Orphan of Angel Street (33 page)

She half-turned her head, animated. ‘I think I can do it now.’ He released her, desire raw in him.

‘Perhaps she’ll row all afternoon!’ he joked, turning to Margaret, afraid that his feelings were plain in his face. But she was taken up with Stevie’s antics.

‘Here – please, darling.’ She handed him over. ‘He’s exhausting!’

James busied himself with his son, gladly sitting him in his lap in order to conceal the gross outward sign of his desire, distracting both Stevie and himself, talking to him, showing him the ducks, letting him wet his hands.

All the time though, he was conscious of Mercy’s every move, her legs stretched out in front of her so that sometimes his ankle brushed against her as he moved, her lithe frame bending back and forth, her dazzling smile of happiness as he caught her eye.

Oh God, James thought. God help me. He would have to put a stop to it. He couldn’t live like this, with this constant longing gnawing at him. He didn’t know how long he could control himself in her presence. He couldn’t get rid of her – however could that be explained to Margaret? He must struggle for self-control – bury himself in his work. What sort of man was he otherwise?

‘Do take over again,’ Margaret urged him eventually, as he sat staring ahead. ‘Mercy must be quite exhausted by now!’

That night James Adair made love to his wife with an energy and urgency that startled both of them. He was more passionately aroused than she could ever remember, and at the height of it he cried out loudly as if the release of it was painful to him. Afterwards, still startled, she held him, caressing him as he lay in her arms, his eyes tightly closed.

‘I had a wire from Kesler today,’ James announced a few weeks later, as the three of them sat round at dinner one evening. Margaret insisted that Mercy ate with them still at least once a week and couldn’t understand why her husband was being so awkward about it recently, trying to insist that as Mercy was an employee she should be treated as such and kept in her place.

It was a mellow evening in early autumn, the light dying over the now tarnished leaves in the front garden

‘D’you mean the American?’ Mercy asked, passing Mr Adair a well-filled gravy boat.

Margaret looked at Mercy in some gratitude that at least she had remembered who her husband was talking about as her own mind had a tendency to flit on to something else as soon as he began to talk about work. James also smiled appreciatively at her.

‘That’s the one.’ He nodded to Emmie to indicate they had everything they needed. She left the room with her usual smirk at Mercy. She and Rose were always cross-questioning Mercy – ‘What did they say? What do they talk about?’ – but were habitually disappointed by the information.

‘Didn’t they talk about anything else?’ was usually Rose’s complaint when Mercy reported conversations about the health of the cycle market or Stevie’s daily doings. ‘Don’t they ever ’ave a good fight?’

But the Adairs didn’t. Most of what passed between them was a low current, under the surface. To Mercy they seemed calm, which she took to mean contented. Tonight, by their standards, James was animated.

He accepted the gravy, then picked up the delicate glass beside Margaret’s plate to pour water into it, then Mercy’s. Mercy was still nervous of drinking from the long-stemmed glassware, but James disdained drinking out of anything of lesser quality, even though he was abstemious and seldom drank alcohol.

‘Kesler’s planning a new works outside New York – in Rochester. They should be moving out early next year, and he suggests—’ – James sat back, holding his glass with an air of triumph – ‘that when things have progressed a bit further, I visit him in New York!’

Margaret, who had been eating with a hungry sense of purpose, looked up startled.

‘You – go to America!’

James laughed youthfully. His moustache shifted when he smiled, making the smile appear broader. ‘And why not? It’s not the moon, you know. It’s only a few days’ voyage, and I gather Cunard will be taking passenger bookings again before too long. I think it’s a splendid idea. Kesler and I will have a hugely productive relationship, I’m certain of it. He has all that New World drive and enthusiasm, and with all our technical know-how put together . . . Ideally I’d go sooner, of course, but if we’re to travel on the best ship in the world, we shall have to wait until she’s ready for us.’

Margaret was frowning at him.

‘The
Mauretania
, of course – she’s undergoing a complete overhaul. They had to convert her for War service—’

‘Yes, yes,’ Margaret said. ‘But you said “we”?’

‘Of course you must come with me! You’re forever saying you never go anywhere or do anything.’

‘But James – Stevie.’

