by James Barlow
Then Mike hurried back to his cabin. He was breathing badly and there was almost nothing left of the impetus which had carried him through the afternoon. He was downcast.
Marion was still in the cabin. Perhaps only a few minutes had passed. To him they felt like hours.
‘Where is she?’ he demanded harshly.
‘Mike, what did you do?’
‘What did I do?’
‘Her face is bleeding.’
‘Oh, that. A scratch.’
‘She’s hysterical.’
‘Where is she?’
‘In the bathroom.’
Mike shouted, ‘Come on out. Don’t hide and pretend nothing’s happened.’
Marion protested, ‘For God’s sake, what are you shouting about?’
He told her, briefly and brutally, in the language of truck drivers.
Marion went pale, but she, who was constantly reprimanding Stella, and this with an acid tongue, now pleaded for her: ‘Don’t be so angry. She has to live with it, too.’
‘She loved it.’
‘Don’t take your own despair out on the kid.’
‘I’m not doing that, Marion. That’s unfair. I’m not like that. Doesn’t it matter to you?’
Marion agreed, ‘Of course it does –’but stopped.
Stella came out of the bathroom, silent, cringing, but defiant.
Mike demanded, ‘How many times has that happened?’
The girl said tautly, ‘I don’t care. He’s as good as you.’
Marion bristled, but pointed out with patience: ‘Listen. We are entitled to ask you what’s been going on.’
‘He loves me, that’s all. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.’
Mike waved an arm in contempt. Stella flinched and screeched, ‘Don’t you hit me. Big hateful beast.’
He told her: ‘You’re a fool. I was having my hair cut – this very afternoon. And he was there. The kid who cut my hair says he’s been through five women so far this trip. Love! A bloody vain ape posturing on a tree! You don’t believe me? You think you’re exclusive? You know better? Ask Diane, your smart friend. He’s had the lot from her. You dumb fool. You listen to that fellow – what’s his name? – Dr. de Haan; you believe him, but the first vulgar lout who talks butter can take your dress off.’
‘Gossip,’ Stella disputed, but she was trembling.
‘Gossip?’ Mike bellowed. ‘Why, the little slut has even given me the eye.’
‘You flatter yourself.’
‘Don’t give me lip. Do you think I don’t know?’
‘Mike, take it easy,’ Marion beseeched. ‘Who else?’ she questioned.
‘No one,’ Stella said, but with defiance.
‘Don’t lie,’ hissed Marion. ‘You crept away in the night when we slept on deck.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Yes, you did.’
‘To the lavatory.’
‘For three hours?’
‘What do you know about it?’
‘Patricia told me.’
‘She’s a pig, a liar.’
‘I didn’t believe her at the time,’ Marion said. She persisted, ‘Who else? And what happened?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Do I have to take you to the doctor to find out?’
‘You wouldn’t dare.’
‘Try me. What happened?’
‘Nothing.’
‘But there’ve been others?’
‘A boy. He was kind.’
‘What name?’
‘What do you want to know for?’
‘His name?’
‘Roy.’
‘With a beard?’
‘Yes. And he’s a man, not a boy. He’s twenty-one.’
‘What did you allow him to do?’
‘Nothing. He was kind. He didn’t want –’
‘He got fed up with you?’
‘I don’t know what you’re raving about.’
‘About you, Stella, my own trusted daughter.’
‘I didn’t mean – to go that far.’
‘With a man of thirty on a liner? Do you think he’d stop at holding your hand? Did you go to the privacy of a cabin to talk? Am I supposed to be so dumb?’
‘Oh, no. You’re so clever.’
Mike shouted, ‘Stop being so damn insolent.’
Marion persisted with details of proof, like the ritual of an inquisition, proving fault, hoping for penitence and conversion: ‘So this boy, Roy, is too nice to take your willingness too far. And you therefore move on to someone else Diane suggests.’
‘I did not. He found me in the club.’
‘Waiting,’ suggested Marion.
‘You’re so dull,’ cried Stella hysterically, still defiant, in a shrill voice. ‘I can’t do anything. What did we do in Singapore? Went to an aquarium, round the shops. We could have done that in Adelaide.’
Mike forecast grimly: ‘You won’t be seeing him again, nor that tramp in the cabin opposite. That old lady warned me about her –’
‘She’s a stupid old crow.’
Mike shook his daughter until her hair was all over her face and her teeth rattled. ‘She’s lost her son,’ he cried, ‘but she doesn’t whine round the ship like you do. If you don’t stop this dumb arrogance I’ll break your neck. You know the difference between right and wrong and you chose wrong. That doesn’t make you superior to anyone, or turn you into an adult.’
Stella sobbed. ‘I hate you . . . Big stupid truck driver . . . Dumb and satisfied . . . You killed someone!’ she shouted. ‘You broke a little girl in half and you think you’re better than me.’
It stopped him, it hurt so much. This one hateful afternoon had revealed that the daughter he treasured most was a slut and didn’t care how he felt about it: she reciprocated nothing, was deeply involved in a dirty world of her own, previously guarded behind silence. He was filled with despair and could find nothing to say.
