by Rafe Posey
He misses them more than he can say, his brilliant girls, and being away from them pulls at him in ways he doesn’t like. But it helps that the ship is his domain. His floating kingdom. He knows every paisley in the carpet, every whorl in the oak of the banisters. He knows that the pulleys on the fourth starboard lifeboat are inclined to squeak when the wind comes straight from the north.
Livingstone & Gray have not been in the habit of ocean liners—tugs and dredgers have been their bread and butter for a generation, and the Highlander is a departure from their history. And she is his. This grand ship has been his since Roland Livingstone himself called Alec into his cluttered office and asked him to try his hand at a design after all those years of his informal apprenticeship to the design team. And Alec had thought of every ship he’d ever laid his hands on, every boat whose hull he’d patted. And somewhere at the intersection of those memories, midwifed by the design group, the Highlander had been born. She’s small for a liner, a kestrel skimming the sea where the newest Cunard ships are more like eagles. When she hits the waves broadside, she balances like a frigate on the water.
* * *
• • •
He’s standing on the deck one night, still dressed for dinner and watching the moon lay a track on the waves, when one of the junior navigation officers comes up alongside him.
“Good evening, Mr. Tremayne,” Alec says. He gestures out at the water. “Lot of ice.”
“Yes, sir,” Tremayne says. “Thought we’d miss them with the southern route, even this time of year, but . . .”
Alec nods. They had wanted the ship to skim across the Atlantic like a skipped stone, three days from Liverpool to Halifax. But icebergs have slowed their progress, calving off the coast of Greenland like monstrous sharks, and if Alec is honest with himself, this way is better. He’s never seen anything like the looming crowns of blue and green and white or the underwater reefs the helmsman works to avoid.
Tremayne says, “You were in the war, sir?”
“I was,” Alec says. “Flew planes for a bit.” An incomplete truth, but what else is there to say? He looks at his hands, left resting atop the right on the railing. He still sometimes yearns for that feeling of being aloft in his crate.
Tremayne nods. “Navy.” He points off to the north. “Sunk a U-boat off the Faroes on a night like this.”
“Good man,” Alec says, impressed. “That was a bloody hard show.”
“Chow is a lot better this time across,” Tremayne says, and laughs. “But you know how it is, you’re out with your mates, you and them against the enemy . . .”
“I do,” Alec says. But there is only so much thinking of those days before he comes up short against the memory of Charlie’s plane shattering against the rocks, or Smasher dead in the German mud. He tries to concentrate instead on what Tremayne said about food—best to think on the vol-au-vent and Charlotte royale he’d eaten earlier that evening, on the dot of jam Penny had by her nose when he’d hugged her goodbye last week.
“Well,” Tremayne says, “best get back to rounds. Have a good night, sir.” He touches the brim of his cap and sets off around the curve of the forecastle. Alec watches him go, glad both for the moment of connection and the quiet that follows it, and then turns his gaze back to the sea.
There is nothing he would have liked more than to bring his girls with him for the Highlander’s maiden voyage, and when Livingstone & Gray had first proposed that he make the crossing, Alec had started to daydream of ways to make it happen. But then the trip had changed, a two-day pause in Halifax blossoming into almost three months taking the measure of the Livingstone & Gray offices there with the aim of finding a new project. Alec had hesitated—it was a long time to be away from his home, away from Penny and June and Ursa, away from everything . . . But the RMS Highlander was his ship, and he had worked for the company for more than a decade now, building himself a place there. And really, ten weeks is not such a long stretch in the great scheme of things. Penny is in school, and Mrs. Nesbit will run the household as competently as ever, whether Alec’s there or not.
* * *
• • •
Alec is waiting to disembark in Halifax, looking out over the barely ordered chaos of passengers unloading and the swirl of dark water, gulls swooping and screaming overhead, when Tremayne finds him and hands him a slim oilskin packet of letters.
“Came by air mail,” Tremayne says. “Anyone meeting you, once you’re through customs?”
