by Mark McCrum
Nor was the shrine in some dark and spooky clearing in the jungle, but at the back of a pink breezeblock bungalow in a nondescript suburban district of Lomé. After the bulky, white-robed priest had thrown water from a brimming calabash on to the parched red earth ‘to welcome down the ancestors’, he led the visitors along a narrow passage to a backyard part-covered with a flat roof of dried reeds. A chiaroscuro of sunshine and shadow fell on the male drummers seated round the central dirt floor, where women were already dancing, wailing high notes over the deeper chants of the men. But this was something altogether more intense and purposeful than the carefree toyi-toying of earlier, as the participants, hunched over, sunk themselves into a group trance. Two or three at the centre had faces contorted with real or imagined pain. Others swayed around them, pouring water on them, rubbing their necks and backs with talcum powder, guiding them as they stumbled one by one through the multicoloured curtain of plastic strips at the door of the shrine, a whitewashed building with a glassless open window crossed with thick steel bars.
Francis sat next to Eve, who fluttered a hand back and forth in front of her flushed face.
‘So … hot, isn’t it?’ she said.
‘Are you OK?’
‘I’m fine.’ She smiled stoically. ‘But I do rather wish that I’d bought one of those pretty fans at the market.’ She nodded towards the priest, who was watching from a bench to one side, a benign smile creasing his chubby face. ‘He seems very relaxed about all these poor ladies, doesn’t he? Oh, well, perhaps it’s just their tradition. Not for us to interfere.’
Now some of the dancers were encouraging their guests to join in. The few takers were all female: a blonde American in a white skirt, orange blouse and huge sunglasses, who had the air of one who had been a cheerleader in her distant youth; then, to Francis’s surprise, Sadie, moving her hips and shoulders in a not unconvincing imitation of the easy African way; and finally – Praise the Lord! – Shirley, chubby white arms out in front of her as she kangarooed adventurously across the floor. She was laughing loudly at her own attempts to toyi-toyi; but then, suddenly, she wasn’t laughing, losing herself in the beat of the music, face down, grimacing like one of the women who had vanished through the door of the shrine. As the locals saw her expression change, they darted around her like little fish, tugging up her big white blouse and rubbing talc into the skin of her back, then pouring water over the thin curls on top of her head. So it was hard to tell, when she finally lifted her face again, whether the gleaming moisture on her cheeks was water or tears. Pulling herself upright, she looked round at her audience with a blank stare, shook herself like a big dog and made her way off the floor, supported by three helpers.
As the guests arrived back at the ship that evening, the hawkers were out on the quay in force. If you hadn’t already bought your Togoan necklace, carving or Mandela shirt, now was your chance. Beyond, by the steel gate to the gangway, stood a row of crew in crisp white shirts, purple waistcoats and black bow ties, holding out a banner which read Welcome Home.
‘That was quite a day,’ said Eve, as she stepped on to the solid surface of deck three. ‘I’m looking forward to a little lie down now.’
‘Will we see you at dinner?’ asked Francis.
‘I might just watch a film and have some soup in my cabin. Can’t manage the full bells and whistles every night.’
They walked together past Reception and along the narrow corridor, lined with its tightly sealed cabin doors.
‘Here I am,’ said Eve, as she reached 314.
‘I’m just one along,’ said Francis.
‘How nice,’ said Eve, touching his arm as she met his eye. ‘It’s reassuring to have you there.’ Francis looked down at the wrinkled V of her neck and felt a wave of affection for her. Without thinking, he leaned forward and gave her a hug.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow morning,’ she said, waving as she backed into her cabin, ‘unless I get a sudden second wind.’
There was just enough time to shower and change before evening cocktails in the theatre. As if they hadn’t seen enough dancing already today, the guests were treated to a final display, introduced by the ever-enthusiastic Viktor. Though there were even more elaborate masks and costumes than at the breakfast-time parade, this performance seemed somehow tamer, the contained touristic entertainment it was. But then, at the drum-beaten climax, a cloud of dry ice was released, tipped from a bucket at one side by hotel director Gregoire, his handsome profile in silhouette against the billowing white. For a minute or two there was a tangible sense of mystery as the lights dimmed and the eerie masked creatures shimmered through the ersatz mist.
