Liner

by James Barlow

  She met him in the Midships Bar and drank quite heavily and quickly. There were now interesting pouches under her eyes. Others were dancing, but she did not want to dance. ‘My feet!’ she protested. ‘This sultry weather is murder. I suppose it’s better than a storm. I nearly broke my leg on the way out from England.’

  Tornetta assured her, ‘You’re too beautiful for this sort of stuff. You ought to be on TV or in some important London show –’

  ‘You’re joking. Dancers are two a penny and they have to be terrific to make it –’

  ‘Would you like to work for me? In San Francisco to start with. Las Vegas or New York later.’

  ‘You’re giving me the chat so you can lay me,’ she suggested crudely.

  ‘No. I am entirely frank.’

  ‘What at?’

  ‘The game. High class. Big money. Your own automobile, clothes by the ton, a luxury flat . . . ’

  She wasn’t upset by the suggestion.

  ‘I dunno. You’re somebody, see, in the dance business, even aboard the Areopagus. I’ve been to the Army and Navy camps – Aden, Malta, Germany . . . All sorts of people ask to marry me,’ she claimed, as if this proved status.

  ‘Do they put money in your bank?’ he asked.

  ‘I never asked them to.’

  ‘Have you got money?’

  ‘Hell, no, Bartolommeo. I spend it.’

  ‘You’d make thousands, faster than you can spend it. No tax. No problems.’

  ‘I might be interested,’ she admitted. ‘This is bloody hard work. We rehearse for three hours while everybody else is having a siesta. Then two performances a night. And touches of enteritis and flu thrown in . . . ’

  ‘You’d be respectable,’ he claimed ludicrously, and meant it.

  They were both mildly drunk, hot with lust, unable to keep apart. Physical contact became a violent compulsion. They went to his cabin. She was drunk enough not to care about Squibb.

  Squibb woke up and was very disturbed to overhear the sniggers, to listen to them writing and giggling on the lower bunk.

  ‘Are you crazy?’ he croaked. ‘What the devil are you doing?’

  ‘Take no notice,’ urged Tornetta, his hands spread on the girl’s buttocks so that she wriggled and sniggered. ‘He’s a wowser. He’s got Asian flu. He can’t do what I can!’ Tornetta boasted. He knew that Squibb would be a virgin, he’d look at the hot magazine photographs and his body would shuffle with heat while his mind, allegedly superior, condemned, was shocked . . .

  Squibb became very silent, and Tornetta, his sweating buttocks heaving up and down in the confined space, knew that Squibb was identifying every sibilance of breath or snigger, and was excited masochistically by every acoustic evidence of clothes and flesh . . .

  It was irritating to be aware that Mr. Ballantyne had several hundred dollars and have no means of taking them off him; and humiliating for Tornetta to realize that fear held him back from any second attempt at robbery.

  Circumstances now arose, however, whereby it might be possible to take money from this big arrogant man legitimately.

  A week earlier Tornetta had read the notice in the ship’s daily activities which told him: ‘Mrs. Carter will teach you bridge, 11 A.M., Labyrinth Club.’

  The notice was in the news sheet nearly every day, and the lady concerned probably never saw the sea, she played or taught card games for such a large proportion of the day.

  Tornetta was something of a cardsharp, but at other games, not the suburban game of bridge. He went along to learn how to play and to pass the time which hung so heavily on his hands. (For, even though he now was becoming intimately acquainted with Barbara, her day was a working day and fully occupied until eleven at night with few exceptions.)

  No one else on this day had come forward to learn bridge. The truth was that passengers either played cards or they did not, and those who did not were a little wary of learning aboard the Areopagus. Mrs. Carter was not having brisk business.

  She was a medium-sized woman of the Australian middle class, about forty, quite sexless in appearance, with a leathery face and hair very short and curly. In a few days and with the assistance of others she taught Tornetta how to play bridge, and she was very thorough and earnest. Tornetta learned slowly, deliberately, not wishing to frighten anyone by being too proficient, for at the back of his mind was the possibility that as well as entertainment he might at some stage play for money and make a killing . . .

