"I think this has gone on long enough."
"You can say that again! In fact—"
"All right, Diane," interrupted Carl. "You've spoken your piece. Now let's leave it."
"But is she going to get to work?" demanded Diane belligerently. "Because if not—"
"If not, what?" asked Carl.
"Well, hell, I'd like to take a rest myself!"
"No one's going to take a rest."
"Well, that'll be a nice change." Rising, Diane looked across at Kathy. "I've got nothing against you personally, honey," she said, on a slightly conciliatory note. "I just want to know where we all stand."
"Well, you know now."
"O.K." The brief overture evaporated; if Kathy would not meet it, Diane could switch her mood back again just as easily. "But you can't expect me to carry the load for both of us, indefinitely. There was nothing in the contract about Carl playing favourites. Which means that you and I are doing exactly the same job. Which means that you've got nearly four thousand bucks to catch up. Let's see you do it."
The slam of the cabin-door behind her woke the Professor momentarily, and he peered round him, with cautious interest. But there seemed, regrettably, to be some sort of crisis in the air; it was not a climate for tired old men who might themselves be in disgrace. He shut his eyes again; it was his only defence measure. There was a long silence, broken only by the Professor's snuffling as he dozed off once more.
Kathy looked at Carl's frowning face. "Am I making it difficult for you, Carl?"
"A little."
"Or a lot?" "A lot, I suppose."
"I must stop, then. What do you really want me to do?"
He made up his mind, between the question and the answer. "Work," he answered briefly. "Diane's got a point, you know. How do you fill in your time?"
She shrugged. "Doing nothing. I'll admit it. But I am there for you."
"I think you'll have to improve on that." There was a shade of annoyance in his tone, perhaps masking something else. She might be "there for him", but in fact they had not made love, nor even come near to it, for a long time, and they were both aware of the fact. "Tell me, what was that crack of Diane's about the kid officer?"
"Just Diane."
"Sure?"
"Oh, come, Carl!" she said irritably. "You know me better than that."
In plays, thought Carl, that was the point where the hero put on a meaningful, middle-distance look, and answered: "I wonder if I do. . . ." But he wasn't in that sort of mood. Hedid know her well, and it was ridiculous that they should have scenes like this. He answered, instead:
"We'll be in Rio tomorrow. You'd better start working something out."
"If that's the way you really want it."
"Yes. I do."
"All right. I'll start now."
5
"I still maintain," said Sir Hubert Beckwith, in that clipped British accent which reminded Kathy of the film version of Little Lord Fauntleroy, "that as a nation we have a valuable contribution to make. In fact, quite definitely! The world," said Sir Hubert, slipping an unassuming thumb under the back of her dress as they danced, "will be in debt to the English as long as quality and integrity are held in their proper esteem. That has always been our strong point, as you know." The thumb began to explore the small of her back, conveying a discreet yet perceptible message. "We may no longer be rich," said Sir Hubert, "but we have flawless taste, and we have influence. It would be a great mistake to forget either of them."
They were circling the small twilight dance-floor of Sacha's on Copacabana Beach, after a day's determined sight-seeing all over Rio de Janeiro, ranging from the superb outlook of Sugar Loaf Mountain to a perfectly horrible black-bean lunch in one of the tourist-trap cafes. The rest of their party of six were sitting it out at one of the wall-tables; here and there in the room were other passengers from the Alcestis, eating Fish Porridge and drinking "Brahma Extra" beer in accordance with the directive in the ship's daily bulletin. Nearer the dance-floor, Kathy had observed, was a table of about a dozen of their officers, presided over by the Captain. Tim Mansell was among them, slightly flushed, audibly argumentative. She had smiled at him, but he had failed to smile back. His table included old Mr. Simms's ex-nurse, a girl from the ship's hairdressers, and one of the two female junior pursers. To hell with him, she thought.
She and Carl were there as part of the recurrent entertainment protocol, which operated in every port they touched. This time it was the Tillotsons' party; they had invited the Beckwiths because they owed them a night out from as long ago as Port of Spain, and they had invited Carl and herself because Carl, as a fellow poker player, seemed to be Mr. Tillotson's natural companion on board. Whether the latter had any other reason for the invitation, had not yet become apparent. She herself liked Sacha's very much; it had the right combination of luxury, semi-darkness, good music, and a whopping cover-charge which marked all the best night-clubs in all the best countries.
If there were things included in it which she did not relish—such as Sir Hubert Beckwith's thumb, and his unassailable self-conceit— they still did not obtrude too much. She would dispose of them, because (like it or not) she was involved in that sort of business; and she and Carl, together and separately, were strong enough (like Edgar the barman) to assimilate everyone else's problems and still do a day's work. Tonight, Carl would deal with Lady Beckwith, whose preoccupations were emeralds and status, and with Mrs. Tillotson, beset by homesickness involving her grandchildren. For herself, Beckwith boiled down to no more than a thumb massaging her spine, and Tillotson (so far) to a minute exploratory flicker of the eye.
Ranging farther afield, if Tim Mansell were too sad or angry to return her smile, it only meant that he was not measuring up to his own particular problems, which involved, presumably, that stupid bitch of a nurse now toppling over into his lap.
Perhaps, thought Kathy, she was not really in a good mood at all, in spite of Sacha's and the other delights of Rio. Perhaps she was in a lousy one. It was a question, now, as to who was going to pay for it.
"I cannot emphasize enough," said Sir Hubert, looming over her like a rubber lighthouse, "that dollars are not everything. I always remember some lecturer fellow in Boston once saying that life was now a synthesis of the three D's—dollars, dynamism, and destiny." His encircling hand achieved a really remarkable subcutaneous grip. "I may have got the actual details wrong, but the sense is certainly there. And some of us—some of us—still prefer destiny."
"Gentlemen," said Captain Harmer, who was in an expansive mood, "with a view to encouraging thrift among my officers, the next round is on me."
At this point of the voyage, the Captain was always relaxed and content; indeed, the officers' party at Sacha's was traditional, and at one point or another the Captain always made his benign comment about thrift. He was looking forward with satisfaction to the run from Rio to Cape Town; it promised him over three thousand miles of sea-time with never a sight of land, with only the lonely deeps of the South Atlantic under his keel. Eighteen thousand feet, twenty thousand feet—these were real sailor's soundings, worth celebrating.
His officers needed the party for a different reason. It was all very well for the Captain to feel at his best when they were farthest from land; but the passengers tended not to like it at all, and what the passengers didn't like, the officers, in the end, paid for. Rio was their chance to relax after the varied chores of the past six weeks; but it was also their preparation for the long haul, trackless and featureless, which lay ahead. The Cape Town run had many hazards, all of them man-made.