Endangered Species (7 page)

He had not much noticed the girl in the Antrim farmhouse. It was only after they had reached Belfast and were kicking their heels waiting for a passage back to Liverpool that he found himself thinking of her. Then he almost forgot her; but not entirely, so when John Mackinnon caught sight of the girl at the bus stop outside the David Lewis hospital in Liverpool he recognised her at once.

‘Hullo,' he had said, filled with cocksure manhood, coming up to her in the twilight while the gaunt outline of Bibby's bombed warehouse reared up against the pallid wash of the sunset. ‘You're Shelagh, aren't you?' He paused as she stared at him not denying her identity, confused. ‘From County Antrim,' he added helpfully. ‘D'you remember me? The apprentice that was washed up in the ship's lifeboat? We arrived at your farm one evening and I frightened you.' He thought he might be frightening her now, but he ploughed on. ‘I'm John Mackinnon and I remember you very well.' He had held out his hand while a curious mis-thumping of his heart told him, though he did not know it at the time and only recalled it now, that they had been brushed by the passing wings of fate. And then, after she had recognised him, he walked her into town and paid for two seats at the cinema, learning of her arrival in Liverpool and her desire to become a nurse. He was uncertificated Third Mate of the
George Vancouver
then, just paid off from a fourteen-month voyage and already signed on the
James Cook
preparing to sail to join the Fleet Train in the Pacific in the final struggle with Japan.

Before the ship sailed for Manaus he and Shelagh had, as the saying went, been walking out together for long enough to know.

Yes, Captain Mackinnon mused with the persistent profundity of the mildly drunk, he was a lucky man, and leaving the glass two-thirds full, he stumbled through to his night cabin and fell across his bunk.

Stevenson passed a glass of beer to Taylor and both men crossed the tiny dance floor and sat down.

‘Chas, I – er – I'm really sorry for what I said earlier.'

Taylor shook his head. ‘Forget it, Alex. I asked for it anyway.' He made an obvious effort to change the subject. ‘The Mate certainly wanted to get rid of us this evening, didn't he? Practically kicked us down the gangway.'

Stevenson agreed, relieved after the tense taxi ride that Taylor bore him no ill-will. ‘We don't want to talk shop, let's make the most of tonight.'

They both stared round the bar. It was still early, but already a couple of Norwegians were necking furiously in the shadows. The girls were Chinese and writhed with sinuous enthusiasm round their captors. The sight made the two Britons uncomfortable. As yet only one other ‘hostess' was in the place, a beautiful Malay girl who sat alone at the bar, apparently content with her own company. It was obvious to Stevenson that she was having a disconcerting effect on Taylor.

‘Odd about that boatload of refugees this evening,' Stevenson tried.

‘Sorry?' Taylor turned from the girl, abstracted.

‘Odd about those refugees. I mean, I couldn't help feeling, well . . .' Stevenson's voice trailed off uncertainly.

‘Ashamed?' suggested Taylor.

‘Yes, something like that.' Stevenson struggled with words adequate to fit the deep impression the sight had made on him, aware too that the mood of confidence
between them had been damaged by his earlier insult, yet eager to re-establish it even if he did run the risk of a rebuff from the younger man. ‘It left me feeling guilty that we could do nothing, but certain that we ought to do something . . .'

Taylor smiled engagingly over the rim of his glass. ‘Ah, that's the guilt engendered by your pampered overfed western lifestyle. You see, you haven't been bred to accept it as your birthright; you are full of the Protestant work ethic that automatically conditions you to suspect the good things of life whether they are in your lap or someone else's, while at the same time it drives you to accumulate more and more material wealth and to justify your existence by hard work.'

Stevenson digested Taylor's words, aware of the underlying irony but uncertain whether or not it was aimed at Stevenson or turned upon himself. Taylor did not give him time to arrive at a conclusion.

‘I don't suppose those poor bastards in that junk would actually feel real envy for you. Their predominant feeling is probably one of relief at getting to Singapore with an underlying fear about what happens next.'

‘That sounds a bit callous,' Stevenson said, warming to the conversation and driving to the heart of the matter. ‘I get the impression that your well-to-do forebears bore the burden of their wealth with – what shall I say? – commendable fortitude.'

