S.O.S. (50 page)

‘All right, everyone?' chivvied a beaming Stewart, bearing down on them both – face almost neon tonight, and a clipboard jammed under his arm. ‘Everybody happy? Fun fun fun – yes?'

‘Where
is
everyone?' asked Jennifer. ‘Are we terribly early, or something?'

‘Bit of a thin house …' agreed Stewart, quite ruefully.

Bit of a thin house my
arse
: never
seen
so bloody few people turn out for the Talent Show. Bloody storm, I suppose. And more than half my entrants have dropped out too. Mrs Myrtle's not going to do her Shirley Bassey – can't guarantee her dinner won't pop out; John Cummings says he can't do the conjuring because all the props will be sliding all over the place (fair point – it's all you can do to stand upright, at the moment). It's looking like the star of the show is going to be Nobby with his nautical terms and Aggie with her, oh God help us all –
Madison
. Not forgetting the redoubtable Disco Debbie, of course – she's still well up for bopping till she drops, poor old sod. Let's just hope she doesn't
literally
drop, that's all. That really would be the icing on the cake.

You know what, don't you? I mean look – I might as well come right out and say it: I am totally
fed up
. Truly pissed off with just everything, now. I mean – it was
my
fault, was it, that those bloody little yobs were screwing each other on the floor of the Emperor Suite? That's down to
me
, is it? This one they think they can lay quite fairly and squarely at
my
door? A severe reprimand, I got: it's on my record. Very nice. That'll have them all queueing up to get me, won't it? Ever I'm after another job. But
look
, I argued – if I'd
known
there was anyone in there, well then of
course
I wouldn't have led in a party of journalists, would I? I'm not
stupid
. Nonetheless, they went – nonetheless: if it hadn't been for you, no one would have known. And I was going But
listen
to me, why can't you?
I
didn't know, did I? How could I? But it was no good. Blue in the face. Made not one jot of difference. And do you know what really did it? When they were writing up my record, they had to ask me my
name
. I know. Unbelievable, isn't it? After all these years on this bloody ship – and the only time I get even
noticed
is when they slap on me an official bloody
reprimand
and they don't even know what I'm
called
…! I'm telling you – it's all too much, quite frankly. It's all just getting on top of me.

Anyway – ten minutes overdue already: can't delay this bloody show any longer, can I? Perfectly plain no one else is coming. Right, then – let's just go through the running order … cross out the names of practically everyone … right … now then: got the prizes (chocolates –
hah
! As if people don't get enough to stuff themselves with … and cruets and shot glasses with the name of the ship on them: lovely). And I've got my flare gun all primed and charged. They love that bit, generally. It's only a low-voltage thing – mild S.O.S. – but it makes everyone really jump when it goes off – and then this rather pretty cascade of gold sort of stars and circles fizzes right up and then floats down slowly, just like a lit-up fountain: star turn – always do this at the end. Right then – here we go.

And the very second he stepped on to the stage (Hi, everyone! Greetings and felicitations! – well, you all know me: Stewart, Assistant Cruise Director …) – he had no sooner got the words out of his mouth, and she was
doing
it, that bloody woman at the front. God Almighty.

‘Come
on
, then!' shouted Jennifer. ‘Get
on
with it! Why are we
waiting
? Why are we way-ay-
ting
?!'

‘
Shh
, Mum!' giggled Stacy. ‘Honestly …!'

‘Oh shut
up
, Stacy. This is why I'm
here
 – have a bit of fun. Come
on
! Come
on
! Are you the stripper? Get 'em off!'

Stewart just glowered at her – and very tersely announced the first act: Caroline, from Morecambe, who was going to sing for us that perennial old favourite – Greensleeves.

Jennifer groaned, and glanced about her in search of any sort of distraction. Oh God – a few seats away it was Nobby and Aggie! Argh! Look the other way, fast. Couple of horrible-looking businessmen on the other side. One of them was speaking quite loudly (maybe not much of a Green-sleeves man).

‘See, in the greeting card game, you always wanna be one jump ahead. Now wom sign? Like – we noticed the trend way back – so we don't print nuffing in 'em, nowadays. You got to listen to what the punters is
sighing
. So fundamentally, it's back to bye-sicks. Now wom sign?'

‘Oh
God
, Stacy,' deplored Jennifer. ‘Shall we get out of here? I thought it would be funnier than this. More of a laugh.'

‘Let's just see what's up next.'

