Liner

by James Barlow

  Voices assailed him, but remotely, along with the noises of movement and metals expanding in the increasing sun, people talking, desirous of doing that which Mike did not wish or intend to do, that is, talking about themselves carelessly: ‘Are you a good sailor?’ – ‘I’m quite good, George was ill yesterday’ – ‘A Dutchman. I put him in charge’ – ‘They work awfully hard, don’t they?’ – ‘Yes, but they get cocky’ – ‘Fourteen grandchildren to see us off’ – ‘We haven’t introduced ourselves, have we? My name’s Roy and this is Elizabeth.’ And louder than any of them the metallic voice: ‘Your attention, please. The time: one thirty. Latitude thirty-five South. Longitude one twenty-seven East. Speed seventeen point six knots. Distance covered in twenty-four hours: four hundred and sixty-three miles. Course two hundred and sixty-seven degrees. Temperature seventy-seven degrees. Passengers are reminded that tonight the ship’s clocks will be retarded one hour. I repeat – ‘ But the voice didn’t repeat, for the address system, as usual, broke down . . .

  On the following morning the Burstons woke in a smell of oil. It was thick, and hurt the throat and eyes. The cabin steward fetched an officer and there was much discussion and shouting on the telephone. The officer said to Mike, ‘We are very sorry but there is an oil leak. It will involve the removal of panels. We shall give you a superior cabin on A Deck.’

  ‘Hooray!’ contributed Stella.

  Cabin A73 was a fraction larger and it had a porthole.

  Marion said idly, ‘It’s hot. We must be approaching Fremantle.’

  Stella, in bare feet, commented, ‘The floor’s hot.’

  ‘I hope the air-conditioning works,’ Marion offered grimly, but it didn’t. It seemed pointless to complain since it was a better cabin than they’d started with, but Mike went to the Purser’s Office and a German girl noted the fault. Two men came in the afternoon, but when they departed after two hours there was still only the faintest movement of air.

  In the night Marion was too hot to sleep, and someone in the cabin opposite kept coming and going, slamming a door, so that Marion said loudly, ‘Don’t they know how to shut a door quietly?’ But at three in the morning a girl laughed outside, a transistor radio offered pop music, the girl said, ‘Goodnight,’ and giggled, scuffling, and then she or someone knocked for whole minutes on the door opposite, in vain. The kids slept through this, but Mike echoed Marion’s anxiety, saying aloud, ‘I hope we’re not going to have that the whole trip.’

  Hours later Stella asked, ‘Can I go to the cabaret tonight?’

  ‘Not on your own,’ Marion told her promptly.

  ‘Not with you either,’ Stella qualified. ‘You’re so miserable.’

  ‘Then don’t go at all,’ snapped Marion.

  ‘Well, Mum, you are. It’s being so old, I suppose.’

  ‘You can’t go on your own.’

  ‘With Diane.’

  ‘Who’s she?’

  ‘You know – across the way.’

  Mike said, ‘Is she the one who slams doors at three in the morning?’

  ‘How do I know? I was asleep.’

  ‘I’ve seen her. She’s cheeky.’

  ‘She’s not. She’s very nice,’ Stella argued warmly.

  Marion instructed seriously, ‘First cabaret, then. I want you in bed by ten.’

  ‘Oh, Mum, this is a holiday, isn’t it? She can’t go then ‘cause she goes to the second meal. And the second cabaret doesn’t even start until nine thirty.’

  ‘Let her go,’ suggested Mike.

  Marion said loudly, ‘I’ve just said she can’t go. How do we know what this girl’s like, if she wanders about at three in the morning and scuffles with youths?’

  ‘God, Mum, you make everything sound like an orgy.’ Stella protested. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t her anyway. And I’ll come straight back afterwards, I promise.’

  ‘That’s seems fair,’ reasoned Mike.

  ‘You don’t care,’ Marion said bitterly. ‘If she does what she likes tonight, what about tomorrow and next week? We know you don’t have any sense of responsibility.’

  Mike shouted back at her: ‘That’s a lousy thing to say. For God’s sake it wasn’t my fault. How was I to know-?’

