S.O.S. (27 page)

‘Oh my God I'm so terribly
sorry
!' rushed out an appalled and practically winded Jilly. ‘Oh God I'm right sorry, you two – are you OK? God – so sorry …' She had the flat of her hand across her chest, and was using the pause to gulp down air. ‘I'm just so terribly late for my shift – at the bar, yeh? And Sammy'll just kill me. Look – I've got to go. I'm really awfully – !'

And Suki and Stacy, alternately and together, collaborated on a series of hissed-out and hushed OK-type noises, while fingers briefly touched forearms in a soft and sisterly show of warm reassurance. But they giggled as Jilly tore away and hurtled onward – and Yes oh
sure
, thought Jilly (really quite bitterly): it's all OK for
them
, isn't it?
Totally
fine. All with rich daddies and servants like bloody
me
to attend to their every sodding desire. God – if
they
had to spend twelve hours a day pouring out bloody drinks and being
nice
to people, they'd have a bloody breakdown; Daddy would have to send them to Switzerland or stick them in
therapy
. Ever
I've
been in trouble – up against it – all my Dad says is Think On, Lass: Aye – Think On.

‘Sammy – Sammy don't! Don't be horrible. I'm
sorry
 – OK?'

Sammy had been polishing glasses (it's one of the things I do, polish glass; but look, way I see it – means to an end, right?). Still couldn't resist, though, an extra twist of his wrist as he did it (quick look down – not too quick – take in the watch face) – and even, by way of possibly overdoing the thing, a pointedly casual glance over there and up at the clock (tricked out as a sunburst, it was, and ticking with menace and thuddingly at Jilly).

‘It's OK! …' said Sammy – with such nonchalance, he nearly – in his laid-back ease – fell over backwards. ‘Oversleep, did you? I would've buzzed down, but …'

‘Yeh,' agreed Jilly, quite eagerly – making a big show now
of moving stacks of glasses from where they should be, and equally purposefully back again. She would have twisted slightly the necks of all the neatly ranked bottles of beer, so that their various and colourful labels were facing full-frontally, and precisely aligned – but Sammy, of course, had already seen to all that; it had been he, indeed, who had taught her the habit (Takes no time at all, he said – you can do it in your sleep, but it improves the look no end). ‘Long night,' she tacked on – immediately wishing she could bite it back: damn, oh bugger – why'd I have to tack on that? ‘What I mean is – early night, had an early night – so shattered – and I think that's often the way, don't you? Sometimes you sort of have
too
much sleep and then it's even harder, isn't it? Sammy? You get that ever? To – you know: get yourself going in the morning.' Don't let him think – allow him no moment to ponder all that. ‘
So
 – anyway. I'm here now – so get yourself off, hey? Well-earned rest, yeh?'

Sammy just nodded. Seemed to be thinking, anyway: could be he was even pondering all that. Eventually – after a couple of eternities, it surely seemed to Jilly (I don't know why – can't quite pinpoint it – but with Sammy here as well as me I feel exposed, very) – he laid down his glass cloth, and passed both his flat palms down the sides of his trouser legs.

‘OK,' he said. Easily? Warily? Ask her – she couldn't tell you, honestly didn't know. ‘Usual, later? Four-ish?'

Jilly dearly wished she had something to do – some stupid task upon which she could firmly bolt just some of her stray and flapping hands, a point of concentration to which she could bend and apply herself. Why doesn't anyone want a bloody
drink
? Usually, this time, they're all of them clamouring – so why not bloody
today
?

‘Yeh …' said Jilly, quite lightly. ‘Well maybe. Probably – yeh. Well – one or things to … but yeh – don't see why not.
Four-ish, yeh. But if I'm a bit late or I don't, well – you know.'

