Now what? thought King as the captain, chief officer and Jacobs held their breaths, and he felt six eyes burning into him as tense seconds ticked by. “I only assume it was a man,” he said eventually, reigning in his voice, feeling as if his chest were in a vice. “I suppose it could have been a woman. But I just have the feeling it was a man.”
The search started almost immediately—02:34:17 according to the digital clock in the officers’ wardroom where King had been told to wait. And each second ticked by with exasperating slowness as he paced in rhythm, willing the next digit to appear. Five steps one way and five back. Ten seconds! Is that all? Hurry up for Christ’s sake; start turning the ship round. Motsom will kill me if we don’t find him.
Kings’ anxiety was echoed on the bridge, now a hive of activity. When King had first entered, its gloomily serene atmosphere had reminded him of the church he’d attended, early each morning, as a young altar boy. Even the smell had been strangely reminiscent—an amalgam of leather, varnish, and dampness—which to him, an eleven-year-old struggling with the concept of Christian faith, became the embodiment of the Holy Ghost. Now, the ghostly congregation of officers and crew stood at their allotted stations and watched as a halo of multicoloured rotating lights, in the ceiling above the captain’s head, indicated the ship was turning hard to port.
“Another ten degrees to port,” the captain chanted.
“Ten degrees to port,” echoed an acolyte in the guise of the chief officer.
“Ten degrees to port it is, Sir,” responded a server whose job it was to turn the handlebars, which had replaced the giant steering wheel no longer necessary on a modern ship.
The acolyte took up the cry again, adding his own prayer for good measure. “Ten degrees to port it is, Captain. Heading now, two hundred and twenty-five degrees. E.T.A. 17 minutes.”
“Thank you, Chief,” said the captain who might just as easily have intoned, “Amen.”
The service continued; litany and responses flying back and forth as a hundred details were attended to: Preparation of lifeboats and rescue teams—For those in peril on the sea: Lord have mercy—notification to coastguards and other ships; updates on the position of the approaching storm— From lightning and tempest … Good Lord deliver us—requests to the port authorities in Holland, asking they delay trains, advise relatives, inform the police, and carry out a dozen other tasks—Oh God, the Father of Heaven: have mercy …
A supplication, by ships tannoy, for information about any passenger whose presence was unknown, brought no response, and the captain considered holding a roll call of all crewmembers and passengers, even starting to give the chief officer an order, but then thought better of it. With over two thousand people on board, it would take hours to assemble them in a place where they could be counted with certainty. But, he realized, if just one were accidentally counted twice the man in the water would be left to drown. Yet, if the tally were accurate and showed no one missing would he risk his conscience by accepting the result?
Once committed, the captain—the High Priest of the ship—would do whatever he could to find and rescue the missing man.
Roger vomited and retched periodically as the salt water slopped into his mouth. Seasick, and sick of the sea, he struggled less and less for survival as his tired body sank deeper. The effort of climbing each successively higher crest had become too great, and the fast approaching gale whipped waves into a frenzy that tripped over each other and shot gobs of spray into his face. A fit, accomplished swimmer may have surmounted the ever-steepening sea, but Roger was not fit—had never been fit. Fat, even very fat, was the best possible description of his physical condition. Fat, but certainly not fit. In all probability it was his fatness that had kept him afloat for the past twenty minutes or so, although his eiderdown coat was definitely a contributing factor.
“Waste of bloody money,” his mother had screeched when she’d picked the price tag out of his trashcan. “They must’ve seen you coming, you great dolt.”
Although it was now gradually soaking up seawater, the coat, stuffed with waterproof duck plumage and sealed with a multitude of zips and ties, provided excellent buoyancy and protection against the cold. He had never regretted buying it, despite his mother’s reaction; in fact, he was beginning to find it amusing to do things deliberately to aggravate her. Although lying about his homosexuality was perhaps the worst thing he could have done. Why did I say that? he’d wondered. She’d taken it badly, smacking him fiercely over the head with a plate. “Wait ’til your father gets home,” she’d shouted. “You bloody poofter! Wait ’til I tell ’im.”
He’d laughed it off. “I was only joking.”
Am I? he’d wondered darkly.
Am I what?
Gay or just joking?
He’d been tempted, more through default than desire. If women didn’t fancy him, and they didn’t, then maybe, just maybe, he’d have more success with men. Rejection was both swifter and more painful—one false start in a park washroom left him with pants round his knees, his head in the toilet, and the contents of his wallet being divvyed up amongst a vicious gang of assertive gays. Failure to make his chosen team was bad enough without being rolled over by the opposition.
He’d deliberately upset his mother in other ways too—unnecessarily staying out until three or four o’clock in the morning, knowing she’d wait up for him, worrying to death he’d been attacked or hurt in an accident.
What is she thinking now? he wondered, as he was tossed mid-ocean in the darkness.
She’s funny, he thought, his mind drawing a fuzzy picture of her: floury faced, heavily wrinkled—puckered almost—a large woman—not physically—she’d never been really big, but always managed to occupy more space than she should have done considering her size. As she had shrunken with age, she had seemingly grown larger and larger until she had taken command of the whole house. She’s definitely funny, thought Roger—though not in any humorous sense. Funny how she doted; fretting at the slightest sniffle of a cold, panicking if the train was late—phoning the railway station, expecting to hear there had been a crash. Yet, when it came to his appearance—”Puppy fat,” she called it when he complained about his diet of meat pies, chips, and chocolate.
“Mum, I’m thirty-one,” he had protested.
“What d’ye wanna be skinny for?” she retorted.
She knows why, he thought, but couldn’t bring himself to tell her. “I want a woman,” he longed to scream. “I want to know what it’s like to fuck a woman.” But he’d never said it, strangely finding it easier to lie about being gay than admit his true desires for a woman.
The computer had caused a major rift. While other obsessive mothers might be insidiously sabotaging relationships between sons and their wives or girlfriends, Roger’s mother picked a fight with his computer. The noise it made—”whirring like a maniac”—the space it took up, the electricity it used. She even complained it was causing interference on her television. “Snow,” she called it. “Shut that thing off,” she would shout up the stairs. “You’re making snow on my telly.” The television, “hers” through a jealously guarded remote, took precedence over real life and had been the leash she’d used to tie him to her side. “Don’t go out our Roger, your favourite program’s on tonight,” she’d say at the mere suggestion he was planning an excursion. But the computer had changed all that. Now he could go anywhere in the world without leaving his room, and without her.
Her resentment had led to petty sabotage: “Bit of an accident,” she claimed, when he’d left the computer on by mistake one day. He’d soon put a stop to that; protecting files with passwords, and locking the computer. He would even have locked his room if he could have summonsed the courage. “After all I did for you,” she’d whimper, alluding to the pain of childbirth, stretch marks, cellulite, saggy breasts, and a slumped backside. “And now you lock your door!”
Her insignia