  ‘Then why are we running away from Australia?’ Marion asked with crushing logic.

  ‘The court said it wasn’t my fault –’

  ‘The court!’ Marion sneered ruthlessly, ignoring the kids, who were all startled, Stella in fact was fascinated. ‘Oh, yes, they’d say that to stop you from going crazy.’

  ‘Who’s going crazy?’ he demanded.

  ‘I am,’ she said, and ran into the bathroom, weeping.

  He called after her, ‘The court decided it,’ but she countered, ‘We had a good lawyer. The company’s. It was important that you got off. Your job –’

  ‘Do you think I feel good about it?’ he shouted, utterly dejected, shaking.

  ‘Don’t shout at me,’ Marion sobbed. ‘Go away. Leave me along.’

  ‘All right,’ he snarled. ‘I’m in the bar if you want me.’

  Because he had said he was going to the bar Mike in fact went to one, as if he were obliged to. He hurried along the deck, elbowed his way through idle promenaders with an urgency that suggested something important to attend to.

  Mike sat down, shaking, hot and dejected. There weren’t many people in the bar, for it was not nine o’clock and many people were still at dinner. A few couples – you could tell which were married, for they had nothing to say to each other. A half dozen smoothies were noisy at one table, bellowing amusement that froze Mike. He felt horribly alone.

  A girl was leaning over the piano, stroking the head of the man playing it. The man was thirtyish, cheap, conceited; any other man could tell this at a glance. He delighted in the girl’s action and was not at all self-conscious. Again, only the girl failed to recognize that what she was doing had been done before by others: it was traditional that girls aboard liners made fools of themselves over officers, stewards, elevator boys, hairdressers, entertainers . . . and romanticized the episode and the ship for the rest of their lives. This girl, stretched over the piano, was wearing a very short skirt, and this rode now as high as her buttocks. Mike could see her pants and was embarrassed, she was obviously so easy.

  The girl had red hair and as she turned her head to stroke her own hair in a gesture of vanity he saw that she was Diane, the girl whom he had said Stella could accompany to the late cabaret. He had regrets and misgivings now, although every confidence in Stella, his favourite; who, although with a caustic tongue (it goes with frustrated intelligence, Mike considered generously), listened to a radio preacher twice a week and had been known to go to Sunday school without any prompting by her parents. Stella did not bother with boys at all.

  Mike was longing for a beer. He had promised Marion weeks ago he wouldn’t drink it again, but now he was terribly tempted; safe on a ship, his mouth dry, his body hot and his nerves screaming.

  A steward sauntered over. A queer, Mike’s mind told him, and, absurdly, he felt a fool about to order a soft drink. It did not matter to him that the man, a Greek, was a queer.

  ‘Lemonade,’ he ordered. ‘And twenty fags.’

  The steward said unnecessarily – and he had a voice that carried – ‘You’re joking. I thought you were an Australian.’

  He inferred that Mike looked brown and tough, a beer drinker in fact, but no compliment was intended. Nothing was intended. The steward was justifying himself.

  Mike snapped tartly, ‘Just get the stuff and never mind the analysis.’

  ‘Of course, sir,’ the steward said with instant loathing.

  He sauntered off, and the bunch of smoothies four tables away called him, ‘Hey, John! Come here! You’re neglecting us.’

 
They gave a complicated order, which the steward fulfilled. He then became purposely involved with the girl cashier. Ten minutes passed with Mike very brittle and thinking of using his fists.

  There was an officer a few tables away. He was drinking on his own, and seemed to have gone some way with it. Mike recognized him as the first officer who’d given the instructions about life jackets.

  He had observed Mike, although distantly, for he was obviously involved mentally elsewhere. Now he snapped his fingers and the queer steward came over in a hurry.

  The officer spoke in Greek, but he was clearly reprimanding the steward with fury. The man positively recoiled before his anger.

  Then the officer stood by Mike and said, ‘You have been kept waiting by this oaf. Allow me to order you a drink.’

  He said this in front of the steward, who suffered visibly.

  ‘I only wanted a lemonade,’ Mike told him.

