5 Ways to be Famous Now Page 9

  ‘Eat up, everyone, there’ll be plenty of exercise to work it off in the morning. Swim laps in our wave-o-meter, run laps on our simulated turf, have a massage or do tai chi.

  ‘But now to more serious matters. As you will have noticed, ladies, the fair sex outnumber the darker by twenty to one. But we have not forgotten the whims of the ladies. You can show off your wonderful formal frocks — and don’t forget if you need to purchase more there are plenty available on our Via Condotti. You can practise your ballroom dancing in the arms of our polished, professional and always charming Dance Boys.’

  And with a wave of a silk handkerchief, her boys appeared from behind the curtain to rousing applause. A few women stamped and whistled.

  ‘Steady on, ladies. Rest your eyes upon them but let’s not forget the more intellectual end of the spectrum of delights that await you as we make our way south to celebrate the Winter Solstice with all-day free spirits and cocktails and a seafood feast. In the meantime, do enrol in Mah Jong or Wildlife or Astronomy or Aromatherapy, all fully accredited courses which will earn you an official certificate. You can be assured of stepping off the ship not only full of future dinner party stories, but more qualified, with higher self-esteem, than ever before in the history of international cruising. Yes, we are a real university of the seas.’

  University? Monica was startled to attention. Why had the captain glanced at her like that as she said it? How much did she know about that poison-pen letter to the university? About her phony American PhD? She still felt no guilt. She had earned it. She had actually written novels whereas her colleagues had only written about them. Could the captain also know of the assessment scandal? But how could anyone have found out that she had paid that hack to provide routinely indulgent feedback? She must not panic, but it was all coming back.

  Clearing out her treasured office at the far end of a corridor that students could never find, she had been morosely deleting her emails when her inbox had unexpectedly pinged. She had not yet been quite erased from the university’s memory. Here was a group message bearing further bad tidings, depriving her of the one consolation for being sacked. That she would no longer have to deal with student writing ever again.

  An attachment to this new email showed something called a competency grid. From now on, each student result was to be marked on this simple grid with a mere series of ticks. No lengthy comments.

  1.Communicates relationships between ideas through selecting and using grammatical structures and notations that are appropriate to the purpose.

  2.Produces and sequences paragraphs according to purpose of text.

  If the students got two ticks, they passed, thus reducing sixty hours of eye-glazing feedback work to a mere six minutes, she quickly calculated. No more need for flunkeys. Her usually superb timing had deserted her. Even now, while shredding uncollected student work (which she had previously found to be a deeply satisfying task), she couldn’t help dwelling on the competency revolution she was about to miss. What were the descriptors again? Would Shakespeare himself have earned only the two puny ticks of approval? Nothing to set his writing apart from the story in her hands right now? She recalled that this oeuvre contained a graphic account of its author digitally raping his cat.

  ‘That are appropriate to the purpose.’

  Maybe Shakespeare would have failed, because mixing philosophy and slapstick comedy was hardly ‘appropriate’, was it? In the great new democracy of writing, Shakespeare and the author of How I Raped My Cat would be of equal status. If Shakespeare thought he was better just because he had written a few sonnets and plays, let him try earning his living as a creative writing teacher. Viciously shredding the cat story, she saw it all …

  On the first day, Professor Shakespeare would perhaps unwittingly offer his opinion on a class exercise that a student had read out. He might say ‘repetitive’. There would be a chill in the room, then resentful outbursts.

  ‘We don’t offer negative comments in this class.’

  ‘We just clap.’

  Pause.

  ‘Who do you think you are anyway, passing judgement on our writing?’

  And Shakespeare would then trudge home to his little fake Tudor cottage, wondering how he could face the next day’s class. But he had to earn his trip back home to England, where he could at least get free meals in return for his autograph. He decided that ‘who do you think you are’ was a fair question. Perhaps they had never heard of him. After all, he had not introduced his work properly.

