Singing in the Shrouds

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‘All jealous of him, I dare say,’ Jemima said idly.

‘You may be right. And a very sound reason for disliking him. It’s the greatest mistake to think that jealousy is necessarily a fault. On the contrary, it may very well sharpen the perception.’

‘It didn’t sharpen Othello’s.’

‘But it did. It was his interpretation of what he saw that was at fault. He saw, with an immensely sharpened perception.’

‘I don’t agree.’

‘Because you don’t want to.’

‘Now, look here – ’ Jemima said, for the first time giving him her full attention.

‘He saw Cassio, doing his sophisticated young Venetian act over Desdemona’s hand. He saw him at it again after he’d blotted his copy-book. He was pathologically aware of every gallantry that Cassio showed his wife.’

‘Well,’ Jemima said, ‘if you’re pathologically aware of every attention Aubyn Dale shows his however-many-they-may-be female fans, I must say I’m sorry for you.’

‘All right, Smartie,’ Tim said amiably, ‘you win.’

‘After all, it’s the interpretation that matters.’

‘There’s great virtue in perception alone. Pure scientific observation that is content to set down observed fact after observed fact – ’

‘Followed by pure scientific interpretation that adds them all up and makes a nonsense.’

‘Why should you say that?’ he asked gently. ‘It’s you that’s making a nonsense.’

‘Well, I must say!’

‘To revert to Aubyn Dale. What about his big thing on TV? – “Pack Up Your Troubles”. In other words “Come to me everybody that’s got a bellyache and I’ll put you before my public and pay you for it.” If I were a religious man I’d call it blasphemy.’

‘I don’t say I like what he does – ’

‘Still, he does make an ass of himself good and proper on occasions. Witness the famous Molton Medbury Midsummer Muck-up.’

‘I never heard exactly what happened.’

‘He was obviously plastered. He went round televising the Molton Medbury flower show with old Lady Agatha Panthing. You could see he was plastered before he spoke and when he did speak he said the first prize in the competition went to Lady Agatha’s umbilicus globular. He meant,’ Timothy explained, ‘Agapanthus Umbellatus globosus. I suppose it shattered him because after that a sort of rot set in and at intervals he broke into a recrudescence of Spoonerisms. It went on for weeks. Only the other day he was going all springlike over a display of hyacinths and said that in arranging them all you really needed was a “turdy stable”.’

‘Oh, no! Poor chap. How too shaming for him!’

‘So he shaved off his fetching little imperial and I expect he’s taking a long sea voyage to forget. He’s in pretty poor shape, I fancy.’

‘Do you? What sort of poor shape?’

‘Oh, neurosis,’ Timothy said shortly, ‘of some sort, I should think.’

The xylophonic gong began its inconsequent chiming in the bridge-house.

‘Good lord, that’s for eating!’ Timothy exclaimed.

‘What will you say to your host?’

‘I’ll say I had an urgent case among the greasers. But I’d better just show up. Sorry to have been such a bore. Goodbye, now,’ said Tim attempting a brogue.

He walked rapidly away.

To her astonishment and slightly to her resentment Jemima found that she was ravenously hungry.

II

The Cape Company is a cargo line. The fact that six of its ships afford accommodation for nine passengers each does not in any way modify the essential function of the company. It merely postulates that in the case of these six ships there shall be certain accommodation. There will also be a Chief Steward without any second string, a bar-and-passengers’ steward and an anomalous offsider who may be discovered by the passengers polishing the taps in their cabins at unexpected moments. The business of housing, feeding and, within appropriate limits, entertaining the nine passengers is determined by Head Office and then becomes part of the Captain’s many concerns.

On the whole, Captain Bannerman preferred to carry no passengers, and always regarded them as potential troublemakers. When, however, somebody of Mrs Dillington-Blick’s calibre appeared in his ship, his reaction corresponded punctually with that of ninety per cent of all other males whom she encountered. He gave orders that she should be placed at his table (which luckily was all right anyway because she carried VIP letters) and, until Alleyn’s arrival, had looked forward to the voyage with the liveliest anticipation of pleasurable interludes. He was, he considered, a young man for his age.

Aubyn Dale he also took at his table because Dale was famous and Captain Bannerman felt that in a way he would be bunching Mrs Dillington-Blick by presenting her with a No. I Personality. Now he decided, obscurely and resentfully, that Alleyn also would be an impressive addition to the table. The rest of the seating he left to his Chief Steward who gave the Cuddys and Mr Donald McAngus to the First Mate, whom he disliked; Jemima Carmichael and Dr Makepiece to the Second Mate and the Wireless Officer of whom he approved, and Miss Abbott, Father Jourdain and Mr Merryman to the Chief Engineer towards whom his attitude was neutral.

This, the first luncheon on board, was also the first occasion at which the senior ship’s officers with the exception of those on duty were present. At a long table in a corner sat a number of young men presenting several aspects of adolescence and all looking a trifle sheepish. These were the electrical and engineering junior officers and the cadets.

