Day Four (5 page)

The Devil’s Handmaiden

Althea slapped on the smile she reserved for the most difficult passengers, and waited for the man lumbering down the corridor towards her. Mr Lineman; stateroom V23. He and his wife were truly disgusting, leaving their toilet bowl stained and sodden towels all over the floor. ‘Hello, Mr Lineman,’ she called, adding a respectful lilt to her voice. ‘You should be at your muster station now.’

He huffed, his cheeks flushed from the effort of walking the hundred metres or so from the stairwell. The dim emergency lights accentuated the folds in his baggy face; his knees sagged under the strain of the load they were forced to carry. ‘Just what in the hell has happened to the goddamned ship?’

‘I am so sorry, Mr Lineman, but I don’t know any more than you do.’ This was almost true – she’d been napping at her station when the Bravo alarm had sounded – but she’d heard from Maria, her supervisor, that B Deck had been evacuated because of the smoke. Althea wasn’t worried. In her four years of working for Foveros, there had been several similar incidents, and Maria had said the fire was minor.

‘Why the hell can’t we stay in our staterooms?’

‘It’s for your own safety, Mr Lineman.’

His jowls wobbled. ‘I thought there was no danger? Damien said there was no danger.’

Smile still in place she said, ‘That is true, but it is standard procedure for the captain to muster the passengers in a situation like this. I really must urge you to return to your station.’

‘I had to come back for my medication. You people want me to get sick?’

No. I would like you to die a lingering, painful death
. ‘Of course not, Mr Lineman. A crew member should have accompanied you back to your stateroom. Would you like me to collect it for you?’

‘I can do it.’ He flicked the red card that she’d inserted into his stateroom’s lock. ‘What the hell’s this?’

‘It indicates that your stateroom has been checked and is empty, Mr Lineman.’

‘Hmmmf.’ He threw it on the carpet, slid his own card into the slot and slammed his way inside the suite.

She leaned against the wall and stretched like a cat while she waited for him to re-emerge. That bitch Maria would be on the prowl if she wasn’t done soon, and she still had to check Trining’s station on Five Aft – she’d meant to do it hours earlier. The lazy
puta
had come to find her at lunch, said she’d started puking halfway through her morning shift, but Althea suspected she’d been drinking again. Trining was already on a warning – it would be her third sick day this month – and she’d promised Althea fifty dollars if she’d cover for her. The extra money would come in useful, but today Althea could do without the hassle. Her limbs were heavy with exhaustion; she hadn’t been sleeping well. She’d convinced herself that she was tired all the time because she’d been working too hard, taking on too many extra duties.

The alternative didn’t bear thinking about.

Damien’s voice droned over the PA system, repeating the same message yet again. The man was in love with his own voice. Althea had never spoken to him, but Rogelio, the only pinoy assistant cruise director, said he was an egoist with a nasty heart. Rogelio . . . now there was someone she should have married. Handsome, hard working, and always courteous. The opposite of Joshua.

The toilet whooshed in Mr Lineman’s cabin, and seconds later he reappeared, a hefty Walgreens bag cradled in his arms. She smiled again, but he stomped past her without a word.

‘
Putang ina mo
,’ she said under her breath.

He paused and turned, his piggy eyes gleaming. ‘What was that?’

Shit
. ‘Excuse me?’

‘What did you just say? What language was that?’

‘Tagalog, Mr Lineman.’

‘Taga what?’

‘Tagalog. It is a Filipino language.’
You ignorant pig-bastard
. ‘I was merely wishing you good luck,’ she lied.

‘Learn to speak English, why don’t you,’ he muttered.

Althea wished that she could tell this stupid cone-head that she spoke English, Spanish and Tagalog fluently and could curse in five additional languages, whereas he could barely speak one, but she would lose her bonus if he gave her a negative rating. ‘I am so sorry, Mr Lineman. I meant no offence.’

