The Comedians

'How do you mean, Mr Brown?'

'Ninety-five per cent of the people can't afford meat or fish or eggs.'

'But hasn't it occurred to you, Mr Brown, that it isn't the poor who make the trouble in the world? Wars are made by politicians, by capitalists, by intellectuals, by bureaucrats, by Wall Street bosses or Communist bosses - they are none of them made by the poor.'

'And the rich and powerful aren't vegetarian, I suppose?'

'No sir. Not usually.' Again I felt ashamed of my cynicism. I could believe for a moment, as I looked at those pale blue eyes, unflinching and undoubting, that perhaps he had a point. A steward stood at my elbow. I said, 'I don't want soup.'

'It's not time for soup yet, sah. The captain asks you kindly to have a word with him, sah.'

The captain was in his cabin - an apartment as bare and as scrubbed as himself, with nothing personal anywhere except for one cabinet-sized photograph of a middle-aged woman who looked as if she had emerged that instant from her hair-dresser's where even her character had been capped under the drying helmet. 'Sit down, Mr Brown. Will you take a cigar?'

'No, no thank you.'

The captain said, 'I wish to come quickly to the point. I have to ask your cooperation. It is very embarrassing.'

'Yes?'

He said in a tone heavy with gloom, 'If there is one thing I do not like on a voyage it is the unexpected.'

'I thought at sea … always … storms …'

'Naturally I am not talking of the sea. The sea presents no problem.' He altered the position of an ash-tray, of a cigarbox, and then he moved a centimetre closer to him the photograph of the blank-faced woman whose hair seemed set in grey cement. Perhaps she gave him confidence: she would have given me a paralysis of the will. He said, 'You have met this passenger Major Jones. He calls himself Major Jones.'

'I've spoken to him.'

'What are your impressions?'

'I hardly know … I hadn't thought …'

'I have just received a cable from my office in Philadelphia. They wish me to report by cable when and where he lands.'

'Surely you know from his ticket …'

'They wish to be sure that he does not alter his plans. We go on to Santo Domingo … You have yourself explained to me that you have booked to Santo Domingo, in case at Port-au-Prince … he may have the same intention.'

'Is it a police question?'

'It may be - it is my conjecture only - that the police are interested. I want you to understand that I have nothing against Major Jones. This is very possibly a routine inquiry set on foot because some filing-clerk … But I thought … you are a fellow Englishman, you live in Port-au-Prince, on my side a word of warning, and on yours …'

I was irritated by his absolute discretion, absolute correctness, absolute rectitude. Had the captain never slipped up once, in his youth or in his cups, in the absence of that well coiffured wife of his? I said, 'You make him sound like a card-sharper. I assure you that he hasn't once suggested a game.'

'I never said …'

'You want me to keep my eyes open, my ears open?'

'Exactly. No more. If it were anything serious they would surely have asked me to detain him. Perhaps he has run away from his debtors. Who knows? Or some woman business,' he added with distaste, meeting the gaze of the hard woman with the stony hair.

'Captain, with all respects, I'm not trained to be an informer.'

'I am not asking anything like that, Mr Brown. I cannot very well demand of an old man like Mr Smith … in the case of Major Jones …' Again I was aware of the three names, interchangeable like comic masks in a farce. I said, 'If I see anything that merits a report - I'm not going to look for it, mind.' The captain gave a little sigh of self-commiseration. 'As if there were not enough responsibilities for one man on this run …'

He began to tell me a long anecdote about something which had occurred two years before in the port we were coming to. At one in the morning there had been the sounds of shots and half an hour later an officer and two policemen had appeared at the gangway: they wanted to search his ship. Naturally he had refused permission. This was sovereign territory of the Royal Netherlands Steamship Company. There had been a lot of argument. He had complete belief in his night-watchman - wrongly as it turned out, for the man had been asleep at his post. Then on his way to speak to the officer of the watch the captain had noticed a trail of blood spots. It led him to one of the boats and there he had discovered the fugitive.

'What did you do?' I asked.

'He was attended by the ship's doctor and then, of course, I handed him over to the proper authorities.'

'Perhaps he was seeking political asylum.'

'I do not know what he was seeking. How could I? He was quite illiterate, and in any case he had no money for his passage.'

4

When I saw Jones again, after the interview with the captain, I felt a prejudice in his favour. If he had asked me to play poker at that moment I would have consented without hesitation and gladly have lost to him, for an exhibition of trust might have removed the bad taste which remained in my mouth. I took the port-side route around the deck to avoid Mr Smith and was slapped with spray; before I could dive down to the cabin I met Mr Jones face to face. I felt guilty, as though I had already betrayed his secret, when he stopped his walk to offer me a drink.

'It's a bit early,' I said.

'Opening time in London.' I looked at my watch - it read five minutes to eleven - and felt as though I were checking his credentials. While he went in search of the steward I picked up the book he had left behind him in the saloon. It was an American paperback with the picture of a naked girl sprawled face down upon a luxurious bed and the title was No Time Like the Present. Inside the cover in pencil was scrawled his signature - H. J. Jones. Was he establishing his identity or reserving this particular book for his personal library? I opened it at random. ' "Trust?" Geoff's voice struck her like a whiplash …' And then Jones came back carrying two lagers, I put the book down and said with unnecessary embarrassment, ' Sortes Virgilianae. '

' Sortes what?' Jones raised his glass and turning the pages of his mental dictionary and perhaps rejecting 'mud in your eye' as obsolete brought out a more modem term, 'Cheers.'

He added after a swallow, 'I saw you talking to the captain just now.'

'Yes?'

'An unapproachable old bastard. He'll talk only to the toffs.' The word had an antique flavour: this time his dictionary had certainly failed him.

'I wouldn't call myself a toff.'

'You mustn't mind me saying that. Toff has a special sense for me. I divide the world into two parts - the toffs and the tarts. The toffs can do without the tarts, but the tarts can't do without the toffs. I'm a tart.'

'What exactly is your idea of a tart? It seems to be a bit special too.'

'The toffs have a settled job or a good income. They have a stake somewhere like you have in your hotel. The tarts - well, we pick a living here and there - in saloon bars. We keep our ears open and our eyes skinned.'

'You live on your wits, is that it?'

'Or we die on them often enough.'

'And the toffs - haven't they any wits?'

'They don't need wits. They have reason, intelligence, character. We tarts

- we sometimes go too fast for our own good.'

'And the other passengers - are they tarts or toffs?'

'I can't make out Mr Fernandez. He might be either. And the chemist chap, he's given us no opportunity to judge. But Mr Smith - he's a real toff if ever there was one.'

'You sound as though you admire the toffs?'

'We'd all like to be toffs, and aren't there moments - admit it, old man - when you envy the tarts? Sometimes when you don't want to sit down with your accountant and see too far ahead?'

'Yes, I suppose there are moments like that.'