Maiden Voyage

FORTY

George Welterman sat in his bath with a flannel soaked in cold water draped over his face, so that he looked like a mummy from some forgotten Egyptian tomb, or a man posing for his own life mask. In his dressing-room, his valet busied himself laying out his formal dinner suit, his boiled shin, his starched collars, and his silky socks. The valet had asked no questions when George had asked him to draw a second bath, and to lay out a second dinner suit only two hours after George had washed himself in the first bath and dressed himself in the pants and shirt of the first dinner outfit. It was not that the valet was blindly obedient. It was simply that he could smell the perfume in the sitting room, and that he had noted the disarray of the cushions on the sofa, and that he knew George Welterman for what he was. A pig who walked on his hind legs.

George himself felt very little. Tired, perhaps. Drained both of bodily humours and of that quirky irritation which afflicted him whenever he came close to girls like Catriona. But he was confident of his right to take whatever pleasures came to hand, and he certainly felt no guilt. Rather, he still felt irked by Catriona's refusal to indulge him. He didn't like girls to refuse. It was neither necessary nor normal. All girls liked money and power, especially when they were coupled with masculine brutishness. Girls who fought back were both rare and odd, in his opinion.

Perhaps she was one of those, he thought, behind the cold mould of his face flannel. A daughter of Sappho.

He was still idly reflecting on these matters when he heard the bathroom door close. He said through his flannel, "Duncan?"

There was no reply. He peeled off the flannel, and said again, "Duncan?"

Then he became aware of the dark tall figure standing just beside him and he turned his head. It was Mark Beeney, dressed immaculately in white tie and tails, his tanned face quite serious and composed.

"I'm bathing," said George. He was suddenly conscious of his reddened genitals, floating in the soapy water.

"That makes no difference to me," said Mark.

"Duncan!" shouted George. "Duncan, where the hell are you?"

"Duncan is temporarily deaf," said Mark in a quiet voice.

"What the hell are you talking about?" demanded George. "Duncan! Duncan! I want you here right this minute!"

There was no answer. The bathwater, agitated by George's shouting, slopped into silence, and then formed a still and scummy meniscus. George looked up at Mark and said hoarsely, "What do you want?"

"What do you think I want?"

"For Christ's sake," George spluttered. "How the hell should I know?"

Mark was taking off his tailcoat. He hung it on the hook behind the door. He smoothed back his curly hair with both hands, and then he smiled. "If you can't guess, George, then I don't believe there's any hope for you, either in this world, or the next."

"You touch me," warned George, "and every damned IMM lawyer in New York will have your hide off. I'm telling you now."

"Touch you?" asked Mark, rolling up his white shirtsleeves. "I wish I didn't have to."

"I'm telling you—" George began, but then Mark seized his iron-grey hair in one strong hand, and pushed him under the bathwater with such violence that gallons of water were sprayed over the sides him tub and across the floor.

Mark held him there, under the surface, by gripping his hair. Beneath the thrashing surface, George's eyes were wide open, his mouth aghast, as he struggled to break free from Mark's powerful hold and breathe in some air. But Mark wouldn't let him go, even him he reached out of the water and tore at Mark's arms with his fingernails, bruising and lacerating him in his panic to escape.

It must have been more than a minute before Mark released him. He came crashing out of the bathwater, coughing and shrieking for air, while Mark stood beside him and watched him with an expression of utter disgust.

At last George lifted himself out of the tub, still coughing, strings of phlegm and water hanging from his lips, and found himself a towel. "You bastard," he managed to choke out. "You're going to pay for this like you wouldn't believe."

"You animal," said Mark.

George reached for the door handle, but Mark's temper blew like a pressure valve. He punched George in the kidneys, and then in the side of the head, just next to his left ear. George staggered, slipped on the wet tiled floor, and then fell, jarring his back. He lay against the bathroom wall, his face screwed up in pain, his forehead already swelling into a cherry-coloured bruise.

"I'm going to tell you once and once only," said Mark. "If you get within twenty feet of Catriona Keys from now on, if you even pick up the phone and try to talk to her, then I'll wring your neck. I'm not kidding you, George, I'll kill you."

"You were born in the wrong century," coughed George. 'You should have been one of the Knights of the Round Table. Charging around, rescuing damsels in distress. You damned idiot."

Mark rolled down his sleeves, fastened his cufflinks, and then took down his tailcoat from the peg behind the door. "I'm not kidding you, George," he repeated.

George said, "All right, I believe you. Now, will you please help me up? I think you've broken my back."