Remember Why You Fear Me (59 page)

“Here we are again,” says the voice.

“Here we are again,” agrees Jesus.

“Given any more thought to that offer I made? We can stop this right now, you know. You just need to say the word.”

He’s waited a lifetime. He’s waited everybody’s lifetime. Just say yes. You know all the people you’re sacrificing yourself for. Each and every bloody one of them. You know what they’re worth. Just say yes.

“No,” he says again. Because, really, what else can he do? Because, really, who else is going to save them?

“Okay,” says the voice. And he dies. And it starts again.

Three days later the stone is wheeled away from Jesus’ tomb. The body has gone, and the apostles are jubilant. The ultimate miracle has taken place. Jesus has risen from the dead, and will live forever.

“May I have your embarkation card, sir?” and Roger juggled all his papers to try to find it, his passport, his itinerary, the e-ticket his son had printed off the computer for him. “No, sir, it’s the pink one,” and her well-practised smile never even wobbled, and the woman at check-in gave Roger no reason to believe she was impatient with him.

The couple in front were already posing for the camera, arms around each other. The photographer told them to smile, “You’re on holiday now!”, and they giggled, moved closer. Honeymooners, thought Roger vaguely, or no, not married, they’re giggling a bit too much for that. He wondered if there was going to be a lot of giggling in the week ahead, supposed there was, and nearly turned around and walked away. But he didn’t want to test the non-wobbling smile of the cruise line any further, and, besides, its owner was talking to him again. “Just the one of you, sir?” she asked kindly. “You don’t have to have the photograph taken, not if you don’t want. It’s more for the couples, really.” And she looked so very sympathetic. He felt a flare of irritation, wanted to tell her he wasn’t single, thank you very much, he was married—and then realized that he was nothing of the sort. There wasn’t time to take her advice, the giggly couple had been dispensed with, and the photographer was waving him forward. He stuffed all his papers into his hand luggage for neatness’ sake. “Now smile!” commanded the man behind the camera, “you’re on holiday now!”

Roger’s stateroom was on the Aloha deck. “Aloha!” chirped the elevator voice cheerfully. He found his stateroom easily enough—every door had a name on it, ready and welcoming: his read, “Mr. Roger Kennedy, Mrs. Deborah Kennedy.” ‘Stateroom’ sounded more impressive than it actually was; it was clean and beige and rather smaller than his bedroom back at home. A television was mounted above a minibar, and on it an attractive American woman was talking through an ever-widening smile about the many shipboard activities Roger could enjoy; a desk was filled with leaflets detailing much the same thing. He supposed it might have looked a bit more plush had they reserved a cabin with a porthole, but it was there Roger had drawn the line.

“It costs nearly two hundred pounds more,” he had said. “We’re not paying two hundred pounds for a hole.”

Deborah had tried that usual trick of hers with the watery eyes. It usually worked, but not this time. Not to the tune of two hundred pounds. “You promised me luxury,” she’d said. “We’d be able to look at the sea.”

“We’ll be
surrounded
by the sea,” Roger then had pointed out. “Odds are we’ll want somewhere we can get away from it.” He’d been wrong, he now realized. Without a view, the room was a claustrophobic cell. Deborah wouldn’t have liked it. She’d have been silent now, surveying the room with displeasure, and starting to sulk, and he’d have felt guilty in spite of himself (after all, he’d still paid for the bloody holiday, hadn’t he?).

And then he saw the rabbit. “Aah, sweet,” she’d have said, and given that smile that made her look like the girl he’d fallen in love with, and less like the fortysomething with a weight problem. The rabbit might just, he supposed, have saved the day. It was sitting on top of the pillow. Of course, it wasn’t a real rabbit. It had been made from a hand towel—body, tail stub, floppy ears, the whole works—and a couple of chocolates in silver foil were studded into the head to make eyes. Underneath the rabbit was a little card. “
JESUS WELCOMES YOU
,” it said, and Roger wondered whether on cruises towel animals were the equivalent of a Gideon Bible, but then it went on, “I am happy to be your steward and to make you comfortable. If you need anything, do not hesitate to call me on my pager,” and it gave a number. Roger plucked out one of the rabbit’s eyes, and ate it. It was minty. Deborah, he knew, would have eaten both.

