The Triple Goddess

by Ashly Graham

  On occasion, when he was pleased with her work and her cheesecake, which she flavoured with lemon juice to ward off scurvy, the swashbuckler-in-chief rewarded her by personally tarring her hair and plaiting it into a pigtail or queue, and instructed her to change into a tight white able seaman’s uniform that had belonged to one of her late sea-mates. Then he gave her a glass of port and cracked her a walnut.

  But his good humour only lasted as long as his digestion, which was weak. Whenever his stomach got upset after dinner, as he ran to the head he ordered the crew to throw the galley waste around, so as to give Arbella something extra to clean up in the morning. As a result she got no time off for hammock-swinging, and gathering with the sailors round the scuttled butt, and yarning and dancing hornpipes with them, and singing sea shanties.

  However she did become friendly with many of the crew, and in her few spare moments she darned their socks, listened to stories about their onshore lives and families, took down letters from them—only a few had mastered the rudiments of writing—for posting home from the next town they sacked, and gave them recipes for their wives. In return they taught her how to carve scrimshaws.

  One evening the chief, as he sat picking at a light evening repast of omelette made with egg-whites, and dry toast, sat her down and began educating her in the difference between barks and cutters, brigs and hermaphrodite brigs and brigantines, lateen-rigged settees, schooners, corvettes, galiots, and snows. He taught her how to distinguish launches, pinnaces, sloops or shallops, luggers, yawls, jolly-boats, larboard quarter-boats, and gigs. He waxed lyrical about jibs, studding-sails, spankers, staysails, topsails, topgallants, shrouds, stays, and tops. He told her a lot more than she thought there might be to know about close-hauling and running downwind. He demonstrated how to use a quadrant, and an astrolabe, and a Jacob’s staff, and he lectured her on the constellations and how to navigate by them.

  Later the same night the chief, unable to sleep for cogitating about the whereabouts of the 17th century Welsh privateering looter of the Caribbean, Sir Henry Morgan,’s buried treasure, and how he might find it before anyone else beat him to the rum punch, joined her on deck where she was keeping watch and nibbling a piece of salt beef that one of the sailors had slipped her.

  After extracting her promise that she would not tell the men, the captain confided that his name was Bruce, and that he was in love with a merman called Antonio who lived on a small island, more of a rock, really, near Sardinia. Bruce and Antonio were hoping some day to set up house there together.

  Then the chief inflated his hair-matted chest and sang shanties to her in a light tenor until she nodded off.

  The alarm-clock went off in Eaton Square much too early. As Arbella dragged herself out of bed, she was stiff and unsteady on her feet, and there were bruises on her legs and arms. The sheets were twisted like rope and her hands were very sore.

  Surveying her exhausted features in the mirror, she vowed to become such a landlubber that she would never again get on a sailing boat, or take even the shortest of ferry rides. In the shower, the soap took a long time to lather, as if her skin were covered in salt, and after she dried off she slathered Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream Intensive Moisturizing Body Treatment over herself.

  Being ravenous, when she went downstairs Arbella pitched into the fullest breakfast that she had ever eaten. This greatly surprised and discomposed her father, a man who had regular booster shots to maintain his immunity against peripeteia, or sudden changes in life.

  Valiantly fighting a rising panic, Stace père drew deep upon his inner resources to be encouraging. ‘Recovered your appetite, my dear? Daddy is so pleased. In re the oesophagus, a busy tract is a happy tract. Have another sausage.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  ‘Dearest?’

  ‘Sorry, Father. I was dreaming of the sea last night, and not pleasantly.’

  ‘It must be the Lloyd’s influence, darling, you’re working too hard and need a break. Your pater recommends a nice cruise: the sea air will revive you. The Caribbean is the place to go at this time of year, he understands; he hasn’t been there himself, but members of his staff get sent there for a day or two when they have their annual nervous breakdowns. All my employees get to see the Caribbean.

