Acts of Mutiny Read online

  And what did she feel? What on earth was the meaning of the beautiful regard she bathed him in? For looking and seeing had done it – and that delicious soft smell she had about her. Not words – they had said very little to one another. It was what they had left out and given over to the subliminal nuances of the body, surely. Or he would not be feeling like this. Did she know she was doing it? Did she do it to everyone? Who could forget the gesture of the brass box? Or the moment when she turned to him without fear at the shock of that sudden knife fight? Or the indescribable elevation in his heart and the constriction in his throat when they walked back together past the gully-gully man?

  Joe came down the steps and joined him. ‘Nice day. A penny for ’em.’

  While Robert’s back was turned, an Arab had silently taken up a place on the foredeck, between the winches and the parked lading booms. Either that or he had been there all the time, unnoticed. He had spread out an array of dark, intricately tooled leatherwork – two whole saddles, assorted knives, swords, boots and whips. In the midst of his wares he was sitting down, waiting, swaddled in a blanket against the sun, or the early cold; and arched over by an immense pale sky. The lagoon and the flat land beyond him had begun to give light back, now that the last of the morning mist was lifting.

  ‘What’s on your mind, Bob?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  A few flies gathered, and would settle on the skin where the perspiration beaded.

  In the British papers that had come on board there was the news of the Russians’ latest success in space. They had turned a rocket into the first artificial planet. It was launched ‘in the direction of the moon’, and was now circling the sun. Within a month or so he would be decoding its progress on instruments. Among the progresses of other things. And there would come a time soon when rocket weaponry could be called down precisely upon any terrestrial target. Possibly from space. Possibly by him. Black Knight and Skylark had both been tested at Woomera – a modest but slightly triumphal note in the paper.

  Robert found himself imagining how the Air Force must have come in on just such a morning, and filled this very place, in a few moments, with explosions. A column of water, a column of fire, deafening reports, splintering, screams. The neck of the Canal had been completely blocked with the burnt-out steel of ships – such as this one. It was frighteningly recent.

  24

  ‘What are you wearing?’ Finlay Coote stood before me at the head of the outdoor stairway down to the foredeck. I had on a Hawaiian shirt. On a lurid pink background there were tropical beach and margin-of-the-jungle scenes in vibrant greens, blues, greys and floral reds. It had a silky wetness about it as though recently painted. It had been presented to me in our terraced house near Woolwich. I could never have worn it there. But in the ambiguous cool heat of the Canal zone that morning, Erica had thrust it towards me and I had complied. Moreover, I had teamed it with my blood-red swimming shorts, around which I had fastened the snake-clip belt from school. On my cropped and Brylcreemed head was the tasselled fez, the result of a bargain struck with a bum-boatman; on my feet, grey socks and cut-work sandals. I held a small horsewhip I had bought from the Arab. A man had said some of the whips contained hidden swords – you would find out when you snatched at the handle. They were thin, deadly things, like a scorpion.

  ‘Is that your mum’s blouse?’

  ‘Mr Chaunteyman gave it to me. In the Coral islands the men all wear them.’

  ‘You’re mad. You look a real dill. Where’s your father? Is he dead?’

  I had met her yesterday, through Penny. Today her hair was freed from its braids and held back with an Alice band. She wore a pale mauve top and immaculate white shorts. Her thin legs made her just taller than me.

  ‘No. Mr Chaunteyman’s taking us. He’s my dad’s commanding officer. They’re Navy friends. Only he’s from America with the real cowboys and Indians, actually. You have to go where the service says. United States Navy. So he’s taking us and my mother says it’s right for us to go.’

  The salt sands of Egypt lay all about, guarded by towel-headed sentries. We could just see one now, standing not fifty yards away on the bank. The Canal fitted so tightly around us that it was itself invisible from our vantage. We were a dream of a ship slipping through land. Every now and then, beside us, there came into view a parked jeep, or the odd military house. And, far beyond the concrete strip of road which accompanied us, across empty and intervening miles the colour of mud, it seemed there were always two dhows minutely rigged, sailing the shimmer of the desert.

