‘Ophelia – !’
‘I say, Basil old lad,’ I hissed in his ear. ‘There doesn’t seem much doubt this is the cue for your exit.’
‘I refuse to leave this cabin until I have had a proper explanation and apology,’ Basil went on, staring round wildly.
‘Right,’ said the Captain. ‘Mr Shuttleworth! Send for the Bos’n.’
‘Look here–’ began Basil.
But even then we had to call the Quartermaster and a couple of sailors to get the poor chap decently out of sight.
I must say, it struck me the idiot had made a first-class mess of his evening. Apart from anything else, it rather looked as though he’d gone and talked himself out of a nice cushy job to back among those boilers.
‘That’s one scene I’d never play again,’ said Basil bitterly. ‘Not for top billing in London and Broadway, I wouldn’t.’
‘A bit harrowing for you, I must say,’ I agreed, ‘not to mention the audience.’
It was about an hour later. I’d taken him straight down to the ship’s hospital, where I was still treating him with large gins.
‘But I can’t understand it! The last time I saw Ophelia she was so terribly sweet and loving.’
‘Possibly it was the shock of running into you like that. Unbalances the psychology sometimes.’
‘You’re absolutely sure you didn’t tip her off, or anything?’ demanded Basil.
I shook my head. ‘Not a word. Hardly know her, really. Just see her about the ship.’
He fell silent for a moment.
‘Quite a coincidence that you should be on board, too, Grim?’
I shifted slightly. ‘Tricks of fate, you know, tricks of fate.’
‘I mean, in London neither you nor I nor Ophelia knew we were all going to be in the same boat, if you follow me.’
‘It’s always pleasant to meet old friends unexpectedly anywhere.’
There was another pause.
‘It all confirms my darkest suspicions,’ said Basil.
‘Suspicions?’
He glared into his glass, looking like Othello coming to the smothering bit.
‘I fear, Grim, there is…well, what’s generally referred to in domestic drama as “someone else”.’
‘Oh, ah?’
‘Dear chappie!’ Basil burst out. ‘Do you know why I
really
came on this trip?’
‘To be near Ophelia–’
‘But that’s only half of it.’
He felt inside his white jacket, and produced the shipping brochure Ophelia had brought to the consulting room.
‘Look at this. The day Ophelia wrote about her new job, I spotted the thing in a travel agent’s up at Blackport. I expect you’ve read it?’
I nodded.
‘I’m not what you’d call an abnormally jealous type,’ Basil went on.
‘I certainly hope – I’m certain you’re not.’
‘Now I come to think of it, nobody is on the stage. Except about themselves, of course. And it’s not that I don’t trust Ophelia.’
‘No, of course not.’
‘But…well, she’s a highly attractive girl.’
‘Very,’ I agreed.
‘Of a warm and affectionate nature.’
‘I’ll say she – is she, indeed?’
‘Not to mention being highly susceptible to romantic surroundings.’
Odd, I’d never thought of that one.
‘But if she started dancing round the deck in the tropical moonlight with chappies in white dinner jackets – there’s a picture of them here – there’s no knowing what I’d… I mean, if anyone so much as laid a finger on her…’
It suddenly occurred to me what a big chap Basil was. Now I came to think of it, whenever he was behind with the rent in the digs he was always currying favour by hauling up the coals or shifting the landlady’s grand piano.
‘I suppose I should really be thoroughly civilised and understanding about it all,’ he added.
‘Often the best way in the end.’
‘I should simply retire with sadness and dignity.’
‘I think that would be terribly impressive.’
‘But I couldn’t. Not with anyone meddling with my little Ophelia. Instead, I’d break his rotten neck.’
I reached for the gin bottle.
‘Though Lord knows if I’ll ever see her again on board.’ Basil sadly replaced the folder. ‘That tyrant Shuttleworth will have something a damn sight worse up his sleeve than the firemen’s mess. It was a pretty good job up top, too, once I’d discovered the old boy wanted a glass of sea-water for his teeth at night, and so on.’
‘Look here, old lad–’
I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the poor fellow. I also couldn’t help feeling it might be a good thing to build up a little friendliness.
‘You just leave it all to me, Basil,’ I told him. ‘I’ll nip up to the Captain and simply say you were overcome with a sort of nervous breakdown, entirely due to overwork in his service. In a way it’s perfectly true, and I can blind him with a bit of science. Then perhaps they’ll fix you up with some quiet easy job somewhere on the strength of it.’
