S.O.S. (30 page)

And what's this now? Ah – it's the Pat girl talking. I really do think I have to make my excuses very shortly, but I don't after all wish to appear in any way rude, so I'll just hear out what it is she has to say: she is maybe going to tell us once more how she is feeling – how did she put it? ‘A bit not right' – not (she might then go on to qualify yet once again) exactly
ill
, or anything, but just a bit … you know.

‘Doesn't anyone else feel it, then? The movement? It can't
just
be me, can it?' asked Pat of the company, while lowering her cup (the tea was cold: she had tried to drink it often).

‘Waaaaall …' drawled Charlene (Nicole felt rather sure that this could well be ushering in a further round of own-brand
opining
, here). ‘Tell you truth, Patty – I been on this tub so dang long, I can't hardly remember it goes no other way. Maybe we get to New York and
then
I got trouble, huh?'

Julie was nodding, which involved a fair deal of wattle tremor, which Nicole would frankly prefer not to have to witness at quite such close quarters, thank you.

‘Yeh well, Patty,' she trembled. ‘My case – I can't barely stand. God's truth. Partly I'm old, partly it's dry martinis. So what do I care? Tonight at the ball, some guy who's paid to, he makes like he's dancing with me, yeh? And all I do is stand on his shoes and, like – hey, let
him
do the walking's what I'm saying.'

Pat sort of smiled at that. Nice smile, it occurred to Nicole. In fact (despite all the ghastly make-up) if she didn't look quite so palely green, this Pat person might really transform into quite an elegant creature, with a bit of work. I mean, perfectly hideous
clothes
, of course (too short, too tight, too cheap) – but her legs are good; figure generally. And I quite like what she's trying to do with her hair. What can she be? Mid-thirties?

‘Well
last
night,' wavered Pat, ‘after we set sail, yes? I just
couldn't get used to it. I mean I know the sea's not
rough
, or anything, it's just that sort of very slight sideways see-saw movement. I mean I'm OK like now, when I'm sitting down – but as soon as I get up and start to move about, well … This is actually more or less the first time I've had the nerve to leave my cabin. I'm not
ill
, or anything – it's just that I feel – '

‘ – a
bit
,' cut in Nicole. ‘Quite. Now listen, children – I really have to slip away. I'll see you all at the ball, I presume? Pat? You are coming? You're not going to be
Cinders
, I hope?'

Pat smiled bravely. ‘Oh no. I'll be there. Hook or crook.'

And for that she was patted fondly on the hand by Julie, whose forearm then took a good long while to settle back down again.

‘That's my
girl
,' she approved. ‘And hey Patty! You might just meet yourself a husband. It ain't all old guys and faggots. Well …' she reflected more quietly, ‘'tis
mostly
…'

Pat looked down.

‘Oh. Oh no. I've actually got one of those. A husband.'

‘In that case,' said Nicole shortly – stirring herself now, and making to rise, ‘you have my profound sympathy.'

‘Oh hey!' went Charlene. ‘I sure made a horse's neck outta that one, then, Patty. I told Julie you was all alone.'

‘Well,' said Pat, ‘I am. On this trip I am. At the moment, yes.'

‘Well hell we can't have
that
 – that right, Nicole?'

‘We most certainly can't. Look, Pat – how about this? Come and have dinner with us, my family, yes? They're not
too
ghastly. Duchess Grill, say – what? Seven? Seven suit you? And then we can all go to the ball together.'

‘Oh look …' stuttered Pat, ‘ … I really don't want to, you know – butt
in
, or anything …'

‘Not butting
in
. Not a bit of it. So, I'll see you there at seven, then, yes?'

‘Well …' Pat demurred. ‘I'm not quite sure I'll actually want any
dinner
… I'm feeling just a bit – '

‘So you can
pick
. I'll see you there. Girls – I have to go.'