  ‘And why not? It is hot,’ the officer said. He wasn’t drunk, but uninhibited.

  The steward fetched drinks very quickly. The officer sat down and drank half a whiskey.

  ‘They are not all like that one,’ he reassured Mike.

  Mike agreed. ‘No. They’re good, bloody good.’

  ‘On a holiday?’

  ‘No. Going back to England.’

  ‘Quite rightly,’ the officer said unexpectedly. ‘Europe is civilized. I hate Australians,’ he told Mike with vehemence. ‘Vulgar, crude people. Pigs. But no doubt you know that. Excuse me. I have many things to attend to. I hope you have a good trip.

  He strode out of the bar, upset about something.

  The curious small incident improved Mike’s mood. He felt momentarily elated, even good-humoured. He had a friend who was important. No. It wasn’t exactly that. What it was, was that the Greek officer had failed to despise him, to identify, and had treated him like a human being.

  He wanted to tell Marion about it, as if it had a bearing on them. Her face was surprised to see him back so quickly, but it once returned to solemnity, something not far away from misery.

  ‘I didn’t drink beer,’ he announced. ‘An officer bought me a lemonade.’

  It had no significance for Marion. She was silent.

  ‘Where’s Stella?’ he asked.

  She snarled at once, ‘Where do ‘you think? Gone off with that tarty thing you regard as good company for her.’

  ‘Maybe I was mistaken,’ he admitted.

  But Marion conceded nothing. She was genuinely worried. ‘It’s a bit late to be mistaken.’

  ‘Christ, kid, I wish you didn’t take everything so damn seriously’ he protested.

  ‘I wish you did,’ she answered shakily.

  ‘Hi!’ said Diane, her invariable greeting.

  She stood by the open door of her cabin. Inside Stella could see a chaos of underwear hanging on string, and an old woman half sitting, half lying on the lower bunk of the two.

  ‘Gee, what a tiny cabin!’ Stella couldn’t resist observing. ‘Is that your grandmother you’re travelling with?’ she asked as they strolled away.

  ‘That old wowser!’ Diane objected. ‘I wouldn’t have her for my fairy godmother. She thinks the world’s going to end next April! Honestly. The lousy shipping company does it. They stick a girl in with an old woman so she can look after the old thing when she’s crook and the old dear can complain if the girl shows any signs of enjoying herself! You know what she did last night? She locked me out!’

  Diane wasn’t quite as tall as Stella, but was lithe, full of awareness. She wore a mini dress. Stella was taller but awkward. She had a nose which was slightly hawked and she was pale with mild anaemia. Diane was nearly two years older and had a far stronger personality. Already Stella felt weakened before it.

  ‘Where are you from?’ Diane asked.

  Stella told her, and added, ‘It was so boring.’

  ‘Jesus, I’ll bet! Hey, and you know what that old crumb said to me this morning? ‘I don’t object to your swearing,’ she told me. ‘That’s your business. But I will not tolerate the name of Our Lord being blasphemed,’ ‘

  Stella couldn’t help but giggle. It felt like a betrayal to do so. Of Dr. de Haan perhaps? He would have said the old lady was quite right. Dr. de Haan spoke on the radio, half an hour, Wednesdays and Fridays. He was terrific. She couldn’t fault him. And he wasn’t dreary. He made the Bible and God and all those things pretty smart. Still, maybe this was entirely physical, a reflex action like blushing when you weren’t guilty or shaking with the giggles t atrocities you recognized as dreadful.

  ‘When we stopped at Adelaide you know what she thought?’ Diane asked. ‘She said, ‘Is this Singapore?’ and I said, ‘No, it’s a bonus port they’ve given us: Adelaide,’ And you know what she said? ‘Isn’t Adelaide the capital of Singapore?’ She ought to be in an institution or something.’

  Stella laughed, then asked, ‘What did you do?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘When she locked you out?’

  ‘Roy took me to his cabin.’

  Stella was shocked.

  ‘You mean - ?’

  ‘Oh, it was all right. Barry was there, but he didn’t mind.’