“No,” Alec says, thinking of the way it had felt to see June waiting for him on the dock when he’d come back from Odessa, her face open and hopeful. He had not dared expect her, and yet, there she’d been. He looks down at the gangplank, wishing she and Penny were at the other end of it.
“Well,” Tremayne says, tapping the brim of his hat, “I wish you a good stay in Halifax.”
“Thank you,” Alec says. He pats the railing fondly, tucks the packet of letters into his inside breast pocket, and moves toward the gangplank with a last wave at Tremayne.
* * *
• • •
It feels like no time at all before a taxi deposits Alec at his lodgings, a yellow-brick house across the street from Point Pleasant Park in Halifax’s South End. He raises the brass bull’s head that acts as a knocker and lets it fall against the door.
An older woman answers the door almost immediately, her eyes a cloudy green behind glasses. “You must be Mr. Oswin. I’m Mrs. Carter.”
“Yes, Alec Oswin. Very nice to meet you.”
“The harbormaster’s boy let us know your ship had docked. I’m pleased you found your way here. Do come in.” Her voice is round with just the hint of an Irish lilt. “May I take your coat?”
“Grand, thanks,” Alec says. He glances around the foyer, a tidy, welcoming space with pictures of the Pope and Queen Elizabeth on the wall. Ahead of him the foyer opens up into a sitting room, where he can just see the ornate mantelpiece of the fireplace and the gleaming brass candlesticks centered there, and more of the rich blue-and-gold carpet that sinks beneath his feet. “You have a beautiful home, Mrs. Carter.”
“Oh, thank you.” She clasps her hands. “Well, I’m glad enough to be taking another man from Livingstone and Gray as a boarder. We were sorry to lose Mr. Lurie back to Scotland.”
Alec says, “He couldn’t say enough good things about boarding here.”
“I’m so very glad to hear that,” she says. “Now then, you can leave your suitcase here for the moment, all right?”
Alec sets down his valise and follows Mrs. Carter. In the sitting room, French doors opposite the fireplace lead to a wide patio that stretches out into the garden beyond.
“Oh, that’s awfully nice,” Alec says, “having the park out one door and your garden out the other.”
Mrs. Carter’s face lights up. “Just wait until we start having more blooms, Mr. Oswin. We’ve had our daffodils, you can just see them, there,” she says, gesturing outside, “and the snowdrops, of course, but we’re right on the edge with so many others.”
“I’ll look forward to that.” And he will, although it won’t be his own garden, which will be gangbusters in the Edinburgh spring any day now.
Mrs. Carter nods and leads him to the dining room, pointing out the kitchen as they make their way back to the foyer. “My daughter-in-law, Maeve, prepares most of our meals. She’s an excellent cook.”
“Wonderful,” Alec says. After a week of the fancy food aboard the Highlander, something homey sounds like just the ticket. He follows her up the stairs, where she pauses in front of a wall hung with pictures. She points to a photo of a young family standing in front of the fireplace downstairs: the young man with curly dark hair, his arm around a fair-haired girl holding an infant. “That’s Maeve and my grandson Cullen,” she says. “He’s ten now. And that was my son Desmond, God rest him.”
God,
she’s lost a son. “I am so awfully sorry.” Alec regards the photo again, a pang in his chest—they look so happy.
“Thank you.” Her hand comes up to touch the cross she wears on a long chain as she gathers herself. “In any event, your room is just here. The bath is down the hall.”
“This will do very nicely,” Alec says. He takes in the tidy room with its pale, rosy wallpaper, and smiles at Mrs. Carter.
“Very good,” she says. “Dinner is at seven thirty, in the dining room. Breakfast is somewhat less formal. I ask that if you’re going to miss a meal you let me know so that we may plan accordingly. Also, we lock the front door at eleven, so do please be back by then if you go out in the evening. And I ask that you do not bring guests back with you. I like to keep a quiet home, especially with my grandson here.”
