Orphan of Angel Street (42 page)

‘James, for heaven’s sake!’

‘I’m in love with Paul Louth!’ she gabbled. ‘And he loves me. I don’t want this. You’re spoiling everything. It’s wrong of you—’

James actually flung his head back and laughed loudly. Mercy looked across at Stevie, praying he would wake, but there was no sound from him.

‘Paul Louth – you can be sure – wants just the same from you as I do, my dear. That’s students for you. Anyhow – if that’s what he wants at least I can give you some practice!’

He put his hands on her shoulders with a kind of confidence which said he owned her. Hatred and fury surged inside her. She collected saliva in her mouth and spat it into his face, her eyes narrowed with loathing.

‘You don’t deserve your wife. She’s kind and sweet and a lady. But you – you may be a gentleman on the outside, but underneath you’re just filth, worse than filth.’

Slowly, as if in a daze, James wiped her spittle from his nose and cheek.

‘I see.’ His voice was so cold with fury, Mercy felt herself go rigid with fear. ‘So it’s going to be different today is it, angel?’

He was on to her before she stood a chance of moving, tearing at her, hurling her back on the bed, half winding her. His face was a grotesque mixture of lust and fury. He pulled her legs in the air and stripped her as she tried to kick at him.

‘Stevie – Stevie, wake up!’ she shrieked. ‘Look what your daddy’s doing. This’ll make you proud of him, won’t it?’

‘Shut up.’ James’s red face loomed close to her. He was holding her down with one hand, unbuttoning himself frantically with the other. ‘Just shut your mouth.’

He lunged into her, face straining. ‘That’s it – now I’ll have you . . .’

Mercy lay under him, squeezing her eyes closed. She was dry-eyed with loathing and disgust. Hold tight until he’s finished, she thought. Just hold on and it’ll be over and he’s never, ever going to do this again . . . Over and over she repeated it in her mind to his lunging rhythm: never, never, never . . .

He rolled off her, leaving her curled up, wet with his sweat and juices and, at last, with her own tears pouring from her in a torrent of shame. He enclosed his sticky body in his clothes, disgust and horror settling on him like extra garments. He looked down at the pitiful little body on the bed.

What had happened to his glorious ideals of their love, his fantasy of her gratitude and devotion? She was lying there, naked and vulnerable, curled up with her hands over her eyes, unable even to bear looking at him.

He let himself out of her room without a word and walked disconsolately back to his own. What a fool he was! A naive, ridiculous idiot, seeking paradise between the thighs of a servant like many another boorish master! That his behaviour fell into the realms of such a run-of-the-mill cliché only increased his despair.

All of it was finished, he knew. He would avoid her from now on – in America, once he was busy with Kesler this would be easy. And once they were back in England she would have to be moved on. He couldn’t have her there, knowing, reminding. And Margaret – the thought of her knowing how he had behaved, he who always saw himself as superior to her! Oh, the humilation! The thought was too appalling to contemplate.

He did not think though, that she would tell Margaret. He tried to rally himself. Why should he let her have this power over him? Who was she, anyway? A servant, dross from the workhouse, a nobody! He should just forget it.

But his last sight of her would not leave his mind, her utter dejection as she lay there on her bed. He burned now with contempt, with remorse for his grotesque behaviour. And he was weighed down by sadness – for his loss of innocence: for her bitter tears.

‘This is our last night,’ she said to Paul the next evening with a heavy sigh. She was longing to leave the ship: her room now filled her with abhorrence. What had happened in there with James Adair could not be undone. He had shamed and abused her, and while she was on the ship she could never get away from the fact. Once off the ship it would be over. Finished. James Adair’s madness was something conjured by the sea.

But she was also afraid that with the landfall something else would evaporate: the magic wonder of Paul loving her. She was afraid he would see her with new, more critical eyes. She knew she would love him whatever.

They sat after dinner in the second-class saloon. First class and James Adair felt like another existence. Raw and fresh as his forced visits to her were, Mercy had grown used to pushing things she couldn’t bear to think about into the darkest pockets of her mind. She didn’t want any sadness or pain to colour her time with Paul.

They talked of what Paul was to do next.

‘I’ll be on the return voyage of course. The next main thing will be to look for a job.’

‘On a ship?’