He unpacked his suitcase, put his shirts and trousers on hangers, stuffed underpants and socks into a drawer. He opened the safe, and into it went his passport, his wallet, his English and European currency, and Deborah.

There was a knock at the door. He opened it. A short man in a uniform beamed at him.

“Hello, sir!” he said. “I am Jesus.”

“Hello, Jesus,” said Roger.

“I am your steward.”

“I saw your card.”

“Is good.”

“I saw your rabbit, too.”

“Yes, sir.”

Roger wanted to ask about the rabbit, but couldn’t think of any question more burning than ‘why,’ and that seemed a little rude. Instead he just flapped his hand towards it. Both Jesus and Roger regarded it solemnly. It regarded them back with its one remaining eye. Jesus waited politely for Roger to say something else. When he didn’t, he continued.

“I welcome you,” said Jesus, “and wish you good holiday. I am happy to be steward and make you comfort. If you need anything, do not hesitate call pager. I’m from the Rogerpines,” he then added. He gestured a hand towards the bedside table, and Roger turned to see what he was wanting. There was the silver foil from the chocolate Roger had eaten, scrunched up. He passed it across, this little bit of rubbish he’d made, it disappeared into one of Jesus’ pockets, and in a trice the room was as perfect as before Roger had arrived. Then Jesus turned to go.

“There is one thing,” said Roger. “Can you work the safe? I thought there’d be a key, but it’s all a little more electronic than I expected.”

“Is simple,” said Jesus. “You type in secret code, so? And turn the knob.” Jesus watched approvingly as Roger did just that. “Is good.”

“Good,” agreed Roger. “And to open it again, I . . .  ?”

“Type in secret code, and turn the knob. Sir, the other way, sir.”

“Thank you. Do I give you a tip or . . .  ?”

“At the end of the cruise, sir. But if you have an express wish to . . . ” Roger had just locked the safe again; now he unlocked it, gave Jesus a fifty pee piece, locked it a third time. “Thank you. Is good,” and the coin vanished as swiftly as had the chocolate foil. And Jesus left.

At five o’clock the ship set sail from Southampton. Everyone was pressed against the railings, looking down at the sea and pointing at it as if they’d never seen water before. The waiters were offering cocktails of rum and fruit, and were all so enthusiastic about them that Roger thought it’d be churlish not to buy one. He sipped it through a straw as he stared out at the coast. On land crowds of people were waving; the passengers were waving back, and Roger waved too, putting on a smile and feeling like a fraud. And in spite of himself he couldn’t help thinking of that movie in which the ship turned upside down and all the passengers drowned—what was its name? Deborah would have known.

The cruise had, of course, been Deborah’s idea. “Julie’s just sailed around the Med,” she told him one day when he got home from work. “She says it’s
luxury.
That’s what we should do. Sail around the Med a bit.”

“It’s pretty expensive, isn’t it?” he’d said, but he’d only had the energy for a token resistance.

“Julie says not. Julie says it pays for itself, because all the food is free, and all the drink. Well, not the drink. And you get to go to all these lovely places, and there are swimming pools and televisions. I just think,” she’d said, and he knew she’d already checked the prices, “I want to go on a cruise just
once
in my life.”

But she hadn’t been that lucky. And there was so much to think of that Roger had entirely forgotten about the holiday until the funeral. There his son had been, in that suit which wasn’t a proper suit, and after he’d made the right noises about the cremation and the canapés, he’d said, “You still going on that cruise then, Dad?”

“What? No. No, I don’t think so.”

“Oh, you should. I mean, it’s all paid and everything.”

“Yes, you should,” cooed his son’s latest girlfriend. “That sounds so lovely, a cruise, that sounds so
romantic.
”

“It’ll take your mind off Mum,” said his son. “You know. You’ve been through a lot. Haven’t you? God. We’d give our eye teeth for a cruise. God.”

“Why don’t you go instead?” asked Roger.

“No, thanks.”

The next day Roger phoned up the cruise line. “I’d like to cancel the booking,” he said. “My wife’s dead.”

“Did you take out insurance, sir?”

“I don’t know. I expect so. Yes.”

The girl checked on a computer. “I’m afraid you have no insurance, sir, and so we can’t offer you a refund.”

