by Patrick Gale
‘The Ballroom of the Undead!’ He flopped into a chair and helped himself to Lawrence’s third brandy. ‘Do you mind?’ Lawrence waved it away.
‘You’d be doing me a favour. How was the tournament?’
‘The cards were against us.’
‘You lost?’
‘No. But there weren’t any slams so it was a bit subdued.’
‘I left your sister watching the show.’
‘That’s over. I left her tucking into the midnight buffet, which happens to be an all-chocolate one tonight, and Darius has gone to bed to escape all those card fiends with problems they want him to solve.’
Lawrence yawned.
‘I should turn in too. Go to bed and dream of woods and fields and empty space.’
‘But I was hoping you’d help me research my article.’
‘How?’
‘Well,’ Reuben stood, staring in absentmindedly candid revulsion at a powder-blue tuxedo that was passing, ‘it involves going somewhere much more lively than this I’m afraid.’
‘Where?’ Wariness stirred beneath the liquor fog in Lawrence’s skull. When they were children, Reuben would have been the kind forever getting him into trouble from which only Reuben emerged blame-free.
‘I’ve talked to passengers till I’m numb and they’re all polite as hell. I think it’s time for a trip below stairs, if only for our own sanity. Hang on a sec.’
He darted to the bar and chatted briefly with the grizzle-haired barman who smiled, nodded and called a waiter over to take his place.
‘This way, gentlemen. I should warn you, it’s not like up here. It’s pretty rough.’
‘Pretty rough sounds just fine,’ Reuben purred, eagerly following.
The barman led them out onto the deck, along a corridor, through a series of low-slung doors and into another, parallel ship where pipes were not boxed away, floors were uncarpeted and the walls were painted a uniform white gloss, sweaty to the touch. It looked like a proper ship rather than a ship trying to pass for an hotel. They ducked past cramped, shared cabins where Lawrence could barely have stood much less fitted himself into a bunk bed. They passed a galley slovenly with crumbs, used tea bags and bacon grease.
‘There you go, sirs,’ said the barman and held open a door. ‘Just ask anyone when you want to find your way out again.’
It was the staff bar, a kind of windowless pub. There was a darts board and a pool table and a bar strung round with winking fairy lights and a collection of Ken dolls and Action Men, none of them in the clothes their maker had intended. The sound system was blasting out Motown songs and seventies disco hits. Lawrence had feared they would be resented as trespassers on out-of-hours privacy, but the crowd of waiters, cooks, chambermaids and beauticians absorbed them without question. Perhaps they were used to refugees-paid companions and dutiful sons desperate to let their hair down. Father Xavier raised a glass in greeting from his corner of the snug and Lawrence was greeted by Spencer who was working a shift behind the bar.
Drunker than he had realized, Lawrence leaned on a pinball machine and listened as Reuben, entirely without fear, gatecrashed a gathering of boys and girls from the ship’s health spa.
‘I thought all the masseuses were European,’ he said. ‘Italian, French and so on.’
‘So?’ asked one. ‘Dudley’s European too. Anyway, most of the clients down there are American so Brum’s as exotic as Dubrovnik to them. They can’t understand half of what I say. You should slip down tomorrow. Afternoons are quietest, and we’ll give you a working over for nothing. You can bring your friend, if you like.’
Perhaps inevitably the gossip swung round to the resident star and a hard-faced young coiffeur told how suddenly all the women on board wanted hair like Lala’s.
‘I haven’t the heart to tell them it’s a wig, not at that price.’
‘It’s never.’
‘She’s got terrible scars. You know. Surgical. Denise gave her aromatherapy so she should know.’
‘And what about electrolysis? I’d heard she had a chest on her like Sean Connery.’
The competitive swapping and capping of stories grew ever more lurid, the laughter more cruel. Lawrence tried not to listen. He turned aside to watch the crowd, amazed that they were not too worn out by vocational sycophancy towards passengers to socialize with each other. He felt his eyelids grow heavy as he heard piano music cutting through the malicious chatter and the fevered bounce of disco. There was shouting and Reuben dug him in the ribs.
