Pliny's Warning

by Nicholson, Anne Maria

  The traditional Christmas bells mark each hour of the night. She hears one o’clock, two o’clock and still they explore each other’s bodies. Tender and loving, they are finally spent.

  The bells ring on through the night, but it’s not until they sound nine o’clock that the lovers stir.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Marcello toots his horn as a large truck veers towards them at the entry to the ferry terminal. Frances grips the front seat but relaxes as the driver sees them and turns sharply away.

  Dozens of people straggle along the wharves, dragging and carrying suitcases and crates of food and wine towards the ship that will sail through the night to the Aeolian Islands. A stream of taxis spill their passengers onto the roadside and a man struggles to extract an oversized bag from the back seat of one while his wife waits passively holding a wriggling young boy.

  Marcello squeezes his four-wheel-drive between two vans and leaps out to remove Frances’ luggage from the rear. She sits there for a moment, her feelings conflicted about this departure. She feels excited about the days ahead, yet her intimacy with Marcello has restored her; a joyful union she is loathe to leave. But New Year has come and gone and Frances has delayed her journey to Stromboli for as long as she can. And besides, Marcello has his own work waiting on an archaeological dig in the ancient city of Carthage, in Tunisia.

  Frances slides out and he is there to help her down. Seagulls soar and dip around them, their shrill cries piercing the late afternoon sky. As he strokes her hair and cups her face in his hands, their eyes say more to each other than words ever could.

  The ship’s horn blasts loudly but they are silent as they join the other passengers on the long walk along the pier. They trudge slowly, dragging out this small final journey together, but find themselves beside the ship soon enough. ‘Come back safely.’ His voice is soft as he passes the suitcase to her. ‘Spring will come quickly and we’ll be together again.’

  Resisting saying goodbye she smiles at him, drops her bag and they hug each other so tightly she can feel his heartbeat. The horn blasts again, three short sharp beeps, and clouds of black smoke rising from the ship’s stack warn of the imminent departure.

  Frances kisses his ear. ‘Roll on spring,’ she whispers and releases herself. She picks up the bag and walks away.

  ‘Say hello to Riccardo, won’t you?’ he calls after her.

  She turns, nods and pauses for a second, then walks on up the broad ramp to where two sailors are checking tickets. Twenty or so cars and several trucks are parked on the lowest level and hundreds of crates of wine, olive oil, bottled water and sacks of fruit and vegetables are stacked along the sides, like a floating marketplace. Frances edges her way around them to a narrow metal staircase.

  The stairs lead her to a reception area where she joins a long queue waiting to collect keys to their cabins. Tourists among the passengers have settled together on reclining seats, preparing for a long night in the open area. Their backpacks marked with tiny flags of America, Australia, New Zealand and Germany reveal their origins. From the conversations around her, Frances learns most of the travellers are islanders, returning home from the mainland. They jest and tease each other, older men and women, faces weather-beaten from lives spent on the far-flung islands where the Mediterranean melds into the Tyrrhenian Sea.

  ‘Cabin number thirty-three.’ The purser passes Frances her key. ‘Dinner is served as soon as we set sail but there’s no need to book. It’s the off season so it won’t be very busy tonight.’

  Frances carries her bags down one level and along a narrow corridor to her cabin. Two narrow bunks covered in thin red blankets are against one wall. She hurls her luggage onto the top bunk and sits on the bottom one. The room is tiny with one door leading to a shower and toilet cubicle. It smells of stale cigarette smoke, urine and diesel fumes. The lurching of the ship and the odours combine to make her feel nauseous. She remembers gratefully that Marcello had insisted she bring seasickness tablets. She retrieves a bottle of water from her backpack and swallows two.

  The whirring engines of the ship vibrate through the cabin. She takes her wallet, locks the door behind her, and climbs two flights of stairs to the deck. Already, they are leaving Naples in their wake, but Vesuvius is still visible, rising out of a haze veiling much of the city. The sea churns below, great navy-blue swells of water washing up as the ship ploughs through. The sun has already gone and the cold rushing air soon sends her back inside, seeking shelter.

