SHIP AHOY!
T.J. Middleton
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ONE
It was four o’clock, Sunday afternoon. I was in the rest room with Johnny Caracas. He was hunched over the table, a lick of his oily hair hanging down, blocking my view of the board. It was all I could do to stop myself from nipping down to the cabin and fetching up Emily’s curling tongs and weld it onto his forehead. It was the semi-finals of the Inter-deck Scrabble Tournament and he was on the way out. Johnny might have been a dainty little whiz on his size nines, but faced with the cruel reality of ninety-eight letters, two blanks and a stop clock fast running out of time, he was all left feet. I was waltzing all over him, thirty-four points ahead, a blank in reserve and a crafty S up my sleeve, just in case he got lucky. I know, but there was a crate of port and an outsize box of multi-flavoured marzipans up for grabs, and I’m a sucker for marzipan.
He put down ED on the end of PLASTER and banged down the clock button. PLASTERED. Not bad for him, but not good enough.
‘That’s what I’m going to be when I win the cup,’ I told him, giving the bag a good shake. Emily came in, all hot and flustered, waving her arms about like a lobster in a pot.
‘They’re all waiting for you,’ she said. ‘Mrs Durand-Deacon is getting sunstroke.’
I gave her a look. There was a lot at stake here.
‘No need to get steamed up about it Em. Stick her under an umbrella. Shove her in the pool.’ I tapped the board. ‘The honour of E deck and all that.’
She have me a look. There was a lot at stake there.
‘Now Al,’ she said. ‘Right this minute. Johnny wouldn’t take advantage, would you Johnny?’
Johnny pressed his greasy hands together and glanced up at the bag. He tried not to, but he just couldn’t help it.
‘Who? Moi?’ he said.
I got up, handed it to Becky behind the bar, and followed Emily out the room. You might think that out of character, Al Greenwood obeying orders like some testicularly disadvantaged mummy’s boy. But I’d learnt my lesson. I did as I was told. It was easier that way.
We’d been working on the Lady Diana for three and a half years, Miss Prosser and me. In public she was Emily, Emily my dear, Emily my own, sometime just plain Em, but once in our own little cabin, or back at the bungalow, I called her Miss Prosser, especially when the mood was on us. She liked me calling her Miss Prosser. I liked calling her Miss Prosser. It kept it alive. What we’d done for each other.
Johnny had got us the jobs. Outfits like ours were always on the lookout for characters who can help the time pass for the sorry Herberts who fork out good money to go on these things. Emily and me, we fitted the bill perfect. Me, I gave a series of lectures on you-know-what, their history, how to keep them, the psychological benefits derived there from. I had a number of colour pictures to go with them. Well, there’d be no point banging on about the beauty of the koi without a decent set of photos. Some were of mine, taken down by the pond, Miss Prosser standing in the pool in her one-piece, holding them in a washing-up bowl, looking quite a catch herself, and some taken at Detective Inspector Adam Rump’s place. He didn’t like it much, me muscling in on his fish, but felt obliged, thanks to me getting his prize fish back from a nasty case of fishnapping, (I didn’t tell him that I’d nicked it in the first place.) and he had the best carp collection this side of Salisbury Plain. I still had Torvill, natch, though not looking quite as fresh as the day I found her stabbed to death on my kitchen floor. I didn’t tell the punters about that of course, only the feelings that a superstar fish like her can inspire. Emily worked the laptop for me, and passed Torvill down the aisles for them to look at up close, making sure they didn’t disrespect her in any way, touch her up or pull her stuffing out. She might have been dead for seven years, but in her hey-day she was all fish, right down to her gills.