And from amid a flurry of shivery limbs and clattering jewellery, Nicole briskly made good her word. She was strongly inclined, if you care at all to know the way she was thinking, towards the purple moiré. And yes I
know
it has been suggested that we all of us wear something in the way of red, white and blue, but you are already aware of my position on the
flag
side of things – and anyway, if the masses are inclined to follow this diktat, then purple moiré, I am thinking (and it's
so
beautiful – Caroline Charles in the sale), will surely make something of an impression, no? Although the raspberry-Beaujolais crushed velvet just-off-the-shoulder number is not to be lightly dismissed – but with
that
dress it's a question of
extremely
careful accessorizing because the nearest of misses can be absolutely
catastrophic
, obviously …

‘Hi, Mum – going to get changed?'

‘
Marianne
 – Marianne, my poppet – where have you
been
all day long? Hm?
Missed
you, my darling. Did you enjoy your … what you were going to do? Walk – yes? And what have you been up to since?'

‘Well,' said Marianne quite thoughtfully, dropping into line with her mother, and heading for the lifts. ‘Talking to
Tom
, I suppose. That's what I seem mainly to have been doing …'

‘Really? Tom? Nice young man, is he? I'm glad you're making
friends
, Marianne. You must introduce us at the ball. Decided what you're wearing? Now tell me – who is this Tom person? Hm? What's he like?'

They both stepped into the lift the moment the doors pinged open. Marianne touched a button and they slid back to and enclosed them.

‘I don't know, Mummy,' she said quite lightly – as if she had only just realized something (or nothing). ‘I really honestly couldn't
say
…'

*

Which is true. Even now, as I hover at the fringes of this rather silly American ball thing (my dress is pinching me under the arms) I could not – despite ages of listening to all the often, uh –
surprising
things he had to say to me – tell you exactly who or what I think Tom really might
be
. I have his
nature
, yes (that is now within me) – but quite to what degree this has been only recently conditioned by his oh-so-solitary state, following on from so much togetherness, well: I really, honestly couldn't say …

I probably didn't speak much during dinner. And God, what a very odd atmosphere there had been: Dad didn't even turn up (oh Dad, oh Dad) and so you can well imagine the sort of state Mum was in – and particularly so because she'd invited someone else along called Pat – or Patty, Charlene was just calling her (whatever) – who kept on
eyeing
me throughout the meal, which I maybe would have cared about rather more if my mind had been on anything but Tom, and all the ins and outs and ups and downs of what he had and hadn't said. The last thing I asked him was
Well
, Tom – will I see you, then? At the ball? Are you going? And he had looked at me quite without expression and said to me flatly (disappointingly so, I felt at the time, after all that had been said and done): ‘Well, Marianne – will
you
be?' And I had nodded yes, and to that he had just slightly inclined his head – might have been in acquiescence, might equally have been a faint for a subdued recoil from some maybe pain or memory. As he made to move away, I said to him as lightly as I could (and no, I don't know why): Just don't forget it's black tie, OK? And he turned again – Tom slowly revolved towards me, and with his eyes tipped down at each corner and practically liquid with what
seemed to me to be weary supplication, he said so woodenly (as if picking his way through something extraordinarily complex and spiked with not just sensitivity, but danger too): My Dear Marianne: I never wear anything else. Maybe his tone hadn't been anything like that at all; maybe he had merely been pointing up a very basic if overlooked truism – kindly, as if to a simpleton. I liked, however, the ‘My Dear'.

Anyway. Glancing about me … (and just look at Mummy over there with Pat or Patty and Charlene and I think it's Dwight: at her hostessy best and resplendent in purple – but I can catch the glint at the back of her eyes. She is consumed by one thing, and one thing only: where in hell is
David
? Where in Christ's name
is
he?). Anyway. Glancing about me … (and God, there must be just hundreds and hundreds of balloons – they're simply everywhere, hanging up all over these huge and swagged sort of pelmet-type things all round the stage, and quite a lot are rolling around on the floor – no wags yet have seen fit to trample them … don't envy the poor old sod who blew them all up; except I expect they have machines to do all that sort of thing). Anyway. Glancing about me … (and Rollo, he seems fairly agitated, too. Quite jumpy all through dinner – and now he looks like maybe I do: apparently just hanging about, but somehow tensed and anticipating – what? His foot is moving – up and down, up and down – but not at all in time with this I think it could be Gershwin, Porter, one of those). Anyway. Glancing about me … I see that Tom has not yet come. I wonder if he will. Maybe (and this is likely, isn't it?) in the light of something he said, oh – hours and hours and hours ago, he has not even the slightest intention of doing so.

