Maiden Voyage

TWENTY-FIVE

At twenty-one minutes past seven in the morning of Wednesday, June 18th, a number of things were happening simultaneously aboard the Arcadia: Edgar Deacon and Percy Fearson were grimly making their way to Sir Peregrine's quarters, to confront him with their discovery that the Arcadia had run down the Drogheda; the wireless officer was jotting down a message from Dublin that the mangled remains of Mr. Thomas Dennis had been recovered by a shrimp boat from Dublin Bay; Catriona, in a mask of Swiss face creams that cost over $95 the one-ounce jar, at a time when you could buy a refrigerator for $87.50, or a radio for $37.25, was slowly closing her eyes in sleep; Harry Pakenow, scratching himself, was coming out on deck to take some early morning air; and all over the Arcadia the cabin stewards and dining stewards and smoking-room stewards were hurrying to set tables and trays with silver cutlery, fold up clean linen napkins, and set out hundreds and hundreds of plates and coffee cups and jars of marmalade for breakfast.

In the kitchens, the underchef was supervising the frying of hundreds of rashers of prime English bacon; the whisking of scores of eggs; the devilling of huge casseroles of beef-bones; and the wholesale squeezing of oranges and grapefruit and tangerines. Tea was being brewed in six varieties, from Darjeeling to Lapsang-Souchong. There were also three different coffees—Colombian, Kenyan, or a dark-roasted Continental.

Breakfast included cornflakes and Post Toasties for those who wanted cereals; or kedgeree with fresh buttered haddock for those who wanted a taste of the English country house. There were West Country pork sausages, Loch Fyne kippers, and cured hams. For those who had really developed an appetite during the night's festivities, there was the crowning breakfast speciality of roast Norfolk gosling, served with quince jelly and cinnamon toast.

Below the waterline, the ship's laundry was a scalding purgatory of steam and shouting and the churning of electric washing machines, as the mountains of linen that had been soiled at last night's banquet were cleaned and pressed: over 150 tablecloths, more than 1,100 linen napkins, as well as. scores of aprons, chefs hats, shirts, collars, and white jackets.

In the bakery, the day shift, in their tall white confectioners" hats, were already starting on the fancy pastries for the afternoon's tea (the night shift, a more lowly caste, baked the rolls and the loaves). In the cold-rooms, huge carcasses were being swung out on hooks, ready for butchery for this evening's banquet. Electric vacuum-cleaners growled up and down the endless carpeted corridors.

The Arcadia was a small town afloat on the Atlantic Ocean, and as the day began she bustled with all the necessary activities of a small town. Her lifts rose and sank, her cisterns filled and flushed, her pipes flowed with steam-heated water. It had been pointed out that when the Titanic sank, the magnitude of her loss in human and social terms had been equal to the utter disappearance in the space of just three hours of a community the size of Middleport, New York, or Bradford-upon-Avon, in England. The Arcadia was even larger than the Titanic, and apart from her elite human cargo she carried millions of dollars" worth of valuable cargo and precious jewels. The money spent on insurance premiums for the ship and her passengers alone was marginally higher than the annual municipal budget of Plainfield, New Jersey.

Harry Pakenow, in a grey and white work shirt and a cotton jacket, sat on one of the varnished benches on the after poop deck, smoking a cigarette, and thinking with intense steadiness of the moment when he would trigger his bomb.

The enormity of what he was planning to do was becoming increasingly vivid to him now that he had been sailing on the Arcadia for a day, and had already become acquainted with the ship and some of its passengers. When he had bombed Wall Street, it had all been different. He had planned for weeks, but when the moment for the explosion had actually arrived, it had been nothing but a clatter of horse-hooves, a quick jostling through the crowds on the sidewalk of Broad Street, and then a teeth-jolting bang. He had hardly known the locality, and he had known none of the people he had killed. But by the time he came to sink the Arcadia, he would know her as well as he knew Bootle, or Mersey Docks; and he would certainly know Philly and Lydia, if nobody else.

Earlier this morning he had been brought a cup of tea and two digestive biscuits in his cabin by the third-class steward, but he wasn't sure if he felt like any breakfast. The Arcadia was rolling and wallowing much more heavily now, and Harry had already seen four or five passengers emerge from their accommodation with their faces the particular hue of overcooked veal.

A steward went past with a tray which smelled of greasy broth and said, "Anything you want, mate?"

Harry shook his head.

"Stiffening up a bit," the steward said cheerfully, nodding towards the cumulus clouds which were stacking up on the southwestern horizon. "In for a vomity afternoon, I shouldn't be surprised."

"You don't have to sound so cheerful about it," said Harry. He was beginning to wonder if he ought to have smoked this cigarette or not.

