Executive Purser Mangot had a hanging judge’s face on him. I wasn’t worried. Things seemed better than they had been since I’d come aboard, now I had a few clues of my own.
“Lovejoy. I sent for you to say you’re to do two things.”
He stood, coming round his desk. I realised how big he was. We were the only two people there. He fisted me in the belly with a swinging blow so I whoomphed double and fell. I found myself kneeling on the carpet when the room came back. I thought, what the hell have I done wrong? If they only told me, I’d stop it.
“You listening?” he said, quite conversational, and sat himself with his feet up on the desk. I hate people who do that. Another reason I hated Mangot: he never looked at me, only somewhere about my throat. I’d noticed he was the same with other folk. Some actresses do it too. There’s one on that ITV soap. Makes you wonder what they’re hiding, avoiding your eyes like that.
“Yes.”
He tipped his fingers together, the way headmasters always did before they gave you a good belting. The threatener’s gesture. I never get away unscathed when people do it. Real killers don’t need to be quite so showy. I mean Big John, or Daffy from Liverpool who did that Midland paedophile who was released from prison, or Gerbil who does crispers – translated, means he burns houses of drug dealers and the like – for Glasgow and Liverpool folk, for a small fee. (Actually 1200 zlotniks; I’m always amazed they can do it so cheap; supply and demand, I suppose.)
He looked smug. I felt sick and slumped on the only other chair. Sweat never comes when you want it, only when you start to recover. God made us wrong. That morning from the ship’s rail I’d watched a shark, and wondered how come that God had told the Great White Shark only to eat warm-blooded creatures like mammals – like, in fact, me. Had God never heard of fish, for Christ’s sake? I added inappropriate sweat to my life’s grouses.
“You’re causing trouble.”
“Eh? I’ve done no such…” Did he mean Lauren’s pathetic little scam with the antiques she brought round on Henry Semper’s say-so? “The antique business?”
“Yes.” He straightened, his heels thumping to the floor as he leaned threateningly over the desk. (Real killers don’t do this either. They don’t need histrionics, just an occasional glance.) “Trying to speak to the captain. And you’ve bubbled Henry’s scam with the passengers, Lovejoy. Stop it.”
“Stop it? But the stuff is utter crud. I wouldn’t pay for their fakes in tap washers.” I realised I was being too mouthy, and instantly stooped into my grovel. “If you say so.”
“In future, Lovejoy, you’ll say Henry Semper’s antiques are genuine and great value for money. Understand?”
“Look,” I managed to say.
He shook his head. “The word you’re looking for is…?” He spelled it, “Y…E…S. Got it?”
I nodded.
“Say ‘Yes, Purser.’ Go on.”
“Yes, Purser.”
“If you don’t, Lovejoy, you shall have to take the consequences when we reach St Petersburg.”
He spoke briefly into a phone, just numbers, replaced the receiver. I knew I was to stay until dismissed. I tried to uncrouch but my belly doubled me up. Sweat started at last. I was soon drenched. Ta, God. Late but eventually good value. God must be a Yank. The pain faded.
“Hello, James.”
“June.”
She entered, taking in the scene. She’d once seen me battered by the Brummy circus – you’ll have seen these, a team of antique dealers who go about the country mob-handed, taking over auctions by bullying. Auctioneers help them, of course, because otherwise the honest old public might have to be fairly treated. She knew the signs, and gave Mangot a quick glance. It lacked sympathy. Smart lass, June Milestone. They say there’s no more desperate competitors than TV presenters on walk-talk shows. They’ve got to be fast on their feet to survive the cut-throat rivalry. Like, between June and Henry Semper?
“Lovejoy, sod off, you corrupt little pissant.”
Holding my stomach, I left. Luckily, there wasn’t a soul in the corridor. Out there I leant against the photo display of the ship’s staff. The door didn’t quite close. I stayed silent, and heard Mangot speak to June as if she were a minion.