“Oh.” And he was about to say the money didn’t matter, he didn’t care about the money, when all of a sudden he bloody well did. He bunched his free hand into a fist, began to pace angrily. “Oh.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

He wrote an angry letter to the cruise company. In it he used the phrase ‘cynical exploitation.’ He rather enjoyed writing it—so much so, in fact, that he put it to one side and set to work on an even angrier second draft. It was fun to use words he knew he’d never even countenance in everyday life, and it became a little project for him to look forward to when he came home from work, a spot of dinner from the microwave, an hour or so on the complaint letter, then a little telly before bed. And he felt too that at last he was able to let something
loose.
His irritation at how banal the funeral had been, at how average the catering. At the unfairness of having to put up with so much sympathy, and the way he wasn’t allowed to mind, wasn’t allowed to turn to all these well-wishers popping up all over the place and tell them to sod off, that he had to be
nice
to them and thank them, thanks, even though they were putting such stress on him, it was easy to show grief, you just had to look sad, but showing grateful grief was so much more an effort. At how suddenly Deborah had died, a heart attack in Sainsbury’s, one moment picking out clementines in the fruit and veg section, the next his wife on the floor, and the fruit bouncing about and rolling everywhere and getting underwheel of the trolleys, all the shock of it, but even worse, the
embarrassment.
By the fourth draft of his complaint letter he’d called the managing director a ‘cunt’—called him it rather a lot, in fact, because he liked the way it looked on the page—and it didn’t matter because he knew he wasn’t going to send the letter, he was going on the cruise after all. He’d now found the perfect reason to do so.

The tour operators had sent him lots of bumph about his holiday, and one thing that he remembered was that for the evening dining formal dress was compulsory. Roger changed into his suit, put on a tie, cuff links. He hadn’t worn the suit since the funeral and it felt odd to be giving it another airing so soon. His reservation was for the second sitting in the Riviera Room, on table 197, at the back, near the window. There was a five course menu, most of it using the word ‘terrine’. Table 197 seated eight people, he was the first to arrive. He chose the chair with the least advantageous view of the sea, since he wasn’t planning on looking at it very much. His companions joined him in dribs and drabs—all in T-shirts and comfortable trousers. One man in a baseball cap told him that the formal dinner was tomorrow night, that Roger had misread the instructions.

“Not to worry,” said the baseball cap’s wife, “you’ll just have to come in a T-shirt tomorrow whilst we’re all dressed to the nines!” And they all laughed, not unkindly. They went round the table introducing themselves, and Roger promptly forgot their names. Three couples and one elderly lady on her own, probably in her early eighties. Two of the husbands discovered they supported the same football team, and became lifelong friends over the prawn cocktails. The wives talked about shoes. The elderly lady gamely tried to talk to Roger. “Have you ever been on a cruise before?” she asked.

“No,” Roger replied. And then, because he felt he should, “Have you?”

“Oh yes,” said the lady. But she was sitting two couples and four mushroom terrines away, and to have pursued the conversation further seemed more effort than it was worth. So she nodded at him instead, smiled, and turned her attention back to the wife extolling the virtues of her flip-flops.

That night he slept well. The gentle rock of the boat made him drowsy, and although he would stir at the sound of couples talking in the corridor outside his cabin, he always nodded off again soon afterwards.

There was another full day of sailing to be had before the ship reached its first port of call. A helpful newsletter had been popped under his door, presumably by Jesus, and it promised a ‘Fun Day at Sea!’ Inside it Roger read of an arts auction on deck nine that afternoon, of quoits and trivia quiz competitions, of the daily AA meeting in the Razzmatazz Club. He put on some cotton jeans and a short sleeved shirt and took a morning walk on the lido deck. There was a chill in the air, but this hadn’t deterred most of the passengers from taking up sun loungers, coating themselves with lotion, and lying around hoping to be basted. The swimming pool was full of children; the jacuzzi seemed to have a two tattoo minimum requirement; the all-day buffet bar was full of people queuing for cheeseburgers and rum babas; the gym was all but empty. A huge video screen on the main deck played videos of other cruise holidays passengers could book
right now
and at
special rates
down by the Purser’s Office—all the people in the film were beaming and laughing, and all the people watching them on deck looked fraught or bored, as if waiting to be told their holiday had already started.