S.O.S. Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  PART ONE

  PART TWO

  PART THREE

  PART FOUR

  S.O.S.

  JOSEPH CONNOLLY

  First published in Great Britain in 2001 by Faber and Faber Limited

  This ebook edition published in 2013 by

  Quercus Editions Ltd

  55 Baker Street

  7th Floor, South Block

  London

  W1U 8EW

  Copyright © 2001 by Joseph Connolly

  The moral right of Joseph Connolly to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Ebook ISBN 978 1 78206 711 5

  Print ISBN 978 1 78206 701 6

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  You can find this and many other great books at:

  www.quercusbooks.co.uk

  S.O.S.

  Joseph Connolly is the bestselling author of the novels Poor Souls, This Is It, Stuff, Summer Things, Winter Breaks, It Can’t Go On, The Works, Love Is Strange, Jack the Lad and Bloody Mary and England’s Lane. He has also written several works of non-fiction including admired biographies of Jerome K. Jerome and P. G. Wodehouse.

  by the same author

  fiction

  POOR SOULS

  THIS IS IT

  STUFF

  SUMMER THINGS

  WINTER BREAKS

  THE WORKS

  IT CAN’T GO ON

  LOVE IS STRANGE

  JACK THE LAD AND BLOODY MARY

  ENGLAND’S LANE

  non-fiction

  COLLECTING MODERN FIRST EDITIONS

  P. G. WODEHOUSE

  JEROME K. JEROME: A CRITICAL BIOGRAPHY

  MODERN FIRST EDITIONS: THEIR VALUE TO COLLECTORS

  THE PENGUIN BOOK QUIZ BOOK

  CHILDREN’S MODERN FIRST EDITIONS

  BESIDE THE SEASIDE

  ALL SHOOK UP: A FLASH OF THE FIFTIES

  CHRISTMAS

  WODEHOUSE

  To Jon Riley

  PART ONE

  Plain Sailing

  I’m in my bed, then, and blinking about in the only light I’m getting – peering here and there and in and out of corners: yeah, my room all right – know that wallpaper anywhere. It’s what, now, must it be? Hey? Seven? Eight, more like, most probably. Yes. And I’m trying to make the flutter of my eyelids not too, you know – disturbing for my wife. Who, when I got in, um – not really that long ago, I suppose – seems quite recent (head doesn’t hurt yet – stomach still numb: you just wait, mate) … mm – wife, officially declared herself dead from the neck up – was I hearing her? Only that way could she hope to continue. How could I do this to her, she despairingly implored (again, oh good God – yes again, again), on this bloody morning of all bloody mornings? Well, quite easy really. A sort of flair made good by practice. I’m a past master of the fuck-up, and making you quietly hate me.

  Blinking – still blinking. But not actually moving my head at all, see, because I don’t want to disturb in any way whatever my wife. Nicole. Is my wife’s name. I don’t really think she needs any more disruption, do you? Not after everything. I’m actually trying to locate my jacket … which, oh dear Christ (here’s a nauseous feeling, but it’s not the sickness, yet: here is just a convulsion – my stomach is always the first to know when I’ve let me down) … the jacket, yes, I sort of remember I sold. At some point during. For not very much. Dear oh dear. Actually … Nicole, I now register (my cautious toe, just barely shifting) doesn’t now seem to be here. I maybe recall her declaration: a strangulated expression of determination to be elsewhere right now, David, because some of us, yes? Have things to do? Responsibilities. Is all this stuff going to pack itself? I think not. Is how she went. Mmm. And she’s right, she’s right – of course she’s right. Always is. Can’t be easy, can it? Not a bit.

  Able to move about a bit more freely now, then. My watch is still on my wrist, no more scratches than usual: something. Wallet? Best not to enquire. Know soon enough. It’s a bit like being a detective, this, picking over the remaining effects of someone else entirely. While trying to piece together at the scene of the crime – my crime, mine – just what sort of a person we’re dealing with, here. (My crime, yes – and I seem to be the victim, too; not exclusively, of course – oh God no: there are many others, lots and lots.)

