Here I Am!

by Pauline Holdstock

  There were still too many people walking about who might see me go to bed. No one was in a hurry to go anywhere. I had to do walking about the ship all over again.

  All of a sudden there was a new message. It said

  Ladies and Gentlemen, This is a nannouncement from the bridge. A school of porpoises has been sighted on the starboard side of the vessel travelling westward at approximutly the speed of the ship.

  A lady near me said That’s on the other side. Do you want to go and see? She held out her hand.

  I did one of my lies. I said MyDad will take me. He’s just coming. And she rushed off.

  As soon as I could I dived behind the mattresses. No one saw. I was really squeezed in tight so I felt a lot better. It wasn’t terrible anymore. It was very safe and I could be calm.

  I didn’t know how I would fall asleep. I was not at all tired. I waited until the sky started getting dark so I could do counting backwards. The sky took ever such a long time because it had to do all the colours first. I could see through a teeny tiny gap. You have to be extremely careful. Like a spy. My favourite thing! It did pink and mauve and orange and purple and everything — and then it did blue-black. (You can have that. Two colours at once.) It was dark (except the lights were on) so I started counting. You have to pick a number. I picked eight hundred and forty-seven. I started from there. Backwards (of course).

  It didn’t work. Instead of going to sleep I only thought about MyMum and I thought about what happened after I gave her the kiss. I’ll tell you. It was THURSDAY AM. This is what I did. I got my jacket and put my best shoes on (just because) and went out the door. I didn’t push the latch over then Gran could get in if she came and anyway it’s a bit stiff and my thumb’s not strong enough. Then I went out. It was a lovely sunny day but I didn’t like being outside at all. I felt as if I was walking on a high mountain and I might fall down the side. I had to bite the insides of both my cheeks so I wouldn’t. I expect I looked like a nidiot.

  It was really early when I got to school. I don’t like that. I stayed in the toilets for a long time so no one would to talk to me in the playground but then someone came and started doing farts and that made me leave. When I went outside I thought This is my lucky day (but you know it wasn’t) because Miss Kenney was on playground duty and she saw me coming. But she purposely turned round and walked the other way. I ran to catch her up.

  When I was close I called out Miss Kenney! Miss Kenney! And she turned round again. She folded her arms tight like a cross person in a comic and said Good morning Frankie. But she really meant You!

  I said Good morning Miss Kenney. And then I said Miss Kenney?

  She said What? (Only it was like WOT full stop.) And undid her arms and did them up the other way and said What is it this time? Your Dad?

  I said No. He’s in Ipswich.

  She said Ah.

  I said It’s still MyMum. She’s still dead.

  Miss Kenney said Frankie that is still more unlikely than it was yesterday. Who is at your house?

  I said MyMum.

  She said There you are then.

  I said But she’s dead.

  Miss Kenney undid her arms really quickly and looked at her watch then she lifted up the bell and rang it right by my ear. It was the loudest thing I’ve ever heard. She kept on ringing and not looking at me and looking all over the playground instead where all the kids were screaming and yelling and running to line up. Except me. I stayed beside her while she walked over to the steps but she didn’t take any notice of me. She likes ignoring. Ignoring is probably her favourite thing. I thought she would talk to me when the lines started going in but she didn’t. She said INFANTS! in a fat voice and when they started going in she said Get in line Frankie (in a normal voice). You should be in your line.

  I knew what her plan was. Her plan was to pretend to be deaf when I started talking to her. But I know she’s not.

  I decided not to talk to her anymore anyway. At all.

  Or anyone else.

  Except Mrs Mahoney.