“I quite understand. I have a little girl myself, back in Edinburgh. Penny.”
“What a sweet name,” Mrs. Carter says. “You must miss her.”
“I do, yes,” Alec says. “Awfully. She’s only just six.”
“Such a lovely age,” she says. “Well, I’ll leave you to settle in. Please let either Maeve or myself know if you need anything at all.”
Alec says, “I shall. Thank you.”
She closes the door behind her, and Alec looks at his watch—just past five now, plenty of time to settle in and wash up before the evening meal. He puts away his few belongings and sits down with the oilskin packet in the wooden chair at the writing desk under the window. Across the street, the low stone wall that borders the park has a gap in it, and he can just see the trail leading down into the trees. A stand of pines towers over the wall, a small red squirrel chittering in a high branch. It’s so bucolic, but somewhere not too far away, he can hear the particular curl of a freight train’s bellowing horn. For an unsettling moment his pulse races, his memory filling with the train that took him from Italy to Germany and the stench of too many frightened men wedged into a single car. He closes his eyes and counts to ten, then counts roses on the wallpaper until present prevails over past.
He unwinds the waxed laces holding the packet together and puts aside the thick envelope with his name on it in June’s precise writing, saving the best for last. There’s a letter from Roger, now retired to a horse farm in Kenya and hoping to come to Edinburgh next year. Alec’s pleased—he hasn’t seen his uncle in years, and it’s good to get caught up. On Roger’s infrequent visits, it’s a delight to watch him with Penny, whom he adores. Then at last he turns to the letter from June.
Dear Alec,
I hope this finds you well, and that you have arrived safely in Nova Scotia. I imagine it must have been an incredible voyage! We miss you—the house is quiet without you, and Ursa doesn’t quite seem to know what to do with herself. Penny, in a rather sweet effort to help, has been telling her your bear stories—or, rather, Penny’s versions of your bear stories. It’s quite charming, as you can imagine, and I believe it’s helping both of them.
The garden has started blooming. That crocus border you put in is going to be a glory soon, and Penny has been gathering marsh violets when we take Ursa to the pond. It’s a shame you’re missing these, but there will be roses when you come home, and likely sweet pea blossom as well. I’ll look after the garden as well as I can while you’re gone, but I expect your flowers will be pleased to see you home. Still, God knows I’ve needed the distraction—I’ve put in for that new Reader position the department has opened for next year, the one we talked about last spring. It would be quite a feather in my cap, but what a tiresome, nerve-wracking process!
We had tea last week with Parvati and the children (Sanjay has not come home from London yet). Did you know that when Penny is with her friends she sounds much more the wee Scot than when she is with us? I suppose you must. It always catches my attention, though, watching her move so easily into their world. She is such a clever child, and so adaptable.
In any event, we hope you had a lovely trip, and that your work in Halifax goes brilliantly.
Stay safe, Alec.
Love,
June
Alec smiles to himself and runs his fingers over the careful printing, marveling as always at June’s ability to write in perfectly straight lines on unruled paper. He brings the letter to his nose, wishing he could breathe in the scent of her. There’s so much he’s missed already, and for just a moment he wishes so fiercely to be home that the sprawl of weeks ahead of him seems impossibly daunting.
After a moment, he opens the second note enclosed in June’s letter, and his heart pangs against his ribs at the sight of the smudged, childish scrawl with its careful uppercase letters and the false starts of misspelled words.
Dear Daddy,
Mummy says right now you are on your ship in the North Atlantic. She showed me on a map the way your ship would go, and each day we are going to look at the map and try to mark where you are. Also we are crossing off days on the calendar but there are so many days left! At school we are learning about Robert the Bruce. Mrs. Nesbit told me a spider helped him save Scotland. Are there spiders where you’re going?
Love Penny
He sits for a long time looking at his letters, missing June and Penny like air.
