1

      ‘Life is either comedy, tragedy, or soap,’ said Oliver Beck.

      ‘All right. What are these two?’

      A middle-aged couple strolled by them on the promenade deck.

      ‘He’s tragic, she’s comic, together they’re soap,’ said Beck promptly.

      She laughed out loud and for the next half hour they lounged in their deck chairs, categorizing passers-by and giggling together behind a glossy magazine.

      The all-seeing purser intercepted her as she went down to the gymnasium.

      ‘Miss Maguire,’ he said grimly. ‘I think you should remember you’re a recreation officer on this ship, not a first-class passenger.’

      ‘We could soon change that,’ said Beck casually when she told him.

      ‘For what?’

      ‘For good maybe.’

      She’d come to his cabin for a night cap, but she knew then she was going to stay.

      It was her first time and she modestly turned aside as she slipped off her pants. His hand flapped her buttocks, more a caress than a slap, but she spun round, modesty forgotten, and blazed, ‘Don’t do that!’

      A small child being dragged unwillingly along a busy street, her mother pausing to lift the girl’s skirt and administer a sharp slap to the upper leg. ‘I’ll really give you something to cry about, my girl, if that’s what you want.’ People passing by, indifferent. ‘Sorry,’ he said. She saw a veil of wariness dim the bright desire in his eyes. I’m spoiling it, she thought desperately. A child again, but now a child wanting to please, she raised her right leg till it pointed straight in the air, then bent her knee and tucked her foot behind her head against the cascade of long red hair.

      ‘Can you do that?’ she challenged.

      ‘Oh my God,’ he said thickly. ‘That’s real crazy.’

      If she amazed him with her double-jointed athleticism, she amazed herself even more with the depths of her sensuality. Afterwards they rolled apart, exhausted, and she examined his face. In the liner’s public rooms he looked smooth, sophisticated, a successful businessman in his thirties, clearly at least ten years her senior. Now, his hair tousled, his face muscles relaxed with satisfied desire, he looked barely twenty.

      ‘What are we?’ she asked softly. ‘Tragic, comic, or pure soap?’

      He grinned and lost a couple more years.

      ‘None of those, my crazy Jane,’ he murmured. ‘There’s a special category for people like us. We’re the ones who decide what the rest are. We switch them on and off. We’re the Immortals, baby. We’re the Gods.’

      And lying there, lulled by the great seas streaming under the ship’s bow and bathed in the afterglow of those ecstasies which had lifted her out of this time, this space, into a universe of their own creating, she almost believed him.

      The sea again, that same sea, picked up in handfuls and hurled like gravel against the storm windows of their house on Cape Cod. A ringing at the door bell. Two men in sou ’westers.

       ‘Mrs Beck?’

       ‘Yes?’

       ‘It’s bad, I’m afraid, Mrs Beck. Your husband’s boat. They’ve spotted some wreckage.’

       ‘But that could be anything. In weather like this …’

       ‘They found this too.’

      An orange life preserver. Stencilled on it ‘The Crazy Jane’.

       Still she protests. ‘But that doesn’t mean …’

       The second man, impatient of hope, cuts in. ‘He was wearing it, Mrs Beck. We’ll need you for identification.’

      She begins to sway, clutches the door frame for support.

      Behind her, deep in the house, a child begins to cry.

      ‘So you’re back,’ said her mother. ‘You could have given me a bit more warning.’

      ‘It was a snap decision.’

      ‘Act in haste, repent at leisure, always your way. And he’s dead? Drowned, you said?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘Well, I’m sorry for your sake. I can’t say more than that, never having had the pleasure of meeting him. And this is the boy.’

      ‘That’s right.’

      ‘Come over here, Oliver, and let’s be taking a look at you. What’s up with the child? I’m your gran, Oliver. Though it’s maybe not so odd he’s shy. Most kiddies know their gran before they get to four.’

      ‘He’s a bit tired. And we … I call him Noll.’

      ‘Noll? He’ll not thank you for that. What’s the point of baptizing a child if you’re going to start fiddling with his name?’

      ‘It’s what I want to call him. And he’s not baptized.’

      ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God. How can you take such a risk? We never know the moment when we’ll be called. You should know that better than most, you who’ve had both your da and your man snatched away from you in their prime. Never mind. We can soon put that to rights.’

      ‘No!’ she cried. ‘I don’t want him baptized, Mam. And it’s no use bringing in the Inquisition, I’ll not talk to any priests, especially not old Father Bleaney from St Mary’s. He’s half dotty and he doesn’t wash!’

      ‘You’re not wrong there, girl. He smells of more than sanctity, there’s no denying it. But he’s a holy man for all that. And you’d better understand this. I’m the one who says who’ll come into this house, and you’re the one who’ll be polite to them while you’re living here. God preserve us, if you’d come a half hour earlier you’d have met Father Blake. What would you have done then, my girl? Turned on your heel and flounced off like you used to do?’

      ‘No. Of course not. Who’s Father Blake anyway?’

      ‘A colleague of your Uncle Patrick’s, rest his soul. Do you not read my letters as well as not answer them? He comes across from time to time to inspect the Priory College where your uncle worked. He always calls to pay his respects and he brought me pictures of Patrick’s grave. You’ll meet him if you stay long enough. And you’d better be polite. How long are you staying, anyway?’

      ‘Till I get settled, if that’s all right.’

      ‘All right? This is your home, whatever you may treat it as. What do you mean, settled?’

      ‘Till I find a job.’

      ‘Did he not leave you provided for? Typical Yank. All show. Any man rich enough to drown in his own boat ought to be able to leave his wife looked after. What’ll you do? Try the teaching again?’

      ‘No!’