  If someone said something to me I just looked at them. But I didn’t look right in their eyeballs. I looked at the air in front of their eyeballs. If you do that you can pretend they’re not there and then you can feel safe. If someone said something again I just used my head like no or yes or maybe (you do eyebrows for maybe). I thought it was going to be a bit difficult when we did Calendar and Mission and Spelling. And Arithmetic. (That comes after Mission.) But Miss Kenney didn’t ask me a single thing. Not one. So that was all right. Douglas said Can I use your ruler so I just gave it to him and when Angela said I’ve sent three souls to Heaven since Monday I just looked at her. She looked happy. I wanted to say MyMum’s in Heaven but I didn’t in case she wasn’t there yet because she always said she had no plans to go there and anyway I couldn’t because I was the one doing not talking.

  I just thought about it.

  (I’m still thinking about it. I think MyMum was still there with me. On the boat. Do you think I am a mad person?)

  I kept on just thinking about it in class. I had done all my spelling and all my sums so there was a lot of time for thinking.

  When the bell rang for playtime I was the first one at the door. Everyone lined up behind me. Miss Kenney said Right. Outside quietly everyone. No running. Frankie you go back and put your ruler away.

  So I was last.

  When I got outside I saw Mrs Mahoney walking across the playground towards the big gates. She had her handbag on her arm. I ran over but I was too late because she was already outside in the road. I shouted out Mrs Mahoney! Mrs Mahoney! But she didn’t hear me because there were two lorries and a bus coming. I ran outside even though you’re not supposed to and shouted Mrs Mahoney! again and she turned round and then the first lorry was in the way and when it had gone she must have got on the bus. But the bus wasn’t going anywhere because the bus driver was jumping out. He ran round the front of the bus and bended down and he must have run over a dog because I could see something like fur and someone else was bended down and I could hear some high up squealing and then tiny whimpers. I didn’t want to see a run over thing so I didn’t bend down. I just kept on running. That’s when I decided what to do next. I did not want to go back to school. Ever. And I did not want to go home either. I thought MyDad is a grown-up. He will be all right.

  Gordon Knight

  Good God almighty. Mouth like an open drain. One has to suppose it’s one’s own. Someone’s riveted my head to my neck. Hurts even to turn it. How am I going to do this? One elbow. Wait for things to stabilize. Christ. I have to stop doing this. Now the dog. All right, sit Alec. You’re going to have to be patient. I may be some time.

  Gordon Knight is shocked to find he is still wearing his shoes. Like all habitual drinkers, he indulges in a series of promises to himself as he negotiates the flotsam of his room. He steps on Alec’s water dish. Damn. Never again. A good job he does have his shoes on. He has no recollection of putting it near the bed. None. This time he means it. Really means it. When he has relieved himself and cleaned his teeth he finds a glass and takes a long drink of water. It does not taste as good as he had hoped.

  Alec next. He takes the dish to the bathroom, empties out what’s left and half fills it with fresh water, then he sets it down in the corner, sending a pulse of blood, hard as a cricket ball, through the back of his head. He puts his towel round his neck and washes his face, smoothes the water through his hair, and dries himself. For now the only kind thing is to take Alec — at the moment happily lapping — down to the dog park. Gordon combs his wet hair and smoothes it all over again just to make sure. He tucks in his shirt, puts a jacket on, and waits for Alec to finish before he attaches the handle and they set out along the corridor.

  Hard to tell whether it’s me or the boat. I’ve acquired a sailor’s roll. Rhythmic, not unpleasant. Not unlike dancing. Just as well t
he lift isn’t far, though.

  Or maybe that was a mistake. Dropping six floors with a long glass of water inside me…Never mind let’s get through this, Alec.

  Don’t know what I’d do without you. I had a mind earlier to leave you in the room — imagine! Take my leave, make a final exit. Lucky for you I can’t resist the bottle. You’d be the ship’s mascot by now. Perhaps you’d have enjoyed that. Your new friend would have. He’s taken a shine to you.