* * *
• • •
In the dining room that evening he finds Mrs. Carter looking through a French textbook with Cullen. A loaf of soda bread waits with butter and a jar of jam on a cutting board at the foot of the table. A covered bowl sits near the table’s center. Metal crutches lean into the corner beyond the table.
Mrs. Carter says, “Ah, good evening, Mr. Oswin. This is my grandson Cullen. Cullen, this is Mr. Oswin.”
“It’s very nice to meet you, Cullen.” Alec puts out his hand.
“Likewise,” Cullen says. He hesitates briefly before flattening his palm against the uneven landscape of Alec’s, and Alec realizes too late that he may be putting Cullen in an awkward position.
Alec smiles and leans close with a conspiratorial smile. “Don’t mind the hand—ran into some trouble in the war.”
Before Cullen can respond, a young woman steps into the room carrying a ceramic serving dish—Maeve, Cullen’s mother. The young widow.
“Oh, Mr. Oswin,” Mrs. Carter says, standing and moving the textbook to the sideboard, “this is my daughter-in-law, Maeve.”
“It’s lovely to meet you,” Maeve says, her blue eyes crinkling at the corners when she smiles.
“It’s a pleasure,” Alec says. “This all looks wonderful.” He gestures at the salmon she’s brought out, the smells of butter and lemon rising along with the rich scent of the fish, and the fish itself surrounded by new potatoes flecked with parsley.
“It’s Friday,” Cullen says dourly. “That’s why there’s fish.”
Maeve laughs as she begins plating the food. “Don’t fuss. Tomorrow I’ll be making you something you like better.”
Cullen says, “Well, you could hardly make something I like less,” and grins at his mother.
“In that case perhaps I’ll be giving it a try,” Maeve says wryly.
Alec thanks her as she passes him his plate, and she smiles at him before serving the rest of the table. Then she turns to Cullen. “Will you lead us in a blessing, love?” She folds her hands and bows her head. Mrs. Carter and Cullen follow suit. Alec hesitates, then bundles his hands in his lap, touched by the easy humor and familiarity woven through their exchanges.
Cullen clears his throat. “Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty. Through Christ our Lord, amen.” He pauses. “And bless Dad and Uncle Sean and Granddad too, Lord.” He crosses himself.
“My sweet lad.” Maeve brushes the dark curls back from her boy’s forehead, then turns to Alec. “So, Mr. Oswin, is this your first time in Halifax?”
“Yes,” he replies. “So far it seems like a lovel
y place.”
“Oh, ’tis,” she agrees, slicing into the soda bread. The crust gives way with a hearty tearing sound. She chooses the thickest slice and slathers it carefully with butter and jam, then slides it onto Cullen’s plate. In a soft voice she says to him, “Extra jam for my best boy.”
Alec glances down at the table—Cullen is only a bit older than he was when the cholera struck, and the unabashed affection with which Maeve and her son comport themselves tugs at him.
“The fish is delicious,” Alec says. “The peas as well. That’s mint?”
Maeve dips her head in acknowledgment. “Yes,” she says. “It’s my mam’s way, with mint fresh from the garden. I’m pleased you like it.”
“It’s awfully good,” Alec says. “I don’t have much in the way of herbs in my garden at home. Rather feel like I ought to, now.”
“Just a set of pots will do you,” Maeve says. Alec gives this some thought, asking questions and taking in her answers as they eat, Mrs. Carter chiming in here and there with her own ideas on gardening.
After a while, Cullen speaks up. “Gram says you came by ship, Mr. Oswin. What was it like?”
“It was splendid, crossing the whole of the Atlantic like that.” Alec goes on, happy to be telling them the story of his crossing—icebergs and the rough cast of the waves against the ship, the steady soar of an albatross in the Georges Bank.
“It’s quite a journey,” Maeve says, during a pause. “All that ice. It was like nothing I’d ever dreamed of.”
“I wonder if you came by the southern route as well,” Alec says.
“I believe so.” Maeve’s forehead creases. “Beautiful, most of it, except a bit of a storm near the end.”
