Heavy Water and Other Stories

and ferociously synthetic. They entered the zigzagged dining room, with its pearl-droplet lighting, its submarine heat, and its pocket-sized Goanese staff in their rusty tuxedos. In a spirit of thrift Mother consumed the full buffet grill—omelette, sausage, bacon, lamb chop—while John did battle with a soft-boiled egg, watched with enfeebled irony by Mr. and Mrs. Brine. There were two other guests at their table: a young man called Gary, who had thoughts only for his sunbathing and the inch-thick tan he intended to present to his co-workers at the ventilation-engineering plant in Croydon; and a not-so-young woman called Drew, who came largely for the sea air and the exotic food—the chop sueys, the Cheltenham curries. Then, too, perhaps, both Drew and Gary had hopes of romance: the pretty daughters, the handsome officers… There’d been a Singles’ Party in the Robin’s Nest, hosted by the Captain himself, on the night they sailed. An invitation was waiting for John when he and Mother came staggering into their cabin. She slipped it out of sight, of course, being always very careful, you understand, not to let him get upset with anything of that sort. Taking a turn on deck that evening, they passed the Robin’s Nest and Mother, with maximum caution, peered in through the wide windows, expecting to witness some Caligulan debauch. But really: whyever had she bothered? Such a shower of old bags you’d never seen. Wherever were the pretty daughters? And wherever were the officers? “At it already,” said Mr. Brine at dinner that night, in a slurred undertone. “The officers nail down all the talent before the ship weighs anchor. It’s well known.” Mother frowned. “Going abroad, the girls want looking after,” said Mrs. Brine indulgently. “It’s the uniform…” Soft, see-through white of egg bobbled hesitantly down John’s long face, pausing on his chin to look before it leapt on to the expanse of the serviette secured to his throat by Mother.

Up on deck two Irish builders were stirring and swearing beneath the lifeboats, having slept where they dropped. Mother hurried John along. Soon those two would be up in the Kingfisher Bar with their Fernet Brancas and their beers. The ship was a pub afloat, a bingo hall on ice. This way you went abroad on a lurching chunk of England, your terror numbed by English barmen serving duty-frees.

Mr. Brine was a union man. There were many such on board. It was 1977: the National Front, the IMF, Mr. Jenkins’s Europe; Jim Callaghan meets Jimmy Carter; the Provos, Rhodesia, Windscale. This year, according to Mother’s morning news sheet, the cruise operators had finally abandoned the distinction between first and second class. A deck and B deck still cost the same amount more than C deck or D deck. But the actual distinction had finally been abandoned.

At ten o’clock John and Mother attended the Singalong in the Parakeet Lounge. And here they sang along to the sounds of the Dirk Delano Trio. Or Mother did, with her bloodless lips. John’s head wallowed on his wide bent back, his liquid eyes bright, expectant. It was a conviction of Mother’s that John particularly relished these sessions. Once, halfway through a slow one that always took Mother back (the bus shelter beneath the sodden Palais, larky Bill in the rain with his jacket on inside out), John went rigid and let forth a baying moo that made the band stall and stutter, earning him a chuckling rebuke from handsome, dirty-minded Dirk at song’s end. John grinned furtively. So did everybody else. Mother said nothing, but gave John a good pinch on the sensitive underflab of his upper arm. And he never did it again.

Afterwards they would take a turn on deck before repairing to the Cockatoo Rooms, where Prize Bingo was daily disputed. Again John sat there stolidly enough as Mother fussed over her card—a bird herself, a nest-proud sparrow, with new and important things to think about. He gave signs of animation only at moments of ritual hubbub—when, say, the contestants wolf-whistled in response to the Caller’s fruity “Legs Eleven!” or when they chanted back a triumphant “Sunset Strip!” in response to his enticing “Sevenny Seven…?” This morning Mother got six numbers in a row and reflexively yelped out “House!” as if making some shameful declaration about her own existence. Now it was her turn to be stared at. Rank upon rank of pastel cruisewear. Faces contracted in disappointment and a sense of betrayal… The Caller’s assistant, a girl in a catsuit who was actually called Bingo, came to validate Mother’s card. But what was this? Oh dear: she’d got a number wrong. Mother’s head dipped direly. The game resumed. No more numbers came her way.