‘Oh, Stevie will be perfectly all right with Mercy here. My mother can come and stay for a few weeks. She’d love it – we’ll be gone a month at most. What harm could come to him?’

‘James,’ Margaret spoke with unusual resolve, ‘I am not going to travel to the other side of the world and leave my son. Least of all with your mother. He barely knows her and she’s as cold as a dead herring. I’m just not. I’m sorry. You’ll have to go alone. After all, it is business.’ She popped a piece of potato in her mouth as if to emphasize that she wasn’t going to say anything else.

Mercy listened expectantly. Was she now going to have something approaching a row to report to Rose? After all, she did just call his mother a dead herring . . .

‘But, darling—’ – James was stroking his moustache with his left hand as he tended to do when irritated – ‘Kesler has a very nice wife – and children. And he’s requested that you come.’ (The final phrase of Kesler’s telegram had read ‘Bring wife.’)

Margaret looked defiantly at him, swallowing the potato. ‘How on earth do you know she’s nice? Whatever this American has requested, I am not leaving my son. He’s had quite enough to contend with in his short life already. And that’s that.’

‘Oh to hell with it. Let Stevie come as well then.’

‘And Mercy.’

‘Mercy?’ A momentary look of alarm swept over James Adair’s face. But of course, the child could hardly travel without his nanny. She could travel second class, somewhere well away from him . . .

‘Very well,’ he said with dignity. ‘Mercy too.’

‘D’you hear Mercy?’ Margaret was overjoyed. The thought of being alone with James and a collection of strangers for weeks at a time had filled her with panic. She was maladroit socially, and what on earth would she and James have to say to each other all that time? She thought it a sad but inevitable truth that husbands and wives had very little conversation beyond the common interest of their children. At least in normal circumstances there were other people. But now, if Mercy was coming, and Stevie, she would have familiar companions.

‘We’re going across the sea to America, the first chance we get!’ James said.

Mercy was so astonished she couldn’t take it in. ‘I’ve never even seen the sea!’

‘Well, you’ll be seeing plenty of it soon!’ James laughed. Suddenly he seemed full of joy.

March 1920

‘Mercy – Mercy dear. You’d better wake up!’

Margaret Adair was leaning across from the opposite seat of the train. Feeling the warmth of the hand on her knee through her dress, Mercy slowly opened her eyes. Stevie was asleep on top of her, crunched up like a crab, his damp head resting under her chin, making her hot and sweaty inside her clothes. She had a dry mouth and a bar of dull pain stretched between her temples. The seat was rocking gently, the train chugging, der dum der dum . . . Wherever was she?

‘We’re coming into Southampton.’ James Adair was sitting up very straight, peering with boyish enthusiasm out through the sooty window. ‘Soon get a look at her!’

The ship – of course! She was on a train going to the sea and they were travelling to America! Mercy was wide awake suddenly, gently sitting up and trying not to wake Stevie.

‘Bless him.’ Margaret Adair looked fondly at her son. She had seen James smiling at the two of them as they slept and was moved by the tender expression in her husband’s eyes. What she had achieved in giving him a son!

Stevie, eighteen months old, was very active once awake, but now, oblivious of her adoration, let out a shuddering little sigh in his sleep.

‘I don’t suppose he’ll remember any of this,’ Margaret said. She stopped speaking rather abruptly and Mercy saw her close her eyes and rest her head back as if in discomfort.

Mercy looked out as the train snaked between warehouses and factories. She saw rows of dwellings, church spires, occasional faces topped by workmen’s caps turned up to watch the boat train hurtle past. She was surprised to see these familiar things, as if, having left Birmingham for the first time, she was expecting a completely different world.

‘We must be about the last train.’ James’s watch hung on a gold chain from his weskit. ‘She sails at noon.’ He was trying to sound like an old sea dog.

When the train came to a halt with a groaning of brakes, Mercy eased herself and Stevie out of the comfortable first-class seat. She wrapped a blanket round him carefully as he stirred and carried him out into the chill spring air.