  ‘His lordship will arrange for his travel company, Raleigh Cruiselines, to book you on the Captain Bligh; it’s a most luxurious boat, the gem of the fleet. Don’t be put off by the name, it was just Daddy’s little joke. You’ll have the biggest state room, very “posh”: you know, Port Out, Starboard Home…though one gathers that the acronym is spurious.

  ‘You’ll love the Bligh, dear, and won’t have to do a thing all day except lounge about on deck and deflect the rays with broad spectrum SPF one hundred sunblock. Get plenty of rest and let the jolly Jack tars do all the work. His lordship will instruct the captain to make a fuss of you: Hank Morgan’s his name, he runs a very tight ship. Hank’ll invite you to dine at his table every night—gourmet food, of course, none of those old-fashioned ship’s rations, hard tack with weevils in it.

  ‘’Parently Hank trained to become a chef at Overton’s seafood restaurant on St James’s Street before he took to the briny, so he’s very proud of his kitchen.’

  ‘Galley.’

  ‘Eh? Anyway, your Pappy was very taken by Captain Morgan when he interviewed him, and hired him on the spot without bothering to check his references, which is unheard of in Pappyville. Had a long chat with him at the last Raleigh Christmas party—a full thirteen and one quarter minutes as one recalls.

  ‘He’s a rum cove: black spade beard, rolling gait, and a gold ring in his right ear…straight out of Treasure Island. One can just picture him with a wooden leg and a parrot on his shoulder yelling, “Pieces of eight, pieces of eight!” Jib-booms and bobstays!—as one understands the expression to be—and shiver my timbers! you might even meet someone on board and have one of those shipboard romances.

  ‘One should not expect Morgan as a son-in-law, however: the Hankster’s light on his feet…not that there’s anything wrong with that…and Daddy’s girl that you are, he doesn’t see you and him living upstairs.’

  Arbella was feeling queasier by the second. ‘Jib-boom:’ she said in a low voice, ‘the boom rigged out beyond the bowsprit to which the tack of the jib is attached. Bobstay: a rope or chain extending from the bowsprit to the cutwater.’

  ‘Beg pardon?’

  ‘Nothing, Father.’ She was seriously regretting the breakfast that she had just eaten, and feeling the onset of nausea. ‘Please…I don’t mean to be rude, but I can’t think of anything I’d less rather do than go on a cruise.’ She held her napkin to her mouth.

  Stace waved the protest aside. ‘Nonsense. This boat’s a pleasure palace with every conceivable modern convenience. There’s even a fully equipped hospital, which his lordship insisted upon, with every specialty of doctor on staff. Olympic-size swimming pool, tennis courts, gymnasium, cinema, auditorium…orchestral concerts featuring internationally renowned conductors and soloists, and bands…you can dance into the wee hours and sleep through the bells—that’s how they tell the time on boats, you know, by ringing the hours. Celebrity chefs to give cookery classes.

  ‘So take Daddy’s word for it, dear, when he assures you that you’ll have one whale of a time. Anyone who says you won’t become a regular Flying Dutchwoman and never wish to come onshore again is talking bilge-water.

  ‘Now then, why don’t you wrap a few slices of bacon in some fried bread, to eat on your way to work? One should be hung from the yard-arm for suggesting it, or flogged, but a good dollop of grease’ll help you put on some much-needed weight.’

  Arbella ran to the bathroom and only just made it in time.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Arbella arrived late in the office that morning, sat down with several legal-size yellow pads of paper, and tried to summon sufficient inventive power to produce a slip for a potential Ralegh contract.

  As
she lobbed ball after ball of screwed-up paper at the waste basket, she wondered what had possessed her to come up with such a preposterous notion.

  While she worked she smoked cigarette after cigarette, and drank cups of office coffee, neither of which stimulants improved either her mood or her stomach. Unlike the beverage that the secretaries served from Italian espresso machines to the executives on the Golden Mile, the ersatz brew from the brokers’ drinks service next to the toilets was a foul concoction, which led one to suspect that the two facilities were connected.

