Ship of Brides (27 page)

There was a brief silence.

Margaret made as if to speak, then couldn’t think of anything to say. ‘Oh, well. Perhaps he was overcome at the thought of seeing you again,’ she said. Avice raised her eyebrows, stood up and strolled away.

Having failed to elicit a reply from you to any of my correspondence, I am writing out of courtesy to let you know that I have applied for a divorce, on grounds of three years’ desertion. While you and I know this might not be quite correct, I am hoping you will not contest. Anton is paying for the children’s and my passage to America, so that we can join him there. We leave Southampton on the 25th. I would have liked us to do this in a civilised manner, for the children’s sake as much as anything, but you are obviously determined to show me the same lack of concern as you have displayed the whole time you have been gone.

Where is your humanity? Perhaps there is nothing left of you underneath your rules and regulations. I know things must have been hard for you. I know you have probably seen and coped with no end of horrors. But we, here, are living. We would have been your lifeline if you had let us.

Now I feel no guilt in choosing life, a better life, for me and my children . . .

‘What’s the matter, Nicol? You look a bit pale. Got a Not Wanted Don’t Come?’ Jones-the-Welsh was lying on his hammock, flicking through a dozen or so letters. They would be from a dozen or so women.

Nicol stared, unseeing, at his. Crumpled it into his pocket. ‘No,’ he said, then coughed to stop his voice cracking. ‘No . . . just a bit of news from home.’

A few of the men around him exchanged glances. ‘No one ill?’ said Jones.

‘No,’ said Nicol. His tone halted further enquiries.

‘Well, you look terrible. In fact, you’ve looked like buggery for weeks. Working middle watch does that to you, doesn’t it, lads? You know what you need, man?’ Here he punched Nicol’s arm. ‘You need a bit of R and R. You’re off tonight, right? Come ashore with us.’

‘Ah . . . I think I’ll just sleep.’

‘It’s called leave, man. Believe it or not, Nicol, even
you
are meant to go off duty occasionally.’

‘I’ll stay here. Got a bit of make and mend to catch up on.’

‘Sorry, man, can’t have it. You’ve got a pocket full of dosh and a face like a smacked arse. Dr Jones here says the only cure is to lighten the pair of them. Get a couple of hours’ kip now. Then you’re coming out with us. And we’re going to get absolutely pissed.’

Nicol began to refuse, then felt inexplicably relieved by Jones’s good-natured bullying. The thought of standing outside that metal door, alone with his thoughts at another dawn, was too much. ‘Okay,’ he said, strung up his hammock and hopped lithely into it. ‘You’re on. Wake me up half an hour before you want to head off.’

They had eaten together – less, Margaret suspected, out of any great desire on Avice’s part to share her meals with them but because Irene and her friends had made it clear, by their whispers and cold stares, that she was no longer welcome in their set. She had watched Avice preparing to bounce over to their table and announce her news until she realised they were being discussed – not in a good way. She had deflated a little, her eyes darting to them at every peal of laughter. Then she had smoothed her hair and sat down opposite Margaret. ‘You know,’ she said lightly, ‘I’ve just remembered what I couldn’t stand about that Irene Carter. She’s terribly rude. I can’t imagine what I ever saw in her.’

‘It’s nice for us all to eat together for a change,’ Margaret said equably, ignoring Frances’s silence.

‘Nice not to have Avice puking anyway,’ said Jean.

‘Did they make a mistake with your post, Frances,’ said Avice, ‘or did you really get just one letter?’

‘Do you know what, Avice?’ said Margaret, loudly. She pushed away her plate. ‘We had a lovely chat earlier about how our husbands proposed to us. I bet you’d love to tell us how Ian proposed to you, wouldn’t you?’

Margaret caught Frances’s look. It might have been of gratitude or something else entirely.

‘Have I not told you? Really? Oh, it was the best day of my life. Well, next to our wedding, of course. That’s always a girl’s best day, isn’t it? And in our case we couldn’t have the kind of wedding I might normally have expected – with my family’s position in society and all . . . No, it had to be a bit more intimate. But, oh, Ian’s proposal. Oh, yes . . .’ She closed her eyes. ‘Do you know? It still comes back to me so vividly, almost like a scent . . .’

‘A bit like Margaret’s, then,’ said Jean.