But Marion responded with instant fury. ‘That was an accident and he didn’t kill her. Do you think your dad did it deliberately, like you chose your actions? You cheap nasty vicious girl. Get out of my sight!’
Stella climbed into her bunk and lay face downward sniffing with self-pity.
The silence was suffocating.
Mike asked, ‘Where’s Patricia?’
‘In the playroom.’
Two hours later they went to dinner: habit was stronger than distress.
They stood by the table. The stewards, as always, welcomed them with smiles. Did they have daughters too? The stewards didn’t notice the stony silence and white faces.
Mike said with feeling, ‘I don’t want that pig sitting next to me. She’d better sit over that side.’
Stella suddenly wept and walked away.
‘Oh, Mike,’ Marion chided. ‘You shouldn’t have said that.’
Miss Wearne said brightly, ‘They say it’s Asian flu and it comes on so quickly.’
They smiled thinly and sat down.
Later they strolled the Parade Deck in the dark and talked about it.
‘What do we do?’ Mike asked frankly, lost already.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Have we lost her?’
‘Of course not, Mike.’
‘I didn’t want to get angry.’
‘I know you care, Mike.’
‘It kind of spoils the trip.’
‘She’ll get over it.’
‘Over it? She’s frightened, so she’s defiant, like a dog showing its teeth.’
‘I don’t know what to do. This filthy generation.’
‘Oh, no, Mike. It’s not a new problem.’
‘She knew all about my accident.’
‘I didn’t tell her.’
‘Kids at school.’
‘She’s never said a word before.’
Mike said sadly: ‘She meant that to hurt; as if she hadn’t done enough for one day.’
‘She’s growing up.’
‘Into what?’
‘You can’t win her by shouting or violence.’
‘All the same, she’s not to have the freedom to run round this ship. There’s four weeks of it yet. She comes with us.’
‘I suppose so, yes.’
‘Something will happen,’ suggested Mike.
He stared uselessly at the immense and cloudless sky and the mocking stars. Am I to be punished forever? He wondered.
Chapter Nineteen
Mr. Pybus breathed heavily. He sweated with a kind of angry insistence, the moisture rolling through a savannah of hairs down his chest. He was a very heavy man with a thick neck, massive torso and hands like uncooked sausages. He had many hairs protruding from the nostrils. His face was an interesting study in some kind of failure. He breathed now through his teeth, themselves stained and irregular and with purulent gums.
Dempsey asked – and it seemed almost frivolous – ‘And what can I do for you?’
Pybus said bitterly, apparently with contempt: ‘Nothing. I’m going to die.’
‘Aren’t we all?’ suggested Dempsey wearily.
‘I’m going to die before this voyage ends,’ declared Mr. Pybus.
‘Not if I can help it.’
‘I’ll bet you a thousand dollars I do.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ snapped Dempsey. ‘And don’t waste my time. I repeat, what can I do for you? What is the matter?’
‘I had a pain behind my chest bone. It went down the inside of my left arm and right up to my neck. It bloody hurt, I can tell you.’
Retrosternal agony with pains along the inside of the left arm, Dempsey knew, were symptoms of a heart attack.
‘How far down the arm?’ he asked.
‘I had pins and needles in my fingers.’
‘All of them?’
‘These.’
Pybus indicated the fourth and fifth fingers.
‘Let’s feel your pulse,’
It was thready, Dempsey found.
‘And some bastard robbed me while I was lying on the deck in bloody agony.’
‘That’s tough,’ sympathized Dempsey. ‘Did he take a lot?’
‘Enough.’
‘Have you told the sergeant-at-arms?’
‘What? On this bloody ship? Do you think the Greeks would do anything?’
‘I don’t see why not. That’s what the man’s aboard for . . . I’d like to listen to the music in your chest now.’
‘Jesus, it’s hot,’ complained Pybus. ‘I’m sorry it’s boiling out of me.’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
Dempsey listened and there was no doubt. The man’s heart had triple rhythm. At the base of the lungs were the moist sounds of crepitation. Mr. Pybus had a heart condition all right, but not necessarily a killer.
‘Do you smoke?’
‘Thirty a day.’
‘Too many.’
‘And you’re drinking a fair bit aboard?’
‘It’s so hot,’ Pybus excused himself.
‘Yes, that doesn’t help a heavy man either,’ Dempsey pointed out. ‘I’m going to see what your blood pressure is.’
He thought it might be very high, but in fact it was low. But then, Pybus had had a shock of considerable impact.
‘Have you had all these pains before?’
‘No.’
‘Good! Well, that’s not so bad then.’
‘Heart attack, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to have another.’
‘Ah, come off it, Doctor. I’ll be dead before this journey’s ended.’
‘Rubbish! It doesn’t help to drink heavily and you’re carrying a lot of weight. Not to mention smoking – more than thirty a day, I know.’
‘I never count the bloody things . . . I’ll bet you I die,’ asserted Pybus.
‘You won’t this trip. You should last forever if you pack in the drinking. What is it, spirits?’
