S.O.S. (23 page)

‘Yeh OK,' went Marianne – not at all minding (she had only made the offer because, she supposed, it maybe must be in her nature to do that sort of thing). ‘Dad OK?'

‘Your
father
…' exhaled Nicole, ‘ … is unconscious. Which is a mercy. God alone knows what time he finally rolled in. Amazing he found the cabin. Oh God
Almighty
, Marianne – I
was
about to ask of the heavens above if he's going to be like this throughout the whole of the trip, but I realize now that that would be just plain
stupid
of me, wouldn't it? Of
course
he is … oh God of
course
he is …'

Marianne could never dream of colluding with any new strain of Dad-bashing, so it was time to get off the line. Rollo she didn't ring; she didn't at all care to know what Rollo had been up to, and nor of the state he was in.

Despite this little sort of fold-out map thing she'd found among, oh – all sorts of glossy stuff in a big and shiny folder on her dressing table, Marianne was finding it really rather difficult to locate a door that actually led to the great outside. And this after she'd even spent quite some time
sitting there and studying the thing (up two floors, fairly sure, and then a left kind of dog-leg turn – not right, though, because right leads straight to the theatre (… God, they've got a theatre). Seems quite straightforward, I think. Right, then … oh wow look! There are postcards of the ship in here too: brilliant. And headed paper! God – does that mean you can post a letter from the ship? How's that work, then? How is the postman supposed to get to the middle of the Atlantic? And if he's already on board – well how does he get off? It's quite a puzzle, that. But then so many things
are
 – I keep on getting these sort of ‘Hang On' moments, you know? Like – when I ran my shower (and I had a bubble bath too – just couldn't resist) I thought: Hang On: how can there be hot water for every single cabin, all round the clock? How do they
do
that? Well – fresh water
generally
. Amazing. And don't even get me on to the
food
; last night alone I witnessed so much, oh God –
acres
of food and drink and chocolates and stuff, but presumably they've got just piles and piles of it left? It's like a floating town that you've just moved into and everyone's being perfectly
nice
, and everything, and while on the one hand you feel sure you'll settle in and be utterly happy here – with so much
plenty
, and all these pleasant people – you know that in a week (five-and-a-bit days, now) you'll be moving out and back into Realsville (well
relatively
; tell you one thing – getting
home
home, that's going to be the
real
shock, here).

She got there eventually: eventually she did. But in very slightly more than a vague sort of a way, it annoyed Marianne that she had had to resort to asking the way. Just as she was sure that the bright white light of morning was about to stunningly confront her, she had found herself stranded among a brassy clutch of still-shut-down boutiques, their windows stacked with such as sequined and strappy evening gowns (and your eyes could be knocked out by any colour you cared for) each of them sheathed in clear and heavy plastic and draped with a succession of toning
pochettes, most of which were easily capable of swallowing up a dispenser of artificial sweeteners, and just maybe one's tablets (because you can, you know, amid the whirl of, oh – just all the gaiety, simply forget to take maybe the heart one, or else the little triangular pink one that aids digestion – and goodness knows if you do, there's a price to pay: up all night and jittery, very).

‘I'm looking,' said Marianne to a stocky but still rather soigneée smiling woman, who was clearly having trouble with the louvred shutters on her bijou jeweller's shop, ‘looking for the, um –
sea
…'

The woman nodded brightly. ‘It's outside,' she said. ‘It's just outside.'

Marianne smiled uncertainly – not quite sure which of them had bagged outright the prize for being the most demonstrably stupid, here. She wandered away, hoping either to just find the
door
, God's sake, or else run into someone who could with confidence guide her there (and it would be nice if I'm not standing right bang beside it when this does actually happen, if ever it will). She paused a while to ferret out that little map thing (I just know I'm on the right floor – deck – so how hard can this
be
?). Two youngish American girls had idled along, and they sat down nearby (
think
they're American – their lips look quite like it).