He looked slightly mollified. This time, she watched him carefully as he trudged away. The ship was listing more radically now, enough to affect his balance.
Good
.
Fall, bastardo, fall.

She replaced the red card in his door and then checked the suite shared by the two seniors, Helen and Elise. Spotless – their twin beds were exactly as she’d left them when she’d serviced their stateroom earlier that evening. She expected a large tip from these two. Althea had worked on enough ships to recognise the big tippers, and it was never the ones who demanded extra bottled water every hour, bleated about the air-con temperature, or whined if she didn’t fold a different fuck-darned towel animal every night.

She moved onto the last suite – V27 – the psychic’s cabin. Devil’s work, her mamita would have called it. Mrs del Ray was a grumpy old bitch to be sure, but she was generous – Althea had already made extra money by turning a blind eye to the bottles of alcohol in her stateroom. The second she inserted her master key-card into the lock, the door was yanked open and Maddie, Mrs del Ray’s skinny assistant, lunged at her. ‘Althea! I thought you were the doctor.’

‘You are sick?’

‘Not me – Celine. Mrs del Ray.’

Althea followed her into the bedroom, where Mrs del Ray was sitting in her wheelchair, staring slack-faced at the blank screen of the TV. The room smelled of alcohol.

‘Celine? Celine? Althea is here,’ Maddie said in a sing-song voice, as if she was addressing a child.

Mrs del Ray looked up, her head lolling back on her neck, her eyes unfocused. She giggled, and flapped a hand in a vague greeting.

‘What’s wrong with her?’ Althea asked, her eyes drifting to the empty bottle of J&B next to the television. The woman drank too much – Althea was the one who lugged her empties to the glass crusher – maybe that was why she was sick.

‘I don’t know. She’s acting confused. I called the fucking . . . sorry’ – Althea nodded primly – ‘I called for the doctor as soon as the ship stopped, but no one’s come yet.’

‘You have tried to call again?’

‘Yeah. Haven’t stopped. There’s no answer at all now.’

Althea unclipped her radio and buzzed her supervisor. ‘Maria? Come in, Maria.’ Static hissed back at her. She tried again, with the same result.
Susmaryosep
. ‘May I try your phone, Maddie?’

‘Go ahead.’

Althea picked up the receiver and dialled the medical centre, but it just rang and rang. Next she tried Housekeeping and Guest Services, but both pipped with a busy signal. ‘I will go to the medical centre in person and tell them to send the doctor.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome,’ Althea said automatically. She didn’t mind Maddie – Celine’s assistant had always been courteous to her, without being patronising or over-friendly. And she was visibly worried. Perhaps there really was something wrong with the old woman.

Althea hurried out the stateroom, trying her radio again. Another gush of static
.
This was exactly what she didn’t need. She checked the corridor on the port side for Electra, who serviced the staterooms in that section – but there was no sign of her. It would be faster to use the passenger staircase to reach the medical bay on Deck Three, although housekeeping staff were forbidden in the area. She’d take her chances. Most of the crew would be at their muster stations, herding the guests, or dealing with the issues in the generator room, so she should get away with it. Down and down she ran. She held her breath and ducked her head when she reached the landing on Six, where two engineers were helping several grumbling passengers out of one of the stalled elevators.

As she jogged towards the medical bay door, she caught a whiff of smoke drifting through the serrated sheeting that covered the adjacent entrance to the I-95. She pressed the bell next to the door and waited. Nothing. She tried the handle, and when it gave, she stepped inside. The narrow waiting area, pharmacy and reception desk were empty, but raised voices sounded from behind a door at the far end of the waiting area. She moved over to it, stood on her toes and peered through the frosted glass window. The new doctor was placing an oxygen cup over the face of a hysterical crew member in a pair of filthy blue overalls. Next to him, a male nurse was ministering to a fellow in officer whites, who was also attached to an oxygen tank. But it was the man on the gurney closest to her who grabbed her attention. He lay absolutely still on his side, his arm outstretched. Sloughs of skin like obscene lace drooped off his forearm, revealing a section of yellow and red weeping tissue. As if he could sense her gaze he shifted his eyes and looked straight at her. She offered him a look of sympathy, but he didn’t react; his eyes were empty, as if he’d crawled inside himself to deal with the pain. She’d seen nasty burns before – she’d been visiting her mother in Binondo when a fire had ravaged a nearby factory – but the sight still made her stomach roll. The doctor hurried over to the burn victim and gently placed a hand on his forehead.

