S.O.S.

by Joseph Connolly

  ‘What do you –?! What are you –?!’ Stacy was near apoplectic, now, and cursing her lips for just not pulling themselves together and helping her out, here. ‘Are you suggesting we both imagined it? How on earth else do you – ’

  ‘I am not suggesting anything. I merely – ’

  ‘Listen. How do you think he’s keeping my Mum in that bloody room? Force of personality? Card tricks? Look – I’m telling you. I know my Mum. If there was no gun, Christ – she would’ve killed him with her two bare hands, by now.’

  ‘Or,’ put in Aggie, ‘Nobby would have overcome him and tied him up.’

  ‘Look, ladies …’ sighed the Captain. ‘I understand your distress. All I can repeat is – ’

  And suddenly Aggie was sobbing unnaturally – and she nearly screamed at the Captain:

  ‘Because he is, you know – he’s very good at knots …!’

  Stacy put her arm around her – she felt so frail, and her bones were leaping.

  ‘It’s OK, Aggie – it’ll be OK. They’ll be safe. Promise.’

  ‘I’m sure this is true,’ said the Captain. ‘The New York police have been alerted, as I said. If this situation is not resolved, they will board the moment we dock. I have insisted there will be no violence. At the very latest you will all be reunited by tomorrow, soon after dawn. Look … it’s a terrible thing that’s happened, but there’s really nothing more we can do. We were hoping that food, or something, would be requested, whereupon my men could have rushed him, but … well, no call has been received.’

  And the Captain very much regretted saying just any small part of all that. The silence was sobering, as people retired to within themselves and thought their thoughts. Stacy was feeling across her shoulder the spreading warmth of Aggie’s seeping tears, as she clung to her so tightly. Is my Mum being hurt? Is she? Because he looked mad, that bastard, you know. If only there was just some small form of communication … if only she could know just what in God’s name was going on in that bloody little room …

  *

  ‘Does anyone,’ asked Stewart, quite mildly, ‘want this last cream cracker, at all? Or there’s still some Quality Street there, pretty sure. Maybe only the hard ones, now.’

  ‘Oh God Almighty, Stewart!’ bellowed Jennifer. ‘I’m absolutely starving. Can’t you for Christ’s sake at least get us something decent to eat?’

  ‘No…’ said Nobby, quite thoughtfully. ‘He really couldn’t do that, Jennifer, if you stop and think about it for a minute. You see – ’

  ‘Oh my God …!’ wailed out Jennifer. ‘This has to be all my bloody worst nightmares come together to drive me crazy! We’re stuck in this airless bloody storeroom with our smile-a-minute Assistant Cruise Director waving around a, Jesus – bloody gun – and then I’ve got you, Nobby, haven’t I? Haven’t I? Hm? How many, Nobby – can you recall? I mean, we’ve been in here how long, now? Sixteen hours? Eighteen hours? Something like that?’

  ‘Nineteen hours and forty-six minutes,’ replied Nobby promptly, and with a fair degree of delight. ‘If we’re counting. But I fail to see, dear Jennifer – ’

  ‘Shut up! Shut up! Hear me? I am not your dear Jennifer, you see Nobby – I can’t be, can I? Because I hate you. I’ve always hated you. I hated you from the very first moment I ever set eyes on you, bloody Nobby. And see if you can answer me: how many terms have you come up with now, Nobby? Hm? How many nautical bloody terms –?!’

  ‘Well,’ mused Stewart, ‘if nobody wants the last cracker, I think I might have it myself.’

  ‘But Jennifer,’ protested Nobby, ‘we’ve got to talk about something, haven’t we? Keep our spirits up. Like being down a bomb shelter, many ways.’

  ‘I’d prefer the bloody bomb. Jeeeesus! Look, Stewart – enough is enough, OK? Why are you doing this? I mean you’ve had your bit of fun, yes? Now God’s sake just open the door and let’s get out of here, hm? Yes? Pleeeease?’

  Stewart unstuck a cracker crumb from the corner of his lower lip, and shook his head.

  ‘Can’t be done, I’m afraid. And Nobby’s quite right about the food, you know. If I opened the door, they rush me. Open a porthole, they might use gas. No … stuck here, I’m afraid. But to answer your question – I don’t know, Jennifer, why I’m doing this. I don’t even remember how it all came into being …’

  And at that point, Stewart looked glummer than anyone.

