The Hope (22 page)

While Pratt was squatting there, up popped Mr Sellar again. This time he was advertising toilet paper. He hustled around on all fours for a minute in a passable impression of a puppy-dog (or was it a kitten?). Then he sang:

“Boggo, try Boggo

When you drop a loggo

It will oil the coggo

That’s Boggo, oh Boggo, oh Boggo!

“Boggo! Quick, clean, fast, efficient, better than any other product ever, neater, smarter, clever, faster, the best toilet roll since the last one, silent, keen, peaches, cream, you’ve never felt a softer paper against your bum.”

With that, Mr Sellar vanished in a puff of white feathers, leaving behind eight neatly folded sheets of Boggo in a special sample freebie presentation pack.

Pratt’s concentration had been distracted completely by these antics and Pratt had to start all over again, thinking hard about bowels and bladder until the desired effect was achieved. Relieved, Pratt inspected the consequences of the urges, although it was not that easy distinguishing them from earlier urges. They seemed healthy enough. Pratt used Mr Sellar’s freebie offering gratefully and then put away the bucket, tying a mental knot in a mental handkerchief to remember to ask Doris to throw it out.

Pratt drifted about the cabin for a while, curling a strand of fine hair around an index finger, having forgotten totally about Dotty’s little miscalculation. Pratt walked by the packet of Sudso several times and was not reminded. Pratt’s cabin was hushed and darkened like a cinema, curtains drawn to create twilight lasting all day. In the real cinema, before they closed it down, the pictures used to be invisible if the light was bright. The same was true of Pratt’s cabin. In broad daylight the friends did not exist, or at least if they existed they were invisible. They might still be heard but only as whispers melted into the rumbled mutterings of the
Hope
. Here and there Pratt might be able to snatch out a phrase or two, but without the lights off it was generally incoherent babble. In the perpetual twilight and especially in the half-sleep minutes before sleeping and before waking, the friends were visible and strong and as good as real.

Underneath the bunk Dotty whined. This meant someone was coming, and Pratt suspected who.

Mr Panic and Mrs Shame wafted into the cabin and Pratt whined just as Dotty had done, but quietly so that the new arrivals would not hear. It was a mystery to Pratt why Panic and Shame could never get on. They were a peculiar couple and symptomatic of the great problem with having a sex: Having To Get On With The Opposite Sex. If you could not hope to understand each other by virtue of the spectacular physical and mental differences between you, what was the point in attempting to spend the rest of your lives together? Superficially, Panic and Shame were not dissimilar. They were both fattish and tan-skinned and dark-haired. But apart from these features, they had nothing in common. Where had the
Hope
got them from?

“Shocking!” cried Shame. “Look at the state of this place. And that smell. Appalling!”

“I don’t think it’s that bad, darling,” replied Panic.

“And you, Pratt, you snivelling, skinny, wretched, moronic thing…” Naturally Pratt did not enjoy being called insulting names, but you did not argue with her when she was in this kind of mood. It merely brought Shame down on your head. “What have you done this fine day?”

“Well, I’ve only just got up,” explained Pratt meekly.

“Liar! You’ve been up sixteen minutes.”

“Pratt’s only just got up darling,” echoed Panic.

“I heard Pratt perfectly well the first time! Do you think my ears don’t work? And if they didn’t work, do you think I wouldn’t have learned to lip-read? Honestly! You take me for an idiot but it’s me that has to treat you like a simpleton –”

“Darling – ”

“Me that has to tell you what to eat and what to wear –”

“Darling –”

“Me that has to blow your nose and clean your bottom and wipe up after your –”

“Darling! These are matters between ourselves. Pratt does not need to know.”

“But I like to know,” Pratt piped up, “because friends know everything about each other.” There was an itch at the back of Pratt’s head and Pratt scratched it.

“Do you think we’re your friends, miserable creature?”

“The
Hope
sent you, so you must be.”

“And where are these other friends that you pretend to have?”

“Some are here and some aren’t. The Rain Man was my friend, but he ran away to seek his fame and fortune in the wide world. So did Lonely the Rat. I was sad when they ran away. The Rain Man was a good friend and poor Lonely was just unhappy. He thought he knew so much, thought he had the solution to all the problems.”

“Ha!” exclaimed Shame, as if she had discovered an important scientific theorem. “Ha!” she repeated.

