S.O.S. (48 page)

Goodness, though – the ship is really moving about tonight. I mean it always goes a bit from side to
side
(you expect that) – but now it's very discernibly going forward and back (up and down) as well. God
knows
how Pat's coping down below – God only
knows
. Poor Pat.

It was just that time of evening that Captain Scar attempted to keep aside for just himself (play a little Mozart). It didn't often
work
, of course – and so he was not at all surprised, but still bloody irritated all the same, when his Number Two had knocked on the door, stepped in briskly, coughed politely, and informed him that a first class passenger had requested a quick word, sir. And yes, thought the Captain, it's all right for
you
, man, to chuck your eyes up to heaven and pull down the corners of your mouth – but I'm the one who's got to bloody
deal
with her, aren't I? And yes, oh yes – it will be a ‘her': it always bloody was.

‘
Anthony
…' was Nicole's very fulsome greeting (it was as if she had all of a rush just remembered the word). She glided across the floor with one arm extended before her like a jouster's lance, knowing well that her determined tread would encourage the long and feather-light chiffon scarf at her throat to float on air and sail away gorgeously in her breathtaking wake. ‘I know it's most
awfully
late and I do so much apologize but I'm just so terribly
worried
on behalf of my daughter, Anthony, and I felt I simply had to confide in you immediately.'

And she glanced to the left and right of her: the expression on her face suggested that she had up until this very moment been most profoundly asleep for a hundred long years and now, at the kiss of a prince, she had awoken, more beautiful than ever, and was as we speak stretching with abandon and luxuriously across a silken divan held
up by glistening blackamoors at the tented and bejewelled epicentre of no less than a fabulous palace.

‘What a perfectly
charming
room,' she quite effortlessly effused. ‘All so terribly masculine and nautical. What pretty little boats …'

‘Ha. Yes, I – yes. I'm very pleased you like it, Madam.
Ships
, actually … You are worried, you say …?'

‘
Nicole
,' underlined Nicole. ‘You remember, don't you?'

‘
Nicole
. Yes of course.'

‘We danced …'

‘Yes we did. Of course we did. I remember it well, Nicole.'

‘You
do
remember …?'

‘Yes yes. Very vividly. A treasured memory. Nicole, of course. You are worried about something, Nicole? Please do sit. Can I offer you anything at all?'

The last bit of that had been somewhat rushed, because Nicole was already sitting, legs very elegantly crossed at the ankle, and she seemed to be glancing about her.

‘At the ball – do you recall? You were saying how terribly hard you worked and that one or two of us should come up and see for themselves. How the sweat just
pours
off you. So I thought I would. A glass of champagne would be
divine
,' she concluded, smilingly.

‘Of course,' agreed the Captain, moving away to the intercom on his desk. Might as well turn off the Mozart, while I'm over here – sorry and all that, my dear Amadeus, but believe me, I'm thinking of you: you've no chance in the face of this. Captain Scar murmured his request for champagne, and softly replaced the handset. Every other drink known to Christendom I've got in this cabinet, here – but no, this
Nicole
person (who apparently I
danced
with? Did I really? Well perfectly possible, of course – how many of these bloody women have I had to dance with, down the years?) … yes, this
Nicole
woman had to have champagne, yes of course. And also – did I mention? She's
worried
, yes: very worried indeed. As now, no doubt, she will tell me
again. And yes I know: this very composed woman before me – Christ, it's as if she's settled herself down for the night – does not at all appear to be consumed by a single concern or care in the world, but there it is: she's worried. She said so. And yes – here it comes one more time:

‘It's on my daughter's behalf, Anthony, that I'm here. As I said. At first she didn't even want to talk about it, but I managed to get it out of her eventually. A mother always knows, you know, when something is bothering one of her children. Are you a family man, Anthony?'

‘Two boys,' smiled the Captain. ‘Nearly grown up, now. Good lads.'

