S.O.S. (18 page)

‘Mister Johnson – he's the American – been in practically every single night throughout the cruise. Bourbon man. Haven't seen the other one before. Must just have joined us,
I think. You're new on board too, aren't you? I'm Sammy, by the way. ‘Your barman for the evening'.'

Sammy had strung up great big inverted commas around that last bit and later lit them because God – look at her: even younger than Jilly and me, could be. Quite glad she asked for just a Coke, actually, because although we're told not to be
too
 – you know, officious or anything about all the sort of age thing on board, nor are we meant to actually, um – what did they say? Encourage or condone drinking by … not that I think she
is
a minor, not now I properly look at her. Could even be twenty, I suppose. Hard to tell, with girls. Got a lovely face. Great eyes. Can't actually see much more of her from where I'm standing (I missed her approach – just suddenly she was sitting there) and it's funny – well,
it's
not funny, no – it's me, I suppose, who's funny about, oh – this sort of thing because although I'm obviously, well – you know,
interested
, as in she's a
girl
, and everything (although she's not looking at me, or anything – hasn't even told me her name … but then why would she? Her barman for the evening) … but I'm not, if you know what I mean,
interested
interested because, well – you know perfectly well why, I expect. It's Jilly, isn't it? Yeh – it's Jilly who really consumes me now. Jilly, basically, is all I think of. That, and the future. And I know I've been a bit of a
drag
to her, lately (I hate it, actually, when I have to tell her what to do – but
someone's
got to, haven't they? Care for her?), but she'll see, she'll see one day that all this saving and stuff will be really worth it because some young couples, you know – they just sail on into a life together with absolutely
nothing
behind them – and God, everything's so fantastically expensive these days and rent's just a joke – I mean, completely
crazy
(anyone with half a mind can surely see that) and so if there's going to be any hope at all of scraping together a deposit on even a one-bed flat (and my Dad – he's great, my Dad – he said he'd help all he could) well then we've just got to, haven't we? Knuckle down and salt away anything we can. That's why this ship is so great I think, actually – there's nothing really here to spend money
on:
and it's piling up quite nicely, now – even the interest's not too bad. She will – Jilly will, one day, see that I'm right. Because I
am
right – I am.

She generally comes in for a drink – see how I am, before I close up the bar for the night. But she hasn't – not this evening, she hasn't, no. Still – she put in a fair old shift herself, didn't she? Just earlier. Must be tired. She's not a bad little worker, I have to give her that. Like my Mum, one way: a really great mate.

Maybe she's gone to bed.

*

Jilly was still wandering about the cabin, trailing her (God – just look at them, Rollo kept on thinking) long and maybe, who knows – could be – ice-cool fingers along the length of shiny maple surfaces, sometimes over the smoothness of steel.
God
, she kept on breathing, in some kind of awe – and Rollo sort of didn't mind, just loved watching her – and then came her maybe ironic variations on
God
, how the other half does live: stuff like that. I'll let her go on with it, whatever it is she's doing, for … well, as long as she likes, really (well how do you go about, actually, stopping girls from doing anything? They always seem to know exactly how they feel and then they just go for it – and at times like that all you really are is in the way). So yeh – for as long as it pleases her, then – or, until I can't any longer not just, oh Christ –
touch
her.

Really thought I was going to hate this trip – stuck on a boat with Mum and Dad – but so far, I got to say, it's actually not too bad. And could be maybe about to get a whole lot better – but with girls, like I say, it's bloody hard to know; I mean – I'm thinking one thing (yes I am – hotter and hotter) but Jilly, well – she could be thinking some other bloody
thing altogether, couldn't she? If she's even thinking at all. On the other hand – she didn't come here, did she, just to admire the fixtures and fittings …? Or maybe that's
exactly
what she's done (girls maybe could?). It's just so hard to know – and they're never going to
tell
you, are they? All I
do
know is that she said that her cabin was no good (no good? No good for what?) because she shared it with two other girls, OK, both chambermaids or whatever they call these things – and it was anyway so far down the boat as to almost be scraping the bottom. And no – can you believe? –
window
, or anything, and hot as hell. She laughingly outlined what I think was meant to be this really grim image of the three of them crammed into a dark little booming cupboard – but all my mind ran to, I got to admit, was the orgy potential, here. Guys will get this – guys I hang around with, anyway (and particularly Zimbo – yeh, oh God, particularly him); you just get this vision, don't you, of three giggling girls in not much more than bras and stuff just putting on make-up and maybe occasionally (Christ) swiping each other with pillows and rolling around on each other's beds – and if the other two are looking anything near as good as Jilly (and in my mind they're already fucking ace) … well wow.