  When one pressed a selection of buttons for powdered coffee, tea or chocolate, milk and sugar, at first nothing happened. This was the moment to remember to remove two plastic cups from the bottom of the dispenser to the side, and place them under the delivery spout over the drain reservoir. No matter how careful one was, a generous dozen cups would come out together, and the surplus had to be set to one side because they would not fit back in. The double thickness was necessary because one cup would melt into a bulge at the bottom and be too hot to pick up.

  Once there had been cup-holders available, but these were hoarded by the old-timers and nobody under the age of fifty had one. Each year a precious few were bequeathed by individuals upon their retirement, to favoured colleagues with ten or fifteen years of active service left who were still unendowed with beverage receptacles, and who looked forward to receiving them more than would have being given a key to the executive bathroom.

  The drinks machine, after pausing to recover from the shock of someone wanting to use it, and having established that the person was not going to realize the folly of the request and go away, shuddered as it prepared to shoot its wad. Then it ejaculated a dry dust of coffee, which was slightly coarser than the tea, followed by the optional powdered cow and sugar, and a slow thin stream of water into the cup. As the mixture partially dissolved, a chemical scum formed and rose to the surface.

  After a final spasm the service, exhausted, rumbled in its guts and shut down.

  At last Arbella, who by now was feeling decidedly light-headed, had a sheaf of paper before her with no crossings-out on them, and bore them off to see Mr Shrively.

  Mr Shrively was the individual responsible for entering brokers’ handwritten slips into the Chandler Brothers primaeval computer system. He would then run off printed versions on the standard rectangular lengths of grey card, bearing the company name and market registration number, that would be presented to underwriters for their rejection, derision, or acceptance. These placing slips were shorter or longer according to the complexity of the contract.

  When the order had been completed and underwriters were bound, or “on risk”, Mr Shrively used the finally agreed slip to produce a cover-note; which in the fullness of time would form the basis for the more detailed wording that, when the contract was expired and forgotten, someone in the office would get around to having a stab at pulling together for agreement by still living parties or their next-generational successors.

  There was no way that any broker, however senior, could bypass Mr Shrively. One could not just type up any old thing oneself and take it to the Room, for Shrively was a stickler for detail who had first to ensure that all the requisite terms and conditions were included, and in the proper order; nothing escaped him.

  Mr Shrively was a little sergeant-major of a man, who had become shorter and fatter over the years until his body’s expansive directional impartiality earned him the nickname of Beachball. His face had a dangerous purple-black hue to it, and was reticulated with so many blood vessels on the verge of bursting that one wondered how much additional pressure it could stand, before exploding, like the melon in Day of the Jackal that the hit-man played by Mr Edward Fox used for target practice.

  To the south of Beachball’s chain-smoking blob of a head and layers of dandruff, he was all wheezing chest and stomach, the Mercatorial projection of his belly covered with, instead of modish stripes like the brokers, the grey polyester of a formerly white shirt that strained at the buttons to reveal a yellowed vest.

  Beachball’s blood-pressure numbers were an aggregate of brokers’ lack of attention to detail, ignorance, and inconsistency; a diet of fried food and sodium; aversion to exercise; chains of unfiltered cigarettes; four hours a day discourtesy of British Rail; and the consumption of blended scotch in the train’s refreshment car, and Guinness in the pub next to the station at the other end. He stood up only twice during the work day, between installing himself at his desk in the morning and leaving it at five-fifteen to, not catch but creep up on the six oh-three from London Bridge to Brighton: for his twenty minute lunchtime journey to the staff canteen in the basement, and back to his desk via the urinal afterwards.

  For all his gruffness Mr Shrively was a kind-hearted man who enjoyed company; and everyone was always polite to him, out of affection and not just because they wanted their slips done in a timely fashion. Sympathetic to his condition, the other office workers felt obliged not to rush past him in the corridor as he made his glacial progress downstairs every day at one o’clock, but to linger and chat. In consequence, when Beachball was under way there would be a line of frustrated personnel behind him, crumpling their luncheon vouchers in frustration, and cursing themselves for not having got going five minutes earlier to avoid the congestion.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Shrively,’ said Arbella, as she entered the nicotine-walled cubicle; ‘and how are we today?’

