by Paul Gallico
'She called me a whore!'
The dressing-gown that she held tightly to her and the flying hair made unruly by having been washed, did not lend dignity to her tantrum. Yet to his surprise, Muller found himself half amused. Actually she could not have looked more like one if she had tried.
'Never mind,' he said to her, 'it's probably just a case of transference.'
Nonnie's anger cooled as quickly as it had exploded and she looked at Muller curiously. 'I don't understand what you're trying to say. I s'pose I'm stupid.'
Rogo's piggy eyes were querying Muller. He had not understood either and wondered whether something had been said for which there ought to be reprisals.
'No,' Hubie said, 'you're not stupid.'
The girl looked up into his face saying, 'I'm not a whore,' and then added, 'I work bloody hard for my living.'
Again Muller felt that curious constriction of the throat and the wave of protectiveness, as though he wanted to gather her up and shield her. He remembered suddenly that underneath this silly pink thing she had nothing on and it seemed to make her all the more vulnerable. He compromised by moving closer to her and comforted. 'Yes, you do, Nonnie, jolly hard.' She responded with a grateful smile and edged closer to him too as though accepting and sealing their partnership.
Scott observed, 'If that's the service alley above us, there'll be a staircase at both ends. We'll have to use the forward one, then. Sometimes you give a little ground to gain more. We'd better get on.'
Belle Rosen complained, 'Oh, my feet, walking on these pipes!'
Scott reacted immediately. 'I think the girls ought to take off their shoes. It's too dangerous with heels.'
When they moved off, Jane Shelby found herself in the van with Miss Kinsale, who was carrying her shoes meticulously, saying, 'Isn't Dr Scott wonderful? So authoritative,' and then adding almost as if in apology, 'so many of our vicars aren't, you know.'
Jane replied, 'Yes,' but she was thinking how quickly Scott had managed to wipe the episode of the unfortunate hairdresser from his mind. Had he given her so much as a further thought, a prayer, now that she was gone? She found herself worried by such tremendous drive. Somewhere, she felt, there was something that was not normal.
James Martin had fallen in line with Scott and the two men, looking carefully down at their feet, made their way together silently. Martin was wondering whether he ought to confess to the Minister what was so fearfully upon his mind, whether this might not be the moment to rid himself of some of his torment by talking about it. Scott was head and shoulders taller than he and Martin looking up noted the concentration of the brow, the handsome head and the truculent jawline. He hesitated; the man was so unlike any preacher he had ever known. He could not reconcile the All-American boy of the face and figure of Scott with one of God's appointed -- the Buzz and the Reverend.
James Martin's conscience was hurting him badly. If the ship stayed afloat; if they succeeded in reaching the outer skin of the vessel; if the world heard of their plight; if rescue ships or helicopters or whatever arrived in time to get them out, he was being let off too easily.
He had sinned. He had formed a liaison in adultery with a lusty, enthusiastic woman and ought to be punished. As a moral man, although a backslid Baptist, and a merchant, he was aware that there was always a bill to be paid. The manner in which Martin differed from most men was that he was always willing to pay without bellyaching.
Mrs Wilma Lewis was not the kind of woman who could be dismissed with a present and a pat on the fanny as one of those shipboard things at voyage end. A widow of forty-eight, she had embarked on the cruise in search of nothing more than sexual satisfaction. She was willing to give as good as she got but once she had found it, she was not prepared to let go. Of Swedish origin, she was a handsome, ample, big-breasted woman of good figure and fine skin, with light blue eyes that were slightly prominent. She had thick, heavy, naturally golden hair which she did not mind touching up with a rinse to give it additional lustre. And when she stepped out of her clothes, allowing them to tumble to her feet, she was a pink Venus, an alluring, pneumatic, sexual figure into which a man could sink with both bliss and comfort.
All this she concealed beneath a ladylike and demure demeanour with a reserve that was misleading. She was tall, almost six feet, but her grace and charming smile had a softening effect. Her clothes were conservative and expensive. She presented an almost unapproachable exterior. It called for a real man to divine the gusto and complete discarding of inhibitions with which she was prepared to cooperate in sexual play.
One such had been Hubie Muller, who had gone so far as to deposit a respectful and gentlemanly, but unmistakable innuendo at her doorstep. The reason it had not been picked up was that Mrs Lewis was not looking for a gentleman.
With unerring feminine instinct, she had settled upon the character who would have collected all votes as the one most unlikely to succeed. This was the little, banty rooster with the short-cropped, slightly greying hair, alert eyes behind gold-rimmed spectacles, thin Middle Western mouth with the just a little too flashy clothes. Mr James Martin, haberdasher of Evanston, illinois dressed out of his own stock.
It needed only a hint or two picked up here and there during the early part of the voyage to put the seal on his credentials. Travelling alone, the small-town, midwestern merchant with a wife crippled by arthritis had been allowed off the leash to take his first holiday in years by himself. His taciturnity indicated that he could keep his mouth shut. And as for his bland, colourless exterior, it promised an absolute volcano of inhibited eroticism once released. Mrs Lewis, seven days out, had organized a simple experiment. Would Mr Martin join her and the So-and-Sos for cocktails in her cabin suite at eight, black tie. When he arrived it seemed the So-and-Sos had had to beg off. After two drinks, Mrs Lewis pretended to adjust a barette holding the coils of her hair. Loosened, they came cascading down, lustrous and fragrant over one bare shoulder, in an instant transforming what had been a somewhat formidable and unassailable lady into a moist-eyed, willing woman.
No further notice was necessary. Martin had been sex-starved for a decade. For the rest of the trip they had a roaring time.
It was also one of the best kept secrets of the voyage. They had not associated during the day, only when the merry-making had shut down for the night did Martin discreetly slip into her cabin.
As for the inevitable, irrevocable bill -- paradise paid for -- he soon found out. Like so many insignificant little men too often overlooked by women, Martin was a sexual marvel. He became a victim to his own prowess. She was not going to let him go. And since the affair had never been complicated by love and it was just sheer fun, Mrs Lewis could not see why it should not be continued on dry land. She had an elegantly furnished apartment on the Lake Shore Drive, Chicago. Martin's establishment in near-by Evanston provided the perfect excuse for a weekly business visit. She had enthusiastically discussed plans for such with him.
And there it was, payment in weekly instalments and all the trouble that would go with it -- lies, subterfuges, narrow escapes and the inevitable discovery. Ethically upright, Martin cared about his wife and did not want to hurt her. But also having gradually accustomed himself to a sexless existence, now that he had begun again, he did not want to quit. He particularly did not want to quit with Mrs Lewis. Yet he really did not crave a mistress and above all he did not want trouble.
And now there was not going to be any. He could half envision the inverted room in his mind, with the furniture suspended from the ceiling. He knew so intimately its arrangements and decor; the pink and white chenille covering on the three-quarter bed, the modern two-toned chest of drawers, the stylized mural print of a formal garden, the thick carpeting, the sofa and easy-chairs. They had played in and about and around them naked, grotesque fauns. Now it would be filled with water like an aquarium, in which floating, her long tresses outflowing like a mermaid's, those prominent eyes wide open and staring, would be Wilma Lewis.
The night watchman who would probably have seen him emerge in the mornings would be dead, too. Nobody would ever know and there were not going to be any consequences. And this involved him in a struggle that was threatening to tear him apart. He ought to be mourning the woman who had so generously given him pleasure and fulfilment and he was not. He should have gone to her that night in spite of her remonstrances. He should be dead with her and he was glad that he was alive. He had sinned. Sin called for punishment and he was free and clear, always provided they managed to escape from the capsized ship. Or perhaps his punishment was to be teased with a little more of life and then to be extinguished like the rest below. But as a practical man who had made his way in the world, he could not swallow a Deity who to get even with him for indulging his libido extra-maritally, would drown a thousand lives as well.
What was he to say to Scott? How bring up the subject? And would he care? What was there he could do or even say beyond the stereotypes to which his own church had accustomed him: repent, go and sin no more and he would be forgiven. It was not forgiveness he wanted but punishment for the injustice that Mrs Lewis was dead and he was alive.
He came suddenly to the overwhelming feeling that Buzz Scott would not be greatly interested in his sexual shenanigans and the consequences to his conscience. The young man had other things on his mind. He was back on the field again playing a game. Martin pressed his thin lips more tightly together again, lest any foolish words that he might later regret were to escape them. Besides, he was embarrassed, the Minister was so much younger than he.
Scott almost terrifyingly corroborated his feelings when he turned to him, winked and said, 'If you can't go through the middle, go 'round the end.'
Martin asked, 'Do you think we can make it?'
Scott replied curtly, 'You bet!'
Martin thought to himself: Hell, maybe God does need guys like this!
The Beamer's foot slipped from one of the pipes. He swore and would have fallen if Pamela had not held him up by the arm with a firm grip. This strength and her support irritated him to the point that he became even more aware of how shockingly sober he was.
He had booked for the cruise, not in search of companionship so much as because it offered a month of undisturbed drinking under pleasant circumstances. He drank in London, too, but it was more difficult when he had to go to the office. A ship was a marvellous, mobile bar room, liberated from the ridiculous licensing laws of shore-based establishments. It extended the drinking day to the point where he need hardly ever be aware of that inexplicable longing and misery within him. Why miserable? Longing for what? He simply did not know. It was just that there always seemed to have been something hollow inside him and the only thing he knew to do for it was to fill it with alcohol.
He was content with this lumpy girl, whose mother had obviously taken her on this cruise on a husband hunt. Drinking with a companion was more fun than drinking alone.
Pamela, with her clear eyes in which there was never so much as a glance of reproach, short-cut, dun-coloured hair, thick body and those two marvellous, apparently hollow legs into which whisky disappeared, had been ideal.