‘I knew he was the one as soon as I saw him. And he says the same about me. Oh, girls, he’s so sweet. And it’s been so long since we spoke – I can’t bear it. He’s the most romantic man alive. I didn’t think I’d marry into the services, you see. I wasn’t one of those uniform-hunters, always fluttering her eyelashes at anything in whites. But I was helping out at one of the tea dances – perhaps you had something similar where you were? – and I saw him and that was it. I knew I had to be Mrs Radley.’

‘So what did he do?’ said Jean, lighting a cigarette.

‘Well, he was terribly gentlemanly. We knew we loved each other – he told me he was actually obsessed with me at one point – can you imagine? – but he was worried about whether I could cope with being a services wife. I mean, what with all the separations and insecurity . . . He told me he didn’t know if it was fair to put me through that. But I told him, “I may look like a delicate flower” – that’s what my father used to call me, his little jasmine blossom – “but I’m actually quite strong. Really. I’m very determined.” And I think even Ian recognised that in the end.’

‘So, what happened?’ said Margaret, sucking her teaspoon.

‘Well, we were both in agony. Daddy wanted us to wait. And Ian didn’t want to upset him, so he said he would. But I couldn’t bear the thought of us leaving each other simply “engaged”.’

‘Worried he’d bugger off with someone else?’ said Jean.

‘So he got permission from his commander and we just ran off and got married in front of a justice of the peace. Just like that. It was terribly romantic.’

‘What a lovely story, Avice,’ said Margaret. ‘I’m going to get some tea. Anyone want a cup?’

Outside the sky was darkening. The sunsets happened rapidly here, day fading into night with some impatience. The ship was quieter than usual, despite the presence of the women, as if the absence of the men had seeped into each deck, subduing them.

‘I’ll go and see if they’re going to show anything at the cinema,’ said Jean.

‘They might have decided to put something on with us all being here.’

‘There’s nothing,’ said Avice, ‘just a sign saying the next one’s tomorrow afternoon.’

‘The men will be ashore now,’ said Margaret, staring out of the window. ‘Lucky things.’

‘What about your bloke, Frances?’ Jean rested her chin on her hands, her head tilted to one side. ‘How did he propose?’

Frances stood up, began gathering plates on to a tray. ‘Oh, it’s not very interesting,’ she said.

‘I’m sure we’d be fascinated,’ said Avice.

Frances gave her a hard look.

Margaret thought she should probably try to steer the conversation towards some other course, but she had to admit to a sneaking curiosity.

So they waited. And Frances, after a moment’s hesitation, sat down, the dirty plates piled high in front of her. She told them in quiet, unemotional tones, her words the polar opposite to Avice’s gush of love. She had met him in Malaya while she had been nursing. Private Engineer ‘Chalkie’ Mackenzie, twenty-eight years old. From a town called Cheltenham. He had shrapnel wounds, which had become infected because of the tropical humidity. She had nursed him and, over the weeks, he had grown fond of her.

‘Sometimes, when he had a fever, he became delirious and thought we were already married. We weren’t meant to form attachments with the men, but his captain, who was in the next bed, indulged him. We all did. We went along with all sorts if it made the men feel better.’

‘So, when did he ask you?’ said Jean. Above her, the neon lights came on abruptly, illuminating the women’s faces.

‘Well . . . he asked me lots of times, actually. There wasn’t really one occasion. I think it was about sixteen before I agreed.’

‘Sixteen times!’ said Avice. It was as if she couldn’t believe Frances could provoke such persistence.

‘What made you say yes?’ said Margaret. ‘In the end, I mean.’

‘What made him keep asking?’ muttered Avice.

But Frances stood up and glanced at her watch. ‘Goodness, Maggie! Look at the time. That dog of yours will be desperate for her walk.’

‘Oh, darn. You’re right. Better get back downstairs,’ said Margaret. With a nod to the others, she and Frances half walked, half ran towards the cabin.

The girls were kissing. They did it once, briefly, then turned to look at him, and laughed at his failure to react. The shorter one leant back on her bar stool, eyeing him lazily, then stretched out a bare leg. The other, in a green dress several sizes too big for her slight frame, muttered something he didn’t understand, and leant forwards to ruffle his hair. ‘Two two.’ She held up two fingers. ‘Very nice time. Two two.’ Initially, he had ordered them both another drink. It had taken him several minutes to understand what she was suggesting. Then he shook his head, even when she reduced the price to almost a third of the original amount. ‘No more money,’ he said, his words sounding strange and unfocused to his ears. ‘All gone.’

