Signals of Distress by Jim Crace Page B

chased its own steam trail and then it was evaporated by the light. That was the entertainment for the day. They should have volunteered to walk with
Ralph Parkiss to check the fortunes of the Belle at Dry Manston. At least there would’ve been flirting on the coast, and some amusement to be had with rocks and cattle. At least
there’d have been some noise, if only gulls and wind.
    The captain wouldn’t tolerate their singing or any horseplay in the inn. His mood was murderous. George, the parlourman, whose conversation at its best was cryptic, had brought the news,
‘Your blackie’s gone back home to Africa.’ Someone, he said, had released the bolt on the tackle-room door. All that remained of Otto now was dry blood on the straw. Who should
they blame but Aymer Smith, the meddler with the soap, the sugar abolitionist? George said he’d seen the man a little after dawn, down on the quay. He had Whip at his side and was talking to
the sailors on the Tar . He hadn’t any trousers on. What should the captain make of that? He whistled through a window for his dog. She didn’t come.
    The captain went down to Aymer’s upstairs room with Mrs Yapp and George. The carriage bag, some clothes and books were on his bed. The man himself had disappeared in the middle of the
night, Robert Norris said, embarrassed, evidently, to have slept through breakfast and to be discovered in his barely curtained bed with half a pot of urine at its foot. He and his wife – who
looked a touch too flushed and ample for a Sunday – hadn’t seen or heard of Aymer Smith since then.
    ‘What does that mean, do you suppose?’ the captain asked George. ‘Not wearing any trousers? Is this a jest or your invention?’
    ‘It in’t any jest. I’d not invent such indecorum. As barelegged as a seagull, he was.’
    ‘He didn’t even settle his account,’ said Mrs Yapp. ‘Or pack his bags. Too rushed to put his trousers on! Well now …’ She laughed. She couldn’t help
it. She put her arm around the captain’s waist. The poor man needed cheering up. But when she saw the temper on his face, she let him go and busied herself with the empty bed. ‘He had
clean sheets and hardly dirtied them. Now, there’s a wicked waste … Who wants some soap?’ She took the few remaining bars from Aymer Smith’s belongings and offered them
first to Katie Norris (‘We have some, thank you, Mrs Yapp’) and, then, to George (‘Enough! Enough!’). Alice Yapp removed the sheet from the bed, bundled Aymer Smith’s
possessions – the soap included, and his books – in his bag and took them to the door. ‘We’ll see if we can fetch a shilling with these to pay his bill,’ she said, and
then, by way of explanation for the profit she could make, ‘The man has gone. So’s the dog. So’s the African. And so’s the Tar . We’ve seen the last of
them!’ She prodded the Norrises’ piss-pot with her toe. ‘Take care of that,’ she said to George. ‘Before there’s kick and spill.’
    The captain spent the morning at a table in the snug, placated every half an hour or so by a shot of ‘Mrs Yapp’s Fortified Tea’. (It would make her rich when she was in her
sixties.) He needed fortifying, Mrs Yapp insisted. He’d been ‘stormed-up about the blackie and the Belle ’. A little ‘lively tea’ would settle him and let the
anger out and only cost two pennies for a pint. ‘You’re sitting stiff,’ she said. ‘Don’t be so starchy down your back. Better bend than break. There, now.’ She
squeezed the tendons in his neck and shoulders until his back relaxed. ‘Anything you need from me, just ring the handbell in the parlour. Or else you’ll find me in my room.’ Was
that an invitation to her room? The captain couldn’t tell. She was so brisk and democratic. But her fingers and her tea had done their job. He felt more lively now, though, thanks to Mrs
Yapp’s plump generosities, he was stiff and starchy in places other than