The Ship of Brides

Beside her, Frances pointed silently.

The beige cardigan was just visible, far below them on the surface, a tiny scrap of pale colour. Then it dipped under the foamy wake. They did not see it again. They stood in silence, letting the breeze mould their clothes to their backs, watching Victoria’s wake foam, then rise, separate and disappear.

‘Have we been mad, Frances?’ she said, at last.

‘What?’

‘What the bloody hell have we done?’

‘I’m not sure what—’

‘We’ve left everything, all the people we love, our homes, our security. And for what? To be assaulted and then branded a trollop, like Jean? To be quizzed over your past by the bloody Navy, like some kind of criminal? To go through all this and then be told you’re not wanted? Because there’s no guarantee, right? There’s nothing says these men and their families are going to want us, right?’

Her voice caught on the wind.

‘What the hell do I know about England? What do I really know about Joe or his family? About babies? I couldn’t even look after my own bloody dog . . .’ Her head dipped.

They were oblivious to the damp deck beneath them, the stares of the dabbers painting on the other side of the island.

‘You know . . . I have to tell you . . . I think I’ve made a terrible mistake. I got carried away with the idea of something, maybe escaping from cooking and cleaning for Dad and the boys. And now I’m here, all I want is my family. I want my family back, Frances. I want my mum.’ She was crying bitterly. ‘I want my dog.’

Eyes blinded by tears, she felt Frances put her thin, strong arms round her. ‘No, Maggie, no. It’s going to be fine. You have a man who loves you. Really loves you. It will be fine.’

Margaret wanted to be convinced. ‘How can you say that after everything that’s happened here?’

‘Joe is one in a million, Maggie. Even I know that. And you have a wonderful life ahead of you because it’s impossible for them not to love you. And you’re going to have a beautiful baby and you will love him or her more than you ever imagined. Oh, if you only knew how much I . . .’

Frances’s face contorted and volcanic hiccups exploded from her chest, with an unstoppable, messy torrent of tears, and the hug she gave Margaret in comfort became an attempt to comfort herself. She tried to apologise, to pull herself together, waved her hand in mute apology, but she could not stop.

Margaret, shocked into togetherness, held her. ‘Hey now,’ she said weakly. ‘Hey now, Frances, c’mon . . . c’mon, this isn’t like you . . .’ She stroked the hair, still pinned back from the night before. It must be the shock, she thought, remembering the sight of the two girls dropping into that churning sea. She felt sick with guilt that she hadn’t checked that Frances was all right. She held her, in mute apology, waiting for the storm to subside.

‘You’re right. We’ll be okay,’ she murmured, stroking Frances’s hair. ‘We might end up living near each other, right? And you write me, Frances. I haven’t got anyone else over here, and Avice is going to be as much use as a chocolate teapot. You’re all I’ve got . . .’

‘I’m not what you think.’ Frances was crying hard enough to draw attention now. A small group of sailors stood at the far end of the flight deck, watching and smoking. ‘I can’t begin to tell you . . .’

‘Ah, c’mon, it’s time to leave all that behind.’ She wiped her own eyes. ‘Look, as far as I’m concerned, you’re a great girl. I know what I need to know, and a little bit that I didn’t. And you know what? I still think you’re a great girl. And you’d better bloody keep in touch with me.’

‘You’re . . . very . . . kind.’

‘You were going to say round, right?’

Despite herself, Frances smiled.

‘Hey! You two! Come away from there!’

They turned to see an officer standing by the island, waving them in. Margaret turned back to Frances. ‘Ah, c’mon, girl. Don’t get sappy on me now. Not you of all people.’

‘Oh, Maggie . . . I’m so . . .’

‘No,’ she said. ‘This is our new start, Frances. New everything. Like you said, it will be all right. We’ll make it all right.’

She hugged Frances close to her as they began to walk across the huge deck. ‘Because it can’t be for bloody nothing, can it? We’ve got to make it all right.’

The men were still working as they went down to the dormitory after dinner; scrubbing, polishing, painting, grumbling, their conversations audible in the passageways despite the excited chatter of brides collecting their belongings. Couldn’t see the point, the men muttered to each other. Ship was going to scrap anyway. Didn’t see why bloody Highfield couldn’t have given them one day’s bloody rest. Didn’t he know the war was over? Frances was comforted, in spite of it all: she had not seen him since the fire and the ratings’ words told her everything she needed to know about how he was.

As they came through the hatch into the dormitory area, a small part of her hoped the marine would be standing there. That even though there were to be none on duty tonight he might be outside, his feet locked in their habitual position, his eyes sliding to hers in silent complicity.

But the corridor was empty, as was the one above it, but for women wheeling backwards and forwards, reclaiming borrowed cosmetics, offering up disembarkation outfits for each other’s opinion. Perhaps it was for the best. She felt as if her emotions were running too close to the surface, as if the hysteria and fearful anticipation that ran through the ship had infected her too.

‘Good evening, Mrs Mackenzie.’ It was Vincent Duxbury, in a cream linen suit. ‘I understand we may be seeing you in the infirmary later. Nice to have you on duty.’ He tipped his hat to them, and walked jauntily on, whistling, she thought, ‘Frankie and Johnny’.