  She realized her mistake as Shrively’s head jerked up in surprise and pleasure at being so deposed, and listened squeamishly to the lengthy response to her question, for today of all days she must be especially nice to him. The slip she had with her was hardly ordinary, and it was likely that he would refuse to print it, for he was a very conservative and punctilious individual.

  When he was done explicating the ruination of his barely ambulatory thrombosis of a body, Beachball eased Arbella’s draft slip from her grasp with thumb and forefinger, propped it before him, and trained a jaundiced eye beyond his bulbous mottled nose upon the script. Without a sideways flicker of his gaze, a prominently veined hand crawled across the desk, withdrew a cigarette from a box, and inserted it in the lipless aperture of his mouth.

  Holding the cigarette between his third and fourth fingers in the manner but without the style of the highbrow critic Kenneth Tynan, Shrively blindly picked up a petrol lighter, thumbed open the top, rasped the wheel, lit it, and closed the brass cap with a snap.

  When he did not exhale, and there was no sign of depleted smoke on his breath, Arbella pictured the medley of embolisms that was playing ring-a-ring-o’-roses in what remained of Mr Shrively’s lungs. It was on these occasions that she considered giving up the habit.

  At length with a bubbling sigh Shrively said, ‘You can’t be serious.’ But he could see that she was, so he perused the draft a second time, this time depriving himself of carbon monoxide for long enough to read certain key words aloud while stabbing the paper with a stubby finger:

  Assured: Sir Walter Ralegh, Knight, b. 1554.

  Class: Travel Indemnity.

  Cover: One hundred per cent (100%) reimbursement for the cost of chartering as many ships as the Assured may require for an expedition to Guiana, to be captained by the Assured; and outfitting such vessels with equipment, supplies and other matériel, and as much end-user certificated weaponry as may be deemed necessary for the defensive protection of transports and personnel.

  To include the expense of hiring officers and crew, doctor, interpreter, cartographer, scientist, geologist, and other specialist professional and attendant persons; re-provisioning; overland transportation; mineral excavation; the purchase of permits from the Government of Guiana, and local chieftains; and discretionary gifts to natives for the purpose of acquiring as much Booty (see below) as possible.

  Booty: Including but not limited to gold, silver, jewels, spices, tobacco [at the latter, Mr Shrively raised an interested eyebrow], coffee [Ralegh and the Corporation of Lloyd’s
would approve], rum [a sop to underwriters], and miscellaneous native artefacts [Arbella wanted to start a collection].

  Term: Twelve (12) months, effective date as agreed by leading underwriter only, plus odd time, with extensions also t.b.a. L/U.

  Territory: English Channel, Atlantic Ocean, and the Caribbean, at the discretion of the Assured, between such latitudes as may be required or dictated by course charting, the vagaries of weather, evasion of unsolicited attack, and medical emergencies necessitating hospitalization; Guiana, and otherwise on land between places of embarkation and disembarkation, including any and all diversions made for the purpose of securing as much Booty (see above) as possible.

  Limit: Invoiced and receipted amounts for up to but not exceeding one million pounds sterling (£1,000,000) payable at inception.

  Deductible: None.

  Premium: 100% of the Assured’s net wealth, property and assets, after deduction of debts and creditors’ balances.

  Profit Commission: Underwriters to receive one hundred per cent (100%) of net profits from the Assured’s venture, plus resale and/or salvage value of ships and equipment as included in Cover (see above), after discharge of all costs and expenses, and upon receipt of lien releases from contractors, subcontractors and materialmen.

  Accounts: Premium payable one hundred per cent (100%) in advance.

  Warranties:

  That Sir Walter Raleigh is the biological father of the active underwriter for Syndicate Number 001, Carew Arthur Ralegh, Esq.

  That the Assured shall fully disclose and comply with audit of his assets by Ernst & Young and/or any other auditor(s) as may be appointed by underwriters hereon.