Five hours later we were in Messina, Sicily, Johnson having won the argument over whether to press on to Taormina by mentioning casually that both water tanks were empty and unless we called at Messina we shouldn’t have any ice for the gin. We tied up to a vast concrete waterfront filled with sightseers, whose feet were the first thing we saw through the portholes next morning. Then Lenny started up the engines, and we got going again for Taormina. On the way there we lost Italy, which receded gently into a long, light blue shadow and ceased altogether in a pale apricot scar. I didn’t like losing Italy. I felt cut off, somehow, in a way I hadn’t before. In Sicily, people said, anything could happen, and people, as it turned out, had it right on the button. The first thing we saw, entering the bay below Taormina, was Sappho, sitting shining, smug and clearly deserted. The next was Sophia Ow, alias Lindrop, decorating the Atlantis Bay Hotel’s sunbathing piazza alongside Di Minicucci.
