had come alone to talk to her and Paul. He told them a little of his past and how the future would be different. How he loved their daughter and of their plans for the pensione in Naples. Finally he had told them that if anything happened to him, and if Julia needed any help, Creasy would provide it.

  The next day she had watched the big, silent American as he tried to enter into the spirit and gaiety of a typical Gozitan wedding. She could sense his pleasure at his friend's happiness and had known instinctively that what Guido had told them the night before was true. Guido had given her Creasy's forwarding address in Brussels, and it had been Laura who sent the cable there when Julia had been killed, the cable that had brought Creasy from Africa to Naples to be with his friend. Now she was quietly determined to help this man build up his strength again. Exercise and hard work would play a big part, and she would fill him with plenty of fresh, good food.

  After breakfast Creasy went out into the fields and located Paul and took off his shirt and worked alongside him. There is a skill to building a dry loose wall. The rocks have to be carefully selected and placed just right, one against the other. The old man was surprised at how quickly Creasy picked up the knack, but Creasy had a natural eye for that kind of construction.

  Even so, after an hour, his back ached from the constant bending and his hands, long softened, were scratched and blistered from the stones. At noon Paul called a halt, and Creasy went down to the cove to bathe his hands in the seawater.

  Lunch was a simple meal of cold meats and salad, and afterward everyone took a siesta during the hottest part of the day. The thick, stone walls and the high, arched ceilings kept the rooms very cool, and Creasy slept well even though his body ached. He rose at three o'clock, stiff and with his bruised hands painful. It would have been good to laze about and he was half-tempted, but he switched his mind back to his purpose and went down to the terraces again with Paul. As his skill improved, the two men made good progress working silently side by side. After a couple of hours Laura came down with cold beers in a bucket of ice.

  She scolded Creasy about his sunburned back and she looked with frank curiosity at the scars-old and new.

  "You really got chopped up, Creasy," she commented. "You should take up farming full time."

  Then she saw the state of his hands and turned to Paul, genuinely angry.

  "How can you let him work with hands like that? Look at them!"

  Paul shrugged. "You try telling him."

  She took Creasy's hands in hers and examined them.

  "It's alright," he told her. "I'll go for a swim later-the salt water is good treatment. In a few days, they'll harden." She turned the hands over and looked at the mottled scars and shook her head.

  "Farming," she said firmly. "It's much safer."

  The next three days were the hardest. Each night Creasy would fall into bed totally exhausted.

  But he had established a routine and a pattern: an early morning run, followed by a swim, longer each day, then working in the fields, shirtless in the hot sun. Another swim in the evening, and early to bed after dinner. He exercised when he first got up and just before bed at night. Those first days were an agony, especially in the mornings, when he loosened stiff and unresponsive muscles. It would take about two weeks, he guessed, before he could get into full stride. But the pain acted as a stimulus. It reminded him constantly of his purpose, and it reminded him of the girl and what they had done to her, and his hatred more than matched the pain.

  Paul and Joey saw it one evening as they sat on the outside patio after dinner, drinking coffee and brandy and looking out over the dark sea to the bulk of Comino and the lights of Malta beyond.

  The lights reminded Creasy of his arrival in Naples, so many months before, and of the changes that had affected him. The growing friendship with Pinta, and those few la
st weeks, when he had been truly happy. His mind went to the last day and then to Guido telling him in the hospital about her death. Paul turned to say something, but when he saw Creasy's face, the words dried in his throat. He saw hatred rising from the man like mist from a cold sea. Abruptly Creasy stood up and bade them good night and went to bed. Joey looked at his father, his normally cheerful face troubled and somber.

  "He's burning up inside. There's a fire in there. I've never seen anyone look so sad and so angry at the same time."

  Paul nodded in agreement. "He's got it under control, but it's there. Someone will be burned by it."

  Joey shook off the mood and grinned and stood up.

  "I've got a fire in me too, but for something else. I'm going to Barbarella's. Friday night, and the tourist girls will be lonely and grateful."

  His father shook his head good-naturedly.