Then, with a few coughs from the audience, the magic was gone. The lights came up, dinner was announced and the dancers were bundled off down the gangway, gleaming and pungent with the sweat of their exertions. There were yells from the dockside as the moorings were untied. The ship wobbled, and the guests shuffled upstairs for another very European repast.
THREE
Day at Sea. Sunday 23 April.
Francis woke feeling relaxed. It was a day at sea, so there was no wake-up call for the guests this morning, just a leisurely shower and a stroll upstairs to the breakfast room where a sumptuous buffet was laid out. Along from the fine spread of cereals, mueslis, exotic fresh fruit and the deep silver dishes of bacon, sausages, tomatoes, mushrooms, scrambled egg et al, two more Filipinas in chef’s hats were grinning away behind an omelette station.
‘Yes, sir, what can I get you?’ they parrotted. ‘Cheese omelette, ham omelette, omelette with everything?’
Francis paused for barely a second. ‘Omelette with everything, please,’ he said.
‘We will bring it, sir.’
At seven thirty a.m. the place was half empty, so he was able to find a table with a porthole view over the sunny ocean outside. There was even a newspaper to read, the Golden Adventurer News, a one-page digest of recent world events with a touch of local colour thrown in. How much easier life would be, he thought, devouring it in a minute, if this were the sum total of the news he was given at home instead of the incessant feed of papers, radio, TV, websites, tweets and Facebook shares with which he cluttered up his day, allowing himself to empathize with situations and causes he would never be able to do anything directly about.
Glancing at his mobile, he realized that he had become Facebook friends with Sadie last night. After dinner at different group tables, they had gone up to the bar together and sat with their drinks near the little circular dance floor, where the chic younger companion of the old man with straggly hair was no longer alone, instead being waltzed around expertly by none other than gorgeous Gregoire.
‘Is that a service he offers all the ladies, d’you think?’ Sadie asked.
‘Dancing lessons?’
‘Let’s hope it stops at that.’
‘Hubby looks like a dog whose bone has been taken away.’
‘Perhaps it has. They’re an odd couple, aren’t they? Bostonians. He’s some kind of magazine publishing tycoon and she’s his long-term Puerto Rican girlfriend.’
‘How did you find that out?’
Sadie tapped her nose. ‘I keep my ears to the ground. And that beautifully dressed Asian guy is a famous designer, did you know that?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Like, seriously, the John Galliano of Mumbai or something. Among other things he does loads of the outfits for Bollywood.’
‘Well, well. And his sinister friend?’
‘A bit scary looking, isn’t he? If you ask me, he’s the money. Or maybe the emotional rock. Or both – a handy package.’
Francis laughed. ‘You have been busy.’
Sadie shrugged. ‘And guess what? You know Shirley?’
‘The large English lady …’
‘Who you find annoying.’
‘Is it that obvious?’
‘Er, yes. And I kinda take your point. She is a bit up herself sometimes. But I was chatting to her ove
r dinner and in fact she’s rather amazing. She’s been a nurse all her life, looking after sick children, and now she’s got terminal cancer.’
‘You’re joking.’
‘I’m not. How unfair is that? You’re not to tell anyone this, but she and Gerald have pretty much blown their life savings coming on this trip. She’s finished treatment and it’s not looking good. They can’t tell her how long she’s got, apparently, but it may be just months. So she’s going for it, doing the stuff she always wanted to do, which I think is rather cool. She was making us laugh, saying that every time she finishes a tube of toothpaste she celebrates, because that means she’s survived a few more weeks.’
