S.O.S. (22 page)

And then I did. Went down. It was a kind of homage to very many things, it seemed at the time: it felt sacrificial, as well as just wonderful and also – do I actually mean fulfilling? After, all over the bed, we rolled and tussled like two kids vying for custody of some fleeting thing that was already no longer the point. I did not at all mind (it's something I miss) Earl coming so quickly and simply all over me: it's urgency, isn't it? It's that that's so very exciting.

And now, it seems years ago (although I'm wrapped, still, in its warmth and glow) and I haven't yet stopped tramping the length of this trick corridor – but I reckon if I've got the numbers right at all in my head, it must be that bay just up there, our cabin, about three up, or four, just on the left. But that slight flurry, there? Did I glimpse that? Or is this strange dull light (and now the insistent press of unignorable weariness) tripping me up? Looked like – and I know it couldn't really have been (Christ – it's practically
dawn
) – but it looked like, it did, it really did look like the toss of Stacy's hair, and Jennifer thought she was hearing that one single exhalation of hers that could signal, oh – just anything, really, from petulance to contentment.

And something made Jennifer slow, now: take it easy. She backed into one of the bays just here to the right, and she was glancing obliquely over. And look no, she hadn't been wrong – there was Stacy, head to one side, her black eyes lit with darkness. And from the thrown-aside tangle of her pale and streaky hair, there drew away briefly another head which now came back in – and this time the embrace was warm, the kiss more lingering. A sort of rustling, then, and some very low whispers. A slight flurry – and Stacy was away and letting herself into her cabin, and closing the door behind her, softly. Jennifer stood still, as if she had been told to count to a hundred – judging, now, the right time to emerge and just barely knock on the door so very very quietly as being maybe not until the retreating and really quite swaggering invader had diminished into near invisibility, silently covering the length of the corridor.

And so not until Suki had finally reached the end of the long, long passage and was stabbing at the elevator button did Jennifer break cover from her, oh dear God –
shouldn't
have been hiding place, really, should it? And Suki was thinking this: Mm, she was thinking – mm, mm. That I liked. That I could get with. This could be not just cool but, like –
different?
And as the elevator hissed her right back up to where she belonged, she was also thinking this: Gee – what am I? A
klutz?
I, like –
duh
! – thought they were
sisters
, those two? What planet am I on? I guess they're one baby of a lot closer than
that
 – know what I'm saying? So I reckon what it is I got to be here is, maybe, real
careful?

Arsem.

*

A ribbon of bright crimson light was quite suddenly splattered across the misty glass of the single porthole in his small
and cluttered office, and it made Stewart wince and screw up his eyes and then tear them away from it.

Dawn again, then – and still I'm sat here. It's not, if I'm honest, thatthere's so much on my plate I can never get away, no no – I couldn't put my hand on my heart and claim that. But it's so … my job, it's sort of a twenty-four-hour thing, even when there's nothing on the face of it to actually, uh – do. Also, where I sleep (the shelf upon which my superiors see fit to install me) – well, it's even less attractive than being surrounded by all this party stuff, day and night, if you want the truth. And talking of parties (oh God oh God) – might as well screw back on my Assistant Cruise Director's head, and make an early start on sorting out the day.