  Gordon and Alec, somewhat recovered, make their way back to the cabin. As soon as they leave the lift, Gordon can smell the disinfectant. He walks a little way and feels Alec’s hesitation. A little further still and he stops. The cleaning cart is right outside his room. He doesn’t want to know what there is to clean up. All he wants to do is take a shower with some of that carbolic soap and pretend the night didn’t happen. Preferring not to come across anyone in his half-baked state, he turns and goes back to the dog park to wait.

  Now his lack of action last night seems like a serious breach of faith, a betrayal of his friend — let’s not be coy, his lover. He’s made the promise to Harry more than once and never kept it. Like his promises to himself. Weak. He told himself it felt wrong to meet his end in England, so far from Harry, to be forever separated. But now that he’s so close he can sense, if he’s truly honest, that he’s deceiving himself again. He doesn’t have the chops.

  Feeling weak, despising himself, does nothing to help him keep faith. Instead, it distances him still farther. He feels unworthy of the act he’d always believed to be noble, an act he would one day perform. And he is slipping so far from Harry in this state. He wants his memory back, his love back, unsoiled.

  The cabin smells astringent and faintly toxic. Gordon Knight tends to Alec first. Fills his bowl with chow and — receiving a second cricket ball to the skull — bends down to place it on the floor. He returns to the bathroom for the shower he’s been wanting. As he pulls the towel from the rail, something falls to the floor. He’ll deal with it later. He’s not bending down a third time.

  He takes his shower, noting that, as good as it feels, every pain-sensitive nerve is now wide awake. Never mind. He finds some fresh clothes and generally restores himself to a credible replica of a man.

  The task ahead of him feels right. Never mind that he doesn’t have his portable typewriter with him. It’s sitting square in the centre of his empty desk at home, a carefully folded note beneath it bearing the name and telephone number of his solicitor. But that’s not the point. Not the point at all.

  First, he makes a call to Room Service to order tea and some sandwiches to eat later. He doesn’t want to be interrupted. He pulls up the chair to the dressing table and locates the blotter and the pen. When the steward arrives he has him set down the tray on the fold-out shelf beside the bed and asks him, before he leaves, to find two or three blank sheets of writing paper. He locks the door.

  Ten minutes later, using the blunt tip of his key against the back of the bible, he has scored the paper deeply with the guidelines he will need. But he has not yet begun. It is not that he cannot form the letters. He has had many, many years of practice. It is that he cannot find the words.

  He drinks his tea. Eventually he begins. Laying his left hand flat on the sheet, forefinger and thumb splayed, he forms each letter against the side of his knuckle, sliding his thumb steadily along the guideline as he writes.

  Dearest Harry, my dear, dear Harry,

  After all these years, how he wants him still. As if he hasn’t wept enough. But it is all so shallow this second-best choice of a letter. It is an excuse, and a comical one. Dear Harry, I was going to join you but I decided on a letter instead. You won’t mind, will you? Sorry if my letters fall over each other.

  He gets up angrily, knocking into Alec as he pushes back his chair. He puts the tray outside and locks the door, then he returns to his bed. He lies facing the wall to comfort himself with memory and brutal touch.

  When he wakes, he has no idea of the time.

  His watch is on the dressing table. He opens it. It’s almost eleven. The tea has dehydrated him even more. He goes to the bathroom to get himself another long drink of water. Poor Alec. His day is a write-off. And he must surely need the dog park again. His water dish is empty. Gordon refills it and sets it down. Remembering that something had fallen, he feels underneath the towel rail. There’s something soft and faintly damp. He picks it up. For a second his fingers are at a loss. And then they read it. It’s a sock but not his. Assuredly not his.

  He takes it through to the bed and sits down, lays it flat in his palm. He registers its small size and his heart pounds. It’s racing to keep pace with his brain processing the information lying in his hand and making its deductions. He tries to find an explanation for the presence of this item of clothing other than that the boy was in the room while he was comatose. It can’t be that. It mustn’t be. Good God. He remembers the storm now. The reason he had started drinking. How could he have forgotten it? And if he had forgotten that, what else was there? When did the boy come in? Did he let him in? His heart is racing now. He may be many things but not that.

