“Or forgets their beta-blockers.”
“Yesterday was all varicose veins.”
The door was not quite ajar. The carpet underfoot ran out where the sign pointed to wards 1,2,3, presumably so nurses’ heels could click noisily and wake patients. A window panel would have allowed me to see into the office. I ducked and slipped silently past. Ward 1 and 2 were empty, doors gaping. Ward 3 was shut, a hooded light filtering through the curtained window. The white card for the patient’s name was blank. So why the light? I opened the door – pull it towards you, makes less sound that way – and slipped in. The wall clock said 1.29 a.m.
The bloke in the bed raised a finger, shush, watching as I shut the door. I didn’t make a sound. Henry Semper, no less. He looked gaunt, with an infusion dripping into his arm under swathed bandages. He looked at death’s door. He gestured to the right side of the bed, indicating a gadget on the bedside table. I nodded, got the point. Some listening device? Frankly, I was scared. Fright’s an odd thing. You don’t need to know who you’re scared of, or what the scarers might do. It simply freezes conscious thought. You can’t work out a plan of action or decide where you’re going while you’re terrified. I stepped closer, whispered into his ear.
“You okay?” I put my mouth to his ear for this routine idiocy of the hospital visitor. Like, certainly, great, which is why I’m having a transfusion.
“Lovejoy. The antiques thing.”
“Yes?”
“Tell them wrong when you get there.”
“Eh?”
He sighed, winced trying to move. I honestly felt his pain. He tried to say more. I stooped to hear.
“You’re the divvy. They’re depending on being told right. Tell them wrong.”
“Wrong with what?”
“The room’s the thing.”
Somebody went down the corridor. I froze, because in darkness it’s movement alarms vigilantes, not sizes or shapes.
“Look,” I said, nervous as hell. It had been a man’s footfall. Henry seemed to drift into some kind of delirium. He was sweating, his hand trembling, breathing in rasps.
“Right, Henry. I’ll do that. Okay?”
He tried to say something more. I didn’t catch it, became scared and went to stand by the door and opened it slowly. The corridor to the waiting area was clear, the nurse and the doctor still talking. I scented cigarette smoke and thought, Aha, so much for the fitness crud you keep giving us, huh?
“Tara, Henry,” I mouthed. “Er, get better.”
He didn’t answer, just beckoned me back. I waved feebly and stepped out, closed the door slid out to safety. Unseen! I felt like Raffles, the great night-stealing burglar, or Spring-Heeled Jack, the ancient prison escaper. I was drenched with sweat as I eeled out to the stairs and went out onto the Promenade Deck to cool off. I was so relieved. A few couples were still out there, even at this late hour. I wondered if I needed an alibi, and looked for somebody I knew. No luck. As soon as I was safe, I regretted not having turned back to hear the extra he’d wanted to tell me.
I stood there, leaning on the rail like in some cruise advert.
Good of Henry to give me a warning. About what, though? Tell who wrong, about what? I guessed in St Petersburg, but where there exactly? And who were they? The room’s the thing, he’d said. But every-thing’s in one sort of room or another. Or were some St Petersburg antiques in the gardens? I felt narked. I could have been arrested or worse, down in the hospital. The ship’s security people could have accused me of nicking drugs. All to see somebody delirious. I felt I’d been really brave, going to visit a sick bloke I didn’t even like. I was quite noble. I almost filled up at the thought of how courageous I’d been, going to minister to the sick at enormous risk to myself. Selfless.
Wishing I still smoked, I finally went in. I had another dream, luckily not about Belle’s love-tryst shed. It was about Ivy on the wharf at Gdynia, looking at the silverware and the gedanites and the mother-of-pearl, and her sad distant face after we’d made smiles. I woke quite refreshed in the morning, my usual time, sixish, and thought I’d had a really good rest.
* * *
Lounging by the Crystal Pool, I was sent for by the Purser. Not Executive Purser Mangot, but Mr Lessing. He was a rotund bloke who could hardly tear his eyes from Internet screens between which he sat like some demi-god. Standing there, as irate as when I’d last seen him, stood a bloke I hardly recognised without his string of pearls. His wife stood beside him. She was beautiful, her eyes on me.
