Well. If so – if that’s the case – he has yet to find me. The only one who has sought me out is – urgh, oh God: that monster Dwight. Can that awful person truly be a friend of…? But then I suppose he needn’t really be an awful person – could be all he was was drunk, or something. Bit like Dad gets.
*
Dwight was twiddling around with one thick forefinger the big and glassy lumps of ice in his just-don’t-let-on-to-Charlene-the-size-of-this-mother (bar guy – Sammy? Telling me one time how he made ’em, the rocks – Evian, so they don’t cloud up none). Dwight heard and then saw David’s rapid approach to the bar – and hoo boy: what in hell’s got into this guy? Recalls to my mind ’Nam, one time – we was all sweating hard and moving fast and low and the ground was sucking us down as we hacked and ripped our way through all that fuckin’ jungle, hoping each of us to our God that we could maybe luck out and weave through the crossfire and duck the sniping from all those unseen gooks – and you just knowed in your heart that any moment now, the next crack you hear is gonna find ya, yeah, and tear you up good; me, I come through. Waaall – guess I find out pretty soon what it is that’s bugging this guy. Meantime, I gotta say this:
‘Hey, David. I caught your little girl. Me she didn’t like.’
‘Marianne? Really? Well – odd, Dwight. She seems to like most people, far as I can tell. Oh God – a drink: thank Christ. Listen, Dwight – I’ve really got to talk to you.’
‘Mary Ann, huh? That her name? Well all I can tell you is that me, she froze out big time. Maybe she don’t like Americans, period.’
‘Oh I doubt that. Now listen to me, Dwight – never mind Marianne, for now. I’ve got trouble. Real trouble.’
‘And she ain’t a part of it?’
David was toying with being confused – but oh Christ, didn’t have time to be: let’s get on with this, God’s sake:
‘No. No no – course not. Why should she be? No – listen, Dwight. I’ve got woman trouble. Serious.’
Dwight’s eyes were narrow, now.
‘Well that’s what I’m saying here, Dave. So what’s the score? She putting the screws on you? Gun-to-your-head time – that it?’
‘Exactly it. Yes. Yes that’s it. But there’s just one good side to this – well two, actually. See – thing is, I don’t actually want her any more. I said to her – Look, Trish – you’ve just got to understand – ’
Dwight had his palm raised now, and his eyes were practically closed.
‘Hey! Whoa! Slow up, here! Who in hell’s this Trish, now? Huh?’
‘Hm? Oh yeh – course. You don’t know, do you? Well you do know, actually, Dwight – you just maybe don’t remember. Patty, yes? The sick one?’
‘Oh yeh yeh: Pukey Patty. Gotcha. Jeez, David – what in hell you playing about with her for when you got yourself Mary Ann?’
David just stared at him.
‘What? Well – I mean … Marianne’s all grown up now, isn’t she? I mean – I don’t really honestly see …!’
‘OK. The babe’s all grown up now. Cool. So – lemmy just get this right in my mind, David. This dame Patty – Trish, right? She shows up – she goes Technicolor all down your pants and next minute you’re banging her?’
‘No no no no no. No, Dwight: listen. I’ve known her for years. She’s my, you know – ’
‘What? The London connection?’
‘You could – yes, you could say that. Known her for years.’
‘Well now listen here, Dave – I don’t reckon to be no sorta expert on these here matters, but why in hell you bring her on the boat?’
‘Bring her …? I didn’t bring her! Christ, she just – oh God: Came. And now she’s threatening to tell just bloody everything to Nicole, see? But here’s the ray of hope … well, you’re the ray of hope, Dwight, if I’m being honest. You see – I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, right? And what I’ve decided is, well – I’ve just outgrown both of them. Nicole, Trish – both of them. I just dread the sight of either one of them, to be perfectly frank with you. And now I’ve got this new girl – the really young and new one, well … I thought I could maybe – make a brand-new start, yes? New York? Remember one time you said something about … I don’t know – helping me out? Fixing me up? And then I can, you know – be with this girl, yes … and cherish her, and everything. Yes. Think that’s it. What do you think? Oh and yeah – something else, Dwight. Something else I forgot. See – I don’t want any unpleasantness, if you see what I mean. For the kids’ sake, more than mine. And what I don’t want specifically is some great scene – here or in America. I just want Trish to, well – vanish, really … and Nicole and the kids, I’ll just say Look – bit of business has been put my way by my good friend Dwight, here, yes? So you all fly back to London when our little break is over, and then I’ll follow – few days later. See?’
