Luck of the Bodkins (11 page)

Still, he had determined upon being an entertaining conversationalist, and an entertaining conversationalist he would be.

'Good evening,' he said again. 'You, I take it, reading from right to left, would be the steward of this state-room, what?'

'Of this and the adjoining ones, sir.
’

'Bustling about, I perceive. Earning the weekly envelope with honest toil.' 'I have been
arranging your effects, sir.' ‘
Good.'

'I have just laid out your razors, razor-strop, toothbrushes, toothpaste, mouth-wash, sponge, sponge-bag, and shaving-brush in the bathroom, sir.'

'Stout fellow. I mean,' said Monty, feeling that in the circumstances the phrase had a certain tactlessness and laid itself open to misconstruction, 'thanks.'

‘
Not at all, sir.'

There was a pause. The sunlight had not yet come into the steward's eyes. In fact, in the matter of sunniness, he seemed to have gone back
a
bit, if anything. However, Monty persevered.

'Lots of people on board.
’

‘
Yes, sir.'

'And a lot more have come on here, I suppose?' 'Yes, sir.'

'Going to have a nice voyage, I shouldn't wonder.' 'Yes, sir.
’

'If it keeps calm, of course.' 'Yes, sir.' 'Fine boat.
’
'Yes, sir.
’

'Pretty different from the old days, what? I mean,
a
ship like this would have made Columbus open his eyes a trifle.'

'Yes, sir,' said Albert Peasemarch, still with that same odd reserve.

Monty gave it up. He had shot his bolt. It was too dashed absurd, he considered, to stand here trying to suck up to
a
bally steward who declined to expand and be matey, when he might be out in God's air, taking Gertrude for a spin round the deck. Besides, he felt, for the Bodkins, though amiability itself if you met them half-way, had their pride, what the hell! If this chap didn't appreciate him, he meant to say, there were plenty who did. A little stiffly, he turned to the door, to be checked as his fingers touched the handle by
a
grave cough.

'Excuse me, sir,
’
'Eh?'

'You shouldn't have done it, sir, you shouldn't, really.'

Monty was amazed to note that this Peasemarch was now regarding him with quiet reproach. The spectacle stunned him. To aloofness he had become inured, but why was Pease-march reproachful?

'Eh?' he said again. There are some situations in which
‘
Eh?' is the only possible remark.

'I don't understand how you could have brought yourself to do such a thing, sir.'

'Such a thing as what?'

The steward made a rather dignified gesture, spoiling it at the last moment by scratching his left ear.
‘
I fear you may think it a
liberty, me talking like this –‘

‘
No, no.'

‘
Yes, sir,' insisted Albert Peasemarch, once more scratching his ear, which appeared to be irritating him. 'And technically it is a liberty. Until the ship docks in New York harbour our relations are those of master and man. In my dealings with any of the blokes in my sheds - any of the gentlemen who occupy the state-rooms under my charge, I always say to myself that for the duration of the voyage I am a vassal and he is - temporarily - my feudal overlord.'

'Golly!
' said Monty, impressed. 'That's rather well put.
’

‘
Thank you, sir.'

‘
Dashed well put, if you don't mind my saying so.
’

'I had a good schooling, sir.'

‘
You weren't at Eton, by any chance?'

‘
No, sir.'

"Well, anyway, it was dashed well put. But I'm interrupting you.'

'Not at all, sir. I was merely saying that, our positions being those of feudal overlord and vassal, I shouldn't by rights be speaking to you like this. By rights I ought to just go to Jimmy the One -'

‘
To-?'

The chief steward, sir. The proper thing by rights would be to just go to the chief steward and report the matter and leave him to deal with it. But I don't want to cause unpleasantness and get a young gentleman like you into trouble -
’
‘
Eh?
’

‘
- because I know very well that it was due to high spirits and nothing more. So I do hope you will not take offence, sir, where none is meant, when I say that you ought not to do that sort of thing. I am old enough to be your father ...'

Monty had been feeling that the essential thing to do was to institute a probing system of inquiry with a view to inducing this mystic steward to come out into the open and explain what on earth he was talking about. But this statement sidetracked him.

'
Old enough to be my father?' he
said,
surprised. "How old are you?' ‘F
orty-six, sir.'

Well, dash it, then you couldn't be. I'm twenty-eight.'
‘
You look younger, sir.'

'It isn't a question of what I look. It's what I am. I'm twenty-eight. You'd have had to have married at - seventeen,' said Monty, relaxing the strained frown on his face and ceasing to twiddle his fingers.

'Men have got married at seventeen, sir.
’

'Name one.'

'Ginger Perkins - redheaded feller in the stevedoring business down Fratton way,' said Albert Peasemarch rather surprisingly. 'So, you see, I was right when I said I could have been your father.'

'But you aren't.'

‘
No, sir
’

We aren't related at all, so far
as I know.' ‘
No, sir.'

‘
Well, carry on,
’
said Monty, 'but I may as well tell you frankly that you're making my head swim. You were saying something about something I ought not to have done.'

‘
Yes, sir. And I say it again. You ought not to have done it.'

·Done what?'

