Seventeen
‘Well, I’ll say good-bye, Roger,’ Ernst said. ‘Have a good trip, and don’t attack that duty-free booze too hard, or you’ll need another ocean voyage to recuperate. How long is it, six days?’
‘Five,’ Roger said. ‘It was good of you to come along, Ernst, especially with your foot. How is it?’
‘Oh, it’s much easier now the cast’s off. Just aches a bit if I stand on it too long. —I’ll wait for you at the head of the gangway, darling. —Good-bye, Roger, old man. Keep safe.’
The two men shook hands and Ernst, leaning on a walking-stick, limped away along the deck of the liner among crowds of yelling or weeping children. There seemed to be a higher proportion of these among the passengers than ever before, which was saying a good deal. Helene said to Roger:
‘The Derlangers don’t look as if they’ll make it.’
‘No, Joe said on the telephone they might not. This is a busy week for him.’
‘How was he? I haven’t seen him since . . .’
‘Since the party. He sounded very cheerful. Only one thing annoys him about his car, he said: he can’t remember why he did it. He’s going to reconstruct the crime with a five-dollar wreck from a scrap-yard and see what ideas come into his head.’
Helene laughed and Roger joined in. ‘He’s the most uncomplicated mixed-up man I’ve ever met,’ she said. ‘I’d better be going too, Roger. I don’t want to keep Ernst standing there.’
‘Yes. There’s not much to say, is there? Except I’m sorry about everything.’
‘So am I. But let’s forget it.’
‘Yes. How’s Ernst been with you?’
‘He doesn’t punish me. It’ll all be the same in a few weeks.’
‘Thank you for not telling him I turned up that night.’
‘It wouldn’t have helped.’
‘True enough. Well – can I come and see you when you’re over the other side again?’
‘We shan’t be for some time. Ernst’s been offered a two-year appointment in the linguistics department at Chicago – evidently it’s a very good one – and it could lead to a permanent job there. He’s going to accept and if we like it we’re going to try to fix it to stay on. So it doesn’t look as if you and I’ll be seeing so much of each other in future. One thing, being over here next year will see to it there are no arguments about what nationality the baby is. Oh, I didn’t tell you, did I? I was pretty sure I’d started it in Copenhagen but I wasn’t certain until the other day. It’ll be nice for Arthur to have a companion. I hope it’s a girl.’ She looked at him, but he still said nothing.
‘Well. If anyone had told me the other night I’d ever be sorry to see you go I’d have said they were crazy. But now it’s happening I am. Good-bye, Roger.’
She kissed him on the cheek and left. A minute later he saw her and Ernst moving slowly down the gangway. Ernst was talking animatedly and Helene turned her head a couple of times to say things to him. Then they reached the customs shed and disappeared from sight.
Roger went below. The ship was full of passengers and fire-extinguishers. Three small men with beards and hats came out of the Scroll Room. Why was there no Scripture Room? A uniformed man with a face that looked as if it had been liberally basted with hot gravy for the last hour approached with a lot of pieces of paper in his hand. ‘Morning, Purser,’ Roger said.
‘And a very good morning indeed to you, Mr Micheldene, sir. Very nice to have you aboard again.’
The Purser was an outstandingly horrible man. Seeing him some trips ago running the bingo session in the lounge, full of clickety-click and two walking-sticks and one little duck on the water, Roger had started to feel sorry for him until he realized that the man enjoyed it. But it was good to be among one’s own people again.
In his cabin Roger unpacked, had a wash and rang for the steward, to whom he gave a five-dollar sweetener and an order for a large whisky. While he waited for this to arrive he glanced briefly through Swinburne’s notebook and locked it away in a drawer. It, too, was going back to where it belonged, roughly at any rate. Exactly where it would end up Roger had still not decided, though he had a premonition that it would be somewhere that paid well.
Noises and vibrations told him the ship was moving. He looked out of his porthole and saw the quay sliding slowly past. Then he wanted very much to cry and started to do so. This was unusual for him when sober and he tried to work out why he was doing it. It was obviously a lot to do with Helene, but he had said good-bye to her and to plenty of other girls in the past without even considering crying. What was so special?
Rage at the non-arrival of his whisky helped him to give up the problem. He dried his eyes on his green bandanna and took a pinch of Otterburn from his antelope-horn snuff-box. Hitting his nose over the head with Macouba that night on the island had turned out to be the right policy: the double snuff-taker’s nostril had retreated to two small pockets out of reach of the questing fingernail. Another pinch, and he began to feel quite good. Soon he would be up to faring forth and starting to look over his female fellow-passengers. Something in him was less than enthusiastic about this course of action but he resolved to ignore it. Better a bastard than a bloody fool, he told it.
A knock came at the door. He went over his eyes quickly once more with the bandanna and had his back turned when the door opened and a voice said:
‘It is. For Christ’s sake, it is. Well, what do you know about that?’
Roger let Strode Atkins shake his hand but was beyond speech. Nor was this required of him for some time.
‘I thought I saw you going aboard but I couldn’t get to you. Then I had your name wrong but the Purser was a sweet guy and he helped me out. These boat-trips – I go over every year, you know – well, they can be a real drag but if you have the right kind of guy along they can be more fun. Really give you the chance to get to know someone. Kind of life we live, that’s pretty rare, eh, Mitch? —Come in. All right, put it down there, will you, and fetch me another of the same? Quick as you can. – You know, it makes me feel kind of funny, making this trip. Kind of romantic if that doesn’t sound too silly. Returning to the land of my fathers, see? You knew I was of English descent, didn’t you? Yes, my ancestors were English. Came to West Virginia in 1811. Now you’ll probably say that was a pretty funny time to choose and I see your point, but . . . Hell, why go into it now? We’ve plenty of time.’
Kingsley Amis, One Fat Englishman
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