S.O.S. (36 page)

Sammy just looked at her (I am willing my eyes to stay wide, or else my sadness will glaze them over and then they'll fill up and then – oh worse – they'll empty before her).

‘Jilly. We can
talk
about this – !'

And Jilly just threw up her arms, then, and really let him have it:

‘What do you think in fuck's name I'm
doing
?'

Sammy plucked at the fringe of his could be bedspread.

‘It's nearly,' he said softly, ‘time for my shift.'

Jilly nodded. ‘Well go to it.'

‘Can't we …? Wouldn't you like to make love … maybe …?'

She tossed her head with petulance as well as irritation.

‘Can't. Period.'

‘Well … let me just hold you, then …?'

‘You'll be late, Sammy. Just go, yes?'

‘You want me to? I mean – now? I've still got, I don't know – half an hour, maybe?'

And Jilly swung over to him her brimming eyes – and even as they seemed to be begging someone to smash apart the rough-sawn and makeshift crate that has been hastily thrown up around Sammy, the flatness of her voice was nailing down the lid.

‘Yes, Sammy. Please go now. I'm … sorry.'

He rose and nearly rushed away, shutting the cabin door firmly behind him. He continued to grasp the handle as his heaving back rested hard against the panels, and he stared the length of the strumming corridor. Right, he thought. OK, then. I'll go. I'll go and find Rollo. That's the first thing. Because only then can I bloody well
kill
the bastard.

*

This ship, thought David idly – ramming down into his straining waistband a stray and flapping shirt tail as he wended his way steadily up the broad main staircase, while rhythmically slapping at the banister rail – is a bit like a grown-up Toytown. Well – not
that
grown-up, really, is it? We've all just moved on to other and better toys, I suppose. But what I mean is … well, do you actually remember that string of kids' books at all? Noddy? First books I ever saw, probably (and not too distant in years from the last I ever glanced at – I've never been much of a reader; and no, not a doer either – but Christ, let's for Jesus sake not get into all that because I'm feeling, if you want to know, absolutely shattered – shattered, yes, but not quite shagged
out
, if you get me – and I'll tell you why in just a minute).

So anyway – those dinky little Noddy books – you
must
remember them, everyone does. They survived, I seem to recall, that inglorious period when a po-faced bunch of grey-brained losers did their best to have them banned – but all these stubborn children had the outright nerve to go
on loving them (and this in the face of the fervent disapproval of the types of people they'd sooner see dead) – and bloody good too. And little Noddy's mate Big Ears, oh God yes. Not easy – can't be easy, can it, getting through life with a name like Big Ears … ah no, but here's my point: it wasn't, was it –
life
? No no – it was Toytown. See? Everyone had their own little house for one, there was just a single little high street with a few little shops and nothing was too far away from anything else, and nor very hard to understand. And right here and now is a for instance: back in London, following an evening such as this (and let's be honest: I have never, in all my years of lying, drinking, frittering away money I have yet to bloody earn – and always with one eye open for any chance at all of gratuitous fornication – never before have I spent an evening like this one: and I'll tell you why in just a minute) … well, in town, now, I'd be frantic for a cab, wouldn't I? And maybe it'd be pissing down, and I very well might have done something like, oh God – sold my jacket. There's even the danger of being mugged along the way (and bloody good luck to you, mate – you find anything left, how about we go halves?). But tonight? Well tonight I find myself safely ensconced in Toytown: I leave the young lady's flatlet … correction: I leave the
exceedingly
young and cheeky-sexy-drive-you-fucking-
crazy
lady's flatlet, turn to the left, up a few stairs and now just swing into the warm and brightly-lit bar, here, where I can enjoy a nightcap or so with maybe my new good friend Dwight – and the bar, inasmuch as I've gathered so far, will close its doors when and if I choose to leave. It's easy to see, isn't it, how people can become very used indeed to this sort of living? It's like those secure and custom-built estates – used to be just an American thing, but they're springing up everywhere, now (Surrey is thick with them): there are computer-operated gates and cameras and twenty-four-hour porterage and a little mall of bijou shops and a, what are they?
Fitness
centre and a restaurant
and so on and … I don't know: people must soon, do they, imagine that this is how life has come to
be
. But just you dare step outside, mate, and you'll quickly and very decidedly find that it bloody well isn't. Which is why, after a very short while, people just don't ever step outside again. Except, maybe, in order to cross the Atlantic on a luxury liner, be met at New York by a chauffeured and air-conditioned stretch Lincoln and then on up in the elevator's vacuum to a serviced suite where the bellhops, concierges and maitre d's will with practised and apparently effortless ease assure the continued smooth running of your now unbroken stay in Toytown. Well … I wouldn't want to live there, but I must say this: it's a great place to visit.