“Lovejoy, I hear you’ve been less than helpful to this gentleman.”
I stayed silent.
“What’s your answer?”
“What’s your question?”
“Will you assist Mr Bannerman? I believe you have specialised knowledge that would help this passenger in the matter of his wife’s, ah, jewellery.”
“I paid a fortune for those pearls.” Bannerman was choking with rage. Was he ever anything else? “Lovejoy says they’re false.”
“I don’t. I merely say they’re cultivated.”
“Will you testify for him if he brings a lawsuit?” Mr Lessing asked. “It would mean a lot to the ship, if you would.”
“No. You have jewellers shops. Get them. If,” I said in a sudden brainwave, test the water, “you want to sanction me, send me home at the next port.”
A flicker crossed his expression. You had to be watching closely to see it because it was so fleeting. A sudden shadow of doubt definitely whizzed through his eyes, then was gone. I thought, aha. He was in with the mob.
“Very well,” he said evenly. “I can’t force you. But I think it’s rather a poor show, Lovejoy. That is all.”
So I was a bounder and a cad. Dear me. I left his office, Bannerman going on about lack of co-operation, that he’d sue the Line for not making me obey their orders, et yawnsville cetera. Burkes, I thought, and went to see the dancers rehearsing a new number for the evening show.
* * *
The Promenade Deck was quieter than the ruckus on the Pennant Bar at the stern, where there was a karaoke session. For once I didn’t fancy a swim in the Crystal Pool among such suave elegance. Despite the luxury, I wanted to be home. I’d felt safer being hunted than among this mass of ephemerals.
“Over there,” Ivy said, coming to lean on the rail, “is the first bit of Russia we see. We pass it soon. It’s called Kaliningrad now.”
“Lovely,” I said. A distant smudge was on the horizon.
“It is a beautiful country. They are suspicious of foreigners.”
I was pleased to hear it. Instead, I said, “Don’t blame them. Homo sapiens is a rotten species.”
“Did you like the Hermitage book?”
“Yes. Ta.”
She smiled. “I was in love with a Russian poet once. Pushkin. You’ve heard of him?”
Was it sarcasm? “Sorry, love. I’m uneducated. Barely heard of Shakespeare.”
“I think you’re fibbing, Lovejoy.”
“What was Pushkin like?”
“Socially, he was everything wrong. Chased women, got in trouble, challenged people to crazy duels, gambled with a compulsion to lose. But you have to put him in heaven as a poet.”
“Okay by me.” What else could I say? And why was she telling me this?
“I hope you like St Petersburg, Lovejoy. Perhaps we will be on the same coach.”
Who’d said I was going ashore? I looked at her. I often wonder about people. I mean, flamboyant Billy “the Kid”, as he announced himself, with his cowboy heels and tooled-leather boots, his cheroots and black string tie and his Mexican moustache. And here comes his wife Ivy, mousy despite her bonny face, definitely muted apparel, careful shoes, her hair done into a bun as if striving for dowdiness when she had a brilliant figure. They were an essay in comparisons.
“That’d be nice.”
“I could show round one or two places, if you get a visa.”
“Doesn’t the ship take care of that?”
> “They say so. And you can always get round rules in Russia.”
She smiled. It was a warm, friendly smile that pleased me. I’d have said open and honest, if I wasn’t heading for perdition.
“Ta. I’d be pleased. If it’s okay with your Billy.”
No harm to be cautious. After all, he was a retired cop, and wives can report back to husbands. I’ve heard that.
We stayed talking, mostly of nothing. To my relief, she didn’t press me about my background as most women do. I admitted a few things, told her of my cottage. She told me very little about herself, simply likes and dislikes. She was so pleased to be speaking, I mostly listened. We parted saying how much we’d enjoyed each other’s company. Mentally I added a qualification: an exquisite woman, if she really was neutral.
A note waited in the letter slot by my cabin. Warily I opened the envelope.
Lovejoy,
With your help we can clean up on this pearl business. I’ve seen the way you operate with those antiques. I’ll fund the lawsuit. You get 20% of the net – repeat net – profit. Okay? Ring us.
