S.O.S. (10 page)

‘
Daft
, Rollo …'

‘Oh no they
didn't
, though, did they? Cos we saw them all at the poxy little safety drill with orange great plastic things stuck up around their bloody ears. I didn't wear mine.'

‘You did when that steward person or whatever he was
told
you to, though, didn't you? You went all red.'

‘Oh shuttup, Mar, can't you? Took it off again after, though.'

‘It was pretty funny, actually – all that. Everyone standing around with a lifejacket and listening to what to do if the ship went down … God, we'd only just got
on
it …' And here Marianne let out a brief and snorting half-laugh which she sort of covered up with three of her fingers, as another aspect struck her. ‘And
then
 – do you remember? Did you hear him, Rollo? After they'd told us all what to do if faced with
drowning
, right – he then said, all po-faced – ' and at this point Marianne had to sit up straight and drag down the corners of her mouth into an approximation of a humourless official, and her voice husked up and clouded over in tune with it all: ‘ ‘And now – a word about
fire
…' Jesus! Fire and water – one of them'll get us, that's for sure. What do you prefer, Rollo? You going to burn or sink?'

Rollo had the goodness to smirk.

‘D'you want another of these? Barman's pushed off now.'

‘I think I'll just have a Diet Coke. Where's Dad? Do you think he's got lost?'

‘He'll find us. We're in a
pub
, aren't we? He could find it blindfold. Unless he's been waylaid by some
other
bar, of course, in which case we'll have to go and haul him out at midnight.'

‘Oh don't be so
mean
, Rollo. You're always going on about Dad.' And in an effort to head him off at the pass (because he did, you know – go on and on about Dad, Rollo, all the time, all the time – and once he'd started he'd never stop): ‘But the
ship
, Rollo – that's what I was saying. It's not like in all those old movies, is it? When you see all the ballrooms and chandeliers and columns and stuff on those world cruises and things. Maybe I'm just thinking of
Titanic
.'

‘Oh Christ don't mention the word
Titanic
. Did you hear all those little kids on the stairs just after the drill thing? Oh look, Mar – bloke's back: Coke, yeah? Yeah, um – nother Budweiser and a Diet Coke, please.'

‘Ice in the Coke?' asked Sammy. ‘Can I get you some nuts, or something?'

‘Yeh, ice,' said Marianne. ‘That Diet? Yeh? Great. I don't want nuts – you want nuts, Rollo?'

‘I'm bloody
starving
 – if I start in on the nuts I'll never stop. When's dinner round here? Yeh – let's have some nuts.'

Sammy smiled as he poured the beer deftly into the glass – just slanted at the angle he had been told and told to slant the damn thing.

‘It's
always
dinner time on the
Transylvania
. People only stop eating to come in places like this and start drinking.'

‘Oh
God
…' groaned Rollo. ‘Is that
really
all there is to do? I mean Jesus, Mar – that's a thought, you know. It's nearly a
week
we're on this thing. What in hell are we supposed to
do
?'

‘There's a kind of nightclub,' volunteered Sammy. ‘Regatta Club, it's called – other end of this deck: down there, and keep going.'

‘
Regatta
Club!' burst out Rollo, with true deep loathing. ‘Regatta Club –
Christ
. What sort of crap happens there?'

‘Some people like it. There's a band on in the early part of the evening, pretty sure. I've never actually been, if I'm honest – I'm always stuck here. And there's a deejay. Strobe lights. Not too bad.'

‘
Yeah
…' intoned Rollo, with real and heartfelt scorn. ‘A groovy popster deejay spinning all our fab and fave, oh Christ –
platters
by Abba and Ricky Martin and the Spice Girls – and that Doo-Wah-bloody-
Diddy
thing …!'

Sammy laughed at that out loud. ‘That's pretty much exactly what Jilly said! She works here – behind the bar. She hates all that stuff.'

‘Oh look!' said Marianne suddenly. ‘There's Dad. Can he see us? I don't think he can see us. Dad! Dad! Oh God look at him – he's going the wrong way. Dad!
Dad
! Over here!'

