S.O.S.

by Joseph Connolly

  I think, thought Jennifer – quite briskly, now, as she rose from the very low tub chair and smoothed back down her hoiked-up chinos – I had better get myself off to somewhere dark and secret – and yes, quite quickly. Because otherwise I think I just might be in danger of losing it, now. A thing I try not to do.

  *

  Yet one more job that has been foisted upon me. Well – no real surprises there, are there? Get Stewart to do it – good old Stew, he’ll be up for it, yes why not? Fact that he’s got, ooh – just about ten thousand other things to attend to just doesn’t register, does it? And I mean to say – if only they’d give me just a bit more notice. The next two hours I had clearly designated as the final opportunity for all the limping saddos, all the croaky old-timers, all the drunken fat unfunny men and all their off-key wives to register for the, oh Christ help me – Talent Show (it’s there for all to see – perfectly clear on each of the posters eventually chivvied out of those bastards in the print shop and Blu-Tacked up at all strategic points all over the bloody ship by just who, exactly, do you think? Yes indeed – got it in one. Yours fucking truly. And it’s a – and by the way, it’s a nightmare, Blu-Tack – you find that? Doesn’t bloody stick, does it? God Almighty, how do they get away with it?) … yes, as I say, it’s not strictly within my brief, all this, is it? Or even loosely, come to that – face it, Christ: it’s nothing to bloody do with me at all, all this stuff to do with journalists, the swine. I mean – that’s Cruise Director country, isn’t it? And the Cruise Director? In bed. With a chill. Touch, they think, of a temperature. Oh dear I’m so terribly sorry to hear that. But never mind: Stew will handle it, Stew will be happy to step into the breach – because Stew isn’t bothered, is he, by a touch of temperature? No no, Stew toils on with an impending bloody brain tumour while at the same time being covered in the sores of scorn and rebuff and raddled by the cancers of high anxiety … so why don’t we all heave together and just chuck this one more thing into the dip-backed, balding donkey’s panniers and sit back and watch his bloody legs just damn near buckle, as unbatted flies continue to worry those brown and trusting put-upon eyes?

  Journalists: can’t stand them. Lowest of the low, bloody journalists are. Not that I’ve actually had that much experience of them in the past, thank God (as I bloody said – not my field, is it? Which the powers that be would do well to remember) – but whenever I have been in contact, well: you say one thing, and they go and write up something else completely. I mean to say – is it because they’re all so permanently pissed on someone else’s booze and they simply don’t hear or remember? Or are they all genetically programmed to grin with their faces and swallow with their throats and then just turn round and fuck you all up, right royally? Three of them on board, this trip. Don’t know what papers – two provincial and a broadsheet national, apparently: Times, I think – needn’t be. Nice for some, isn’t it? First class cabins, endless drink (or else how could they get them here?), and now that they’ve taken it into their collective and empty little heads to want a guided tour of all the parts of the ship that ordinary people who have shelled out bloody thousands just to be here will never get to see in a million bloody years … well then let’s not keep them waiting: get old Stew to do it – always a smile and a ready quip! Bastards …

  Mind you, one good thing about it (and they’re already due, our noble members of Her Majesty’s Press: sods can’t even be on time) … yes, the positive point here is that I can finally get away from Nobby and Aggie. I mean – nice souls, don’t get me wrong – always a pleasure to see them on every single trip (and how do they do that, actually? Are they very rich? Or simply very mad?). But they do tend to get just the tiniest bit clingy: can just become rather wearing. Still – you know me: show willing (what I’m paid for – or so they tell me).

  ‘Right, then, Nobby. That’s you down for your usual little talk about nautical terms, then … maybe not quite so long, though, this time, hey? Keep them wanting more, hey Nobby?’

  ‘I hear what you’re saying, Stewart, but it’s not that simple a topic to condense. I mean – anything less than an hour and you’re really not getting much more than the flavour of the thing …’

  ‘Which is exactly what we want, Nobby. Exactly what we’re after. The very essence, yes? Ten minutes tops, this time, I’m afraid. Captain’s orders.’