“Time you earned your keep,” he said. I heard his heels thump to the floor. Changing positions while giving orders seemed to be his thing.
“What do you mean?” Defensive. “James, I’ve done everything – ”
“That pillock’s causing ripples. We brought him aboard on your say-so. It’s up to you to keep him quiet.”
“Not just me, James! It was all agreed.” No indignation there. Mere submission from the great June Milestone the TV darling?
“Do as you’re told and we’ll all get on. Do what you have to to keep him in order. Understood?”
“Yes, James.”
“Okay. Find Amy and her tame pillock, tell them I want them.”
“Yes, James.”
I just made it to the Atrium, where luckily only a few passengers frolicked, all too busy to notice me. I sat, feeling ashen. I badly wanted fluid, but didn’t dare ask for a drink in case it made me worse. I tried to doze, hunched in the armchair, a picture of yet another idling passenger slumbering to music. One or two stewardesses paused to ask if I wanted some tipple or other, then smiled and went on, leaving me to recover.
Grudges, I find, are hard to keep up. However, Mangot would have to go. I can forgive anyone who acts on principle. Like, women scrap with supermarket managers, on a matter of principle. And, a bloke has to defend his righteousness, whatever it is based on. Mangot had to defend his ship’s reputation. Just as I could forgive Lauren’s ignorance – she was standing by her dishonest boss, duped by his dazzling popularity.
Another point of principle: if everybody else is allowed to have principles, then me too. Mangot had ordered me to betray my divvy gift. I simply don’t do it. The pig had stepped over the line separating right from wrong. I’m no saint. But think of those wondrous inventors and artists like Josiah Wedgwood, who studied all their lives to get the right glaze on a humble pot, exactly the right look to a painting, the perfect setting for some gemstone, the most dazzling colours in an embroidery. How many hundreds of thousands across the centuries gave their lives for perfection? Now Mangot was making me betray every single one.
When I’ve had to, I’ve betrayed people. Everybody’s done it. You, me, him, her, we deceive lovers, husbands, wives. Some are trained – I’ve already said how I appreciate lawyers in my own special way, and politicians never give a straight answer on anything. Other folk are forced into betrayal. Most of us assume we’ve a right to do a bit of treachery when we think it’s fair. Like when somebody dies, and friends and families gather to pretend grief and eye up the spoils after the “ham butties and slow walk,” as Lancashire folk call a funeral. Ever seen a contented heir? There’s no such thing. Everybody thinks that Auntie Elsie snaffled those valuable Welsh dressers and Uncle Ernie’s priceless collection of glass paperweights. It’s just families doing their thing, and I can understand it and forgive.
Betray all the lovely people in history who ever stitched, drew, built, fashioned, shaped, carved, worked? I came to. My stomach felt sore. I kept burping, and there was June, smiling in the next armchair.
“Come on, Lovejoy,” she said, raising me. “Time to go gambling. Nothing takes your mind off a silly argument like a really good gamble.”
“Silly argument? Is that all it was?”
Slammed to my knees, threatened with… I hated to think that far. Experimenting, I slowly straightened. We started towards the casinos. They were two floors up. We went up in the lifts. Our progress was quite pleasant once I got moving. The sickly feeling began to fade. I was with a celebrity. Almost every passenger said hello to June. She moved among the people, saying hello and laughing at their quips. I felt a bit bad because I saw Ivy, wife of Billy the Kid ex-cop from my table, and had the distinct impression she wanted to speak. She withdrew and went quickly on when she saw I was with the great June Milestone, darting me a glance that shut me up. June was nodding affably to three blue-rinses, saying they could ask their questions at the tea-time lecture, because Henry Semper, poor darling, wasn’t really very well.
“I shall have to do it instead,” she said. They trilled laughs and said things like, “Splendid, June!” Crawlers. Worse than me.
