The decks were silent now and Graham could hear the sounds within the ship: people talking, doors slamming, quick businesslike footsteps in the alleyways. There was not long to wait now. Outside it was getting dark. He looked back upon a day which had seemed interminable, surprised that he could remember so little of it.
Most of it he had spent in Colonel Haki’s office, his brain hovering uncertainly on the brink of sleep. He had smoked innumerable cigarettes and read some fortnight old French newspapers. There had been an article in one of them, he remembered, about the French mandate in the Cameroons. A doctor had been, reported favourably on the state of his wound, dressed it and gone. Kopeikin had brought him his suitcase and he had made a bloody attempt to shave with his left hand. In the absence of Colonel Haki they had shared a cool and soggy meal from the restaurant. The Colonel had returned at two to inform him that there were nine other passengers travelling on the boat, four of them women, that none of them had booked for the journey less than three days previously, and that they were all harmless.
The gangway was down now and the last of the nine, a couple who sounded middle-aged and spoke French, had come aboard and were in the cabin next to his. Their voices penetrated the thin wooden bulkhead with dismaying ease. He could hear almost every sound they made. They had argued incessantly, in whispers at first as if they had been in church; but the novelty of their surroundings soon wore off and they spoke in ordinary tones.
“The sheets are damp.”
“No, it is simply that they are cold. In any case it does not matter.”
“You think not? You think not?” She made a noise in her throat. “You may sleep as you wish, but do not complain to me about your kidneys.”
“Cold sheets do not harm the kidneys, chérie.”
“We have paid for our tickets. We are entitled to comfort.”
“If you never sleep in a worse place you will be lucky. This is not the Normandie.”
“That is evident.” The washing cabinet clicked open. “Ah! Look at this. Look! Do you expect me to wash in it?”
“It is only necessary to run the water. A little dust.”
“Dust! It is dirty. Filthy! It is for the steward to clean it. I will not touch it. Go and fetch him while I unpack the luggage. My dresses will be crushed. Where is the W.C.?”
“At the end of the corridor.”
“Then find the steward. There is no room for two while I unpack. We should have gone by train.”
“Naturally. But it is I who must pay. It is I who must give the steward a tip.”
“It is you who make too much noise. Quickly. Do you want to disturb everyone?”
The man went out and the woman sighed loudly. Graham wondered whether they would talk all night. And one or both of them might snore. He would have to cough loudly once or twice so that they would realise how thin the partition was. But it was strangely comforting to hear people talking about damp sheets and dirty wash basins and W.C.’s as if-the phrase was in his mind before he realised it-as if they were matters of life and death.
Life and death! He got to his feet and found himself staring at the framed instructions for lifeboat drill.
“CINTURE DI SALVATAGGIO, CEINTURES DE SAUVETAGE, RETRUNGSGÜRTEL. LIFEBELTS.… In case of danger, the signal will be given by six short blasts on the whistle followed by one long blast and the ringing of alarm bells. Passengers should then put on their lifebelts and assemble at boat station number 4.”
He had seen the same sort of thing dozens of times before but now he read it carefully. The paper it was printed on was yellow with age. The lifebelt on top of the washing cabinet looked as if it had not been moved for years. It was all ludicrously reassuring. “In case of danger.…” In case! But you couldn’t get away from danger! It was all about you, all the time. You could live in ignorance of it for years: you might go to the end of your days believing that some things couldn’t possibly happen to you, that death could only come to you with the sweet reason of disease or an “act of God”: but it was there just the same, waiting to make nonsense of all your comfortable ideas about your relations with time and chance, ready to remind you-in case you had forgotten-that civilisation was a word and that you still lived in the jungle.
The ship swayed gently. There was a faint clanging from the engine room telegraph. The floor began to vibrate. Through the smeared glass of the porthole he saw a light begin to move. The vibration ceased for a moment or two; then the engines went astern and the water glass rattled in its bracket on the wall. Another pause and then the engines went ahead again, slowly and steadily. They were free of the land. With a sigh of relief he opened the cabin door and went up on deck.
It was cold but the ship had turned and was taking the wind on her port side. She seemed stationary on the oily water of the harbour but the dock lights were sliding past them and receding. He drew the cold air into his lungs. It was good to be out of the cabin. His thoughts no longer seemed to worry him. Istanbul, Le Jockey Cabaret, the man in the crumpled suit, the Adler-Palace and its manager, Colonel Haki-they were all behind him. He could forget about them.
He began to pace slowly along the deck. He would, he told himself, be able to laugh at the whole business soon. It was already half-forgotten; there was already an air of the fantastic about it. He might almost have dreamed it. He was back in the ordinary world: he was on his way home.
He passed one of his fellow passengers, the first he had seen, an elderly man leaning on the rail staring at the lights of Istanbul coming into view as they cleared the mole. Now, as he reached the end of the deck and turned about, he saw that a woman in a fur coat had just come out of the saloon door and was walking towards him.
The light on the deck was dim and she was within a few yards of him before he recognised her.
It was Josette.
CHAPTER FOUR
For a moment they stared blankly at one another. Then she laughed. “Merciful God! It is the Englishman. Excuse me, but this is extraordinary.”
“Yes, isn’t it.”
“And what happened to your first-class compartment on the Orient Express?”
He smiled. “Kopeikin thought that a little sea air would do me good.”
“And you needed doing good?” The straw-coloured hair was covered with a woollen scarf tied under the chin, but she held her head back to look at him as if she were wearing a hat that shaded her eyes.
“Evidently.” On the whole, he decided, she looked a good deal less attractive than she had looked in her dressing-room. The fur coat was shapeless, and the scarf did not suit her. “Since we are talking about trains,” he added, “what happened to your second-class compartment?”
She frowned with a smile at the corners of her mouth. “This way is so much less expensive. Did I say that I was travelling by train?”
Graham flushed. “No, of course not.” He realised that he was being rather rude. “In any case, I am delighted to see you again so soon. I have been wondering what I should do if I found that the Hotel des Belges was closed.”
She looked at him archly. “Ah! You were really going to telephone me, then?”
“Of course. It was understood, wasn’t it?”
She discarded the arch look and replaced it with a pout. “I do not think that you are sincere after all. Tell me truthfully why you are on this boat.”
She began to walk along the deck. He could do nothing but fall in step beside her.
“You don’t believe me?”
She lifted her shoulders elaborately. “You need not tell me if you do not wish to. I am not inquisitive.”
He thought he saw her difficulty. From her point of view there could be only two explanations of his presence on the boat: either his claim to be travelling first class on the Orient Express had been a pretentious lie intended to impress her-in which case he would have very little money-or he had somehow discovered that she was travelling on the boat, and had abandoned the luxury of the Orient Express in order to pursue her-in which case he would probably have plenty of money. He had a sudden absurd desire to startle her with the truth.