  Passengers are gathering in the lounge room, snippets of conversations filling the void. Frances orders a brandy, swirling the spirit a few times around in the glass then sips it. Her stomach responds, settling down. She wanders past the food buffet but the pre-cooked tomato pasta and cold vegetables are unappealing.

  A tourist video about the Aeolian Islands is playing on a large screen. She curls up on one of the high-backed seats with her brandy to watch. Flashes of eruptions, turquoise underwater scenes, mudbaths and stories of life on the islands of Lipari, Stomboli and the smaller islands of the volcanic archipelago hold her attention. There are older, frightening tales, of its mythological Greek origins. It was the home of Aeolus, God of the Winds, who swept through the islands and sent many a passing ship to the ocean floor. ‘Please, not this one,’ Frances thinks. She starts to yawn and although it’s still early evening, heads back to her cabin, planning to be up at dawn to watch the sunrise.

  The bunk is hard and cold and she struggles to settle. The ship rocks and rolls and she tries to relax her stomach to move in time with the sea, ignoring images in her mind of an angry sea god. Before long she feels herself drifting to sleep. She has no idea how long she has been asleep when a squeaking noise wakes her. She can’t see anything in the darkness but can hear somebody trying to open her cabin door and lies still, her heart thudding. Then she reaches behind her and turns on the light. The handle stops turning.

  ‘Who’s there?’ she calls out. There is no reply. She stays in her bed listening, afraid to move. The fluorescent light glares greenly in her eyes and casts a harsh lime aura over the cabin. She contemplates going to look outside in the corridor but decides that would be foolish. Perhaps someone made a mistake, confusing the numbers of the cabin? She goes to the door and turns the handle. It’s still locked. She returns to bed and turns the light off again. Tossing and turning, sleep evades her. She tries to recall the faces of the other passengers. Was it one of them? Or a crew member? Or was it the unseen person who was following her in Naples?

  Gradually she falls into an uneasy sleep, one made all the more uncomfortable as the rolling sea drums up her memories of that life-changing day on White Island.

  Bob Masterton was lying crumpled on a rock shelf ten metres below them. Boiling water lapped over his head, which was still covered by the orange mask. Frances could see his body was motionless, one leg beneath him, the other sticking out at an odd angle.

  ‘No!’ She’d screamed and without thinking had started to climb over the rim.

  ‘Don’t!’ Hamish had pulled her back. ‘He’s dead. We can’t do anything.’

  She had known in her heart he was right but it felt wrong not to try. ‘We can’t just leave him.’

  ‘There’s nothing we can do now.’ Hamish had been firm, suddenly assuming the maturity of a much older man. ‘I’ll come back with a recovery team and we’ll bring him out. But we have to go, Frances, it’s not safe and I don’t like these vibrations.’

  Frances had let Hamish lead her back to the helicopter, feeling gutted but also guilty. Could she have prevented Bob’s death? Had she put a hex on the whole operation by coming against Tori’s warnings? ‘I’m not thinking logically,’ she had chided herself. Bob came here all the time. It’s not my fault. And yet…The wind kept shifting and the roaring of the crater was unrelenting. As they emerged from the steam Frances had taken off her mask.

  ‘I’ll have to phone. To let them know.’ She’d stopped to pull out her cellphone but couldn�
�t find a signal.

  Hamish stood with her, tears coursing down his unlined face. ‘I’ll call from the chopper.’

  She had hugged him. ‘I’m sorry. I know you and Bob were friends.’

  They strapped themselves into the helicopter and were soon spiralling up above the island, circling the crater where they could see the orange dot of Bob’s mask by the water.

  Hamish had dialled air traffic control and in a faltering voice gave the flight path details. ‘We have an emergency…’ he said. ‘A death on White Island.’