  ‘Got us over a barrel …’ said Nobby, quite idly.

  Jennifer eyed him sharply.

  ‘Don’t!’ she warned. ‘Even if it is one – just don’t!’

  ‘But it’s very interesting, this one, Jennifer. In the old Royal Navy – ’

  Jennifer had rammed her palms over her ears and was drumming a tight tattoo with the heels of her feet, not at all in time with the frenzied and nasal succession of discords that now were warbling out from her lips.

  ‘Not listening! Can’t hear you! Not listening! Doo-bee-doo-bee-doo-bee-doo…!’

  ‘Why don’t you,’ suggested Stewart, quite kindly, ‘lie down for a while, maybe?’

  And Jennifer heard that all right, over the tail end of this throwaway and impromptu bout of busking.

  ‘Oh yes very funny, Stewart! Lie down! What – like we all did last night, do you mean? All snug and cosy? There’s no bloody room to stand up in here, is there Stewart? Never mind lie down. Hm? Last night I was slumped against a cutout of Clint bloody Eastwood with a packet of balloons for a pillow. Every pitch of the ship, my head bashed into that mirror ball, there. Nobby was on the ironing board – ’

  ‘Wasn’t great,’ muttered Nobby. ‘But it’s like a bicycle – you learn to adapt …’

  ‘ – and you, Stewart, where were you? Remember? Yes, that’s right – you were sitting on the lavatory in that horrible bit at the back – all bloody night, weren’t you? And who had to hear it? Who had to bloody smell it?’

  ‘Yes, I – um: sorry about that. I think it was the Boeuf Stroganoff …’

  ‘Well you’re bloody lucky, aren’t you? I didn’t have time for any dinner because I was bloody kidnapped, you see …!’

  Jennifer blinked once and just looked at the man. Her voice became softer (oh God look – I’ve done my best with shrill, so let’s just see where softer gets us):

  ‘Stewart. Listen to me. Listen – yes? Why are you going on with this? Hm? Tomorrow morning we’re in New York – right? What can you gain? You’ve got to let us out tomorrow, haven’t you? So why not just put down the gun and do it now? Hm? What’s … what’s wrong, Stewart? Do you not feel well?’

  Stewart was screwing up his eyes and touching one temple.

  ‘I … suddenly … feel a bit … be OK: get this, sometimes.’

  ‘I’ve got some Rennies,’ volunteered Nobby.

  ‘No – it’s my … oh God, I don’t know what it is. Could be a brain tumour.’

  ‘Ah no …’ came back Nobby, brightly. ‘You don’t want to worry about that. Very fashionable, isn’t it nowadays? Worrying about all that sort of thing at the slightest twinge. Friend of mine, not long ago – we share a half at the Legion, most Wednesdays – he said that to me: convinced, he was, he had a brain tumour.’

  Stewart was nodding with care, maybe needing more.

  ‘Yes …?’ he ventured. ‘And …?’

  ‘Well telling you,’ insisted Nobby. ‘Nothing to worry about at all. Turned out it was all in his head, see?’

  Jennifer’s eyes turned up to the ceiling.

  ‘Any straitjackets among your boxes of tricks, Stewart? That gun of yours – it is loaded, I presume? Why don’t you just shoot me? Hm? It would be kind. Kinder still – shoot fucking Nobby, let me go and then as soon as we’re in America you can sling your hook. How’s that sound?’

  ‘Ah!’ interjected Nobby, with energy. ‘Now that’s a good one – ‘sling your hook’. This goes back to the days of hammocks, when – ’

  ‘Stewart!’ screamed Jennifer. ‘Please have mercy on my soul. Give me the gun –
I’ll kill him – I’ll do it now…!’

  But Stewart didn’t seem to be listening. He peered with not much curiosity through the misty porthole.

  ‘Sea’s fairly calm again,’ he said without expression. ‘Be dark quite soon.’

  *

  Nobby had, in his stockinged feet, softly padded the very few paces it took to get to her. He was about to apply the very lightest pressure to her shoulder, and hope to rouse her – but he was momentarily arrested by the pale-lit vision of the soft plains and hills of her upturned face – the darker valleys – touched as they were by moonlight. He had never before seen her in repose; usually, I find with this woman, she seems to be constantly snarling. Pity she hates me. I think she’s lovely. Sorry, Aggie, but I do. Shame to disturb, but I really am wanting a quick word – and Stewart, he was ages nodding off (and lying on a palette in front of the doorway, there – that gun across his stomach – who can really blame him?).

