‘But I do think it’s lovely that you’ll have something to take your mind off things.’
Avice raised an eyebrow.
‘Oh, this horrid business with you having befriended a prostitute. I mean, who on earth could have known? And so soon after your other little friend was caught fraternising with those grubby engineers.’
‘With her knickers down,’ said the plump girl.
‘Well, yes, that’s one way of putting it,’ said Irene.
‘I hardly—’ Avice began.
Irene’s voice was concerned: ‘It must have been so worrying for you, not knowing if you were going to be tarred with the same brush . . . you know, with what everyone’s been saying about your dormitory and what goes on there. We’ve all so admired your stoicism. No, your little social do is a very good idea. It will quite take your mind off things.’
The afternoon had stretched into evening, and with the fading of the light her thoughts had grown darker. Unable to face the confines of the cabin any longer, she had toyed with the idea of leaving the ship. But she had no one to accompany her, and Bombay seemed to require a certain robustness of spirit that she did not own. She had stepped out and headed for the boat deck, close to where she had sat with Maude Gonne just a week earlier.
Now she stood, while the harbour lights glinted steadily on the inky water, interrupted occasionally by the noisy passage of tugs and barges. A strange conjunction of scents, spices, fuel oil, perfume, rotten meat, expanded in the stilled air so that she was both entranced and repelled by the mere act of breathing. Her thoughts had calmed a little now; she would do what she had always done, she told herself. She would get through. It was only a couple more weeks until she reached England and she had learnt long ago that anything could be endured if you tried hard enough. She would not think of what might have been. The men who had best survived the war, she had long ago observed, had been those able to live one day at a time, those able to count even the smallest of blessings. She had bought herself a packet of cigarettes at the PX. Now she lit one, conscious that it was a self-destructive gesture but savouring the acrid taste. Across the water, voices called to each other and from somewhere further distant Indian music drifted, one long, mournful filigree note.
‘You want to watch out. You’re not meant to be here.’
She jumped. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘It’s you.’
‘It’s me,’ he said, stubbing out his own cigarette. ‘Maggie not with you?’
‘She’s ashore.’
‘With all the others.’
She wondered if there was a polite way of asking him to leave her.
He was wearing his engineer’s overalls; it was too dark to see the oil on them but she could smell it under the scent of the smoke. She hated the smell of oil: she had treated too many burned men who had been saturated with it, could still feel the tacky density of the fabric she had had to peel off their flesh.
I shall start nursing again in England, she told herself. Audrey Marshall had sent her off with a personal letter of recommendation. With her service record there would be no shortage of opportunities.
‘Ever been to India before?’
She was annoyed at the interruption of her thoughts. ‘No.’
‘Seen a lot of countries, have you?’
‘A few,’ she said. ‘Mainly bases.’
‘You’re a well-travelled woman, then.’
It’s because Margaret isn’t here, she thought. He’s one of those men who needs an audience. She did her best to smile. ‘No more than anyone else who’s seen service, I imagine.’
He lit himself another cigarette and blew the smoke meditatively into the sky. ‘But I bet you could answer me a question,’ he said.
She looked at him.
‘Is there a difference?’
She frowned. On the shore, two vehicles were locked in an impasse, horns blaring. The sound echoed across the dockyard, drowning the music.
‘I’m sorry?’ She had to lean forward temporarily to hear him.
‘In the men.’ He smiled, revealing white teeth in the darkness. ‘I mean, is there a nationality you prefer?’
From his expression she knew she had heard what she suspected. ‘Excuse me,’ she said. She moved past him, her cheeks burning, but as she reached for the handle of the hatch, he stepped in front of her.
‘No need to have an attack of modesty on my account,’ he said.
‘Will you excuse me?’
‘We all know what you are. No need to skirt round it.’ He spoke in a sing-song voice so that it was a second before she had gauged the menace in what he was saying.
‘Please would you let me pass?’
‘You know, I had you all wrong.’ Dennis Tims shook his head. ‘We called you Miss Frigidaire in the mess. Miss Frigidaire. We couldn’t believe you’d even married. Had you down as wedded to one of those Bible-bashers, a virgin for life. How wrong we were, eh?’
Her heart was racing as she tried to assess whether she would be able to push past him for the door. One of his hands rested lightly on the handle. She could feel the confidence behind his strength, the sureness of a man who always, physically, got his own way.
‘So prim and proper, with your blouses buttoned up to your neck. And really you’re just some whore who no doubt persuaded some fool pollywog sailor to stick a ring on your finger. How’d you do it, eh? Promise him you’d save it all for him, did you? Tell him he was the only one who meant anything?’
He put out a hand towards her breast and she batted it away.
‘Let me out,’ she said.
‘What’s the matter, Miss Priss? Not like anyone’s around to know.’ He gripped her arms then, pushed her backwards towards the guard rail. She stumbled as his weight met her like a solid wall. In the distance, from the hotel near the harbour, she could hear laughter.
‘I’ve seen girls like you in a million ports. Shouldn’t allow your sort on board,’ he muttered wetly into her ear.