So how do you think I'm feeling? A contented and conquering hero, sated if weary, and eager for a drink? Only partly. Because no – I haven't, have I – of
course
I haven't – forgotten about the detail: Nicole. (And here's one of the downsides of Toytown: when she's whole
boroughs
away, it's easier, I find, to blank her right out; here she kind of hovers, mm. Still managed it, though.) I
was
going to go to dinner. Honestly. It wasn't that I forgot all about it in the heat of the, er … well: you know. It was fully my intention to get back to the cabin at around, what time? Ooh – eightish, I imagine. Slip into the penguin suit – maybe even catch the tail end of Nicole discarding for the very last time the thoroughly amazing get-up in which she so recently twirled, in favour of another one – that one, maybe, four or five down in the crumpled pile that by now would be littering the room. Then dinner – why not? The food, I have to say, is really quite marvellous, you know – one of the reasons, pretty sure, my gut is frankly killing me. Doctor back in London, he said to me – get any pain, give me a call: like I say, no fantastic urgency – but better safe than sorry, yes? Yes. Well. I think it's just the food, quite honestly: gone a bit heavy on the food. Feeling a little bit peckish right this second, it's just occurred to me – which is frankly amazing,
really, because I've not long eaten a lobster thermidor – whole damn thing, and it was a real big bastard, telling you. Plus an awful lot of champagne – and it does, it bloats you up, that: all the gas. So anyway – yes, as I say, it was no part of any sort of
plan
to cut all that; and the ball, yes – aware of that too. I was perfectly willing to jig about there a bit, as well – make a total prat of myself, along with everyone else: what's to lose? Because, you see – I'd be feeling
good
: with my secret inside me. I had my
girl
. I would have been fortified by that (always am – need it, need it). Plus – I go through all the motions, and Nicole is kept as sweet as you can reasonably expect, with Nicole.

But. I fell asleep. I know. And
yes
, she could've woken me, Suki, of course she bloody could. But she didn't. I asked her why she hadn't, but she just made a series of noises – you know what they're like: you get nothing out of kids. So, in consequence, I missed the lot – and I am very conscious, yes, that Nicole will be, um – how should we put this?
Displeased
, yes – that'll do for now – and that further, on this occasion she might even expect a fully-fledged
explanation
. Not unreasonable. (And as soon as I can concoct a halfway decent one, she's welcome to the bloody thing.) So I am, you see, at the moment by no means
looking
for her (understandably) but nor am I actively dodging the issue. Because it will have to be faced, won't it? Some time or another. And better, I think, if I casually, you know –
collide
with her and a group of people … better that, I feel sure, than if she's got me alone in the cabin, yes? Where there's no way out.

Oh looky look – there's good old Dwight, propping up the bar, as per bloody usual (I like dependable blokes). And he's alone, thank Christ – get in a couple fast, before all the yak breaks loose. And yeah – he's seen me, now: that big and fond, fleshy hand of his is raised up high and his whole great face is beaming – I can't tell you what a good warm feeling this chap gives me.

‘Dave – my man! Where in hell you been? A damn big Bourbon suit you? And don't
tell
me – you ain't …?'

And the beam across
David's
face, now, was even bigger than Dwight's.

‘I
have
, you know. All bloody evening. Bourbon's great.'

‘You goddam son of a
gun
. You telling me I been doing alla the shit with a crowda
wimmin
, and you been a-humpin' that hot sweet young
fanny
…?'

Well, thought David: yes and no. And he'll tell you why in just a minute.

‘Nicole, Dave – she is one angry lady. After your scalp. She gonna whup your ass, boy!'

‘Where, um – is she? God I needed this drink …'

‘Last I heard, they was all in the Casino, losing money. Charlene, she says she's gonna come get me afore my bowels, they drop out on the floor. Nicole is going –
Yeah
, and David, he better be there too. Hoo boy. Patty I tried to get to hang around some, but nah – says she's going with the gals and she'll catch me later.'

‘Mm. Well – let's have a few more, then. Seems like I don't need to be sober. Who's this
Patty
, Dwight?'

‘Patty you don't know. Come outta no place. Telling you, Dave – she I could maybe go right
through
, you know? She been round the block couple times, yeh sure – but I could get real acquainted with those titties of hers. Hubba hubba. But hey – hell with
that
. You gonna tell me bout this young kid, or I gotta beat it outta ya?'