  ‘Oh really? Orders from the Captain? Oh well in that case …’

  Stewart smiled his encouragement and was nodding eagerly as he red-inked Nobby into his slot. Well of course it’s not Captain’s orders, you silly little sod: you don’t honestly believe the Captain gets himself involved with all this crap, do you? No no no – this is all for me: my crap.

  ‘And Aggie – tell me again. What exactly is it you are proposing to do?’

  Aggie shot a glance full of first-night nerves over in Nobby’s direction – her whole mouth tightly and briefly elongating to its utmost extent, as if she was preparing to fit into it for the sake of a bet an old LP, or similar.

  ‘The Madison …’ she said. And she gnawed a nervous nail.

  Stewart nodded. ‘Yes. That’s what you said before. Um – what exactly is this? The Madison?’

  ‘It’s the steps to a dance. You go left one pace, and back one pace and – ’

  ‘Yes, OK – right, I see. So – duration of a single, then?’

  ‘If I can keep it up. No, hang on – it’s right one pace, isn’t it Nobby? And then back one pace and – ’

  ‘Search me, Captain Honeybunch!’ laughed Nobby. ‘Should’ve stuck with your hand jive, you want my opinion.’

  ‘Oh but Nobby I always do the hand jive, don’t I, Stewart? Every single trip I do the hand jive, don’t I?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Stewart. Yes you do indeed. Every single trip. Mm. ‘And oh look – if I’m not very much mistaken, my extremely important party of journalists has arrived. Greetings, all. Welcome. My name is Stewart. Assistant Cruise Director. All well? Excellent. OK then, Nobby and Aggie – à bientoôt, yes? Ciao.’

  And yes it has crossed my mind that they both might like to stay and talk to the journalists (thought it the second I very stupidly let slip the bloody word) and they in their turn, highly probably, would very much like to give to Nobby especially, ooh – more than enough rope. But no – we won’t make it that easy for them, shall we? We won’t deliver unto them a monomaniacal sap spread out on a plate with a parsley garnish just so that they can all ritually shred the poor devil in the course of their noxious little articles, while jeeringly writing off cruises in general and this one in particular as being still very much the province of the old, the rich, the idle, or else the padded cell brigade. No – this time let’s see if we can’t get them to be positive, for once, shall we? Get them to actually write about what’s in front of their bloody eyes, if only they weren’t too stupid to see it. Mind you … if they want a real story, it’s me, isn’t it, they should actually be talking to. By Christ I could give them a story that would make their bloody hair stand on end … and not very much of it, in the case of what just has to be the broadsheet guy (smarmy bloody look all over his fucking superior face – and the two misshapen women from the provincials – you can see they’re feeling it too: they’ve probably hated him for days, now). But just take one look at his hair, won’t you? Grazed upon by a herd of starved alpacas. Why does the man appear to be a stranger to a simple backcomb and scalp tint? Has he not heard of volumizer? Dear oh dear. And they call themselves professionals …

  *

  Dwight fell in easily with his customary amble (one piece of this tub I sure do like a lot: long, straight lanes like one eternal bowlerama – see where’s I’m headed, and I take it real slow – ain’t no hassle to get anyplace). His eyes were quietly bright as a result of a whole heap of amusement, the odd throaty wheeze and nasal fart escaping him – and all on account of David’s last call. Jeez, I am telling you – my man David, he sure did sound like one spooked critter. And here I can see the su
nny upland of my situation: sure I ain’t got me no filly I can call my own – no sweet thighs to make me horny, drive me wild – but nor I got alla the ice-cold fear I was sure aware of in David, when I get the call. That, or else that shit-hot baby of his is cooking so bad, she maybe reduced the man to no more’n a poola chop suey, broke down and steaming. Anyways – said I’d sure be pleased to meet with the man, share a couple drinks, see how’s I can maybe help him out some. Yeah – why not? Telling ya – Dave is one of the good guys: buddy, right? Plus – was I ready to get out from under Charlene!

  ‘You sure? You sure bout that, Dwight? You don’t have any baxes anyplace?’

  Dwight looked about him: whole damn suite was looking like a warehouse – some kinda package depot? Jeez – how many more baxes one lady take?

  ‘Baxes I don’t got. What I want with baxes? Call down the, what’re they – stoords.’