  "Don't be too late or you'll be useless tomorrow, and there's still three fields of onions to pick."

  The boy walked through the inner courtyard, avoiding his mother, who would lecture him about the morals of foreign girls. From the open window of Creasy's bedroom he could hear soft music and he stopped and listened.

  He recognized the song, it had been popular a couple of years before-"Blue Bayou." He was a little surprised. It added another dimension to the strange American. He climbed onto his Suzuki and kicked the starter and the music was drowned briefly as he gunned the motorbike up the track towards Xaghra.

  On Saturday Nadia came home. She was sitting at the kitchen table when the three men came in for lunch.

  "Creasy, you remember Nadia," Laura said, with a gesture at the girl.

  "Only just," he replied, and to the girl, "You were in pigtails then." She smiled, softening the severe lines of her attractive face, and then she got up and kissed him on the cheek.

  She was tall and slim and she moved with a curious walk. Long legs, almost stiff-not unattractive, but different-her hips turning more than normal.

  Over lunch he studied her covertly. She brought more conversation to the group, teasing Joey about his hangover and then supporting him when his mother scolded him for coming home at two a.m. and having to be dragged out of bed to go to work at dawn.

  She had an intelligent face. Too severe for great beauty, but high cheekbones and a full mouth gave it interest. She had also a distinct eroticism-an aura. She looked up at Creasy and caught his eyes on her.

  "How's Guido?" she asked. Her voice was deep, matching her looks. It had a resonance-a vibration.

  "He's fine, and sends his love."

  "Did he say when he's coming?"

  Creasy shook his head and wondered if there was anything between Guido and this girl. She was very like Julia, a bit taller and slimmer, but the same grave eyes contradicted by a quick smile. It would have been natural for Guido to be attracted and it was five years since Julia's death. But then he remembered-she had been back in Malta less than a year, and anyway Guido would have told him. It was that kind of a situation.

  After lunch, when the men had all gone to their rooms for a siesta, she stayed in the kitchen helping her mother wash the dishes.

  They worked silently for a while and then she said suddenly. "I'd forgotten...I mean the way he is-sort of intimidating."

  Laura said, "Yes. He's a hard case. Doesn't say much, but he's settled in and he's a big help to your father."

  She thought for a moment, then added: "I like him. I know what he is, and your father thinks he's getting fit for a special reason and will go off and commit a lot of violence. He's a violent man-but we all like him."

  Nadia dried the dishes in silence, then asked, "How old is he?"

  Laura thought about it. "He must be near fifty. He's a few years older than Guido. He's lucky to be alive. The scars on him are terrible."

  Nadia stacked the dishes and put them into a cupboard.

  "But he's a man," she mused, almost to herself, and then smiled at her mother's look of curiosity-curiosity tinged with sadness. "At least he's a man," she repeated.

  "There can't be any doubt about that."

  It was not a strange comment for Nadia to make. She looked at all men in a special way-an instant first appraisal, informed by hard experience.

  Her husband had been handsome, with a fine wit and intelligence. She had entered into marriage with joy and expectation. A fairy-tale, romantic courtship. Dances and parties and the excitement of going overseas and wide horizons, and then, slowly, the realization that something was wrong and having to face a crushed dream.

  He had homosexual tendencies-long-suppressed. The marriage, for him, had been part of that suppression. He knew his inclinations and fought against them-had done so since puberty. But it had to be a losing war, and the last battle was his marriage to Nadia. That battle was lost in a series of delaying actions, self-accusations, and miserable and degrading lurches into a world that finally he couldn't deny. They had talked it over-tried to fight it together.

  It was hard for her. She couldn't understand, felt her womanhood insulted. She might have been able to rationalize a threat from another woman; at least she would have the weapons of her own sex. But against such an enemy she felt helpless.

  The end had come suddenly and sickeningly. A party at the naval base in Portsmouth. Everyone drinking too much. Not seeing him, and looking, and then finding him drunk and naked with a young midshipman, not caring anymore-accepting what he was.

  She had left the next day and flown back to Malta.