“Ha,” echoed Panic quietly.

A turtle scuttled across the cabin floor, too fast for anyone but Pratt to notice. Pratt decided to call it Wilbur.

“Moreover,” announced Shame, “what gives you the temerity to think that the
Hope
is your friend?”

“What’s ‘temerity’?” Pratt asked.

“Don’t avoid the question. Pratt’s avoiding the question, Panic.”

“Perhaps not, darling. Perhaps Pratt really doesn’t understand the meaning of the word ‘temerity’. You do use some awfully complicated words, light of my life. Sometimes even I find it hard to understand you. For my benefit, then, unbearable being of lightness, tell us, what does ‘temerity’ mean?”

Shame drew breath, “There is no reason why I should tell you – either of you pathetic individuals.”

“Probably doesn’t know,” muttered Panic under his breath.

“What? What did you say?”

“Nothing, dear.”

“You said something. There’s nothing worse than when someone says something and pretends they said nothing. And anyway, I heard what you said.”

“What did I say, lamp of love?”

“You know perfectly well. You said, ‘Profit is driven snow.’ I heard! I heard!”

“What does ‘Profit is driven snow’ mean exactly?” asked Pratt.

“You mean you don’t know?” rejoined Shame.

“Tsk! Idiot! Fool! It’s a very famous old proverb, like ‘Never look at a gift-horse,’ or ‘Too many cooks spoil the fish.’”

“Oh,” said Pratt, very little enlightened, and itched again at the itch, which would not go away.

Wilbur the Turtle clambered on to the tabletop, girded up his loins (proverbially, of course) and took a flying leap off the edge. He withdrew his head and limbs as he fell, and landed on his shell with a clunk, unharmed. The shell rocked on the floor for a moment. Then Wilbur put out his leathery head, smiled, bowed, flipped himself over, stuck out his limbs and raced off through the wall. Pratt wanted to applaud but Shame would almost definitely chastise such behaviour, so Pratt refrained.

“Are you ever going to have this place cleaned up?” said Shame, returning to her first plan of attack.

“Doris, my friend” – Pratt laid great stress on the last word – “is coming in soon.”

“Good. There is nothing worse than filth.”

“Or rubbish,” chimed in Panic.

“Filth,” pronounced Shame, “is far, far worse than rubbish.”

“But there’s a lot more rubbish on the
Hope
. Too much. The ship’s filling up with rubbish.”

“She’s filling up with more filth than rubbish.”

“She? Do you think the
Hope
is a she?” said Pratt incredulously.

“Of course she’s a she. All ships are shes. It’s common knowledge.”

Dotty whined. Pratt spoke as loudly as possible to cover up her whining: “But the
Hope
’s a he. He’s as big and strong as iron and as powerful as steel. A she wouldn’t let men run her life the way the Captain and the crew run the
Hope
, would she, Mrs Shame? A she wouldn’t let men take all the credit. Listen. He has a he voice.”

They all three listened to the familiar bass rumble of the turbines.

“I don’t hear anything,” said Shame.

“But you did say you weren’t deaf, dear,” said Panic with as much glee as he dared.

“Well, what am I supposed to hear?”

“The voice of the engines,” Pratt said, letting impatience fracture the phrase a tiny bit.

“It is a low voice,” admitted Panic.

“Nonsense!” said Shame. “It’s a low high voice. It’s not unusual for women to have low voices. Actually, some men find it very attractive. Women can have beards too, you know.”

Clearly this argument had clinched it for Shame because she folded her arms and looked at the ceiling. Pratt had not been aware women could have beards but was glad to learn the fact. It reinforced Pratt’s case against having a sex. Pratt scratched Pratt’s head and tried to re-open the conversation as tactfully as possible.

“I still think the
Hope
is a he.”

“She’s a she,” insisted Shame.

“He.”

“She.”

“He!”

“She!”

“He!”

“She!”

“Heeeee!” Annoying, aggravating itch. Pratt scraped at the nape of Pratt’s neck.

Shame sat upright and stuck out her not inconsiderable chest. “I can see this is getting neither of us anywhere. Panic, we are leaving.”

“We only just got here, sweetness and saccharine.”

“And that is why we are leaving.”