  Soon he was a regular player – one of perhaps sixteen who came daily to the Labyrinth Club and passed a couple of hours very quickly. No one played for money, it at first seemed. Tornetta watched the techniques and mannerisms of this group of people – tough gross women from Sydney suburbs, youths who thought they were smooth, businessmen for whom bridge was an addiction.

  Tornetta was to some extent aware that he himself looked a little fly, so he played calmly, without passion or aggression, and his conversation and manners were exemplary, a good imitation of one who had just learned the game and was anxious not to put a foot wrong.

  After a while they played for money, and not many hours after that fate gave him Mr. Ballantyne as a partner.

  Mr. Ballantyne’s whole posture was aggressive, and he had no hesitation in telling others what fools they had been. And since he was six feet three inches, of apparent good physique, albeit about forty years of age, other men did not argue with one whose flash-point was low. A few heavy women resented his analyses and argued with him quite noisily, but generally he was allowed to get away with it . . .

  He was explaining with bitterness hours later what a fool Tornetta had been at a certain stage of the game. Tornetta was undisturbed. This was his moment to tempt Mr. Ballantyne.

  ‘You take the game too seriously,’ he said.

  ‘We lost five dollars,’ countered Mr. Ballantyne.

  ‘Chicken feed,’ suggested Tornetta. ‘A game for clergymen and old ladies and representatives of soap companies.’

  Mr. Ballantyne’s eyebrows rose. He considered Tornetta with what he thought was care, and Tornetta could almost identify his conclusions: a cheap dago, cafe proprietor, maybe a gigolo or small-time con man.

  ‘You’d like to try some other game?’

  Tornetta affected to hesitate, ‘Sometime, yes.’

  ‘How about today?’

  ‘Well . . . ’

  ‘Chicken already? You say this is chicken feed. What kind of money can you put up to support your big mouth?’

  This was insulting, but Tornetta had to swallow it, for he could not take on Mr. Ballantyne physically. The two other men at the table were shaken. One said, ‘No need for that kind of talk, Charles.’

  ‘Why not?’ Ballantyne asked brutally. ‘He’s losing my money because he doesn’t take this game seriously.’

  ‘I’m good for a thousand dollars,’ said Tornetta.

  They were startled. Even Ballantyne hesitated. Then he accepted. ‘All right. What game?’

  ‘Whatever you like.’

  ‘Know ‘em all, eh?’ suggested Ballantyne. ‘There’s a session here at four in the afternoon for money.’

  Tornetta turned up that afternoon and was a little surprised at the number of men who also came. Twenty of them, all aggressive with self-confidence.

  They sat down to play, and in ninety minutes Tornetta had taken six hundred dollars from Mr. Ballantyne. The man was a cheap loudmouth, filling himself with beer now, and soon he’d be looking for an excuse to inflict violence. Tornetta did not know how he could escape it if the man chose to find legitimate cause . . .

  ‘Mr. Tornetta,’ a voice said, and his confidence and skill went to pieces. ‘I have been looking for you. So! This is what you do?’

  It was the Italian who gave the little boy five
cents, who spoke softly, in English now, who had ‘been ill’ but had the appearance – and the appetite, Tornetta had observed fearfully in the dining room – of excellent health. He had the shape of a pear – but a young pear, not yet soft. His face was sallow and smooth, his eyes big and innocent, but somewhere along the line his hands had acquired the texture of newly sawn wood.

  ‘You were looking for me?’ Torrente commented, his own hands suddenly moist, so that the cards he held became wet and slippery.

  ‘I felt we must get together,’ Mr. Rossi said expansively. He continued in Italian: ‘We are the only Italians aboard. Did you know that?’

  ‘You want to play?’ asked Ballantyne impatiently.

  ‘Of course, of course. What are you playing?’

  They told him.

  Mr. Rossi sat down delicately, his considerable weight balanced lightly on the edge of a wooden chair.

  Tornetta began to lose and Ballantyne to regain some of what he’d lost. Mr. Rossi also won without apparent effort. He shuffled cards like a computer. Only the exodus of the rest of the group for a meal spared Tornetta. He strolled out onto the deck, dazed, eyes out of focus, with Mr. Rossi alongside, affable, gratified, apparently, by the victory which had given him ten dollars. Mr. Rossi was full of small talk.