David grinned slyly, while waving at the barman – who's looking (Jesus – clock that face) bloody
gloomy
. Bloody hell – they have some young kid behind the bar, they don't want to be looking like
that
. It's meant to be
fun
here, right?

‘Er – two more large whatever-they-are, please.'

‘Jack,' put in Dwight. ‘It's good old Uncle Jack Daniel's.'

‘Oh right. Well that, then. Large ones – did I say?'

‘Right, sir,' said Sammy.

And he jammed the glasses with force against the twin
optics (we sell a lot of Jack Daniel's) and not for the first time, he was going
over
this: well of
course
he's not about, is he? This bastard Rollo. How did I expect to see him around, God's sake?
I'm
on duty – Jilly isn't. So where's Rollo? Hm? Where
is
the bastard? And what in hell's he
doing
?

‘My tab,' grunted Dwight. ‘OK, Dave – enough with the stalling, already:
give
.'

‘You want to know …?'

‘Quit it, David! I ain't fooling, now …'

David laughed. ‘OK. I'll tell you. Here it is.'

But even as he now and with relish launched into the thing, David was quickly constructing amendments – attending already to pointing up the details of the one story he felt Dwight would most like to hear. Because the truth of the matter had come not even close to a raw and wanton seeing-to, but was almost eerily sexual in a way that had stirred him deeply, while still there fluttered in its wake those faint and featherweight strands of confusion. And he'll tell you why right now:

I went along to the cabin (on-oh-one-oh – yes, one-oh-one-oh: I hadn't forgotten it, of course I hadn't forgotten it) and I was thinking … mm, exactly
what
, I wonder? Because I really do want to get this right. I need to chart my feelings and actions just as they hit or happened to me, because although I'll be – yes I will – spinning out countless
versions
all down the years – and usually when taken and then stunned by drink, I have no doubt at all, and to some other puffed-out and teetering slump of incoherence long past the power of even
half
listening to any of it, the following day's erasure of his memory not much less than total … yeah, despite the fact that I'll forever for the sake of my idiot audiences be putting a devilish spin on this thing (and even right now, as I'm tailoring it for Dwight) the way I set it down here for myself has just got to be
right
, because this is what I, me (myself), will eternally be looking back on and taking apart and piecing back together again – so it's got to
be (unlike the distended, lit-up and bespoke job that right now Dwight is, oh God you should just see him, lapping up like a sun-parched hound dog) totally true and utterly accurate. This, as I say, is for me – and yes, I suppose, it's for you as well.

So I'm where, now? Oh yes. At the door. At the door, yes, and my knuckles are raised and eager to make the connection. And then I go chilly … I don't mean I suddenly felt anything like
windy
(because I suppose I was that all along). No, it was just like a draught – a quick and icy, well …
chill
, it was a chill, that had come from nowhere and wrapped me up. What if – what if I'm about to be a walk-on in entirely the wrong … a different
film
? Hey? I mean – it's got to be addressed, this: dignity is at stake here, you know – and mine is as frail as a spat-upon tissue. So what if I'm all kitted out as the marshal in a Western, and I barge on through these swing saloon doors and find myself, I don't know – on the set of
Brief Encounter
(hissing steam and big regret)? What I'm meaning is … oh
look
, it's not as if I thought that behind that door there would not be just some sweet and maybe coked-up and toothy American chick hellbent on, Jesus – whatever fun I can possibly give her – but instead some bloody-lipped pick-wielding maniac:
no
. It's not windy, I was feeling – but maybe: stupid, it could have been. Yeh – it could, it could: it could easily have been that. That would explain the chill factor earlier – I always feel cold whenever (quite often) I stand on the threshold of doing or saying or just
being
something stupid, and horribly well aware that there can, by my own warped reasoning, be no turning back. In a
word
… what if she hadn't meant it, hm? What if she'd just
said
it? Or what if she had, OK, meant it – meant it, anyway, to some or other degree at the time she said it, but now, well, the moment has passed? Or what if
yes
, she meant it – but had almost instantly completely forgotten having said a single word? So that not only was she not, now, expecting me but was not even on the other
side of this cabin door at all, but was off and frisky elsewhere, with someone else entirely? And the worst, the worst … what if she had said it to me, as she did, with the eye-flashing cockiness of one so young and cool, but was all the while and deep inside her – laughing her head off at this old and dumb and half-cut Englishman who really did seem to believe that I could actually view him as anything but the, like, most saddo and gross-out
joke
? Well yes. What then? So suddenly chilled is what I was feeling. And then I knocked the knock. And this was the first thing Suki said to me as she (immediately) opened the door: