S.O.S.

by Joseph Connolly

  ‘Ah,’ went Nobby, ‘but this isn’t England, is it, Stewart? Mid-Atlantic, that’s what we are: mid-Atlantic.’

  And Stewart thought Well Jesus, bloody Nobby – don’t you think I know that, you stupid little irritating cunt.

  ‘True,’ he smiled. ‘Quite true.’

  But Stacy had been caught by that last and throwaway remark of Nobby’s. She had, almost impossibly, completely forgotten, you see – that they were (wholly amazingly, and God knows quite why) in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean … and that makes me feel suddenly cold. Yes. So where is she? Where’s my Mum, then?

  *

  ‘I should think,’ barely whispered Jennifer (I’m actually, yes, more thinking this than saying it), ‘we’ve probably more or less missed it, now.’

  Earl was lying beside her, his lazy half-open eyes semi-focused on the curved and creamy ceiling of his cabin – or maybe just nearly closed like that as a gauzy barricade against the meandering smoke as he let it drift up out of his mouth, following each deep inhalation of his Marlboro.

  ‘I wish to God,’ he muttered. ‘Wish to God I had some grass.’ This cigarette is damn near done, so what I’m gonna do is dump it out into this here ashtray, and light me up a fresh one. And it’s now I’m looking at Jennifer for the first time since we got it on … and I’m smiling a smile, sure I am … but what I’m thinking is something I ain’t never noticed before. She looks, close up, kinda older than I figured. When her face paint’s all loused up like the way it is now, she looks real tired, you know? Also – I get turned on big time when she takes off her clothes; she kinda has this way, right, of just standing there and taking them off right at you? But I’m honest, here – I’d like she keep on the bra, yeah? Kinda keeps it into bundles, which is neat. Without the bra, things can get a little out of control? I ain’t never had no English girl before – and if Jennifer, you know, is how they all are back in England, well then I’m telling you, boy: hot. But in the States, the girls are … what can I tell you? Kinda cleaner, is what I’m maybe saying here. And wait up – don’t you go running off with no wrong idea, here. I ain’t saying we’re dealing with dirty (excepting maybe the way she yells out stuff when she’s really, like, into it – and wow, that blows my mind) – but maybe a tad less hair would be good, you know? What I mean to say is – I’m the guy here, right? So I get to have all the body hair? And if it ain’t hair with Jennifer, then we’re talking stubble – and that too to me is a guy thing, OK? I mean – I wanna go down on some wild thing, I’ll be sure and let you know, you see what I’m saying?

  ‘You getting up? Jennifer? You getting up?’

  Jennifer had swung her legs out of the bed, and over the side.

  ‘I’ve just seen the time,’ she said.

  Yes, thought Jennifer – and also I’ve just seen the look on your face. And it hurt me, what I saw. And even as recently as this morning, such a hurt would have been impossible. All this meant to me was a young and cheeky American bloke: what better way to get through a few days at sea? But in the last few hours – when we both were thrashing together, and flailing in amazement – I have come too to gazing at him after, and when he was dozing: those eyelashes – those great soft curling eyelashes that are only ever given by God to young men. He looked so boyish, it was almost girl-like – and yet with all this manly apparatus and the hardness of his day-old beard breaking through a powder-soft complexion. And I felt within me something lurch – not a thoroughly new sensation, but one so barely remembered from decades ago (I never thought I would again come to discern its fluid and dimly-recalled features, receding as they have been ever deeper into shadows).

  I appear to have dressed myself. One lazy and muscular arm is raised and vaguely beckoning for me, now. I needn’t resist it – and maybe I shan’t. It really depends upon how the rest of this goes.

  ‘I should think,’ she said – squirting on to each wrist some Paco Rabanne – ‘it must be more or less finished, by now.’

  ‘What? What’s finished?’

  ‘The ball. There was that ball thing – remember?’

  Earl was grinning. ‘I had me a ball right here, baby. You coming back over here, or what?’

  And he meant, thought Jennifer, back again to bed (rather than anything broader). Few men older would display such confidence. But that was the thing, wasn’t it, about youth and age? That was one of the things about them, anyway: how with the alternations of brashness and hesitance, we constantly seem to dumbfound one another.

  ‘You’re too much for me,’ Jennifer lied – gazing down and wanting him badly. ‘At my age – I just can’t keep up.’

  And was there just the tiniest flutter at the back of his maybe not, could be, startled but now wide-awake eyes? He rallied, and came back gamely:

  ‘Your age – yeah right, Jennifer. Like you’re – what? A hunnerd years old?’

  Jennifer was sitting on a stool in front of a mirror, applying her lipstick.

  ‘Not far off,’ she said.

  And then she thought: how exactly shall I do this? Because don’t ask me why but I know it just has to be done – so how shall I finally be going about it? Shall I soft-pedal? Gently lead him by the hand to a half-truth, and while he grows accustomed to the semi-shock of that, hint at something further – until at last and forever the whole wide and cold awfulness (which is how he will see it) is stripped off and laid bare – pegged out and splayed and at the mercy of just anyone? I’m still not sure. I could go – Look, Earl: listen to me. You’re just a (God) teenager – and me, well – I’m much older, so much older than that. (Late twenties? Enough to make him flinch? And why, actually, am I compelled to do this? I don’t at all want him to flinch, because I just know that when he does, it will be away from me.) Or can I dare to hit him with the big word thirty? Or give him the lot? Do you know what? Don’t, please, ask me quite why – but I’m going to, right now: I’m going to give him the lot.

  ‘I’m not,’ she said – maybe exaggerating the contortion of her voice as her mouth opened wide into an O, and she went on needlessly applying yet another thick coat of her jammy lipstick. ‘I’m not, Earl, much off forty.’

  And she timed the flicked and sidelong instant’s glance into the mirror to utterly cruel perfection. He looked slapped – beaten up, even – before his eyes and wits reasserted themselves.

  ‘Yeah – like sure, Jennifer! Forty! get outta here!’

  Jennifer turned. ‘It’s true,’ she said.

  Earl sat up – and through his joshing, Jennifer detected the first uneasy stirrings (and however sick he soon might be feeling, she already was in a far worse state).

  ‘Quit putting me on, Jennifer, huh? I ain’t stoopid. Forty! Shit …’

  Jennifer looked right at him.

  ‘It’s true,’ she said.

  Earl just momentarily held her gaze, before his face settled back down into so much joky fun (and who, here, was he protecting?).

  ‘Like, sure. Yeh – right. And your roomie Stacy? She’s what, now – eighty?’

  ‘Stacy is around your age.’ Now, she thought – let’s go for it: ‘And I’m her mother.’

  And this time he didn’t see the battering coming. He was dazed, and nearly breathless.

  ‘Jeez, Jennifer – will you quit jerking me around? Like – enough already, OK? You’re really, like, freaking me out here, you know?’

  And Jennifer’s eyes felt tender, and soon they were going to be stinging her. Her mouth she held firm, though. And then as she spoke, she discovered she’d lost that too:

  ‘It’s … true,’ she faltered.

  And Earl just stared at her, not knowing now what he should be feeling. I mean – guys back home, they’d think alla this is just such a gas, man! I mean, what – Mrs Robinson? Too much. Except they wouldn’t believe it, would they? On account of I don’t hardly believe it myself. But hey – this type of thing: it’s cool, right? I mean – young guy’s dream, right? Right. So that’s how I’ll play it – real
cool.

  ‘Hey Jennifer …’ said Earl, quite softly – and now he was behind her, and vaguely fooling with her hair in a way that he thought was maybe reassuring. ‘That’s cool. I’m cool with that. Hey – it’s cool …’

  Jennifer smiled her appreciation of that, at least, and twisted her head about so that her lips could find and kiss his fingers.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘I’m glad that you think it’s cool …’

  But, she thought, you don’t, do you? Do you, Earl? No. You don’t.

  And as he turned away, Earl maybe sensed that, hanging in the air. And all he could think was No. No way. Cool, Jennifer, is not what I think. What I think is, like – gross?

  *

  ‘Mum’s gone,’ said Marianne, quite shortly (surprised, and then not surprised by how terribly weary her voice was sounding, and straining still). ‘Were you looking for her, Rollo? Cos she’s gone off with the Americans.’

  Rollo nodded briefly to that. Couldn’t really think of anything to say. No, he hadn’t been looking for Mum – or for Marianne, for that matter, and certainly not for Dad. He had simply been mooching about at the fringes of this now quite straggly and maybe finally tail-ending ball, stubborn and wilful in a hope against hope that despite the repeated and near-tearful regrets and cautions that Jilly had given him (starting off quite gentle and loving – escalating soon to really rather ratty, when he just wouldn’t let it go) she might after all and despite everything just maybe look in. Because for once, you see, Jilly wasn’t actually on duty in that bloody old pub (and if she were, well – where do you think Rollo would be headed for?) but nor – and here was the point, this was to Rollo the very disturbing part, here – nor was bloody Sammy. Very rare, you see, that their time off coincided. Now look – I know what Jilly said, I heard it all: she can’t just, can she – leave him? Just like that? With no sort of explanation? I mean to say look, Rollo – I’ve been with Sammy for just ages and ages – he’s convinced. God – we’re going to get married. And don’t – don’t, Rollo, please go on and on and on at me because I simply don’t know any more. I’m all confused. All this has happened so, oh – quickly, and I just don’t know what I’m doing any more, Rollo. All the time, lately, if I haven’t been behind the bar I’ve been with you, haven’t I? Hm? I feel like I haven’t slept for a year and my head just goes round and round and I frankly just can’t handle any more questions, OK? Rollo? I find you, well – you know what I think of you, Rollo: you’re really … exciting, yeah? And I’ve heard what you’ve said about what we both can do when we’re all back in England – but Christ, Rollo … it’s not just that we’re both so terribly young, but – well God, we live at completely different ends of the country! And yeh yeh – I know, I know: I can get a job in London, fine, OK – but where am I actually going to be living, Rollo? I just can’t afford London prices, quite frankly – not with the sort of job I’m going to get – and you, you still live with your parents, don’t you? Well you do, Rollo – you do: there’s no getting away from it. So unless you’ve got a spare million quid just hanging about …!

  And what had maybe got to Jilly the most, during these gasped-out bouts of full-strength reasoning, was that maybe, oh God, I’m actually deep down far more sensible than I want to be. Because half of me is hearing Rollo loud and clear: just come – we can work out the details later. Yes! Just rush to London and into the arms of my lover and let the rest of the world go and hang. Yes … lovely. But only half of me was hearing – only the half of me, see, is taking it in. And although Rollo’s, oh God – sheer energy makes Sammy look frankly like a dead man, what he seems to be after too is really just some other form of commitment, isn’t it? And that’s the very thing I just don’t want to give. Anyone. It’s not, I think … I think (and oh God I am, you know – I really am bloody exhausted) … I think what it is, what it must be is that I don’t want to have to decide whether I’m going to go with someone loyal and plodding and dependable and, oh – I don’t mean to be nasty, but dull – he is dull, Sammy – or else some real fun guy that I can get totalled at raves with. I just want to flit. Hang loose. Be me. I think … oh Jesus – just leave me, leave me: I just can’t think any more and I just don’t want to get into any more questions. OK?

  ‘No,’ said Rollo. ‘No, Mar – wasn’t really looking for anyone. You? Why are you still hanging around?’

  Marianne shook her head.

  ‘I think this was a dolphin, once,’ she said.

  They were both sort of slouching beside the central display – a great deal of deep-cut crystal, surmounted by palms – and Marianne was picking at what prawns were still floating in a large silver bowl at the base of this huge and rounded dripping ice thing.

  ‘Yeh …’ supposed Rollo. ‘Round the other side there’s a bloody great pile of butter, if you can believe it. Someone was saying that it was a sculpture of the ship, few hours ago. Now it just looks like a bloody great pile of butter. It’s weird here, isn’t it Mar?’

  Marianne nodded slowly, idly kicking at a wafting balloon.

  ‘Funny things happen. I think it must be the air.’

  Rollo hissed out some of the pressure from between his teeth, and slowly his puffed-out cheeks subsided.

  ‘Or the lack of it.’

  And both of them just had to glance over to the banquette just there: they had each of them individually been doing their utmost to ignore all of this, you just have to believe them – but there was this couple, you see, who could maybe have been honeymooners, all hands and giggling – or else just a man and a woman well high on something (could be sex) and already intent upon making every single moment of their Trip of a Lifetime truly one to remember. Their wishy-washy ardour had now become insistent: already they had repeatedly assured one another that they were, respectively, the sweetest ickle prettiest girl who walked God’s earth, not to say the biggest most muscliest he-man that ever was born. Rollo caught Marianne’s eye, expecting the ignition of some sort of shared and knowing smirk, or anyway secret collusion, but all he saw there was nothing much; very possibly, he thought, there has come from me nothing to spark off.