‘Shame,' said Jilly, ‘we don't have any
music
, or anything …' She was flicking from one TV circuit to the next, impatiently stabbing the rubber buttons. ‘Same old usual crap … oh God, actually –
this
is amazing. Oh yeh – this is what Thing was talking about. You seen this, Rollo? That's this ship, that is – that's exactly what we look like now, right this minute. Look: amazing, isn't it?'

Rollo sat next to her on the bed and peered at the none too clear and pitifully tiny black-and-white image on the screen. (Why, was in his mind, are we watching television, now? Misread this, then, have I? It's the bloody TV she's come to watch …)

‘What is it? Boat, is it? We should have brought back some drink.'

‘Don't you see? That's the front bit –
prow
, pretty sure, of the
Transylvania
, us, right this very second. Bow, maybe. They've got this camera on the bridge – video camera, yeh? Sammy told me this – never actually seen it before. And night and day it films the progress of the ship. Pretty romantic, actually. God … it all looks so black …'

Rollo was busy now rootling around in one of the many maple cupboards.

‘There's a
fridge
, here. Oh great. Now let's just have a look …'

‘And see those white things? They're waves, massive waves – Christ, it's actually pretty frightening …'

‘We've got, what's this …? Half-bottle of champagne. ‘Hide-seek'. That's German, isn't it? Anyway. And vodka. Vodka OK, Jilly?' Let it be OK, Jilly, because I can't actually get into some fuzzy picture of just about bugger all. Also, I'm
tired
, if you want me to be honest – and if we're not actually going to, you know –
do
anything, well then I'd pretty much like to get a bit of sleep. ‘Vodka, yeh? And there's some orange. Or tonic.'

‘Oh
yeh
!' went Jilly. ‘Vodka – great. Funny – I was pretty knackered just a bit back. Don't feel a bit tired, now. Let's have a
party
, Rollo, yeh? Shame about no bloody
music
, though …'

And Rollo thought he'd risk it (still got a bloody silly grin plastered right across his face, though – just in case it all goes wrong).

‘We can make,' came his all-purpose, quasi-transatlantic and sideways drawl, ‘our
own
music …' And he shoved at her a vodka and orange, and as she giggled (thank you, Christ) he tacked on: ‘Can't we?
Baby
…' And nor did she seem to stop this giggling of hers, even as she glugged down vodka: her lips were smeared with orange. Rollo noticed this as he took the glass from her – and although the
vague intention had been to slowly incline his body down, and then bring both his lips to rest with warm insistence full square upon hers, his eagerness to get done and out of the way this now-or-never lust-charged swoop pretty much guaranteed that Jilly would – yeh, right now, bugger it – move her head just out of focus – not in any way, it surely seemed, by way of any bluff to avoid him, or anything, but simply in order to register what on earth it was, this latest shifting in the air. She came right back, though, and kissed him hard – and squeezed hard too, deep into each of his cheeks until he thought through the orangey bitterness that maybe his tongue or eyes could pop right out. His arms, of course, were still spread wide in glider formation – one drink hanging awkwardly from each of his hands, and his bent-double back was bloody well frankly killing him, here; otherwise, considered Rollo, all of this had really gone rather well. The initial and vital disengagement was eventually brought about – largely due to the increased urgency of Rollo's signallings (widening his eyes – the jiggling of lips and the waggling of his drinks) being finally taken on board by a seemingly reluctant Jilly: good sign, oh sure – but it wasn't her back, was it, on the point of breaking?

The glasses Rollo dumped just anywhere – and now he came right back next to her (her arms and eyes were so wide open). His dry-mouthed desire seemed huger than the whole of him, and although the rush of warmth on collision sent up a jerk of shock into the dull blunt booze-thick throb just right bang in there between his temples, it was his eyes that bulged the largest (he could effectively see them, rounded and protruding, jostling for space with lumps of cheek and nose) and his yard-long, flat and pink-cold hands were pawing and grabbing and then moving on fast, burnt by heat and frantic for just all of it – coming down hard on any stray flank whose curve was poised on making a break for it. This first-night performance was hardly even akin to his one thousand two hundred and sixty-seven (and rising)
full undress and lone rehearsals – so many dark and damp-sheeted hot blankets of time to have fine-tuned all this to a sweet-pitched crescendo. And now as Jilly squirmed beneath him and gasped, all Rollo felt was, yes – too large and inept, but nonetheless all over and around this thing (excited to the point of stripped-down white fear – just a seed of it booming, before it was muted and large).

