I'll Never Be Young Again (11 page)

Jake had found an American paper. He was reading up baseball news. Funny, the way he fitted in to any sort of atmosphere. The crowd did not seem to worry him.

I could not settle to read or to sleep. I felt restless for no reason. I did not know what I wanted to do. There was a party of Americans lying on rugs opposite, placed against the skylight of the saloon below. They were the people who had the gramophone. It was rather amusing to watch them. They were a party of five, three men and two girls. I leant back in my chair and wondered on the relationship between them all. Who was married to whom, and so on.They none of them behaved as though they were married. One fellow looked dull. He wore spectacles and was reading a book. I thought he must be the brother of the girl with dark hair, because when she asked him to go and get her a rug he said he couldn’t be bothered, and then one of the other fellows leapt up and found one for her instead. He seemed pleased to be able to do it, but she didn’t smile at him much. The other boy kept playing the fool with a camera, and taking photographs of them in ridiculous positions. He was the comic of the party. Everyone laughed whenever he opened his mouth. The other girl was asleep, or pretending to be. She had red hair. She wore a white dress without any sleeves. She buried her face in the crook of her arm and smiled for no reason in her sleep.

She was pretty good. I looked at her most of the time. I wondered which of the men she worried over - surely not the chap in the spectacles. Some fellows knew how to get away with anything. She probably treated them all alike, though. She sat up after a while and combed her hair. It didn’t need anything doing to it. Then she reached over with a lazy hand and started the gramophone. It was the same tune I had whistled in the morning. She shrugged her shoulders in time to the music, and the comic boy lit a cigarette for her and put it in her mouth. She hummed in a low key. Jake moaned faintly when the gramophone started and he got up from his chair.

‘I’m going to see if they’ll let me up on the bridge,’ he said; ‘I’d like to have a chat with one of those fellows. The second officer seemed all right. It’ll be quiet there, and the mountains will be grand.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Are you coming, Dick?’

I yawned and stretched myself.

‘No - I think I’ll stay here,’ I said.

‘Right.’ He disappeared along the deck. His getting up had attracted the attention of the American party. They all looked at him, and then back at me. I felt a fool sitting there by myself. I picked up Jake’s paper and pretended to read it, but it was upside down. Somebody laughed. I was sure it was the girl with red hair. I kept my face glued to the newspaper, so that they should not see the colour of my face. After a while I lowered it, and found they were not looking at me at all. I fumbled for a cigarette to give me something to do. Then I found I hadn’t got a match. I felt more of a fool than ever. The comic boy looked across and saw me with the unlit cigarette in my mouth.

‘Here,’ he said, ‘d’you want a match?’

They all looked at me. This was terrible. They probably thought I had done it on purpose, so as to be able to talk to them.

‘Thanks awfully,’ I said, and got up, tripping over the chair.

‘Did you come on board at Laardel?’ said the red-haired girl.

‘Yes,’ I said,‘we’d ridden from Fagerness through the mountains.’

‘Oh! boy!’ The man in spectacles looked up from his book.

‘That’s a devil of a way on horseback, surely?’

‘Yes, it is quite,’ I said. ‘It was worth it, though.’

‘I suppose you came through the most fascinating country,’ said the other girl, and the red one smiled and put on another record.

‘Wasn’t it just too romantic for words right up in those big hills?’ she asked me.

It was a damn silly remark, but she was pretty enough to get away with it. I smiled too.

‘I don’t know about that,’ I said.

‘Oh, I’d love to have done it,’ she went on; ‘I’m just crazy over mountains and things.’

The chap with glasses began to ask boring questions about our average mileage a day, and how we had managed about food and sleep. I answered him anyhow, because I was trying to listen to what the red girl was saying to the boy with the camera.

‘. . . you’ll get me mad, Bill, clicking that li’l thing at me,’ she said.

Then there was a pause for a few minutes, and I looked down at the red girl, who was swaying in time to the music.

‘That’s a good record,’ I said.

‘It sounds swell on a real band,’ she said; ‘it sends me cold all over and crazy to dance. Do you dance?’

‘No - I’m not much good at anything like that,’ I said.

