Ten Word Game (6 page)

That night I had one last maul with Belle in my cold damp cottage, and lit out. She dropped me on the A12. I got a lift from an all-night wagon heading for the Channel Ports. I was in Southampton by midnight, complete with passport. With the police and a bounty hunter after me, I’d no choice. I had to keep going.

I dreamt on, reliving the terrible fright of the
footsteps
, me clinging to the ivy, the crone shuffling closer with her lantern. A bell began to ring. It bonged closer. I woke in a sweat, pleading for everybody not to catch me.

“Dinner is served, ladies and gentlemen,” a
loudspeaker
voice said. Somebody knocked and called, “Dinner.”

My heart was going like a hammer. I woke with a yelp and sank back in relief as I remembered. I’d got away, sort of, and couldn’t quite understand how. Memories crept in, the old lady I wheeled aboard, Benjo’s Emporium of rubbish, the supercool Miss Trimble who was stalking Benjo for tax revenue. Shakily, I showered and undid a suitcase, donned Cal’s new clothes and left the cabin. Emil directed me to the restaurant, cutting labels off me every step of the way.

I’d assumed I was shanghaied in a derelict tub, doomed to sea-sickness until I could jump ship. I’d also thought I’d have to queue with a tray for grub that would cost the earth. I’m never right, and was wrong again.

The dining room was reached through a warren of plush staircases. The entire ship was unbelievably elegant. I hated the paintings along the corridor walls, except for some August Macke prints – in richer days, I’d travelled to Berlin to see the
originals
. Huge flower arrangements flanked the dining room entrance. Waiters in uniform, head geezers in dinner jackets, smiles everywhere like they were really, truly, glad to see shoals of hungry passengers arriving for nosh. The stylish restaurant was better than in any city.

“Table One-Five-Four, sir!” cried some serf, really delighted I’d turned up. He ushered me through the mob and seated me at a table.

“I am Jude, your waiter for the cruise, ladies and
gentlemen
!” said another, beaming. I’d never seen so many sincere smiles since my friend Jean, a rival antiques
dealer
, went down for embezzlement. Other stewards, mostly Indians from Goa, seemed equally thrilled, rushing about with serviettes, water carafes, menus.

The other passengers at Table 154 did those wary introductions that might mean anything: “Hello, I’m Ivy, this is my husband Billy. We’re from the Wirral,” and all that. I said I was Lovejoy and yes, it was my only name, when some pleasant lady wearing genuine diamonds asked.

“They still call me Billy the Kid down at the station house!”

Billy guffawed, showing teeth like tombstones. His hair was all flowing silvery locks. He obviously groomed himself as a Western hero, lantern-jawed and tall, gold studs in his ears. Ivy, a mousy lady, watched her husband anxiously and shut up whenever he spoke. The prat wore a black string tie and had
cheroots
sticking from his pocket. She looked cowed.

Down at the station house, though? Only cops and railway men used that term, station house. This extravert, with his diamond cufflinks and commanding pose, was no humble signalman. Copper.

No prices on the menu. I gulped. In my circles that means a new mortgage, always assuming you’d paid off your old one. It promised umpteen courses I’d never heard of. I wondered if I could afford a decent meal before the money in my pocket ran out.

“Er, look, mate,” I said to the next diner, “where do we pay?”

“Pay?” The bloke who said he was Kevin laughed, telling everybody round the table, “Lovejoy wants to pay twice! He thinks meals are extra!”

That broke the ice. They didn’t know if I was
putting
it on or not. I laughed along, feeling a duckegg. Conversation moved to prices they’d paid for the cruise. It seemed to be a challenge, who paid least. Like, book your cruise through those people in Cumbria and you get a third off, but in St Helens it’s even cheaper. Scared somebody would ask me how come I was on an expensive cruise, I put in that I’d paid the full price. They were instantly full of concern for my sanity, and gave me guidance on how to handle rascally travel agents.

“You’d never survive in the antiques import
business
, Lovejoy,” Kevin said bluntly. “We can’t be timid
about money.”

“Use the Internet, old boy,” said a crusty bloke called Jim Akehurst. He was with Millicent, a
shimmering
lady with diamonds. “Book at the last minute. Prices go down.”

“They do!” twittered Ivy, still anxious. I liked her. She wore black, trying to vanish I suppose in her
loud-mouthed
husband’s presence. “A girl in the Wirral books for us. She knows a hairdresser on board.”

“Kevin always bests me,” said a woman in casual fawns. No jewellery, no rings, a hard glint in her eye. “Hello, Lovejoy. I’m Holly. Kevin here’s my partner. Hotel decoration and antiques import-export.” Kevin waggled his eyebrows roguishly. He had painted
fingernails
. “Watch out for Kevin. He’s nothing but
trouble
. I gamble, and Kevin practically lives in the ship’s casinos.”

