Read Online Rocks, The by Peter Nichols - Free Book Online

and the proof of war. Descriptions of place fill
The
Odyssey
, often as detailed and accurate as the particulars of a property listed by an estate agent. Over time, sailing these same seas and coastlines, propelled by the same winds that pushed Odysseus’s ships,
The
Odyssey
acquired for me the weight of truth. I began to think that Homer, whether he was blind or not, had heard detailed descriptions of these places, or perhaps even seen them for himself. Eventually, I became determined to sail my own small boat from Troy to Ithaca, using
The
Odyssey
for sailing directions, as Schliemann had used
The
Iliad
to find Troy, to discover the true geographic route of Odysseus’s long, treacherous voyage home from the Trojan War. In time, in one vessel or another, I sailed the whole route.
The Way to Ithaca
describes his voyage, and mine alongside it.”
    Gerald stopped, suddenly spent. He looked at the expectant faces. He felt he had stopped too abruptly; he needed to say something more. “The title of my book, of course, comes from Cavafy’s poem ‘Ithaka.’ I like his suggestion that it wasn’t reaching Ithaca that mattered so much, as what happened to one along the way. Thank you all, so very much.”
    The noise of applause and chatter rose in the gallery and echoed around the splendid marbles. Aegina clapped and watched her father. He had gone somewhere while talking and not all of him had come back.
    Then the yachtsman, the chap with the boat in Lymington, asked: “How long a trip was that, actually, Gerald, to sail from Troy to Ithaca? Not as long as it took Odysseus, I hope?” He chortled knowingly. “Could one do it in a season?”
    Gerald had to think for a moment. He spoke quietly, as if remembering out loud. “I didn’t do it all at once. Over a number of years I traveled every leg, in my own yacht, or aboard British naval vessels during the war, but not in the order in which I set out the route in my book, Troy to Ithaca. I was going to do it . . .” He stopped.
    Aegina stepped forward. Something was happening to him. In his brain or heart.
    Gerald’s hand rose hesitantly to his throat. His face contorted. His eyes rose to the marble figures on the far wall.
    “Oh dear,” said Kate. “Do you need some water?”
    Aegina swept quickly past her. She reached Gerald and held both his arms, partially shielding him, as he began to weep.

Five
    A
s everyone sat down
to dinner, Lulu rose.
    “Thank you all for being here for my birthday. I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have such dear and faithful friends. Most of you have come back here to the Rocks year after year, for decades—some of you as long as I’ve been here—what on earth are you thinking?”
    Adoring laughter.
    “You’ve given me lovely birthday gifts—after I told you not to—but you are, each of you, all the gift I want. I wanted to get something for you too. Just baubles.”
    At each place setting on the five tables was a name card for the guest and a wrapped gift. Well, this was Lulu, wasn’t it? She was being truthful: her greatest joy was her friends, and she was the best friend anyone present had ever known. Some of them, at difficult moments in their lives, had come down for a few weeks in the summer, occupied rooms, ate the Rocks’ food, children in tow even, to find that Lulu refused to accept a penny from them. Cassian Ollorenshaw had become a fixture at the Rocks for at least six months of the year after his spell in Pentonville prison. (He wasn’t a
bad
man, of course, but a trusted friend to Lulu and others, and he’d made a number of people, Lulu included, quite a lot of money.) Everyone here had seen Lulu, at the drop of a hat, drive anybody all over the island; give them books, clothing, paintings; pull whatever she had from her closets, off her walls, out of her fridge; give whatever she had to her friends when Lulu knew before they did that it was exactly what they needed at that moment.
    “Tokens of my love