‘No no,’ the girl in the green dress said. It was as if she had heard refusals too many times, and that they had all been meaningless. ‘Two two. Very nice time.’

At some point in the evening he had lost his watch, and no longer had any idea what time it was. Men catcalled or fought incompetently in the street outside. Girls disappeared upstairs, came down again and chattered or squabbled with their colleagues. Outside, the neon bar sign cast the blue light of a cold grey dawn across the entrance.

On the wall behind the girls he could see a picture of Eisenhower, probably donated by some visiting GI. What time was it in America? Nicol tried to recall how he had calculated the difference earlier that evening.

Across the room, half seated, half lying on a banquette, Jones-the-Welsh was placing cigarettes in a girl’s mouth and laughing as she coughed them out again. ‘Don’t inhale so much,’ he was saying, as she hit him playfully with a slim hand. ‘You’re making yourself ill.’ He caught Nicol watching him. ‘Ah . . . no . . . Don’t tell me you like Annie here too?’ he called. ‘Greedy bastard. You’ve got two of your own already.’

Nicol tried to formulate some reply, but it turned to powder in his mouth.

‘To wives and sweethearts,’ Jones-the-Welsh announced, his drink aloft. ‘May they never meet.’

Nicol raised his glass to his mate and took a slug. ‘And no rubbish tip,’ he muttered. Jones, just about hearing him, burst out laughing.

Their last visit to Ceylon had comprised duty, not leave, and they had been charged with the ‘drunk patrol’, looking for ratings who, weighed down by their paypackets but unencumbered by either sense or inhibition, took advantage of their few hours’ freedom to drink as much as possible of whatever local brew they could find with disastrous results. Shortly before dawn, he and Jones, having emptied several of the local brothels, had found several young hands lying comatose at the base of a local rubbish tip. Over the course of their night out, they had evidently been relieved of money, watches, paybooks and even station cards, and were now incapable of either thought or speech. Not knowing without those documents who the men were, he and Jones, after some discussion, had dumped them, soiled, stinking uniforms and all, on the nearest Allied ship. There they would await a double dose of wrath – from the superiors of their adopted ship and from those they belonged to.

‘Too right. No rubbish tip for us, mate,’ said Jones, lifting a glass. ‘Just remember to say
Viceroy
. Got it? Just you remember the name of your ship.
Viceroy
.’ And he burst out laughing again.

‘You come now.’

The girl in the green dress was tugging his sleeve. The other had vanished. She closed her hand round his with the proprietorial confidence of a child and led him up the stairs. He had to let go of her to negotiate them, clutching the banister as the wooden steps rose and fell beneath his feet like a deck in a storm.

The door of the room was paper light in his hand; the fragility of the dividing walls apparent in the noises he could hear from the next room.

‘Nice time, uh?’ The girl followed his gaze and giggled.

He felt suddenly weary, and seated himself heavily on the side of the bed, watching as she undid her dress. The knobs of her spine were distinct under her pale skin. It made him think of Frances, of her bony fingers as she had held the picture of his boys.

‘You help me?’ she said, twisting nimbly to look at him, and gesturing towards her zip.

The thin coverlet was immaculately laundered. Beside it, on a rickety table, stood a bottle with several beautifully arranged blossoms. These two domestic details, a suggestion of some desire far removed from the depravity he could hear in the next room, made his eyes fill with tears. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t think—’

She turned, and he caught something raw in her expression. ‘Yes, yes,’ she said, her smile rapidly in place again. ‘You be happy man. I see you before? You know me. I make you happy man.’

‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

She clasped his hand then, in a surprisingly firm grip. Her glance towards the door told him that perhaps she had her own reasons for not wanting him to leave. ‘You wait little while,’ she pleaded.

‘I just want to—’

‘Just little while stay-stay.’

He realised then that her eyes made her seem older. Something weary and resigned in them, even when she had smiled mischievously, fluttered her eyelids like a young girl. But now that he looked, her breasts were curiously undefined, as if they had not yet reached maturity. And her nails, when he looked at her hands, were bitten as his sister’s once were; down to the bloodied quick, childishly uncaring of their appearance. Nicol closed his eyes, feeling suddenly ashamed to have been complicit in such corruption. This is what war does, he said silently. Even we who survived. It does for us in the end.