As Francis met Sadie’s eye, she rested her hand on his arm. It sent a tingle right through him, and for a moment, flushed with wine and whisky, he had found himself wondering if this were an invitation – and, if so, whether he should take it up. A fling on the ocean wave – how liberating and romantic! Especially after all the hassle he’d had with Chloe. But though such a release might be fun, he was old and experienced enough to know that it might also not be; and if it wasn’t, how would he ever get away? In any case, hadn’t he promised himself a break from emotional complications? Demands that he couldn’t fulfil. No, in the sober light of morning he was glad that their intimacy was still just virtual.
Relishing his freedom, he lingered over his breakfast, watching the Filipino waiter in the cream jacket as he seated new arrivals and took their orders. John the badge on his lapel read. ‘Is that really your name? John?’ asked the American couple at the next-door table, as he brought them poached eggs.
‘Yes, madam,’ he replied with a patient smile, ‘John since 1972.’
Back in his cabin, Francis found his bed had already been made. A rabbit, folded from a flannel, squatted on his pillow. He unpacked his laptop and found a place for it on the narrow desk below the mirror. Booting it up, he opened his journal file and typed the day’s date. Once he’d done his daily entry (like prayer for him), Francis’s plan was to spend the morning doing some serious planning for his next project, which was not – please don’t tell his publisher! – another murder mystery featuring his series hero George Braithwaite, retired professor of forensic science, and his feisty wife Martha, but a new departure into non-fiction, his long-planned memoir of adoption. It was something he had been skirting around for years but now felt he could put off no longer. To delve into those deep and troubling feelings that it would be so much easier not to examine, starting with the moment he had realized, at the age of six, that it was biologically impossible for a little brown boy to be the child of two white parents. ‘Daddy, are you really my daddy?’ he had asked, in a line that had gone down in family mythology. A joke, but not actually a joke; and it was that tricky area that he wanted at last to explore.
First things first. Francis typed in the glamorous dateline – Golden Adventurer. At sea somewhere off Ghana. 23 April. But as his fingers hovered over the keyboard, he heard, quite unmistakeably, a scream. Next door, it sounded like, in Eve’s cabin. He jumped to his feet and ran out of the room.
The door to 314 was half open. Francis slid in, pulling it carefully to behind him. Hentie, the deck three butler, was standing immobile by the bed, her charcoal-uniformed back to him. She was the tense-looking young woman who had handed out the cold flannels as they had arrived, but Francis had spoken to her only once, when she had called on him to show him round his cabin on the first afternoon. In front of her, Eve was tucked up soundly, asleep it looked like at first glance.
‘What’s going on?’ Francis asked.
Hentie turned. ‘Oh God,’ she said blankly, in her thick Afrikaans accent. ‘She’s dead. Out cold. I just touched her.’ She shuddered.
Francis stepped closer. Eve lay, head on the pillow, eyes closed, horribly still.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked. ‘Did you take a pulse?’
‘I didn’t need to. She’s cold. Hard.’
Francis nodded. ‘Rigor mortis. That means she’s been gone for a while.’ He moved to lift the covers and see for himself.
‘No!’ cried Hentie. ‘No, leave her.’
‘OK,’ he said quietly, backing off.
‘Really. You shouldn’t be here.’ Hentie was shaking her head, her hands visibly trembling. ‘She was fine last night,’ she said. ‘I brought her soup. She was watching TV.’
‘So why did you come in this morning?’
‘Unless there’s a Do Not Disturb, we always call on our single passengers at breakfast time. Just to see they’re all right.’
‘I see.’ That routine had certainly paid off today, Francis thought.
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ Hentie repeated.
‘I heard your scream.’
‘I shouldn’t have screamed.’
‘But you did. It’s perfectly natural, Hentie.’ Francis used her first name deliberately; if he was going to stay, trust needed to be established fast.
‘Oh my God, man, you should not be here.’
‘It’s fine. You won’t be in trouble. Now you should get the doctor, don’t you think?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’ll wait here,’ Francis said.
‘I must inform the captain too.’
Hentie looked panicked. Almost as if this were her fault; which, unless she was a very accomplished actress indeed, it clearly wasn’t.
‘You do that,’ Francis said. ‘But get the doctor first. He needs to verify this death. Certify it,’ Francis corrected himself.
‘It’s a she.’