Shaking, Althea retreated back to the waiting area. The shouts from the room had become murmurs. The fire had to have been worse than she’d been told. And it was becoming rapidly warmer down here; the air-con was still out. Unsure what to do, she paced.

The last doctor, a Cuban man with bad teeth, had reportedly been fired for harassing one of the Romanian crew waitresses, but his replacement had a kind face. She wondered if she could ask him for help with her situation, then swallowed the thought. She couldn’t think like that. She ran a hand over her belly. If she
was
pregnant, it was still too early to show. Two months at the most. Perhaps Joshua had made good on his threat to mess with her pills after all.
Bastardo
. They’d fought the last time she’d been home, when she’d refused to cook for him and his brothers. How dare he expect her to wait on him after she’d broken her back on the ships supporting them all! It still made her insides burn with fury. He knew her greatest fear was turning into her sister, who was grey-skinned and washed out, living in squalor in Quezon with five children. What did he think would happen if she got pregnant? She would be fired, that was what, the money would dry up, and then all of them would be one step away from the slums. Him and his whole fuck-darned family.
Well, guess what
.
That time will be coming sooner than you think.

It was her own fault. She should have married an American with money, not a stupid pinoy who’d been dumb enough to get himself fired off the ships. But no, she’d fallen in love – ha! Love! – with a fuck-darned assistant waiter with a mole under his eye who’d promised her they’d rise through the ranks together. She might not be able to divorce him – their families would never accept that – but she could leave. She could save up and start a new life.

It was a plan – a good plan – but if she was pregnant, she could forget it. She was only two months into her tenth-month contract, so there was no chance she could hide it.

‘What are you doing here?’ Althea turned to see a large woman with dyed orange hair and a crumpled nurse’s uniform bustling through the entrance door. ‘Are you sick?’

Althea explained about Mrs del Ray’s situation.

The woman gave her a tired smile. ‘Ah. Bin must have taken the call earlier, before we were overrun.’

‘The men who were injured in the fire,’ Althea said, gesturing at the door. ‘Will they be okay?’

The woman pursed her lips. ‘You went in there? That area is for patients only.’

‘So sorry,’ Althea murmured, automatically sliding into her deferential act. ‘No one was here. I was trying to find the doctor.’

‘Ah. Okay.’ The nurse ran a hand through her tangled hair. Dark circles ringed her eyes, and the skin on her nose and cheeks was florid with broken veins. A drinker. Althea knew the signs.

‘My supervisor said that the fire was not bad,’ Althea fished.

‘Things look worse than they are, don’t worry. I’d better get in there. Thanks for letting us know. V27, you say?’

Althea nodded, and dismissed, she ducked her way through the plastic sheeting and along the I-95. Trining’s station was on Five Aft – a five-minute walk at least. She jogged along the passageway, aware that the air was becoming muggier, the smell of smoke stronger the closer she came to the engine rooms aft of the ship. She swapped greetings with a group of waiters who hustled past her, their arms piled with trays of water bottles, but they couldn’t tell her more about the situation than she already knew. As she ran past the housekeeping offices, she heard the bark of Maria’s voice. ‘Althea!’

Althea froze, then turned to face her, eyes lowered.

‘I have been trying to contact you, Althea.’

‘I am sorry.’ She tapped her radio. ‘It isn’t working again.’

‘You have checked there is no one still in their cabin on your station? You have followed procedure?’

‘Yes, Maria. But one of my guests is sick and needs the doctor. They called down to the medical centre, but there was no answer.’