  ‘It’s idiotic. You just look mad,’ Finlay said again.

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘You do.’

  ‘All right. I don’t care. I like it.’ She hurt me, but I brushed it off. ‘I’m going down to look at the Canal. Are you coming? We might see some pyramids.’ I showed her my whip.

  She said, ‘All right. Have you seen Penny this morning?’

  Yesterday, as the ship closed with the coast of Egypt we both became Penny’s friends. I recognised Penny: the distraught woman who came out of that bathroom during the storm. She began to take us under her wing. Today at breakfast I had been enraptured again with her long legs, her pretty skirt, her waist, her soft bosom and lovely face, kind, and momentarily frightened by my appearance – until she relaxed it into a smile.

  Yesterday, after we saw the squid, she played some card-games with us in the main lounge, took us up to the boat deck to try deck tennis, and, between the lifeboats, talked to us about the sea. Then she hurried off through the port doorway, when a man, and after him a woman, came into view at the far end from behind the protection of the smokestack’s central housing. Finlay and I had bathed in her attention.

  ‘Yes. I’ve already seen her.’

  We stood, hanging over the starboard rail as near the bow as passengers were allowed. We could watch the cut of the dirty green water, and the trouble of its wake from the tanker ahead of us in the slow queue. On the planking just at our backs a few grown-ups under the foremast were haggling with the Arab.

  Finlay spoke again. ‘What toys have you got?’

  ‘On board? Couple of guns. This.’ I held out the whip again. ‘What you?’

  ‘My jigsaws, Andrea my doll, colouring book, cards, writing-paper, my nurse’s outfit, my three small koala bears that fit together … er, board-games compendium, French knitting. That’s all I was allowed. Mummy said there wasn’t room for much else and it’s only for five weeks. Oh, and gummed coloured-paper shapes and some Japanese paper flowers that you put in water and they open. We got them in Singapore on the way out. But I’m not going to do them till we get back to Melbourne and I can put them on the window-sill in my bedroom. Oh, and my ballerina musical box. And my doll’s clothes and hairdressing things. And I’ve got just four of my best story-books.’

  I thought of my diminutive blue suitcase. ‘D’you want to see my magic things?’

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘In our cabin.’

  ‘Is your mummy there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘All right.’

  The cylinder of brilliant sunlight from the porthole created a special, glowing bar above my suitcase’s battered blue. Finlay peered in. There was a packet of itching powder; lemon juice for spy writing; the rubber toad; a bandaged-finger illusion stained red as if it still leaked; a nail-through-the-finger trick that might have caused it; two false beards with elastic; scarlet plastic starlet lips I held in my teeth; trick cards; swap cards of aeroplanes.

  There was also a shoebox, and to my consternation Finlay opened it. Inside that were graver things: part of an amplifier on a bit of grey chassis; a sealed-up metal box; a soldering iron that would not work; the Holy Bible I had at school; my sheath knives, three daggers and one with a handle made out of a deer’s foot; a compass my grandad gave me; a Letts Schoolboy’s Diary with secret diagrams; my shrunken head; a flattened sheet of Plasticine that had gone dull-coloured and not like girls
’ skin at all; and the embarrassing picture from Erica’s Woman magazine.

  Her first choice was the folded picture – homing in before I could hide it: the illustration of two lovers embracing.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘It’s romantic’The woman wore a ball gown, the man a dark suit. She clasped the picture to her front and looked at me strangely.

  I said, ‘It’s stupid.’ But I watched for the moment when Finlay, holding it by its edges, would bring the picture sufficiently away from herself. Then I snatched it back.

  ‘Oh, Plasticine!’ she said, swooping again. ‘Let’s make people. A family of animals. Let’s make a farm.’