Taylor laughed. ‘Ah, the old Whig philosophy was pretty good. Had distinct advantages, you know. A lack of conscience was one of its first attributes. Very useful, did away with all awkward moral dilemmas.'

‘I hope you're not intending to employ it tonight with her.' Stevenson nodded at the solitary hostess.

‘Why not?' Taylor grinned again, then his mouth twisted and his expression hardened. ‘Oh, don't say “because you're married”, for Christ's sake, because as far as I'm aware the instant I'm at sea Caroline forgets I exist. If she occasionally
recalled me I might get the odd letter. No, Alex, if you want to make me the conscience of the western world, forget it.' He stood up and added, ‘I'm not in the mood.'

Taylor walked across the bar and Stevenson watched him strike up conversation with the girl. She seemed reluctant at first, but Taylor was gently persistent. Stevenson felt a prickling of lust followed by a wave of jealousy. He took a long pull at his beer. When he looked again Taylor was sitting alongside the girl and the barman was pouring them both drinks. He sat in the gloom of his secludedly desolate table and printed aimless patterns on its top with the condensation formed round the base of his glass.

It occurred to him that this was Taylor's retribution. This abandonment in the face of Taylor's success at picking up the girl was a refutation of his own accusation that Taylor was no great Lothario. Stevenson watched the pair, their heads close together. No, there was no triumph in picking up a bored professional, and so cheap a revenge was too shabbily obvious to be Taylor's style. If, Stevenson concluded as he motioned the barman for another drink, it
was
revenge Taylor was meditating, then it was a more profound one than a levelling of a petty score with himself. Taylor had mentioned Caroline's failure to write; perhaps it was she whom he wished to humiliate.

‘Don't you want to be introduced?' Stevenson looked up. Taylor loomed over him, the girl at his side. She was undeniably lovely, with a skin-tight black dress cinched at the waist. It had a high neck, though her shoulders were bare, and a short hemline. From his observations when she had been at the bar, he knew its back was non-existent. He struggled, gentlemanly, to his feet.

‘Sharimah,' Taylor said, ‘meet Alex.'

‘Hi.'

Stevenson felt again the prickle of intense desire. Her breasts swelled the soft, slightly elastic material of the dress, but it was her face that transfixed him.

He was no first-trip apprentice to be cunt-struck by the first painted trollop who squeezed his knee, but he would have had to have been insensible not to have been moved by her genuine beauty.

‘Hullo . . . what are you drinking?'

‘It's all right,' put in Taylor, ‘my shout' – meaning hands off, I picked her up.

Stevenson sat again, opposite the girl. Raven hair fell to her shoulders and the light brown of her skin was taut over high cheekbones. Her face escaped full oriental flatness by a well-made nose suggesting the miscegenation of a Portuguese seaman somewhere in her ancestry. From eyes as dark, Stevenson thought, as the tropic night, she confronted his scrutiny, carried out with the thunderstruck wonder of half-drunk admiration. She pouted crimson lips around a cigarette and seemed to blow a mocking kiss as she withdrew it from her lips.

‘You like girl too?' she asked him as he inhaled the smoke from her lungs. Taylor was on his way back from the bar, his eyes daring Stevenson to poach.

He shook his head and she shrugged. ‘Pity,' she said with honest, whorish candour. ‘You very good-looking man.'

Someone put some music on and one of the Norwegians was dragged on to the tiny dance floor by a giggling Chinese girl. Taylor had just eased himself alongside Sharimah.

Stevenson stood. ‘Would you like to dance?' he asked and then stared at Taylor. The girl looked from one to another and Taylor shrugged. ‘Okay,' he said, his tolerance edged with a touch of sarcasm, ‘I buy the drinks, you dance.'

‘Just one,' said Stevenson placatingly, holding out his hand to Sharimah.

‘Just one.'

They swung into the faintly ridiculous gyrations of the dance, Stevenson awkwardly, his eyes on the body of the girl, while she, automatic in her movements at first, abandoned herself to the music and the inflaming of
Stevenson's passion. Beyond her bare shoulder, he could see Taylor's smouldering eyes devouring Sharimah's figure.

They danced until the last guitar chord slashed the air, leaving them breathless and suddenly self-conscious in the silence.