‘Dear chappie!’ He seized my hand. ‘Do you think it would work?’
‘Absolutely certain of it. After all, I’m the doctor.’
‘I’d be eternally grateful.’
‘No trouble at all, I assure you.’
‘Good old Grim!’ Actors are emotional birds, and for a moment I was scared he was going to have a jolly good blub. ‘Even those days in the dear old digs, I always knew one thing – I could count on you, at least, as a real true chum.’
‘Oh, tut,’ I said lightly.
All this really made me feel a stinking cad, of course. But I suppose taking to deceit is like taking to drink – after a time you get so full of it, you hardly notice a bit more. So I packed Basil off to the Glory Hole, adjusted my tie, and climbed again up all those stairs to the Captain’s cabin, preparing some sort of tale to pitch on his behalf.
I reckoned the party should have been over by then, and was rather surprised as I tapped on the door to hear a burst of female laughter inside.
‘Enter!’
There was the old boy tucking into roast chicken and asparagus, with a bottle of champagne at his elbow and Mr Shuttleworth himself in attendance. Sharing the binge with him was Ophelia.
‘Ah, Doctor! What have you done with that dangerous lunatic? Securely under lock and key, I hope? I should have known the feller was unbalanced. I remember now the peculiar way he kept snooping at me round corners.’
‘I hope I’m not interrupting anything sir?’ I remarked, shooting Ophelia a bit of a glance.
‘Not at all, Doctor, not at all. It is simply that I felt my appearance in the saloon might prove somewhat embarrassing after tonight’s events, and I decided to dine up here. This charming young lady kindly consented to share my simple meal.’
‘The Captain has been telling me the most absolutely thrilling things about the ship,’ said Ophelia. ‘Haven’t you, Captain?’
The Captain suddenly seemed to become all gold braid and medals.
‘It is the Master’s duty to answer his passengers’ questions, my dear Miss O’Brien. But perhaps for the first time in my life at sea I can say it is a positive pleasure as well.’ He raised his champagne glass. ‘By the way, Doctor, if you want to put that feller Beauchamp in a straitjacket, it is perfectly all right with me.’
I gave a little cough. ‘I agree, sir, the unfortunate man is slightly off balance mentally–’
‘You can say that again,’ murmured Ophelia.
‘But I assure you it’s only a temporary condition. It was the strain, sir, being over-conscientious about his work.’
Captain Spratt grunted.
‘If I might suggest, sir, he should continue with some simple job down below suitable for his limited mental capacities.’
He stroked his beard.
‘Oh, the poor thing’s perfectly harmless,’ said Ophelia suddenly. I didn’t know if she was beginning to feel sorry over the way she’d treated Basil, or merely beginning to feel drunk. ‘Give him some nice easy work, Captain, where he can fuddle along in his own little way.’
‘H’m.’
There was a pause.
‘Oh, very well, very well. Mr Shuttleworth!’
‘Sir?’
‘You heard that conversation. Put Beauchamp somewhere where he can’t come to any harm. Just see he won’t get under
my
feet, that’s all I ask. Thank you, Doctor. Good night.’
‘Bye bye, Doctor dear,’ said Ophelia.
As I left, I fancied they were just about to pull the wishbone.
The situation on board now struck me as reasonably under control. I felt that Basil had copped it so hard from Ophelia he’d left me free to oil my way back into her affections. And though the poor fellow had made a first-class idiot of himself, he’d probably done no worse out of his eruption than taking charge of the stewards’ wash-house. It seemed very satisfactory all round.
I was therefore rather shaken at lunch the following day to find the chap handing me my soup.
‘How the devil did you get here?’ I demanded.
‘The Chief Steward’s express orders, sir,’ replied Basil, wiping his thumb.
‘Chief Steward’s orders? But shouldn’t you be somewhere down among the entrails?’
‘The Chief Steward considered this post would be the most convenient not only for me, sir, but for everyone else.’
It was all that fool Shuttleworth’s fault. Working everything out carefully, he’d made Basil a saloon waiter on my table, so I’d be nice and handy in case he ran riot again.
‘Fish and chips,’ I told him, pretty tersely.
There seemed nothing to do but shoulder the situation.