  There were brief and uncertain flickerings about Jennifer’s nose and eyelids, as Nobby with reluctance continued to stir her – and then more discernible signs of a growing realization, and the sick despair that came with that. Nobby’s face just hung before her. She moaned and closed tight her eyes and opened them again of a sudden, but no, no no – it was no good at all: Nobby’s face just hung before her.

  ‘I just wanted to say,’ he launched in quite hurriedly, and whispering darkly (if I pause for breath, she’ll only abuse me), ‘that when I said to you that time I liked it, yes? When I said-’

  ‘Oh Nobby …’ sighed Jennifer, ‘why is it you just can’t die? Hm? Christ my back is – ah! – bloody killing me …’

  ‘No listen – hear me out. When I said I liked your jacket, yes? You must recall. I didn’t so much mean I liked it – although I am sure it is in itself a very fine garment – ’

  ‘Oh God oh God oh God oh God …’

  ‘ – but what I really hoped to convey – didn’t, obviously – is that I recognized it, yes? Because I saw you, you see. On the video. That night. Late that night when you and someone went right up to the bows.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Jennifer. ‘That. Video? What video?’

  ‘Doesn’t really matter. Suffice it to say that I would have given anything to have been that man … the man who was with you. You are a very handsome woman, Jennifer, and – no no, please, please just let me finish – and I have never ever been to the bows of this wonderful ship – not once, ever. Always wanted to – asked to do it, oh – so many times, but no. Stewart would tell you that, if he was awake. It’s my great ambition. But they always said no.’

  Jennifer shrugged. ‘Should’ve just gone. Like I did. What’s the bloody time? Oh God my legs … I can’t move. I’m so starving … and don’t bloody call me ‘handsome’.’

  And both Jennifer and Nobby started quite badly when a new voice, now, cut through the just-grey light, and into the hush.

  ‘Well this time, Nobby,’ said Stewart with care, ‘the answer is yes. As soon as I’m sure it’s safe, I’ll show you both the quickest way down. I am all,’ he concluded, ‘in favour of ambition.’

  ‘Me?’ piped up Jennifer, scrambling to her feet – rubbing at some bits of her, twisting back into shape one or two more. ‘I don’t want to go. Bloody freezing up there, telling you. But listen – does that mean you’re finally letting us out, then? Seen sense? Yes, Stewart? The game’s now over, is it? Oh God I’m so bloody hungry …’

  Nobby was checking his watch. ‘About two hours now, my reckoning. And then we should be docking. Always a golden moment.’

  ‘No you must go, Jennifer,’ said Stewart, with gentle insistence. ‘I have to know where you both are, you see. There are two more caramels left, if you’re interested …’

  Jennifer was just about coping with the nearly half-light. She glanced at the now quite girlishly excited Nobby, and then quickly over to the near-maniacal Stewart … and whatever form her latest howl of protest might have taken, she simply let it die. No point, was there? It was time, now, to humour the loonies.

  *

  Captain Scar was uneasy, if you want him to be honest. It wasn’t simply the presence of civilians on the Bridge – no no, this sort of time there were always those (VIPs and so on). No, what is quite frankly, I think, putting the fear of God into me – and no matter that we’ve all been through this a thousand times before, docking a ship of this size is anyway constantly just that little bit anxious – no, what is rather getting to me is the nature of the mix of this particular straggling band of gawpers and hopefuls. It’s still dark – just about five a.m. – and out on the uncovered wings, still bloody cold. So far all was well: little knots of disparate people all with scarves and macs and so forth wrapped about them (the first-timers already wide-eyed and excitedly fingering their tiny silver cameras). A voluntary more or less silence prevailed – not much of anything for anyone to do, and absolutely zero in terms of visibility; except for that clutch of Japanese men, way over to starboard. All chattering at the same time and laughing their bloody heads off, for some damn reason or another: been doing it non-stop from the moment they arrived. Something high up in Sony or one of those, I think they are, Alan was telling me: I try not to get involved, all that side of things. Leaves me cold.