Josh Bannerman.
I chucked the letter away, relieved it was only another maniac.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The head chef was speaking to us in the main theatre. It was thronged, standing room only. I was at the back because I came in late. Ivy was there, and June Milestone. Lauren was next to me. I’d just finished a talk on buying antiques – auctions, how not to get done in street markets, the pitfalls of antiques collectors’ clubs, glad it had gone well. I’d come for a rest.
The stage was occupied by chefs and caterers. Each had a go, bragging about the efforts they made to stuff us to the gills so we’d all be fatter still.
“Over 20,000 bottles of wine are served every cruise,” the chef said, to gasps of adulation. “Beef is the most popular dish.”
Somebody called out, “What’s the most popular desert?”
“Sponge pudding!”
Laughter.
“Coffee and tea served every day, 146 gallons.”
The restaurant manager rose to put his bit in. “Some 120,000 main meals are served on an average cruise, for which we use fifteen tons of beef and twenty-eight tons of fresh vegetables and fruit.”
“Including,” a chef popped up, “51,000 fresh eggs, and over 10,000 litres of milk and cream, with 70,000 bread rolls and half a ton of chickens every single day!”
People applauded at the scale of it. In the gloaming, I saw Lauren’s eyes. I thought, well, I too feel sorry for all those chickens and fishes, but don’t take on. Nothing we can do about it.
“Every cruise, a waiter walks ninety-one miles, the laundry washes 14,000 table cloths and 88,000 serviettes!”
I whispered to Lauren, “Meet you outside in half an hour, okay?”
Women and weeping. I had a lass once who cried every time somebody ate vegetables because carrots had feelings. She kept asking how would I like it if I was a turnip and somebody chewed me to bits. I was glad when she left. She wrote books about amino-acids in nuts. Insensitive fascist that I was, I asked if filberts were unemotional beasts. We parted.
Free, I went to Reception, and told the lass I wanted to see Mr Henry Semper. She conducted me to Executive Purser Mangot.
“What about?” He glared at my throat.
“The antiques in the store room. I want to know what Mr Semper’s scheme is for the evening quizzes.” I paused. “It’s just,” I explained lamely, “I’m doing his talks, see? When will he be back on duty?”
“I thought you couldn’t be in doubt about antiques.”
“Look. If he wants me to follow the same order, I should know, see?”
His brow cleared. “Do it any way you like.” Then he chilled my spine by saying, “The thing is, Henry had to leave. He’s having a serious operation in Copenhagen this very minute.”
“Poor bloke,” I said. I meant me, not Henry. We’d long since passed Copenhagen, unless my geography was wrong again. “Wish him well from me, eh?”
“Get out.”
“Er, ta.”
The Lido Deck was thronged, the day bright. A rock band was rocking, teenagers were jigging – or does that term mean something else now? People were lounging, swimming in the pools, drinking the morning sunshine, a scene worth at least a postcard. Somewhere at the ship’s back, abaft the beam or whatever, anyway behind the funnel, I knew there was a flat space marked out for a helicopter to land. It was usually covered in nets, for cricket, golf, and some kind of shuffle game using long handles. I’d gone up there the day before, to look for whales or dolphins from a vantage point.
The nets were still in place. Passengers were hard at games, one man showing his wife how to use a nine iron, aiming the ball at a screen countryside. Her ball missed the whole landscape. She laughed as friends cheered. I saw Fern and Delia Oakley waiting their turn.
The whole area looked exactly as it had the previous day. Therefore no helicopters. Yet ships the size of Melissa have little boats. I walked round the lifeboats and tenders. They’re usually all wrapped up, so you forget they’re waiting there for catastrophe in life’s mad gaiety. These too looked undisturbed. A crewman painting the davits was halfway along, another day’s brushwork to finish.
And Henry Semper, too sick to rise from his bed earlier the same morning, was now in Copenhagen under the surgeon’s knife, was he? I tried to recapture the glimpse of the lass who’d delivered the message to my cabin, and failed. Female, I’d been sure, but was she a stewardess, or a passenger? A woman would have spotted the difference in dress; we blokes can’t tell. And Lauren wept at the thought of all those poor lobsters the galleys cooked for our supper. Maybe, but was it likely?