‘Oh no – not actually on a ship. I’m best at design, I think, so it could be marine engineering – I’ll have to see what opportunities there are. So – the future’s rather uncertain. Shall you mind that?’

Mercy’s heart stepped up its pace. He was including her in his future!

‘No! All I’d mind is not being able to be with you.’

Paul laid his hand gently on hers. ‘You’re so sweet and trusting. But it may take a little time before I have a living.’

Mercy looked up earnestly at him. ‘Paul – knowing that I’ve got you – somewhere – that we love one another . . . They’re the things that matter most. The only things.’

Eventually, as usual, they went outside, where a quietness overcame them both. It was a clearer night than the three before, the wind gentler, and they kept their hats on, Paul’s misshapen trilby, Mercy’s hat with the brim. Paul smoked a cigarette.

After a while, Paul said, ‘I wonder where we’ll be in a year.’

‘Don’t!’ Mercy shuddered.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘I don’t like talking like that.’

He stamped the cigarette out and put his arm round her shoulders, pulling her close, then gently removed her hat, freeing the pin and pushing it carefully through the brim to keep it safe. He kissed her hair. Mercy closed her eyes and leant against him.

‘All I want’, Paul said softly, ‘is to look after you. Care for you. It’s all that matters. Both of us seem to be so alone in the world.’

She opened her eyes and wrapped her arms round his neck, felt his round her. He was still holding her hat.

‘Do you really love me?’ she asked urgently. ‘Really?’

‘Of course. More than I can say.’ He went to kiss her but she held back.

‘You could forgive me – anything?’

‘Mercy.’ He stroked her face. ‘Why do you feel so bad and unworthy? Of course, my love, anything.’

She held him tight, kissed him, overwhelmed by his care and trust.

‘Listen,’ he said after a time. ‘You can hear the music even better tonight. Can you dance?’

‘Me? No!’

He laughed. ‘No, nor me. But let’s do it anyway!’

He laid her hat on a chair and, oblivious of two men pacing the deck, they grasped each other awkwardly. Mercy couldn’t forget being hauled around the dance floor by James Adair. Paul held out his left hand and Mercy placed her right hand in it, looking uncertainly into his eyes.

They started off swaying and shuffling, each trying to move in different directions and stumbling over the other’s feet. By trial and error they made up their own half-galloping, half-twirling dance up and down the deck until Mercy was panting and whooping with joy. Ignoring the music, they linked hands and spun round and round, counterbalancing each other, until the windows, cables, funnels, sky, became a spinning circle of lines and blurred light.

‘Stop – my head’s gone all funny!’ she begged.

Laughing like children, they held and steadied each other, Paul’s back resting against the side of one of the lifeboats. When their laughter faded it was replaced in his face by a solemn, hungry expression. He took her cheeks between his warm palms, gently stroking her face and looking at her with such a longing intensity that she felt awed.

‘I love you,’ she said, afraid for a second.

‘I never thought . . .’ He paused for a second. ‘I never thought I should ever feel anything this strongly.’

She looked into his face and saw her whole world in front of her. For a long time they stood in each other’s arms on the deck of the
Mauretania
, a tiny island of love and hopefulness in a dark, hurtful world.

Much later, dizzy with happiness from Paul’s embraces, she lay in her room.

‘I don’t want to go back in,’ she’d said. ‘I want to stay out all night.’

Paul squeezed her shoulders. ‘Anyone’d think that room was haunted.’

Mercy gave a pained frown in the darkness. ‘It is.’

If James Adair came tonight, he could knock the door down before she opened it. He could do no worse to her than he had already done.

But the night was undisturbed. He didn’t come. She slept.

She was woken by knocking, gentle, then louder and more insistent.

She could tell by the sound that it wasn’t James Adair.

‘Mercy?’ Paul hissed as she opened the door a crack. ‘We’re coming in. You can see land. Come up on deck!’

‘What time is it?’ She felt disorientated.

‘Only seven – will you come?’

She wouldn’t miss it for anything. ‘But I’ll have to bring Stevie . . .’

She dressed herself hurriedly, then the sleepy boy, wrapping him warmly. Paul waited for them outside.

‘Let me take him,’ Paul offered. ’He’s such a weight for you.’