The platform was full of excited crowds. From first class spilled gentlemen in expensive suits, trilbys, bowlers, even the odd top hat, and their womenfolk, stylish gowns covered by fur-trimmed coats and stoles and a dazzling variety of hats, feathered and flowered, some outrageous with wide brims and decorations of fruit, others pared down, elegant skullcaps trimmed with a single gorgeous feather. Mercy felt small and poor and bewildered amid the loud ring of upper-class voices, some with foreign accents, all so ripe and confident. They found a porter, and negotiated their way through the heaving mass of people shuffling along, slowly, to the dock.

‘Smell that!’ James cried, leaning close to her ear.

She breathed in, and through the thinning smoke from the trains, smelt for the first time the salt of the sea. As they moved out, the bracing air hit her face. She felt an odd sensation go through her suddenly, tingling, excitement and wonder making her breathless. Such beginnings she had come from, she who was nobody to anyone in the world – and now this!

James Adair looked as if he might burst with pride when they saw the
Mauretania
. Over and over again during the past weeks he’d told them, as if for the first time, ‘D’you know, she’s held the Blue Riband since 1907 – fastest passenger ship across the Atlantic – never beaten in all that time!’

‘He seems to think it’s one of his bicycles!’ Margaret murmured to Mercy with a wry smile.

But Mercy barely heard her. Her head was back, her eyes, at least as awed as James Adair’s, taking in the massive bulk of the ship. The huge black hull stretched way above them like an endless wall, topped with white which was interspersed by the hundreds of windows of the ship’s prime living quarters. Crowning it all were the four enormous red funnels. Everyone was looking up, exclaiming.

‘Look, Stevie,’ she said, leaning him back in her arms and pointing. ‘Look at the big boat – and up there, red chimneys. Chimneys, Stevie!’

The little boy’s eyes were wide and solemn.

The place was swarming. Mercy felt herself jostled at times and held tight to Stevie. James stood protectively close to her. Once she found herself looking into his eyes. He smiled at her. She heard people exclaiming, laughing, some weeping, many hugging each other farewell for a short time or a long, perhaps even for ever. Mercy started to notice many other sorts of people, the poor as well as the rich, some dressed in odd, foreign-looking clothes and shawls. Smoke from cigarettes and cigars was quickly blown away by the brisk breeze.

‘Come along.’ James guided her arm, speaking over all the commotion. ‘We’ll take you to second class and we’ll come and find you after. Stay close to me . . .’

They made their way gradually to the second-class embarkation point, amid a more soberly-dressed, respectable gaggle of people, many businessmen in Homburgs, some with anxious-looking wives beside them. High above them, the rails were lined by passengers who had boarded earlier and now had the leisure to watch the proceedings below, calling down and whistling to friends or relatives on shore.

There was a smell of tar. Mercy felt her face buffeted by moist air and thought for a moment it was raining, but it was a damp, brackish gust from over the water and it subsided. As they drew near the gangway and the clatter of feet grew louder, she felt her stomach tighten. The dark, deep gap between the ship and the dockside, with its gurgling strip of water, appalled her. She wanted it to be over now, to be on board.

‘Go to the steward at the top,’ James instructed. ‘He’ll give you directions to your quarters. We’ll find you . . .’ He smiled reassuringly as she stepped up, tightly clutching Stevie, then he turned back to join his wife.

Halfway up the gangway, as she slowly followed an elderly couple, the man leaning on a stick, a gust of wind lifted the front of her hat and carried it over the back of her head where it hung, flapping from its pin. She was flustered and afraid of it flying right off, but didn’t dare loose Stevie to fix it. She’d see to it when she reached the top.

But suddenly the hat settled back on her head, the pressure of a hand on top of it. She turned, startled.

‘Allow me.’

She found herself looking into a young man’s face, long and pale, with deep grey eyes, a wide mouth and striking, dark eyebrows which were pulled into a slight frown of concentration as he straightened the hat. Briefly Mercy also took in details of a baggy tweed suit on a tall, but thin body.

‘Thank you.’ She was taken aback. ‘Trouble is,’ she said timidly, ‘I’ve got my hands full.’

‘So I see. That’s quite all right.’ He smiled, the rather mournful face brightening for a second. ‘I often forget how windy it is on the coast as well.’

‘Two pins from now on,’ she agreed.

‘Go on – get a move on!’ someone called grumpily from behind, and it was only then Mercy realized they’d stopped and turned to scurry on upwards.