Kevin tittered shyly. “We cohabit in sin,” he announced loudly, causing heads to turn at nearby tables. “The hotels we decorate are sheer horror. Especially,” he added with a glance of pure malice at Holly, “if some cow gets
colours
disastrously
wrong
!”

“Now, darling, don’t start.” Holly smiled, cool.

Every relationship is like being in a row-boat full of cakes and ale, where each person claims to do all the oar work while the other only noshes and idles. Neither they, nor anybody watching, knows the truth, about who does what.

“Millicent loves the swimming pool,” Jim Akehurst boomed. “Every morning and afternoon.”

“I’m into shows,” Ivy remarked. “So is Billy. The glamour!”

“And films,” her husband added. “I doze off in the cinema when I’m worn out from boozing. Ha-ha!” He laughed shotgun style, long pauses between. I could see he might unnerve me.

Everybody paused expectantly. I went for it, risking derision. “Pool? Casino? Cinema? Are there…?”

“The poor poppet!” Kevin exclaimed as Jude came to take our orders. Just in case, I felt my few notes in my pocket, and asked for one of everything. I was starving. “He really is new, isn’t he?” Kevin tapped Holly’s knuckles. “Holly, you must take Lovejoy in hand! Show him the ropes.”

“Never seen the adverts on TV?” Billy demanded. “All holidays are cruises nowadays.”

“They have everything,” his wife Ivy said quickly when he looked at her, as if prompted. “Library, a
computer
room. Didn’t you get a ship’s plan? Your steward should have given you one. Call at the purser’s office.”

“I’ll manage, ta.”

The reminder made me glance warily round the
dining
room looking for anybody I might know from a previous existence. Too many people to take in at one glance. Balloons bobbed at tables where waiters were singing somebody a happy birthday. This wasn’t
merely
a ship; it was sheer luxury in a floating town. You couldn’t tell we were moving.

As the first course arrived – melon, somebody choosing poached eggs with a French name, others a prawn and apple cocktail – they started exploratory chat. It was friendly, nobody wanting to be left out, all telling of exhausting travels to join the ship at Southampton. It became competitive: my journey was more tiring than yours, et exhausting cetera. You had to get up at six this morning? Well,
I
got up at
five
, so there! It was all good-natured. I vaguely claimed I’d stayed in Southampton at a cousin’s, deliberately
getting
the streets wrong. Only Jim Akehurst was a
problem
. He and Millicent went into Southampton
shopping
every week.

“Our trouble is finding a time,” glitzy Millicent
said. “Every morning it’s tons of legal paperwork.”

Her husband agreed. “I keep trying to retire, but I’ve never worked as hard.”

A lawyer? Which explained Millicent’s diamonds.

“Conveyancing’s the problem,” she said. “Can you imagine, we own three antiques shops in that new shopping precinct?”

Lots of antiques people about, I thought.

“Sign of the times,” everybody said. I muttered edgy agreement.

“I hope they’re good,” Kevin gushed. “The
speakers
, I mean. Nothing worse than bores talking about old pots, unless it’s big money.”

“Old pots?” I said.

“The cruise theme, dear. Antiques. Antiques talks, TV antiques personalities. Didn’t you know?”

Antiques? I must have looked suddenly
apprehensive
. They reassured me: nothing was compulsory, you didn’t need to attend.

Talks, antiques demonstrations, they were all
entirely
voluntary. They laughed about getting lost on board. The ship had no Deck Thirteen from superstition, but a fourteenth. Listening, my spirits gradually rose. I could tolerate this luxury, for the brief time it would take the
Melissa
to reach some landfall. They told me we would soon reach Holland.

They waded into the first course, saying that my travel agents had given me atrocious service, not telling me about the entertainment, talks, celebrities travelling with us.

“Don’t book through them again, Lovejoy!” Holly commanded, easily into anger. “Those young girls only sit there doing their nails. It isn’t good enough!”

And so on, through steamed lemon sole with sauce vierge, whatever that is, roast loin of pork, stuffed breast of chicken on lentil mousse, stilton quiche and
coriander something. The one job I’ll never try, I resolved during that first gargantuan meal of a zillion calories, is travel agent. They get the short end of the stick from everybody. They can’t win. I mean, here they all were on elegant Table 154, stuffing our faces in a floating Valhalla, slurping their way through mounds of superb grub to a final shoot-out with fresh
strawberries
steeped in drambuie and rum chocolate slices under orange sauce, and all they did was grumble about the travel agents who’d rescued them from humdrum lives and got them here? Give me a frigging break.