‘Uh-huh. And?’
‘And? Well I won’t, of course. I’ll stay. New life. New job. New girl. God – it sounds just bloody great, actually.’
Dwight drained his drink – looked this way and that for the barman, and couldn’t locate neither hide nor hair of the guy.
‘What do we do to get service round here …? OK, Dave – I’m hearing you loud and clear. Kinda envy ya, boy. So sure – OK: I can setcha up with a job, nul problemo. So what’s the big deal?’
‘Oh God thanks, Dwight! But yes – right. Well this is the rather, um – embarrassing bit, um – yes. You see – in order for Trish not to make a fuss … you know: go round upsetting people … she wants, um – money. Says she doesn’t much care about me anymore, but she does still care about money. Money, yes. I don’t know if you know, or anything, Dwight, but money is among the many things I haven’t actually, er – got.’
Dwight nodded. ‘I kinda figured. Money, huh? She said that?’
And David nodded too, quite like a maniac. Yes oh yes – she’d bloody well said that, all right:
‘God, David,’ she’d gone. ‘I do feel a bit … don’t you, at all? I really do feel a bit, urr – queasy. Why’s it just me? I’ve taken pills, and everything, but they honestly don’t seem to be doing anything. Oh by the way – I went back for those shot glasses … and I did get the pink sweatshirt, in the end. And also some really attractive placemats. But don’t worry – they didn’t cost much.’
‘They didn’t cost much. I see. You mean you charged them – ?’
‘To your, yep – account. Well look, David – you take care of your bloody wife, don’t you? So you should bloody well expect to take care of me too. It’s only fair, isn’t it? And God – it’s only a few pounds. Now listen, David – when I tell her just everything – ’
‘No, Trish. No. You really mustn’t do that. Look – I’ll tell her: I will. I’ll say – look, Nicole, I’m – uh … leaving you, in fact.’
‘You’ll say that. Uh-huh. I don’t believe you, David. You won’t say that. What you’ll do is you’ll go on and on and on saying to me that you’ll say that – just like you’ve been doing for years. No, David – what we need now is action, see? That’s why I’m here.’
‘But Trish – I’ve given you my word …!’
Trish just shook her head. ‘Action, David,’ she said. ‘Unless …’
And of course David leapt at it – just as, he suspected, Trish had known he would.
‘Unless? Unless what? What? Christ, Trish – how long have you been working all of this out? You don’t love me at all, do you, Trish? You keep saying you do, but you don’t – you can’t. You just couldn’t be doing all this to me, not if you loved me. Christ, Trish – people who love one another just don’t go about plotting to fucking destroy them!’
‘OK, then, we’ll go back to the plan of action.’
‘Oh – Jeeeeesus! OK, OK – tell me the ‘unless’. Give me the ‘unless’, Trish, you bloody goddam bitch.’
‘Language, David. Now listen – it’s all so perfectly simple. I’ve never actually been to New York before … well, never
been anywhere, really, have I David? Anyway – what just might persuade me to give you a bit of time – keep my mouth shut – is if I were to stay in New York for say, ooh – I don’t know – three months, say …?’
And David wasn’t sure quite how he should react, here. Three months? Sure. I’m surprised you’ve actually suggested that we’re apart at all – but you want three months? Fine. Take six. Year do you?
‘Mmm …’ he tried, with caution. ‘And …?’
‘Well by that time even a rather pathetic little thing like you, David, will have plucked up courage to speak to his bloody wife – and then you can fly out and join me. See? New life. New start. Got it?’
‘Yes …’ nodded David – mind now forced screaming into overdrive – ‘yes, yes. I see. Got it.’