  The direction of Frances’ life had turned on a pin that day. She could scarcely bear to face Tori again but knew she must. It would be only a matter of time before he learnt about the death. After all, Bob Masterton was ‘Mr Volcanoes’. She and Hamish had barely returned to base before news bulletins broadcast the events surrounding Bob’s death throughout New Zealand. A stream of journalists wanted to interview her but Frances was in no state of mind to endure a media blitz and flicked the requests to her boss. She was mortified when she saw the photos in the next day’s newspapers and on the Internet. Her office had released the happy snaps they had taken of each other shortly before he died; him raising his fingers and her in that ridiculous dance pose.

  On a beautiful warm day when she knew he would be home, Frances drove to Tori’s little timber house on the shores of Lake Taupo. He had welcomed her inside but the mutual reserve that characterized the early days of their relationship had returned—and they were guarded, self-protective, suspicious. Love, desire and passion were kept at bay.

  They’d sat together on the small beach where the waters of the great lake lapped around their toes. She’d told him what had happened on White Island, the terror, the heartbreak when Bob was killed. Tori had said little, displaying none of the anger or disgust that she had ignored his warnings and concern for her safety she had expected from him. Nor did he criticize her for showing disdain for Maori belief that the island was tapu, a forbidden place. Instead, he took her hand and held it to his mouth, kissed it and smiled at her tenderly. But nevertheless, their love seemed fractured.

  A car had arrived while they were sitting there. Tori’s children, Moana and Hemi, piled out and ran to join them, lively, funny and happy. Frances wasn’t surprised when his ex-wife, Cheryl, followed them and sat proprietarily on Tori’s other side.

  After a while, Frances made her excuses to leave, hoping Tori would ask her to stay, but he didn’t. They had talked on the phone before she left for Italy, each time promising they would see each other again soon. It never happened.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  The volcano ahead spits brown and white clouds out of its crater, staining the deep-blue morning sky. Frances blinks in the pale sunlight, the wind blowing her hair back as she leans against the ship’s rail.

  Stromboli rises sharply out of the sea and as they sail closer she can see how the volcano completely dominates the island. Massive, with a jagged peak, the swelling mountain is nearly a kilometre high. Yet, like a rocky iceberg, most of it is below the waves, anchored deep into the ocean floor. Excitement ripples through her, fuelled by the sight of another magnificent volcano ready to explore.

  The cold competes for her attention and she sniffs, hoping she hasn’t caught a cold in the draughty cabin, as she pulls her jacket tight. Although sleep seemed to evade her, she must have finally succumbed because she had missed the sunrise.

  ‘Signorina!’ She starts, the man is so close behind her she can feel his hot breath. ‘Coffee is ready in the lounge!’ She relaxes and thanks the crewman who has already moved on to the sprinkling of other passengers on the deck.

  Uneasiness has followed her upstairs like an unwanted companion, and she wonders whether she dreamt someone was trying to enter her cabin during the night. She shrugs it away and escapes the wind for the comfort of the lounge. The coffee is undrinkable and she abandons the cup on a table.

  As Stromboli is the ship’s first port of call, she gathers her luggage, stacks it in the reception area and returns to the deck.

  The island is now clearly visible and she can just make out rows of white buildings close to the shore. High above, the expulsion of the muddy clouds from the brown crater continues every few minutes or so, accompanied by loud, short pops.

  A small wooden fishing boat sails to their starboard. Two men, their long grey hair blowing in the wind, are hauling in a net dotted with the morning catch. There’s a sense of timelessness about the fishermen, as though they had trawled these waters since the days of the ancient mariners, thousands of years earlier.

  The ship toots, jarring and raw in the early morning, and soon its engines are churning. It slows, spins around and reverses alongside a long jetty. Frances scans a small group gathered at the end of it but can’t see Riccardo.

  Few of the people from the night before are around and she guesses they are still sleeping, bound for other islands. She clambers down the stairs to the car deck with the handful who are disembarking. They wear hats and scarves to ward off the cold and she resists staring too hard, subconsciously searching for her phantom stalker.

  Stepping afoot Stromboli for the first time, Frances is struck by its bleak beauty. The air is so fresh after dust-filled Naples it courses into her lungs. There’s an eerie silence. No traffic. No highways. Ahead, she makes out one small road, not much wider than a footpath, leading away from the tiny port.