  So the next day, he humbly packed a satchel of seven plays and some sonnets and took them into the classroom, spreading them out on his table. The students shuffled sullenly past the bard until, smiling brightly, he made his new start.

  ‘Well, today I thought I’d speak a little about my own work.’

  A few coughs. Papers shuffled. Finally, a student wearing the biggest spectacles he had ever seen leaned forward, chin jutting. ‘Why would we want to listen to you talk about your work? We’re all writing stuff too, you know.’

  The speaker looked around for support and the others nodded.

  ‘That’s right.’

  Feeling queasy, Shakespeare would hastily pack up his satchel and head straight to the airport, taking his chances in the standby queue.

  Having by now deleted or shredded all evidence of her existence at the university, Monica too turned her back, reluctantly heading to the university car park. But, unlike for the bard, there would be no welcoming party at the other end of her own downward spiral. Just a two hundred dollar parking ticket because her staff authority had already been cancelled.

  But what was this? The captain was now breaking off her speech to read a note handed to her. Could it be about Monica?

  ‘We have a last-minute surprise. A midnight yoga class to celebrate the full moon tonight, run by our very own guest yogi. Please rise, Ms err…’

  Her eyes searched out Table 101. Shanti Bounty rose, her hands clasped together, bowing in the Indian fashion. She quickly sat down again, doubting that any of these already drunk diners would really make it.

  The captain then introduced the ship’s medical officer/parson, who was to introduce the star speaker that night. As the parson took the mike, Monica checked her posture and readied herself, with modestly downcast eyes, to hear only praise. Such words made worthwhile all the effort it took to produce those prize-winners, in which rescue failed to eventuate for exquisitely depressed married women. Sea of Love. Love of the Sea. Lover from the Sea. Sea-sick. A Wave Swells. And soon, surely, A Wave Lifts. But when the parson opened with the author’s support for the institution of marriage, he seemed to Monica to be speaking about another novelist altogether.

  ‘So now, without further ado, here is the star of the Queen Mary, our very own woman in white, Miss Monica Frequent.’

  She cringed. The old schoolyard taunts about her surname.

  ‘Yes, our most illustrious guest will sign discounted copies of her books any time, even during dinner, she assures me.’

  Laughter, and all eyes turned to the Captain’s Table, where Monica was rising, pretending that she had not heard the parson’s egregious error with her name. Her discreet little honeybun, still carefully filial, smoothed the back of her dress, handed her the sequinned evening bag, knowing, to quote Gilbert and Sullivan, that she could ‘very well pass for forty-three in the dusk, with the light behind her’.

  She looked around majestically at the upturned faces, most tolerant, a few mildly expectant. But all looking at her. If any of them had read about her ignominious sacking, it did not matter at this moment. She needed this attention, a simulacrum of the affection and devotion she had always craved, but never learned how to give.

  As she walked gracefully towards the lectern, her white dress shimmering under the disco balls, she was confident that the veil of glamour hid not only her indifferent, fading charms, but rendered her visible when other women her age were not. She could feel hundreds of eyes registering
her still auburn hair, her expensive gown and matching bag, suspended by a diamante chain from her slender shoulder.

  At the podium, she arranged her sheaf of notes, then looked around at her captives.

  Paused.

  No one knew why she was searching so frantically through the pages in front of her. Nor why, now that she was finally beginning to read, her voice was so laboured. So … unprofessional. At Table 101, they were muttering that it must be the effort of eliminating the broad diphthongs of her old accent, overlaying it with studied New Yorkese. Whatever the cause, Monica’s soporific monotone meant that most diners were later unable to recall the beginning of her address, billed simply as ‘Writing about Food’. But no one would ever forget the dramatic finale.

  They were to witness Monica Frequen fall rather short of being the star attraction of the shipboard program.

  12

  IN HER OWN JUICES

  What was happening at the podium?