‘A thousand dollars,’ suggested Pybus. ‘I’ll bet you a thousand I die before we return to Wellington.’
‘And who would I give the money to, since you wouldn’t be here?’
‘I’ve got a daughter.’
‘You might drink yourself to death deliberately . . . I’ll take you on for a hundred,’ said Dempsey in good humour. ‘With a side bet of ten dollars that if you halve the boozing and smoking you don’t have any more pains this trip.’
‘Agreed,’ said Pybus.
He was pleased about it, and Dempsey feared he would now talk of nothing else providing he could find anyone to listen.
When Pybus had left, Sister Eleni said, ‘You have money to throw away? That one is so unpleasant he will die just to rob you. And he has the face of one who has given up, knows he is despised and that there is no point in living.’
‘This ship,’ Dempsey informed her, ‘is packed with philosophers . . . Anybody else or can we go and rot our livers with whiskey?’
‘Of course there is somebody else!’ asserted Sister Eleni. ‘Your most persistent lady friend.’
‘Oh, no! Not her!’
Dempsey was disturbed, but was obliged to see anyone who turned up and claimed to be ill.
‘Yes, her. And I shall leave you to it.’
Mrs. Triffett came into the surgery. She looked very beautiful in a pale blue dress. Her expression seemed calm and reasonable.
‘Sit down,’ Dempsey invited. ‘The sister has fled in fear of you! What’s your trouble?’
‘Daniel, I can’t swim.’
‘It’s not necessary to be able to swim to go on a cruise.’
‘Oh, don’t mock me. I could swim but now I can’t.’
‘So?’ asked Dempsey in irritation.
‘I mean I used to be good . . . ’
‘Mrs. Triffett, why do you bother me with such nonsense?’
‘Pauline; don’t remind me of him . . . You’ve been to a party with me and should call me Pauline.’
‘Look,’ said Dempsey frankly. ‘I’ve had two in already this very morning: ‘I’m off form; I can’t seem to play deck tennis like I did last week. In Sydney I had them come in: My golf’s deteriorating, what the hell am I supposed to do? I want to help people who are ill, not neurotics who drank too much the night before, or overeat, or go to bed too late and with too many persons . . . ’
‘I’m sorry, Daniel. I was frightened.’
‘Does it matter a damn if you can swim or not?’
‘It was alarming because I went in the fourteen-foot end.’
‘And this time your suicide was nearly successful?’
Dempsey laughed, and Pauline smiled and agreed, ‘I suppose it has a certain macabre humour. That – other – thing – was a gesture . . . Daniel, we’re all horribly mixed up. My limbs didn’t function that other night either: it became genuine. Do I have an in-built death wish or something?’
‘No,’ said Dempsey firmly. ‘You have a splendid sense of melodrama which fools even you.’
‘I’m damned depressed today,’ she told him. ‘But I wasn’t lying. I very nearly drowned. A horrid taste, that water’s got. I just thought maybe my muscles had taken the hint from my mind.’
‘What’s the matter with you, Pauline? You’re perfectly fit physically, you know.’
‘I don’t know. Yes, I do. I want someone to care.’
�
��To care or simply to take notice? We do care, some of us.’
‘Yes, but superficially, when it’s necessary or convenient or part of duty or a timetable. I don’t think anyone really cares. So I want to shock them and make them.’
‘This is what students and agitators do. You may shock, but you also arouse resentment. You won’t succeed that way.’
‘How, then, Daniel?’
‘Jesus, Pauline, I’ve had a bit of a day and an emergency hernia in the night . . . But it goes like this. We’re all too intent and we all analyze ourselves to death. We’ve lost simplicity. We all know that the motive isn’t what it seems – it derives from the urge to obtain or do something else. We envy supposedly simple African people who are abiding, like children, but the basic game. Jealousy, for them, is jealousy; courage is courage, and so on. We know better. The hero is a fool or a delinquent. The puritan is a repressed or impotent voluptuary. We’re too damned smart. We become miserable. It serves us right.’
‘What did I do wrong, Daniel, to forge the first link? God, I’m only twenty-three now.’
‘You probably sought happiness like someone choosing a dress. The pursuit of happiness is absurd and should be struck off the American Bill of Rights. Look where it’s got them! You tried on this dress, tried on that: They didn’t make you consciously happy like a double whiskey warming your belly . . . ’
‘All I ask is simple love –’
‘Oh, no, Pauline! You’re not that simple. You’re Eve and Delilah and Scarlett O’Hara. There’s nuclear fission mixed up in your motives. You like confusion and temperament, a degree of chaos . . . ’
‘But it’s true, Daniel. All I want is simple pleasure, love . . . Will you take me round Hong Kong? You know the city, don’t you? I’m a bit scared of it on my own, and Reidy’s doing the standard tours.’
‘I’ve already promised, or half promised . . . ’
‘I know. That kid, Debbie. Nice-looking, isn’t she?’
‘There you go! Feline, fissionable. Do you think I’ve got designs on a girl not quite sixteen?’
‘Don’t you know she’s very fond of you?’