S.O.S. (21 page)

Now it's like I'm climbing up a well-greased chute – on my hands and knees: I gotta be. My insides is all, like, outside of me – I'm clambering forward and I'm rolling around. It was just when I fell right over, there, that I saw – oh, way in back of us – a broad and just hardly glowing band of light from someways over us. What's this slimy thing I'm feeling? It's a hand, it's her hand – and I turn away and see her face and her lips are real twisted up with the strain of hollering out something right at me, and I ain't even hearing one single word: I lie here, heavy and wet and filled with booming sound and the movement all around of me. She's hauling me up and I'm right behind her; jammed up real tight she is, now, right up into the probing point of this fucking great ship and I'm rammed up tight in back of her and now her arms are splayed right out wide again and she looks back at me and all I can see in that tangle of sea-whipped hair and her drenched and glistening face is the hit of sex as bright as fire in each of her eyes and I know I can't hear her but she's screaming at me, yeah, just one word, again and again:
Titanic
 – I know that for sure, and I'm right there with her – really going for it now, I guess I truly am, and hot through the killing cold with a coiled up excitement and I'm tugging and ripping at her bunched up sodden goddam clothes but I'm numb and like useless and the flesh of hers I'm clutching, I don't even know which
part
of her it is, but it is cold, so cold – as cold as dead women maybe must be. But our spirits are fucking and refucking hard – like the crashing all around of me is making me rattle, and if brains can come, well then I guess ours have peaked and shot their load, now – and like some kinda shuddering jelly subsided back into a white hot state of shock, now all froze up.

Arsem.

*

‘Come along, Nobby,' Aggie chided gently. ‘It's so
late
. You and your Sylvie! Honestly – sometimes I wonder if you notice me at all.'

‘Daft
, love …' whispered Nobby – hugging his knees as he sat on the floor of their cabin, captivated as ever by the flickering vision before him.

‘I know you love it, Nobby, but you can't watch it for the whole of the
night
, can you? It's what we agreed last time.'

Nobby looked over to her – all snug in bed, she was (curls pressed hard and flattened between a battery of kirby-grips, a scaled-down trawling net protecting the whole like a porous helmet and stoutly defying any stray wisp to even so much as think about breaking for the border). But even as he smiled and reassured her – ‘You're right, you're dead right there, my Captain Honeybunch' – even as he said that, his eyes were very surely responding to the irresistible lure, and as they were dragged away and back to the television screen, his head and shoulders could do little but fall in with it.

Aggie sighed. He always
said
early to Bedfordshire –
always
said
it, yes, but just look at him. Nearly two-thirty in the morning it was, now – but what could she do? That man of mine –
honestly
! It's like one of those, what are they? Ménage, is it? When there are three of you? Him and me and Sylvie – always has been. I don't really
mind
, of course – understand completely. But we're on board, aren't we? We can hardly be closer to her than on
board
, for goodness sake … I mean –
can
we? But my Nobby – he's just so utterly fascinated by the sight of her – us – ploughing on through the great ocean. He wants to witness each white breaking wave, and every up and down. He tried to explain it to me, one time. Said it was a bit like dancing with her, all through the night and on until dawn. Which I thought at the time was very poetic, and I told him so, and that seemed to please him. But enough is enough is what I say (you have to know where to draw the line). This time of night, you want to be all tucked up (shipshape, and Bristol fashion – Nobby'll tell you) so's to be ready for morning and another blissy day. And he
knows
this, Nobby – he understands it well; it's just that when there's no other distraction (and me, no – I don't really compete) well then all he's interested in is watching our progress: steady as she goes, and half speed ahead.