Alleyn arrived first at the table and was carefully installed by the Captain’s steward. The Cuddys, already seated hard by, settled down to a good long stare and so, more guardedly, did Mr McAngus. Mrs Cuddy’s burning curiosity manifested itself in a dead-pan glare which was directed intermittently at the objects of her interest. Its mechanics might be said to resemble those of a lighthouse whose different frequencies make its signal recognizable far out at sea.

Mr Cuddy, on the contrary, kept observation under cover of an absent-minded smile while Mr McAngus quietly rolled his eyes in the direction of his objective and was careful not to turn his head.

Miss Abbott, at the Chief Engineer’s table, gave Alleyn one sharp look and no more. Mr Merryman rumpled his hair, opened his eyes very wide and then fastened with the fiercest concentration upon the menu. Father Jourdain glanced in a civilized manner at Alleyn and turned with a pleasant smile to his companions.

At this juncture Mrs Dillington-Blick made her entrance rosy with achievement, buzzing with femininity, and followed by the Captain, Aubyn Dale and Timothy Makepiece.

The Captain introduced Alleyn – ‘Mr Broderick, who joined us today – ’

The men made appropriate wary noises at each other. Mrs Dillington-Blick, who might have been thought to be already in full flower, awarded herself a sort of bonus in effulgence. Everything about her blossomed madly. ‘Fun!’ she seemed to be saying. ‘This is what I’m really good at. We’re all going to like this.’

She bathed Alleyn in her personality. Her eyes shone, her lips were moist, her small hands fluttered at the ends of her Rubenesque arms. ‘But I watched you!’ she cried. ‘I watched you with my heart in my mouth! Coming on board! Nipping up that Frightful Thing! Do tell me. Is it as Terrifying as it looks or am I being silly?’

‘It’s plain murder,’ Alleyn said, ‘and you’re not being silly at all. I was all of a tremble.’

Mrs Dillington-Blick cascaded with laughter. She raised and lowered her eyebrows at Alleyn and flapped her hands at the Captain. ‘There now!’ she cried. ‘Just what I supposed. How you dared! If it was a choice of feeding the little fishes or crawling up that ladder I swear I’d pop thankfully into the shark’s maw. And don’t you look so superior,’ she chided Captain Bannerman.

This was exactly how he had hoped she would talk. A fine woman who enjoyed a bit of chaff. And troubled though he was, he swelled a little in his uniform.

‘We’ll have you shinning down it like an old hand,’ he teased, ‘when you go ashore at Las Palmas.’ Aubyn Dale looked quizzically at Alleyn who gave him the shadow of a wink. Mrs Dillington-Blick was away to a magnificent start. Three men, one a celebrity, two good-looking and all teasing her. Las Palmas? Did they mean …? Would she have to …? Ah no! She didn’t believe them.

A number of rococo images chased each other improperly through Alleyn’s imagination. ‘Don’t give it another thought,’ he advised, ‘you’ll make the grade. I understand that if the sea’s at all choppy they rig a safety net down below. Same as trapeze artistes have when they lose their nerve.’

‘I won’t listen.’

‘It’s the form, though, I promise you,’ Alleyn said. ‘Isn’t it, sir?’

‘Certainly.’

‘Not true! Mr Dale, they’re being beastly to me!’

Dale said: ‘I’m on your side.’ It was a phrase with which he often reassured timid subjects on television. He was already talking to Mrs Dillington-Blick as if they were lifelong friends and yet with that touch of deference that lent such distinction to his programmes and filled Alleyn, together with eighty per cent of his male viewers, with a vague desire to kick him. There was a great deal of laughter at the Captain’s table. Mrs Cuddy was moved to stare at it so fixedly that at one moment she completely missed her mouth.

A kind of restlessness was engendered in the passengers, a sense of being done out of something and, in two of the women, of resentment. Miss Abbott felt angry with Mrs Dillington-Blick because she was being silly over three men. Mrs Cuddy felt angry with her because three men were being silly over her and also because of a certain expression that had crept into Mr Cuddy’s wide smile. Jemima Carmichael wondered how Mrs Dillington-Blick could be bothered and then took herself to task for being a humbug: the new passenger, she thought, was quite enough to make any girl do her stuff. She found that Dr Makepiece was looking at her and to her great annoyance she blushed. For the rest of luncheon she made polite conversation with the second mate who was Welsh and bashful and with the Wireless Officer who wore that wild and lonely air common to his species.

After luncheon Alleyn went to see his quarters. The pilot’s cabin had a door and porthole opening on to the bridge. He could look down on the bows of the ship, thrust arrow-like into the sea and at the sickle-shaped and watery world beyond. Under other circumstances, he thought, he would have enjoyed this trip. He unpacked his suitcases, winked at a photograph of his wife, went below and carried out a brief inspection of the passengers’ quarters. These were at the same level as the drawing-room and gave on to a passage that went through from port to starboard. The doors were all shut with the exception of that opening into the cabin aft of the passage on the port side. This was open and the cabin beyond resembled an overcrowded flower-shop. Here Dennis was discovered, sucking his thumb and lost in contemplation. Alleyn knew that Dennis, of whom this was his first glimpse, might very well become a person of importance. He paused by the door.

