5
THE AZTEC WAS FESTOONED with colored lanterns and paper streamers. The Christmas party was in full swing when Augusta boarded: a band played on the main deck, and passengers in evening dress drank champagne and danced with friends who had come to say good-bye.
A steward led Augusta up the grand staircase to a stateroom on an upper deck. She had spent all her cash on the best cabin available, thinking that with the snuffboxes in her suitcase she need not worry about money. The room opened directly onto the deck. Inside it had a wide bed, a full-size washbasin, comfortable chairs and electric lights. There were flowers on the dresser, a box of chocolates beside the bed and a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice on the low table. Augusta was about to tell the steward to take the champagne away, then changed her mind. She was beginning a new life: perhaps she would drink champagne from now on.
She was only just in time. She heard the traditional shout of “All ashore that’s going ashore!” even as the porters brought her luggage into the cabin. When they had gone she stepped onto the narrow deck, turning up her coat collar against the snow. She leaned against the rail and looked down. There was a sheer drop to the water, where a tugboat was already in position to ease the great liner out of the harbor into the sea. As she watched, the gangways were withdrawn one by one and the ropes cast off. The ship’s foghorn sounded, a cheer went up from the crowd on the quay, and slowly, almost imperceptibly, the huge ship began to move.
Augusta returned to her cabin and closed the door. She undressed slowly and put on a silk nightgown and a matching robe. Then she summoned the steward and told him she would not require anything further tonight.
“Shall I wake you in the morning, my lady?”
“No, thank you. I’ll ring.”
“Very good, m’lady.”
Augusta locked the door behind him.
Then she opened her trunk and let Micky out.
He staggered across the stateroom and fell on the bed. “Jesus save me, I thought I was going to die.” He moaned.
“My poor darling, where does it hurt?”
“My legs.” She rubbed his calves. The muscles were knotted with cramp. She massaged his calves with her fingertips, feeling the warmth of his skin through the cloth of his trousers. It was a long time since she had touched a man this way, and she felt a flush of heat rise at her throat.
She had often daydreamed about doing this, running away with Micky Miranda, both before and since the death of her husband. She had always been stopped by the thought of all she would lose—house, servants, dress allowance, social position, and family power. But the bank crash had taken all that away, and now she was free to give in to her desires.
“Water,” said Micky feebly.
She poured a glass from the pitcher beside the bed. He turned over and sat up to take it, then drank it all.
“Some more … Micky?”
He shook his head.
She took the glass from him.
“You lost the snuffboxes,” he said. “I heard the whole thing. That swine Hugh.”
“But you’ve got plenty of money,” she said. She pointed to the champagne in the ice bucket. “We should drink this. We’re out of England. You escaped!”
He was staring at her bosom. She realized that her nipples were hard with excitement, and he could see them poking through the silk of her nightwear. She wanted to say You can touch them if you like but she hesitated. There was plenty of time: they had all night. They had the whole voyage. They had the rest of their lives. But suddenly she could wait no longer. She felt guilty and ashamed, but she longed to hold his naked body in her arms, and the longing was stronger than the shame. She sat on the edge of the bed. She took his hand, drew it to her lips, and kissed it; then she pressed it to her breast.
He looked at her curiously for a moment. Then he began to stroke her breast through the silk. His touch was gentle. His fingertips brushed the sensitive nipple and she gasped with pleasure. He changed his grip and held her breast in his palm, lifting and moving it. Then he grasped her nipple between finger and thumb and squeezed. She closed her eyes. He pinched harder, so that it hurt. Then, suddenly, he twisted her nipple so viciously that she screamed and pulled away from him, standing up.
“You dumb cunt,” he sneered, getting off the bed.
“No!” she said. “No!”
“You really thought I would many you!”
“Yes—”
“You’ve got no money and no influence anymore, the bank is bust, and you even lost the snuffboxes. What would I want with you?”
She felt a pain in her chest, like a knife in her heart. “You said you loved me….”
“You’re fifty-eight—my mother’s age, for God’s sake! You’re old and wrinkled and mean and selfish, and I wouldn’t fuck you if you were the last woman on earth!”
She felt faint. She tried not to cry but it was no good. Tears welled up in her eyes and she began to shake with sobs of despair. She was ruined. She had no home, no money and no friends, and the man she trusted had betrayed her. She turned away from him to hide her face: she did not want him to see her shame and grief. “Please, stop,” she whispered.
“I’ll stop,” he spat out. “I’ve got a cabin reserved on this ship and that’s where I’m going.”
“But when we get to Cordova …”
“You’re not going to Cordova. You can get off the ship at Lisbon and go back to England. I’ve no further use for you.”
Every word was like a blow and she backed away from him, holding her hands up in front of her as if to ward off his curses. She bumped against the cabin door. Desperate to get away from him, she opened it and backed out.
The freezing night air cleared her head suddenly. She was behaving like a helpless girl, not a mature, capable woman. She had lost control of her life briefly, and it was time to seize it back again.
A man in evening dress walked past her, smoking a cigar. He stared at her nightclothes in astonishment but did not speak to her.
That gave her an idea.
She stepped back into the cabin and closed the door. Micky was straightening his tie in the mirror. “There’s someone coming,” she said urgently. “A policeman!”
Micky’s demeanor changed in a flash. The sneer was wiped off his face and replaced by a look of panic. “Oh, my God,” he said.
Augusta was thinking quickly. “We’re still within British waters,” she said. “You can be arrested and sent back on a coast guard cutter.” She had no idea whether this was true.
“I’ll have to hide.” He climbed into the trunk. “Close the front, quickly,” he said.
She shut him in the trunk.
Then she flipped the latch to lock it.
“That’s better,” she said.