Stevenson caught Sharimah's elbow and turned her back to the table, but Taylor had gone to relieve himself, and another song, slow and smoochy, crooned lugubriously from the tape recorder somewhere behind the bar. Both the Norwegians, huge blond men, swivelled slowly, the tiny Chinese women engulfed in hugs.

Stevenson slipped his arms round Sharimah's waist and drew her to him. The scent and touch of her overwhelmed his senses. He thought, distantly, of Cathy. Sharimah's face was averted so he pressed closer as they began to sway to the slow beat. Her pelvis thrust forward to meet his, and she turned her face up to him. His tumescence intruded between their contiguous bellies.

‘You want me, tonight?'

He swung her round and found himself facing Taylor. Sharimah sensed some conflict within him and drew back her head. Not thinking he would spurn her, given his obvious urgency, she sought elsewhere for explanation.

‘You married man?'

Stevenson looked down at her, his agony clear on his face.

‘Yes,' he lied, feeling her fall away and himself shrink feebly.

She sighed, and, as if to compound an image of star-crossed lovers, he embraced her tighter. Lust unaccountably gave way to a sudden, overwhelming feeling of tenderness.

They drew apart, holding hands.

‘I'm sorry,' he said.

She shrugged. ‘Okay. Your friend he wants me tonight.' Stevenson nodded. ‘I like you best but I am business girl. Your friend good business, okay?' She squeezed his hand
then let it go and walked towards Taylor who was watching them from the table.

‘Sure,' murmured Stevenson following her, as her buttocks wiggled away from him.

Stevenson stumbled at the top of the gangway. He was not drunk, just a little unsteady, his coordination a touch awry. As he came level with the deck two figures could be seen in the pools of light from the bulkhead lamps. The Tamil security guard greeted him with a respectfully indulgent grin.

‘Good evening, sir.'

Stevenson paused on the gangway table, hauling himself upright before stepping on to the deck. The second man straightened from leaning on the rail and the deck lights high-lit the tight-lipped, malicious smile.

‘Well, well; if it isna our Second Mate, an' pissed out o' his skull an' all!'

Stevenson paused for a moment, glaring at Macgregor, but possessed of sufficient sobriety to hold his tongue; then he plunged through the door into the athwartships alleyway and dragged himself unhappily up to the boat-deck accommodation.

A giggle came out of Rawlings's cabin and the door curtain was suddenly rent aside. A naked girl, her face flushed and laughing, backed out, her arms extended as though restrained. She twisted free with a toss of straw-blonde hair, still giggling, and made to run. She found herself confronting the astonished Stevenson. Both of them stood stock-still, the lights playing across the girl's breasts as they heaved with excitement and exertion. Then she turned and fled in the opposite direction, just as Rawlings, a towel draped discreetly round his paunch, looked out into the alleyway.

‘Dawn? Dawn? Are you all right? Good God, Alex . . . !'

‘She went that way.' Stevenson nodded towards the Captain's end of the alleyway.

‘Oh, shit.'

Rawlings padded barefoot in pursuit. For a moment Stevenson stood, wondering if he had really seen the naked girl, then the intense whispering from the turn in the alleyway and Rawlings's reconnoitring head made him turn away. He let himself into his own cabin. As he shut the door he heard the flap of their feet and the suppressed giggles of the girl.

‘Was that one of your friends?' she asked with the voice of a fallen angel.

During the lonely night watches of the outward passage, Taylor had seen no very good reason for Caroline's fidelity. In his unhappiness her acceptance of his proposal in the first place and their subsequent splicing among the liturgical trappings of the Church of England seemed equally incomprehensible. Perhaps she had changed afterwards; perhaps, after all, she had made a mistake, in which case it was a common enough one.

Had she written even the dullest of letters to meet the ship's arrival at Singapore he might have felt some amelioration of the self-doubt and low self-esteem he so competently buried in his cultivated air of superiority. But Caroline had failed him and his disappointment was so acute he came ashore intent on desperate and immediate solace.

Thus, he rode with his wounded pride silent in the taxi alongside Stevenson whose very words had precipitated the crisis, knowing what he contemplated had its own compensations the instant he caught sight of Sharimah alone at the bar. The girl's beauty made her price unimportant and it pleased Taylor to excite his tormentor, then to cheat Stevenson of her.