Every Man for Himself by Beryl Bainbridge Read Free Book Online Page B

up for the night. I nearly stopped to assist him – the revellers were distinctly the worse for drink – but decided against it. I suspected I might well be in the same condition in the nights that followed.
    I rang for the steward on reaching my stateroom. I wanted a hot drink. He came in at once, carrying the day suit I had worn when boarding. He said it had been sponged and pressed. The contents of the pockets were on the dressing table if I cared to check.
    ‘Is there a Jew called Rosenfelder on this deck?’ I asked.
    ‘Not on this one, sir. He’s on B deck. He’s the gentleman I mentioned who was to have travelled second class and took over a cancellation.’
    ‘And what of a man called Scurra?’
    ‘That name I don’t recollect, sir. Possibly he’s travelling under an assumed name. You’d be surprised how many of them do that.’
    ‘Like Mr and Mrs Morgan,’ I suggested, and he knew immediately who I meant. He had served them for years on the Atlantic run and found his Lordship a very affable man. He didn’t lean much towards her Ladyship, whom he found strident. ‘Of course, she’s an American,’ he said, ‘and they’re never backward in coming forward.’ He had met her sort before, when he was young and employed as a ballroom dancer at the Savoy. In those days two dances were included in the price of the tea, for the benefit of the unaccompanied ladies. Though he wasn’t one to blow his own trumpet he had been a great favourite with those leaving the glades of youth.
    ‘One in particular,’ he boasted, ‘took a fancy to me. She used to collect me in her carriage and we’d spank along to the Park and take a wee drop of gin under the trees. Mind, I never took advantage . . . I left that to her.’
    Her Ladyship’s sister went under the name of Elinor Glyn. She wrote novels, of the steamy sort so he’d heard, and was, or had been, the mistress of Lord Curzon. I didn’t rebuke him for gossiping, thinking he might be useful later.
    Giving him his tip I suddenly remembered the seaman who had taken Melchett and myself down to the engine rooms. Putting a half-crown piece in an envelope, I addressed it to Riley. I told the steward to make sure the right man received it. ‘He’s no bigger than a boy,’ I said. ‘And he talks like a foreigner with a cold.’
    My billfold, matches, the keys to Princes Gate and the snapshot foisted on me by the dying man lay on the dressing table. I stuffed them back into the pocket of the jacket and began my letter. My dear Uncle, I am bringing back with me the small painting of my mother, dated 1888, which hung on the first floor corridor at Princes Gate. I did not have time to tell Jack what —.
    I had got no further when my cocoa arrived. Laying the letter aside I prepared for bed. It was a relief to switch off the light because the girl on the wall now seemed to be watching me.

TWO

 
    Thursday, 11th April
    At seven o’clock the next morning I had the salt water baths to myself and had swum eight lengths in less than five minutes without pausing for rest. On my ninth turn, a corpulent figure emerged from the cubicles and padded towards the side. I was put off my stroke; it was none other than Rosenfelder, dressed in a costume of green and brown stripes, his calves white and shapely as a girl’s. He sat for some minutes on the edge of the pool struggling to thrust his curls into a rubber cap before flopping walrus-fashion into the water. Though disconcerted I was damned if I was going to quit on his account and continued to plough back and forth, until, having blindly thrashed into my path, his arm flailed downwards and struck me on the shoulder.
    We both trod water and faced each other, he spluttering apologies, myself gasping for breath from lack of fitness. I was about to respond impatiently when his bathing cap, which was already absurdly balanced like some deflating balloon on the very top of his head, suddenly rose in the air and plopped down