  She traipses to the end of the wharf and her eyes travel instantly from the broken row of houses and shops in front of her straight up to the summit. The pop popping of another round of mini eruptions shatters the peace.

  ‘Frankie!’ The woman’s voice is unmistakable, her North American accent at once familiar. Frances looks around excitedly. There’s only one person in the world who calls her that. Olivia Jackson is bearing down on her in a golf buggy, with Riccardo beside her.

  ‘Ollie!’ Frances shouts back. The two scientists share a past working on the tumultuous slopes of Mt St Helens. They had met at the university in nearby Seattle after Olivia travelled north from San Francisco, where she had researched earthquake risk.

  She races along the track to the pier, her tightly curled black hair impervious to the wind. As she beeps and skids to a stop, Frances drops her bag and the two women run towards each other. As they hug, Frances towers over her friend whose slightly tubby appearance belies her extreme fitness. Riccardo is close behind.

  ‘I’m overwhelmed,’ Frances says. ‘My two wicked friends in the same place!’

  ‘Chances of bumping into each other here were rather good. It’s not exactly New York City,’ Riccardo says.

  ‘Population around five hundred and no prizes for guessing we met at the observatory,’ Olivia giggles.

  Riccardo picks up her suitcase and slips his other arm around Frances. ‘Missed you.’ He kisses her cheek. ‘But I haven’t missed Naples for a second. I’ve got a new contract with the observatory here and I’m also helping an American/German scientific team attached to the observatory, the same as Ollie.’

  Frances can see the oppressive burden that had weighed down Riccardo has lifted. She runs a finger gently under his left eye. ‘All healed. You’re looking a lot better, Ricky.’

  ‘I am. But how has it been for you? I want to do more to help, but I don’t know if I can now that I’ve been garrotted. Any more trouble?’

  ‘No, not really,’ she hesitates, recalling the shooting and the stalker. ‘We all got caught up in the Christmas spirit. And by the way, Marcello sends his regards.’

  He grins at her. ‘Do I detect some amore in your complexion?’ He pinches her cheeks and they laugh together.

  ‘What’s the joke? What am I missing out on?’ Olivia leans into her.

  ‘Gossip, and I know how you hate that!’

  ‘Sit up front with Ollie,’ Riccardo urges her, putting her luggage in the back of the buggy and propping himself next to it. ‘Then you can talk all you like.’

  Olivia acce
lerates hard and the buggy jumps into action. She points it up a rise and they drive quickly away from the harbour.

  ‘You’re staying with me,’ Olivia says. ‘Rustic, but close to the observatory. Mind you, everything here’s close to everything else. The whole island’s just a speck in the ocean.’

  ‘You’ll be more comfortable there,’ Riccardo says. ‘I’m back living with my elderly uncle and it’s a bit squashed.’

  The track divides into three, one heading back to the sea where a beach is swathed in jet-black sand, the other two heading higher.

  Olivia turns sharply left and they drive up towards the centre of a village. She navigates though a maze of lanes so narrow Frances could touch the walls of the attached houses on both sides. Suddenly, she stops dead and they all lurch forward and Riccardo drops off the back.

  ‘My God, Ollie, you’re such a petrol foot!’ Riccardo says affectionately.

  ‘I think you’ve found your match,’ Frances laughs.

  ‘This is my stop. Make yourself comfortable and I’ll be up to fetch you soon and show you around.’ He disappears down a flight of gnarled steps in a gap between the houses. Olivia drives higher, through a little town square and past a line of shops and cafés, not yet opened for business. The buildings peter out and soon they reach a white-washed cottage sitting in a field studded haphazardly with cacti and olive trees.

  ‘Home, sweet home.’ Olivia pulls up in front. ‘It belongs to the observatory and it’s mine for as long as I’m working here.’

  Frances stretches her arms and drinks in the air.

  ‘What a view!’ she exclaims looking down through sparse yellow and green vegetation to the village and on across the ocean that seems to go on forever, navy water blending with an azure sky. Just below is a small white church, the contrasting towers on either side telling a completely different story; one is a bell tower, the other a transmitter with satellite dishes.