'Pigs,' said the boy, 'are not dirty. A fallacy. Just like the one about goats smelling.' She slammed the door. Hillier said to the boy: 'Dirt is an inescapable part of the animal condition. That's why we take baths. That's why I'm going to the bathroom now. Unfortunately you're standing in my way.'

The boy stared up at Hillier and then, at the leisure appropriate to a holiday, moved, ending by flattening himself against the wall. 'You're new,' he said, puffing up Russian smoke. 'You've only just got on. We, on the other hand, are founder members. We got on at Southampton. It's all eating,' he told Hillier confidentially. 'They gorge themselves till they're sick. That's why some of them get off at Venice and totter back home overland. I hope you like it.'

'I'm sure I will.'

'I shouldn't try to make my sister, though. She's mad about sex, but it's all what D. H. Lawrence calls sex in the head. She just likes to read about it. Would you like one of these Black Russians?' From the breast pocket of his Hawaiian shirt he drew out a box, also a Cygnus butane lighter.

'I'm a cigar man,' said Hillier. 'Thanks all the same.'

'Try one of my Reservados after dinner,' said the boy. 'They've got some of this very special Remy Martin behind the bar. In a reproduction Louis XIV decanter. Nobody knows how old it is.'

'I look forward to that,' said Hillier. 'And now I must have my shower.'

'You do that,' said the boy. 'I dare say we'll be meeting again at the hour of the apéritif.'

Precocious young bastard, thought Hillier, as he went to the bathroom. Sex in the head, eh? Down, wantons, down. A passer-by hooted loudly from the blue Adriatic.

Hillier turned the knob of the bathroom door. He gaped at what he saw inside.

This was all too totally absurd. He had seen that fair beauty legitimately, clothed at her cabin door. Here, to balance that vision, was another, very dark, unclothed. She stood drying herself, a dusky Indian, her hair loose, a midnight river flowing to her buttocks.

'I'm terribly sorry,' gulped Hillier. 'The door wasn't-'

She already had the bath-towel about her, the ship's name _Polyolbion__ draping her as if she were its beauty-queen. She was less embarrassed than Hillier. Her face was that of a cool straight-nosed Aryan, though burnt to the richest coffee. 'No,' she said, 'the door wasn't. I'm often careless.' It was a kind of finishing-school English with a Welsh lilt. She coolly watched while Hillier let himself out. She seemed to do nothing about re-locking the door. Trembling, Hillier went for his shower. The voyage was beginning either well or badly, depending on which way you looked at things. He had come aboard stringently braced for action. He was already being seduced by flesh, the two extremes of the continuum as it were pegged out for him in a matter of minutes. He took his shower very cold, gasping, then strode back to his cabin looking straight before, inseducible.

The cabin door was open. Someone was singing inside, opening and closing dressing-table drawers. His suitcases were being rummaged. But a cheerful face, unabashed, turned to greet him. 'Mr Jagger would it be, sir? And how about the other gentleman?'

Hillier relaxed as he entered. Of course, the cabin steward. 'Could you,' he said, 'do something about getting me a drink? Whisky. I think-a whole bottle. And some ice.'

'And the other gentleman? Mr Innes?'

'Delayed. He's joining us at the next port.'

'Yarylyuk, that will be. A queer sort of a place.' He laid some of Hillier's shirts in a drawer, singing again.

'I suppose,' said Hillier, 'you'll want some money.' He had already hung his summer jacket in the wardrobe. He went to the wallet there.

'It's the usual thing, sir, as you'll know. A sweetener some people call it.' The tones were either of East London or of Sydney, really both, the sea really, two ends of the sea. Hillier paid out pound notes till the steward's hand ceased to be a table and became a clamp. 'Thank you, sir. Wriste, my name is. Wriste.'

'Wrist?'

'With an e at the end. A queer sort of a name you'd say. Most call me Rick or Ricky. That's short for Richard.' He was about thirty-five, dressed in blue denim trousers and a horizontal-striped singlet. His skin was well tanned and salted, the sumptuousness of line and shadow to be found on an inland Northern face thoroughly pickled out. This man had been long at sea. His eyes had a far-focused look. He was toothless but wore no dentures and, as if to point the fishiness of his mouth, he pouted when speaking, holding the pout when he'd finished, then letting the pout settle very gently to a normal spread. His thin dark brown hair seemed glued to his scalp. He wore well-fitting house-shoes of very expensive leather. 'Any particular brand, sir? We have this very good one, exclusive to the Line. Old Mortality it's called. Oh, by the way, sir, a letter for you. Came aboard at Venice, quite a lot of mail there was, you'd be surprised. But it's all business-men, you know, tycoons. They have to be kept informed.'

It was an official envelope, OHMS, correctly addressed to Sebastian Jagger, Esq.

'You'll want to read it, I suppose, sir. I'll go and get your Old Mortality.' Wriste went out singing. Hillier was aware of a strong thump of apprehension under his ribs.

What warning? What change of plan? He opened the letter. It was, as he'd expected, in code: ZZWM DDHGEM EH IJNZ OJNMU ODWI E XWI OVU ODVP – Long, quite a long message. Hillier frowned. He had no means of breaking the code. Nothing had been said to him about the sending of messages after embarkation. He had neither book nor machine in his luggage. He looked again at the envelope. Inside, previously unnoticed by him, was the thinnest slip of paper, hardly bigger than a cracker motto. On it a rhyme had been typed: November goddess in your glory Swell the march of England's story.

And underneath a cheery message: Regards from all here. Hillier's pulse slowed in relief. It was nothing, then, after all. A facetious farewell from the Department, then, in code like every other letter he had received. A sort of crossword puzzle with cryptic clue. Something for his leisure, when he should have leisure.

When Wriste returned, bearing whisky and an ice-bowl, Hillier was already in evening shirt and black lightweight trousers. He had stowed the code message in the back pocket. Later, perhaps, he would – 'We do dress tonight, do we?' he asked.

'Big ones for dressing, all of them,' said Wriste, 'even on the first night out. Want to convince themselves they're having a good time. And you should see the women.' His fish-lips pursed to a point to whistle one sad note. 'Plung ing necklines? You've no idea. No half-measures with this sort of lot, I'll say that. That's what I appreciate about the rich. Not always all that generous, though.' He was pouring a healthy slug of Old Mortality for Hillier, gold winking through caves of ice. Hillier noticed that there were two glasses on the tray. He motioned to Wriste to have one himself. Wriste took it as his due, cockily saying 'Cheers'.

The whisky was of a smoothness Hillier had forgotten existed. He poured himself another. A mood of quiet excitement came over him as he knotted his black tie: the evening ahead, plunging necklines, the smell of the rich. Wriste got on with the unpacking. 'Although,' he said, 'the couple in here was very generous. To me, that is. Got off at Venice, motoring down the East Coast. Ravenna, Rimini, Ancona, Pescara, Bari, Brindisi. Then into somebody's yacht there. A nice sort of a life. Every day there was a dozen of Guinness paid for for me and my mate. He's a winger in the First Class.'

'I should be honoured,' said Hillier, 'if you would-'

'I expected no less of you, sir,' said Wriste. 'Me and Harry will be proud to drink your health every night. On holiday in Venice, was you, sir?'