Why actually, Sammy, don't you just go now? Hm? Your shift finished way over half an hour ago. Normally you don't, do you – linger? Hang about? So why are you bloody
today
? Ah but
now
, actually, thought Jilly (and some dull weight that had been at once so dense yet impossibly floating somewhere within her – filling her up while maybe mulling over just where and when and how suddenly to drop – was rapidly coming, she knew, to a harsh decision and right now had gone for it) … nothing really matters to me, Sammy – whether you go or whether you stay – because look, Jilly didn't know how convincing she had been in her lack of conviction that anything here was odd or prickly or out of the way, and nor could she have said how tinny or plangent was the peal of any alarm bells she might have unwittingly tripped – but now as Rollo continued his easy progress towards the bar, the air around all of them was set to thicken, and mists could maybe descend.

‘Hi,' said Rollo, lifting himself up on to a bar stool.

And for that, at least, Jilly was truly grateful. He had said Hi, Rollo: Hi. Rollo had said Hi, just Hi, and nothing more. Good. It was a start (which could, of course, be half the trouble).

Rollo smiled at Jilly. Is that what he did? Yeh – in Jilly's admittedly somewhat fevered judgement it had come over as no more than that. And yes I'm
right
, look – because now he's smiling that smile over in Sammy's direction, and to me there's no change (a smile is just a smile, isn't it?). So maybe I'll just say, er … what shall I say? Must say something, and must do it now, because if I don't – say something, say something – yes, if I don't right this minute say something quickly, then someone else, well – they're
bound
to, aren't they? And what they say could be the wrong thing! So I'll charge through the possibility of that, will I now?

‘Hi. Jilly. Your barmaid for the afternoon. What can I get you?'

And
please
don't put on any sort of a knowing, and please God not a lascivious expression.
Please
don't react as if here is some sly invitation to gnaw at and broaden some hint of secret suggestion – and
please
can you neutralize your beautiful eyes so that there cannot rise up even the faintest hot aroma of a hotter complicity? (If I could put it into words, both my fear and thrill-tinged yearning, then this is maybe how I would.)

‘Just a halfa lager, please,' said Rollo, quite happily. ‘Hell of a thirst.'

Jilly rushed to attend to that (not only can I turn my back, but there's something now to do!) – and while she was watching the more white than golden Heineken splatter down into the glass, she kept her fingers poised lightly on the tap while glancing sideways and simpering to Sammy: ‘OK?' Which meant – Are You Off, Then? And not: Are You All Right With This? Which Actually Isn't A This: It's Honestly Nothing, Really. And not, most
certainly
not: How Am I Doing? Maybe Cool? Or Messing Up Badly?

Sammy may not have looked at Rollo (now hunched over the lager before him and apparently intent upon its depths). He may not even have looked at Jilly. But he did turn away – slip off his bar jacket, pick up his own. And then he wandered away, strolling as if on a country ramble the length of the pub to the very farthest tables – and then he turned and was out of it. And whether Jilly had been looked at or not could scarcely matter now (although still she was feeling drilled right through). Because quite suddenly – Rollo was staring full at her: now their eyes had locked – so nothing could matter at all, now, not a single bit. Her hands rushed to cover his – which lay there softly curved like paws – and only then did her eyes quickly dart about furtively, to check whether anyone had witnessed them doing so. And if they had, well so what? This too – even this –
could not matter less. Exciting, mm, but also – so much sudden letting go, it's scary too: scary, yes it is. And exciting, mm.

‘Last night,' she whispered, ‘was just the
best
.'

Rollo let his struck-open eyes do all the nodding for him. Yes it was. The best. Had to be, really. On account of, for Rollo, it was also the first. The very first, yes oh yes. I didn't tell her. Didn't say so. Maybe she would've liked it, who's to say? Certainly it might have explained away a good deal of my initial, uh – urgency, yes: urgency. But girls were funny, everyone knew that; well
men
did, anyway: somehow, always with you was at least that one small certain nugget of absolute knowledge, so terribly deeply ingrained. And maybe if I'd, you know – just looked sort of down and whispered Listen, Jilly – listen: stop ripping up my clothes for just a second and listen to me, OK? This is … God, I just can't
tell
you what this is, this means to me, Jilly – because this
thing
, right? Is my first. Well … if I had – just say I had said that, what would she have done? Taken it as a gift? Would her fingers have touched my face so gently, straying away to softly probe the weary pouch beneath one of my eyes, as maybe a full fat and ready-rounded tear welled up in her own, before it burst its banks and ran away? Or could she have maybe come close to snarling? Whole face twisted up into a Who's My Ickle Baby Boy, Then, cruel and nasty smirk, before laughing lightly and saying not to worry and promising then with quite cheap irony that, yes, she'd be oh-so gentle with me? You never know – not with girls, you don't. And further – at a tender time like this one, you don't want to be extending the boundaries of your vulnerability, already rubbed raw and nearly livid. Do you? So better, I think, I just stayed quiet and got it done. Which I did, oh God yes; and not even counting the first disaster (well – disaster for her, I had gauged by her sighing; for me, that sweet intensity and full charged rush of it made me lame and made me powerful) –
I got it done it must have been three or four times, must have been all of that – yes it was, it was, at the very least three, it really must have been. (And after her gasps and choked-out rasping, there had come from her a sighing of a different order.)

