Drifters and single-funnelled coasters lay alongside the piers and the rattle of cranes and donkey engines kept the gulls wheeling over the oily harbour scum. The mist had lifted and thinned to a golden veil. The streets were already beginning to dry. Across the Albert Pier, St. Michael's Mount gleamed like a fairy castle in a shaft of sunlight.
I lit a cigarette and, leaning against the iron railing by the car park, fished in my wallet for Dave Tanner's address. As I unfolded the crumpled sheet of notepaper the sun came through and the rain-washed faces of the houses smiled down at me from the low hill on which the town is built. I felt warm and relaxed as I read through Tanner's letter:
2 Harbour Terrace Penzance, Cornwall 29th May. Dear Jim, I hear things are not what they were in Italy now that the Army's moved north and the peace treaty has been signed. If you're getting tired of the Ities and would like a change of air, I can fix you up with a job in England — no questions asked! The bearer of this note — name of Shorty — can fix passage for you in the Arisaig which will be taking on cargo in Livorno.
Is Maria the same dark-eyed little bitch I knew or has she retired to raise a brood of American bambini? If she is still at the Pappagallo, give her my love, will you? England is all controls and restrictions, but those who know their way about do all right, same as we do in Italy. But I miss the sun and the signorinas.
Hope you take this opportunity to come over — it's a mining job and right up your street.
Your old chum, Dave.
I folded the note and put it back in my wallet. Shorty had come out to the lignite mine with it himself. That had been in August with the sun beating fiercely down, the earth baked brown and the dust rising in choking clouds. How different, I thought, to this clean, sparkling air with the sun shimmering on the wet pavements. In that moment I held my fate in my hands. I didn't know it then, of course, but I had only to forget all about Dave Tanner and seek a job on my own and the thread that was leading me to Cripples' Ease would be broken. And I came so very near to breaking it. I thought of the Arisaig and how Mulligan had cheated me. If those were the sort of men Dave mixed with… and the job he had for me — no questions asked, that was what he had written. That could only mean one thing — a racket of some sort. I recalled the man himself. Neat, dapper, quick-witted — a Welshman. He wasn't the sort to live strictly within the law. Even as a corporal in charge of a Water Transport coastal schooner, he'd had his own little rackets — shipping personal consignments of silk stockings, wrist watches and liquor from Livorno to Civitavecchia and Napoli, and on the north-bound trips, olive oil, sweets and nuts. I put my hands in my pockets and immediately encountered the remains of my meagre five pounds.
I turned then and went along the quay. In that moment the fatal decision was made. Harbour Terrace was behind the gas works, a narrow street running up from the harbour. Number Two was next to a corn merchants, the end house of a long line, ill exactly alike. There were torn lace curtains in the window and that air of faded respectability that belongs to the boarding house throughout the English-speaking world.
A girl answered my ring. She was about twenty-eight and wore a yellow jumper and green corduroy slacks. She smiled at me Brightly, but with the lips only. Her grey eyes were hard and watchful.
'Is Mr Tanner in?' I asked.