  Just look at the state of those trousers (not the jacket: the jacket is sold); but Christ – just take a look at them, would you? How did they get to be so corkscrewed as that? And I’ll bet you the fastenings are still tightly done; or else half ripped open. Tie’s on the floor – well, you expect that. One shoe there – and the other somewhere else, we can only assume. God oh God. And on this morning of all mornings. Because I did – made a point of it: said I’d be back for dinner, you just tell me the time. Do you mean it, she’d gone, Nicole. Because you’re always saying it, David, aren’t you? And I never ever know what to think. He won’t be back, asserted Rollo with confidence – and a trace, oh yes, of a smirk. Well – seventeenish now, what can you say? (Expect I was the same.) Look, Rollo, I’d gone (paternal authority? Don’t make me laugh), I’ve said I’ll be back, and back I’ll bloody be, OK? Oh yeh? goes Rollo – when, exactly? Tuesday? Wednesday? Oh leave him, went Marianne, my little protector: God’s sake, Rollo – you’re always on and on at Dad: just leave him, OK? He knows we’ve got this trip tomorrow, doesn’t he? And we’re leaving early, and things. So he’ll be here, kay? He’s not stupid.

  Ah. Got to face her, shortly. She won’t say anything, or anything, won’t quite look at me. But later, she might – a quick half-smile, eyes just tilted as her lips flatten out (yes OK, Daddy, I do still love you, sure – but honestly …). Dear little Marianne. My own little girl.

  Over there, over the chair, there’s a very neat gathering of clothes. My clothes for today. Nicole will have done that, quite early last evening. She will have tipped my dinner into the bin – scraping away at the plate to be rid of all the last and tainted residue (if only life, it maybe crossed her mind, could be so simple) and then, quite without knowing why – well, in truth, in no doubt at all: someone’s got to, haven’t they? Someone must – she will have laid out the pre-agreed outfit for this bleeding glorified boat trip. Blazer, but of course. Linen shirt, looks like. Trousers I wear for Lord’s. Ought to be so grateful. Really should be.

  Got to get up. The bustle in the house is growing louder, the shifts of anticipation you can nearly feel. It’s not now officially early any more, is the message I’m vaguely getting (don’t ask me what time it is exactly, I simply couldn’t tell you: watch has stopped, maybe broken: anyway not going – not at all giving me the information). For a while now, Nicole will have gone Oh – just let him sleep it off: everything’s more or less done anyway. And Rollo will have honked out Oh – so he did actually make it home, then, did he, eventually? And Marianne, well … I doubt, actually, that she will have been around to witness this latest put-down of her put-upon father because any sort of outing for Marianne was ushered in by what seemed like hours – sometimes
was – in one of the bathrooms, and so this Trip of a Lifetime (that’s how it was billed: ‘Trip of a Lifetime’. Christ. So when do we die, then? During or after?). Jesus. I really don’t want to go, you know. Really not at all keen on it – wasn’t, from the off. Anyway … now what was I …? Oh yeh – Marianne: she will have been doing whatever it was girls did in bathrooms for bloody ages, now, and so left to themselves, well – Nicole and Rollo will have had a field day: she resigned and capable, and he just going for the kill.

  So. Best stir myself on the whole, I think. Car’s booked for eleven, that much I do know – and eleven has this way of inching up and confronting you. I think, you know, that last night was largely Willis’s fault –

  ‘David. Christ’s sake. Get bloody up. Now. It’s today we’re leaving. Today.’

  Jesus. Wasn’t ready for that little whirlwind. She just burst in, Nicole, swiped a could-be cardigan, launched that little lot over in my direction, and now she’s gone again (slammed the door). All dressed and scented, though – took that much in. And she’s got a point: if we’re going we’re going, right? So move yourself, bastard.

  But you see, if Willis hadn’t insisted … I mean look: couple of pints after work, this sort of summer weather, where’s the harm in that? But then bloody Willis had gone Hey, Dave – why don’t we pop down to Terry’s for just the one, what say? And I said no way, Willis old son – and you know why. Once we get down to Terry’s … And you never did, ever, have to finish that sentence because everyone knew, everyone who went there, just how the ending would be. Oh come on, Dave mate – just a quick sharpener, and then out. And OK yes, I knew what he meant – I mean, two or so pints are all very well for knocking the corners off the thing, but then you’re left in a sort of nowhere land, really, and home doesn’t seem quite right. So. Famous Grouse was the nature of the sharpener – shot down flocks of them (droves, herds, however they come). Oh dear God – I’m beginning to get just a hint of the truth that I’ll soon feel bad. Why do they call them that, actually? Sharpeners. When all they do is make you blunt.

