S.O.S. (28 page)

‘So sorry about the delay, sir,' she was gushing keenly – beaming fondly at the now quite mollified man at the table. ‘Fellow at the bar was feeling just a touch faint.'

‘Oh yeah? Sorry to hear that. He OK now?'

‘He will be soon, sir. He'll be totally fine. Now – what can I get you?'

*

I'm thinking two things, I suppose. What has mainly muscled its way to the forefront of my mind (well, it would have to have done, really: I'm selfish – yes and so what? My appetites are eating me up) is that soon, very soon – if I have not got these decks and levels all screwed up in my mind – I'll be back to pinning down beneath me this wonderfully uncomplicated (yes – I think that, on balance, is kind) young
American
boy, who is, it thrills me to know, easily of an age to be Stacy's little brother.
He
doesn't know that, of course – nobody seems to realize I'm knocking on forty, which is, I suppose, a blessing (and my disguise). Earl did actually mutter something or other at some hot damp point about having been ‘sedooced' by an older woman (‘I like, Jennifer', he had gone, ‘your matooriddy, yeh?') but would he be quite so sweet if he knew the true extent of the internal ravages of ripeness, here? Well – doesn't matter. He doesn't have to know, does he? Ever. We're just here for each other in the very much
now
 – and soon, well fuck it. He goes one way, I go another – and that, my friend, is that. It happens, doesn't it, in life all the time. It's just that maybe, on this ship, all the customary courtesies and conventions, all the rituals and encounters that form us (the collisions that send us reeling elsewhere), are somehow impacted and condensed, the pappy juice of it so unbelievably concentrated. Everything here, it seems to me, either fleetingly brushes past in a way that is airy and bland to the point of quite vaporous invisibility, or else it shoots you up – so scorching
and bloody intense that it fills you in and takes you over. I mean – quite apart from my rather wet and very warm eagerness to get to Earl's cabin (let's just for now – if I can, if I can – set aside that particular cauldron: let's just have it bubblingly simmer, on that good old back burner), just consider the extraordinary anger that arose in me as a result of that merely irritating and wholly laughable tick that manifests itself in the form of Nobby. And the ferocity with which I met it, what? Head-on? Just stale air, hardly more. Things like Nobby surely cannot matter; and it's a big ship, very: all I have to do is avoid – or, failing that, gently deflect. And now – because of Earl – I can see me easily avoiding with a hungry willingness most things and most other people for days and days and nights.

Which brings me to the other thing: Stacy. I didn't know she liked girls: had no idea that's what she went for. It's not that she
does
that concerns or amazes me (whatever gets you through the night, right?) – no, it's simply the fact that I wasn't
aware
. Because look, with our relationship, I would have said … well, what I suppose I mean to say is that if some well-meaning friend (or even covert enemy) had one time taken me aside and said to me Well tell me, Jennifer (come clean) – what sort of a parent did you turn out to be? Reckon you're a
good
mother, do you then, Jennifer? I would have come back with Oh Good
Christ
, No – no no, poor Stacy, God knows how she survived me. Because I didn't bake. I never made her costumes for all those school plays, you know (well all right – no great shocks there). But I didn't attend the plays either. Not one. Because I didn't know about them. And Stacy would say What do you
mean
you didn't know? Mm? How can you
say
that? I brought the piece of paper home that
said
, didn't I? And it had a tear-off bit at the bottom so's you could get
tickets
, and everything, so what do you
mean
you didn't
know
? And I said … I just gazed at little Stacy quite implacably and said – I know it by heart (still I can hear my indignation) –
Paper
? Piece of
paper
?
I
never saw any piece of paper – what on earth are you
talking
about, Stacy? There
was
no paper: I think you are making it up. Because it was a funny thing – any sort of even semi-official communication, I simply couldn't read it (still can't, still can't). Letter from the Council …
bank
statements, oh my God: never read one of
those
in my entire life on earth – never even opened one. So as soon as I saw Stacy's school sort of crest thing on any bit of paper and the all sorts of, you know –
typing
going on underneath it – well … just couldn't. Not couldn't be
bothered
 – it wasn't an idleness thing, no: I just simply, utterly, physically
couldn't
. You either get this or you don't. And so of course this forced me into defensive mode, which in my case tends to come out as attack. And so
therefore
, you see (and please understand), the school never
printed
such a piece of paper – and
if
they did (which they might have) well then Stacy most certainly never brought it home to me; and if she
did
bring it home (which is a possibility) well then she obviously forgot to show it. To me. So how can you dream of
criticizing
me, actually, for not coming to see your poxy little play when I didn't even know there
was
such a thing?!

