‘Oh sure. You just go up top and take a crowsnest at the scenery. All you’ll get is a beanfeast of bullrushes.’ Saly climbed on top of the cabin and scanned the horizon. It was thirty feet away and consisted of an expanse of reeds.
‘There’s something over there looks like a church tower,’ she said. Gaskell climbed up beside her.
‘It is a church tower. So what?’
‘So if we flashed a light or something someone might see it,’
‘Brilliant. A highly populated place like the top of a church tower there’s bound to be people just wanting for us to flash a light.’
‘Couldn’t we burn something?’ said Sally. ‘Somebody would see the smoke and…’
‘You crazy? You start burning anything with all that fuel oil floating around they’ll see something all right. Like as exploding cruiser with bodies.’
‘We could fill a can with oil and put it over the side and float it away before lighting it.’
‘And set the seedbeds on fire? What the hell do you want? A fucking holocaust?’
‘G baby, you’re just being unhelpful.’
‘I’m using my brains is all,’ said Gaskell. ‘You keep coming up with ‘bright ideas like that you’re going to land us in a worse mess than we’re in already.’
I don’t see why,’ said Sally.
‘I’ll tell you why,’ said Gaskell, ‘because you went and stole this fucking Hesperus. That’s why.’
‘I didn’t steal it. I…’
‘You tell the fuzz that. Just tell them. You start setting fire to reedbeds and they’ll be all over us asking questions. Like whose boat this is and how come you’re sailing someone else’s cruiser…So we got to get out of here without publicity.’
It started to rain.
‘That’s all we need. Rain,’ said Gaskell. Sally went down into the cabin where Eva was tidying up after lunch. ‘God, G’s hopeless. First he lands us on a mudbank in the middle of nowhere, then he gefucks the motor but good and now he says be doesn’t know what to do.’
‘Why doesn’t he go, and get help?’ asked Eva.
‘How? Swimming? G couldn’t swim that far to save his life.’
‘He could take the airbed and paddle down to the open water,’ said Eva. ‘He wouldn’t have to swim.’
‘Airbed? Did I hear you say airbed? What airbed?’
‘The one in the locker with the lifejackets. All you’ve got to do is blow it up and…’
‘Honey you’re the practicallest,’ said Sally, and rushed outside. ‘G, Eva’s found a way for you to go and get help. There’s an airbed in the locker with the lifejackets.’ She rummaged in the locker and took out the airbed.
‘You think I’m going anywhere on that damned thing you’ve got another think coming,’ said Gaskell.
‘What’s wrong with it?’
In this weather? You ever tried to steer one of those things? It’s bad enough on a sunny day with no wind. Right now I’d end up in the reeds and anyhow the rain’s getting on my glasses.’
‘All right, so we wait till the storm blows over. At least we know how to get off here.’
She went back into the cabin and shut the door. Outside Gaskell squatted by the engine and toyed with the wrench. If only he could get the thing to go again.
‘Men,’ said Sally contemptuously, ‘Claim to be the stronger sex but when the chips are down it’s us women who have to bail them out.’
‘Henry’s impractical too,’ said Eva. ‘It’s all he can do to mend a fuse.’ I do hope he isn’t worried about me’
‘He’s having himself a ball,’ said Sally.
‘Not Henry. He wouldn’t know how.’
‘He’s probably having it off with Judy.’
Eva shook her head. ‘He was just drunk, that’s all. He’s never done anything like that before.’
‘How would you know?’
‘Well he is my husband.’
‘Husband hell. He just uses you to wash the dishes and cook and clean up for him. What does he give you? Just tell me that’
Eva struggled with her thoughts inarticulately. Henry didn’t give her anything very much. Not anything she could put into words. ‘He needs me,’ she said finally.
‘So he needs you. Who needs needing? That’s the rhetoric of female feudalism. So you save someone’s life, you’ve got to be grateful to them for letting you? Forget Henry. He’s a jerk.’
Eva bristled. Henry might not be very much but she didn’t like him insulted.
‘Gaskell’s nothing much to write home about,’ she said and went into the kitchen. Behind her Sally lay back on the bunk and opened the centre spread of Playboy. ‘Gaskells got bread,’ she said.
‘Bread?’
‘Money, honey. Greenstuff. ‘The stuff that makes the world go round Cabaretwise. You think I married him for his looks? Oh no. I can smell a cool million when it comes by me and I do mean buy me.’
‘I could never marry a man for his money,’ said Eva primly. ‘I’d have to be in love with him. I really would.’
‘So you’ve seen too many movies. Do you really think Gaskell was in love with me?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose he must have been.’
Sally laughed. ‘Eva baby you are naïve. Let me tell you about G. G’s a plastic freak. He’d fuck a goddam chimpanzee if you dressed it up in plastic’
‘Oh honestly. He wouldn’t’ said Eva. ‘I don’t believe it.’
‘You think I put you on the Pill for nothing? You go around in that bikini and Gaskell’s drooling over you all the time if I wasn’t here he’d have raped you’
‘He’d have a hard time.’ said Eva, ‘I took Judo classes.’
‘Well he’d try. Anything in plastic drives him crazy. Why do you think he had that doll?’
‘I wondered about that.’
‘Right. You can stop wondering’ said Sally.
‘I still don’t see what that has to do with you marrying him,’ said Eva.
‘Then let me tell you a little secret. Gaskell was referred to me…’
‘Referred?’
‘By Dr Freeborn. Gaskell had this little problem and he consulted Dr Freeborn and Dr Freeborn sent him to me.’
Eva looked puzzled. ‘But what were you supposed to do?’
‘I was a surrogate,’ said Sally.
‘A surrogate?’
‘Like a sex counsellor’ said Sally. ‘Dr Freeborn used to send me clients and I would help them.’
‘I wouldn’t like that sort of job,’ said Eva, ‘I couldn’t bear to talk to men about sex. Weren’t you embarrassed?’
‘You get used to it and there are worse ways of earning a living. So G comes along with his little problem and I straightened him out but literally and we got married. A business arrangement. Cash on the tail.’
‘You mean you…’
‘I mean I have Gaskell and Gaskell has plastic.’ It’s an elastic relationship. The marriage with the two-way stretch.’
Eva digested this information with difficulty. It didn’t seem right somehow. ‘Didn’t his parents have anything to say about it?’ she asked. ‘I mean did he tell them about you helping him and all that?’
‘Say? What could they say? G told them he’d met me at summer school and Pringsy’s greedy little eyes popped out of his greasy little head. Baby, did that fat little man have penis projection. Sell? He could sell anything. The Rockefeller Centre to Rockefeller. So he accepted me. Old Ma Pringsheim didn’t. She fluffed and she puffed and she blew but this little piggy stayed right where the bank was. G and me went back to California and G graduated in plastic and we’ve been biodegradable ever since.’
‘I’m glad Henry isn’t like that,’ said Eva. ‘I couldn’t live with a man who was queer.’
‘G’s not queer, honey. Like I said he’s a plastic freak.’
‘If that’s not queer I don’t know what is’ said Eva.