  Monica was desperately reading from the pages before her, which stubbornly remained what they had always been. Page after page of the drunk-draft of ‘Writing about Food’. And now its alcohol-inspired candour was preventing many of the diners from enjoying their osso bucco, their veal parmigiana.

  Never having been able to improvise, unable to take her eyes from the page, she proceeded with her lecture on the rights of those very animals presently arranged in tasty morsels on her audience’s platters. She paid particular attention to the manner in which calves were penned, immobile, in order to produce that pale, almost bloodless veal so popular on the menu, and she even quoted Plutarch’s dead flesh soaked in ‘the sap and juices of its wounds’.

  It was time for Captain Kirstin MacKinley to take charge of the blood-soaked battlefield. She rose and bellowed, ‘Let’s soldier on, shall we, my gourmet friends, or Chef Swelter will want to know why, and you saw the size of him.’

  Setting an example, she chewed her meat more deliberately, knowing that all eyes were on her. There was a ripple of applause for her sangfroid as she patted her lips with the starched napkin, then gazing over to her brightest star, currently imploding on stage. Financial retribution would be in order. Could she refuse to pay her, cancel the contract as a penalty for departing from her agreed topic? Sue for the stress caused to diners? Loud protests were now interrupting Monica’s attempts to keep speaking, and she was eventually drowned out by the rising tide of grumbling discontent.

  At a signal from the captain, the dessert trolleys were brought out earlier than planned, as a salve to diners. But Monica was still ranting against the din, telling them not to touch the mousse.

  ‘Made from calves’ hoofs …’

  ‘Hooves, you fool.’

  ‘Call yourself a writer?’

  Laughter finally silenced her. The captain grabbed hold of her silver bag and, pulling her down from the stage, escorted her, hand firmly at her elbow, back towards the table. Where, to crown Monica’s despair, she saw that her honeybun’s seat was now vacant.

  The captain positioned herself behind Monica, hands firmly on her shoulders, bending over the distraught woman, to all appearances comforting her. Pressing drinks and food on her, murmuring inaudibly, pleadingly, until she at last took a mouthful from her plate, and finished a glass of a fizzy drink which, Captain Kirstin assured her, would settle her nerves.

  Monica had never deliberately sought controversy, especially not at this delicate stage of her career. Rather, she had been flustered by the apparently simple topic presented to her, weeks ago now. Writing about food? What did they think she was? An entertainer? A TV chef? Still, she had set about a serious piece with extracts from Tolstoy and Joyce to supplement the rather meagre references to dining in her own books. Her heroines, generally, did not eat.

  But rather drunkenly one night she had concocted this current draft, an ad hoc compilation of her thoughts on her own diet (excluding the alcohol). It had been a delightful two-bottle piece of writing in which she had dropped her shield. Failed to take the protective measure of always prefacing her every statement with ‘As Mr X says’.

  It had never been for public consumption, but, still drunk, she had prematurely printed out this offending version. The following morning, when she had seen it neatly filed, she mistakenly assumed that she had accomplished her task (such drunken blackouts being regular with her) and so had not looked at it again. Until tonight. At the podium.

  She had been a vegetarian as a student simply because it was cheaper. Then, when she had at last been able to afford the most exquisitely prepared meat, she discovered that she had lost the taste for it. But in her quest for gravitas, she had learned to keep quiet about anything new age-ish. So she had never spoken in public about her opinions, until now. And had exposed herself as the half-embodied ghost she felt she really was, behind her carefully scripted persona. She had panicked and just ploughed on with what was in front of her, unable to ad-lib. But surely, if her public loved her, they would accept what she really … but where were all those admiring fans now? The married ladies who adored her books? She had never needed them more, now that the ballroom was blurring around her. It was so awful to be criticised. It was so awful not to be liked.