“I hope the comedian’s good,” they eventually got round to.

“The magician’s not up to much,” somebody else said, replete.

“I want to hear the classical pianist.”

“I like the Stadium Theatre Company. Brilliant. They were on
Oceana
in Barbados.”

“No, Kevin. You’re mistaken…”

“Are the shops better here than on
Aurora?
”

“I’m going to play golf, really slim in the gym this cruise.”

I listened, taking it all in. Somebody showed me the ship’s daily newspaper,
Melissa Today.
Blue headlines told of delights to come, singers, dancing shows, dining hours in sundry restaurants, pools and bars galore, forty-odd events going on all over the ship every single day. Everything was free, except drinks.

On cue, sinking under the weight of food, I asked for a glass of wine, having the presence of mind to make my signature an illegible squiggle. A waiter wanted to see my card. I produced a little maroon plastic the cabin steward had given me. As we wobbled out, bloated, Kevin asked me what I did for a living.

“I’m here to establish more contacts for my antiques import business,” he told me affably. “An
underdog, but I’m happy.”

“That’s the main thing, Kevin.”

“You?”

“Oh, er, a driver. For the town council.”

Lots of grey hair about, but women always look superb so it never matters if they get older. They don’t know this, thinking for some reason that all sexual attraction depends on being twenty-three years old. Barmy. They talk themselves into despond. Even Gloria did, but I’ve already told you that.

For a while I wandered the ship, up staircases, along corridors, passing several bars with bands and singers and merry drinkers, a cinema announcing feature films, the Palladium Theatre with tonight’s show about to start.

“Good evening, Lovejoy.”

The familiar voice pulled me up short. I looked down at Lady Vee in her wheelchair.

“Wotcher.”

“I shall expect you for drinks in my state room after the evening show. Ten o’clock exactly. You must meet some people.”

“Er, ta, but – ”

“Ten,” she ordered sharply.

“Lady Veronica!” Billy and Ivy came to greet her. “How marvellous! You’re on the ship too!”

They exchanged pleasantries about the last world cruise, d’you remember that dreadful girl in Mombasa and the malarkey over the Customs, while I wondered about coincidences and Billy Sands being an ex-cop. I muttered an excuse, and went to the Atrium. This seemed to be the centre of social life, where grand staircases swept down to a dance-floor from the bar balconies and tiers of elegant shops. A long ornate counter called Reception was staffed with a galaxy of assistant pursers. Like a hotel? I went and asked to see
the passenger list.

Michelle, a bonny girl, raised her eyes. “We no longer publish those, sir.”

“How can I find out where, er, my friends are? We want to talk over old times. The last world cruise,” I explained helpfully. “That dreadful girl in Mombasa and everything!”

Michelle didn’t quite giggle, but came close. “Wasn’t it terrible? Look, write a note and I’ll see it gets to them, okay? Enjoy the show, sir.”

Stumped, I went to the performance. Two entrances to the theatre, rows of seats for eight hundred of us. Lovely dancers, an aggressive songstress, a comedian called Les Renown everybody recognised except me, a magician, more show-stopping dancers, and I was first out, lurking in the hallway by the lifts as the crowds emerged. Nobody I knew. I was relieved. No more coincidences.

As people strolled on deck for a breath of maritime smog, I tried to work out exactly what I was doing on the
Melissa
. I’d been tricked aboard, ostensibly to help some old dear I didn’t really know. My tricksters – Gloria and Benjo – ran a tatty import-surplus shop where I’d worked. They imported priceless ethnic
rarities
, illegally. They’d deceived me, got me ticketed, carded, and on up the gangplank. They were helped by the fact that I’m thick half the time and daydreaming the rest. But why on a ship? Particularly, on
this
ship. If they’d wanted me to do something for them, I could have done it in Southampton.

Looking for clues, I searched the notices and
listened
to bar chatter. The ship’s themes were antiques and music. I learned about a string quartet, a pianist in the Curzon Lounge, and operatics. Okay, fine, if that’s what you like. But to me opera is a long bore separating four beautiful arias. I lived with a
woman once who dragged me from one opera to another for three months. She sobbed through every single one and played hell if I as much as hummed along. I think operas ought to cut the chat and get on with the songs. Still, I told myself repeatedly, I’d last out until we docked in Amsterdam.

The answer must lie in antiques.

Now, antiques aren’t classical music. They are like women, the breath of life. Take away antiques and women, the world vanishes. Take away one of the two, existence becomes pretty pointless, because I am obsessed by both. Folk think you need only one. They’re wrong, because with only one, you’re into the mad world of delusion. Give you an instance: