Ship of Brides (24 page)

Irene Carter’s father owned Melbourne’s most prominent tennis club. She was married to a sub-lieutenant just returned from the Adriatic; the son of (here Avice paused for breath) someone high up in the Foreign Office. And she had brought no less than eleven hats with her, in case one couldn’t get them in England. Irene Carter was most definitely the right sort. And, with a rigour Avice suspected was rather lacking in her own character, she had determined to surround herself only with other girls of the right sort, in one case going so far as to organise a bunk swap so that the dark-skinned girl with glasses had been reallocated to a cabin where she would ‘find girls like herself’. She hadn’t needed to spell out what criteria this might include. Avice, looking at Irene and the perfectly lovely girls around her, could see that they were all alike, not just in dress and manner but in their attitudes.

‘Of course, you know what happened to Lolicia Tarrant, don’t you?’ Irene was saying, her arm lightly linked through Avice’s as they tripped down the steps into the main hangar. The others were walking a couple of steps behind.

‘No.’ Irene’s shoes were the same as the ones Avice’s mother had seen in a Paris magazine. She must have had them flown over.

‘Well, you know she was engaged to that pilot? The one with the . . . unfortunate moustache? No? Well . . . he wasn’t five weeks in Malaya when she took up with an American soldier.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Awful man. So coarse. You know what he used to say about Melbourne? “Half as big as New York City’s largest cemetery – and twice as dead.” Ugh. Used to repeat it endlessly, as if he were being terribly original every time.’

‘So what happened?’ Avice was wide-eyed, picturing Lolicia with the American.

‘Well, that was it. Her fiancé came back and was not best pleased to find Lolly promenading around with this GI, as you can imagine. Let’s just say it was more than the Brisbane line he’d been holding, you get my drift?’

‘Goodness,’ said Avice.

‘And nor was Lolly’s father best pleased when he found out. They’d been wary of the Americans since the murders, of course.’ All of the girls remembered the scandal there had been when four Melbourne women were murdered by Private Edward J. Leonski and Australia’s relationship with the GIs had soured.

‘He wasn’t a murderer.’

‘Oh, Avice, you are funny! No. But he did let all his GI friends know what he’d been up to with Lolly. In the most graphic detail. And his commanding officer apparently got the wrong end of the stick and sent Lolly’s father a letter, suggesting he keep better watch on his daughter.’

‘Oh, my goodness!’

‘Her reputation was shredded. Her fiancé wants nothing to do with her, even though half of what this officer said was untrue, of course.’

‘Is she all right?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Irene.

‘I thought you and she were friends,’ said Avice.

‘Now?’ Irene pulled a face and she shook her head, as if she were trying to dislodge an annoying insect. There was a long silence. ‘So,’ she continued, ‘are you going to enter for Queen of the
Victoria
? They’re having a Miss Lovely Legs contest next week, you know.’

They were half-way along the hangar deck when they came across Margaret. She was leaning against a noticeboard, one hand above her head, palm down, as if to support herself, while the other was clutching the point where her giant belly took a right-angled leap from her body.

‘Are you all right?’ said Avice, paralysed with the fear that the farm girl was about to give birth. She would have to get involved. Goodness only knew what Irene would think.

‘Stitch,’ said Margaret, through gritted teeth.

Avice felt almost faint with relief.

‘Would you like some help getting back to your cabin?’ asked Irene, courteously.

‘No.’ Margaret looked at Avice, then at her friend. Her nose, Avice noticed, had reddened with the sun. ‘I’ve got to go downstairs. Jean’s got herself involved in a little . . . episode.’

‘She shares our cabin,’ Avice explained.

‘You want some help?’ said Irene. She had bent her knees to look into Margaret’s flushed face.

‘I need to catch my breath.’

‘Well, you can’t possibly go and get your friend like that. Not down all those stairs. We’ll come with you.’

Avice began to remonstrate: ‘No . . . I don’t think we should . . . I mean, Jean is . . .’

But Irene had already slid her arm from Avice’s and was reaching for Margaret. ‘Better? Come on, take my arm. We’ll have a little adventure.’

Come on, girls, she had said. Haven’t had the remotest bit of excitement since setting foot on board. Let’s go and rescue a damsel in distress. And Avice heard Jean’s bawdy laugh in her ears, heard her saying that Margaret was ‘as itchy as an itchybug in Itchyville’ or some such and watched Irene – her only lifeline to a proper social life during this voyage – prepare to float away from her on a mist of disapproval. She closed her eyes, rehearsing her excuses and ways to distance herself from Jean’s vulgarity.