Mrs Mackenzie. Sister Mackenzie. And there was no point wishing things were different, she told herself, as she helped Margaret into the little room. There never had been. She, more than anyone, knew that.

She had left Margaret in the dormitory some time after nine thirty, grief and the exhaustions of pregnancy conspiring to produce sweet narcolepsy. Most nights Margaret had to get up, two or three times lately, to pad sleepily to the women’s lavatories down the corridor, nodding a greeting to those marines still on duty. Tonight she had failed to wake, and Frances, making her way back to Avice in the infirmary, was glad of it.

She walked along the silent passageway, her soft shoes making almost no noise as she passed the closed doors. In other cabins tonight the air was thick with the scent of face cream liberally applied, the walls bright with carefully laundered dresses, sleep disturbed by the prickle of rollers, hairpins and excited dreams. Not in our little cabin, Frances thought. Margaret had attempted to pin her hair and then, swearing, given up. If he didn’t want her now, looking like this, she had reasoned, there was little chance that having hair like Shirley bloody Temple was going to make a difference.

And Frances walked, her hair unrollered, her thoughts dark as the seas outside, her mind trying to close hatches against what must not be considered, like a seaman trying to stop a flood. She tripped up the steps towards the infirmary, nodding to a solitary rating hurrying by with a package under his arm.

She heard the singing before she reached the infirmary. She listened, working out its provenance. From the hoarse sound of the voices and the words of the songs, she deduced that Dr Duxbury had the men singing show tunes. From the loose quality of the harmonies, she thought perhaps the infirmary might be a little lighter on sterile alcohol than it had been the previous day. In another time, she might have reported him – or gone in and addressed the matter herself. Now she stayed mute. There were just a few hours left on board. Just a few hours left of this ship. Who was she to judge whether the men should sing or not?

The song collapsed in a melancholy trail. Frances let herself in silently, eyeing in the dim light the girl who lay pale and motionless on the bed.

The worst, for Avice, was over. She was asleep now, pale and somehow diminished, the coverlet and rough Navy-issue blanket pulled high round her neck. She frowned in her sleep, as if even now anticipating the trials of the weeks ahead.

She left the light off, but instead of climbing into the spare bed, Frances walked over to the little chair beside it and sat down. Here she stayed for some time, staring at the cardboard boxes around them, listening to the sounds of the singing, which had begun again, punctuated by coughing, or by Dr Duxbury interrupting to offer some alternative version. Beneath the noise in the adjoining room she listened to the remaining engine, weaker and less dynamic than it had been, imagining the curses of the stokers who sweated away in their efforts to bully the unwilling ship into harbour. She thought of the navigator, the radio operator, the duty watch, all the others still awake across this vast ship, contemplating their return to their families, the changes that lay ahead. She thought of Captain Highfield, in his palatial quarters above them, knowing that tonight might be the last he spent at sea. We all have to find new ways of living, he had told them. New ways of forgiving.

I have to try to feel as I did when I first stepped aboard, she told herself. That sense of relief and anticipation. I have to forget that this, and he, ever happened. Instead, she would thank Chalkie every day for what he had given her.

It was the least she could do in the circumstances.

She thought she might have drifted off to sleep when she heard the sound. A cough so discreet, so far on the periphery of her consciousness that she was never quite sure afterwards why it had woken her. She opened an eye, gazed across at Avice’s dim shape, half expecting her to sit up and demand a glass of water. But Avice didn’t move.

She sat upright, and listened.

Another cough. The kind of cough that denotes the desire to draw attention. She slid out of the chair and made her way across the floor. ‘Frances,’ a voice said, so quietly that only she could have heard it. And then again. ‘Frances.’

She wondered briefly if she was still asleep. Next door Dr Duxbury was singing ‘Danny Boy’. He broke off to weep noisily, and was consoled by those around him.

‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she murmured, stepping forward. She did not open the door. They were all under the strictest instructions: there was to be no mixing this evening, the XO had warned, as if the fact of it being the last night might induce a kind of sexually charged madness.

For a moment he said nothing. Then, ‘I wanted to make sure you were all right.’

She shook her head in incomprehension and exhaled slowly. ‘I’m . . . fine.’

‘What I said . . . I didn’t mean . . .’

‘Please don’t worry.’ She didn’t want to have this conversation again.

‘I wanted to tell you . . . I’m glad. I’m glad to have met you. And I wish . . . I wish . . .’ There was a long silence. Her heart was pounding.

The singing had stopped. Somewhere, out in the Channel, a foghorn sounded. She stood there in the dark, waiting for him to speak again, then realised the conversation was ended. He had said all he was going to say.

Barely knowing what she was doing, Frances moved closer to the door. She laid her cheek against it, waiting in silence until she heard what she was waiting for. Then she stepped back and opened it.

In the dim light outside the infirmary, his eyes were shadowed, unreadable. She stared up at him, knowing that this was the last time she would see this man, trying to make herself accept a fate that for the first time she wanted to smash into little pieces. He was not hers to want. She had to keep telling herself that, even if every atom of her screamed the opposite.

‘Well.’ Her wavering, brilliant smile would have broken his heart. ‘Thank you. Thank you for looking after me. Us, I mean.’