Last time we were on board, I caught him making enquiries to Stewart … do you know Stewart? Assistant Cruise Director? Lovely man – can't do enough for you. Anyway, there was Nobby, bold as you like, saying to Stewart: The
video
, yes? The video that you make from the bridge, are you with me? And as Stewart was nodding, he goes: Any chance of buying a copy, maybe? And Stewart sort of gave him a look – and who can really blame him? But
Nobby
, he started explaining – it's about a hundred and thirty hours long …! And Nobby (his eyes were so huge: excited, to my mind) just said Yes, So – What's Your Point, Exactly? There: that's my Nobby for you. And I must say that even if the video had been forthcoming, I would have
had to put my foot down. I mean, back at home, what would be my chances of him slipping down the shops or fetching my prescription or cashing the Giro? Let alone seeing to the gate or taking the car in. No no no – all it would have been is this endless, silent film – twenty-four hours a day: because that's what it is with real-life footage, of course: twenty-four hours, each and every day.

‘We haven't,' pouted Aggie now, ‘even finished our quiz. Have we, Nobby, hm? We always do five questions each, Nobby, before we go to dreamland. You know that. It's a tradition. Turn it off now, Nobby – hm? Ask me another question.'

Nobby nodded; didn't stop watching, though.

‘Right, then,' he said. ‘Name me one great female writer who has voyaged on this great and fine ship of ours.'

Aggie smiled quite girlishly as she set about the business of encouraging her brow to go through its gamut of furrows: she
knew
this one.

‘Marjorie Proops,' she eventually released.

‘Correct, Captain Honeybunch.'

‘Turn off the telly, Nobby. Please? Ask me another.'

‘In a minute, love. In a minute. Name me a comedian who has travelled on Sylvie from Southampton to New York.' And then he added on, more softly, ‘Blimey … that's very
funny
… I thought I saw … no. No.'

‘Dickie Henderson, Nobby,' Aggie came back brightly. ‘What, Nobby? What did you see?'

‘Mm? Oh nothing. Reckon it was shadows. You said Dickie Henderson
last
time.'

‘Did I? Oh. All right, then. Paul Daniels.'

‘Is Paul Daniels classed as a comedian? Here – what's all this …?'

‘Well he makes
me
laugh … what are you on about, Nobby?'

‘Can't quite make it out … OK, Aggie: last question. Give me a prominent Royal who has made the crossing.'

‘Easy,' beamed Aggie. ‘Queen Mother.'

‘Ah! Alas
no
, my Captain! The dear Queen Mother has
visited
the ship, toured her, yes – but never actually travelled. What a
shame
, Aggie: you nearly made a clean sweep, there.'

Aggie was biting her lip, really quite vexed with herself.

‘Blow. I
knew
that. Oh blow. I
knew
that… but ‘Clean Sweep', yes? Yes, Nobby?
Nautical
term. Do I get a point if I tell you? A ‘clean sweep' is when a truly mountainous sea sweeps everything off the deck – sometimes even the masts and things. Am I right, Nobby? Nobby? I am, aren't I? Do I get a point? Nobby …? Why aren't you…? What
is
it, Nobby?'

Nobby was right up close to the screen, now, his eyes screwed narrow with concentration.

‘Just as well there ain't no ‘clean sweep' tonight… else our young friends here would have truly had it…'

Aggie was out of bed, and beside him.

‘Goodness – it
is
, isn't it…?
People
 – right up at the bows!'

Nobby just stared.

‘But Nobby they
can't
be, can they? I mean – it's not
allowed
. Everyone knows that – it's just not
allowed
. There's a
sign
, and everything … what on earth do you suppose they're doing? Must be absolutely
freezing.'

‘What they are doing, looks like,' said Nobby – very slowly, and with a stab at the gravitas he judged it deserved – ‘is making the beast with two backs.'

And in the silence, Aggie peered again.

‘Nautical
term, is that, Nobby?'

And Nobby, who gazed on, said No. No, Aggie. It isn't.

*

Jennifer, now, had found the right deck. It seemed to be about half a mile further down from the opulence of Earl's (each time she skittered quite playfully down yet another broad and leather-nosed carpeted staircase, she expected to encounter a sort of service lift, maybe, or just a dumb waiter connecting her directly with the sea bed beneath them). The increasingly sullen droning of the ship as Jennifer went on down, lower and lower, served to point up and highlight the practically tangible silence: how could so vast a crock, chock-full of people, appear to be so utterly void?

