Yes – something like that. And Jilly would have been looking at me first off like I was mad (Guy? At the bar? What guy at the bar? I don’t remember any … oh God, Sammy, honestly: there are loads of guys at the bar, aren’t there?) … and then, um – well, a lot more fondly, I suppose it might have gone then (Sammy my darling – don’t you know yet? Aren’t you aware? It’s you I love, isn’t it Sammy? Hm? Only you. And I have done for how long? And we’re saving together, aren’t we Sammy? Saving up? For a future? So how on earth can you imagine I was looking at a guy?).
Yes. On those lines. And then she might have sipped some of the vodka I’d brought down specially (and I would say ‘investment’ again, but it’s nicked from the bar, if I’m being totally honest) and looked about this very cramped and not too cosy cabin quite sly and cheekily, the way she can, and then she might have said: Phil not coming? When’s Nasseem due back? And I would’ve gone Well, Jilly – a little surprise, a kind of treat: we’re all alone – and we will be right up until it’s time for my shift. And Jilly, then, she would have put down her drink and come right over to me and stooped and kissed me, yes, and then touched me – right on that place where she knows it drives me crazy and then we might have rubbed noses, which she used to quite like, and she would have whispered right into my electrified ear – Well in that case, Sammy, let’s not waste it, then … and …
And. Well. That’s not, no, how any of it has gone. Not a bit.
‘Yes …’ Jilly had said, quite slowly. ‘There was a guy at the bar. His name is Rollo. He looked at me. I looked at him.’
‘Uh-huh. Right … Well that’s … OK …?’
‘No, Sammy – no. It’s not OK. It’s not OK at all.’
‘Isn’t it? Really? Not OK? Well – why, Jilly? Why not OK?’
‘Because … because I like him, OK? I really like him, Sammy.’
‘Right … uh-huh … OK …’
‘Not bloody OK, is it! Stop saying it’s OK – OK? Not OK, Sammy, so bloody stop saying it is.’
‘Right, right – OK – I mean right, not OK: right. Well look, Jilly – I’m a bit … I mean – you want to talk about it? Do you?’
‘Not really.’
‘Right. Well fine.’
‘It’s not fine. It’s not. Of course we’ve got to talk about it.’
‘Right … well … oh God: I’ve completely run out, Jilly – I can’t say ‘fine’ and it’s not ‘OK’ …!’
‘Look, Sammy – just look: I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with you, am I?’
‘Uh – no. I didn’t actually think … well is there – ?’
‘No. But. Well … oh look, Sammy, it’s all this saving business and always being sensible all of the time – it’s frankly been driving me crazy, you know? I mean look – we’ve been cooped up on this bloody ship for just ages and ages and we never do anything and – ’
‘But we’re docking soon – aren’t we, Jilly? And – ’
‘Yeh we’re docking soon – sure. But it’s not going to make a bloody bit of difference, is it? Huh? I mean, what? In New York we load on another twenty tons of booze and then we sail off to, oh God … we sail away to – oh Jesus, I can’t even remember where it is we’re even going to, now – !’
‘Jamaica. But listen, Jilly – ’
‘Jamaica – right. And all the way there – what? Pouring drinks and saving money and going to bed early with a couple of chambermaids!’
‘I thought you said you quite liked them – ?’
‘Oh shut up and listen to me, Sammy, will you? You’re just not listening. And we get to Jamaica, OK – and then what? Go on, Sammy – you tell me.’
‘Well – long haul home, then.’
‘You’ve left out bits, though, haven’t you Sammy? Hm? It means not doing the clubs in Jamaica – just like we didn’t even see New York – and then humping on more bloody crates of drink and then pouring the bloody things all the way back to England. And in England, Sammy – in England, right? What’s going to happen to us then?’