  She was sweating, though she felt chilled to her core. The ballroom was suddenly unbearably bright. She was going to pass out with all the strain. Craving her honeybun’s shoulder to lean on, she looked around for him again. Gone. Instead, the unpleasant heat of the captain’s restraining hand on her shoulder, burning into her. She closed her eyes, afraid …

  to see the whole top deck lift off with a horrible grinding sound and they watched as it slowly sank, upright, into the sea. The lower half was still floating and the tablecloths, playing cards, office papers and bedding were dancing about in the winds …

  Trapped back on that sinking yacht again. Drowning once more in that Sea of Love. Whose was that booming voice that shattered her ears?

  ‘Eat up,’ the captain was ordering, still performing for her public. Afraid of fainting, her head spinning, Monica weakly accepted a small spoonful of something disgusting. As she swallowed it, the captain triumphantly turned to the passengers.

  ‘And so the lady eats our hoof mousse after all. Fuss about nothing.’

  Ironic applause greeted this masterful riposte, before the diners’ attention turned back to the circulating dessert trolleys, for free seconds or thirds, to the infinite solace of sweet food prepared by others.

  Relieved, the captain surveyed her newly becalmed empire. She had been at the bridge, had piloted her man-o-war in a brilliant conic intersection, avoiding the danger that had loomed. Only a few eyes still observed Monica with morbid interest as she helped her awkwardly to her feet, with the help of Paulie, who rushed to help his wife.

  ‘You lot carry on. We can manage her ourselves,’ said the captain to her subordinates, surprising them by this rare genial tone. Supported between husband and wife, the clearly inebriated star attraction staggered away from view until the unholy trio eventually reached the nearest door.

  There was no applause as Monica made her final exit.

  ME #7

  The captain wasn’t due until midnight, but when I heard the door opening just after eleven, I switched off the screen on which I had been admiring my solo performance in Ariadne’s cabin. I rose and turned towards the door, expecting to see only the captain, as planned. But she was not alone.

  The captain and the parson were dragging a third person between them. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I realised that it was Monica Frequen. Had they dealt with her already, ignoring and indeed overriding my own subtler plans for her? I was naturally outraged at this departure from the carefully designed denouement.

  ‘Get the spare trolley from the bedroom,’ snapped the captain, as if I was her lackey. The three of us loaded the white-faced woman onto the trolley. The parson felt her pulse and then the captain covered her face. Still without a word, they crossed the room to where Ariadne lay on her own tr
olley and briefly lifted the sheet to look at her face, as if to check up on my work. Then, much to my relief, the parson left the room. At least we would not be a trio in what might follow. I was still clearly the only one trusted with the next crucial step, whatever it might turn out to be.

  I was in for a surprise. We carried the first cadaver (for so we called them in the ship’s reports) out onto the captain’s balcony. Lying it on the bare metal grille, I worked strenuously to bind its feet with some of the leather-like fronds of seaweed clamped firmly to a heavy rock.

  Then, when we were standing safely together back inside the cabin, the captain pressed a button which retracted the base of the balcony. Silently, we watched our first weighted parcel slip, slowly and elegantly, into its briny grave.

  Then the second.

  The captain turned to me, patted me on the back.

  ‘I knew you were my man,’ she said.

  But her praise did not settle my seething resentment at having Monica’s passionately anticipated demise so arbitrarily taken out of my hands. The captain must have read my thoughts.

  ‘Tell me you don’t mind? I was just so angry with her upsetting my passengers at the banquet that I couldn’t help departing from the plan.’

  Why, that was almost an apology and so my heart swelled with pride. To top it off, she began waiting on me as before, summoning a seafood platter and opening a champagne that was so vintage the label had faded. Our mission was accomplished, and there were to be no more secrets between us now that the contraption, which the captain wittily called ‘the escape clause’, had received its dual blood sacrifice.

  We sat in the dark for a moment, sipping our drinks and listening to ‘Octopus’s Garden’. The captain hummed along, a little out of key. We were so cosy together that soon we began chatting about the whole Ariadne episode, filling in the gaps for each other about motive and such like.