I feel, thought Jennifer, as she tried to walk straight the length of this joke of a corridor (the floor is moving, fairly distinctly, but also I'm still really quite a lot drunk) … I feel, yes – no, I don't
feel
: feel is not what I mean. I
think
, yes – I think this looks like one of those childish essays in perspective we all did – when all your railway lines vanished to a point, and then you started in on the telegraph poles. I feel (
now
I'm feeling) … mmm, just fine. Totally charged, and thoroughly fine. Felt close to death, though, if I'm honest, by the time we, Christ, finally reached the door of Earl's cabin. We didn't meet a single soul along the way, which was really just as well because Jesus only
knows
what in God's name we could have looked like. Until I got into the warm, I didn't really realize how thoroughly chilled I had been; it was just like they say – right to the
bone
, you know? I really thought those bones of mine had actually turned blue, and throughout my veins were skulking just icicles, barely dripping. And Earl! Oh God – poor bloody Earl! His clothes were all soaked and with big black patches of gunk all over them, some reason or another (oh yeh – when he was rolling around on the deck, I suppose, mm, it must have been), and the first thing he did was crouch down to this really quite smart little fridge he's got there and break open a couple of those very dinky bottles of Scotch, or something – and the shock of
that
lot suddenly charging all through me was, oh God – pretty much
electrifying
, in a consequently rather sag-making sort of a way. Then he started running a really hot shower – twisting at the big chrome taps as if he truly loathed them – and just that first
hit of thick fug felt good to me, very. And I adored the way that Earl was peeling off his wet and stinking clothes, neither shyly nor posing, and just stepped forward into the steam and stood there with his back towards me, letting all those blazing needles sting him, and then course on down the gleaming length of all his planes and flanks in a languid, yes, and streaming wash. And then he turned to me, full at me, and smiled his fabulous boyish and
American
smile and I took off all of my stuff and joined him there, yes – my arms just resting high up on his shoulders, my eyelids batting madly so that I could see him through the jets of warmth that were urging us back into human again – first turning us rosy, then making us hot.

The way he looked at me (he hurled back this sopping rag of his hair with one strong and impatient dash of his hand) – it was, I think, as if to say – and I can just hear him saying it – Jesus Aitch
Christ
: this dumb and crazy English broad – what is she? Like,
nuts
? But I was laughing, now – practically scalded and slitheringly so completely drenched as to be more or less made up of just rubber and liquid, and I pressed my face right up close to his totally smooth and hairless chest and my twisted mess of hair became jaggedly snagged on just that faint and glowing shadow of new dawn stubble that traced his jaw and throat – and Earl, now (look!) had on those lopsided and over-easy signs of giving way to not just it but me, and his dead straight white teeth looked unreal as he too, under the still crashing rush of powerful hits of blood-hot water, settled down to a round of comfortable comedy, now that he was safely out, and no longer part of the joke. I felt I could very soon, one way or another, pretty much drown – so I reached out for the wrong tap and half-heartedly fought with it (and so aware, now, that both of his hands held on to me and were lifting up my wet and deadweight breasts) and then latched on to another and despite the weakness in my slippery fingers, this steaming Niagara just cut right off so completely and suddenly
that had we not both just been standing there, dripping loudly amid this new and sauna silence, it might never have been dashing all over us at all. Steam rose, though. And he was jutting right out at me. Which I always love.

‘Do you know,' I heard myself gasping (it was like retraining in speech, for the first time in ages: a strange and novel patois), ‘that tonight, this very night, God knows how long ago, the
Titanic
went down?'

Earl shook his head, and bent down to kiss me. I think the shock of all that hot fullness (four plump lips) went through both of us (I felt our jolt).

‘And there we were,' I was only whispering now (his hands were moving around me, and mine had latched on tight), ‘right up there, making like the way they did in the – yeah? Movie.' It sounded so stupid – so terribly juvenile, and utterly stupid. Which was just so great I, oh – can't tell you. ‘Before it went down.'