At about twelve-thirty John was taken down for a quiet time, with his bottle. Much refreshed, he escorted Mother to the Robin’s Nest for the convenient buffet lunch. It took John a long time to get there. For him, dry land was as treacherous as a slewing deck; and so, as the ship rolled, John found himself doubly at sea… With trays on their laps they watched through a hot glass window the men and women playing quoits and Ping-Pong and deck tennis. Mother appraised her son, slumped over his untouched food. He didn’t seem to mind that he couldn’t play. For there were others on board, many others, who couldn’t play either. You saw crutches, orthopaedic boots, leg calipers; down on C deck it was like a ward at Stoke Mandeville. Mother smiled. Her Bill had been a fine sportsman in his way—bowls on the green, snooker, shove-ha’penny, darts… Mother’s smile, with its empty lips. She did have secrets. For instance, she always told strangers that she was a widow. Not true. Bill hadn’t died. He’d walked away, one Christmas Eve. John was fourteen years old when that happened, and apparently a normal little boy. But then his panics started; and Mother’s life became the kind of tired riddle that wounding dreams set you to unlock. Such a cruel year: Bill gone, the letters from the school, the selling of the house, the move, and John all hopeless now and having to be kept at home. Bill sent checks. She never said he didn’t send checks. From Vancouver. Whatever was he doing in Vancouver…? Mother turned. Ah there: now John slept, his chin tripled over his plump tie knot, the four trails of liquid idly mapping his face, two from the corners of his mouth, two from his eyes, eyes that never quite went to sleep. Mother let him be.

Not until five or so did she gently massage him back to life. Waking was always difficult for him: the problem of re-entry. “Better now?” she asked. “After your lovely nap?” John nodded sadly. Then, together, hand in hand, they shuffled below to change.

For John the evenings would elongate themselves in interminable loops and tangles. Half an hour with Mother in the Parakeet Lounge, a friendly tweak on the cheek from Kiri, tonight’s Parakeet Girl. Parakeet Tombola, while the pianist plays “The Sting.” Dinner in the Flamingo Ballroom. The ladies’ evening wear: a fanned card pack of blazing taffeta. And then all the food. Mother went through the motions of encouraging John to eat something (she had his bottle ready but didn’t want to shame him, with the Brines there, and Gary, and Drew). John looked at the food. The food looked at John. John gave the food a look. The food gave John a look. John didn’t like the look of the food. The food didn’t like the look of John. To him, food never looked convincingly dead. And he got into hopeless muddles and messes with his partial (was that alive too?). He ate nothing. On the way to coffee in the Robin’s Nest, Mother liked to linger in one of the Fun Alleys, among the swearing children and the smoking grannies. John stood behind Mother as she lost her nightly fiver on the stocky fruit-machines. The barrels thrummed, the symbols twirled: damson, cherry, apple, grape. Exes and zeros, jagged, unaligned. She never won. The other machines constantly and convulsively hawked out silver tokens into their metal bibs, but Mother’s was giving nothing away, all smug and beaming, chockful of good things sneeringly denied to her. Maximize Your Pleasure By Playing All Five Lines, said a notice above each machine, referring to the practice of putting in more than one coin at a time. Mother often tried to maximize her pleasure in this way, so she lost quickly, and they were never there for long.

What next? Every evening had its theme, and tonight was Talent Night—Peacock Ballroom, ten o’clock sharp. The sea was high on Talent Night, with the waves steep but orderly, churning out their fetch and carry… Couples eddied toward the double doors, the prismatic women with their handbags, the grimly spruced men with their drinks. They staggered, they gagged and heaved, as the ship inhaled mightily, riding its luck. Someone flew out across the floor in a clattering sprint (this was happening every five minutes), hit the wall, and fell over; a purple- jacketed waiter knelt down by the body, yelling out orders to a boy in blue. Mother shouldered John forward, keeping him close to the handrail. She got him through the doors and into the spangled shadows, where at length she wedged his seat against a pillar near the back row. “All right, my love?” she asked. John hoisted his head out of his saturated suit and stared stageward as the lights went down.

Talent Night. There was an elderly gentleman with a sturdy, well-trained voice who sang “If I Can Help Somebody” and, as a potent encore, “Bless This House.” There was a lady, nearly Mother’s age, who with clockwork vigor performed a high-stepping music-hall number about prostitution, disease, and penury. There was a dear little girl who completed a classical piece on the electric organ without making a single mistake. That was the evening’s highpoint. Next, a man got up and said, “I, uh, I lost me wife last year, so this is for Annette” and sang about a third of “My Way” (“Go on,” he shouted as he stumbled off. “That’s it. Laugh.” Drunk, thought Mother.)