So on that level, hopeless. And nor did I read to her stories, as she was tucked up in bed (but on the plus side, here, if ever she asked me a question, I told her no lies). I don't recall there actually was such a thing as ‘bed time', per se. And nor was I great at getting her up. The odd thing is I
cleaned
quite a lot – which yes, I know, is frankly amazing, in the light of just everything else. But I've always had a bit of a thing about that – which I'm sure, oh yes, is no doubt terribly
unhealthy
and symptomatic of some or other dreadful phobia or underlying
denial
… or maybe it's just that I like things clean? (As that old fraud Freud once said – sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, you know?) Well I
do
like things clean – yes I do. But
making
things clean – I like that too: the operation.

So where are we so far? Well, there's poor little Stacy
cooped up with just her bloody awful mother with not much to eat and often late for school (although I do remember getting her there more or less on time on the first morning of half-
term
, on one occasion: well look – was it my fault? Why didn't they
tell
me it was bloody half-term? They could have
written
to me, or something). But everything was
clean
, right? Clean and …
fairly
wholesome. But the point I'm making here is that we
talked
. I could never afford to go out very much (unless some man was both on the go and solvent) and neither of us was ever too great on the television side of things – so we talked. Not dull little Tell Me Everything You Learned At School Today type talks, no no – and nothing very positively educational, or edifying in any way at all, really. I'd just, you know –
say
something, and Stacy'd react to that and then she would come up with some other bit of whatever and I'd put my tuppence worth down on the table, and so we passed the evenings and years.

And the odd boy came round. I didn't enquire. Didn't frankly think it was my place to (because God – I was quick enough to slap her down if ever
my
private life came up for any hint of schoolgirly nose-twitching and more than faintly snotty scrutiny). I didn't pry. Did say once to her Stacy – you're not being a bloody fool, I hope: I mean you are fitted up, right? In some way? And if not, let's Christ's sake get it done, OK? And she just looked at me, wide-eyed – that usual teenage sort of mix: I-cannot-believe-you-actually-
said
-that, gently mingling with a deep-seated unease at the nudged-at intrusion of grossness – all leavened with pity for one so old. So sod it, I thought: I've said my piece, so let her bloody get on with it.

And now this. Well of course it needn't
be
a this – I do understand that. I mean – it was terribly late, and girls
are
very pretty, I do of course see this (although I've never gone down that particular route myself, I have to say – unless you count threesomes). And being on this good ship Lollipop, as
I've already said – it makes one do the oddest things (and I can't, can I, be the only one who feels that?). It's just that I had no idea that any sort of inclination in that direction lay within her. And this makes me feel stupid. Which I really, really hate.