‘It’s her!’ he hissed.
The music was abruptly unplugged as Lawrence turned sleepily to see an off-duty Lala being persuaded to the piano’s side. Someone offered her champagne but she rejected it in favour of a deckhand’s glass of Guinness.
‘Alright alright,’ she muttered. ‘One. Just one. Jesus. I’ve been working my tits off upstairs and I came down here for a bit of relaxation. Oh alright already!’
Her speaking voice was pure gravel, her accent bizarrely multinational but principally American. Lawrence watched her mutter something in the ear of the childminder at the piano and wondered afresh at her gender. The childminder struck up an introduction. Lala frowned, her thick, black eyebrows and began to sing.
‘You made me love you.
I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to do it.’
Without a microphone, her singing voice was as soft and smoky as her speech. She leaned on the piano, apparently enjoying the crowd’s intimate enthusiasm. She dropped all the grand gestures, all the theatrics. She simply leaned and sipped her Guinness and growled. The song was over in seconds. The crowd cheered and called out for more. Men shouted requests:
‘Mad About the Boy!’
‘Ich Bin von Kopf!’ but she waved them away.
‘Shut up shut up. Leave me alone. You had that for nothing now let a woman drink in peace.’ Then she walked a little way through the crowd, saw Lawrence and stopped. ‘Hello,’ she said softly. He opened his mouth, thinking of spiders and flies, but could think of nothing to say. ‘Where were you tonight?’ she asked.
‘What?’
‘You weren’t there. Your girlfriend was there. I saw her. But you weren’t. Didn’t you want to hear it all again?’ She stopped. Lawrence was on hot coals. The room seemed to have fallen entirely silent. He felt every eye in the place fall on him. Lala looked about her and flapped a hand dismissively. ‘Talk amongst yourselves,’ she said, laughter in her voice. ‘Don’t mind us.’
There was a guffaw and obediently people turned away. Spencer plugged the music back in and the atmosphere was levelled out with blare.
‘She’s not my girlfriend,’ Lawrence stammered and cleared his throat because his voice had come out squeaky. ‘She’s just a friend. I met her on board.’
‘Uh huh.’
Lala drank, watching him. She had removed her stage make-up and tied her hair back in a black scarf. It made her look younger.
‘Well you know my name,’ she said.
‘I’m Lawrence.’
‘Lala and Larry,’ she chuckled. ‘It’s destiny. We sound like some hideous variety act. Buy me a drink?’
‘Sure.’
Happy to escape the glare of her orbit, he pushed through to the bar where Spencer was already pulling her another Guinness.
‘Hope you know what you’re doing,’ he muttered, concentrating on the drink.
‘I’m … I’m not doing anything.’
Spencer passed him the brimming glass, eyebrows raised. He waved aside Lawrence’s money, eyes still downcast. Lawrence wanted to remonstrate with him but sensed he was too drunk to do so without making a fool of himself.
Lala had been drawn into the adoring circle formed by Reuben and the beauticians. She thanked him for the drink with a flicker of a smile and carried on talking, so it was the easiest thing in the world to pass her the glass and slip away. He could not, however, resist the temptation to glance back as he reached the door. She was smiling politely at something
the Dudley girl was saying but her eyes alighted briefly on his and he felt their touch like a hand on his cheek.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
‘But they’re amazing!’ Bee laughed, plunging her face into the armful of flowers to sniff their heavy fragrance. When she lifted her face there was yellow pollen on her nose. ‘It feels like my birthday,’ she said.
‘Well,’ he mumbled. ‘They’re not from me actually. I mean. Well they are but I didn’t buy them. She did.’
‘Who?’
‘Lala.’
‘You’re kidding!’ She laughed again and took the flowers into her cabin. As he followed her, she found a little envelope stapled to the bouquet’s wrapping by the ship’s florist.
‘May I?’ she asked. Lawrence shrugged. ‘Mmm,’ she said, ‘it’s scented.’ She tore open the envelope and took out a card. Thanks for the drink, she read.