Emily had a proper job too, giving art classes to any of the passengers on board—out on the sun deck if the weather permitted, or down in the ante room behind the ballroom if there was too much of the old up-and-down. Oils, watercolours, pencil sketching, anything they wanted. She was a good teacher Emily, I knew that from my days in the nick, when knocking seven bells out of lumps of clay was all that kept me from a spell in the funny farm. Well, you’d be a bit near the edge too, if you’d been sent down for something you didn’t do. She pulled in a fair-sized crowd, Emily, a good deal more than I did, if the truth be told. Sometimes I’d be lucky to get half a dozen showing up, even on a ship carrying four, five hundred, while she’d have three, four classes on the go every blessed day, ten, fifteen, up to twenty in each. Stick a paintbrush in their hand and everyone thinks they got a bit of Picasso in them. Koi require a more realistic type of commitment. So I had to think of something extra or face the chop. So I had this brainwave, how I could spice up her classes with a live demonstration of what I called Texas-chainsaw sculpting. The powers that be had been a bit wary of it at first. Fair enough, the idea of a wrongly convicted murderer let loose amongst their clientele with what is in effect eighteen inches of petrol-powered samurai sword, did present them with legitimate health and safety issues, but they soon caved in when they saw me in action. I’d become quite a dab hand at it since I first started. Stripped to the waist, chainsaw in one hand, beer can in the other, I could knock out a decent man-eating shark in twenty minutes flat, twenty-five if you wanted some bird stuck in its molars, having her leg bitten off. They loved it, the punters, specially the women. Couldn’t take their eyes off me, twirling that blade about like it was a pirate’s cutlass, oil spewing out the blade like a randy sperm whale. Did they want a piece of it or did they want a piece of it? We used to laugh about it, Miss Prosser and me, the look in their eyes, the way they crossed their legs and fiddled with their hands. They always wanted to buy the end product off me too, stick it on their patio, or have it leering at them while they were taking a bath, but we didn’t give them the satisfaction of that either. Keep them hungry, that was our motto. We cooked up a little ritual, her and me, gave each shark a name, depending on who they looked like, Henry Kissinger, Chairman Mao, whoever, painted the name on and slung them over the side, watched them float away on the briny. Just like old times. Last trip I’d done one that turned out to be the spitting image of Bono, pillock specs and all. Half the ship we had, helping to push him over, and you know what, when he hit the water, he rolled on his back and sank without a trace. If only real life was like that.
When we wasn’t working, Miss Prosser and I were back in the old coral, her painting watercolours of the cove and the boats and the few crusty old fisherman still left with a lobster pot to piss in, while I monitored the little art gallery we had down by the beach, her pictures all priced up on the walls and a couple of my six-footers grinning up on the rails outside. We had a little boat too, called the Miss Prosser, natch, nothing fancy just twelve-seater with a decent outboard motor big enough to take trippers round the bay or out to the Pimple and back for a spot of fishing. I used not to like the sea much, now it’s like I never lived without it. I found Emily by the sea, lying on a beach white and shiny like a stranded mermaid, and the sea’s been with us ever since. Sometimes me and her would take a trip ourselves, chug our way to the bay a couple of miles down the coast, a bird sanctuary it is, dead private ‘cause you can’t get down there from the cliff top. We’d throw off our clothes and wade ashore, not a stitch on, spend the afternoon swimming and sunbathing, prancing about like w
e was in the Garden of Eden, her drawing pictures of the birds or what-not, me, lying back on the sand, staring at the sky, wondering how I got this blessed. Often as not she’d draw me too, awake, asleep, before, after, whatever took her fancy, I didn’t mind as long as they didn’t go up on the gallery walls. What’s private’s private. She liked drawing pictures of me. I liked it too, liked having them around. It made me more me, if you like, gave me a perspective I never thought I had. Pictures are funny that way. All they are is bits of flat paper, but they have a kind of depth that can take you a long way back.
I went up top. We were a few days off Southampton, but we could have been in the tropics for the heat coming off the deck. It was jam packed, everyone stripped down to the bare essentials, and then some. You had to be dead careful where you was treading in those conditions, look but not look, if you get my meaning. Not that I had the eyes for that sort of thing anymore. It’s like working in a chocolate factory. After a while you become sick of the sight of it, even when it’s offered up on a plate, unwrapped.