Next up was a mother and daughter duo (all the way from Texas! Anyone here tonight from Texas? No? Nobody? No one at all? Well … let's hear it anyway for Abigail and Trixie … um, what is this?
June
. No, not June – Jane. Abigail and Trixie-
Jane
, ladies and and gentlemen! Yay!). Jennifer tolerated the first few bars of Stand By Your Man, and absolutely no more.

‘Boo! Boo! What man would stand by either of
you
? Rubbish! Get off!'

As Stacy just died of embarrassment and Jennifer continued to hoot with delight, Stewart was off that stage and
making for them fast. His mouth was set, and he truly had the aspect of one who was lit up from within.

‘
Right
! That is absolutely the
limit
!' he practically spat at Jennifer – and she was shaken, momentarily, by the sheer uncut fury and hatred she saw in his face. But she pulled herself together.

‘Who the hell are
you
, anyway?' she drawled at him.

And that, really, was it. Stewart closed his eyes tight, and the muscles in his neck bunched up and bulged hard. Who am I? Who
am
I? I'll
tell
you who I am. I am now, right this second, about to teach everyone – everyone aboard this bloody, bloody ship, a lesson. After tonight, everybody will know my bloody name. No one again will ever have to
ask
.

‘Right …' he said, quite ominously quietly. ‘
You
!' And he pointed an aggressive finger at Jennifer's face. ‘Up. Right now. You're coming with me.' And then he stunned himself by adding: ‘You're under
arrest
.'

Jennifer was shaken, yes, but was rallying round quite quickly.

‘Oh just go and
fuck
yourself, whatever you're called …'

Stewart was white, and his forehead glistened. He drew out his flare gun and jabbed it into her ribs. The shock of it made Jennifer half rise – and she waved back a would-be calming hand to Stacy, who had just briefly squealed out her protest.

‘Right. Now out. Out of here. If you do not – I will kill you.'

Stewart was learning the words long after he had formed them, it seemed: an echo from somewhere else, in another time. The ship was pitching so violently, now, that he and Jennifer were quite desperately swaying and clinging on to one another for a sort of support, the black stubby gun still stuck between them. Jennifer began to move as well as she could in the direction he indicated (I mean Jesus I cannot … I am not
believing
this … but just take one look at him, will you? I think he's mad – very).

The two had lumbered out to the perimeter of the room. Several times he had to bark at Stacy to stay exactly where she bloody well was … they were nearly out of there – and now bloody
Nobby
was hanging on to his arm.

‘Stewart? What on earth do you think that you're doing?'

‘Go away, Nobby. This is nothing to do with you.'

‘I'm rather afraid, Stewart, it is. No – it's quite all right, Aggie – I'm perfectly capable of handling this.'

Stewart staggered back as the entire floor beneath them all bucked – regained his foothold, though, and looked about him in a fast-rising panic, approaching frenzy. He was sweating, and his lips were dry. Abigail and Trixie-Jane had warbled out the last of Stand By Your Man, and both were just hanging about, now, dangling their arms and looking rather lost. Eyes were flickering from all corners in Stewart's direction, and a growing rumble was discernible: he had to act fast, now, or else he would lose it completely.

‘All right then, Nobby – have it your own way. You come too. Out. Keep walking, the both of you. If you do not – I will kill you.'

‘Oh
please
no!' Jennifer was imploring. ‘Mercy, mercy –
please
not Nobby too! Kill me now, Christ's sake …!'

And all a paralysed Aggie and very appalled Stacy could do was watch these three people – bowed legs so clumping and wide apart, as if astride their phantom horses – lurch, bump and collidingly skitter more or less and then eventually out of there, leaving behind them a bankrupt contest, and just one clattering door.

*

The view from the Bridge was nightmarish, quite frankly – even for a pro. Captain Scar stood peering through the thick and streaming glass – the wipers were simply not close to coping. On each precipitous and roaring descent, the bows momentarily disappeared altogether beneath the rush of the
sea, before rising up again, shrugging away rivers of water to washingly obliterate the decks. (We are due later on, he was thinking, to sail within a very few miles of the icebergs that did for the
Titanic
. I mentioned this to the journalists – they said they terribly wanted to see them. I then told them that the optimum vantage point would be up on the Bridge at around four a.m.… whereupon they terribly didn't.)

The Captain turned at the sound of the very discreet, attention-seeking coughlet.

‘Oh hullo, Alan. What're you doing up here?'

‘Um – a word, if I may, sir?'

‘Of course. Fire away.'

Alan glanced about him at the officers on the Bridge.

‘Maybe in your quarters, sir?'

Captain Scar was uneasy. Something was wrong. Something else was
wrong
.

‘Yes, of course,' he said slowly, following Alan down the stairs – both of them thrown like puppets, and hanging on grimly.