Rollo said to Sammy, ‘Who's this Jilly, then?'

‘She's due on in five minutes. She's actually my, sort of – you know: girlfriend sort of thing.'

‘Oh,' said Rollo. ‘Right.'

Marianne touched his arm. ‘It's OK – he's seen us. He's coming over. Come on, Dad! What took you so long? What
kids
, Rollo? What kids were you talking about?'

‘
Christ
,' growled David, as he yanked out a stool and dumped himself up on to it. ‘Don't ask. Like a bloody maze, this place.'

‘Didn't you hear them?' piped up Rollo. ‘All those kids running up and down the staircase.'

‘Like a bloody
warren
…' huffed David. ‘Grouse, please – large one, touch of water, no ice. Good.'

‘They kept on going – ' and Rollo opened wide his eyes and constricted his throat and forced it now to cope with the coming falsetto – ‘It's like the
Titanic
! It's just like the
Titanic
! Christ – you should've seen everyone's
faces
…'

‘But that's just my
point
,' pouted out Marianne. ‘It's
not
, is it? Do
you
see what I mean, Dad? It just
isn't
, is it?'

‘Oh Christ,' moaned Rollo. ‘Here we bloody go again.'

‘It's not what, love?' asked David – rather more kindly now that the first hit of Grouse had warmed his mouth and then rushed down him.

‘Oh, sort of …' And Marianne rolled her eyes and flipped her fingers as her lips were left to flutter around what might well prove to be the mot juste. No: didn't. ‘
Grand
, if you see what I mean …?'

‘
Pretty
bloody grand …' grunted David.

And Rollo glanced round as a new voice now jumped in:

‘Hi, everyone. My name is Jilly, and I shall be your barmaid for the evening. Happy for the moment? Get you something?'

‘OK for now,' said Rollo (and I maybe did, did I, come out with it just a touch too quickly? Yeh – and I think I must've sounded like a nerd).

‘
No
, Daddy – you don't see what I
mean
,' Marianne was persisting. ‘I mean it's
big
, of course it is. Yes? It's
big
?'

‘Well spotted,' said Rollo, drily.

‘Shuttup, Rollo – I'm not talking to you. But look, Dad – look around you: it's not at all in any way
grand
…'

‘Mm,' nodded David. ‘I sort of see.' Yes – I
sort
of see: I
sort
of see a lot of things, and I so don't care about practically bloody all of them. ‘Another large Grouse, please, Jilly. You kids all right? Yup? OK. Just the Grouse, then.'

‘When do we
eat
?' went Rollo – smiling briefly in Jilly's direction because he thought he maybe half caught a glimpse, there, of her briefly smiling at him – but of
course
(he now saw) it wasn't that at all, was it? Oh God how
embarrassing
. All it was was a polite and simple acknowledgement of Dad having ordered a drink – that she had taken in the words and their meaning and would now turn around and jam the glass against the optic (as, indeed, she now was doing. Mm. She's got a lovely arse on her, look at it. Mm).

‘Up to your mother,' sighed David. ‘She's changing. I said to her where we'd be. Yeh – pretty hungry, actually.'

Yes indeed: up to your mother. I don't, you know, say this with any regret or sense of belittlement, not any more I don't. There was once a time, of course – way back – when I would breed and then feed deep resentment for anything at all that could be up to your mother because, yes, that's partly me – but also my generation, you see: I'm the man, is how the thinking goes, and so it's very much up to me. But that was then – oh, so much
then
. Now, well – now I'm all for anything whatever being up to your mother or, failing that, anyone else at all who's passing. Which maybe, at work, is beginning to show: never ever put myself forward, you see – don't want to be responsible for anything, do I, because then what it is, what it becomes is my responsibility, doesn't it? And that is not at all what I want, because in truth – if I really am about to come clean, here – I'm not actually a responsible person. Not any longer. I am responsible for nothing, and that is the way I need it to be. All it really is, I suppose, is that sometimes when one thing
or another fairly naturally occurs and I just happen to be around, yes? Well, if that thing, that thing – whatever – that has just occurred, is generally perceived to be
good
, to be
positive
, and if such a result is attributed (almost always misguidedly – all I do is nothing, now) to, um –
me
, well – well then, fine (oh good). But if people are pointing the finger – if what they are actually saying is Oh Dear Me: here is a
bad
thing … and further, if such a result is attributed (almost always misguidedly – all I do is nothing, now) to, um –
me
, well – well then, shame (too bad).