  ‘Well look …’ sighed Marianne. ‘No point in hanging round here. Is there? Any more. Fancy a – I don’t know. Drink somewhere? Have you been to this Regatta Club disco thing?’

  Rollo started. Yes I have: she wouldn’t be there, would she? Would she? No. From what she’s said about Sammy, I very much doubt it. Still, though – don’t quite want to risk it. It’s mad, really – I don’t too much mind seeing them both in the pub, but elsewhere … no, I really couldn’t hack it.

  ‘Izzoo …?’ squeaked out the sweetest ickle prettiest girl who walked God’s earth, ‘going to take your little bunny to her cot and tuck her up nicely for the night?’

  And the biggest most muscliest man that ever was born was now kissing the tip of her nose and calling her his Poppet and promising that he would – he would, he would, he would …

  ‘No,’ said Rollo quite loudly (just got to somehow blank out all that crap). ‘No. I think I’ll just get some kip, maybe. Mar? Marianne? Are you listening to me? What the hell is it?’

  Marianne was standing just maybe a foot away, and yet it was plain she was totally gone from him. Blimey, he thought – it’s the undertaker, the nutter, the loony in black. What’s she looking at him for? Well OK – I can understand why she’s looking, maybe (well yeah – I’m looking myself), but why isn’t she actually laughing? Hey?

  ‘You came …’ is what Rollo was now hearing her say.

  And at first Tom said nothing. Just stood so rigidly as to rival for stillness and dimension the forest of Yankee cutouts that were clustered to the right and left of him: he looks bloody funny slap-bang next to James Dean – Christ Almighty, what a loser this guy is. So why isn’t Marianne laughing? Hey?

  And then Tom said:

  ‘I exchanged my black tie for this ready-made bow. As you may see. I trust you approve. It is so very long since
I experienced a sense of moment.’

  And maybe Marianne did, did she? Glance back then at Rollo? Maybe she had, by the inclination of her head or the half-closure of one or both of her eyes, quite possibly, fleetingly indicated her intention of leaving with this man. Either way, the two of them were gone, now, that’s for bloody sure: completely out of sight. Which leaves just me. Great. Right. OK. Well – can’t hang about this dive any longer, that’s for certain. Regatta Club – can’t face. Black Horse? Dad. Kip, then – yes? Cabin? Well yes – cabin, maybe, but I’ll never sleep. There’s maybe some miniatures left in the fridge, so I’ll hammer them, yeh – but sleep, no: I’ll never sleep. (Mum sometimes says that: she knows she won’t sleep. I’ve never before known how that was possible). Look, what I want to know is – where are Jilly and him? What can they both be doing? Hm? Oh God. Oh God … Well look – maybe she’s gone to bed now, yes? Jilly? I mean – alone, right? Back down to the engine room with that bunch of chambermaids. Yes – I think so. That’s the most likely scenario, isn’t it? Isn’t it? Because look – it’s late, right? And Sammy – God damn him – Sammy’s no night bird, is he? That’s the whole point. And Jilly, well – she’s totally exhausted, yes? She said so, she said so – you heard her yourself. So yeh – I’ll get myself down to my cabin. Have a drink. Won’t sleep, though: I’ll never sleep. Because look, what I want to know is – where are Jilly and him? Hey? What can they both be doing? Oh God. Oh God …

  *

  ‘Sammy,’ said Jilly – she was arch, now, and maybe approaching even a degree of exasperation. ‘What is it, exactly, that you think you’re doing?’

  Sammy looked pained – but maybe here was no more than a manifestation of his rapidly mounting fear. Because look, I’ll be frank with you: when we had first started chatting (and it cost me, you know, to get the cabin to ourselves – a tenner each for Phil and Nasseem, but this had to be seen as an investment of sorts, it looked to me) I thought maybe that how it would, you know – go is that I’d act a bit sort of hurt, and then maybe coy when Jilly smilingly attempted to worm out, I don’t know – what was up with me, or something. Then I’d go: Oh – don’t mind me, Jilly – I’m just being silly, I suppose. I just saw you – you know, look at that guy at the bar just earlier – maybe you didn’t even look, maybe it was him, he who looked at you – and well, perhaps I got just a little bit jealous. What was his name, anyway? Guy at the bar.