Even his death, apparently, had been in a flamboyant tradition. He had suffered a heart attack in a motel. "The girl said he must have strained himself carrying the suitcases," said Mrs. Consolini. "But I know better."
So did Louis earn his money, as the Alcestis curved her way past the broad pregnancy of the Brazilian coastline, and the sun, balanced overhead like a burnished shield, beat mercilessly upon the wooden decks. These, by midday, were unbearable to the touch, and the pitch in the seams bubbled and spread; while below, in the cabins and the public rooms, the forced-draught ventilation impelled upon the passengers great gusts of moist and torrid air.
It was not a climate for romance, save for a few determined characters who chanced to be awake during the small hours; and Louis Scapelli, the bonded courier of love, crept nearly every night to bed like an exhausted eunuch, a true minister without portfolio. There might, he decided, be tougher ways of earning $500 a week, but there could be none more irritating nor more fatal to morale.
Diane, ideally equipped to defy the heat—or to match it, as the occasion demanded—was engaged in the weaving of a curious tapestry. One thread of it was Mr. Walham—Walham the slow man with a dollar, the last of the very small spenders; the other was a thinner, slighter strand altogether, a customer normally to be overlooked, not least by herself—young Master Greenfield. If the first one was the meanest man she had ever met, Barry Greenfield turned out to be, within his modest resources, the most generous soul on board.
Barry Greenfield was a few months short of sixteen years old; by common agreement, by acclamation, he was the worst example of the Great American Brat that anyone on board had ever encountered. In the space of two months, he had managed to antagonize an impressive array of people, ranging from the oldest passengers (who could not stand the noise) to the youngest officers (who did not mind the noise but could not stand the back-talk). He was legally banned from the Tapestry Room, and he now, by popular request, took his meals an hour earlier than the rest of the passengers, who had had enough of noisy scenes, ruined tablecloths, and flying bread-sticks. But that still left a number of places where he could make a thorough nuisance of himself—notably the swimming-pool, the cinema, the boat-deck during siesta-time, and on trips ashore. For these, a lively competition had developed not to be in the same motor-boat, bus, or taxi; there was something about the whining voice, the derisive running-commentary, the penchant for booby-traps and smeared ice-cream, which destroyed all eagerness to sample the joys of foreign travel.
His parents had long ago given up all but the rudiments of supervision. Years of varying treatment, from sudden harsh punishment to cloying and sentimental forms of bribery, had done their work; Barry now knew that he could get away with murder, and when either of them was goaded into trying to disprove this, the resulting uproar was hardly worth it. He should have been at school at this very moment, but when the cruise was at the planning stage his refusal to be left behind had been so vociferous that they had given up arguing. (He did not really want to come with them, but he wanted to go to school even less.) The authorities had been quick to agree, typically, that Barry, a delicate, highly-strung boy, would benefit from a long sea voyage. They made no secret of their view that it would not really matter how long it was. So he had found himself on board the Alcestis, and the Alcestis passengers had found themselves bedevilled by a fellow-traveller who, across an average gulf of forty-five years, epitomized all that they loathed and feared in the word "teen-ager".
It was this young man who presently approached Diane and asked her, in no very ambiguous terms, if he could go to bed with her.
Diane had been in her cabin when the first encounter took place. It was the middle of the afternoon, at sea between Recife and Salvador; most people were asleep after a late lunch, but she had chanced to be wakeful and was sorting some clothes to send to the cleaners. Her cabin-door was open, to take advantage of the slight breeze, and the curtain half-drawn. A small movement disturbed her, and she looked up, thinking it was the stewardess. But it was Barry Greenfield, his head peering round the corner of the doorway, staring at her with solemn concentration.
He said: "Hi!" in a gruff voice.
She frowned. "What do you want?"
"Nothing. I was just passing."
"Keep doing it, junior." Most people now spoke to Barry Greenfield like this; anything less was a fatal weakness, inviting insult or embarrassment.
But he remained where he was, regarding her with an unwinking stare which was, subtly, less unpleasant than usual. Presently he said:
"I thought maybe you could use some company."
She frowned at him again, irritable, not yet awake to the situation. "What the hell are you talking about? Can't you see I'm busy? Run away and play!"
He came forward a step and said: "I'd rather stay here and play." The expression on his face, as much as the words, made his meaning unmistakable.
Diane Loring was not shockable material, but on this occasion she came very near to succumbing. For five seconds she regarded him, quite unable to believe her ears; then she exploded:
"Don't talk to me like that, you snotty little bastard! Just beat it, or I'll call the steward."
"You won't do that," said Barry Greenfield.
She looked at him more closely, trying to guess what line to take, and why it had suddenly become necessary to take any line at all. As usual, he was remarkably self-possessed; his face, which had never seemed immature, was now set in a knowing, confederate grin. But there was something else, something new—and that was what it was, she suddenly realized; it was something new for him.
He was doing this for the very first time; playing it by ear from a sordid fund of guesswork and hearsay; and just for once, the person he spoke to was bound to have the advantage, because he was a boy, however precocious, stepping on to adult ground.
Confidence returned to her. She was used to dealing with men; this one was a small-scale man, a miniature pressing of the brashness, lust, terror, and vanity which she knew all about. All she need use were small-scale gestures and maybe (she grinned privately) shorter legs.
She said, not relinquishing authority: "You'd better sit down. What's on your mind?"
He came forward and sat on the edge of the bed, small, self-contained, tough, and yet vulnerable in the way that all men were vulnerable, when they laid it on the line.
"You know what's on my mind." His voice, not long broken, was throaty and gruff; trying for masculinity, he achieved a rather beguiling adolescence. She recalled reading some book which said that kids of this age were at the peak of their male potency. Such language. ... "How about it?"
"But gee, Barry, I don't even know what you're talking about."
"Knock it off, sister!" Everything he said, and every line he took, were diminished by the laws of perspective, but they were authentic none the less. "I've been watching you. Don't think I haven't! You and that other babe, you've fixed yourself up a nice little racket. Well, I'm a customer."
"A customer? Whatever for?"
"For one of you floating call-girls." She could see that he had all his phrases ready; he must have rehearsed this scene, afraid of making mistakes or of losing ground at a critical stage. "Just name a price, and maybe we can do a deal."
She looked at him again, more closely still. Under the brash manner, the man-of-the-world assumption, he was nervous; but it was a sexual nervousness only—he knew something, or he had guessed something, which allowed him to speak to her like this. It was difficult to know how to deal with it; a virginal squawk would have been out of place, and yet to take it seriously, to treat it as a proposition, would surely qualify her for the nut-house. It could even be illegal. ... Finally she said: "I don't know what in hell's got into your head, but whatever it is, it's all wrong. Now just you beat it, the same way as you came in. I'm busy, like I told you."