Well what I see is this (this is what I’ve got): New life – new start – sounds good to me. But not with you, Trish – no. Because anything in any way, you see, to do with you, it – well, it just isn’t, is it? New. Plus, I get the very strong feeling that what is on the table here is not simply a sweetly put request for three months’ hotel bills and all the other, oh – quite tear-making expenses that a woman such as yourself could just so effortlessly run up in New York City (and whatever you want to say about Nicole – my bloody wife, as you will insist on habitually calling her – she can’t hold a bloody candle to you on that front, and she’s no amateur, believe me) … No – what I think you want, surprise surprise, is cash in hand, pure and simple. Whereupon you could with very little difficulty be persuaded, I think, not to hang around in New York, but take firm hold of your loot and go just anywhere, hear me? Anywhere else on earth. Because you will not be required in New York, Trish: what you will be is surplus. Why? You’d like to know why? Tell you why, Trish: because I shall be there. Yes I shall. Me me me. My new life – my new start. Oh yes – and did I mention? With my brand-new girl (and she won’t be the only thing I’ll be cherishing, here). So I looked up at Trish and I said to her fair and square:
‘OK, Trish. How much?’
‘It’s not just a question of money, David. You do understand that? I do want you as well. I want, if I’m honest – not so much to have you … more, really, to take you away. But if I’m really honest, what I want is … what I want is, yes – I want money. I do.’
‘OK, Trish. How much?’
‘Oh David! You’re doing this deliberately now, aren’t you? You’re doing your level bloody best to make all this sound so terribly sordid and somehow, I don’t know – as if I’m the one in the wrong, here! I mean – you’re the one, David. You’re the one, aren’t you David? Who got us all into this?’
David sighed, now. God, he was – in so many ways – weary of this.
‘OK, Trish. How much?’
And suddenly her eyes were small and hard like gunmetal bearings, one cold white light glinting askance out of each of them.
‘Twenty thousand, I reckon should do it.’
David was shocked and faintly nauseated by not just the amount – not even the suddenness of her having finally come out with it, but the fact that either one of them could really be party to such a conversation as this. Amazing, too, that she actually believes I’ve got that sort of money. I don’t have – face it – any kind of money. I keep on telling people. So why don’t they hear me? Still, all this will serve to make this parting – when it comes – sweet, just sweet (and no damned sorrow about it). So, there we are: there we have it. There was just this one little matter, then, to be taken care of. And that means I have to, very soon, have a talk with my good friend Dwight. And pray that that is, in fact, what he turns out to be: a very good friend indeed.
And David, now, was watching the man’s eyes, as Dwight turned it over.
‘Plus … !’ put in David, as he waited for the verdict to come through, ‘she said pounds. Pounds. Not dollars. Jesus.’
Dwight pulled a grin. ‘She ain’t nobody’s patsy, our Patty – huh? Kay, David. Sure. I can draft ya, what – forty thousand bucks against your pay check. You pay it off when you’ve a mind. You easy with that?’
David let go all of his breath in a coughed-out rush – as if he had finally been granted permission to do just that.
‘Oh Christ thank you, Dwight – oh God I can’t tell you what a – oh Dwight, Dwight. What can I say? I have to warn you, though – about this job, whatever it is you’ve got in mind … I can’t actually do much.’
Dwight had eased his bulk away and down from the stool, and was ambling now to the hatch in the bar. He ducked under that with quite some difficulty (had fumbled with the catch, but the hell with that) and now he reached for two fresh glasses: jammed them up against the Jack Daniel’s optics.
‘They don’t wanna come serve me – I’ll goddam serve myself. Tell you truth, Dave – all a man can do is pay his dooze. I ain’t that hot at nothing, neither. As to what you say, Dave: you don’t say nothing. What you do is you raise up your glass, you hear me? And we drink a toast: new life, new start, new girl – New York! How’s about that?’
And David, as he stared down into the drink, was very close to tears. This was just too, too great. For just how long had people been preaching to him? Nicole, mainly, but Trish too, God blast her – about all the virtues attached to ambition, drive, and more than that: self-help. Well I’ve never been good at it. And it’s overrated, isn’t it, if ever there’s the glowing alternative. I’m incapable of helping myself: I want someone to help me for me – and now, at last, someone has. And as David looked up to meet Dwight’s big and red and smiling face, he found himself even nearer to those tears, and now, oh God damn it – yes, he was there. He wiped at his face with his knuckles, and smirked – and now he laughed and happily clinked his glass with Dwight’s.