Stevie went to Paul without protest, and sat quiet and wide-eyed as they went up on deck. Mercy followed, smiling at the sight of Stevie’s little hand draped over Paul’s shoulder.

It was chilly and damp, the early morning sky rubbed with smudges of darker cloud. Mercy felt the air stinging her nose. There were already a number of people up on deck, all looking in the same direction, some raising a hand to their brows as if better to focus their vision.

Paul led Mercy to a space where they could see. And there it was, already closer than she had expected, there, with sea all around her, the statue on her plinth in the mouth of New York harbour. From here she still looked grey and indistinct. Beyond her they could just see little puffs of steam from boats further into the harbour.

‘Lady Liberty,’ Paul said.

‘Is that what it is?’

‘The Statue of Liberty. She’s holding up a torch for freedom.’

The end of his sentence was lost in a massive blast of sound from the
Mauretania
, as if in salute, as she rode majestically into the harbour.

‘Look,’ Mercy said. ‘Look at that.’

It was as if they’d entered a fairy tale. A magical, unpredictable land was rising out of the sea to greet her. Her stomach fluttered with expectation. Between the shifting water and pale sky, the uneven line of buildings, high, pointed towers, square, blockish constructions, too distant as yet to see their detail, some tall, some squat, seemed flat and melded together from here as if in a painting, with its unique proportion and beauty. Mercy narrowed her eyes, trying to see it more clearly.

‘It’s hard to imagine there are streets and people behind there, isn’t it?’ Paul said.

‘It looks lovely.’ Mercy leant her head against his shoulder. His old coat felt soft and worn. ‘Let’s stay here, shall we? Just live in America and never come back.’

Everything felt different now land was in sight. There was a new purposefulness in the air after the languor of the crossing. She and Paul would soon have to part: he was wanted at work downstairs.

‘But we shall see each other,’ he said as they climbed down from the deck. ‘I’ll make sure of that. You’re staying with this Mr Kesler, aren’t you?’

Mercy could not hide the dread his words aroused in her. She would have to live in the same house as Mr Adair. She wouldn’t be able to avoid him as easily as she had done on the ship. A wave of terrible emotion passed through her as land drew closer.

‘I don’t know where. I’ll ask Mrs Adair to write the address for you and put it under your door,’ she said, subdued.

‘Cheer up.’ Paul squeezed her hand. ‘Things’ll work out. Have faith.’

‘Oh,’ Mercy said wanly. ‘Yes. I s’pose.’

‘You know,’ we ought to go and say goodbye to the Petrowskis! They won’t be going the same way as us.’

‘Won’t they? Why not?’

‘They take all the steerage immigrants over to Ellis Island to be processed, I gather. To see if they’re going to be allowed in.’

‘You don’t really think they won’t be allowed to stay?’

‘It’s possible. They do turn people away. But they must have a good chance.’

They went down to third class, Mercy carrying Stevie. The Petrowskis were, as ever, pleased to see them, but enormous anxiety now showed in their faces. They looked as if they’d been too worried to sleep. Yola was tearful. She was sitting in the overcrowded, smoky third-class saloon holding Peschka, a pitiful little bundle of belongings tied in a shawl, resting at her feet. She grasped Mercy’s hand and pulled her down beside her, with Stevie on her lap. Mercy could see the mingled hope and desperation in her eyes. She squeezed Yola’s hand, kissed it. Tomek and Paul were shaking hands, hugging. Tomek showed Paul his precious slip of paper again.

Yola started talking in agitation, the Polish words cascading from her lips.

‘Oh Yola, I wish I understood you better,’ Mercy said, trying to show with her own eyes all she hoped and prayed for this new little family. She reached over and stroked Peschka’s forehead. Yola looked down at the baby, pride, love, fear all clear in her eyes.

‘Yola,’ Mercy said, ‘I wish you and Tomek and Peschka all the luck in the world. I hope you find your family and everything goes well for you.’

She suddenly knew a way to make Yola understand all she hoped for them. Awkwardly, touching her fingers first to her forehead, she made the sign of the cross. Yola flung her arms round her and they held each other in a tight embrace.

On the way upstairs, Mercy burst into tears in earnest, all her gathered emotions coming to the surface.

Paul gently touched her shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, my love. They have a good chance, and so do we.’