Every Man for Himself - Beryl Bainbridge [49]
‘It’s a cruel game,’ I said. ‘And I expect it was Ginsberg.’
‘No,’ cried Ida. ‘It was Charlie. He was quite upset. We did choose Ginsberg but then he told us he knew all about balloons and that he was the one person likely to get us down safely.’
‘Ida went next,’ Wallis said. ‘Then you.’
‘Me,’ I exclaimed, and tried not to sound surprised.
‘Yes, you,’ she said. ‘Because we all agreed you wouldn’t bother to argue your case. You wouldn’t, would you?’
I shrugged and admitted it was probably so. ‘Do you suppose,’ I asked, ‘that if one went up in a balloon the earth would appear to drop rather than the balloon to lift?’
‘You don’t have much in common with Van Hopper, do you?’ said Wallis. ‘Or with Charlie? You don’t skim the surface.’
It was the second time that morning I had been singled out as different. It rather went to my head, though naturally I protested I was a fairly average sort of fellow. She would have none of it. In her opinion I was special. I had a quality of aloofness both tantalising and touching.
‘Tantalising?’ I said.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Very.’
Needless to say I picked at my food and was beside myself with excitement. It was obvious I had only to say the word and she would consent to an assignation. I shall dream no more, I thought, crushing my toast into fragments.
Presently, time having flown and it now being ten o’clock, she and Ida got up to leave. They were going to the Turkish baths. Wallis peered into the Gladstone bag she was holding and sat down again, ‘Oh dear, silly me,’ she wailed, ‘I’ve forgotten my bathing-robe.’ Prettily she asked to borrow mine; it was, after all, too utterly tiring trekking back along all those corridors.
‘I only have my dressing-gown,’ I said. ‘And it’s still rather wet.’
‘What does that matter?’ she replied. It can be imagined with what alacrity I handed it to her.
I spent a good part of the morning in the writing room going over my letter of the previous day. Impulsively I added the line I long for our union and crossed it out moments later, fearing it sounded too much like a proposal of marriage. It was not wedded bliss I was after. Lest such a reckless sentence could still be deciphered I overlaid it with the word ‘apple’ written out five times. It was something Sissy had taught me when I’d once crayoned a lavatorial phrase on the day nursery wall and found it wouldn’t rub off; the loops of ls and ps obscure anything. I would have used a fresh piece of notepaper if I hadn’t felt the drop of blood beneath my signature counted for something.
The morning lasted for ever. At least half a dozen times I went and hung about the doors of the elevator in hopes of seeing Wallis, and for an hour I waited in my stateroom anticipating her knock at the door, a seductive smile curving her moist lips, my damp dressing-gown on her arm.
She was in neither of the dining saloons at luncheon. Hopper said he’d seen her playing quoits earlier with Charlie Melchett and Mrs Carter. I had a drink with him and Rosenfelder in the smoke-room bar and talked gibberish. Rosenfelder was bucked because he’d shown Mr Harris a sketch of the dress Adele would eventually model and he’d pronounced it damn fine.
‘And so it is,’ I cried. ‘It’s the most beautiful dress in the world.’
‘You have not set eyes on it,’ said Rosenfelder. They both looked at me strangely. I longed to confide in them but couldn’t trust Hopper to keep his mouth shut; I didn’t want Ginsberg sniggering at me for the rest of the voyage.
I don’t know how I got through the afternoon. I was happy, impatient, terrified by turns. I drank quite a lot, of course, and penned a ridiculous letter to my uncle telling him I intended to follow in his footsteps and make him proud of me. I do not forget, I wrote, that but for the love you bore your first wife, I would possibly be toiling in a cotton mill in Lancashire. Fortunately I was not too far gone to tear it up before I dozed off at the writing table.
I was jerked awake by Ginsberg’s hand on my shoulder. He looked at me with concern and asked if I was feeling unwell.
‘On the contrary,