“Very well…”

The instant Mr Panic and Mrs Shame had gone, Mr Sellar dropped down from the ceiling and held up a card. The card read:

EDWARD, WALLACE, SIMPSON

Marriage Guidance Counsellors

“We at EWS,” said Mr Sellar, “believe that the only good marriage is a dead marriage. We aim to promote honesty between lifelong partners. Honesty is our policy. Had an affair? Spending too much time at the office? Closet homosexual? Drink problem? Tell us your secrets and we will tell your partner. That way you’ll never quarrel, you’ll never suspect, you’ll never doubt. Deadliness is next to goodliness is next to Loch Ness.”

Mr Sellar stepped closer and seemed to be confiding in Pratt.

“For you, sir or madam, we can offer a special discount rate. Two sessions for the price of one. You’ll never be in two minds about anything!”

Then came the jingle:

“EWS

Are really the best

If your marriage is down the drain

If it hasn’t been the same

Since your wedding day

Don’t despair, no need to pray

If your partnership’s depressed

Come to good old E… W… S.”

“Mr Sellar?” said Pratt.

“Yes, sir or madam?”

“Is the
Hope
my friend?”

“A friend a day keeps the psychiatrist away.”

“Can I trust him?”

“Who?”

“The
Hope
.”

“Oh, her. Trust always turns to rust.”

“So how can I know for certain?”

“Can I interest you in some of my special sleeping tablets? Take the bottle, all of it, and your problem’s solved. Special bargain, for this week only. Buy one, get one free.” Mr Sellar took out from his bottomless pockets a special sample freebie presentation pack of two Nod-Offs, placed it on the tabletop and sank into the floor, leaving behind his black hat. A second later his hands reappeared, grabbed the hat, tipped it to Pratt, and pulled it under.

Take a whole bottle of sleeping tablets? But that would be…

Anyway, Pratt could not afford to buy a whole bottle.

One of the clowns did a somersault into Pratt’s line of vision. He had on a sad face, two bright green tears dripping from the corner of one eye and the smile turned down. He held a red rose in his hand. He held the red rose up to his red nose, sniffed hard and held it away again in a red masque of despair. He raised his eyes to the heavens, regretted the injustices of love and the torturous games played in love’s name, and spoke with passion infusing every syllable:

“This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath,

May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.”

The rose in his hand began to shrivel, to brown, to wilt, to droop, to die.

Pratt found it hard not to cry at this touching scene and sniffed back the tears hard.

“Ta-daa!” went the clown, and all of a sudden his face was back to grinning normal. He bowed and applauded his audience appreciatively. Pratt, however, was still crying. These were good friends, such good friends. Pratt loved them all, as you could not help loving your flesh and blood, your pets, your playthings, and Pratt’s kind of love was like a pure, clear stream, unmuddied by liaisons and confusions and infidelities and infelicities, its surface smooth with flowing contentment. Not to love was to dry up and wither, cutting off the springs from your heart, damming up your soul. Pratt tasted Pratt’s tears and they tasted of salt and soil, moss and loam, chalk and lime. The clown carried on applauding Pratt’s performance.

“You are teared,” he told Pratt, although Pratt thought he said “tired” and Pratt
was
feeling tired. A yawn welled up inside Pratt and was let out. Pratt’s eyelids would not stay up where they belonged.

But I have only just got out of bed, thought Pratt. Am I ill?

It was a silly question, because Pratt had never been ill. Pratt had always been healthy and regular, another advantage of renouncing the wearying, ageing conflicts of being a man or being a woman. But there was always the possibility Pratt was lovesick for Pratt’s friends.

The clown kept up his clapping and Dotty started yapping and the itching was now a tapping coming from inside Pratt’s skull, a dream aching to be released. Pratt’s dreams were like that, like caged creatures scratching and pawing for freedom, and if they weren’t freed quickly they became violent and scrabbled against the bars until their paws bled and the blood came out from Pratt’s ears and nose. Pratt had to sleep if the dream was to be released before it harmed itself. Pratt had to let it fly and fade, to go wherever dreams went, into nothingness presumably. Pratt pressed the pair of Nod-Offs out of their foil presentation pack, swallowed them, crawled up on to the lower bunk and snuggled under the covers, too tired to feel the clammy spot where Dotty had pissed. The clown bowed one last time and made a polite but hasty exit.