  Stella felt hot with discomfort. She wanted to ask ‘Didn’t mind what?’ but hadn’t the nerve.

  ‘I’m from Sydney,’ Diane informed her. ‘I was engaged. I’ve still got the ring. Beautiful, isn’t it?’

  ‘It certainly is,’ said Stella in awe. ‘You didn’t give it back?’

  ‘What to that rat-bag?’

  Just to walk with Diane was an experience. People looked at her in a curious way. Stewards tried to pretend they were staring at something else, but Stella could see that they were bothered by the high skirt and legs already sunburned. Three times on the way to the cabaret they met youths who greeted Diane by name and examined Stella with interest. Two of them had to paw Diane a little while they talked, as if they couldn’t keep their hands off her. She objected – ‘Stop messing about’ – but they didn’t.

  Stella asked, probing an area about which she knew nothing. ‘What’s it like, being engaged?’

  Diane said quickly, ‘Jesus, you must have had a dull time in the outback! It was the same as usual, only the necking was more potent.’

  Stella was fascinated, but didn’t dare inquire further in case she revealed her ignorance. Dr. de Haan was very against necking of any sort. He interviewed students and asked them if they felt it was healthy, and then analysed their recorded answers. Always what they said he found shallow and in the long run evil. They were usually pretty articulate students, who qualified, ‘Necking’s all right if you don’t go too far,’ or ‘If you know when to stop,’ or as one girl said, ‘If you’re seriously in love with someone you’ve got to show it somehow, reveal affection and so on.’ But none of them ever said outright what necking was, and what ‘too far’ meant. Dr. de Haan seemed to imply that it was sex of some degree.

  She ventured, ‘Dr. de Haan says necking is dangerous to health.’

  Diane shrieked with amusement. ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘Oh, just someone we know,’ Stella said, defensively, betraying the radio voice she had heeded scores of times.

  ‘Sounds like a real wowser.’

  ‘He’s kind of nice.’

  ‘Watch him,’ advised Diane. ‘They’re the really repressed ones. He’d probably beat you with his fists while he laid you.’

  This was so crude that Stella blushed hotly.

  ‘All the stewards come in the cabin when I’m changing,’ complained Diane. ‘Honestly, I don’t see how they know . . . Are you dancing after the show?’

  ‘They say I’ve got to go straight back,’ Stella told her, and was glad that her parents had indeed said this. Di
ane scared her. If she wasn’t careful she’d be hustled into some ghastly situation.

  Roy sat with them watching the cabaret. He was a chunky bearded youth with pale shiny skin. He pawed Diane throughout the performance, as if he couldn’t believe his luck and must keep touching to confirm it. He said almost nothing to Stella, even regarding her with faint hostility, as if he identified disapproval.

  The cabaret was performed in the Aegean Lounge, and the place was already hot and smoke stung the eyes, the leftover from the first performance. It was very professional Stella felt: dancers who moved with sensual precision, two comedians who were witty about events of this very day, pop singers, a ventriloquist, a couple who did ballroom dancing . . .

  ‘They’ve brought three thousand costumes for this trip,’ Diane whispered.

  Afterwards Diane suggested, ‘Let’s get a drink. It’s so hot in there,’ and she overruled Stella’s objection, arguing. ‘They won’t know to within a quarter of an hour, will they? They weren’t there, were they?’

  ‘No,’ Stella greed. ‘Just one, then, Diane, and better make it lemonade,’ she qualified, apprehensively, ‘so they don’t smell my breath.’

  Diane hurried her, with a bad-tempered Roy – he, too, was overcome by Diane’s personality and just followed her around – to the Forward Bar. ‘We’ll go in the Labyrinth Club,’ Diane said decisively.

  This was a gallery forward of the bar, with an excellent view out to sea forward. But it had become a sort of rendezvous for particular groups of people – drinkers, card players (in the daytime), lovers and some of the cabaret folk who didn’t want to be stared at.

  Diane identified a group of half a dozen males in the deliberate gloom. They welcomed her like an old friend, which perplexed Stella. How could she know so many people in a matter of a week or so? They weren’t even boys, some of them, but men of thirty, one even forty.