‘Get off me!’
‘Oh, come on! You can’t expect me to believe you’re not making a bit on the side while you’re here—’
‘Please—’
‘Step away, Tims.’
The voice came from her right. Tims’s head lifted, and she glanced across his shoulder. He was standing there, his eyes burning black in the dim light.
‘Step away, Tims.’ His tone was icy.
Tims checked the other man’s identity, smiled and abandoned it, as if unsure how chummy he should be. ‘A little dispute over payment,’ he said, backing away from her and ostentatiously checking his trousers. ‘Nothing you need to concern yourself about. You know what these girls are like.’
She closed her eyes, not wanting to see the marine’s face. She was shaking violently.
‘Get inside.’ The marine spoke slowly.
Tims seemed remarkably cool. ‘Like I said, Marine, just a disagreement about price. She wants to charge twice the going rate. Considers us sailors a captive market, know what I mean?’
‘Get inside,’ said Nicol.
She stepped closer to the wall, unwilling even to be in Tims’s line of vision.
‘We’ll keep this to ourselves, eh? Don’t suppose you want the captain to know he’s carrying a brass. Or who her friends are.’
‘If I see you so much as look in Mrs Mackenzie’s direction for the remainder of the voyage, I’ll have you.’
‘You?’
‘It might not be on board. It might not even be on this voyage. But I’ll have you.’
‘You don’t want to make an enemy of me, Marine.’ Tims was at the hatch. His eyes glittered in the darkness.
‘You aren’t listening to me.’
There was a moment of exquisite stillness. Then, with a final, hard look at the two of them, Tims backed through the hatch. She was about to breathe out when his huge, shorn head reappeared. ‘Offered you half price, has she?’ He laughed. ‘I’ll tell your missus . . .’
They listened as Tims’s footsteps faded in the direction of the stokers’ mess.
‘Are you all right?’ he said, quietly.
She smoothed her hair off her face and swallowed hard. ‘I’m fine.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t have to . . .’ His voice tailed off, as if he were unsure of what he wanted to say.
She was unable to determine if she was brave enough to look at him. Finally, ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, and fled.
When he returned there was only one other marine in the mess: the young bugler, Emmett, was fast asleep, arms stretched behind his head with the relaxed abandon of a small child. The little room smelt stale; the heat was heavy in the air, on the discarded ashtrays and unfilled shoes. Nicol removed his uniform, washed, and then, his towel round his neck and the water already evaporating from his skin, pulled his writing-paper from his locker and took a seat.
He was not a letter-writer. Many years ago, when he had tried, he had found that his pen stumbled over the words, that the sentiments on the page rarely mirrored what he felt inside. Now, however, the words came easily. He was letting her go. ‘There is a passenger on board,’ he wrote, ‘a girl with a bad past. Seeing what she has suffered has made me realise that everyone deserves a second chance, especially if someone out there is willing to give them one, in spite of what they carry with them.’
Here he lit a cigarette, his gaze fixed ahead on nothing. He stayed like that for some time, oblivious to the men arguing down the corridor, the sound of the trumpet practice going on in the bathroom, the men who were now climbing into their hammocks around him.
Finally he put the nib of his pen back onto the paper. He would take it ashore tomorrow and wire it. No matter the cost. ‘I suppose what I am trying to say is that I’m sorry. And that I’m glad you’ve found someone to love you, despite everything. I hope he will be good to you, Fay. That you have the chance of the happiness you deserve.’
He reread it twice before he saw that he had written Frances’s name.
18
Now you understand why British soldiers respect the women in uniform. They have won the right to the utmost respect. When you see a girl in khaki or air-force blue with a bit of ribbon on her tunic – remember she didn’t get it for knitting more socks than anyone else in Ipswich.
A Short Guide to Great Britain, War and Navy
Departments, Washington, DC
Thirty-three days
The governor of Gibraltar was known not only throughout the Navy but the British civil service as an unusually intelligent man. He had built a reputation as a major strategist during the First World War, and his diplomatic career had seen him rewarded for his hawk-like tactical and observational skills. But even he had stared at the forward liftwell for several moments before he could acknowledge what he was seeing.
Captain Highfield, in the process of taking him up on to the flight deck ready for the welcoming performance by the Royal Marines Band, cursed himself for not checking the route beforehand. A liftwell was a liftwell. He had never thought they’d be bold enough to string their underwear along it. White, flesh-coloured, grey with overuse or cobweb-delicate and edged with French lace; the brassières and foundation garments waved merrily all the way up the cavernous space, mimicking the pennant that had welcomed the great man aboard. And now, here he was, the cream of the British diplomatic service, on Highfield’s great warship, surrounded by an orderly parade of immaculately dressed seamen, transfixed by lines of bloomers.
Dobson. The man would have known about this, yet had chosen not to warn him. Captain Highfield cursed his leg for confining him to his office that morning and allowing the younger man the opportunity. He had felt unwell, had decided to rest, knowing that today would be long and difficult, and had trusted Dobson to make sure that everything was A1. He might have known he’d find a way to undermine him.