‘OK. But go. I’ll be here.’
Hentie headed off. As she reached the corridor, she turned.
‘Don’t you think you should just go? It would make it so much easier for me.’
‘It’s fine,’ Francis replied. ‘I’ll explain. You’re perfectly within your rights to scream when you find a dead body in one of your cabins. And I’m perfectly within mine to come and see what’s going on.’
‘I’d rather you went.’
‘No. Someone should stay with her. Anyway, I’m not going to cover up what I heard.’
Hentie turned and walked off. Francis followed her and made sure the door was pushed to.
Someone should stay with her. An entirely bogus reason, they both knew that. So what had possessed him to insist? Curiosity. Just like the last time.
He looked slowly round the cabin. It was identical to his, even down to the bland abstracts on the walls. Through the half-open cupboard door in the corridor he could see a stack of evening dresses. The empty soup bowl was still by the bed. So for all her attentiveness, Hentie had not been back last night.
Further over on the white counterpane was a paperback. Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World. It had a little green cloth bookmark about halfway in, on which was written, in gold, by words the mind is winged – Aristophanes. Francis turned his gaze slowly towards Eve. Her mouth was no longer dancing with wry amusement at the foibles of the world; it was just a thin, lifeless line in a downward curve. Well, whatever had happened, she had found peace now. A stroke, was it, or would that have made for a more traumatic expression? Was it possible just to pass away like this? When only yesterday she had seemed so alive. He had barely known her, but looking at these abandoned features, tears welled up. There would be no trips to Komodo or Kamchatka for her now. St Christopher had failed her. Oh well, she knew nothing about it. Rest in Peace, Eve. She was back with Alfred, playing celestial golf.
He paced slowly round the room, giving it, despite himself, the Braithwaite treatment. There was really nothing to remark on. Eve’s clothes were all tidied away, just one pair of slightly scuffed white trainers neatly paired in the corner by the minibar, on which sat a sharp knife, an uncut lemon and an empty champagne bucket. Next to it, folded, was a copy of yesterday’s Golden Adventurer News.
‘OK, let’s see what’s happened here,’ came a woman’s voice down the corridor. It was an efficient, contro
lled, medical voice, bordering on the patronizing, even with a body that was no longer alive to be patronized.
The doctor appeared: not only was she female, she was young and good looking with it. A Filipina with bobbed dark hair in a figure-hugging white coat.
‘Good morning,’ she said brightly.
‘Good morning,’ Francis replied.
‘I understand from Hentie that you heard her screaming.’
‘Yes. I’m in the next-door cabin. I thought I’d better stay here until you arrived.’
The doctor nodded. ‘That’s fine. Hentie’s gone up to the bridge to inform the captain. I expect he’ll be down in a minute. I’m sure he will decide …’
She trailed off, though ‘what to do about you’ was clearly implied. She approached the bed slowly, then paused and took out a pair of transparent plastic gloves from the pocket of her coat.
‘Yes,’ she said quietly, slipping them on. ‘No longer with us, I’m afraid.’ She turned to Francis. ‘Almost looks as if she’s sleeping, doesn’t she? Poor Eve.’
‘You knew her?’
‘Oh yes, we all know Eve. She’s a regular. Much loved by the staff, partly on account of her generous tips. And one of those people who never complains, even when they’re ill.’
‘So what’s happened?’ Francis asked. ‘I was out on an excursion with her yesterday and she seemed absolutely fine.’ He suddenly remembered the orange prawns in the second village; but no, if Klaus had been right, and something was wrong with them, she’d have been violently sick, surely. They wouldn’t have killed her. Would they?
The doctor shrugged. ‘She’s old. Could be anything, I’m afraid. A stroke. Or myocardial infarction – that’s a heart attack. Sometimes people of this age just slip away.’
The doctor pulled back the duvet. Eve was in a thin white nightie, which did little to conceal her otherwise naked body. The saggy, lined flesh, peppered all over with brown liver spots, was something of a contrast to the neatly clad figure he had chatted to at dinner and on the coach.
