Ten Word Game (28 page)

Potemkin was dead. “Isn’t he, er…?”

“I still worship him. He ruled Russia. Tall, a born ruler, a superb man any woman would go crazy for.” This made me, a shiftless antiques dealer heading for doom, feel really confident. “Catherine the Great’s lover.”

“One of them.”

“Don’t believe rumour. She only ever took a dozen serious lovers. And always Potemkin. She married him in secret, and called him ‘My marble beauty’, saying ‘better than any king!’” She giggled. “His old dressing gown kept flapping open, but he didn’t care!”

The pillow was fluffed up. I pressed it down to see her better.

“I thought you were all for Pushkin, that poet bloke?”

“Oh, I was!” She drew patterns on my skin with a finger. “Pushkin sent me demented.”

“Potemkin too?”

She gave my shoulder a sharp bite. I grunted. “Before that it was Byron. Every woman’s dream lover. And Shelley. The things I did when I was on my own, thinking of poor Doctor Keats!”

“When was this?” I asked uneasily.

I’m no Sherlock Holmes, but even I could see
something
was seriously wrong. Fine to admire heroes, but Ivy’s voice contained something near lust. Uneasily I wondered if she was slightly barmy. Now, I’m all for love. There’s not enough of it about. But it has to be there, here, sort of somewhere, not a vague abstract fondness.

Take Marilyn Monroe, for instance. I’d give a lot to have known her, and history says Cleopatra was
dynamite
between her sheets. But I’ve more sense than sob in my ale because I can’t make smiles with them in the car park. No chance of a swift snog and grope there, because sadly they are no longer with us. So I must face my deprivation with fortitude. Mind you,
dreamery
can be an innocent game played by educated people with truly brilliant minds. Like, the wholly
imaginary
Sherlock Holmes has a real London address, to please tourists asking for directions in Baker Street. And in October 2002 he was made a Fellow of some prestigious English Royal Society. Quite daft but harmless, people having a laugh. Ivy’s cravings after dead lovers? It was beginning to sound like a weird career.

“After I was married, I never thought of Russia much. I was a little girl when we left. Bilingual, of course. At home we spoke Russian. Billy was always busy, so I did a degree in the language, and kept going.”

“Expert, eh?”

“Grandpa was a poet here, in the great siege of Leningrad. Did you know that poets kept the city
going? When everybody was dying from shells and hunger, the radio kept broadcasting poetry. Then one by one even the poets died from starvation or the guns. The radio had nobody left, and simply broadcast the clock ticking, ticking, so the defenders knew that they were not alone. Somewhere in the snow among the ruins, others too were standing to arms.”

She shivered. I held her. We all have too many ghosts, and Ivy had more than most. I felt like saying it, but I have a habit of getting things wrong.

“Sorry there’s only me here, love.” It was a joke, but fell flat like jokes do.

“Thank goodness.” She reached for me and I
quivered
. “I’m so grateful. Can I be on my side this time, please? Only, you overlaid my leg and it’s still sore.”

“Oh, right.” Still, whose fault was that? You can’t think of everything, when paradise is on offer.

Despite what she said, I roused enough to leave before half-four. Ivy said to stay a minute longer, but I was in enough trouble. A barney with Billy was out of the question.

Dressed and ready to go, I found her between me and the door. Her face was streaming with tears.

“Did I say summert wrong, love?”

“No, Lovejoy. You’ve been lovely.” She slowly recovered. “Will you go to the evening show after
dinner
?”

“Dunno. I’ve to see Mangot.”

“Please don’t fob me off.” Her arms came round me. “I want to help you. Promise me one thing.” And when I nodded, “The tours tomorrow. Whichever you are sent on, make sure I am on the same one. Promise? Cross your heart and hope to die?”

I wouldn’t go that far, so said, “Hand on my heart.”

“Thank you for today. You’re what I wanted.”

“Me and Potemkin?”

She gave a shy smile and let me go. Nobody in the corridor, by a fluke. I left thinking, she wants to help me? How, exactly, and why? Why was it so vital to be on the same tour? Worst of all, why did I feel her gift of love had been in farewell? In Old London Town they used to stop the tumbrils at St Giles Church to give condemned criminals one last drink before they reached the hangman at Tyburn. Making smiles with Ivy was better than any swig, but I wanted the rest of the cruise to be safe. I went to find Mangot.

Purser Mangot was in the Mayfair Lounge, openly seated near the bar in an armchair and smoking a cigar. He couldn’t have been less smug. I expected him to clobber me in private. He beckoned, booming, “Hey, Lovejoy! Have a drink!”