  ‘I won the ship’s lottery today, too!’ he told Tornetta in mild intoxication. ‘Four dollars eighty-two cents. We steamed four hundred and thirty-two miles in the twenty-four hours. I estimated four hundred and thirty-four – the sea is calm, of course. So! Today I show a profit! Are you dining now? Come! Let us have a drink first.’

  In the Midships Bar Mr. Rossi was still garrulous. He did not seem to notice that Tornetta was almost silent. ‘How much did you take that big fellow for?’

  ‘About three hundred and fifty when we left.’

  ‘Dollars? My goodness, he won’t like that! A bit of a bigmouth, wasn’t he? But three hundred and fifty! And you’d been losing for an hour! You are a very good businessman, Mr. Tornetta! But you must avoid that gentleman! You are in business, I suppose? I, too, have a business. Printing, you know. In a small way. It is very pleasant doing business in this manner. An hour, that is all I shall need in Hong Kong, and I may be richer shortly afterwards by thousands of dollars. In San Francisco it will be different, tougher. I expect trouble there . . . What did you say your line of business is?’

  ‘Entertainment,’ Tornetta told hi reluctantly.

  ‘Ah, that is good. The Australians are great extroverts. You make money at this?’

  ‘Not bad.’

  ‘You are on business now?’

  ‘Holiday.’

  ‘Your wife is not with you?’

  ‘I am not married.’

  ‘Ah! My wife does not like the sea,’ claimed Mr. Rossi. ‘Nor the airplanes. A pity, for what is there to worry about? It is as calm as an automobile today. You are going far?’

  ‘To Italy,’ said Tornetta, his mind in confusion. He would leave the ship at San Francisco that was a certainty now. His brother would be there, Barbara would come. They’d be quiet for a few months, and then explore the situation.

  ‘We must see each other more often,’ proposed Mr. Rossi. ‘Two middle-aged Italians. We must do business, surely? Printing and entertainment. There must be something I can do for you and you for me. You know Mr. Osborne?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He is big in the entertainments business. I am surprised that you do not know him . . . I must introduce you to a few people here . . . You come from Sicily, Mr. Tornetta?’ he ventured slyly.

  ‘Palermo,’ acknowledged Tornetta.

  ‘Ah! I thought so! A place to get away from. Although things are improving, I understand . . . I have been in Australia twelve years. Very difficult to start with. Even the British treated us like cattle on their ship. Not allowed ashore, I recall, at Aden, because of our probable infestation! Those days are over, but they were hard. I worked in a restaurant for two years, a waiter! I saved and saved. Money talks in Australia, as it does in the United States. Five years ago I started my own business. Are you a Brother, Mr. Tornetta?’

  Tornetta was startled.

  ‘A brother?’

  ‘Ah! I see you are not. I joined a Masonic Lodge, and this is the brotherhood of business. You must join, I feel. One always needs help, Mr. Tornetta, and friends . . . Ah! Now listen. Will you be my guest? There will be a function in a few days.’

  ‘It is kind of you, but –’

  ‘No excuses. You are naturally apprehensive; there are ceremonies and mysteries. But this is just a social gathering – a few speeches, drinks, introductions and some dancing.’

  They separated to eat at different tables. Tornetta’s appetite was diminished by fear and, later, his sexual desire attenuated, although Barbara seemed satisfied.

  He had to think but couldn’t. The man had persisted in this intention of introducing Tornetta to a lot of Masons, middle-aged Australian businessmen and their wives. Why? It would make both of them conspicuous. Further social anonymity for both of them; cast them in a minor limelight. From being inconspicuous passengers, known only to half a dozen people, scores of persons would now identify them daily, offer a greeting very time encountered. If it was a stratagem to humiliate him, Tornetta failed to see its subtlety. The Mafia did not work this way. The executioner did not parade his victim around a ship. Was Mr. Rossi the instrument of retaliation at all? If he was not, then no one else aboard the Areopagus was, and he, Tornetta, was safe.