The Captain sat at his desk with his head in his hands as his Number Two apprised him of everything he knew. When he had finished, the Captain said nothing. And then he said this:

‘And he won't come to the
door
, you say?'

‘Absolutely not, sir. They're all in there, in his office – we know that much … but no matter how long we're pounding at the door, well – absolutely no response whatever, sir. Extraordinary business.'

‘Indeed,' said Captain Scar. ‘We don't have a key?'

‘Locked
and
bolted, sir. Take explosive to break it down. Too risky.'

Captain Scar nodded like one condemned and reached for the telephone.

‘I'll talk to him. What did you say his name was again?'

‘Stewart, sir, apparently. But he won't answer it, sir. We've
had the phone ringing pretty well constantly, now. No good at all, I'm afraid.'

‘God Almighty. Well what do you think, Alan?
Mad
, is he?'

‘I just can't fathom it, sir. He can't possibly hope to
gain
anything from this. Maybe he's just, I don't know –
depressed
, sir.'

The Captain looked at him. ‘Depressed. Yes. Quite possibly. I don't feel terribly elated myself, Alan, just at this very moment. So OK – what's the position? What have we got?'

‘Well, sir – guard at the door, obviously, and, um – well, not much more to be done, I'm afraid, sir. Sort of have to, I don't know –
starve
him out, I suppose …'

The Captain's expression of total bemusement was reflected in that of his Number Two.

‘Good God. Right. OK, then, Alan. That will be all. Keep me informed, of course.'

‘Of course, sir. Good night, sir.'

‘If you say so, Alan.'

Captain Scar stood at the centre of the empty room and clenched his fists and jaw and any other part of him that could be deemed clenchable. Oh dear Christ, why this? Why this now? We're barely twenty-four hours from New York, and I have on my hands here what our American cousins refer to, I believe, as a ‘
situation
'. The situation
being
that my Assistant Cruise Director, whatever the bloody man's name is, has abducted two passengers … dear
Christ
… has taken two passengers against their will and has them holed up in his office, totally incommunicado. And according to next of kin – at
gunpoint
. Excellent. Quite perfect. And if our friends from the Press get hold of
this
little lot …? Maybe I should set course for those icebergs and keep on bloody going …

He moved to his drinks cabinet and poured just a tonic water into a heavy crystal glass, added lots of ice, and then threw in a quarter lime. And by way of an impassioned afterthought, filled it to the brim with gin.

*

It reminds me of something, all of this … and David was quite amazed to find himself thinking it, as he slowly ambled (well Christ – where was the fire?) the endless length of the padded and silent corridor. Amazed, I suppose, because at least it is a
thought
, yes? The result of a mental impulse which hadn't actually come about as a result of some fresh-probed and now no longer dormant anxiety (it is stirring again – flayed and tender) and nor the deep gut-shriek of stripped-back fear. It was simply the fact that the passage was piled now with trunks and packing cases bound with wire and rope: some other vast sorts of chest – looked like wardrobes on wheels … which, thinking about it, yes, they well could be. These all belonged, David had only just now and very slowly worked out (and God, it wasn't difficult), to the long-haulers, the globetrotters, the seen-it-all-before World Cruisers; this whole week – the duration of the entire prime time and big league crossing for us little Englanders – who maybe were more easily satisfied – would have seemed to them no more than last knockings, tail endings … and yes yes yes: that's it. Yes, of course – that's what all this recalls to me, now: End Of Term. In that terrible place they packed me off to, my people – far too young, I was, to have been just sent away, like that. I still, even now, remember only the cold and the clatter – the noise and the desolation. There must have
been
fun times, I suppose … and my mother, oh – so many years later, she kept on urging me to recall them … more, I think, to make her feel better about it than me. Oh come
on
, David, she'd go – there must have
been
fun times! It can't all have been as drab and fearsome as you make out, can it, David? Well – maybe there were, maybe there had been fun times, I really
couldn't say. Certainly I recall no such moment – not even one single second when the chill across my heart was suddenly warmed by the realization that now, right now, I am having a real fun time. No. I just remember (because I can't forget it) being barked at and jeered and hit and gated and forever
cold
 – and always starving amid the eternal
clatter
. My father and she, my mother told me sombrely – as if uttering a prayer – had gone without and worked so hard for the money to make all of this possible. I made no comment then – and now, now I very definitely have nothing at all to say on the matter. There had been just this one gleam – a faint respite – when one or two days before the end of term, the main hall and the passageways leading away from it were jammed high and haphazardly with all our trunks:
proof
that soon one would be out of there.