“No, ta.”

Mangot was in full fig, attracting two ladies to join him.

“You liked the Hermitage exhibition, then? I heard you went today.”

As secret as rain. What
was
this? Until now, all
contact
had been sub rosa, and here he was bandstanding in public. A steward brought him a brandy.

“Aye, great.”

“You with your divvy skill.” He winked at the two women, who simpered at his wit. “Any of them duds?”

“They seemed okay. I had to go out. It got stuffy. There’d been some surface restoration on – ”

“Don’t blind us with technicalities,” he boomed. Everybody laughed. Such a popular bloke, our Executive Purser. “Going ashore tomorrow?”

“Dunno. I was waiting for you to tell me.”

“What?” He did a theatrical start, guffawing. “Passengers needing to be told where to visit? You chose this cruise, or have you forgotten?”

“You said – ”

“Seven guided tours tomorrow, and all excellent value. You’ll like the Rasputin one.”

“Do you mean that’s the one I’ve to go on?” I wanted it spelled out before witnesses.

“Up to you. Glad you liked the Hermitage.”

“Right.” For a second I stood like a lemon, but that seemed to be it. I left, mystified, and went to find Lauren to get ready for the antiques quiz. I wasn’t
deceived.

By talking to me in the Atrium, Mangot was
making
sure everybody knew I’d been to suss out the Hidden Treasures Exhibition. He was setting me up. I can scent the trick a mile off.

Okay, those old-style windows in the Hermitage wouldn’t give any self-respecting thief heartburn. Even I could get in with a rope and a putty knife. There’d be guards, and detectors. I’d seen no cameras, no CCTVs, felt no sticky-mats, seen no red-eye beamer lenses, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Security people hide their gadgets in walls nowadays, safe from fiddling fingers. And a canal running underneath the Hermitage was God’s gift to grabbers. But stealing is one thing and escaping with the loot is another. Until tomorrow, I was presumably safe on the ship.

Lauren was in her cabin. She let me in, looking bleary and dishevelled. I’d been nervous coming to meet her. I always find it’s difficult saying hello to someone you’ve made smiles with not long before. It must be easy for women because they’re always in control, having the moral ascendancy. I never know whether to be cheery and extrovert or meek. It’s a bit creepy. Women have it so easy. I always finish up
getting
narked with myself.

It’s even more unsettling when you haven’t made any smiles at all but you feel it’s soon on its way.

“Wotcher, love. I came to see if you’ve picked something out for tonight’s quiz.”

“I can’t get through to the hospital, Lovjeoy.”

“For Mr Semper? Shall we ask the captain?” was all I could think of.

“I’ve faxed the consul in Copenhagen.”

“Good idea. Who gave you the message about his operation?”

“Purser Mangot. He is in charge of us guest speakers,
you see.”

He would be. “Look, Lauren. How about you hire some lost-person searcher? You can do it by phone. Tell you what I’ll do.” I realised by now the cabins must be bugged, or at least the phones tapped, but played along. “Tomorrow we’ll raise the Salvation Army. Don’t they have them in Denmark too? They’re good at finding missing people. Then you can fly out. You’ll be in his hospital room by noon, bet you a quid.”

“You’re such a help, Lovejoy.”

I couldn’t take any more tears, so grabbed the three antiques she’d picked out of Henry Semper’s
collection
of gunge and took them to the light.

They were ladies’ fans. One had sandalwood radii with patterned silk leafing, a copy of an 1820 or so. The next was in ivory and silk, the kind people call “mandarin fans” now, but modern crud. The last was a filigree ivory fan, the radiate blades without silken leafing and made from ivory throughout. It had a
coat-of
-arms engraved on the decoration. It was genuine, 1860 or so. I was surprised.

“We’ll ask the diners which is the genuine one, okay? And they must guess its price. The winner gets the honest fan.”

She sat dolefully on the bed. “Lovejoy? Henry is all right, isn’t he?”

“Of course he is!” I said, faking enthusiasm. “Danish hospitals are famous. They’re stiff with
surgeons
.” I babbled on, making it up. “They practically invented surgery of the, er, gastro-fundicular. Good heavens, Lauren, you can’t lose heart now. He
couldn’t
be in better hands.”

“Please don’t be upset, Lovejoy.”

“Upset?” I wasn’t upset, except about getting killed in the morning or gaoled in the Gulag.

“You see, when we, you and I … y’know? I feel I
am being disloyal to Henry, being drawn to you. There! I’ve said it. I shouldn’t be. It is betrayal.”