But Jean, when they found her, was not laughing. She wasn’t even standing.

They saw her legs before they saw her, emerging awkwardly from behind a stack of canisters by the overheated starboard engine room, her shoes, half on her feet, pointing towards each other. As they came closer their voices, which had been hushed down the long, narrow gangway, stilled as they took in the tableau before them. They could see enough of her top half to gather that she was drunk – drunk enough to murmur incoherently at nobody in particular. Drunk enough to half sit, half lie, legs splayed, on the hard, oily floor. Drunk enough not to care that her blouse was unbuttoned and a small pale breast had spilled out of a dislodged brassière.

Frances stood over her, her usually pale, grave face flushed and animated, her hair somehow uncoiling from its usually severe pinning, her being radiating electricity. A man, possibly a seaman, equally drunk, was reeling away from her, clutching his shoulder. His flies were undone, and there was a flash of something purple and obscene in the fleshy gap they exposed. As the new arrivals stared in mute, shocked horror, another man peeled out of the shadows behind Jean and, with a guilty glance at them, straightened his dress and rushed away. Jean stirred, muttered something, her hair in dark, sweaty fronds over her face. Amid the shocked silence, Margaret knelt down and tried to pull Jean’s skirt over those pale thighs.

‘You bastard,’ Frances was screaming at the man. They could see she was holding a large spanner in her bony hand. He moved and her arm came down, the spanner connecting with his shoulder in an audible crack. As he ducked away, tried to shelter, the blows rained down on him with the relentless, manic force of a jackhammer. As one hit the side of his head, a fine arc of blood spattered into the air from above his ear.

Before they had a chance to digest this scene, to let its meaning, the ramifications, sink in, Dennis Tims was running towards them, his taut bulk bringing renewed threat. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ he said, cigarette still in hand. ‘Mikey said—What the hell . . . ? Oh, Jesus,’ he said, taking in Frances, the man’s trousers, Jean on the floor, now supported by Margaret. ‘Oh, Jesus. Jesus . . . Thompson, you bloody—’ He dropped his cigarette and grabbed at Frances, who tried to shake him off, her face contorted. ‘You bastard!’ she yelled. ‘You dirty bastard!’

‘All right, girl,’ he said. ‘All right now. All right.’ As his mate pulled the man away from her, he closed his broad forearms around Frances’s collarbone and pulled her back, until the spanner was waving futilely in the air.

Tims’s mate released the man who, too shocked or perhaps too inebriated to react, fell like a stone. The noise of the engines was deafening, a never-ending timpani of thumping and grinding, yet even over this the sound his head made was a sick, echoing thud, like that of a watermelon when it is dropped to the floor.

Irene shrieked.

Tims let go of Frances and shoved the man on to his side, at first, one might have suspected, to inflict further damage. But he was roughly checking the head wound, muttering something unintelligible under his breath.

Two of the girls who, until then, had been whispering together ran off, hands pressed to their faces.

Avice was shaking. Tims was on his knees, shouting at the man to get up, get up, damn him.

Margaret, behind the men, had begun to haul Jean away.

Frances was standing, legs hip-width apart, the spanner loose in her fingers, shaking convulsively. She was possibly unaware that she was weeping.

‘We should call someone,’ said Avice to Irene. There was a terrible energy in the air. Her breath emerged in short bursts, as if, even as an observer, she had been overfilled with adrenaline.

‘I don’t . . . I . . .’

It was then that they caught sight of the women’s officer running towards them, her feet echoing on the metal floor. ‘What is going on here?’ Scraped-back dark hair, large bosom. She was still twenty feet from them.

Tims stopped, a fist raised. One of his mates said something to him, put a hand to his elbow, then the man melted into the darkness. Tims straightened, ran a hand through his short, straw-coloured hair. He looked at Margaret, as if he had only just noticed she was there, his eyes wide and strained, his hand still moving involuntarily. He shook his head, as if to say something, to apologise perhaps. And then she was there, in front of them all, her eyes darting between them, a regulatory air emanating from her like a bad perfume.

‘What is going on here?’

At first she didn’t seem to see Jean on the floor, Margaret still trying to make her decent. Her stockings, Avice saw were looped round her knees.

‘Bit of an accident,’ said Tims, wiping bloodied hands on his trousers. He did not look at the woman. ‘We’ve just been sorting it out.’ He mouthed the words as much as spoke them.