  So after quite a lot of that, I went round to see Trish. And did bloody Willis raise one finger to try and stop me? Like a good mate should? Did he say: Hey, Dave – steady, OK? We’ve had a few, right, and you’re meant to be going on this bloody ship thing in the morning (Christ look at it – is the morning), so don’t you think you ought to get Terry to call up a taxi and get yourself home? Did he say that? Well actually, thinking about it, he very well could’ve … somebody did, anyway … hard to quite recall. All the faces, voices – they blend, don’t they, after a while. You end up with little save the odour of a muffed bit of lust, and maybe just the curl of a lip in anger – but quite where these pieces belong … well, anyone’s guess, really: who can say? And the thing is, more than ever I shouldn’t have gone round to Trish’s. Quite apart from the real need to get home and all the rest of the gubbins staring me stark in the face, I’d seen Trish, hadn’t I, just the night before – that was the night we’d arranged to say our, oh God, heartfelt au revoirs before I set off on this blighted cruise, or whatever they call it (oh yeh – not cruise, no: Trip of a Lifetime. Christ).

  ‘I still don’t see,’ Trish had pouted – took her to that restaurant in Greek Street, funny name: likes it there – ‘why you actually have to go. I mean you said you didn’t want to, so why – ?’

  ‘Been over all that, haven’t we, Trish?’ And by Christ hadn’t we: over and over, up and down, in and out – Jesus it’s wearing, tell you. ‘Don’t want to go – wouldn’t have crossed my mind. But it’s … well, don’t bite my head off – the family, isn’t it?’

  Bloody stupid. Worst thing to say. Took a good bit of finger-pawing, doe-eyes and chin-chucking (not to say another bleeding bottle of Lanson) to hoick my way out of that one. And all the time I was feeling resentful. I mean – why me? If Nicole hadn’t entered the fucking competition, she never would’ve won the fucking prize, would she? And my whole life wouldn’t now be in lumber. I don’t want to go to New bloody York on the Transylvania, do I? (And what sort of bloody name is that for a ship?) Never would’ve dreamed of it in the whole of my lifetime. But something like this comes along – whole family, twelve days all in, Trip of a Lifetime – costing them a bloody fortune (cash alternative? You think I didn’t check?) what actually can you do? And at the time, when the news came through – should’ve seen Nicole’s face, she had looked so young again: skipping about with Marianne and Rollo, all like kids at playschool – it had seemed so very far into the future as to cry out for shoving into the bulging box of admittedly dreadful things – but God, no time to dread them yet. And then suddenly, well – it’s all over you.

  Got Trish in a creème bruleée with maraschino and funny little biscuits.

  ‘Any way …’ I’m oiling, ‘it’s only for a bit.’

  ‘Not just a bit, though, is it?’

  ‘Week. Nine days …’

  ‘Twelve.’

  ‘Twelve … Fine. Not that long, is it? Drop in the – ’

  And already the ocean was vast between us. So I’m thinking – this is the joke of it, really – I’m thinking Yes: yes it bloody is a long time and I don’t want to go. Why is nobody hearing me? Hey? Don’t want to go. Nicole started in weeks back: You don’t want to go, do you David? Course I do, I hugely protest (stock reaction). You don’t – I know you don’t. And then I’m thinking Well if you know I don’t (and you’re right, you’re right – you always are: I don’t) why did you bloody insist that I come? In the first place? Hey? Right early on I went, Look Nicole – why don’t just you and Marianne and Rollo go, hey? And maybe take your friend Annie to make up the numbers; got so much work on at the moment, haven’t I, love? You won’t work, she shoots back at me (razor-tipped, all this now, and steeped in something nasty) – you just want to drink and see your woman. Oh God. Walked right into it, didn’t I? Like I always do. So on with the wide eyes – the hurt, white shocked-awake face: Woman? What woman? What are you going on about a woman now for, Godsake? I’ve told you, Nicole, there is no – Oh fuck off David! (and now she’s screaming) I’ve just about had it with you up to here: you’re bloody coming and that’s the end of it, OK? Even this – even this big free thing, you’re determined, aren’t you, to fuck it up for everyone?!

  Well no: determination doesn’t enter. It’s just a byproduct – a gratis spin-off of what I do, and who I am. I didn’t want to go simply because I just didn’t want to go. Sometimes things are that simple – but you just try telling it to a female. I mean, sure – if I’d been allowed to (oh joy) stay in my own house and live my own life, one or two trips down Trish’s way could well have been part and parcel of the general scheme of things, but it wasn’t as if this was the point. And Annie – Nicole’s friend, Annie – Christ, she would’ve jumped at it, Annie would: never seemed to go anywhere, poor old sod. But I well understand that if Annie had tagged along, then Nicole would have annihilated at a stroke the huge back debt of slavering envy that would soon become her eternal due, and which she no doubt intended to exact quite teasingly while levying upon each transatlantic anecdote a stiff and mandatory surtax (while holding interest down).