“Betrayal?” God, how I wanted to leave. “Look, Lauren. You’re distraught with worry. Like me.” I mentally crossed my fingers and fibbed on. “What are friends for? We’re his friends, together working out how to help him. That’s all we do. Nothing bad. He’ll be glad his friends are teamed up.”

“Do you think so?”

“Of course, Lauren!”

“You see, Lovejoy, Henry and I were never
really
really one, meaning together in the sense that we…” and so on.

There was half an hour more of it. I finally reeled out and had to dash to get ready for dinner. It wasn’t a black tie-and-tux evening, seeing we were in port. Posh occasions were for sea days only.

The talk was all of St Petersburg. Billy and Kevin laughed – he roaring, Kevin tittering – about local customs. I got the unhappy feeling that Billy’s cracks, all derogatory, were aimed at Ivy. She smiled and said little. Millicent had had a marvellous time among the tourist shops, but found nothing much except silver. Holly Sago was replete, her eyes glinting still, occasionally snapping some Churchillian imperative to keep Kevin from showing off too much. Kevin had had a failed day, having tried to buy some antiques to ship to London and finding nobody able to make decisions.

“How the hell they manage their stupid commerce, God alone knows,” he kept grousing. “They kept telling me I’d to see somebody else…”

Ivy said nothing. She was playing her allotted role. I began to get the drift. She was the simple uncomprehending
wife who wasn’t worth asking. I looked more and more at Billy’s extrovert performance with Kevin.

The dinner-time antiques quiz was better organised now. After the main course, I’d get up and go to the restaurant manager’s table, check the “antiques”, then give the nod. Lauren and I would simply walk them slowly past the tables, on which stacks of the blank cards were placed by stewards. No delay, no
hesitation
, no pausing to explain or answer questions. If I noshed fast, and Lauren got on with her meal, we were be back at our seats in time for pudding. Then it was only a matter of collecting the cards with the answers as folk left, and we’d be in time for the evening floor show, the theatre or the latest film. We’d simply take the first correct answer. Fini.

That evening I reported to Lady Vee, took her to see the exquisite dancers – Amy to the fore – and found myself laughing edgily at Les’s full-on routine. Lady Vee admired the dresses, the band, the music. Then a quiet drink in the Monte Carlo Club, where Lady Vee tried to outdo Holly Sago in losing at poker and blackjack, then roulette, then the fruit machines. I finally took her to her suite and said goodnight. She demanded I take her on an outing in the morning – to guess where – the palace where Rasputin got killed.

“I’ve booked our tickets, Lovejoy, dear!” she
carolled
. “Won’t you stay for another drink?”

“Ta, love. Night.” I was knackered, and left. I made my cabin just as I slumped into oblivion.

Or I would have, if I didn’t come from the shower to hear my cabin door click shut. I sprang to open it, and saw the familiar heel just disappear at the end of the corridor. I could hardly chase after her in my nip, whoever she might have been, so I went back inside to check what was missing. Answer: nothing. On the bed, turned down with tomorrow’s newspaper
“Welcome To St Petersburg – Second Day!!” – and the usual three chocolates on the pillow, was a large parcel.

Expecting a bomb, I undid it, head averted in case it exploded. It was a set of clothes. I put all the lights on to see. Clothes? Dark corduroy trousers my exact size, and a black rather worn leather jacket, with one pocket slightly torn. I sat on the bed and looked at them. Dark socks, and grubby shoes? I quickly took the shoes off the bed – it’s a prophesy of death in Lancashire and still gives me the willies. A piece of paper read:
Darling, please don’t spruce up tomorrow. Love, I XXX.
If it hadn’t been so late I’d have rung Ivy and asked what the hell I was supposed to do with this load of tat, except her Billy would be there.

There’s a fascist in each of us. I had become
institutionalised
, living like a lord on this grand cruise with its luxury service. And here was Ivy providing me with dross. To wear this gear, I’d have had to shed my clean snazzy clobber, and go about looking like a scruff. That made me think. I found an envelope in the jacket pocket. It held photocopies of my passport, driving licence, boarding card, and two visa cards. I scanned them. I found a small fold of American dollars, ones and fives. Were these clues? If so, in what game?

She wanted me to carry these things, but why? To report me to the St Petersburg police and have me arrested for false pretences? I’d heard stories about people getting slammed in the pokey for not being able to produce passports and boarding cards on demand.

I slept, with my new – okay, old and grubby – clothes folded on the chair waiting for the dawn. They were good enough for me. I made a vow to escape – how many was that? Eight? Nine? In the morning, I’d finally make a run for it, not stop until I reached some border, and never come back. This time I’d keep going whatever happened.