‘Amen,’ was all he said.
*
As soon as they were both inside the door (Jilly had very swiftly locked it again, and with an only quasi-guilty grin of complicity, put the key safely away) – the first thing Rollo did was kiss her, yes … but it was his hands, just lightly fingering her tiny and tight-belted waist at first, before he gave in to their pleading and let them roll away and roundly with the flow of her – Christ, women’s hips, mmm … yes, oh yes, it was his hands that were creaming off all the goodness, here: his mouth, he really felt, was merely attending to its duty (girls, pretty sure, get more out of this side of things than we do, maybe).
It was when they stood back from one another – it was then, yes, that Rollo watched her (his illicit collaborator) and Jilly’s eyes blazed back at him with a nearly haughty and defiant challenge: Isn’t this exciting? Isn’t it? Isn’t it fun? Isn’t it …? And Rollo let his heavy eyelids do the nodding for him: yes it is, yes it bloody is. And then he looked about him.
‘Christ Almighty. It’s absolutely huge, this place …’
‘Oh God – this isn’t all of it. There’s three other rooms through there – the bathroom looks like something out of a movie – you know, one of those old black-and-white movies. And the main bedroom – oh wow. You want to see it?’
A what-do-you-think smirk was Rollo’s comeback to that one.
‘And people really do pay … how much did you say? All that money just for this? I mean it’s great, yeah … but Jesus …’
‘There’s a sun deck thing through there and up the stairs. But it’s actually, I think, a bit too … even right up here, you can feel the sway, now, can’t you? The waves are really quite big, now. Have you seen? But we don’t care, do we? I don’t, anyway …’
‘God you are fabulous, Jilly,’ said Rollo, quite suddenly – and it seemed to please both of them that he had. ‘But are you sure it’s, you know – OK, and everything? I mean – how did you get the key?’
‘Oh everyone does it, time to time. See, the people who had this for the whole World Cruise – and can you believe it? There were only two of them. Just two people in all these rooms! We’re not meant to know who, but he – the bloke – was something terr
ibly high up in Disney, or something, apparently. That’s what I heard, anyway. And not only that – oh God, Rollo: this you just will never believe. They had the first class cabin next door as well – it links up, see. See that door next to all the mirror? Links up.’
‘Bloody hell. Why did they – ?’
Jilly’s eyes were dancing. ‘Get this – they said they needed that – needed that for all the wife’s evening clothes! God Almighty!’
‘Kidding me! Christ – these people …!’
‘Joke was, they were never ever seen in the restaurant. There’s an awfully exclusive sort of cocktail bar type thing quite near – God, I’m not even allowed to serve in it … which is fair enough, I suppose: couldn’t make a cocktail to save my life. But anyway – point is, they never went there either. Just stayed in this suite for just about ever – calling up room service, and changing their clothes.’
‘God!’ laughed Rollo. ‘Sounds like my Mum’s dream world. Actually no – that’s not right: she’d definitely want to be seen. But look, Jilly – why aren’t they here? I mean, how did you – ?’
‘Well this is it: when we got to Southampton, they apparently decided they’d had enough – fancied a week or so in London. So they just went. Happens, sometimes. See – what you have to remember, Rollo, is that, I don’t know – a quarter of a million or something to these people, it’s – well, it’s like fifty pee to us.’
‘I’ve got fifty pence,’ smiled Rollo. ‘Can I stay?’
And Jilly went up to him.
‘I would say for as long as you like … but will you settle for an hour? Then it’s my shift. And there’s no chance of the key being missed till then. Kiss me, Rollo …’
And Rollo did that: lip service.
Jilly took him by the hand and led him past the pair of nine-foot white leather sofas and the horrible paintings and these quite enormous picture windows (and it was right, what Jilly had said – the sea is definitely getting up: God, we’re so high, though, it seems just miles down) and then through a mirrored passageway and on into a very large and low and maybe maple panelled room – and at its centre, a dusky pink and chintzy pretty much fully upholstered bed that was not, in point of fact, very much smaller than the space that held it.
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