  He tells himself to calm down, take control. He can imagine other scenarios: that the boy gave it to him; that he picked it up himself because the boy had left it lying in the deckchair; that the boy had dropped it when he looked in (that day); that it fell from the chambermaid’s pocket; that, like a retriever with a duckling, Alec had carried it in. He eliminates each in turn rapidly, too easily, and his heart thunders on. He steadies his breathing. Think. He holds the sock in two hands, stretches it a little — and catches a whiff of something horribly familiar. Whatever washing the sock underwent was not enough to remove the stubborn, unmistakable taint of vomit. The boy was in his room while he, Gordon Knight, was in a drunken stupor. The question now is what is he to do about it? Indeed, there is more than one question. Whom to approach? What does he expect the outcome to be? What would he think, as a ship’s officer, confronted with such a vague and unlikely report? More to the point, once they are advised, what will the parents think? Even as he is formulating the question, he feels the disjunction. It is like a magician’s box. The top, the sides clack open one by one to reveal — nothing. There are no parents. The boy does not have a cabin on this ship. The boy — he knows it now with one hundred percent certainty — is all alone.

  In light of this knowledge, the question of his own good name becomes irrelevant. The question now, the issue, is the child’s safety. Go at once — it must surely be close to half past eleven, possibly even later — rouse everyone to action in the middle of the night? The boy is a strange one. It was a fib…She was in her armchair…He’s suffered some mighty trauma. If he were provoked to run, to enter an inaccessible hiding place, put himself in danger? He has eluded detection so far. He’s highly intelligent. Trust him to his own devices for an hour or so more?

  He puts his jacket on and ties his shoes, decides he’ll wear his anorak too. He has no idea what the weather’s doing, except that it’s no longer rough.

  — Right, Alec. Work. He fastens the handle on his harness. Just before they go out, he goes back to the bed and picks up the sock and puts it in his jacket pocket.

  Miss Kenney

  I haven’t slept for three nights now. I didn’t know how on earth I was going to face school today. He was on the BBC Sunday afternoon. Well not him personally but an SOS on the wireless. “And now for an urgent SOS. Will anyone with information concerning the whereabouts…” They gave his name and address and everything like they do and they asked people to go to their local constabulary.

  So that was it for the rest of the evening for me. They hadn’t found him. I was awake half the night again going over it all. It got worse and worse. And it wasn’t Mrs Walters I was worried about this time. I’d close my eyes and I’d see him face down somewhere. In a ditch. In the old canal tunnel. On the railway line. I started to fe
el a bit off. I must have been awake for about three hours. I felt rotten.

  In the end I got up and made myself a warm Horlicks to settle my stomach. Terrible idea. I’ve always disliked the taste. But at least afterwards I fell asleep — for an hour. Fat lot of good. I didn’t get away from him even then. When the alarm went off I was in the middle of a long argument with him about how long a bus would take to drive all the way round the world, if it could. He was sitting at my desk, in my chair. Mr Bladgeworth was listening and he had an inspector with him too. An HMI. I was so glad to wake up. Only then, of course, I remembered straightaway. I don’t know how I managed to get myself ready for school, I was that worried. And not without good reason. When I got to the gates, they were all there. They all knew about it. I couldn’t even get across the playground. Miss! Miss! Tell us about Frankie! I said, There’s nothing to tell and the next person who asks me will stay in at playtime and write out their seven times table.

  The staff room was another ordeal altogether. I knew they’d just been talking about me because there was a distinct silence when I went in and closed the door. You can tell can’t you? Even if someone coughs it sounds put on. Mr Herbert said, Any news then, Miss Kenney? The whole room was quiet. No, I said, Not a thing.

  I knew everyone was imagining the worst. But I couldn’t help that. Except it made me feel so guilty. And what for? It was nothing to do with me, was it? But still.