‘So, on and
on
, you know?' went one of them, wearily. (Yeh – American.)

Their eyes looked pouchy – make-up impacted, mascara now more like a grievous stain: I don't think, thought Marianne, they've yet made it to bed.

‘Guys can be a real, like – downer?' the other assured her with sympathy, lightly touching her wrist. ‘You bet they can. It's real hard to luck out.'

‘But just like on and on and
on
, you know? Like it's always – Aw, c'mon, let me come into your
cabin
, come on babe – come on come on – let's get with your
cabin
, huh?
And I'm like I
told
you, John – my mother would
worry
. Why can't guys get that?'

‘They're, like –
guys
, right?'

‘I guess. But why can't they just
stop
already?'

‘Yeh
right
. Dream on, lady. So, like –
what
?'

‘Huh? Oh shit – in the end we go to
his
cabin, yeh? The way I figure it, let
his
mother do the worrying, right?'

Marianne wandered away in what just
must
be the direction. Oh look – this man will know, he'll be bound to. Got that lovely white shirt on with those black and gold, what are they, on-the-shoulder type things. Terribly smart. And he could be quite senior, too – must be about Dad's age, which I really rather like.

‘Yes, miss – absolutely. This door here – just here, yes?'

Marianne simpered at him her dopey gratitude. Yes of course – this door right here: the one I'm standing right in front of. Great. So let's just pull – is it push? Terribly stiff. Ah, it's pull – God it's a weight … and oh
God
! Oh
God
 – that first hit of the bright cold sparkle of all this outside world! The sea is all flecked – no, not flecked:
covered
with silver spangles, and the air is too much – just too much for my lungs to handle. And the sky – that light blue sky, with all those thin and wispy whitish veins – it's all around and over me. It feels so great: I'm glad to be here.

Marianne wrapped around her a PVC mac that had been slithering around all over her arm throughout the endless journey (and how many times was I thinking Oh God I so wish I hadn't
brought
the thing? Pleased I did now, though: she was right, that woman last night, whoever she was – you really do need it, no matter how bright the sun. She can keep the headscarf idea, though – I just love this wind, cuffing my face, dragging back all my hair by its roots, and making it stream).

My eyes are practically closed – these softly screaming, serious breezes and the dazzle of the sun are seeing to that – and as I put everything I've got into walking the walk, it is
as if some big and gentle outstretched palm is not quite insistently squashing me back, relenting only if I pout and doggedly persist. The deck is much broader than I thought it would be – and the rail, oh God: the rail that is all that keeps me from thousands of miles of ocean (lapping and flirtatious, now, it sort of seems – winking constantly) is so low and gappy and stuck quite regularly with red and white roped-up lifebelts. I'm not quite sure I dare look down. There's a bench just a little further on – slatted sort of backless bench thing. If I can make it there, I'll sit – sit awhile, yes. Five or so more struggled paces and yes, I'm here now – so I'll sit, like I said. Just sit for a bit. From here I can reach out and touch one of these really quite jaunty, I suppose they are, lifebelts (
SS TRANSYLVANIA
, it says on them – and yes I know that's where I am, what I'm on, but it's still quite a shock, somehow, to be told, like that). I'm leaning forward and peering down, now. It's then you get the speed. The water rushes by, and fans away into milk-white furrows to the side. Above my head (I've only just noticed) there's a lifeboat suspended: there are lots of them (enough?) strung the length of the deck. Think I'll, yes – think I'll walk again. Maybe work my way right up to the front.

Getting more used to it, now – the noise and the lash of the wind, all this spotlit sparkle – and I'm actually feeling quite suddenly hot. If I take off this coat, though, I think it will just roar and take flight; and if I just unbutton it, I just know it'll take right off with me inside it. Oh look … Couple. There's a couple, man and woman, right down there and coming this way. They've got Burberrys on and some sort of funny hats, can't quite see, and their arms are tightly linked. Togetherness, do we think? Or a cling-on safety measure? Maybe there could be here the underlying shadow of something more beastly – something on the lines of ‘I'm telling you, mate – if I'm blown to kingdom come by the next great buffet, then you, my love, rest quite assured,
are bloody coming with me!' No – I doubt that. How unkind. Even to think it.