She sat on the bed, staring at the trunk. In her mind she went over and over their conversation. She had made herself vulnerable and he had wounded her. She thought of how he had caressed her. Only two other men had touched her breasts: Strang and Joseph. She thought of how he had twisted her nipple then spurned her with obscene words. As the minutes went by her rage cooled and became a dark, vicious yearning for revenge.
Micky’s voice, muffled, came from inside the trunk. “Augusta! What’s happening?”
She made no reply.
He began to shout for help. She covered the trunk with blankets from the bed to deaden the sound.
After a while he stopped.
Thoughtfully, Augusta removed the luggage labels bearing her name from the trunk.
She heard cabin doors slam: passengers were heading for the dining room. The ship began to pitch slightly in the swell as it steamed out into the English Channel.
The evening passed quickly for Augusta as she sat on the bed brooding.
Passengers trickled back in twos and threes between midnight and two o’clock. After that the band stopped playing and the ship became quiet but for the sounds of the engines and the sea.
Augusta stared obsessively at the trunk in which she had locked Micky. It had been carried up here on the back of a muscular porter. Augusta could not lift it, but she thought she could drag it. It had brass handles on the sides and leather straps top and bottom. She took hold of the leather strap on its top and pulled, tilting the trunk sideways. It tipped over and fell on its face. It made a loud bang. Micky began to shout again, and she covered the trunk with blankets once more. She waited to see if anyone would come to investigate the bang, but no one did. Micky stopped yelling.
She seized the strap again and pulled. It was very heavy, but she was able to move it a few inches at a time. After each tug she rested.
It took her ten minutes to drag the trunk to the cabin door. Then she put on her stockings, boots and fur coat, and opened the door.
There was no one around. The passengers were asleep, and if a crew member patrolled the decks she did not see him. The ship was lit by dim electric bulbs, and there were no stars.
She dragged the trunk through the cabin door and rested again.
After that it was a little easier, for the deck was slippery with snow. Ten minutes later she had the trunk up against the rail.
The next part was more difficult. Taking hold of the strap, she lifted one end of the trunk and tried to bring it upright. On her first try she dropped it. The sound it made when it hit the deck seemed very loud, but once again no one came to investigate: there were intermittent noises all the time on the ship, as its funnels belched smoke and its hull cleaved the waves.
The second time she made a more determined effort. She got down on one knee, seized the strap with both hands, and slowly heaved up. When she had the trunk tilted at a forty-five-degree angle Micky moved inside, his weight shifting to the bottom end, and suddenly it became easy to push the whole thing upright.
She tilted it again so that it was leaning on the rail.
The last part was the hardest of all. She bent down and took hold of the lower strap. She took a deep breath and lifted.
She was not taking the whole weight of the trunk, for the other end was resting on the rail; but still it took all her strength to lift the thing an inch off the deck, and then her cold fingers slipped and she let it fall back.
She was not going to be able to manage it.
She rested, feeling drained and numb. But she could not give up. She had struggled so hard to bring the trunk this far. She had to try again.
She bent down and seized the strap again.
Micky spoke again. “Augusta, what are you doing?”
She answered in a low, clear voice. “Remember how Peter Middleton died,” she said.
She paused. There was no sound from inside the trunk.
“You’re going to die the same way,” she said.
“No, please, Augusta, my love,” he said.
“The water will be colder, and it will taste salty as it fills your lungs; but you’ll know the terror he knew as death closes its fist over your heart.”
He began to shout. “Help! Help! Someone, save me!”
Augusta grabbed the strap and lifted with all her strength. The bottom of the trunk came up off the deck. As Micky realized what was happening his muffled shouts became louder and more terrified, sounding above the engines and the sea. Soon someone would come. Augusta gave another heave. She lifted the foot of the trunk to chest level and stopped, exhausted, feeling she could do no more. Frantic scrabbling sounds came from inside as Micky tried hopelessly to get out. She closed her eyes, clenched her jaw, and pushed. As she strained with all her might, she felt something give way in her back, and she cried out with pain, but she kept lifting. The bottom of the trunk was now higher than the top, and it slid forward on the rail several inches; but it stopped. Augusta’s back was in agony. Any moment now a passenger would be roused from a half-drunk sleep by Micky’s cries. She knew she could only lift one more time. This had to be final. She gathered her strength, closed her eyes, gritted her teeth against the pain in her back, and heaved.
The trunk slid slowly forward on the rail, then fell into space.
Micky screamed a long scream that died into the wind.
Augusta slumped forward, leaning on the rail to ease the agony in her back, and watched the big trunk fall slowly, tumbling end over end through the air with the snowflakes. It hit the water with a mighty splash and went under.
A moment later it surfaced. It would float for some time, Augusta thought. The pain in her back was excruciating, and she longed to lie down, but she stayed at the rail, watching the trunk bobbing on the swell. Then it disappeared from sight.
She heard a male voice beside her. “I thought I heard someone crying for help,” it said worriedly.
Augusta composed herself rapidly and turned to see a polite young man in a silk dressing gown and a scarf. “It was me,” she told him, forcing a smile. “I had a nightmare and woke myself up shouting. I came out here to clear my head.”
“Ah. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Quite sure. You’re very kind.”
“Well. Good night, then.”
“Good night.”
He went back into his cabin.
Augusta looked down at the sea. In a moment she would stagger to her bed, but she wanted to look at the sea a little longer. The trunk would fill up slowly, she thought, as water squirted in through the narrow gaps. The level would rise up Micky’s body inch by inch as he fought to open the trunk. When it covered his nose and mouth he would hold his breath for as long as he could. But in the end he would give a great involuntary gasp, and the cold salty sea would pour into his mouth and down his throat, filling his lungs. He would squirm and fight for a little longer, racked by pain and terror; and then his movements would become feeble and stop, everything would slowly turn black, and he would die.