Every Man for Himself - Beryl Bainbridge [34]
Midday, we rose to the upper levels and gave our attention to the enclosed promenades. Andrews was concerned that a number of steamer chairs had gone from the port side. He instructed me to make a note of it. I hadn’t a pencil and turned my back on him, pretending to scribble. Fortunately the missing items were spotted moments later piled behind the door of the Café Parisien. Starboard side, the small grandson of Mrs Brown of Denver was caught finger-drawing on the windows. Told to desist, he put out his tongue. His nurse rubbed the glass clean with her handkerchief and shooed him below.
Once on the boat deck there was a wearisome trudge of its length and an even longer scrutiny of its cranes, winches and ventilators. All were judged to be in good working order. As we passed the base of the forward mast the look-out men of the crow’s nest were changing shifts. The two men coming off duty were arguing about a pair of missing night-glasses, one claiming he’d seen them when the ship left Cherbourg, the other adamant he’d not set eyes on them from the day he’d signed on. I heard their exchange quite clearly because our procession had come to a temporary halt while Thomas Andrews greeted Mr and Mrs Carter who were taking a stroll before lunch.
We were further delayed when it came to an inspection of the life-boats, of which there were twenty, including four Englehardt collapsibles, Captain Smith wishing to know if they were sufficiently stocked with emergency blankets. Smiling, the chief steward submitted that they were and had been double checked. All the same, Smith insisted Number 7 boat be lowered immediately so that he could see for himself. Bored with this procedure Andrews strode off before it was completed and led us towards the bows.
I had been waiting impatiently for the moment when we would go up on to the bridge and view the marvels of modern technology within the wheelhouse, and actually had, at last, one foot on the companionway when Andrews, spying a female figure squatting beside a bench midway beneath the first and second funnels, suggested that someone should go to her assistance. As I had turned to hear what he said and it chanced he was looking straight at me, I was in no position to dodge the request.
The woman was middle-aged and wrapped in furs against the wind. Eccentrically balanced on her haunches, she peered intently at the deck. Upon my enquiring if she had lost anything she pointed at what I took to be a button stuck to the side of the bench bolt. As I bent to pick it up I caught a glint of sliver slime and realised it was a species of mollusc.
‘Please don’t pull it,’ cried the woman. ‘It must be detached with the utmost gentleness.’
My efforts weren’t altogether successful; there was an audible plop as I prised the thing free.
‘What is it?’ I asked, thinking she must be some sort of authority on crustacea.
‘Possibly a snail?’ she questioned, looking at me for affirmation.
We both stood there, gazing down at the object cupped in my hand. I wanted very much to get away and join the others on the bridge. I made as if to tip it into her own hand but she drew back, clutching her furs about her throat.
‘Young man,’ she said, ‘I’m late for luncheon. Be so good as to take the creature indoors and place it in the earth of one of the potted palms.’
I stood at the rail and watched her go, and when the doors swung to behind her tossed the snail overboard. The day was dull, a long smudge of pale light dividing the grey sea from the grey sky. On the horizon a toy boat sat beneath a scribble of smoke. Sprinting back along the deck I was in time to see the design team descending the companionway and moments later our patrol was dismissed.
I went immediately to the smoke-room, found Scurra alone reading a book, and ordered a drink. He observed I looked put out. I told him I’d been all over the ship and having come within yards of the one place that interested me, namely the bridge, had been