S.O.S. by Joseph Connolly Page A

seldom wise, with Nicole, to even contemplate assumptions – that she has not by now got firmly in her mind that Captain-meeting and Duchess Grill-dining are not two events so easily encompassed by just the one single costume. In which case – and it seems, as I mull it over, increasingly likely – she will be back down again to numberOne Deck, changing the whole ensemble just one more time (maybe, in the interim for thought, slipping back on the, now I think of it, outright glossy and clownish apparel that she very determinedly deems so fit for these singular if plenteous berth-lounging moments).
    So, Rollo, in answer to your question – simply put and deeply felt – When Do We Eat, the honest answer is Christ alone knows, right? An answer neatly dodged but at the same time well summed up by my telling you straight that it’s up to your mother. I said to her where we’d be. But, when we encounter, she will quite surely not agree with this. She will be unshakeable in her absolute knowledge that where I said, in fact, we’d be was somewhere else entirely, and to any suggestion that there is maybe here the merest shadow of a case for arguing that this can’t – can it, actually, Nicole? – be wholly true as Rollo, you see, as well as Marianne and myself have somehow managed to congregate in the precise and purported bloody fucking spot where I said we’d be, well … in response to any of that Nicole will merely, I fear, dismiss the two children’s limited understanding on the grounds that they are, the both of them, no more than children, while my own woodenly put and futile protestations will be swept away, and then ritually atomized. Why? On account of I’m not
responsible
. And here, of course, she has a point.
    â€˜What are you thinking about, Daddy? Have you seen? Rollo seems to have made a new
friend
. How terribly
fond
.’
    David heard these words from his little girl (who, going by the tone, was less than pleased about this
friend
, did she say, of Rollo’s: siblings, he had observed, could be like that) and by way of reply he smiled quite distantly and touched her hand. And then he said:
    â€˜I was just thinking, as I said, that I’m actually pretty, you know – hungry, sort of. Yes – they do seem to be getting on rather well, don’t they?’
    Yes they do. Just take one look at him. Chatting away andlaughing with that very pretty bargirl. And what do I feel about that? Do I feel like a proud father – one who has raised his son to man’s estate, and now gazes fondly at these early and crackling first steps in the endless dance? No I fucking well don’t. I feel envy. Raw and mean and bloody
envy
(pure and simple – not, of course, that it could ever be either).
    â€˜Daddy – can we wait for Mummy at a table? These stools are just murder.’ And as David lowered his eyes in acquiescence to that (along with just anything else that might later occur to her) and prepared to move away from the bar, Marianne suddenly clutched his arm just above the elbow, and was whispering earnestly into his ear: ‘Look – see him? Just there, Daddy. That’s the weird bloke from when we were boarding. I think he must be terribly lonely, or something, poor sod.’
    David clocked him, and nodded. ‘The man in black,’ he said. ‘Rollo – when you decide to put down our delightful barmaid, do you think you could ask her to pilot across a large Grouse to that table over there? Good of you.’
    Rollo was caught mid-bray, but still managed to turn on to his father a look of extraordinary sourness.
    â€˜Oh
Christ
…’ sighed Rollo, as David and Marianne moved away.
    â€˜What did he say?’ asked Jilly. ‘He’s your father, right?’
    â€˜Oh
right
, yes. That’s him. That’s my father all right, yes. He said to ask you for