  To be perfectly blunt about it, it’s these bloody journalists who are worrying all sorts of hell out of me. What’s-her-name’s family is up here, of course – what was she called? Nicole (yes – I haven’t forgotten). Well – I couldn’t change my mind, could I? Not simply because it did, in fact, oh God – turn out that that friend of her daughter’s really bloody has done a jumper. Oh Christ. So far we’ve kept an airtight lid on that one – so let’s just pray it stays that way. And then there’s … oh Christ – and this one is really my fault, you know. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone along with this one at all, but God – they were so damn shrill and insistent, those two … what’re they called? Stacy, yes – whose mother is, well – you know … and Nobby’s wife, Aggie. Still not a whistle out of our little locked-room mystery. Cut off the phone now, it appears (and where in Christ’s name did that bastard get a gun?). Anyway – they were going on and on about the police, when we docked. NYPD, yes? And how they didn’t want them just charging on board with their bombs and machine guns like they did in the films. Well – you can imagine: I felt sick at the very thought. What – they think I do want that? End of my career, I’m telling you, if there’s anything of that nature. So … I tried to reassure the both of them, didn’t I? Honestly, I begged them, you really must believe me. I have received confirmation that two strike vehicles will be positioned precisely on the quay awaiting our approach. They have strict instructions to report to me personally up on the Bridge the minute they board – only then will some plan of action be agreed upon and implemented. Well – walked right into it, I suppose. Stacy seemed to be the official spokesperson, now (and poor old Aggie, poor old thing – she’s practically gone to pieces over all of this, you know … and let’s be frank: who can bloody blame her?). Anyway, this Stacy person was going on and on about Well if that’s really the case, then we want to see them – we want to be with you when they actually arrive. And all my I Do Assure Yous just weren’t going to make it, were they? In the face of this. So yes, I said: fine, OK – if that’s the way you want it: fine. Yes. So. They’re here too. Not actually in anyone’s way, thank God – but here all the bloody same. Yes. Anyway. The fine upstanding members of Her Majesty’s Freeloaders are over on the port wing, passing around a hip flask, looks like: wouldn’t mind a couple of swigs out of it myself. So. Play it by ear, shall we? Nothing else I can really do. Get myself back inside now, I think. Be a sailor again.

  ‘So, Alan. Everything all right?’

  ‘Steady as she goes, sir. Glimpse of dawn through the glasses.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Tugs in place?’

  ‘All in place, sir. And, um – police also confirmed, sir.’

  ‘Good,’ said Captain Scar. Oh yes, he th
ought: great.

  ‘Get you something, sir? Cup of something?’

  The Captain was quite seriously mulling this over (I’ve got a sudden yen – isn’t it unbelievable? – for some bloody pea soup, of all things on earth) but Alan was forced to break abruptly into his thoughts, now, as he held the binoculars steady and said quite urgently out of the side of his mouth:

  ‘Sir? Sir – I think I just saw something.’

  ‘Saw? Saw something? How do you mean, Alan? Well? What …?’

  ‘Sorry, sir … gone, whatever it was. Can’t see a thing, now. Sorry, sir. Shadows, maybe.’

  ‘Christ, Alan. This is all quite tense enough without you bloody seeing things. I mean – God. ’

  Alan was abashed: not often the Old Man got like this. Things on his mind.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ he said, hushed and truly contrite.

  But the Captain had waved away all of that, and wandered out now to the port wing (say something nice to someone, I suppose I’d better had). But oh. Oh: what’s this now? It’s Nicole, that’s what it is.

  ‘Oh do listen, David – this young man’s from The Times. How terribly exciting. Well yes we have, since you ask – had a perfectly lovely crossing, haven’t we, David? Rollo?’

  They both of them shifted a bit, and shuffled around. Rollo managed a Yeh; David (Christ my head is splitting) just peered away into the mist that was around him, and wrapping him up.

  And the Captain was moving quite quickly, now, because this little shit from The Times had rapidly turned his attention towards, oh Christ – what’s her bloody name? Daughter of the other one: Nicole, blast it …

  ‘And you?’ the reporter wanted to know. ‘Pleasant trip? No complaints?’

  ‘No,’ said Marianne, quite flatly.

  ‘No … what?’ checked the Times man. ‘No it wasn’t pleasant? Or no you haven’t got any, um – complaints?’

  ‘Well, ladies and gentlemen!’ boomed the Captain, at his most cocktail party affable – rubbing together his hands as if a feast was in store. ‘Everything all right? Any moment now, I think, and we’ll get a bit of light. Everyone got their cameras ready? Some unbelievable views. Promise you.’