Illegal Action

44

As Peggy dialled the sixth cruise company on her list the rain was streaming down the glass of her office window. Caribbean Leisure Works (“Your Leisure, Our Pleasure”) had its headquarters in Bridgetown, Barbados. Their website showed the city’s sun-soaked harbour, a flotilla of berthed cruisers and sailboats forming a white armada on an azure sea. If only, thought Peggy.

The friendly Barbadian voice at the other end stopped in its tracks when she explained what she wanted, and went off to consult, leaving her on hold, listening to the thump, thump of reggae. Eventually a cut-glass English voice came on the line. “This is Marjorie Allingworth. I’m the personnel director. You wanted to know about Monica Hetherington?”

“That’s right. I’m ringing from the North Middlesex Hospital in London. I’m trying to find her because her mother’s not well,” said Peggy smoothly. “The last information I have, she was with your company—I believe she worked on one of the cruise boats.”

“That was a long time ago.” From the curtness of her voice it was clear that Marjorie remembered Monica, and not fondly. Peggy could hear the tap of computer keys. “Let me see—1996. She was only here for two seasons.”

“Would you have any record of where she went next?”

There was an audible sniff. “No idea. She didn’t keep in touch.”

“Would anyone there be able to help? It’s really important,” Peggy pleaded.

There was a long pause. “Let me see.”

Peggy waited, listening as she heard the cut-glass voice making brisk enquiries in the background. Eventually she returned to the phone. “One of the girls here says Monica was great friends with Sally Dubbing. She still works for us during the season. The rest of the time she lives in London. Hold on and I’ll give you her address.”

Wow, thought Peggy. I don’t think much of her security. I could be anybody.

Tulse Hill was alien territory to Peggy. She had walked from the bus stop, past a betting shop that belched cigarette smoke through its open door, a newsagent with steel protective bars on the windows, and a unisex hair salon that specialised in straightening hair. Some boys wolf-whistled at her from a hoopless basketball court, and a pregnant woman wheeling a buggy had sent her the wrong way. Now she was sitting in a living room four storeys up a decaying sixties block, while Sally Dubbing made coffee in the kitchen.

Peggy looked around at the shabby furniture and stained walls hung with photographs of faraway exotic places—Tahiti, an aerial photograph of a string of small Caribbean islands, the harbour of Key West. They were meant to bring some sunshine into the flat but to Peggy’s eye they just brought home the cramped grimness of the place. It seemed a long way from Belgravia.

“Here you go. No sugar, right?” Sally set the mug down on the stained table next to Peggy’s chair, where it sloshed gently as it cooled. Peggy looked closely at Sally sitting opposite her on the small sofa. She was a sweetly pretty baby-faced blonde—except for the inch-wide band of blotchy pink that stretched like watery jam from one ear to her nose. No one could call it a beauty mark; it was far too big even to say it had “character.”

“So you want to talk to me about Monica?” The accent was South London mixed with aspiration.

“Yes,” said Peggy, getting her notebook out of her bag, “it’s for an article about the wives and girlfriends of these Russian oligarchs.”

Sally nodded. “I saw her in Hello! magazine a few weeks ago. Is that who you work for?”

“No. It’s a new magazine, not out yet.” She smiled and pushed her spectacles up her nose. “Tell me, do you ever hear from Monica these days?”

“Are you taking the piss?” she said curtly, reaching for a pack of cigarettes. She lit up and, blowing out some smoke, said, “I haven’t heard from Monica for over two years.”

“But you used to know her, didn’t you?”

“Oh yes,” she said easily. “I knew her. She was my best friend. She was a different Monica then.” She stared at Peggy for a moment, with a glazed look that suggested her thoughts were elsewhere. She seemed to make up her mind about something, for she got up and went into the kitchen, returning with a half-bottle of Bell’s whisky. Peggy shook her head when she proffered the bottle, then watched as Sally poured a neat two inches into her own coffee. Sitting back, she sipped the mixture carefully, and then she started to talk.

That winter when they met they were just two teenage girls fresh out of school without a GCSE between them. Monica was selling kitchenware in Debenhams’ basement and Sally was learning more about Hoover bags than anyone should ever know. They’d become friends at once, joined by a simple detestation of their jobs, and a common passion for clubbing.

“Monica was always the leader,” said Sally reflectively, pausing to sip her coffee. It was Monica who had come up with the idea. A friend of a friend of a friend worked on a cruise ship in the Caribbean—and was having the time of her life. Monica made it sound like one big party in the sun. Six weeks later both she and Monica were crew members of SS Prince Albert, sailing from Tobago to Miami.