  ‘You don’t think I did already? They say Gee we’re so sorry, Ma’am, but cuppla days from docking, everyone they’re after baxes and we’re out. Well sure all these guys want baxes – it’s now baxes are wanted. So why they don’t thinka this? And the shaps – the shaps too – all over the world. They sellya some piece of paddery – then it should come in a bax, right? Jeez. Maybe I shouldda had it all shipped …’

  ‘This here is a ship, Charlene.’

  Charlene nodded. ‘That’s kinda how I figured … where hell you going now, Dwight? You ain’t aiming to help me out here?’

  ‘Had a call from David? Sounded kinda jumpy?’

  ‘Always with this David! What is David all of a sudden, Dwight? Your wife? Don’t I deserve a little quality time, here? I’d ask Suki, only I could gedda holda her. You seen Suki, Dwight?’

  ‘Suki today I ain’t seen. Shapping, I’d guess.’

  ‘And Earl. Hell, Dwight – Earl I don’t even remember what he looks like.’

  Dwight shook his head, as he made for the door.

  ‘Earl I ain’t seen neither.’ And if the boy’s got any sense – if there’s any of his old man in him at all – then Earl is screwing his way round the ship. The Lord knows I would: what else we put here for? Wrapping up paddery in baxes? Get outta here.

  And that’s just what I did: get me outta there – fast I could. Charlene, she comes out with two, three more dumb things (whole buncha stuff about I don’t even so much as thinka looking at green olives – I hearing her good? Plus, you gotta drink Bourbon, you make sure there’s a whole loada soda: I got that? Yeh, Charlene – sure I do: nix with the olives, loada soda). Then I’m gone.

  And now I’m here, not too far from the old Black Horse. Hell – I know just about every goddam incha this tub, now. Gonna be kinda weird, being back home. But, like – good weird, you know? Oh but looky looky here! Hoooo-ee! What do we have ourselves here? Well well well – if it ain’t my buddy David’s jailbait co-ed, looking just like they can look, when they’ve a mind to: pure and holy, like the mother of God. Hot dog. And this time there ain’t nobody around. Yep. Well – mebby’s I take a shot at it: what’s to lose? I saw her not too much after sun-up this morning – talking to David with, like, real kinda energy, you know? I didn’t rightly care to innerupt (although what I recall was going through my mind was Hey, Dave! Don’t be talking to the broad – fuck her teenage brains out, what’re you thinking about?). Then David, he moves off (me he didn’t see – kinda looked like he had stuff on his mind?) and yeah, right there and then I was gonna make my move – on account of, like I say, what’s to lose? Then she takes herself on deck, this baby, and I think OK, sure – on deck, cool … so I’m out on deck and whaddya know? Some other guy out there – nuts-looking kinda English guy dressed like for a funeral? She lies down nexta the dweeb and I’m just left hanging, y’know? So I got to figuring, and the way I see it is this: Item – either David had it right the first time – this babe does put out, and sure looks like the older and more klutzy the guy the better (which, my age, this here gut, is kinda warming) – or else Item: David damn well knows it, and he was holding out.

  On me, his buddy – me, Dwight, his good old buddy. Well now see here, my friend – all kinda loyalties and friendships, they end, kaput, where dames is concerned. This we all know. So, buddy boy – you like it or you don’t, at this I gotta take me one shot. Like I say – what’s to lose?

  ‘Hi, there, sweetheart,’ was the spur for Marianne to spin round and meet this head-on – alert, at first, and filled with relief, yes, and also even excitement at the fact that she had, at last, been found and addressed … but at once, yes, in the very same instant, she just knew that these words, this voice, the entire nature of the greeting … all were completely, yes, quite grotesquely wrong. She anyway was facing the large American man.

  ‘You busy, little lady? What say we talk some? Drink, mebbys.’ Here was Dwight at his very most sugary, all of it not too subtly cut by a hefty infusion of grimy undertone (though to his mind, real down-home and friendly, like).

  ‘That’s, um – very kind of you, but … I don’t mean to be rude, but – I don’t know you, do I?’

  ‘Not yet you don’t, honey. Aim to put that right. But you do know very well a great buddy of mine. David? he told me … well, let’s just say I am aware, my sweet one, of a whole lotta, what you do. Read me?’