‘Well you know that, Jilly – we’ve been over all that – ’
‘Yeh I know – but what’s actually going to happen is that according to your famous plan we’re going to go to some building society and plank down all our savings and ask for a mortgage so we can buy our sodding little house with those sodding little things, what are they? All around the sodding door. Flowers! But do you know what he’s going to say, the man in the building society? Roses, I mean. Well do you? I’ll tell you – he’s going to look at our pathetic little heap of money – and that’s all it is, Sammy, despite the fact that we’ve been saving and saving and saving for just, oh God – ever, what we’ve actually got is just so sad … and he’s going to say No. Just like that. Because unless we want a stable, or something, we’re just not going to get a mortgage, are we? And do you know what you’ll say to me then? What you’ll do then, Sammy, is you’ll turn round to me and say Oh never mind, love – and then suggest we, Christ – I don’t know, redouble our efforts, or something – and that means I’ll be working at two bloody bars and you’ll be minicabbing all through the night and even that could go on for years, couldn’t it Sammy? And during those years, do you know what’s going to happen? Two things – two things, Sammy: One – the bloody houses are going to get more and more and more expensive, and Two: we’ll be getting … older … for no good reason. I don’t … want to save my money, Sammy. Don’t want to pool it with yours. Don’t don’t don’t want to watch it grow. I want to spend it, Sammy – every penny, as I get it. And then I want a whole bloody fistful of credit cards so I can run up debts all over the bloody place, just like real people do. Yeh. That’s what I want. I want nice things and I want fun … and I want them now. Because why not? I’m young, aren’t I? Yes I am. And that’s not, is it, Sammy … it’s just not at all the sort of girl you meant!’
Sammy just looked at her (I am willing my eyes to stay wide, or else my sadness will glaze them over and then they’ll fill up and then – oh worse – they’ll empty before her).
‘Jilly. We can talk about this – !’
And Jilly just threw up her arms, then, and really let him have it:
‘What do you think in fuck’s name I’m doing?’
Sammy plucked at the fringe of his could be bedspread.
‘It’s nearly,’ he said softly, ‘time for my shift.’
Jilly nodded. ‘Well go to it.’
‘Can’t we …? Wouldn’t you like to make love … maybe …?’
She tossed her head with petulance as well as irritation.
‘Can’t. Period.’
‘Well … let me just hold you, then …?’
‘You’ll be late, Sammy. Just go, yes?’
‘You want me to? I mean – now? I’ve still got, I don’t know – half an hour, maybe?’
And Jilly swung over to him her brimming eyes – and even as they seemed to be begging someone to smash apart the rough-sawn and makeshift crate that has been hastily thrown up around Sammy, the flatness of her voice was nailing down the lid.
‘Yes, Sammy. Please go now. I’m … sorry.’
He rose and nearly rushed away, shutting the cabin door firmly behind him. He continued to grasp the handle as his heaving back rested hard against the panels, and he stared the length of the strumming corridor. Right, he thought. OK, then. I’ll go. I’ll go and find Rollo. That’s the first thing. Because only then can I bloody well kill the bastard.
*
This ship, thought David idly – ramming down into his straining waistband a stray and flapping shirt tail as he wended his way steadily up the broad main staircase, while rhythmically slapping at the banister rail – is a bit like a grown-up Toytown. Well – not that grown-up, really, is it? We’ve all just moved on to other and better toys, I suppose. But what I mean is … well, do you actually remember that string of kids’ books at all? Noddy? First books I ever saw, probably (and not too distant in years from the last I ever g
lanced at – I’ve never been much of a reader; and no, not a doer either – but Christ, let’s for Jesus sake not get into all that because I’m feeling, if you want to know, absolutely shattered – shattered, yes, but not quite shagged out, if you get me – and I’ll tell you why in just a minute).