  ‘No!’ I put my hand over it. ‘All these things I’m getting rid of. They’re not toys, you know. They’re not girls’ stuff. They’re magic. They tell you things. I’ve said, haven’t I? I had a special jar of stuff. I left it by a doorway in Port Said. I’m getting rid of it all, now Mr Chaunteyman’s come.’

  ‘I’ll help you. Let me help you.’ She grabbed the toad.

  ‘No!’ I put the lid down on her arm. ‘You’re only supposed to look.’ But she proved too resilient and yanked the toad out. She sat there on her heels, holding it up to her nose.

  ‘It smells like rubber chocolate.’ She smiled to herself. ‘Ugh.’ Then: ‘You hurt my arm, dill.’

  ‘Mr Chaunteyman brought it from Disneyland.’

  ‘Oh! Bambi. Lady and the Tramp. Can you go to the films and get things? Can he do that?’ Her face was earnest, spellbound. ‘Could he get me something? A dog?’

  ‘No, stupid.’

  ‘Don’t call me stupid. Don’t you dare call me stupid. You’re just a Pommy. I won’t bother bloody playing with you.’

  A girl had sworn. I had never heard that.

  ‘You think just anyone can get things out of films.’

  ‘No! I didn’t say I believed that. I didn’t. Disneyland. Get a bag, Pommy!’ She held my eye. ‘Anyway. I’ll hide the toad. Let me hide the toad. I’ll hide it in your bed. I’d like to see you get into bed and think there’s a horrible slimy toad crawled into the bottom of your sheets; and when your foot touches it … Aaaah!’ She mimicked me screaming. We both smiled, she with a certain seriousness, as if she relished my falling into her trap. I thought of her snooty, beautiful Australian mother. And then of my own, with her bright red lips, her wired bras, and her American admirer.

  ‘Give it back. It’s mine.’

  ‘No!’ She hid it behind her so that I was forced to wrestle for it. ‘Don’t you touch me!’ I had been up close against her for a moment, and now had let myself down. I came within an ace of hurting her. She smelt of soap and clothes, and, very slightly, of food.

  ‘Mad boy! You look really stupid. You look like a bloody squid. Is this your bed?’ Our steward had been in and the bunks were tidy. Everything was neat and in its place.

  ‘No. It’s my mother’s.’

  ‘Let’s hide it in here. She’ll think a toad’s come out of her in the night.’ We both laughed at the idea. ‘Out of her … thing.’ She looked down for an instant. Then we were convulsed with giggles.

  ‘No. It’s got to be wrapped up. Put in something.’ An idea struck me. ‘Why don’t we,’ I snatched the toad suddenly from her, ‘play a joke on Penny. I know where her cabin is. This deck, same as ours. Why don’t we put it in her bed? In brown paper.’

  ‘Why in brown paper? You’re mad. Your dad’s dead, isn’t he?’

  ‘No. He’s alive. He’s in England.’

  ‘Why isn’t he here? Why does your mother sit with Mr Chauntey-Fauntey-what’s-his-dill-name? He goes arm in arm with her. I’ve seen them.’

  ‘He loves her. He’s looking after her. He’s taking us both away. My dad’s too … important to come. He’s working for the government.’

  ‘Bull. I thought you said he was in the Navy.’

  And so I have opened the suitcase at last. Just a collection of trifles.

  Who then would be perverse enough to imagine that in the hold, under that well-known Merchant Navy label Agricultural Machinery, the Armorica bore a consignment of weapons-grade hatred; bound down and sealed in the assurance that no common tempest nor disturbance of the voyage could disturb its security?

  25

  ‘My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you, I desire to be present with you now, and to change my voice; for I stand in doubt of you. Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a handmaid, the other by a free woman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the free woman was by promise. Which things are an allegory; for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.

  ‘We are the children of promise. You children, are the children of promise. I especially wanted to bring you this extract from today’s lesson. Who knows what a promise is?’

  ‘What’s he saying?’ I nudged Finlay.

  ‘Don’t you know what a promise is?’ She wore the sneer of sanctity.

  ‘Of course I do.’ The scripture sounded as intimidating as such things always did. I had only gone to the Sunday school because of Finlay. And it was only because I wanted to sound her out that I had nudged her.

  She melted a little. ‘He’s going to be a missionary.’

  ‘That man?’

  ‘His name’s Mr Tingay. My daddy said. He’s going to bring Christ’s word to the Abos.’ She held her piety a moment more.

  ‘Mr Tingay?’

  ‘Tingay.’ She spelled it out in a whisper. Then her face slipped and she started giggling. ‘Mr Thingy.’ I giggled too. Everyone looked round.

  Mr Tingay glared at us from behind his wire glasses, and from amidst the extravagance of his beard. ‘What is it you find so amusing, those two children?’

  ‘Nothing. Nothing, sir.’ We stifled ourselves.

  ‘Jerusalem that is above.’ Mr Tingay pointed to the roof of the dance space. The glass door-panels all down the sides had been removed at last, giving the illusion of a tent or pavilion. On either side stretched away the bright yellow-brown of the sands. ‘Jerusalem that is above is heaven. It’s where you will go if you are good. It’s where I’m going, I hope. And it’s where all your mothers and fathers are going, and all your brothers and sisters, and all the people on the ship, the captain and his crew. And all the people of this world who are in Christ Jesus.’ He intoned the phrase backwards with a clerical tang.

  ‘Yes, in him we may all go to heaven above. To Jerusalem that is above. All the people here on this ship today may choose salvation. We are born of a Christian country and a Christian Commonwealth. We have the chance to be good, and follow the teachings of the word. Jesus.’ He nodded his head slightly. ‘Avoiding sin. Sin is in us all. Sin is in me, in you, in our parents. And there is no help in us.’ And then his voice changed to his other mode, to engage us. ‘Who thinks they’re good?’

  A forest of hands went up. Then wavered, and fell back in case there was a catch.

  ‘Yes,’ he said enigmatically. ‘And who thinks their mummy and daddy are good?’

  The hands shot up confidently this time.

  ‘Of course they are. And who thinks I’m good?’

  There was an overwhelming show.

  ‘I try my very hardest,’ he acknowledged modestly. ‘But beware of pride. In even the best of us there is sin. As in Adam and Eve, our first parents. Just when we think everything is safest, the Devil tries to tempt us.’ He jumped the words o
ut at us, and as a group we recoiled, visibly. ‘I want to urge you all to put sin behind you. Put the Devil away. Say no to him, if you can, while you are so young. Because the only people who aren’t allowed in are sinners. No sinners can go. God says to sinners: I’m sorry. You’ve had your chance to be good. And you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t be good. You wouldn’t keep to the law. So you can’t come in.’

  Several children fidgeted nervously.

  ‘Do you see?’ He reached for his biblical singsong once more. ‘Sin is not just keeping the law as the Pharisees do. God’s law. If we sin, children, we stop Christ being formed inside us. Christ wants to be formed in us, in our hearts. If we sin we say to him: No, you can’t come in. That hurts Christ very much. He wants to come inside us. We must all try our hardest not to sin. And we must say sorry. If we do sin the only thing to do is say sorry, and really mean it.’ And then again with his teacher bleat: ‘Now, who knows what things are sins?’

  While the others were obliging, I thought of the plan of the toad. I had the creature in my pocket. I went over in my mind the route to Penny’s cabin, and imagined how it might look inside. Finlay had taken a brown paper bag from the shop. I looked at her hands, pressed demurely together in her lap. I supposed she was praying.

  ‘Yes. The dead shall all be raised.’ The Reverend Mr Tingay, broad in the beam and sports-jacketed, had moved on. ‘In Jerusalem that is above all our family will be with us, our loved ones from generation unto generation. Their bones shall be joined up again and they shall be clothed anew in shining flesh. Ezekiel in his sands tells us this. From the Old Testament to the New, you see?’