We went to see people lose fortunes at roulette. I saw Holly playing blackjack with single-minded intensity. She won steadily. I saw no sign of Margaret Dainty. I wondered how not to snarl up Lauren’s antique scam at nosh time.
“There!” June exclaimed when the roulette session had been won, lost, drawn, or all of the above. “Now a bite to eat!”
She led the way. I pointed out she was going in the wrong direction.
“I don’t think so, Lovejoy,” she said demurely. June can be demure, but surely this wasn’t the time. There was something wrong. “Your cabin, I think?”
All cabins had electronic keys, plastic cards into a slot. Tea was laid on my small table. Who’d ordered that?
“There!” She kicked off her shoes and sat on the bed, curling her legs beneath her. If I try to sit like that I topple over. Women are different shapes. “I do hope the salmon has fresh cress.” She looked, and purred with satisfaction. “Yes! It isn’t fair to the salmon otherwise, don’t you think?”
Something was still not right. We sat and talked. I asked after Henry Semper, said sorry he was poorly. She said it was nothing to worry about.
And, miracle of miracles, we made smiles. She was just the same as when we’d been friends – note the past tense – so I was in paradise. June was always good at staying silent afterwards, and gave me time to slowly come out of the faint death that invariably follows. I don’t know why women don’t keep quiet for a bit, but mostly they do what they’ve seen women, heroines to trollops, do in the movies, light a fag and predict the butler did it or solve the plot. I blame Hollywood. Producers think movies need perpetual motion and constant yak. They forget love needs silences. June pretended to wake only when I stirred, which only goes to show how good she’d have been if she’d turned to acting. I wish I’d remembered that.
Thinking this, I realised what was wrong. This was a plot. She was simply doing as Mangot had ordered: Do what you have to do. For me, ecstasy is a complete entity and always perfect. Otherwise it wouldn’t be ecstasy, right? But I’d known June pretty well once. I roused, smiled, blessed her. We got ready.
“Mind if I come to your lecture?” I asked. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d said no, leave it, some other time.
She said fine. And I went. The theatre was crowded by people with notebooks. As they waited, they were all talking about passing through the Kiel Canal then Warnemunde, where we’d dock. A lady next to me asked if I was going ashore. “Lovely place,” she enthused, “but dreadfully expensive…” It seemed to be the passenger litany, that and staggering from one gargantuan nosh to the next.
I wondered if Margaret Dainty would be there. And if Mr Moses Duploy would make it. And if I might somehow get away.
June came on to warm applause. The talk started. It wasn’t bad, but I noticed she slipped things in to nark me. Twice she called a single turkeywork chair of the seventeenth century (no arms, wide seat, low straight-line back) a farthingale chair. It was never called so, not at first. Me and June used to have words about this. The farthingale was a lady’s dress with hooped whalebone used to spread petticoats and dress widely at the hips, creating a splendid impression as an elegant lady seated herself in a fashionable gathering. It became especially admired about James the First’s time. By then, the chair had been a standard piece of furniture in affluent households for donkey’s years. The “farthingale” chair’s name only became an antiques dealer’s term almost a century after the farthingale’s appearance. I swear June hid a smile as she said it a second time, riling me. She loves Windsor chairs, and made a great thing of them, but in the nineteenth century they were regarded as humdrum and lacking in fashion, more a kitchen or coffee-house chair than anything.
Delia Oakley and her friend Fern chatted with me as we left afterwards. We went to see the ship enter through the Kiel Canal’s massive sliding gates. This was Germany, so much nearer to St Petersburg. Secretly I decided if I was going to get thumped, bullied and enslaved, I wanted more details. They might be my only lifeline. I looked about hoping to catch June, but she was surrounded by admirers. I must have seemed surly to Delia because I didn’t say much. The countryside looked beautiful. Astonishing to see the vast Melissa gliding through the terrain, people cycling alongside and waving from footpaths.
Somebody said Warnemunde was just a quiet fishing village. It proved not quite so tranquil.