How had I managed it? It was so good I felt like writing it down for future situations. It was a beauty. I could have written it down on an old envelope if I had found one, also a pen, if I could find one of them. But we did not keep them in the bedroom. Bedrooms were not there for that purpose. Envelopes and pens were for the front-room writing-cabinet just like cups and saucers were for the kitchen and vacuum cleaners the walk-in lobby cupboard.
I had no interest in any of that. The present was difficult enough. Just concentration concentration, that was the key, apply the brains, the grey matter. Or so I thought. Only for a moment or two. Who was kidding who?
But what was it? I wondered. Even the way she was looking at me. How come she was looking at me? I looked at her. I stared at her. It was not hard to do.
Pieces of shit do not have the power to speak
Date of arrivaclass="underline" April.
Another dream laid waste.
I had prepared my defence but when the time came they gave me no chance to deliver it. I wasnt allowed to shave and my hair was in an unkempt condition. The Accompanying Officer showed me into court, told me where to stand and the proper way of standing. The Court Official read out the bare facts of the charges so rapidly I had little time to mumble your Honour, Lordship or Worship and wondered what term I was supposed to use hereabouts. Different authorities different formalities. The Court Official’s speech consisted of rambling passages that degenerated into confused utterings. Then he added a bit on. I was to be kept in the cell for seven more days, then taken to the port of departure, set on to a boat and returned posthaste to the mainland. A clerk coughed. From local-government coffers a sum was to be settled with the shipping company such that a single fare might be purchased.
I smiled, a reflex action which only antagonized the Accompanying Officer. The fellow gripped my wrist forcibly once they departed the inner area. I allowed it. What else could I have done. I smiled again. I was going to speak, I said, I thought I would have had the chance to speak.
Didnt nobody tell you you’re a piece of shit, pieces of shit dont speak.
I nodded. It sounded sensible.
I had to hold onto my jeans at the waistband, they had taken my belt and my belly had shrunk. Skin and bone. When I lay on my back the skin at the front rested on the skin at the back. The cell entrance was ahead. Now. And I flexed my upper arm in preparation for the push in the back. When it came I went: Aaahhh! to improve the Officer’s temper. Useless being a right-wing sadist bastard if naybody notices. He was a heavy lump of a man and could have knocked the stuffing out me. If he had caught me. What they call a big clumsy ox. I was wiry and slippery and could escape from tight corners. I also packed a punch. The Officer maybe inferred as much and gave me a lengthy stare. Just you try it buddy. Such was the guy’s thought. Yet Accompanying Officers are also human beings. The doors closed solidly, with a juicy kind of thump.
I stepped back and sat on the edge of the palliasse. Here was reality and yes it was grim. A time for reflection, when fellow beings are excused scrutiny.
Later I felt better.
Too soon for a wank. It was to be used for sedation purposes only. Okay. I pondered the past days. My sorry luck; it had been so bad there was nothing to be done, nothing to be said. Bemoan it, then proceed. Life would continue even though I had been absented from it. But if this palliasse had been available to me a few days ago then I would have been okay. I patted it. You should have been mine, I said, I would’ve taken care of you, kept you warm in winter.
So I was talking to a bed, so what.
Yet a sigh was warranted. This was to have been paradise. The only thing better than not working was not working in a land of sunny climes. This was such a land, where young women tourists freely gave of themselves to local young males of unmanacled spirit, suntanned and with healthy limbs.
Why do suntans and healthy limbs enter it? The unmanacled spirit one can understand. Outdoor lives! I was thinking of those, where one could become fit and well, a lithe individual; maybe working as a beachguard. Once upon a time I could swim. If I escaped from the island gaol then certainly I might throw myself into the sea and thresh towards the horizon.
But really, I didnay want to be deported. Had the Court Official stated such categorically? Perhaps he meant something else. Ambiguity was a feature in small southern towns. Sure they had found me ‘lurking’ beside the garbage bins down a ‘back alley’. But all alleys are out the back and anyone found in such a byway is said to be ‘lurking’. Come on now tell the truth and state the case fairly: Mr Duncan was sheltering from a gale wind.
I was. That was a hellish gale wind and no mistake. Sure I had the smell of alcohol on my breath. What in God’s teeth was wrong with that? I was twenty-one years of age and beyond the age of legitimacy. It was my first day in the place and I had got ashore safely, safely. A celebration had been in order. Such behaviour was normal. What did ‘normality’ mean in this here burg.
No job; okay. Abode there was none; okay. Cash ditto; nothing new in that. And no Verifiable Information as to Previous Whereabouts. So they said. Mr Duncan begged to differ. I did. I offered to verify anything, anything. To no avail. Then too, there also existed, and freely confessed: Bad Tidings from a certain Ship’s Restaurant.
Such was the crime, such the criminal.
At 4.30 a.m. they had chanced upon me. My first day in the place. Two glaring flashlights inches from my eyes. Eighteen hours earlier could life have been rosier! Bestriding the upper decks in jaunty fashion bidding fellow passengers G’day.
Envious stares all round. I had been the only person left at the bar with a pint of stout in front of me. That was no sentimental nonsense. Truly the case. A six-hour sail had become a ten-hour battle through some of the worst seas the stewards had witnessed in fifteen years on the run. So they said.
Ah but it suited me. I was trying a new approach to life and so far it was working. It was simple. I had ceased being stand-offish. I was always interested in the lives of other people but in the past had looked on from afar. The idea of opening a conversation with a guy behind the bar would have been unthinkable, even more unthinkable that I would carry it forwards. But I persisted and the barman repaid me by blethering on about all manner of oddities, some boring, some not so boring.
At long last I was becoming a sociable animal. It was bound to aid my job prospects. I bought the guy a couple of black rums, then tried one myself. I sniffed at it firstly. Mm, an okay aroma. But the taste itself made me groo. The barman was relishing his. Black rum was a tradition, a fighting tradition. Besides being an old salt he was a decent guy and chatted away about life in general. He came from a wee island himself and had been raised to a life of easy servitude. He was even content! Tips were good and although a married man of somewhat advanced years, female tourists beckoned occasionally.
It sounded the thing to me. But were there vacancies aboard the boat? I was set to enquire but for some reason the thought of work vanished from my mind. I certainly fancied life as a sailor. On short trips definitely. But if pushed I would hire on for longer sojourns. On ocean-going vessels only. Above all they must be sea-worthy!
These ruminations were at an end when came an announcement. Last orders for the restaurant which soon would be closing.
But man man man I was starving! I had not noticed this until that very moment! This call to knives and forks had been announced for me and me only. There was naybody else left. I bade the barman G’day and followed my nose to midships. I had to hold on to banisters and walls. The sea was going up and down to heights my fellow travellers found tricky and the floors were slippery with a mixture of vomit and the golden briny. But the God of Empty Bellies urged me on. Shipahoy, I was starving.