And now they're near enough for me to see that they're grinning broadly, the both of them. Or maybe here is only a grimace (their mouths are caught in the teeth of a gale?). No, it's smiling, pretty sure, because they're nodding now, the two of them, because yes of course, we're all friends here – well
aren't
we? Yes we are, yes we are: that's the rule (all in the same boat). So I've got to call up and muster a good many of my features, now – change them all around until they form into a well-known phrase or saying that will speak unto any nation (because they could be from anywhere) that here is
greeting
 – simple yet electric – and here is too the handclasp of
oneness
.

Our mutual and lunatic contortions of complicity have collided like rubber-tipped lances at the business end of a friendly joust (I heard the clash of amiability) and soon they are behind me and I plod on forward and now I can tell you that what they actually had on their heads were his-and-hers
deerstalkers
(one Black Watch, the other the red thing) and the flaps were down and over their ears, the connecting ribbons lost to sight among scarves and chins and things like that. Was any of that actually
good
, I wonder? What do you think? The lance and jousting thing? Lunatic contortions? It's difficult to know, isn't it, with this whole imagery thing. But I really would like to read English at Uni, if ever I'm up to it. Be a writer, one day. Because I really love reading: just love it.

Now what's this? Oh hey – that's not fair – it's a barrier, a dead end, a great full stop. ‘No passengers allowed beyond this point at any time'. Well hell. How are you supposed to do all these healthy circuits of the deck, then, if you can't actually, you know – walk
round
the thing? Oh God. Better turn back, then. God oh God! Now the wind is
really
slicing me and I'm suddenly freezing, if I'm honest. Maybe I'll go back in. If I meet those raincoated loonies coming all the
way back at me, then I'll go in for sure (can't do that grin all over again).
If
, of course, I can find the door …

Can't. Can't see any doors at all (so here we go again). And the Siamese twins seem to have blown away altogether – so let's just see what happens at the back of the thing, shall we? God, it is, you know – it's simply endless, this ship. Which is, I know, a tragic way, really, of trying to describe it:
not
endless, is it? (well no, not – I'm actually standing right at the end now, so very much not, then). But what else, really, can you say? Very
big
? Doesn't hit the mark at all. But I'll have to be getting it across
somehow
because Mum and Dad are never going to be doing all this for themselves, are they? As soon as she even smelled the
suspicion
of wind, Mum would be clutching her hair and just
gone
(or else giving way to a nervous breakdown); and Dad would just sniff it all briefly and say Hm, very nice, Marianne – very, uh –
fresh
: now what say we all go back in and have ourselves a little
drink
, hey? And Rollo? Oh
please
…

It seems to broaden out quite suddenly, when you get to the back (which it
doesn't
, obviously – but it really does appear to) and there are now all sorts of other decks, mini decks, a bit fanned out above and below you. Loads of lounger-type deck chair things all lined up down there – and a maybe little tennis court, could be (there's a net there, anyway). Actually, despite all the vastness, everything here seems terribly weeny, rather surprisingly. I mean – look at that swimming pool: bit pathetic. Not really much bigger than the hot tubs alongside. One of which has a – urgh – very bald man in it, bobbing up and down like a hardly boiling egg. Who of course is now smiling up at me, and soon he is raising a hand from amid the pulsating bubbles.

‘Don't mind Harry!' calls out a woman, who Marianne had not even noticed standing alongside. ‘It's only Harry. Don't mind
him
.'

Marianne slapped back on her usual half-baked smile; am
I meant, then, in some way to
know
this Harry? Am I? Know all about him?