Emily’s lot were tucked the far end, away from the swimming pool. There were twelve of them, sat in their deck chairs in a semi-circle, the area where I was doing the chainsawing roped off. Safety regulations. Mrs Durand-Deacon was bang in the middle, some old biddy fanning her face with a newspaper she must have picked up at our last port of call. That was the real reason she was feeling a bit poorly. To be fussed over. There’s always someone like Mrs Durand-Deacon on these cruises. ‘Oh Waiter, I think I’ve got a fishbone stuck in my gullet. I can’t swallow properly. Oh Steward, There’s a terrible smell of effluent coming from my hot water tap. The fumes make me feel quite faint. Hello? Is that the Purser? I’d like to speak to the captain. Does he have to take the corners so fast? I feel quite…what’s the word?’
Lonely. That’s the word. Unloved, that’s another. Poor Mrs Durand-Deacon. She probably started off all right, probably was quite a good sort, but something happened to her along the way. She didn’t deserve to end up like this. No one does. I’ve come to see that now. I might not like her kind much, but I’ve come to see that now. I walked through them, stepped over the rope and held out my hands.
‘Sorry to have kept you ladies, but the truth is I got lost.’
They laughed. Everyone gets lost on cruise ships like these. It’s having the carpets all the same colour.
‘Mrs Durand-Deacon. I hear you’ve been suffering too. That naughty old sun. What say I cut him down to size?’
More laughter.
‘Seriously though, I’m going to have to do something extra special for you lot, considering how inconsiderate I’ve been. Something special for you too, Mrs Durand- Deacon. How about a giant squid, its arms all wriggly, ready to drag you down?’ I’d never done a squid in my life, but I wasn’t worried. She shook her head. ‘No? How about a whale then, one of them hump backs?’ More head shaking. I knew what she wanted. It’s what they always wanted.
‘What’s it to be then Mrs D-D?’ She took a gulp, like she’d just swallowed one.
‘A shark.’
‘A shark!’
‘A man-eating shark. One of those white ones.’
‘A man-eating shark. One of those white ones. Someone caught in it perhaps?’
She nodded like her head was going to drop off.
‘My husband! Gerald!’
Hysteria all round. A murderous lot, cruise goers. They all think it you know, some time in the voyage. One little push and all their troubles would be over.
‘A great white it is. With Gerald having his vitals nibbled.’
I got ready. The block of wood stood on a pair of trestles. It was about eight-foot long. The chainsaw sat on top, blade tucked away safely in its plastic cover. A spare blade lay curled like a sleeping boa constrictor on a table beside it, next to a pair of goggles (safety regulations) a pot of paint for the sign painting, an alcohol-free can of beer (more safety regulations) and a fire extinguisher, just in case the shark or the chain saw or Mrs Durand-Deacon started to spontaneously combust. Load of toss those regulations. I mean I’d never had an accident once.
I put the goggles on, whipped the protective cover off the blade and started her up. The engine spluttered into life, chug-chug-chug, the blade all still and quiet, like it was asleep. I held it up, the sun shining on the blade, the cutters sparkling like a lady’s jewels, then squeezed the trigger. The saw jerked in my hand, a blade spitting out a thick shot of oil, like he’d just had his bollocks squeezed. A little gasp went out. It was like those sex shows they used to have in Denmark. Everyone’s been waiting to see me take it out and wave it about, and there I was, doing just that. It was a big bugger too.
They sat forward, not knowing what to look at, the chainsaw or me. They wanted to see me prance about with that thing in my hand but they also wanted to see it get to work, work its wonder on that motionless block underneath, watch it turn something plain and ordinary and lifeless into something beautiful and alive and bursting through. Just like it had happened to them, when they were once alive and beautiful and bursting through.
I started off. It wasn’t difficult. I’d done it hundreds of times, do the rough shape of the body first, cut in deep before sweeping out for the fins, then work the tail, leaving the head and the all-important mouth until the end. To tell the truth, that afternoon my mind wasn’t strictly on the business in hand. Becky behind the bar didn’t care for Johnny much, not after his wife showed up at their wedding, but he was a tricky customer. Give him time, and there was no telling what he’d get her to do. Consequently I was in a bit of a hurry. Fifteen minutes in and I was smoothing out the dome of chummy’s head. Plenty of material left for the mouth and whatever she wanted poking out.