The officer looked from his hands to Avice, to Margaret, was briefly distracted by Margaret’s belly. ‘What are you girls doing down here?’

She waited for an answer. No one spoke. Beside her, Avice realised, Irene’s hand was pressed to her chest, clutching a handkerchief, in the manner of a consumptive heroine. Her social assurance and confidence had deserted her and her mouth hung a little open.

When she turned back Tims had disappeared. The injured man now sat lopsidedly on the floor, his knees drawn up to his chest.

‘You do know there are grave penalties for being in the men’s area?’

There was a heavy silence. The officer bent down, took in the state of the man, the fact that the other had vanished. Then she saw Jean. ‘Oh, my goodness. Please don’t tell me this is what I think it is.’

‘It’s not,’ said Margaret.

The woman’s eyes moved to her. ‘Oh, my goodness,’ she said again. ‘The captain will have to be informed.’

‘Why? It wasn’t us.’ Avice had yelled to be heard over the engines. ‘We only came to get Jean.’

‘Avice!’ Frances was scrambling to her feet. She stood between the woman and Jean’s prostrate form. ‘Leave it to us. We’ll get her back to her room.’

‘I can’t do that. I’ve been told to report any parties, any drinking, any . . . misdemeanours. I’ll need all your names.’

‘But it wasn’t us!’ said Avice, with a glance at Irene. ‘It’s only Jean who’s disgraced herself!’

‘Jean?’

‘Jean Castleforth,’ said Avice, desperately. ‘We really are nothing to do with it. We just came down because we heard she was in trouble.’

‘Jean Castleforth,’ said the woman. ‘And yours?’

‘But I haven’t so much as looked at another man! I don’t even like alcohol!’

‘I said we’ll take her home,’ said Frances. ‘I’m a nurse. I’ll look after her.’

‘You’re not suggesting I ignore this? Look at her!’

‘She’s just—’

‘She’s no better than a brass, is what she is!’

‘How dare you?’ Frances was surprisingly tall when she stood straight. Her features had sharpened. Her fists, Avice noted, were balled. ‘How dare you?’

‘Are you telling me they forced her to come down here?’ The woman wrinkled her nostrils against the smell of alcohol on Jean’s breath.

‘Why don’t we all just—’

Quivering with rage, Frances turned on Avice. ‘Get out of here! Just get away from me. And listen, you – you women’s officer, or whatever you are – you can’t report her for this, you hear? It wasn’t her fault.’

‘My orders are to report any misdemeanours.’

‘She’s sixteen years old. They’ve obviously got her drunk and . . . abused her. She’s sixteen!’

‘Old enough to know what she’s doing. She shouldn’t be down here. None of you should be.’

‘They got her drunk! Look at her! She’s virtually unconscious! You think she should lose her reputation, possibly her husband, because of this?’

‘I don’t—’

‘You can’t ruin the girl’s whole life because of one drunken moment!’ Frances was standing over the woman now, some sense of barely concealed – what was it?

Avice, shocked by this unrecognisable Frances, found herself instinctively stepping backwards.

The officer could see it too: she had squared up a little, in a manner that suggested some defensive strategy. ‘As I said, my orders are to—’

‘Oh, shut up about your bloody orders, you officious—’

It was impossible to say why Frances, flushed and electric, had lifted her arm but Margaret was already pulling her backwards. ‘Frances,’ she was murmuring, ‘calm down, okay? It’s okay.’

It was a few moments before Frances appeared to hear her. She was rigid, filled with tension. ‘No, it’s not okay. You’ve got to tell her,’ she said, her eyes glittering.

‘But you’re not helping her,’ said Margaret. ‘You hear me? You’ve got to back off.’

Something in Margaret’s eyes stayed Frances. She blinked several times, then let out a deep, shuddering breath.

Irene’s hand – she was still clutching the handkerchief – was shaking. As Avice looked away from it, the officer had turned and, as if grateful for the means of escape, was walking briskly, with purpose, down the passageway.

‘She’s just a kid!’ Frances yelled. But the woman was gone.

11

Congratulations to Mrs H. Skinner and Mrs H. Dill who both have wedding anniversaries this week. Mrs Skinner has been married two years and Mrs Dill a year and although this happy occasion may find them separated from their husbands we sincerely hope that this will be the last anniversary they will spend apart and wish them every happiness in their future life.