  She doesn’t understand me, my wife. They say that, don’t they? In jokes. Half-drunk old nutters are supposed to, aren’t they, say that to some thicko doxy who’ll nod to just anything if there’s three bloody courses in it, and then a taxi home (her home, mind, and generally alone: got to be fresh for tomorrow when she’s due to spend quality time with some dough-faced, puny and penniless young loser whom she’ll stroke and subsidize, coax and encourage, and then beg the bastard to fuck her blind). But me, I use this as no line: Nicole, she thinks she understands me – thinks she knows me inside out like all wives do, but she doesn’t, she doesn’t – and nor will she ever, at this rate of progress (nineteen years, and counting). Example: one night I come home, decent hour – eleven, thereabouts – and OK, I’d had a fair time with Trish, cards on the table, b
ut on the way home I got to thinking You know what, old lad, it’s not right, this: it’s with Nicole I should be up to all this malarkey – Nicole, my wife – as well as (and here is maybe the point, why I ever started to stray) mother of my children. So anyway, I’m looking at her just sitting there, Nicole, watching some or other film on Channel could it be 4 (sh! she’d hissed at me, it’s just coming up to the finish) and I blurted out – Nicole! Listen! Make me the happiest man alive! And she turned and she looked at me – and for just one crazy instant something within me leapt up from somewhere deep and I thought: Result! And then she said: I’m not divorcing you, if that’s what you mean. And then she said: I’ve missed the bloody ending now – well, you certainly managed to fuck that up, didn’t you David?

  Or words to that effect. So I’m getting it in the neck from Nicole because, you see, I’m going on the Transylvania to New York when I don’t want to (she hates me for not wanting to – so why can’t I stay? No, not an option, I’m afraid) and I’m getting it too from Trish for precisely the same bloody reason – except, of course, that she’s convinced that I can’t bloody wait (all this interlarded with the usual corollary that I never, do I, take her anywhere). Not true! I once tried that – attempted to be, oh God, amusing: slumped back in her pillows and roared up to the ceiling ‘I take you, Trish, all the way to heaven and back!’ Did she laugh? Did she? Well what do you think? Yeh – you’re right. She just wagged her head a bit and went, she said, to run a bath. I sometimes think: what am I doing all this for? Why do I, you know – go on with it? Because I sometimes think I’d be all right, me, all on my own.

  *

  Heaven and back: yes sure, David – very funny. Ho ho. God – lately, it’s got to be that even the sex with you (and that’s all there’s really been between us for too long, now) is hardly more than just barely achieved. Trish, you go: I’m just so tired, you know …? Well no, David, I don’t know, frankly. You may be tired – you may well be, I’m not saying you’re not. But primarily, David, what you are is pissed on a pretty much permanent basis. You seem to leave the office later and later – and always, no matter what you’ve promised, you always have to go to some bloody pub with one of your ghastly so-called friends and by the time you get here the candles I lit for you are guttered and the bubbles and oils in the big, hot bath I drew for us both have dissipated, and long ago I sat there and cried as I watched the whole chilled mess of it drain away. The food I’ve cooked you don’t want – I’ve eaten is what you always say to me, but you haven’t, David, you haven’t: what you’ve done is drink. And so just about all you are up to and good for is tugging like an ape – no grace, David: there’s no art in what you do – at whatever quite delicious silk and lacy thing I’m in for you, and then when I’ve shown you how it ought to be done, you focus first and feast your eyes and then just fall across me, David – thunder down on me like a newly slit open sack of tumbling potatoes, and I am no more than the floor beneath you. And even then, if I left you to, oh God – please get on with it, all you’d do is fall asleep. How many times, David? How many times has that happened? How many times have I whispered to you, shouted at you, cursed you to hell and then squirmed my bloody way out from under the sheer and reeking rat-arsed weight of you? Only if I bite you repeatedly and make like a milkmaid with all of my fingers – only then are you likely to make it. And me? I experience little more than a jerked-out shudder and an immediate subsidence, followed by damp. So why do I want you? Why do I want you so terribly much? Why is it that I want you to leave your bloody wife and come and stay with me? And talking of your bloody wife – just don’t: OK? Let’s just not. And don’t please talk to me about, Christ – family holidays – don’t even mention one single thing about your life together, all right? Because I simply can’t bear it. I’m thirty-six years old now, David: next stop forty. I want, I need – a man of my own; but more than that – someone to take care of me: you, David, you. Don’t ask me why you – maybe simply because it’s you who’s here, and there’s no one else.