So anyway – those dinky little Noddy books – you must remember them, everyone does. They survived, I seem to recall, that inglorious period when a po-faced bunch of grey-brained losers did their best to have them banned – but all these stubborn children had the outright nerve to go on loving them (and this in the face of the fervent disapproval of the types of people they’d sooner see dead) – and bloody good too. And little Noddy’s mate Big Ears, oh God yes. Not easy – can’t be easy, can it, getting through life with a name like Big Ears … ah no, but here’s my point: it wasn’t, was it – life? No no – it was Toytown. See? Everyone had their own little house for one, there was just a single little high street with a few little shops and nothing was too far away from anything else, and nor very hard to understand. And right here and now is a for instance: back in London, following an evening such as this (and let’s be honest: I have never, in all my years of lying, drinking, frittering away money I have yet to bloody earn – and always with one eye open for any chance at all of gratuitous fornication – never before have I spent an evening like this one: and I’ll tell you why in just a minute) … well, in town, now, I’d be frantic for a cab, wouldn’t I? And maybe it’d be pissing down, and I very well might have done something like, oh God – sold my jacket. There’s even the danger of being mugged along the way (and bloody good luck to you, mate – you find anything left, how about we go halves?). But tonight? Well tonight I find myself safely ensconced in Toytown: I leave the young lady’s flatlet … correction: I leave the exceedingly young and cheeky-sexy-drive-you-fucking-crazy lady’s flatlet, turn to the left, up a few stairs and now just swing into the warm and brightly-lit bar, here, where I can enjoy a nightcap or so with maybe my new good friend Dwight – and the bar, inasmuch as I’ve gathered so far, will close its doors when and if I choose to leave. It’s easy to see, isn’t it, how people can become very used indeed to this sort of living? It’s like those secure and custom-built estates – used to be just an American thing, but they’re springing up everywhere, now (Surrey is thick with them): there are computer-operated gates and cameras and twenty-four-hour porterage and a little mall of bijou shops and a, what are they? Fitness centre and a restaurant and so on and … I don’t know: people must soon, do they, imagine that this is how life has come to be. But just you dare step outside, mate, and you’ll quickly and very decidedly find that it bloody well isn’t. Which is why, after a very short while, people just don’t ever step outside again. Except, maybe, in order to cross the Atlantic on a luxury liner, be met at New York by a chauffeured and air-conditioned stretch Lincoln and then on up in the elevator’s vacuum to a serviced suite where the bellhops, concierges and maitre d’s will with practised and apparently effortless ease assure the continued smooth running of your now unbroken stay in Toytown. Well … I wouldn’t want to live there, but I must say this: it’s a great place to visit.
So how do you think I’m feeling? A contented and conquering hero, sated if weary, and eager for a drink? Only partly. Because no – I haven’t, have I – of course I haven’t – forgotten about the detail: Nicole. (And here’s one of the downsides of Toytown: when she’s whole boroughs away, it’s easier, I find, to blank her right out; here she kind of hovers, mm. Still managed it, though.) I was going to go to dinner. Honestly. It wasn’t that I forgot all about it in the heat of the, er … well: you know. It was fully my intention to get back to the cabin at around, what time? Ooh – eightish, I imagine. Slip into the penguin suit – maybe even catch the tail end of Nicole discarding for the very last time the thoroughly amazing get-up in which she so recently twirled, in favour of another one – that one, maybe, four or five down in the crumpled pile that by now would be littering the room. Then dinner – why not? The food, I have to say, is really quite marvellous, you know – one of the reasons, pretty sure, my gut is frankly killing me. Doctor back in London, he said to me – get any pain, give me a call: like I say, no fantastic urgency – but better safe than sorry, yes? Yes. Well. I think it’s just the food, quite honestly: gone a bit heavy on the food. Feeling a little bit peckish right this second, it’s just occurred to me – which is frankly amazing, really, because I’ve not long eaten a lobster thermidor – whole damn thing, and it was a real big bastard, telling you. Plus an awful lot of champagne – and it does, it bloats you up, that: all the gas. So anyway – yes, as I say, it was no part of any sort of plan to cut all that; and the ball, yes – aware of that too. I was perfectly willing to jig about there a bit, as well – make a total prat of myself, along with everyone else: what’s to lose? Because, you see – I’d be feeling good: with my secret inside me. I had my girl. I would have been fortified by that (always am – need it, need it). Plus – I go through all the motions, and Nicole is kept as sweet as you can reasonably expect, with Nicole.
But. I fell asleep. I know. And yes, she could’ve woken me, Suki, of course she bloody could. But she didn’t. I asked her why she hadn’t, but she just made a series of noises – you know what they’re like: you get nothing out of kids. So, in consequence, I missed the lot – and I am very conscious, yes, that Nicole will be, um – how should we put this? Displeased, yes – that’ll do for now – and that further, on this occasion she might even expect a fully-fledged explanation. Not unreasonable. (And as soon as I can concoct a halfway decent one, she’s welcome to the bloody thing.) So I am, you see, at the moment by no means looking for her (understandably) but nor am I actively dodging the issue. Because it will have to be faced, won’t it? Some time or another. And better, I think, if I casually, you know – collide with her and a group of people … better that, I feel sure, than if she’s got me alone in the cabin, yes? Where there’s no way out.