The steward caught his balance. "Seasickness," he said, "there's nothing like it. Good for the system. Clears you out like nobody's business. Do you know what they used to do at Bantry Bay in Ireland? They used to offer you a sail around the bay for sixpence, and if you didn't chuck up by the time you came back, they gave you your money back. Guaranteed, it was. Just the thing after too much drink, or a greasy lunch."

"I'm glad you told me that," said Harry.

"Well, that's nothing," said the steward. "I was on the Aurora once in mid-winter, crossing from Boston to Southampton. Rough, I couldn't describe it. We thought we'd have to turn back to America. Everybody was so sick, we had to roll the carpets up. That's the nice thing about a maiden voyage, like this one. The cabins don't smell of sick already."

"Will you please go away," Harry told him, "and take that broth with you?"

"Only making conversation," said the steward cheerfully, and disappeared inside.

It was not only the rolling of the ship that made Harry feel so bad, although he prayed that just for five minutes, just for one minute, she would stop tilting first to one side, hesitating, and then tilting back the other way again. Just long enough to get my equilibrium back. Just long enough for me to remember which is horizontal and which isn't. It was also the butterflies in his stomach that afflicted him: the nervous janglings of anticipation at what he had committed himself to do.

I am going to blow this whole damned ship up, he thought. All this massive pride, all this overblown vanity, all this ill-gotten and grotesquely-flaunted money. It will sink to the bottom of the sea and then we'll see who the bosses are. But, my God, what an act. What a commitment.

A small, polite voice beside him said, "Are you feeling all right?"

He looked around, and there stood Lucille Foster, in a pale lilac cloche hat and a pale lilac morning dress with silver and gold braiding.

"I saw you from the first-class deck," she said, "and I thought you looked rather ill."

Harry smiled down at her, amused. "I think it's the way this ship keeps leaning one way, and then leaning the other," he said.

"But that's the whole fun of ships," Lucille enthused, sitting down beside him. "If they don't roll around, they're not worth going on. You ought to sail on the Berengaria. She rolls just wonderfully."

"Well, I suppose it seems wonderful if you're used to it," Harry told her. "This is only my second time."

"They have Dammert treatment on first-class," Lucille explained.

"Dammert treatment? What's that?"

"I don't know, but you have to breathe it in. Mommy used to have it all the time, even when it was smooth. It settles your ears. That's what makes you feel sick, you know, your ears."

"You're very knowledgeable for a very young lady."

"I'm eleven in August. That's not young."

"Well, no, I guess it isn't, especially if you're used to being ten."

Lucille looked out across the ocean for a while, and then she said, "I was very upset, you know, at the way they treated you yesterday. Mommy wouldn't have stood for it. She said you ought to be polite to absolutely everybody, no matter how poor or unfortunate they are."

"Your mommy sounds like an understanding lady."

"She was. Daddy was madly in love with her."

"I was sorry to hear about them dying," said Harry. "Well, I wasn't sorry at the time. To me, your daddy and mommy were just rich people you read about in the newspapers. But, now I've met you, I suppose I can understand that they were real people, too. You didn't deserve anything to happen to you like that."

"Mrs. Hall says it was very romantic. She said they had a romantic destiny."

"Who's Mrs. Hall?"

"She's the lady I'm travelling with. She's Uncle Robert's housekeeper. She's very sweet, but a little old-fashioned when it comes to things like boys, and staying up late, and dancing."

"You have boyfriends?" asked Harry.

"I used to, in Paris. There was a French boy called Armand Lautier. He was twelve, and very suave. Sometimes mommy would let me ask him around for dinner and give us champagne. She said there was nothing like young love. Of course, we weren't actually in love. I mean, we were just friends. But I let Armand kiss me once, in the bedroom."

"Did you enjoy it?"

"I don't know... it was pretty wet. But it wasn't wholly unpleasant."

Harry laughed. "You're quite a young lady, do you know that?"

"It's only because I have a privileged background. It does make a difference, you know, when your folks have pots of money, and you're given a good sound education. I had five tutors in Paris, can you believe that? And a lady who taught me deportment, and not to say keen."

"Well," said Harry, "that's really keen."

From the first-class deck above them, the spiralling breeze wafted down the sound of piano music, as an early breakfast was served to those passengers who had decided that they were too bung-over and too hungry to be able to stay in their beds any longer; or those who were hoping that a plateful of good solid food would suppress their seasickness; or those who had decided after so much dancing and drinking and fornicating that it really wasn't worth going to bed at all. Mr Joe Kretchmer and Mr Duncan Wilkes were there, of course, each with their plates heaped high with eggs, bacon, cold pheasant, and kedgeree. Neither of them appeared to be tucking into their food with any exceptional gusto, and Mr Kretchmer looked noticeably grey, but they both ate with determination and doggedness, their jaws chewing hi time to the piano-player's laconic version of "Blue Morning (Now You've Left Me Feeling Blue)" and there was no question of either of them surrendering.