‘What about your friend?’

‘No - I don’t think he does either.’

‘How far are you going?’ asked the man in spectacles.

‘I think we only go as far as Balholm,’ I said.

‘They say that Vadheim beyond is a great spot,’ said Bill.

‘Yes - you ought to come on to Vadheim,’ said the girl with the red hair.

‘What sort of a trip have you had so far?’ I asked the dark girl. It did not look too good to be only bothering about the red one.

‘Why, it’s been divine,’ she said, ‘we can’t get over these fjords.

They’re better than anything I’ve seen back at home. This is my first visit to Europe and we’ve done England and France and Germany all in two months. What do you think of that?’

‘Marvellous,’ I lied.

‘Isn’t it just marvellous? Of course Carrie has been over before.’ So she was called Carrie, my red girl. Bad name. I turned to her again.

‘How do you enjoy it?’ I asked her.

‘Oh! I like Europe a lot,’ she said, and she smiled in a careless way as though to suggest she had done a lot in Europe as well as liked it. She was grand. Pity her name was Carrie. I liked these people, they were fun. So easy to talk to. They did not make one feel a fool at all.

‘Mixed crowd on this boat,’ I said, and then remembered my own appearance, which didn’t look up to much.

‘They’re just terrible,’ said Carrie,‘I don’t believe there’s anyone here of any social standing at all.’

What a remark! I was glad Jake was not there. Never mind. A girl with a face like that could get away with murder.

‘Besides, they’re so bored and tame,’ she went on; ‘there’s no one under fifty, I declare. I’d like to rouse them and put some pep into them. We might have some sort of a party then.’

‘I wonder what Gudvangen will be like,’ I said.

‘They say it’s no size at all,’ said the dark girl’s boy, ‘there won’t be any real fun till we get to Balholm. We’ll start an excursion from there.’

‘I tell you what would be really cute,’ said Carrie, ‘if we didn’t have to join the rest of the crowd from the boat, but just went off in the wilds to explore. You and your friend ought to join us to swell our party.’

‘That’s an idea,’ I said. I did not know what Jake would think of this. It sounded all right to me.

‘I want to get somewhere and bathe,’ said the dark girl.

‘Gee - I wanner bathe too,’ said the boy who bothered over her rug.

‘If you two fellows join us we might get hold of some sort of conveyance,’ said the spectacled man. He seemed to be the boss of the party. I guessed he was inviting us because there would be more money, and with added funds we’d be able to hire a car.

‘It would be rather a rag,’ I said.

‘Wouldn’t it be swell?’ said Carrie.

The dressing-gong for dinner sounded then. I supposed they would all go below. Jake and I had not any kit with us.

‘Won’t you dine with us?’ asked the dark girl.

‘Oh! thanks very much, but we don’t change,’ I said, ‘we’ll be feeding in the other saloon. Maybe we’ll see you afterwards on deck.’

‘That’s O.K. then,’ she said.

She and the spectacled chap, her brother I supposed, were running the show.

They all got up and looked for their various coats and things. I pretended to help them with the gramophone and a rug, but I was not much use. The dark girl let her boy carry everything. It was probably one of the thrills of his day. I did not know whether to go or to stay. It looked funny to go just because they were.

Carrie hung back a second after the others. She was powdering her nose. Bill, the chap with the camera, looked after her over his shoulder.

‘Come on, baby,’ he called.

She picked up her coat from the ground and threw it over her arm. She smiled, and it was fun to think nobody but me saw the smile.

‘See you later,’ she said.

She followed the rest of them below. I went off to find Jake.

I met him coming down from the bridge.

‘Wasn’t it fine?’ he said. ‘Did you see well from where you were?’

‘What?’ I said.

‘Why, the colour of the sky beyond that mountain just ahead.’

‘Oh! sure,’ I said. ‘Listen, I’ve been talking to the party with the gramophone. They’re terribly nice. They suggest that when we go ashore at Balholm we sort of hire a car all together and see everything. We can keep away from the rest of the tourist gang.’

‘Oh!’ he said.