'Young blood may be young blood -
’
'I don't see what else it could be.'

'But that doesn't excuse it, to my mind. Youth!' said Albert Peasemarch. 'It's the old, old story. See jew-ness saway.' 'What are you babbling about?'

'I am not babbling, sir. I am alluding to the bathroom.'

The bathroom?'

What's in the bathroom, sir.'

‘
You mean my sponge-bag?'

'No, sir. I do not mean your sponge-bag. I mean what's on the wall.' 'My strop?'

'You know very well what I'm referring to, sir. All that writing in red paint. A lot of trouble and extra work that's going to cause, cleaning of it off, but I reckon you didn't think of that. Heedless, that's what youth is. Heedless. Never looks to the morrow.'

Monty was staring, bewildered. But for the fact that his articulation was so beautifully clear and his words so finely chosen - that 'see jew-ness saway' gag - good stuff there - he would have said that this steward who stood before him was a steward who had had one over the eight.

'Red paint?'
he said, at a loss.

He walked across to the bathroom and looked in. The next moment he had staggered back with a choking cry.

It was even as Albert Peasemarch had said. The writing was on the wall.

Chapter 9

Owing to the bold and dashing hand in which this writing had been inscribed, a person seeing it for the first time, as Monty was doing, had a momentary illusion that there was more of it than was really the case. The wall seemed not so much a wall with writing on it as a mass of writing with a wall somewhere in the background. In actual fact, the complete opus, if one may so call it, consisted of two phrases, one over the mirror, the other to the left of it.

The first ran:

'Hi, baby!'

The second:

‘
Hello, there, sweetie!'

A calligraphy expert would probably have deduced that the author was of a warm-hearted, impulsive nature.

In the other historic case of writing on the wall, that which occurred during the celebrated Feast of Belshazzar, and, as Belshazzar said at the time, spoiled a good party, it will be remembered that what cause
d all the unpleasantness and up
set the Babylonian monarch so much was the legend 'Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin.' It is odd to reflect that if somebody had written that on the wall of Monty's bathroom, he would not have turned a hair; while, conversely, knowing what those Babylonian monarchs were like, one can picture Belshazzar reading the present script and rather enjoying it. So strangely do tastes differ.

Monty was frankly appalled. About the words 'Hello, there, sweetie!' there is nothing intrinsically alarming, and the same may be said of 'Hi, baby!'. Yet, gazing at them now, he felt very much as Mr Llewellyn had felt on the occasion when his muscular friend had hit him fn the solar plexus with the medicine ball. The bathroom swam about him, and for an instant he seemed to see two Albert Peasemarches, both shimmying.

Then his eyes returned to normal, and he fixed them on the steward with a wild surmise.

‘
Who's done this?'

'Come, come, sir.'

'You silly ass,' cried Monty, 'you don't think I did it, do you? What the dickens would I want to go doing a thing like that for? It's a girl's writing.'

It was this discovery that had caused so powerful an upheaval in Montague Bodkin, and who shall say that he had not reason to be perturbed? No engaged young man with his betrothed travelling on the same boat is pleased at finding his state-room richly decorated with loving messages in a girlish hand, but the engaged young man who likes it least is the one who has just squared himself in the matter of a female name tattooed on his chest with a heart round it. With a sickening sense of being in the toils, Monty perceived that there was a he
art round the words 'Hi, baby!'

The only bright aspect of the whole affair was that this revelation of the woman's hand seemed to have had an extraordinarily bracing effect on Albert Peasemarch. That minor-prophet-like austerity of his had vanished, and he appeared genuinely amused and pleased.

'I see it all, sir. It's the young lady next door.'

‘
Eh?'

Albert Peasemarch chuckled fatly.

'A very larky young lady she is, sir. Just the sort to play this kind of game. Well, let me give you an instance, sir. Half an hour ago it may have been, the bell rang in her shed and I went in and there she was, reddening of her lips at the mirror with
a
red lipstick. "Good evening," she says. "Good evening, miss," I says. "Are you the steward?" she says. "Yes, miss," I says, "I am the steward. Is there anything I can do for you?" "Why, yes, steward," she says, "there is. Will you be so good as to open that little wickerwork basket on the floor there and reach me out my smelling-salts?" "Certainly, miss," I says. "Only too happy." And I go to the basket and I lift the lid and I pretty near do
a
somersault over backwards. And the young lady says: "Why, steward," she says, "what is it? Your manner is strange. Have you been having a couple?" And I says: "Are you aware, miss, that there is
a
living organism in that basket, a living organism that snaps at you when you raise the lid and would pretty near have took the top of my thumb off if I hadn't of looked slippy?" And she says: "Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you. That's my alligator." There in a nutshell, sir, you have the young lady next door.'

Albert Peasemarch paused for breath. Perceiving that his feudal overlord was not yet capable of speech, he resumed:

'It transpires that she is one of these motion-picture actresses and maintains the animal on the advice of her Press representative. Such, sir, is the young lady next door, and if you will forgive me once again taking
a
liberty and speaking quite frankly, I think you are making
a
mistake, sir,
a
very serious mistake.'