First up, I've got to splash around all the posters for the Talent Contest, Thursday. I know. Oh God – don't
tell
me: I
know
. But what can you do? It's something the regulars demand, don't ask me why. It's all pretty much self-defeating, if you want to know my take on the matter. The reason (oh Christ – just remembered: got to get the vegetarian orders down to the kitchens for the Ball tonight – forget that, and I'd really get it in the neck). Yes … now where was I …? Oh yeh – Talent Contest. No – see, it's totally crazy, really, because the reason all the old-timers, the
Transylvania
mafia, insist it goes on is so's that on every single bloody trip they can reprise their tried and tested (much loved? Hah!) sodding
routine
 – but the mad part is that the regulars will have seen and heard it, seen and heard it a
thousand
times – and it's always someone like that Welsh thing, what is she, Mrs Williams who wins it anyway (or whoever else is mangling a Shirley Bassey number on that particular evening, stringy old arms stretched out and beseeching from within some stupid spangly dress; God – sometimes women can come so very close to disgusting me). Then there'll be some drunk old fart whose misguided and very wrong friends have assured him repeatedly that he's a
card
, a
natural
(‘Tell you, son – ready wit like yours,
you just can't lose'). So he'll lean on a microphone stand and come out with all these ancient bloody gags and intersperse them with stuff like Anyone in tonight from Yorkshire (and there always is)? Or Texas (and oh God yes – there always is)? And then he'll say
Pity
…! And everyone roars. They do. I know, I know – but they
do
, I tell you – and none more than all the bloody losers from Yorkshire and Texas. Mystery, I tell you. These cruises (and I should know) – they're weird.

Give it an hour, and then maybe get some breakfast. I love my food, you know. Love it too much. Got to watch the figure. Even as it is, I'll never have my blazer undone, you know. Ooh no – that would never do (too much stuff around the waistband). And yes, I admit it – I did have to get a slightly larger blazer, this year (just slightly – nothing dramatic) – but there: what can you do? This whole bloody ship is built around food and drink and parties and snacks and cocktails and tea and dinner and elevenses and light lunches and heavy lunches and yes, like I say – breakfast. Maybe just have the one sausage.

So what else? Balloons. Balloons, yes. About a hundred and fifty red, white and blue balloons to be blown up for the Viva America Ball tonight. But surely, you might be thinking, you have someone to do that sort of thing? Well no I
don't
, as it happens, no. The Cruise Director –
he
has someone to do this sort of thing, you see – oh yes:
me
. The Assistant – plain enough? Well never mind, you could go now – you've got a pump, so it won't be too bad. Well please allow me to correct you on that score. We
had
a pump, oh yes sure: when we first set sail in about the sixteenth bloody century we had pumps coming out of our
ears
 – but now? You just try and lay your hands on one, mate. Gone, vanished – every man jack of them. And yes I know – how can you lose about half-a-dozen balloon pumps? Particularly in the light of the truth that it is in this office and this office only that bloody balloons get fucking
pumped
. But there it is – another of the mysteries that is part and parcel of life afloat: it is not for me to question why. No – but it
is
for me to get my laughing gear around the nozzles of a hundred and fifty bleeding balloons so that all can be bright and colonial for the Viva America Ball. And then I drape the drapes. And then I unfold my life-size cut-outs of Marilyn and Elvis and Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy – the Jameses Dean and Cagney, Humphrey Bogart (typical sort of crowd you might expect to run into at any sort of get-together, really), and then what with the band striking up Dixie and Gershwin and then a bit later those Beach Buggering Boys, all will be seen to be totally
authentic
.

And now Stewart was gently smoothing into his face and jowls a carefully judged top-up of his Clarins bronzing gel (I find I only have to shave, now, every other day, if that: I don't know why this is). And then he upended a packet of balloons all over his desk and fingered one gingerly before pushing them all aside (oh God in heaven
no
 – not before breakfast) and then he stood up and strode the two paces which were all it took to get him to the far wall of his office, thinking Well at least I can unfold the cut-outs (make that early start). And so he bent to his task, as the still golden dawn now flooded the space and rendered his newly tanned cheeks not just tangerine, but practically radioactive. First up is, what have we here? Elvis Presley. He creaked open the fold at the waist, and then fooled around at the back, fumbling for Flap A which slotted quite neatly, all being well, into, yeh – Slot B, and then there was this sort of easel-type stand thing that you pulled out and fitted in … and there: hey presto. One two-dimensional guitar-toting King of Rock 'n' Roll, his lips gently sneering.

Stewart turned away – and then all of a sudden, caught up in a rush of hot flushing, he found himself taking it
personally
. He wheeled right back to Elvis, and smashed him in the face.