At the beginning, Tom had said nothing at all. Which made me feel suddenly and horribly empty. And I could have gone away (I doubt whether at that point he really would have noticed): but I didn't go away – I hung around.
He gravitated towards the large baize table and stared for a while at the partly complete perimeter, the illustration on the box, and then the scattering of pieces strewn across the centre. He then picked up just one of them from the thousands there and moved it unhesitatingly towards the uppermost edge, where his thumb then pressed it in and down. It fitted. He glanced at Marianne and said Smoke: I saw it at once – it's part of the smoke, do you see? Coming out of the chalet chimney. Shall we sit down now? Marianne had smiled her agreement with that, and thought it might be nice, now, if he offered her maybe a drink of some sort (a taste for something fresh and cooling had just now rushed into her – real squeezed orange, possibly, with lots and lots of ice and soda). Tom said nothing, so Marianne had casually offered him a drink.

‘A drink? A drink?' And then Tom narrowed his eyes, and set to concentrating hard on getting his whole mind around this apparently new and wholly incomprehensible little word. ‘A
drink
. Mm. A drink, a drink. Ah.
No
 – I don't really think so, Marianne. But I thank you. But you please have a, um –
drink
, yes. If you would care to.'

Marianne smiled. ‘No thanks,' she said. ‘I'm fine.'

Tom was leaning towards her now; Marianne recognized this periodic spark of urgency that quite without warning pounced, and then seemingly took him over.

‘Did you know,' he said in measured tones, ‘that there exists a cheese called Pantysgawn? Aware of that?'

Marianne searched in vain his eyes for humour.

‘Is this – ?' she checked ‘ –a joke …?' Her eyes were wide open, but already she was shaking her head.

Tom seemed confused. ‘Joke?
Joke
? No – it's not a joke. It's a
cheese
…'

‘Uh-huh. And it's called – ?'

‘Pantysgawn. Mm. That's its name. Not aware of it, then.'

‘No I'm, er – not. Is it –
nice
? Good cheese is it, Tom?'

Tom gazed at her now with near total amazement.

‘Well how on earth should
I
know? I've not
had
it, or anything.'

Marianne nodded. ‘Right. So why, um – ?'

‘Mention it? Bring it up? Introduce this ludicrous non-sequitur – not that it was, in fact, following anything – into our conversation? Which we were not, in point of fact, actually having? I couldn't
tell
you, Marianne. It is quite beyond me. It is simply one of my
facts
. I have facts, you see. And I can only think that at some point someone must have told me – or maybe I read it – that
people
, yes? That people are interested in facts, and so from time to time I supply one. I have to say that I have never been aware of anyone's marked or even partial interest – not, at least, in any of the facts that are all I have at my disposal. Does all this, Marianne, sound very silly to you? Dull? Mad, conceivably?'

‘Bit silly,' decided Marianne. ‘Rather dull. Not mad.'

Tom nodded, and glanced through the broad and mottled window at the wink of the limitless sea.

‘It comes,' he practically sighed, ‘from Wales. The cheese. Pantysgawn, yes. Queer name, isn't it?'

Marianne hunched herself forward, and much to the astonishment of both of them, she clasped one of his knees with her hands. She looked dead into his eyes, and when she spoke her voice was just tinged with a maybe incongruous lightheartedness, though this hardly diminished its measured assurance.

‘Tom. I don't
care
. And nor do you. Let's talk properly, yes? Or maybe you'd prefer – not at all?'

And as he flinched away from that, Marianne took back her hands and resettled herself (because when you are sitting comfortably, then you can begin).

‘
So
, Tom,' said Marianne – with an easy confidence she was in truth not wholly feeling. ‘You kick off.
Talk
to me.
Say
something, Tom. Something
proper
.'