Someone at a table down there was very much requiring some service – Jilly could see this clearly (the man was contorting his upper body sideways, one finger poised if not yet flying, and the jerked-up eyebrows were practically hitting his hairline). Jilly was very aware of all of this, but she just had to do her best to ignore it for now because the thing she absolutely had to do next was lean in even closer to Rollo and whisper to him urgently:

‘
Listen
, Rollo – I've got us the most fantastic
surprise
.'

And however you cut it, Rollo was thinking, this could only be pretty good news.

‘Surprise? Yeah? What is it?'

‘
Only
 – ' and here was Jilly's cue to narrow her eyes and hush herself down until she was only just audible ‘ – the Transylvania Emperor Suite. Tomorrow. I can get it for us tomorrow afternoon!'

Her eyes were egging on Rollo's to join up and gel into a great and glittering part of this – and although he was eager as hell to fall in with this very palpable shiver of excitement of hers, he could only send flickering across the bar a tentative measure of his pretty much total lack of comprehension.

‘Uh-huh,' he went. ‘Uh-huh …'

Jilly tutted out her impatience.

‘The Transylvania Emperor Suite, for your
information
, Rollo, just happens to be the absolutely top accommodation on the entire bloody
ship
. Do you know what people pay for the Emperor Suite for the whole of the World Cruise? Do you? Have you the smallest
idea
, Rollo?'

‘Miss! Oh – Miss!' came the strained and hesitant enquiry
from the table down there. ‘We maybe get a drink down here?'

Jilly raised up a hand, and slapped on a brand-new smile to help it on its way.

‘Right with you, sir!' And then – hunkered down and whisperingly insistent again: ‘Well, Rollo –
have
you? Do you
know
?'

‘I, uh – well no. Not a clue. The very very best, is it? Well wait a minute – how come you – ?'

‘Three hundred and fifty
thousand
, Rollo. Believe it?'

‘Three
hundred
 – !'

‘ – and fifty
thousand
. Yup. And tomorrow afternoon – it's all ours.'

Rollo just gazed at her.

‘Well – well that's just – that's
fantastic
. Amazing. Jesus Christ, Jilly – right. Let's
go
for it! Wow. But listen – how – ?'

‘Oh
Miss
? Yes –
Miss
? Excuse me? How bout we get a little service, huh?'

Jilly looked up – and naked irritation was all over her, this time – and the guy at the table was looking this side of spellbound with the way it was going.

‘Tell you tomorrow. Got to go now, Rollo. Kay?'

And Jilly scooped up her notepad and bustled away to fill this guy's sodding order – and she was moving swiftly, now – not for the
guy
(fuck
him
) but because she knew, just knew that Rollo was on the point of coming right up with something on the lines of Yes well that's just
great
, Jilly, marvellous – but what about
today
, yes? Later, yes? Or tonight, maybe – yes? And Jilly would have had to say No – sorry, Rollo, but no: I've just got to see to Sammy, haven't I, later? Because I don't know how he's feeling, but I do know that he'll be turning it all over, and I've simply got to head off all sorts of thoughts before one of them actually
arrives
somewhere, see? Because I don't, do I (be fair to me, Rollo), at all know where all of whatever this is might quite soon be leading?