  ‘Oh I see … I didn’t know you knew … oh right. Well look, um – ?’

  ‘Dwight. Name’s Dwight, Princess.’ And was he now bearing down on her? Leaning right into her, as he opened his mouth? Or was this just the way Marianne – even more tense, now – was suddenly perceiving it? ‘But you, babe, can call me Horny …’

  She blinked. He did say that, didn’t he? Either way, I have to go – right now.

  ‘Look. There’s someone I really must … It’s been very nice, um – ’

  ‘Aw c’mon, baby! You don’t have to be like that with your ole Uncle Dwight! Let’s you and me get acquainted, what say? You’ll be right fine with me – I’m a real gennulman, just like David.’

  ‘I’m sure you are, um – Dwight … but honestly, I really do have to – ’

  ‘And one more thing, honey …’

  And Marianne – a good yard away from him, now – twisted her face up with difficulty into some sort of tolerant and maybe not too disgusted grin of forbearance: OK then – all right: one more thing, if you must, and then I run.

  Dwight licked his lips, and brought in close his eyebrows.

  ‘I sure do pre-shate the cut of your titties …’

  Marianne looked, quite without seeing – actually clamped the palms of her hands hard against her ears and, yes – she ran.

  ‘Sure upset you take that attitood!’ she heard hurled after her. ‘Maybe see ya round some time! No hard feelings, I sure do hope!’

  Marianne stopped running only when she realized that she was being at first just looked at and then quite openly regarded by various pockets of curious people (always eager, these snuggled-together groups, for just any sort of distraction at all); and also, she thought – where am I actually going? Where does one actually, now, begin to even look, when all I’ve been doing is looking and looking just everywhere? And I’ve rung down to his cabin, oh – I’ve completely lost all track of the number of times I’ve done that. And Tom, I don’t really think … he isn’t the sort of person to just sit in his cabin for hours on end – he likes to be alone, oh yes, but not, I feel pretty sure, in his cabin, for some reason. Unless he’s asleep, of course – but God, I’ve rung him now about a hundred times: you’d have to be dead, to sleep through that.

  So I went up to the Boat Deck – right around, twice … up one deck again to the pool, and so on … been to all the cafés and bars. Even waited outside the cinema for the end of the film … and no, I didn’t really expect him to be filing out of there. And of course he wouldn’t be in the Regatta Club or the Casino … but I checked them both anyway. And nothing. He hadn’t taken tea; or, at least, no one I asked there – waiter, couple of women knitting – n
one of them could recall a tall, pale, silent fellow all dressed up in black, and … well, you would, wouldn’t you? Someone would. So I went to that person – can’t even remember his name: Assistant Cruise … something or other, and he didn’t of course even know who I was talking about and didn’t in all honesty seem to care very much (had some people with him). He said: Have you checked in the hairdresser’s? And I said No, no I haven’t – and I turned away thinking Oh my God you absolute fool: hairdresser! You just don’t know my Tom at all.

  So you see after just hours and hours of this – and the more I did it, the more I somehow felt I was sealed up in my own big see-through and airless bubble, just bowling on down the corridors and staircases, as people looked and didn’t, but mainly kept their distance – I just felt so, well – initially relieved and excited, yes, just that someone unseen had spoken. But no – not Tom. Hadn’t been him. So … I think what I’ll do is … maybe I’ll just go round everything just one more time, comb it thoroughly … because all it is, probably, is that we’re both just missing one another. Soon I’ll be saying to him – breathless with relief by now, and excited beyond measure as well – Oh Tom: what do you mean you were in the Poolside restaurant? I went to the Poolside restaurant! And then you were sitting on the Sun Deck? But I searched all over the Sun Deck for you! And then we’ll agree that Well – it doesn’t matter any more, does it? Because now we’ve found one another, yes. Yes. And it would be nice too, very nice, if – when I find him – Tom does not say Oh, I was reading in the Library (and yes – I’ve checked the Library) or Oh, I was helping with the jigsaw (and of course I’ve been there: three times I’ve been there); it would be nice if his eyes dipped down and he lowered his voice and said Marianne: Marianne – there you are! Oh thank God – I’ve been looking for you everywhere …