“What’s next, Lovejoy?”
“You made me jump, Mrs Oakely. Next?”
“I saw you getting bored in there, like me and Fern. We came out to play golf.”
“Next what?”
She was a bonny woman, never looked shivery the way others did. She could do that knowing smile women use to hide guffaws, but just friendly, not to put people down.
“Antiques. Give me a clue about the answer. You’re doing the afternoon session with June Milestone. Isn’t she brilliant?”
“I’ll make it up as I go along.”
“Are you serious friends with Mrs Milestone, Lovejoy?” She was offhand, which meant deadly curious.
“Me? No. She’s rich and famous, I’m hoi-polloi.”
“Then why does she have you followed?” She laughed at my expression. “Her friend – the big American man – never takes his eyes off her, then acts on her signals. Fern jokes about it.” She gave me a mischievous glance. “Haven’t you noticed?”
Did she mean Victor Lustig? My head ached. I don’t get migraines, just a throb twice as bad. It saves itself for moments like this.
“Fern says you’re a true divvy.”
Good old Fern. I looked across. Delia’s pal was just swinging her golf club. The screen’s computer registered the ball’s thud and said she’d sent it 109 yards near a bunker. The landscape changed. I wonder about golfers. I think it’s a terrible ailment. Fern had seemed pretty normal until now.
“Not me,” Mrs Oakley said quickly. “Golf’s so obsessional, isn’t it? Fern saw you once in Wimbledon at an antiques auction. We were wondering if you were free for lunch at the Boulevard, Deck Eight.”
The Boulevard was an ultra-smart restaurant and you needed to book. It never closed, had special wines and was for late owls wanting quiet.
“Er, I’m pushed for time.”
“Please try.” She smiled. I weakened. “We shan’t talk golf.”
“Noon, then?”
I finished my trudge and came on Lauren looking for me on the Promenade Deck. Her eyes were red and bulbous. I told her Mangot’s news.
“I heard, Lovejoy. Poor Mr Semper.”
“How big’s that store room?”
After all, it had to be emptied, presumably t
o house the stolen art treasures of the Hermitage, right? Or something had. Mind you, a ship is a massive place.
She looked at me. I thought, do women who wear specs cry less than those who don’t? She kept trying to slide a tissue up underneath the rims to blot her tears.
“Henry wanted more space, to bring furniture aboard. Mr Mangot did the arranging. Henry was so cross. He had to send most of the antiques back in the same van. It was outrageous. They were lucky to get Henry to agree to… to everything. He’s not appreciated.”
“Why didn’t you go with him?” And explained, “To hospital.”
“He wanted me to stay and complete the contract. He isn’t a rich man, Lovejoy.”
Lauren and Henry. Lovers, or disciple and teacher?
“When did he go?”
She wept then. An elderly couple strolling arm in arm looked daggers at me, wanting to ask what kind of a sick swine did I think I was. I smiled weakly.
“I’m so frightened, Lovejoy.” She stared out at a distant freighter heading past towards civilisation. “Henry tried to get us off in Warnemunde but Mr Mangot wouldn’t give permission.”
“Frightened of what?”
“Henry said he would forego his fees if we could be allowed to fly home. They said no. I would have gone with him, Lovejoy.” She eyed me, worried I would be cut to the quick at the revelation. “He and I were … He’s never had a really good woman, you see. Women take advantage of him. I would rescue him. He needs me. The money from this cruise was going to be our nest-egg, to make a new start.”
“And Mr Mangot?”
“Henry said we should escape before we reach Russia.”
“Escape?” I made out I was gormless. “From this cruising paradise?”
“He told me something horrid would happen in St Petersburg.”
“Did he say what?”
“No. They wouldn’t let me see him when he became ill. I tried phoning, but the Danish hospitals say he’s not there.”
“Look, Lauren. Can I be excused this evening’s dinner quiz? I’ll ask Mrs Milestone to do it with you.” I thought of Henry Semper alone in his ward.
Ten Word Game Page 23