 

The sun filtered down through a vertical lattice, and the pattern it was making across the big green baize table immediately put Marianne in mind of the lawn, the lovely lawn, at the old house. A long-ago but potent memory – she could only have been, oh – six or so, maybe even a little bit younger, when they had left that place. She remembered her mother saying to her so sadly how terribly
happy
she was, and how they all now would be, because the new house, the place they were going to right this very minute (and all the familiar things which Marianne had maybe assumed had just grown out from the ground they stood on – all these bits of furniture, the ornaments and immutable pictures, even the big old clock that forever said ten to seven – they were all piled up in a van outside) – was, you see, so very much better than
this
old house in just, oh – every single way you can think of. My room smelled different, now that it was empty – and all the others did too; maybe the smells were coming with us (wrapped in corrugated, and stacked in the van?).

It was later, many years later, that Marianne had first overheard Nicole cursing her husband (my Dad, my Dad) to hell, to hell: Why in God's name didn't I leave you
then
?!
Then
is when I should have gone: when you dragged us all away from our beautiful big house and crammed us all into
this
hole.
Upwards
, David – that is the direction our lives were meant to be taking: why is it always that you're dragging us
down
? Marianne had been snipping at herbs on their little back patio at the time of the rant, and she remembered then as she remembered now the broad and fresh and deep green lawn at the old house that had stretched on for what seemed like just miles and miles – and all the wonderful masses of conker trees at the end (she used to bring to
school just bagfuls of the things, and swap them for chews – and once a Parker propelling pencil which Nicole had forced her to take back, and this had saddened Marianne, although she still let the girl keep all of the mahogany conkers). And the warmth of the summer sun, now – the whole dazzle of the enormous window and the striping of the baize, switched on the light of the lawn at the old house, the good house, the gone house (and no, the smells had not come with us – but nor, oddly, did we leave them behind).

I've really had the most wonderful morning – and even now it's only just after ten. I heard someone or other last night in the restaurant saying that truly the best time if you want to go up high on deck is very first thing in the morning: the air is simply stunning (so the woman was assuring just anyone in earshot) – but don't be fooled by the blazing of the sun: you'll need a coat and if you're anything like me, a headscarf as well or your hair, oh my God, it just frizzes up like anything. So I got up about seven, I think – slept very well (super bed); had a shower, and then I thought I'd better phone Mum.
No
, dear, Nicole had sighingly assured her – I wasn't asleep: I have been simply
reposing
, and contemplating getting up soon. OK Mum – well look, I'm going up on deck, right: do you fancy that idea? Coming along? Well it rather
depends
, Marianne, ventured Nicole with caution – when exactly are you thinking of going?

‘Well – sort of now, really. Just grab a coat.'

‘
Now
? What – you mean now as in now this
minute
, now? Oh
no
, Marianne – don't be so silly. I couldn't possibly. I've got all my
creams
to do, haven't I? I haven't even thought about what to
wear
…'

Not true, thought Marianne: she will have given a huge amount of thought as to what particular outfit should kick off the day – it's just that she hadn't
decided
. And that could take hours. And sometimes – even when she
had
decided, even as she was wearing the thing and on the point of
setting off, Nicole would then decide that in fact
No
, not this: this had been the wrong decision. And it would not be so simple an operation as slipping off Offending Garment One and buttoning herself into Absolutely Perfect Garment Two, oh no, because the tights wouldn't be at all right, you see, and nor the shoes – and plus I've now got to go through the business of transferring everything from this black and superbly understated shoulder bag (rather chic, I think) and into this very much smaller blue and quilted option which although I think you'll agree is terribly smart, and all the rest of it, can never quite accommodate all the bits and bobs I need (unless you cram it obscenely), and it always seems to be my reading glasses that get left out in the end and then it makes menus a total impossibility – so you do understand how much
time
it all takes, don't you my dear? You are, after all, a
woman
now, Marianne: I'm surprised you don't see it.