‘It was only a Guinness. I didn’t even pay for it.’
There was a wine cooler on her dressing table. She stepped into the bathroom to fill it with water then set about arranging the lavish bouquet.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, not looking up from her work. ‘You’re pacing.’
‘I hate this.’
‘Being sent flowers? You’re mad. Have you any idea what these must have cost?’
‘Not that.’
‘What then?’
He slumped into her cabin’s only armchair then jumped up again, walking to the porthole to peer out as some women in bathrobes sauntered by.
‘Being singled out. I feel– I feel she’s making a fool of me.’
‘She’s making a fool of herself, if anything. So. What are you going to do about it? She’ll be hurt if she finds out you gave these away.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘Aren’t you interested, after all?’
‘No. Well. It’s only that I … Christ, why should you understand? I don’t know why I’m telling you this.’
‘Probably because I’m one of the only two women on the boat who isn’t afraid of you.’
He stalled at that, surprised, and turned to lean on the wall and watch her carry the flowers to the table where she made a few final adjustments with her fingertips. Then she took a seat and looked at him.
‘What’s so upsetting?’ she asked. ‘So she used to be he. If you hadn’t been told you’d never have guessed. Or is it that she’s an older woman and she’s taking the initiative?’
It was both these things, of course. He was unwilling, however, to pursue the subject he had started and angry at the ease with which she read his thoughts so he unscrupulously reminded her that he was still bruised at the loss of his wife and preoccupied with her abduction of his daughter.
‘I’m not ready for anything, anyone. Least of all that.
Lala sent more flowers, however; an armful of shocking pink gerberas with a card that merely read:
Well?
He gave these to Martha, who was bemused but delighted. That night however, as he wolfed his dinner, ravenous after a punishing session with Spencer, Lala singled him out more publicly, sending a waiter to his table with a bottle of champagne which he could scarcely turn away when Darius and the others were so delighted with it.
He avoided the theatre, where she was to perform a third time before they reached Miami. Desperate, he took refuge in bridge. Darius found him a table with some patient Danish Americans and he actually bid two part score contracts and made them. Reuben was taking Bee off to the below-stairs bar and she was keen for Lawrence to join them but he dreaded another close encounter and sloped off to his room. An overpowering scent hit him as he unlocked the door. He flicked the light switch and swore under his breath.
There were gardenias, growing gardenias, in pots, wherever he looked; one either side of the bed, on the table, on the balcony, around the television, on either side of the bath. A bloom had even been cut off and slipped through the lapel of the jacket he had left on the back of a chair. Another of her infernal little scented envelopes was tucked into the small potted bush on the coffee table. He tore it open.
Just try giving this lot away.
He slid open the balcony door and hurled a plant as hard as he could out over the dangling lifeboats and into the black abyss. With no splash and no sound of shattering pottery however this was less than satisfying, so he contented himself with lining the others up on the side of the balcony where he could not see them from the bed. He fetched a beer from the fridge and sat outside on a plastic chair to drink and ponder.
The air was humid and it was warm enough now to sit out in shirtsleeves. They were nearing land. The boat would soon dock in Miami where they had a little under sixteen hours and were free to pass through customs and disembark. The plan was to avoid the crowds and take an excursion of their own. Darius had been given details of that rare Florida phenomenon, an old house with an older garden, open to the public, and was keen to visit.
Lawrence made up his mind. He would duck out of the excursion at the last minute, wait until the others had left, then abandon the cruise and go in search of Lucy. As a working architect of note, McBugger could not be so hard to trace, nor Chicago so vast a city as to hide him. Whatever the state of his bank account, Lawrence had enough credit on his plastic to buy a flight. Bonnie might at least agree to a meeting. If he reassured her, gave her his passport as security, she might at least let him see Lucy again. He had to do this. The cruise, Lala, these flowers, were a nightmarish irrelevance. His family was real. He had to wake up and get real.