‘They must miss you – at sea all the time. So must your wife …'

‘Yes, well – isn't actually a wife any more. Usual story, I'm afraid. Goes with the job, it sometimes seems. Anyway – never mind all that. Ah! Your champagne, Nicole. Thank you, Howard.'

The steward appeared to bow from the neck in the Captain's direction (how perfectly
lovely
, thought Nicole – he did it just the way you're supposed to, if ever you meet one of the Royals). Howard was gone very swiftly – and so silently, he barely disturbed the air.

‘Are you not joining me, Anthony? Terribly
rude
 – making me drink on my own …'

‘Oh, well – yes, I'll have a – I'll just mix myself a …'

He walked to the cabinet and poured just a tonic water into a heavy crystal glass, added lots of ice and then threw in a quarter lime.

‘Tell me the problem,' he called over his shoulder.

‘
Nicole
…'

‘Nicole, yes – I haven't forgotten. Tell me the problem. Nicole.'

‘Well apparently my daughter, that's Marianne – I think you met her?'

‘Yes yes. Marianne. Mm. Remember her well.'

‘Well she's got to know this person called
Tom
, it appears – who's now, um, well – disappeared, she says. Quite worrying for her.'

‘I see. Mm. Well of course she is a very large ship, you know, Nicole, and – '

‘Well that's exactly what I
told
her. But she's been over it with a fine, oh – what do they say? Tooth comb. Tooth comb – how terribly
odd
… And anyway, she hasn't seen him since morning. Left messages, of course – and nothing. Absolutely nothing. Quite
worrying
for her, you see.'

‘I do see – yes of course. Well look, Nicole – you tell your daughter this – '

‘
Marianne
.'

‘Hm? Yes. Of course. Now listen to me, Marianne – I mean
Nicole
, Nicole – yes. You tell Marianne that if she still has no luck by morning I'll institute a thorough ship search. That'll winkle him out. We do them, time to time – and believe me, she really mustn't worry. People always turn up in the end.'

‘Well that's very reassuring, Anthony. I shall tell her immediately. Well … right, then …' she concluded – standing now, smoothing down her dress and adjusting her scarf. ‘I mustn't take up any more of your valuable time, Anthony. Thank you so much for the champagne.'

‘The pleasure was all mine.' Nicole was advancing towards him. ‘Nicole,' he tacked on.

She placed one fingernail at the tip of his chin.

‘You don't, I suppose, do you, Anthony … want to
sleep
with me at all, do you?'

The Captain looked down. Here we go. It's this one again. Here we bloody go again.

‘Nicole … you are a very attractive woman …'

‘No …' sighed Nicole, quite resignedly. ‘I didn't really think you did. Or you would have
said
, I expect. Ah well. I suppose these prizes can't include
everything
…'

And Captain Scar leapt at that: a lifebelt bobbing amid the foaming sea.

‘Ah of
course
 – you won the competition, didn't you? Yes yes. Well let me do this, Nicole: in two days' time? Yes? When we dock in New York? Let me invite you and your family up on to the Bridge. The view is really very spectacular, I assure you. Watch dawn break over the skyline.'

‘Oh –
thank
you, Anthony. That will be
lovely
. Oh yes –
thank
you.'

And then the whole ship heaved just slightly more detectably than it had been doing for the whole of the evening, now – but not enough, surely, to have sent Nicole skittering forward and right into the Captain. She stayed there, nestled up to him – she looked up straight into his eyes. Neither moved. The swaying ship was gently croaking.

‘No …?' she whispered, softly. ‘Sure …? Not even just – hold me a bit …?'

The Captain closed his eyes. ‘I'm sorry …' he said, so quietly.

She nodded, and moved away quickly to the door. Just before she slipped outside, she smiled over at him, quite bravely – ignoring the sting of tears that must mean, she just knew, that she was looking such a mess.

‘Nicole
…' she managed to say.

The Captain let the air rush out of him, the second she had closed the door. Nicole, yes indeed: I won't forget.