I suppose Basil had been living, breathing and thinking a waiter all morning, but either his heart wasn’t in the part or through emotional strain he was losing his touch, because he gave a ruddy awful performance. He was passable on the ‘I-hear-personally-from-the-Chef-the-roast-beef-is-excellent-today’ business, but he got into frightful trouble trying to serve the boiled potatoes one-handed and having to chase them all over the table with his fork. Then he kept forgetting which door to the pantry was In or Out, the butter got stuck on the point of his knife, he had oranges rolling all over the deck like tennis balls, and on the whole it was a pretty miserable lunch.
And not only through Mr Shuttleworth’s bad casting.
A strange gloom had come over my eating mates, apart from their having run out of symptoms. In fact, a strange gloom had come over the whole ruddy ship. It was all the fault of Jeremy in the curly bowler and his devilish pals.
Anyone stumbling on a Capricorn Line poster through a London fog probably had to be physically restrained from selling up his home on the spot and buying a ticket for the next boat. And from that little brochure thing, a trip in a Capricorn ship made the seventh heaven of the Mohammedans like a walk in the park on a rainy Sunday afternoon. But when you come down to it, all passenger ships are just our dear old friend the English seaside hotel, with music in the palm court, thick and clear for dinner, and everyone’s favourite chair in the lounge. Except that in a seaside hotel you can always escape for a bit, for a nice bracing stroll all alone to the local at the end of the prom. And another thing. Those curly-bowler chaps had rather naughtily tended to stress sex in their advertisements, this being what people in England are most interested in, after a spot of sunshine, of course. Everyone came on board expecting to meet men like those coves in white dinner jackets or girls like Ophelia, and when they only saw the same people on the morning train to Town in their swimming-trunks, they began to feel they’d been rather done over the price of their ticket. This fell particularly hard on Mr Bridgenorth, who in forty years hadn’t found time to get married, and on Miss Miggs, who in forty years hadn’t been asked, particularly as they’d just discovered they both came from opposite ends of the same street in Dulwich.
‘No morning papers at sea,’ grumbled Mr Bridgenorth over the fish.
‘No telly,’ added Miss Miggs.
‘Can’t even sit on the deck in peace. Nothing but screaming kids and gossiping women and rope quoits hitting you in the neck every five minutes. You might as well be at the end of Southend Pier on August Bank Holiday.’
‘I can’t say I go for their six-course luncheons,’ sighed Mrs van Barn, who seemed to be keeping the most cheerful under the strain. ‘How do you imagine they get every single thing to taste like boiled knitting? I guess this refrigerated fish has been floating a darn sight longer on top of the ocean than underneath it.’
‘As for the faultless service – !’ cried Mr Bridgenorth, as Basil dropped Sauce Hollandaise down his lap.
‘Give the steward a break,’ urged Mrs van Barn amiably. ‘The poor guy’s doing his best. Aren’t you Steward?’
‘One endeavours to give satisfaction, madam,’ murmured Basil, briskly mopping Mr Bridgenorth.
‘Sure you do. Here, let me help. A drop of cleaner and a sponge and these pants will look better than new in no time.’
‘Thank you, madam.’
‘Why, you’re welcome, Steward. That’s what we’re here on earth for, isn’t it, to help each other?’
Basil, the wicked chap, gave a bit of a flutter to his eyelashes.
‘A most admirable philosophy, if I may take the liberty of saying so, madam.’
‘Say, isn’t he cute?’ Mrs van Barn smiled round the table. ‘What’s your name, Steward?’
‘Beauchamp, madam.’
‘No, I mean your first name.’
‘Basil, madam.’
‘Basil? Gee, that’s lovely. I can’t say I’ve ever known a man called Basil.’
‘Thank you, madam. Chips?’
I didn’t think much about this little
tête-à-tête
until we all trooped in for dinner. Our Mrs van Barn always managed to measure up to those advertisements in the
New Yorker
, but that night she appeared looking absolutely smashing in her best dress and best hair. She sat down and stared at Basil like something in Cartier’s window, and got him to bring her every item on the menu.
‘Say, let me show you how to do it,’ she volunteered, when the poor chap was struggling with those blasted potatoes again. ‘See here, it’s easy.’
We all admitted that Mrs van Barn was a pretty handy potato server. But after that she started helping Basil dishing out the duck, and what with her mixing the salad and sweeping up the breadcrumbs and fetching the butter from the table next door, people began to notice. Particularly Mr Shuttleworth, who went red in the face and hovered rather, but as Mrs van Barn had the most expensive suite on board he couldn’t do much about it.
And Ophelia noticed, too.