He did not sleep. He sat on through the night, steadily drinking his way through the contents of the fridge and listening to the distant rumble of the engines and hushed splash of the spray. He watched as the sun rose behind them and revealed the waterside sprawl of Miami’s docks, watched as they slid into the slack grey maw of the harbour. Then he turned back to the cabin and began methodically to pack his bags. In the sheaf of embarkation papers on the bedside table he found an immigration form. He filled it out slowly, pausing to look up his travel dates, ticket code and passport number.
There was a loud, excitable atmosphere over breakfast, as though the overnight arrival of land, immobile and reassuring after days at sea, had brought with it shaming relief. Long queues were already forming at the tables where the American immigration officials were setting up their temporary office. Heavy with beer however, Lawrence had fallen into a deep, uncomfortable sleep in the cramped space left on his bed by his suitcases, clutching his passport in slumber as a child might a security blanket.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
By the time Lawrence had washed, shaved, changed and found the others, he had lost much of his resolve. Darius, Reuben and Bee had been joined by George and Martha who were also keen to visit somewhere more interesting than a shopping plaza. As Lawrence ate some soupily syruped grapefruit segments, Darius read from a guide book a description of the house and garden they were to visit and Lawrence felt himself a traitor in their midst. When Dora had first announced that his uncle would be bringing him on this cruise, he had envisaged them functioning as a simple pair, not as part of a merry band. Dreading the thought of explaining his decision to leave the cruise to all five perplexed and wounded faces, he repeatedly missed his moment and sat on in surly silence.
Then a white-jacketed waiter appeared at Bee’s elbow.
‘Mrs Martin?’
‘Yes?’ Bee lowered her sunglasses.
‘A delivery for you.’
He handed Bee a large envelope and walked off. Mystified, Bee opened it and drew out a small map of Miami with a route marked out in yellow highlighter and a bunch of hire car keys and registration details.
‘What on earth?’ she laughed and, peering inside the envelope, drew out a familiar-looking card.
Dear Mrs Martin, she read, Or may I call you Bee? I wonder if you and a friend would like to join me for a little lunch today. I feel we could all do with a break from shipboard life. I’ll be at a girlfriend’s h
ouse – details enclosed – and have taken the liberty of hiring you a car because taxi drivers here are notoriously indiscreet. Come as soon as you like. Bring swimming things as the pool there is divine. Yours.
‘Who’s it from, Sugar?’ Martha asked.
Bee grinned at Lawrence and sniffed the card.
‘Guess,’ she said. ‘Want to be my friend for the day, Lawrence?’
‘It would be a shame to miss this garden of Darius’s though,’ Lawrence said and was immediately shouted down.
‘Are you mad?’ they laughed.
‘The girlfriend is probably some star,’ George suggested. ‘I was hearing how a bunch of them have places round here now.’
‘Otherwise I’ll just have to take Reuben.’
‘Oh much though I’d love it,’ her brother told her, ‘I don’t think I’m quite the friend she has in mind.’
‘You’ll be utterly safe,’ Bee went on, ‘with me there to protect you.’
Lawrence glowered, then it struck him that this could prove the perfect way to abandon the cruise. Going with Bee, he would leave the others, get as far as the car then he would plead sickness or claim to have forgotten something, grab his luggage and slip away into the dockside crowds. Bee would forgive him, and if she did not, they were unlikely to meet again so it was of little significance. Lucy was what mattered, he reminded himself, finding Lucy.
‘Okay,’ he sighed. ‘But I’m not swimming.’
‘Huh,’ laughed Martha. ‘The vanity of the boy!’
Bee changed quickly in honour of their hostess and reappeared in a cream linen dress, yellow beads and a straw hat. She looked fresh and worldly, like a wedding guest, definitely Mrs Anthony Martin rather than sweet, homely Bee. As they walked down the gangplank together, she in her outfit, he in the linen suit Darius had bought him, they looked, it struck him, like an ideal married couple. Bonnie and he had never looked so matched. Whereas some mismatched pairs grew ever more alike, as George and Martha had evidently done, they had come to resemble each other still less with the passing of time.