*

It was finally what could more or less be called morning, and Marianne – still unaware that she was freezing and practically welded to her seat – strained in the just-dawn to discern through aching eyes clotted with tears the hazy seaming that roughly joined the harshness of the sky to the roll of the dirt-grey sea: it was swollen like a gangrenous limb might well be – grotesquely distended, a network of
veins was threaded all over the surface and at the point of bursting wide open. She had been sitting on this hard wet seat at the stern of the ship for so many hours: from very soon after she had first read the letter. Marianne had then and at once felt totally compelled to escape the breathlessness of her cabin – anywhere enclosed – and without even considering the dark and the cold, she was soon and quite blindly battling her way down slimy decks and clattering steps to the very rearmost point of the ship. She could only hear the churning of the wake – there was nothing at all to see – and her thin little jacket was damp and useless. Now, her stiff white fingers were still clamped hard to the single sheet of paper: she could not move them. There was just barely enough grudging light from amid all this crushing greyness … so maybe she could read it through just one more time. (She had been grimly holding on to something, and her hand now had become a part of whatever it was: the great and elaborate swells of ocean, she knew, could suddenly pitch her over.)

‘Marianne. My dear. I think I should explain. When I said to you that I helped my Mary, I mean that I helped her to leave me. She was in such pain. They gave her things, of course, for the pain, but still it never seemed to leave her. Through a friend, I located something that would take the anxiety from her eyes and make her face relax again. Having eased her pain, however, I found my own increasing day by day up until the point where it has become intolerable. And so I think what I now must do is ease it, and then I can maybe find her again. I so very nearly
love
you, Marianne – but nothing can get through the pain. Goodbye. Thank you. Be safe. Tom.'

She raised her eyes and the hurt erupted from her in one great gasp of sheer disbelief. She stared at the relentless maw of this fat and greedy ocean – she was aware now too of shivering badly for the very first time. Marianne focused on just this one dark and angry wave, and so very soon it was lost to sight. Because where we are, she thought …it so very quickly becomes where we have
been
.

*

She had not wanted to show the officer on duty the letter. She had already, and as calmly as she could manage, confided to him her convictions (they had started out as her darkest forebodings, but soon she owned up to what just had to be the terrible truth, here). But you could tell that even now, no one was taking her
seriously
. Everyone she spoke to just kept telling her how big the ship was – as if she didn't
know
that, or something. The
sea
, she kept on saying, fighting back at least the worst of her tears – but the
sea
, the
sea
is so much
bigger
. And if he cannot be found anywhere on board … well then. Still he demurred, this rather harassed-looking officer, whoever he was. Still he hummed and hawed. So then she showed him the letter.

‘Right,' he said. ‘Yes. This throws a different light on it. I shall inform the Captain. We'll set up a ship search.'

Yes I
suppose
so, he was thinking: I suppose I just have to, in the face of this. But God – he won't at all be
pleased
, the Old Man. Last thing you want, isn't it? And Christ – if that bunch of
journalists
get hold of it … Jesus, they're already going to have a field day, aren't they? Bloody orgy going on in the Emperor Suite, far as I can make it out. I've had to sack two bar staff this morning – severely reprimand the Assistant Cruise Director … who led them right
to
it, stupid bloody sod – and now it surely looks as if we've got a bloody jumper on our hands. Dear God. Old Man won't be very
pleased
, I can tell you that much.

They had, at least, kept Marianne well informed about the progress of the search. This was only because, she suspected, they did not want her shouting her mouth off about anything to do with it at all. And later in the afternoon, they actually made this very plain to her: Would appreciate it
greatly
, Miss, if you wouldn't, um – mention all this to anyone. It upsets the passengers, anything of this kind, as you might understand. Marianne said she did – understand. Thirty people, apparently, had been assigned to search the whole ship – and it was very discreetly done. Even though Marianne was aware of its happening, she never saw anyone actively
searching
. After nearly eight hours, she was summoned by the Captain. He asked her to sit down.