  But he did not feel secure. He had experienced danger before, the anticipatory days before the men came and he’d been thrashed with fists and sticks. It was why he had left Italy. And now his nerve ends jangled in the same manner. But this time he was not in a society which accepted vengeance as inevitable. Even aboard the Areopagus there were rules, law and order could, if necessary, be maintained.

  The invitation came, a piece of cardboard, two days later. What harm could there be in going? They would not hurt him there; only make the initial move in the stratagem which was to destroy him. He could go along and perhaps, identifying this first move, frustrate the second.

  Squibb asked from his bunk – he was still there, weak and now petulant – ‘What are you getting dressed up for in the afternoon?’

  It was half-past five.

  Tornetta told him, ‘I am a guest of the Masons.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to spray yourself with eau de cologne?’ Squibb inquired sarcastically.

  ‘Watch your mouth,’ Tornetta said angrily.

  It was indeed his habit to use a little scent. The women liked it. But now he walked out of the cabin without doing so.

  And it was as well that he neglected this personal habit this time. For among the forty Masons and their wives and guests were Mr. Pybus. His breathing was a considerable exertion, but he was almost sober and dressed in a dark suit. He had a square of adhesive bandage on the side of his head, and he was holding forth to those four or five Brothers and their guests who had the misfortune to be near him.

  ‘– and this swine not only robbed me when I was very ill, but kicked me when I was down. But I’d know him,’ claimed Pybus. ‘I didn’t see him, but I’d smell him if I met him. Because he was scented like a bloody dago.’

  Tornetta went hot with shock and turned his face away lest someone noticed his concern.

  Mr. Rossi introduced him to many people, and these acknowledged him politely. Only Mr. Ballantyne was offensive. ‘You’ve got a face, coming here amongst honest people,’ he told Tornetta with surly humour.

  Mr. Rossi conducted Tornetta on, commenting sadly, ‘Oh, he takes his loss badly, that one!’

  Tornetta was tense with expectation, but the affair was quite dull, even tedious.

  They were at last seated. Chairs
had again been arranged in the Ionic Lounge, microphones installed, small tables spread about, and stewards moved slowly around with drinks on trays. Tornetta drank quickly, but it made no difference: he was scared.

  There began a long list of toasts which, for him, were ludicrous – toasts to the queen of England, the king of Greece, the Masons, the captain and the ladies. And each speaker insisted among his panegyrical platitudes, ‘We’re having a fine time’ – when nothing had happened, and, in correction of this, ‘I won’t say much because we’re running late . . . ’

  Late with what? Tornetta wondered, moist with apprehension, baffled by this rigmarole – the tired, sallow, stooped man of importance who repeated, ‘Brothers, ladies, guests, charge your glasses for the next toast,’ and the thickset woman in a costume, sandy hair thinning and a gash mouth overpainted: ‘I’m not gonna say a lot ‘cause –’ How did it end? A secret initiation? An offer of a loan? Oaths sworn? Tornetta was sorry he had come; this would make him conspicuous, and therefore answerable, all the way to San Francisco. Was that a part of Rossi’s intention?

  Even comedy failed to take away uneasiness.

  ‘Brothers, ladies, guests, I give you the next toast . . . The captain!’ But another Brother called ‘Out of order!’ and Captain Vafiadis looked uncomfortable.

  Some volunteers from the cabaret did turns – a monologue of embarrassing eulogy: some exhibition dancing by the professional couple. This was followed by two songs.

  Demetropoulos sat by Tornetta, in white uniform, slightly soiled around the tight fit at the neck. He was evidently ignorant of the masculinity of the Masons, for he believed the pretty woman next to him might be open to a proposition and was probing her defences: ‘Are you travelling alone?’

  The visionary smile was on his face and his eyes, as ever, stared above the occasion at horizons more consecrated than this Australian nonsense down here. He stared whimsically at a point some feet above the captain as that gentleman went to the microphone and stumbled through a speech. ‘I am very happy. I am always happy among my passengers,’ Captain Vafiadis told the assembly with sepulchral enthusiasm. ‘I love my work . . . ’ The hypocrisy was effortless, part of duty. They presented him with a gift and he again had wooden phrases at the ready: ‘I am always happy when the Masons are on board. Many occasions have I attended and always I am happy to do so . . . ’