Sally always knew there was no such thing as a free lunch, and she’d had to work hard as a waitress in the on-deck bar and in the industrial-sized dining room. But they let her sing sometimes at night, between the professionals. And the weather was wonderful, food was free and drinks were cheap.

“How about Monica?” asked Peggy lightly, wanting to get back to the subject.

“Oh, she was a waitress too. At least at the beginning. Then they made her hostess for the restaurant,” she said, with a hint of pride.

The first season had passed without a hitch, and the girls had got back to London with money in their pockets. The second year was almost as good—for Sally at any rate. Monica had got in trouble just before Christmas, for fraternising with one of the paying guests, a retired policeman from Miami.

Sally looked at Peggy knowingly. “Of course we were paid to be friendly, but the company had strict limits and Monica was a bit too friendly.”

They gave her a formal warning, but it didn’t seem to worry her much. “Who cares?” she’d said to Sally, showing her a gold choker that the former cop had bought her in St. Lucia.

Then at Easter it happened again, and this time the company gave Monica her cards. Sally had expected her to be very upset, but she just said, “Good riddance.”

It turned out that the offending passenger was offering her five grand to go with him on a cruise through the Greek islands.

After that, Sally had watched with a mixture of admiration and concern as her friend started a new, altogether different career. She was still working on cruise ships, but not for any company—Monica had gone into business on her own.

“Didn’t the cruise companies object?” asked Peggy, doubting they’d be eager to have a reputation as a floating brothel.

“She was very careful. She’d buy a ticket like anybody else, then mix with the other passengers during the cruise. She’d single out one bloke—usually a widower, they seem to have a thing about cruises once the wife’s dead. And what could the company say about that?” She raised an eyebrow. “You can’t forbid ‘love’ can you? The cruises are meant to be romantic.”

A tabby cat came out of the kitchen, slinking towards the window. Ignoring him, Sally went on, “After that, I didn’t see Monica so much.” Occasionally they would coincide in a harbour; and back in England during the summer they always got together. Interestingly Monica never plied her new trade in her home country: “I think she was still hoping she might meet Mr. Right, and she didn’t want a reputation—not here anyway.” By then, of course, Monica was in a different league financially from Sally, but she was always generous with her old mate. Once she even paid for Sally to join her on a cruise as a passenger.

“Did she expect you to join her”—Peggy hesitated, unsure of how to phrase this—“professionally?”

“No,” said Sally, and gave a sad smile. Then she put her fingers against the ragged ribbon of pink on her face. “This kind of disqualifies me, don’t you think?” She didn’t seem to expect an answer. “Actually, Monica didn’t work on that trip. It was just two girlfriends on a treat together. We had a lovely time.”

But then why aren’t they still friends? wondered Peggy, watching as the cat hopped up on to a pine table, littered with toast crumbs and a folded copy of the Mirror. “When did Monica stop working the cruises?” she asked.

“Three years ago. I came home in the summer and rang her up, like I always did. She was nice, but she said she was very busy—she was living in Beirut or somewhere like that. She’d got some Middle Eastern guy in tow, very well heeled, she said, only she didn’t think he’d be crazy about what she used to do for a living. Then I saw her picture a couple of months ago in Hello! with a Russian guy. It said he had more money than the queen.”

“And you haven’t heard from her since?”

“No. I gave up trying. I know when I’m not wanted,” she said fiercely. Behind this show of pride, Peggy sensed, was a festering hurt. About the disloyalty of her old friend; perhaps about the way things had turned out for her; possibly about the shocking blazoned stripe nature had deposited across her face like paint. “You know,” she said, “Monica was wonderful to be with when things were going her way. I worshipped her, I did really—but underneath she was as hard as nails. I thought—yes—I thought she’d kill you to get what she wanted.”

Suddenly a tear formed in the corner of her eye. She dabbed at it with a tissue. It was time to go. “Thank you very much for talking to me,” said Peggy as she rose from her chair.

“Don’t you want to take my picture then?” Sally was almost defiant.

Peggy looked at the dismal room: the cat was cleaning himself on the floor now, beside a grease stain that ran up to the kitchen door. “I’ll ask my editor,” she said.

“Whoever he is, he can’t be very nice,” said Sally, making no effort to get up. She sloshed another inch of whisky into her empty mug.

“Who?” asked Peggy, puzzled.

“This Russian bloke.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Before she started picking them for their money, Monica never liked nice men. She always went for the rough ones—you know, the kind who’d rather belt you than talk things over. I know she’s very grand now, but I bet that hasn’t changed.”

“Do you still work on the cruise ships?” asked Peggy, turning at the door, wanting to be polite.

Sally nodded, but there was nothing happy in her face. “I’ll be back there in autumn.” She paused, and a summary bleakness settled in her eyes. “But they don’t let me sing any more.”