He moved his hand to her chin. Taking it between his thumb and forefinger, he raised her head to look at her. She saw the merriment in his eyes that she had so often mistaken for kindness, and she supposed that once again the man she had been loving was somebody she had put together out of the bits of him she wanted to believe in, while she ignored the bits that didn't fit.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she said. "I let you pick me up. I was scared. You were an angel. You never did me wrong. Not till now. And I gave you my best shot. You I did. Where is he?" she said, straight into his eyes.
He released her chin and walked away down the room, swinging his champagne glass wide.
"Good idea, girl," he said approvingly. "Well done. Spring him. Spring your lover boy. Put a file in his French loaf. Shove it through the bars on visiting day. Pity you haven't brought Sarah along with you. Two of you could ride away on her into the sunset." No change of tone. "You don't know a fellow called Burr at all, do you, Jeds, by any chance? First name Leonard? North Country oaf? Smelly armpits? Gospel trained? Come your way at all? Ever have a tumble with him? Probably called himself Smith. Pity. Thought you might have."
"I don't know anyone like that."
"Funny thing. Nor does Pine."
They dressed for dinner, back-to-back, choosing their clothes with care. The formal madness of their days and nights aboard the Pasha had begun.
* * *
The menus. Discussion with the steward and the cooks. Mrs. Sandown is French, and her opinion on everything is therefore regarded by the kitchen as gospel, never mind she eats only salads and swears she knows nothing about food.
Laundry. When guests are not eating they are changing, bathing and copulating, which means that every day they must have clean sheets, towels, clothes and table linen. A yacht sails on its food and its laundry. A whole section of the service deck is got up with banks of washing machines, dryers and steam irons, which two stewardesses tend from dawn till dusk.
Hair. The sea air does terrible things to people's hair. At five every evening the guest deck is humming to the sound of hair dryers, and it is their peculiarity to fail when guests are halfway through their toilet. Therefore at ten to six exactly, Jed may count on the sight of a belligerent, half-dressed lady guest lurking in the gangway with her hair stuck up like a lavatory brush, brandishing a defunct hair dryer and saying, "Jed, darling, could you possibly?" ― because the housekeeper is by now supervising the final touches to the dinner table.
Flowers. Every day, the seaplane visits the nearest island to fetch flowers, fresh fish, seafood, eggs and newspapers, and to post letters. But the flowers are what Roper cares about most, the Pasha is famous for its flowers and the sight of dead flowers, or flowers not adequately arranged, is likely to cause serious tremors below decks.
Recreation. Where shall we put in, swim, snorkel, whom shall we visit, shall we dine out for a change, send the helicopter or the seaplane for the Somebodys, take the Somebody Elses ashore? For the guests on the Pasha are not a static population. They change from island to island according to their negotiated length of stay, bringing new blood, new banalities, a new approach to Christmas: how terribly behind one is with one's preparations, darling, I haven't even thought about my pressies, and isn't it time you and Dicky got married, you look so absolutely yummy together?
And Jed in the madness goes along with this mad routine, waiting for a chink. Roper's references to putting files into bread loaves is not inaccurate. She would fuck all five guards and Langbourne and even Corkoran, if he were so disposed, in order to get alongside Jonathan.
* * *
Meanwhile, as she waits, all the rituals of her strict childhood and convent school ― the rules of grit your teeth and smile ― entwine her in their humiliating embrace. While she obeys them, nothing is real, but also nothing comes adrift. For both these blessings she is grateful, and the possibility of a chink remains. When Caroline Langbourne treats her to a discourse on the pleasures of marriage to Sandy now that the slut of a nanny is safely back in London, Jed smiles dreamily and says, "Oh, Caro, darling, I'm so awfully pleased for you both. And for the children, naturally." When Caroline adds that she probably said some absolutely barmy things about the business deals Dicky and Sandy were getting up to, but she'd talked it all through with Sandy and she really had to admit she'd seen things rather blacker than they were ― and honestly, how can one make one's pennies these days without getting one's fingers the weeniest bit grubby? ― Jed is pleased about that too and assures Caro that she can't remember a thing that Caro said about all that anyway, with Jed and business it's just in one ear and out the other and thank God for it....
And at night she sleeps with Roper, waiting for the chink.
In his bed.
Having dressed and undressed in his presence, worn his jewellery and charmed his guests.
The encounter most often comes at dawn, when her will, like the will of the dying, is at its weakest. He reaches for her, and Jed in some dreadful eagerness at once returns his call, telling herself that in doing so she is drawing the teeth of Jonathan's opressor, taming him, bribing him, making peace with him for Jonathan's salvation. And waiting for the chink.
Because that is what she is trying to buy from Roper all the time, in this mad silence they are sharing, following their first exchange of gunfire: a chance to get past his guard. They can laugh together about something as crucial as a bad olive. Yet, even in their sexual frenzies, they no longer mention the one subject that still joins them: Jonathan.
Is Roper too waiting for something? Waiting herself, Jed believes he is. Why else does Corkoran tap on the stateroom door at all odd hours, poke his head round, shake it and withdraw? In her nightmares, Corkoran doubles as Jonathan's executioner.
* * *
She knows where he is now. Roper hasn't told her, but it has been an amusing game for him, looking on while Jed spots the clues and pieces them together. And now she knows.
First she notices the unnatural grouping at the forward end of the boat, on the lower deck beyond the guest cabins: a clogging of people, an air of accident. It is nothing she can put her finger on, and anyway that section of the boat has always been hazy to her. In the days of her innocence, she heard it referred to as the security area. Another time as the hospital. It is the one part of the boat that belongs to neither guests nor crew. And since Jonathan himself is also neither, Jed sees the hospital as the fitting place to put him. Hovering with intent around the kitchen, Jed observes trays of invalid food, not ordered by herself. They are laden when they go forward. They are empty when they return.