Oh looky look – there’s good old Dwight, propping up the bar, as per bloody usual (I like dependable blokes). And he’s alone, thank Christ – get in a couple fast, before all the yak breaks loose. And yeah – he’s seen me, now: that big and fond, fleshy hand of his is raised up high and his whole great face is beaming – I can’t tell you what a good warm feeling this chap gives me.
‘Dave – my man! Where in hell you been? A damn big Bourbon suit you? And don’t tell me – you ain’t …?’
And the beam across David’s face, now, was even bigger than Dwight’s.
‘I have, you know. All bloody evening. Bourbon’s great.’
‘You goddam son of a gun. You telling me I been doing alla the shit with a crowda wimmin, and you been a-humpin’ that hot sweet young fanny …?’
Well, thought David: yes and no. And he’ll tell you why in just a minute.
‘Nicole, Dave – she is one angry lady. After your scalp. She gonna whup your ass, boy!’
‘Where, um – is she? God I needed this drink …’
‘Last I heard, they was all in the Casino, losing money. Charlene, she says she’s gonna come get me afore my bowels, they drop out on the floor. Nicole is going – Yeah, and David, he better be there too. Hoo boy. Patty I tried to get to hang around some, but nah – says she’s going with the gals and she’ll catch me later.’
‘Mm. Well – let’s have a few more, then. Seems like I don’t need to be sober. Who’s this Patty, Dwight?’
‘Patty you don’t know. Come outta no place. Telling you, Dave – she I could maybe go right through, you know? She been round the block couple times, yeh sure – but I could get real acquainted with those titties of hers. Hubba hubba. But hey – hell with that. You gonna tell me bout this young kid, or I gotta beat it outta ya?’
David grinned slyly, while waving at the barman – who’s looking (Jesus – clock that face) bloody gloomy. Bloody hell – they have some young kid behind the bar, they don’t want to be looking like that. It’s mea
nt to be fun here, right?
‘Er – two more large whatever-they-are, please.’
‘Jack,’ put in Dwight. ‘It’s good old Uncle Jack Daniel’s.’
‘Oh right. Well that, then. Large ones – did I say?’
‘Right, sir,’ said Sammy.
And he jammed the glasses with force against the twin optics (we sell a lot of Jack Daniel’s) and not for the first time, he was going over this: well of course he’s not about, is he? This bastard Rollo. How did I expect to see him around, God’s sake? I’m on duty – Jilly isn’t. So where’s Rollo? Hm? Where is the bastard? And what in hell’s he doing?
‘My tab,’ grunted Dwight. ‘OK, Dave – enough with the stalling, already: give.’
‘You want to know …?’
‘Quit it, David! I ain’t fooling, now …’
David laughed. ‘OK. I’ll tell you. Here it is.’
But even as he now and with relish launched into the thing, David was quickly constructing amendments – attending already to pointing up the details of the one story he felt Dwight would most like to hear. Because the truth of the matter had come not even close to a raw and wanton seeing-to, but was almost eerily sexual in a way that had stirred him deeply, while still there fluttered in its wake those faint and featherweight strands of confusion. And he’ll tell you why right now:
I went along to the cabin (on-oh-one-oh – yes, one-oh-one-oh: I hadn’t forgotten it, of course I hadn’t forgotten it) and I was thinking … mm, exactly what, I wonder? Because I really do want to get this right. I need to chart my feelings and actions just as they hit or happened to me, because although I’ll be – yes I will – spinning out countless versions all down the years – and usually when taken and then stunned by drink, I have no doubt at all, and to some other puffed-out and teetering slump of incoherence long past the power of even half listening to any of it, the following day’s erasure of his memory not much less than total … yeah, despite the fact that I’ll forever for the sake of my idiot audiences be putting a devilish spin on this thing (and even right now, as I’m tailoring it for Dwight) the way I set it down here for myself has just got to be right, because this is what I, me (myself), will eternally be looking back on and taking apart and piecing back together again – so it’s got to be (unlike the distended, lit-up and bespoke job that right now Dwight is, oh God you should just see him, lapping up like a sun-parched hound dog) totally true and utterly accurate. This, as I say, is for me – and yes, I suppose, it’s for you as well.
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