‘It wouldn’t bore you, would it, Jake? What I mean is it’s rather fun being with people, d’you know, just for a change? And they really are easy and amusing. Not stiff at all. There’s a chap - the one with glasses who was reading - he seemed keen to know all about how we’d ridden down from Fagerness through the mountains. I think you’d like him. I believe the dark girl is his sister.’

‘I didn’t notice any of them,’ said Jake.

‘They said something about us dining with them, but I said we hadn’t any clothes. We might see them up on deck later and talk it all over.’

‘Yes,’ said Jake.

‘I mean, we don’t have to if you’re not keen.’

‘No.’

‘It would make a sort of a change though, don’t you think? It’s rather good for one to mix with people now and again. I don’t want to drag you in for something that’s going to bore you, though.’

‘Oh! it’ll be all right,’ said Jake.

We had some food and afterwards we went on deck.The boat was just going to anchor, and Gudvangen was before us. The fjord here was very narrow, with the high forbidding mountains rising on either side. The water was black, and of an impossible depth. The white falls crashed down from the ledges of rock. The little village lay ahead. Everything seemed an enormous distance. It was too much.

I left Jake talking to the fellow with spectacles, and Carrie and I went into the bows of the ship and watched the men working at the anchor. I was able to explain the various reasons for things.

She looked up at me with big eyes - ‘Isn’t that just too amazing,’ she said.

I told her about Jake and I working our passage to Oslo in the barque. She could not get over this. She made me go into every detail of the life, and all the while she leant with her arms on the side of the bridge, her thin dress fluttering in the cool air.

‘My, you’ve done a lot,’ she said.

‘Here - you’ll get cold,’ I said after a while, and we wandered away to find the others, though I did not want to look for them at all.

‘I wish we could dance,’ she said.

‘I can’t dance,’ I said.

‘I guess I could make you learn.’

‘You wouldn’t try me for long,’ I told her.

‘How should I know?’

We laughed, and then the boy called Bill and the other one caught sight of us.

‘Here they are,’ they shouted. Jake was standing there too. He did not seem to be talking to anyone.

‘Why, where have you been, Carrie?’ asked the dark girl, and then they both laughed, and everybody looked at us. I knew I was turning red in the face for no reason. Why did they all have to make such a thing of us having been up in the bows of the steamer? It was damn silly.

‘He’s been telling me all about his romantic past,’ said Carrie. That was all right for her. The line got a laugh of course. It made me look a fool, though. I wondered what Jake would think.

‘Hullo, old boy,’ I said unnaturally, ‘why didn’t you come along with us?’ I had a feeling that he thought that I was thinking he was out of things.

‘Hullo,’ he said.

I smiled foolishly, humming a tune under my breath. The fellow in glasses came up.

‘Do you boys play bridge?’ he said.

‘I do,’ said Jake.

‘That’s splendid now, can’t we make up a four? You and myself, and my sister and Matty?’ Matty was the bloke who hung round with the dark girl.

‘I didn’t know you played, Jake?’ I said.

‘Didn’t you?’ he said.

I wondered if it was my manner that was forced or his.

Somehow I felt as though I didn’t know him so well as I did. I hoped the bridge would not bore him. It would spoil the fun of my evening if I thought he was hating it.

‘You’ll play, won’t you, Jake?’ I said anxiously.

‘Sure,’ he said, ‘I’d love to.’

That left out Carrie and myself. Also the boy with the camera, Bill. I wondered if he would hang around all the time. He did. We went below on the other deck and he came too. We took the gramophone and the case of records. She tried to teach me to dance. I could see the other boy danced well. She looked good against him. I’d have got on all right if he hadn’t been there. He was funny too, he kept making her laugh. She was enjoying herself with the pair of us. I supposed this was what girls considered having a good time. I did not think it was great fun. It could have been so much better.

‘Don’t you play bridge?’ I asked the boy.

‘Why, he can’t play any of these indoor sports,’ said Carrie.

‘Can’t I, baby?’ he said.

They both laughed. I supposed they had some bloody feeble joke. They probably knew each other very well, anyway.

There was a bar in the smoking-room. We went along and had drinks. She laughed at each of us in turn over the rim of her glass.