  It had been a terrible homecoming, but she had told Paul and Laura everything, and they had been mercifully strong and understanding. Sad both for her and for themselves-one daughter dead, the other with an emotional scar burned deep into her.

  She had applied for an annulment, but such matters took forever. "The Cowboy" had married them, and he forwarded the papers to the Vatican and in his rough, blunt way tried to comfort her and explain why it all took so long, the many difficulties. Witnesses would be needed, depositions taken, and then anonymous, faceless judges would decide, and perhaps take years doing it. Why? Marriage is sacred. Do they not see the pain, and the people? "The Cowboy" saw and had a great sadness when she came to the confessional and asked forgiveness for the sins she had committed, the men she had slept with. First the young fisherman from Mgarr. "He is a man, Father, and I needed to know a man." And later, occasionally, the tourists whom she would meet at the hotel where she worked. In their way also faceless, like her judges. Staying for two weeks, acquiring a suntan and the rarity of a local girl.

  She had not come to terms with it. She knew people talked, pitied her even, and she hated that. She wanted a normal life. She had been brought up in that way-a family, children, respect. Even if the judges in the Vatican gave her an annulment, decided that in the eyes of God her marriage had never taken place-what then? She was twenty-six years old. Would a local man marry her? After all the talk, in such a small community? So, to go abroad? The prospect didn't appeal.

  She needed her family-their steadiness and support. The house in which she had been born and grown up. The land itself. It didn't lie, or change, or dress itself in false clothing. That was the reason she had come home, even from Malta. Whatever she did, it would be done in this house where she felt secure.

  In the late afternoon she took her swimsuit and walked down the path to the cove. She saw clothes lying on the flat, overhanging rock, and out in the channel Creasy swimming. She sat and watched as he swam out about two hundred meters and then turned and came back.

  "I thought you were crossing to Comino," she said as he pulled himself out of the water.

  "I will, next week when I'm fitter," he answered, sitting down beside her, and panting from the exertion.

  She looked at the recent scars on his stomach and side, pink and lighter than the rest of his angry sunburn.

  "Are you going to swim?" he asked.

  "Yes, turn your back while I change."

  A minute later, clad in a bl
ack, one-piece swimsuit, she plunged into the water in a neat dive.

  She was a good swimmer and churned out of the little cove into the channel. She wondered if he really would swim over to Comino. The current could be strong. She could feel it even now, close to shore. She had been going to mention it, but stopped herself. He was the kind of man who might resent advice from a woman.

  Later, back on the flat rock, they lay side by side in the late sun. She asked him about Guido and the pensione. She didn't mention the kidnapping and the shooting. She had read about it in the Italian newspapers. She would like to know more-but she would wait.

  Chapter 11

  Creasy drove the battered Land Rover fast down the winding road to Cirkewwa. He could see the Melitaland loading the last cars. If he missed it, he would have to spend the night in Malta. As he reached the approach road, the warps were being cast off and the ramp raised.

  He palmed the horn rapidly and was relieved to see Victor peer over the ramp and wave. The ramp was lowered and he drove gratefully on.

  "You made it by one pubic hair," Victor said with a wide grin.

  Creasy smiled back. "They told me you were always late." He looked at his watch. "In fact, you're two minutes early."

  "Today's special," Victor answered. "There's a party tonight, and I want to get a few drinks in first. Sort of get in the mood."

  Creasy knew that "a few drinks" meant a two-hour session in Gleneagles. Well, today he would join them. He felt he'd earned it. He was into his third week and the hardest part was over. His muscles had finally decided that the long holiday had ended, and they had begun to respond. He was still far from fit but it was only a matter of time; his toughness was returning. His coordination was good and would improve further.

  He had also spent a satisfying afternoon at St. Elmo,the huge old fort guarding the entrance to Grand Harbour. This had come about because of a newspaper article Joey had been reading a couple of evenings before. It told of an aircraft hijack attempt in West Germany and described how a special antiterrorist squad had intervened. Paul had remarked that Malta had such a squad. His nephew, George Zammit, an inspector of police, was its commander.