‘What do you say to a nice pair of Gerald’s legs?’ I said. Mrs Durand-Deacon rattled her head again.
‘Head and shoulders,’ she said. ‘Eyes wide open if you can. I want him to suffer to the very end.’
I swung the chainsaw in the air and locked the trigger down so that the blade was running free. Ten minutes and we’d have Gerald over the side, and I could get back to the tournament.
‘The head it is Mrs D-D. It might not be a true likeness you understand, considering I never set eyes on him.’
‘I got a photo,’ she shouted.
Then it happened.
A little wind came up from nowhere, like they do when you’re at sea, without any warning. A sudden squall, they call it. Not a cloud in the sky, not a ripple on the water, but there it was there, up from nowhere, fluttering the deck chairs and the sunhats, rolling my can of beer onto its side, and lifting that newspaper from Mrs Durand-Deacon’s lap, sending it sailing across, its pages flapping like a young swan what’s just learnt to fly. Over it came, landing slap on the shark’s head, covering it like a shroud, like there was a mystery on him. I raised the chainsaw high in the air and put my left hand out to peel it off. Then I saw it, the photograph, spread all over the inside page, staring out at me. I wasn’t ready for that. Nor for the headline underneath. I put my hand on it to hold the paper steady and stepped forward to read up close. I’d forgotten about the chainsaw, forgotten it was screaming in my hand. I couldn’t hear anything save the blood pounding in my head. It was then I let the tip of the chainsaw drop, not much, just enough for the blade to catch the handle of the fire extinguisher and for the whole caboodle to whip up out of my hand, and fall, spinning blue murder, onto the deck.
I don’t know how many of you have experienced a chainsaw running amok on a highly polished surface, but it’s a bit like those old jumping-jacks fireworks I used to play with as a kiddie on bonfire night. Marvellous fun they were. Light the touch paper, chuck them in on a bus, a supermarket queue, even a doctor’s waiting room and BANG-BANG-BANG. Watch everyone jump out the way. No one was safe. Every which-way they went, first one way, then another. The chainsaw was like that, only with a revolving set of teeth. It chomped through one of the legs of the nearside trestle, then made a be
e-line for the deckchairs. Christ those women didn’t half hop up on their feet quick. Just as well, cause those deckchairs were like matchsticks to a machine of that calibre. They were good at jumping though, the old dears. I guess all that skipping they must have done in the playground all those years back was finally paying off.
And then, the chainsaw did a funny thing. It seemed to set its eye on Mrs Durand-Deacon. It sounds ridiculous I know, cause it was only a lump of non-sentient metal, but believe it or not, there it was. It was like I was up on the farm watching Stan Colley’s collie single out one of his sheep. Whichever way she went the saw followed her, right, left, back, forwards, it just wouldn’t let her alone. If she tried to go right it would lunge left, if she feinted left it would leap to the right, cutting off her escape routes, forcing her back onto the railings. Emily began screaming at me to catch it, do something, but being an artist herself, she should have understood my hesitation. I mean, our hands are our livelihood, right? Closer and closer it got, until Mrs Durand-Deacon was pressed up again the railings, unable to move, the blade weaving backwards and forwards ready for the kill. It was going to chew her feet off, clear as daylight.
It paused for a moment, like a snake ready for the lunge. We held our breath. The whole deck held its breath, the ship balanced on the crest of a wave. It could stayed there forever. Then it lurched forward. Mrs Durand-Deacon did the only thing left to her. She put her hand on the railing and vaulted clean over the side, arm straight, body parallel, legs out. Bloody perfect. The chainsaw sank its teeth into the metal rail stanchion, spluttered and died.
Em and I ran over. Mrs Durand-Deacon was a quarter of a mile away, thrashing about in our wake. Someone at the far end of the pool had chucked her a lifebelt. A klaxon had gone off. The ship was slowing down. I held onto the railing, shaking like a leaf.
‘It’s all right,’ Emily was saying. ‘We’re turning back.’
Ship Ahoy! (A Cliffhanger Novel Book 3) Page 1