‘Afternoon,’ he said. ‘Are you the steward for the pilot’s cabin?’

Evidently Dennis had heard about Alleyn. He hurried to the door, smiled winsomely and said: ‘Not generally, but I’m going to have the pleasure of looking after you, Mr Broderick.’

Alleyn tipped him five pounds. Dennis said: ‘Oh, you shouldn’t sir, really,’ and pocketed the note. He indicated the flowers and said, ‘I just can’t make up my mind, sir: Mrs Dillington-Blick said I was to take some into the dining-room and lounge and as soon as I’ve finished in the bar I’m going to but I don’t know which to choose. Such an umberance-der-riches! What would you say for the lounge, sir? The décor’s dirty pink.’

Alleyn was so long answering that Dennis gave a little giggle. ‘Isn’t it diffy!’ he sympathized.

Alleyn pointed a long finger. ‘That,’ he said, ‘I should certainly make it that one,’ and went on his way to the passengers’ lounge.

III

It was a modest combination of bar, smoking-room and card-room and in it the passengers were assembled for coffee. Already by the curious mechanism of human attraction and repulsion they had begun to sort themselves into groups. Mr McAngus having found himself alongside the Cuddys at luncheon was reappropriated by them both and seemed to be not altogether at ease in their company, perhaps because Mrs Cuddy stared so very fixedly at his hair which, Alleyn noticed, was of an unexpected shade of nutbrown with no parting and a good deal of overhang at the back. He drew a packet of herbal cigarettes from his pocket and lit one, explaining that he suffered from asthma. They began to chat more cosily about diseases. Mr McAngus confided that he was but recently recovered from an operation and Mr Cuddy returned this lead with a lively account of a suspected duodenal ulcer.

Father Jourdain and Mr Merryman had discovered a common taste in crime fiction and smiled quite excitedly at each other over their coffee cups. Of all the men among the passengers, Alleyn thought, Father Jourdain had the most arresting appearance. He wondered what procession of events had led this man to become an Anglo-Catholic celibate priest. There was intelligence and liveliness in the face whose pallor, induced no doubt by the habit of his life, emphasized rather than concealed the opulence of the mouth and watchfulness of the dark eyes. His short white hands were muscular and his hair thick and glossy. He was infinitely more vivid than his companion, whose baby-faced petulance, Alleyn felt, was probably the outward wall of the conventional house-master. He caught himself up. ‘Conventional?’ Was Mr Merryman the too-familiar pedant who cultivates the eccentric to compensate himself for the deadly boredom of scholastic routine? A don manqué? Alleyn took himself mildly to task for indulgence in idle speculation and looked elsewhere.

Dr Timothy Makepiece stood over Jemima Carmichael with the slightly mulish air of a young Englishman in the early stages of an attraction. Alleyn noted the formidable lines of Dr Makepiece’s jaw and mouth and, being at the moment interested in hands, the unusual length of the fingers.

Miss Abbott sat by herself on a settee against the wall. She was reading. The hands that held her neatly-covered book were large and muscular. Her face, he reflected, would have been not unhandsome if it had been only slightly less inflexible and if there had not been the suggestion of – what was it? – harshness? – about the jaw.

As for Aubyn Dale, there he was, with Mrs Dillington-Blick who had set herself up with him hard-by the little bar. When she saw Alleyn she beckoned gaily to him. She was busy establishing a coterie. As Alleyn joined them Aubyn Dale laid a large beautifully tended hand over hers and burst into a peal of all-too-infectious laughter. ‘What a perfectly marvellous person you are!’ he cried boyishly and appealed to Alleyn. ‘Isn’t she wonderful?’

Alleyn agreed fervently and offered them liqueurs.

‘You take the words out of my mouth, dear boy,’ Dale exclaimed.

‘I oughtn’t to!’ Mrs Dillington-Blick protested. ‘I’m on an inquisitorial diet!’ She awarded her opulence a downward glance and Alleyn an upward one. She raised her eyebrows. ‘My dear!’ she cried. ‘You can see for yourself. I oughtn’t.’

‘But you’re going to,’ he rejoined and the drinks were served by the ubiquitous Dennis who had appeared behind the bar. Mrs Dillington-Blick, with a meaning look at Dale, said that if she put on another ounce she would never get into her Jolyon swimsuit and they began to talk about his famous session on commercial television. It appeared that when he visited America and did a specially sponsored half-hour, he had been supported by a great mass of superb models all wearing Jolyon swimsuits. His hands eloquently sketched their curves. He leant towards Mrs Dillington-Blick and whispered. Alleyn noticed the slight puffiness under his eyes and the blurring weight of flesh beneath the inconsiderable jaw which formerly his beard had hidden. ‘Is this the face,’ Alleyn asked himself, ‘that launched a thousand hips?’ and wondered why.