Acts of Mutiny (20 page)

Robert shook his head.

‘Look, Bob. I’ve been a fool. You know me. I see it, I buy it. I’ve got it, I spend it. I’m a generous old … crawfish. People come and people go. I like to make a woman smile. A sucker for a pretty face.’ He looked abstractedly at his glass. ‘Guess I get myself in over-deep.’

Robert lifted his sheets away from his chest. He eased the fabric of his pyjama jacket; it did nothing for the feverishness. When he looked back the man was holding a gun. It was a dark blue-metal revolver, just like the films. Like a toy. But not. Incredible – just like that. Chaunteyman had put aside his glass and was playing the tooled grip from hand to hand, looking down, apparently unaware of anything out of place. The weight of it thumped back and forth in his palms – pure Hollywood. If the thing had not been so incongruous, so stark in those cared-for fingers, Robert would have laughed. In fact it was a complete anaesthetic: he froze.

‘Guess I get myself in so, so, damn – bloody – over-deep.’ The American looked up and chuckled. ‘Can’t seem to get anything to go right. D’you know. Happens every time. Too soft-hearted. I get taken advantage of, Bob. Taken advantage of.’ He parked the gun in the one hand to free the other for the glass again. ‘Happens every time. And again. A kind of a repeater, you know.’ He chuckled again. ‘I’m not really the settling-down kind.’

There was a long pause.

‘The way I feel this morning, Bob, I wouldn’t care if I never saw another woman. Found the one beside the Thames. Trapped in a … What d’you call ’em? Trapped in a terrace and just too terribly sexually grateful at being swept away, Bob. And the other one loose on a liner.’ He smiled sadly. ‘Crazy about me. God-damn them all to hell. That’s what I say.’

There was another silence. The objects in the sickbay, curtains, chair, pile of blankets, took on a disturbed extra clarity.

‘D’you know I sometimes think, Bob, I sometimes think I wouldn’t care if I never saw another damned thing.’ Chaunteyman gestured with the gun towards his own head, meeting Robert’s eye once more.

‘Life’s certainly a problem.’ Robert’s mouth smiled back. ‘I know just how you feel.’

‘Do you, Bob? Do you?’

Slowly the gun came down. Chaunteyman cradled it in his lap. ‘We’re on the same side, Bob. No question of that. Just a little friendly rivalry. Don’t worry about that girl of yours. She’s a great girl. We’re both on the side of democracy. Hey? Freedom and democracy. Isn’t that right?’

Robert’s pain had roared back with a vengeance. His arm felt as though someone were striking a match on it. ‘Could you pass me that water?’

‘Making the world a safer place. Making the world … a safer … place. I guess there never has been a time before when the notion of war was on the point of going right into retreat. Deep down the Russkies know that. Your government knows it. Even the French know it. I served in the Korean, too. Those days we still had to fight to show the Commies who was boss. They still thought it was worth a shot. But now … Making the world … hey … a safer place.’ Chaunteyman held his gaze again. Although his head made faint dodging and weaving movements.

‘I guess I shall wind up in the Pacific this time. You know I’m an authorised observer. A buyer.’ He bared his teeth. ‘Look, I realise you’re not feeling the best at the moment, Bob. So I thought maybe you could use a visit. Thought maybe you’d like to join me in a drink. No? You don’t mind if I do, though? How is your skin, now?’ The gun jabbed loosely in the air. ‘Let me take a look. I’d like to see the damage, shipmate, if you’ve no objection.’

Robert drew down the sheet and undid his jacket buttons. Chaunteyman stared, put the gun on the bed and then placed his hand into the space marked by the book. Robert flinched and gasped.

For several seconds neither man spoke. The hand on his chest felt as if it might leave another imprint. Then it was removed.

‘Well. We’ve come through.’ Chaunteyman’s eyes were glazed.

‘Come through?’

‘The Canal zone. Of course all that’s blown over now. There was no question … Still, I felt a touch of unease. They didn’t much like the look of us, did they?’

‘Hardly surprising.’

‘World War Three. You British took us to the brink, eh? Trigger happy. Jumpy, eh? Who are the cowboys now, Bob? You know the Reds are pledged to world domination. I guess you Brits would know all about that. What is it with you guys? What is this need for power? You always have to have what you haven’t got. You want to control everything and everyone. You want to swagger about still as if you did.’

Close to panic, Robert heard breath bubble in his chest. Upon which he could still feel the ghost of the hand.

‘Yes. You can laugh, Bob. You can laugh all right. You want to bring us all down with you. If you have to go down. Which you do, Bob, you do. You want to go down fighting. You want to bring the rest of us down with you. God-damn bastards.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Oh come on, Kettle. There are top brass on this cruise. Now just what’s going on? Don’t act the innocent with me.’

‘Here?’

‘Here on this damned ice bucket of a liner. I can tell because I’m involved, dammit. It’s my business to know these things, you sons of bitches. I have some mighty influential connections. What’s the little cookie you fags have? There’s something right here in the
Armorica.
I’m dead on target, Bob, aren’t I just? Something cute. A piece of ass.’ He banged on the bedclothes with the gun handle.

‘Look. I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Chaunteyman mimicked Robert’s accent. ‘Stuck-up, taffy-nosed pinks. And we’ll have to come bail you out again. Now look Kettle, I need you to give me … I’m telling you, for Christ’s sake … You’d sure as hell better cut me in …’ He stopped, aware of the door opening behind him.

Robert looked over Chaunteyman’s shoulder. The nurse was showing in Mary Garnery.

Chaunteyman stood up and, knocking over his glass in the process, shoved his gun away into one distended pocket, and his bottle into the other. ‘You fucking British make me sick.’ He pushed his checked shoulders roughly between the two women, and disappeared from the sickbay, leaving Robert completely stunned.

‘I’m sorry. I thought you might like these.’ Mary Garnery held out some crystallised ginger. Her skeletal wrist appeared briefly from a white cuff, before she could hide it again in a casual, almost defiant pose. ‘That’s almost all there was that was any good. I seem to be intruding.’

‘God,’ Robert said, taking a long, painful breath. ‘He … I don’t know. I thought he was going to … Christ! He had a …’

The nurse picked up the pieces of glass and placed the chair back under the dispensing desk. ‘Dear me,’ she remarked as she took herself off.

Mary said, ‘I’ll come back. I’ve obviously caught you at an inconvenient moment.’ She deposited her gift and left too. Robert’s ‘No. Please don’t mind …’ followed her out of the cabin.

He was stranded here like … like a piece of raw flesh. Cooking, almost. Slowly cooking in his own … presumptuousness. Its turning of him was so unbearably slow. Eventually, he would be done.

There came another knock at the door. Appropriately named, Mrs Burns in a floral frock with white belt, white gloves and white shoes wondered whether she could come in. Her husband crept in after her. They were the mouselike middle-aged couple who dined at Robert’s table.

‘We hoped you wouldn’t mind if we just …’ She advanced timidly to the region of the bed. ‘We thought you might like these. Oh dear.’ She saw Mary’s cellophane bag of crystallised ginger resting already on the locker top where she was about to place her own gift of the same.

Robert recalled, then, having seen the packets placed prominently in the shop. ‘Extremely kind of you. Thank you. so much.’ He smiled. Pain ignited suddenly across his chest, like the petrol douse under a flicked cigarette, and the smile turned into a grimace.

Mrs Burns was concerned, drawing breath in between her pressed lips. ‘There. It’s bad, isn’t it. Dear me. Well… I’m sorry you’ve already … we thought.’

‘Oh, yes. Somebody just came in. Don’t worry. I’m terribly partial to the stuff.’

‘Only we noticed you weren’t at dinner,’ Mr Burns chipped in. ‘We heard …’

‘We made a few enquiries,’ said his wife. ‘We do hope you’re all right.’

‘Oh, I shall be all right. Such a stupid thing. I’ll know better next time.’ He groaned and then gave a wry laugh – which hurt again.

‘It’s very lucky she found you. Mrs Kendrick, that is. Or who knows …’

‘Take the skin off a man’s back,’ said the mild Mr Burns, suddenly and with punitive relish.

‘It’s the front actually.’

‘Jolly good.’

Mrs Burns creased her face into a wince. ‘Oh dear, yes. It would be. Is it awfully painful?’

‘It’s not too bad if I don’t move.’

‘Ah. Well, we just popped in.’ She glanced at her husband. ‘Perhaps we’d better be …’

Robert seized the moment. ‘Have you seen her this morning?’

‘Who?’

‘Mrs Kendrick. I’d like to say thank you – and all that.’

‘Oh no. We haven’t seen her at all. Now you get plenty of rest, Mr Kettle.’ She was taking charge like a nurse. ‘We all want to have you back with us fit and well. All right? We don’t like to think of you …’

‘Soon have you back on your feet, I expect. Now you just take it easy, there’s a good chap. Grin and bear it.’

They edged themselves out of the cabin. Mr Burns put his finger mysteriously against his nose; his wife gave Robert a little fluttery wave.

Paul Finch-Clark called. He pulled back the metal chair and hung himself over it the wrong way round, like a poet. His blond hair flopped in his eyes. His knees in his old navy cords thrust out round the canvas in the chair back. They discussed for some time the shades and degrees of sunburn. Robert felt it strange that someone else he hardly knew should take an interest. If a set had formed, then he was on its fringe – while Penny was close to its centre. When he eventually managed to steer the conversation around to her, he found his visitor evasive.

‘It was dance night last night. I didn’t see her. She’s a dashed nice woman, Penny. I don’t mind saying so. I was looking forward to asking her. One gets attached to people, doesn’t one, on this sort of jaunt. In the nicest possible way, of course. Wonderful girl. Pity we all have to lose touch at the other end, Kettle. It’s a good crowd, don’t you think?’

‘You haven’t seen her this morning at all?’

‘No. To tell the truth I have an idea she’s been a bit cut up about something lately’

‘Cut up?’

‘Missing hubby, I expect. Don’t you? And the boys back in England. It can’t be easy for her, can it, the whole family split up. Women miss those sorts of things more than men. As far as I can see. Don’t you think? Bless ’em. I know Dilys gets fretful if I’m away just for a day or so.’ He dashed his hair back. ‘She likes to know I’m around. Not up to no good.’ He chuckled. ‘As long as I’m not under her feet, of course. Women hate that.’

When he had gone, Robert pondered the implications. He came to no firm conclusion. He felt jangled and could not think clearly at all.

By late morning much of the feverishness had subsided. He worked out the only bearable resting position: lowering the sheets to the limit of decency, abandoning all coverings whatsoever on his affected parts, and spreading his arms wide. That way what cooler air there was – the cabin was heating up – could circulate upon his tender surface.

In the corridor outside, there came frequently the sound of running feet. At first he was puzzled. Then he remembered it was the children. They had got up some enormous spy game of late and were forever dashing here and there in gangs, pulling people out of hidey-holes, or dodging behind pillars.

He wondered how far gone Chaunteyman actually was. With his hints and insinuations. Was he just about to disappear over into the DTs, or had he actually had a painful row with one of his ‘women’ that made his early-morning performance seem so extreme? Could he really be some sort of military agent for the Americans? He had, after all, managed to find out a good deal about a fellow-traveller’s plans. And had taken Robert for something he was not. Perhaps he believed his own fantasies.

And had any of Chaunteyman’s remarks applied to Penny? With the anguish of a lover Robert would have it so: she was in danger, Chaunteyman was a seducer who thought he detected an easy conquest. Worse, her appetites were uncontrollable. She had delighted in leading Robert on while being all the time ‘crazy about’ this ageing playboy; by whom she was cheaply aroused and reduced to ‘English tail’. Which, if that were the case, was all she was damned well good for.

Such tormented imaginings. They hurt him like his own skin. But every so often they would cool and return him to reason: that Chaunteyman’s chaos was of his own creation, that Penny was Penny and separate from it; and that he, too, was his own distinct, self.

In the aftermath of these saner moments he became able to prop the
Decline and Fall
against his knees and browse half-heartedly on Gibbon’s rolling periods. And when he felt he had done enough with one pair of pages, he would swing up a naked scarlet arm, taking great care not to bend it, and gingerly perform the page turn – although Penny’s image was still imprinted there.