"The first day is a day like any other day," said Walham stubbornly, "and this trip started at four p.m. You can't get round that, whatever you say."
Cutler sighed. "Mr. Walham, I don't want to get round anything. That's not our policy at all." He made his decision. "Would you like to have some tea now?"
"I'd like the afternoon tea that's in the catalogue," said Walham, suspicion in his voice. "Not a special tea, or an extra tea. Just tea, like it says in the book."
"You mean, a free tea?"
"Just that."
"I'll have it sent along directly. And then we'll move your cabin."
"I'll be waiting," said Walham, with simple churlishness, and hung up.
Passengers, thought Mr. Cutler, as he lifted the receiver again to make these minor dispositions;dear passengers. . . . The Alcestis had six hundred crew members to look after three hundred of them. Somehow, every time she put to sea, they still discovered new things to bitch about.
4
The first dinner on board the Alcestis at the start of a cruise was never an easy affair; it was the first "shake" of the shake-down process, and thus a period of trial, not the least for Chief Steward Vincent, who had a large number of things on his mind. Vincent, a fat man who was an excellent advertisement for the Alcestis menus, had first of all to produce a satisfactory meal; this would be, for nearly all the passengers, their first sample of their projected "way of life" for the next few months, and it was necessary to give them confidence and set an appropriate tone—in spite of supplies that might have failed to arrive, cooks who might have hangovers, and stewards who could take an immediate dislike to their customers. There was also the table plan, a fruitful source of argument and embarrassment.
The Captain had picked his own table; in thirty years afloat, Vincent had only known this to be changed once, when one of the elect was so invariably drunk at meal-times that he was relegated to his cabin half-way through the voyage. The First Officer had had his table picked for him; the Chief Engineer and the Purser took what was left of the cream; the rest of the passengers had to be settled in their allotted places and persuaded that these were ideal. It was never easy. Some of them wanted to be alone; some objected to being behind pillars, or too near the door, or too far from it; some did not like the people they were with, and spent this first meal-time making the fact plain and scheming how to change their table. Some had fads, often extraordinary: special foods, special sauces, special brands of aerated water, boxes of pills, flowers which relieved their allergies, cushions at their backs, even foot-stools; they all had to be catered for.
Some, owing to the slight roll, had no appetite, but sweated out the meal notwithstanding, queasy and ominous; some ate too much, or got drunk, or were drunk already, and thus grew boisterous or troublesome. Some table-hopped, spilling wine or upsetting glasses in the process. Some thought they ought to be seated at one of the officers' tables, and sneered at the usurping incumbents. When a young steward dropped a heavy metal dish-cover with a reverberating clang, and a momentary silence fell, it reminded Vincent of the start of a new round, with the contestants glaring at each other and flexing their muscles. It was a daunting thought that he would have to preside at a minimum of two hundred and fifty ensuing meals.
Nowhere was this air of unease more apparent than at the Captain's own table.
The Captain himself was not present. He never came down to dinner on this first evening; his excuse, that the Alcestis was still weaving her way across half a dozen busy shipping lanes and that he was required on the bridge, was valid enough, but the real reason was personal—he was somewhat shy, even after so long in the service, and he preferred to leave it to his guests to get acquainted, rather than to assume the burden himself. Sir Hubert and Lady Beckwith, Mr. and Mrs. Tillotson, and Mr. Walham were the first to arrive at table; characteristically, when Vincent announced that the Captain would not be coming down, only Walham commented on the fact.
"Fine thing!" he said disagreeably. He was surveying—perhaps he was even counting—the supply of olives, salted almonds, and sticks of celery which lay on a dish in the middle of the table. Then he looked up at the chief steward. "You mean, the Captain's missing dinner?"
"He will have his up on the bridge, sir," answered Vincent.
Walham's face, which was thin and pursed, as if he had just bitten on a lemon, tightened even further. "Why not here? Isn't this the Captain's table?"
"I'm sure he has plenty to do," said Mr. Tillotson, "at the beginning of the voyage."
"He's got to eat," said Walham.
"He always stays on the bridge," explained Vincent, in faint reproof, "when we're anywhere near land, or near other ships."
"The Captain's table," repeated Walham. "At least, that's the way I heard it."
Sir Hubert Beckwith, tall, aloof, supercilious, leant across the table. "The Captain never comes down, the first evening," he said coldly. "Most people know that."
Walham looked at him. The Beckwiths were the only ones who had changed for dinner, which was traditionally optional on this occasion; it gave them a dividing superiority which nothing in their manner diminished. He set his thin jaw, and helped himself to celery. Then he said suddenly:
"What's your line?"
"Line?" repeated Sir Hubert.
"Yeah, line. I'm in farm equipment, biggest in the middle west. Mr. Tillotson here is Steel & Tool—" he cocked an eye at Tillotson, "—in fact, we do business together, when there is any business. What's your business?"
"I have no business," answered Sir Hubert after a pause. "Not in the accepted sense."
"You're lucky," said Walham. His eyes swivelled round to Lady Beckwith, whose bracelets, ear-rings, and three-tier necklace, all of emeralds, were exceptionally prominent. His lips pursed again. "I'd say you were very lucky."
Round them, the clatter of dishes and the buzz of conversation was suddenly loud as silence fell on their table. Lady Beckwith, her face set in a furious scowl, concentrated on her soup. Sir Hubert was staring at a point six inches above everyone's head. Tillotson consulted a wine-list as if it were the most engrossing thing he had ever clapped eyes on. It was left to Mrs. Tillotson to step in.
"I wonder," she said, gesturing round the empty places, "who else is sitting with us."
"Whoever it is," said Walham, who was not sensitive to the atmosphere around him, "they'll miss the soup if they don't watch out."
"Oh, surely not," said Mrs. Tillotson. "It's right here on the menu."
"So was afternoon tea," said Walham, his mouth full.
"How's that again?" asked Tillotson, looking up.
"Did you have afternoon tea?"
"I guess not."
"You could have. It's on the menu."
"I didn't want it."
"Well, I did. And they tried to give me the run-around. Said it wasn't being served today. But I got it." He looked around him, in triumph. "I tell you, you have to watch out for these things! Otherwise they'll gyp you every time. That's why they're in business."
"Who?" asked Lady Beckwith, coming belligerently to the surface.
Walham waved his hand round the room. "The shipping line. They have to shave their costs all the time. And they don't care how they do it."
"I doubt if they'll go bankrupt over one afternoon tea," said Lady Beckwith, with disdain.
"It all adds up, percentage-wise," said Walham. "But I guess you wouldn't know about that."
"As it happens," said Sir Hubert austerely, "my wife has an acute business sense."
Walham grinned, as if in the bitten lemon, he had hit suddenly on a brief, thin rind of saccharine. "That must come in handy," he said, "in the circumstances."