And she demanded nothing from him; she kept others off. She sat with him, stood with him and drank. She hardly ever even talked. He knew that she had been good at games in some English school, and little more about her.
The Beamer slipped again and the girl supported him with her strong forearm. He covered his annoyance with a laugh, 'That's what happens when you get too sober, it's dangerous. Let go. I'll be all right.' She looked hurt and he said, 'No, no, you'd better hang on to me.' He was far from a heartless man. His ever-recurring loneliness that needed quenching precluded that. It was just that he did not want to be bothered. He overcame his resentment and added, 'You're a good kid.'
The trouble was that the girl was dead cold sober herself now, else she would never have dreamed of asking the question she did. While the liquor she consumed with The Beamer had little visible outward effect upon her, inwardly she was as drunk as he and immersed in a golden glow of perpetual adoration of him. But now the shock of the loss of her mother and the horror of things she had seen had eradicated every last trace of alcohol.
She asked, 'Tony, what makes you drink so?'
The Beamer looked at the girl in astonishment and suppressed an inward sigh. His wife had asked him that, too. He replied, 'Nothing,' and then he added, 'I like the feeling. I love everybody when I'm drunk.'
'And when you aren't?'
He looked at her again and this time beamed and said, 'I can't remember.'
'Oh,' cried Pamela, 'that's why they call you The Beamer! You do beam upon one.'
'Do they?' he said. 'I suppose 1 must look rather a silly ass, sitting up on a bar stool all day long. But everyone looks so lovely to me and I feel friendly towards them.'
'Do you love me when you're drunk, Tony?'
'Prodigiously!' The Beamer answered. 'You're the light of my life -- the drinking man's dream girl. Right?'
'And when you're sober?'
Bates replied with a laugh, 'How can I tell? It's the first time we've been, isn't it?' It had slipped out, meant as a joke, but he realized quickly how cruel his remark was. His regret was lost in annoyance that she had asked it and put him into the position dreaded by every man who associates with a woman he does not love.
He was placated when she said, with utter simplicity, 'I don't mind.' And if anything, even a slight feeling of male chagrin came over him; why didn't she?
Her hand gripped his arm even more firmly, 'Careful!' she said, 'There's another of those silly ones with a knob on it.'
The march suddenly came to a halt and from ahead they heard Rogo's voice, 'Holy, jumping Jesus! That cooks it!'
They had come to the staircase at the end of the corridor.
CHAPTER IX
The Adventure of the Second Staircase
The party gathered in consternation and anguished silence at the bottom of the well of the second obstacle. The invention and acquisition of a new skill by means of which they had conquered the first of the reversed ascents had given them hope and confidence in the leadership of the young Minister. They had been able to dismiss upside-down staircases as a problem. Every step they had taken away from the unspeakable and unthinkable things that lay beneath them made the horrors seem less real.
There was no slope up which the women could be hauled. The staircase here was terminal to the corridor and quite different, a broad, double companionway in which the steep overhang of iron steps and polished steel handrails was suspended above their heads, out of reach. Facing them was a bulkhead some twelve feet in height, down which in parallel lines spilled the pipes from the inverted ceiling.
Muller thought to himself, Dead end! and gave up. His despair through the sudden slackening of his body must have communicated itself to Nonnie, for she looked at him anxiously. He tried to smile encouragingly at her but could not.
Jane Shelby said to her husband, 'It can't be done, can it?'
He replied, 'I don't see how.'
The Beamer said to Scott, 'I'm afraid we've had it, old boy.'
Rogo turned upon Scott with angry contempt and asked, 'You got any more bright ideas?'
The truculent insolence of Rogo's speech was meant to be both irritating and dangerous, a challenge so that at the merest indication of its being picked up, he could throw his hard fists into play, the only way he knew how to dominate.
Scott refused to be drawn. Instead he merely remarked, after a few moments of study, 'The next one, you know, will probably be more difficult for us than this.'
Muller could not repress a chuckle at the manner in which Scott's calm demolishing of the problem by the use of the phrase, 'the next one' had stilled the incipient panic he had experienced. Nonnie looked at him apprehensively and whispered, 'Is he crazy?'
Muller replied, 'Like a fox.'
Rogo maintained his belligerency, 'What the hell do you mean b
y the next one? We can't get by here.'
'Well, for one thing,' Scott replied, 'we can still see. We may not be able to much longer when the lights go out.'
They had forgotten that they were on sufferance of a set of storage batteries which were rapidly being depleted. The thought of the total darkness into which they could be plunged at any moment struck new terror into all hearts, with the possible exception of Miss Kinsale who broke the silence with, 'Yes, we should count our blessings, shouldn't we?'
'Besides,' Scott continued, 'if you will think of the next as being even tougher and in the dark, it rather softens up this one, doesn't it?'
At that moment above their heads a bearded face, pale, with frightened eyes, peered down at them for a minute.
Rogo yelled, 'Hey you, Walio! Paisan! Get somebody! We want to get up there.'