Jilly's whole face twitched and stirred and then climbed out from under him, panting for air and more, thin thongs of her hair whipping across the two of them, and clinging to her lips. She was scrabbling at Rollo's clothes, and so now was he.

‘Get them …' she whispered with urgency, ‘ …
off
 – get all this …!'

Rollo groaned as his chest coped with all this air it just wasn't getting.

‘
God
yes – off, getting them … I'll –
Christ
, Jilly …'

‘
Do
it, Chrissake – where's the – ?'

‘Can't seem to … fucking
thing
. Jesus – I can't do the – '

‘Fuck's
sake
, Rollo – where's the – ?'

‘I think – God your tits are
fantastic
 – it's gone round the bloody back – I can't seem to – !'

‘
Do
it!
Do
it! Oh God – get this
done
, Rollo!'

‘I'm
trying
. Oh shit. Oh there! That's got it.'

‘
God
, Rollo … Want
fun
…!'

‘Yeh. I'm … uh! Uh! Oh heaven – oh God. Uh!'

‘I want – !'

‘Mm. Mm. Mmmm. Oh!'

‘Rollo!'

‘
Eurrrrgh
…'

‘Rollo?'

‘Ah.'

Jilly shifted beneath the weight of him, skewing her head over sideways. And as his husky, deep and heartfelt breathing throbbed in her neck, Jilly unstuck some of her skin from his and closed her eyes and opened them. The black-and-white picture sizzled at her, as the great ship's prow continued to plough through the vast and silent, inky sea – and there to each side of us, spatterings of white, falling away.

*

‘In America… you know,' clarified David, ‘where we're going … well, where you
live
, of course. New York, right?'

Dwight nodded long and hard.

‘Affirmative. Yes sir. Sure do. You know what I'm thinking, Dave? I maybe gotta get me some shut-eye, yeah? I ain't asleep soon, Charlene she's gonna come right up and knock me out.'

‘One for the road?'

How many times, David was still just about capable of wondering, have I said that in my life? Jesus – the number of drinks I've had for the road – they'd flood the bloody M
1
from London to Birmingham. (Plus, while we're counting: how many times did I make that very trip, and a good way beyond, my hands unaware of whatever it was my feet might be up to, while my head was floating free like a balloon, jauntily tied on to the wing mirror with a torn-off unravelling of streamer?) Because that was the awful thing – in the old days, a drink for the road bloody well meant just that (drive? I couldn't even
walk
). Come reeling out of the pub or whatever, jangling the car keys – drop them, but of course (tinkle, crash – vanished, gone) – fall to my hands and knees and scrabble around in the rain-filled tarmac puddles as other bloody idiots stumbled over and around me, cackling and gurgling, and suddenly I'd think Jesus, where in hell am I? And then I'd set to asking myself how it has come to pass that I am kneeling in the dark in the middle of a wet and icy could-be car park:
lost
something, have I? And if so, what exactly? Let's just lie down for a moment and mull it all over. And then maybe my head
would collide with the fob of keys, and all would be bright white clarity – soon opaque and heavy as I corkscrewed to my feet and the whole world shied away from me as some bloody joker hoisted askew the car park at the edge somewhere and tried to slide me off it. Then I'd fall into the side of my car (my car? Looks like my car – same sort of colour) and stab the key all over the door and then clack it into the window a couple of times and then I'd form a sort of a funnel with one of my hands around the handle and guide the key through that while keeping just the one hot and engorged eye on the whole proceeding (the other one too busy alternating between larking about and closing down) while occasionally getting my shoulders to pull themselves together and not keep slithering down the car – maybe intent on keeping some long-standing appointment with those lead-clad ankles, there. Swing open the door after days and seasons (maybe seconds) and tumble bruisingly inside and slam the bugger shut and feebly grope about for that thing we fool around with and click into a buckle, can't even think what the bastard's called, while knowing of course that here is ambition gone wild so let's just start her up, shall we, and cruise on home. Mmm – I'm driving well tonight, very smooth, very cool. There in no time. (Christ Almighty! See that mad bastard with the flashing lights and honking his fucking horn?! Get us both killed.)