Anyway, anyway … as soon as your mother, as I say, has got changed (not changed out of the outfit she finally elected to wear for the travelling down here, you understand – oh good Lord no. That particular outfit was discarded within minutes of entering the cabin in favour of some sort of wide-legged and not unshiny trousers, maybe pantaloon sort of efforts – suitable, she said, for lounging in one's berth; yes really – she truly did say that). But now that berth-lounging is out and Captain-meeting followed by Duchess Grill dining are next on the agenda, so does Nicole, your mother, find herself hanging up with care the Pierrot or Harlequin number, and easing herself with yet more of that very idiosyncratic care of hers (she has care to spare, Nicole – she is concealed from view from behind a scaffolding of care, it sometimes seems, though there's none of it there for me) … easing herself, as I say, into whatever svelte and chic and just-so thing she deludedly imagines to be eye-catchingly correct for shaking hands with a glorified bloody sailor (who will smile, incline his head, and fail to catch her name). This is, of course, always assuming – and it is seldom wise, with Nicole, to even contemplate assumptions – that she has not by now got firmly in her mind that Captain-meeting and Duchess Grill-dining are not two events so easily encompassed by just the one single costume. In which case – and it seems, as I mull it over, increasingly likely – she will be back down again to number
One Deck, changing the whole ensemble just one more time (maybe, in the interim for thought, slipping back on the, now I think of it, outright glossy and clownish apparel that she very determinedly deems so fit for these singular if plenteous berth-lounging moments).

So, Rollo, in answer to your question – simply put and deeply felt – When Do We Eat, the honest answer is Christ alone knows, right? An answer neatly dodged but at the same time well summed up by my telling you straight that it's up to your mother. I said to her where we'd be. But, when we encounter, she will quite surely not agree with this. She will be unshakeable in her absolute knowledge that where I said, in fact, we'd be was somewhere else entirely, and to any suggestion that there is maybe here the merest shadow of a case for arguing that this can't – can it, actually, Nicole? – be wholly true as Rollo, you see, as well as Marianne and myself have somehow managed to congregate in the precise and purported bloody fucking spot where I said we'd be, well … in response to any of that Nicole will merely, I fear, dismiss the two children's limited understanding on the grounds that they are, the both of them, no more than children, while my own woodenly put and futile protestations will be swept away, and then ritually atomized. Why? On account of I'm not
responsible
. And here, of course, she has a point.

‘What are you thinking about, Daddy? Have you seen? Rollo seems to have made a new
friend
. How terribly
fond
.'

David heard these words from his little girl (who, going by the tone, was less than pleased about this
friend
, did she say, of Rollo's: siblings, he had observed, could be like that) and by way of reply he smiled quite distantly and touched her hand. And then he said:

‘I was just thinking, as I said, that I'm actually pretty, you know – hungry, sort of. Yes – they do seem to be getting on rather well, don't they?'

Yes they do. Just take one look at him. Chatting away and
laughing with that very pretty bargirl. And what do I feel about that? Do I feel like a proud father – one who has raised his son to man's estate, and now gazes fondly at these early and crackling first steps in the endless dance? No I fucking well don't. I feel envy. Raw and mean and bloody
envy
(pure and simple – not, of course, that it could ever be either).

‘Daddy – can we wait for Mummy at a table? These stools are just murder.' And as David lowered his eyes in acquiescence to that (along with just anything else that might later occur to her) and prepared to move away from the bar, Marianne suddenly clutched his arm just above the elbow, and was whispering earnestly into his ear: ‘Look – see him? Just there, Daddy. That's the weird bloke from when we were boarding. I think he must be terribly lonely, or something, poor sod.'