"It must be strange, not to be rich," Lucille remarked to Harry.

"Strange?" asked Harry. "Well, I suppose it is. But if all the money in the world were shared out more fairly, then nobody would know what it was like to be rich, and nobody would know what it was like to be really poor. People wouldn't be drinking champagne and eating caviar, but then people wouldn't be starving, either."

Lucille said, "Do you really believe that?"

"Of course. Don't you?"

"Well," said Lucille, thoughtfully, "I don't like the idea of people starving, but the world would be terribly dull if all the money were to be shared out equally. Daddy always used to say that charity was nonsense, except as a tax loss. He could afford to buy every man, woman, and child in the whole of the United States one good meal, with meat, and vegetables, and Jell-O to follow—but only once. Then, he would be quite bankrupt. And what good could he do to anybody once he was bankrupt?"

"That," said Harry, "is an age-old capitalist fallacy. Nobody's asking the rich to buy one free meal for every man, woman, and child in the world. All we're asking them to do is pay their workers more reasonably, share out their profits more equably, and recognise that all human beings are equal."

Lucille was silent for a minute or two. The cloud-bank that had been building up on the south-western horizon was now looming high above the Arcadia's masts, and the wind had freshened to Force Three, so that the brownish oil smoke from the funnels was billowing and twisting away to the north-east, like a chiffon scarf being shaken at a stranger's funeral. The sea began to seethe softly, and the deck heaved and pivoted, lifted and then suddenly dropped, leaving Harry's stomach seven or eight feet up in the air.

"Are you a Communist?" asked Lucille, intently. "You are, aren't you? Mommy's friend Pascal used to talk like you. He said that one day, everybody in the whole world would wear the same clothes and live in the same houses and earn exactly the same amount of money every week. He used to make Mommy laugh."

"Why's that?"

"She used to think being a Communist was flying in the face of human nature. She used to say that even if everybody earned exactly the same amount of money to begin with, one day, someone would pay her some of their money just to see her act or dance or hear her sing. Then, when she had finished acting or dancing or singing, she would be richer than they were."

Harry gave a wry grin. "I would have liked to have known your mommy. I think she and I could have had some rare arguments."

Lucille said, "Can I ask you a question?"

"Of course."

"Are you frightened of something?"

He turned and looked at her narrowly. "Frightened? What makes you ask that?"

"I don't know. I just think that you're frightened, or worried, or something like that. I can see it in your eyes. Mommy could see things in people's eyes. She once told a friend of ours that he looked sick, and by the end of the year he had died of cancer."

Harry took out another cigarette and tapped it on his thumbnail. His stomach rose and fell, but he swallowed hard and managed to keep it where it was, on the end of his esophagus. He wondered fleetingly how Philly and Lydia were feeling, especially after all that cheap brandy.

"You're not frightened that we're going to sink, are you?" asked Lucille.

"Of course not. It would take an Act of God to sink this ship."

"You're a Communist. Communist's don't believe in God. At least Pascal didn't. He still bought me a white Bible for my confirmation, though. He knew it would please daddy. Daddy was a revivalist. He loved Aimee Semple McPherson. He said she was God's messenger."

"Well, maybe she is," said Harry, lighting up his cigarette, his hands cupped against the wind.

Lucille said, "Do you think we ought to be friends, you and I?"

Harry leaned back. "Yes," he said, "I do. Don't ask me why. But I do."

"All right, then," said Lucille. "Because you're my friend, here's a five spot to buy yourself a drink."

She opened her lilac purse, and took out a $5 bill, which had been meticulously folded into a tiny square. She unfolded it, like origami in reverse, and held it out.

"I can't take that," said Harry.

"But you must. You saved Margaret."

"I didn't save Margaret for any other reason except I didn't want you to lose your doll."

"But you're a Communist. You believe in rich people sharing what they have with poor people. This is all I've got left from my allowance, and I want to share it with you."

Harry closed his hand over hers, so that she kept the bill tight within her grasp. "Listen," he said, "I really don't want it. I don't want to hurt your feelings, but I don't want it."

Lucille frowned at him. "You're not really a real Communist then, are you?"

"Perhaps I'm not."

"But you can't be! Communists are supposed to be unscrupulous. You're not unscrupulous. Not a bit of it."

Harry smoked his cigarette and looked at Lucille through narrowed eyes. "Maybe you rich people do have an edge on us, after all," he said. "Maybe you're all psychic."

"Psychic? What does that mean?"

"It means knowing what goes on in other people's heads."

Lucille thought about that, and then said suddenly, "You're not going to do anything silly, are you?"