‘Well good after
noon
, there!' was now the noise that grated first and then filled the air. Well, here was one more ‘good afternoon', and so what? All the decks and bars and corridors and staircases rang and throbbed with greetings constantly – largely, I think, so that the felicitator could relentlessly impress upon whoever that he for one, at least, was most certainly having a whale of a time and the time of his life – and now it is up to you, please, to grandly reassure me if you will that all is truly wonderful at your end. (Did you ever see
The Prisoner
? Remember that at all? That weird and endless Sixties TV thing set in that funny little village in Wales? Well I honestly do think sometimes that it's a bit like that here, God help me: everyone seemingly suspended in a state constantly and precisely balanced between a childlike excitement and more or less total sedation: ‘Lovely
day
!' ‘ooh yes –
lovely
day – just another lovely
day
'). So yeh, like I say (hee! Just wait till Earl sees what I'm wearing underneath) … uh, like I say … sorry, completely lost it for just a second, back there – mind on other things. Oh yeh – all the happy-clappy stuff, yeh. Well anyway, look: this particular ‘good after
noon
' – could have been launched by just anyone anywhere (odd, nonetheless, that it has not yet been met by a beatific chorus of practically gaga reciprocation – nearly a full second has already passed, after all). So what do I do? Slow down? Rush on? Or just be deaf and blind?

‘
Well
…' drove on our anonymous compère, ‘
someone's
in a hurry! Fun, I hope! Yes? Fun and games?'

And so she did – had to – pause a bit, this time. Jennifer stalled her headlong and compulsive dash and looked about her briefly for the source of all this garish nuisance.
And now she had found it (oh – that's it, is it?) and it meant to her nothing – absolutely nothing whatever. So –
blink
, do we? Half-smirk tossed over to a passing idiot, bit more blinking and then off very swiftly and away?

‘Stewart's my name,' yodelled happily the blond and orange man before her. ‘Assistant Cruise Director – yeah? So. Having fun? Yes?
Aha
! Just look who's coming: more lovely people having fun!'

And well before Jennifer could even begin to put her mind to whether to curse or flee from all this, Nobby and Aggie were suddenly there, and quite horrible.

‘
Who's
a stranger …?' cooed Aggie in mock admonishment, one finger wagging.

‘We missed you at luncheon,' tacked on Nobby. ‘Missed you – yes indeed.'

Jennifer gazed in wonder at these people. I have roundly insulted each one of them in turn – quite forcefully, I thought (not the
works
, admittedly – but enough, I should have said, for them to have at least received the subtext, here: but not, apparently). Oh God. It's like those horror films – it's just like those horror films, and now I am in one: when the oozing ogre is finally chopped and spattered, a claw flung over there amid signs of a clumsy decapitation, the walls hung at random and liberally with dripping portions of ghoulish giblets – and just when the quiveringly exhausted intended victim is slumping down into a wet and dress-ripped if fevered relief, all the bits start squelchingly regrouping into a we've-been-here-before coalescence and then suddenly the murderous and sag-tongued leer is back in place – and Jesus, off we bloodily go again. It's funny, and not a little annoying, thought Jennifer now, how ill-
prepared
one always finds oneself; I mean to say, had I just thought to bring with me a fucking great
bazooka
, I could blast all of them to hell and pieces (but then they would, wouldn't they? Gang up and reform).

‘I've got to, um – ' she said (and made to).

‘Nice jacket,' said Nobby. Quite simply. And yes – no one here could maybe quite have put their fingers on precisely
why
, but everyone turned towards him, and then just looked (and none more pointedly than Aggie).

‘So
anyway
,' insisted Jennifer, ‘like I say – I really must – ' (and this time she did).

‘Have fun!' Stewart called after her. ‘Have fun! Have fun!'

His seemingly limitless compulsion for saying and saying this could easily have eaten deeply into all their afternoons; maybe just as well, then, that Aggie now had something to say:

‘You never, Nobby – say that about
my
jacket. My clothes. Do you, Nobby?'

‘Don't I, love?'

Stewart had been on, hey – how many cruises, now? He well knew the time to duck and recede.

‘See you good people!' was his parting shot; and quite a wave went with it. Does anyone, it suddenly struck him, actually ever hear a bloody word I say?

Aggie was maybe regarding his practised stroll. ‘Not
ever
, far as I can recall …' she said, quite lightly.