A Greater World: A woman's journey

by Clare Flynn

  Turning to Sylvia and her family would also mean telling them what her father had done. Elizabeth had always suspected that Mrs Gregory secretly harboured the belief that Maria Morton had married beneath her. Elizabeth did not want to vindicate this judgement.

  There was no one else to turn to. The only relatives she was aware of were distant cousins of her mother who had sent a letter of condolence when she died, but did not feel sufficient kinship to make the effort to attend her funeral.

  She walked through the silent town to the railway station. The first train to Liverpool was at five thirty. She checked her watch. It was just before two. The station waiting room was locked. It would be a long cold wait. She looked over the road at the Station Hotel, where there was a welcoming light coming from the lobby. Picking up her bag she hurried across the road. It would be money she could ill afford to spend, but a hot bath and the chance to change out of her torn clothes were too good to pass up.

  Chapter Three - Embarkation

  Michael pushed through the early morning crowds waiting for trams to carry them to work throughout the city, and made his way towards the Mersey waterfront. The night before, in a public house, he'd heard there was a ship about to sail for Africa and Australia. He hoped he'd be in time, but if he wasn't, there were plenty of ships plying their way across the Atlantic to America. During his years in the War he had met men from all three continents and was drawn most to the Australian 'diggers' for their sense of humour and lack of pretension. He had also got the impression that a Pom, as they called the likes of him, would fit in easier there than in America. Australia had the advantage of being further away from Britain, yet closer in terms of its way of life and it was still part of the Empire. The clincher was that they were offering men like him assisted passages.

  He liked the feel of Liverpool. It was a place full of life and full of people. The streets were packed with double decker trams and smart new automobiles, as well as horses and carts. Everyone appeared cheerful and despite the coal smoke that had turned its handsome Victorian buildings as black as the back of a grate, it felt an optimistic, bright sort of place. The people rushing by were a real mixture – he could tell that from their hats: men in bowlers, cloth caps, naval uniform caps, boaters and fedoras, women in brimmed hats, cloches, the poorer ones in head scarves, and nuns under dark peaked veils. He pulled his own cap low on his brow and pushed his way through the crowds thronging the pavement to look at the display windows of Blacklers. He had never been in a department store before and for a moment was tempted to go in and look around. Then he remembered there was no point; he no longer had Minnie or his mother to treat to some colourful ribbon or a pair of gloves.

  The smoke-blackened side walls of the buildings were covered from the roof line to the pavement with posters, advertising everything from the latest speaker at the Picton Hall to Veno's cough mixture, Reliance bicycles and the timetable for the Birkenhead ferry. It was so different from the dales. Part of him was tempted to linger longer in this city and see what it had to offer him. He began to wonder if a short trip here might open Minnie's eyes to new possibilities, but he pushed the thought from his mind. He had to forget the past and forget her. He needed to get himself somewhere far away where there was no chance of turning back.

  He was in luck and got himself a berth on the SS Historic to Sydney via Tenerife and Cape Town. He stood on the dockside looking up at the vessel, patting his pocket with the ticket inside. A passing sailor addressed him.

  'You sailing on the Historic, mate?'

  He nodded.

  'She's a good little ship. Only just back to doing passenger trips. Troop carrier during the war.' The pride in the sailor's voice was evident.

  'It's hardly a little ship!' Michael felt dwarfed by it. It towered above him, making it hard to believe that it was a boat, not a building.

  'Sailed before, mate?'

  'To and from France. But the boat were tiny compared to this monster!'

  The sailor pointed out the four masts and the central funnel 'Four sticks and a stack. Built in Belfast. Nearly nineteen thousand tons. She can carry 600 passengers. Not to mention tons of cargo. A real beauty.'

  'I've not seen owt like it!'

  'Wait till you get on board. There's a couple of salt-water swimming baths and a gymnasium. You're going on yer holidays, mate!'

  Elizabeth leaned against the railing watching the seagulls swoop towards the water. They dived down to the surface in what was a fruitless search for fish, then soared upwards again in a continuous repetitive cycle. The sky was dull grey and the Mersey was murky. She did not want it otherwise. Sunshine would have been a mockery.

  She had secured a berth in one of the last cabins available on a ship about to depart for Sydney via South Africa, in three days time. She found accommodation in a small travellers' boarding house, venturing forth only to deal with the paperwork she needed for her entry into Australia and to cash in her war bonds. She avoided the shops of Lord Street and Church Street, fearful of seeing anyone she might know and having to explain what she was doing. But Liverpool was full of people busy with their own business and it was easy to merge into the crowds.

  She looked back at the Pier Head, where the Liver Building, the Cunard Building and the domed offices of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board formed the impressive Liverpool skyline. She had seen them many times before from the New Brighton ferry but, from the vantage point of the upper decks of this enormous ocean-going steamer, they looked particularly imposing: symbols of the power of the British Empire and the reach of its trade and passenger ships. This morning, when she had waited on the landing stage looking up at the ship, she was overwhelmed by its towering size. It would be her first time on a ship, other than the ferries and her first trip overseas, unless you counted a brief holiday on the Isle of Man before the War. In other circumstances, Elizabeth would have been elated and excited about what lay ahead of her, but now she was wretched.

  The edge of the wind cut into her face, and she clutched at her hat – she didn't want to lose it, as now it was her only one. She made her way, one hand anchoring the hat, across the deck and away from the crowds on the starboard side, to look across the Mersey to New Brighton. Stephen had taken her to the Tower Gardens, where they listened to the military band, then after an early dinner, danced in the Tower Ballroom. She remembered that she had read in the Echo that the New Brighton Tower was being dismantled. Like Stephen and so many young men, it was cut off in its prime by the War – closed for the duration, it had rusted and was now beyond economic repair. There was an air of decay and neglect about the whole country and she decided she was glad to be leaving. All she had left was her father and he was six weeks' worth of ocean away. She longed to see him again, despite his ill-thought plan to secure her future. He was the only person to whom she could confide what had happened with Charles Dawson. But as she looked across the dirty river, she decided not to tell him. It was too late to halt the transfer of the house – and she wanted her nieces to be secure. Telling him would cause him pain and anguish and would not make her situation any better.

  She leaned into the wind, eager for the huge ship to pull away from the floating dock, down the river and out into the open sea. Every time she closed her eyes he was there. The smell of his whisky breath, the still sharp pain in her breast where his teeth had broken her skin, and the feeling of shame he had left her with.

  Was her joie de vivre gone forever? She wanted to be hard, cold and closed, to reinvent herself; become a new person in a new world.

  The foghorn sounded a farewell blast and the engines burst into life, drowning out the noise from the crowds on the wharf. The ship moved slowly away from the dock, its milky wash spreading behind as the tugs pulled it through the Mersey's bottleneck into Liverpool Bay and the open sea. The smell of coal smoke from the funnel was acrid and she tried to breathe in the cold air from the Irish Sea. A little jerk of fear went through her stomach. What lay ahead?

  Ma
rrying Mr Jack Kidd was out of the question, but there was no reason why she and her father could not build a new life together in Australia. She would steer him away from the gambling, try to establish some stability and security at the centre of his life, as her mother had once done. Given time, she would wean him from the compulsion to gamble. She could support them both by teaching the violin. It would not pay much - but enough to feed and clothe them. They might even scrape together enough money to buy some land, build a house and grow their own food. She wanted to shut herself away from everyone except her father; to bury herself away where no one would know what had happened to her and she could be left in peace.

  As the ship sailed past the sand hills of Waterloo, Elizabeth thought of happier times. A few years earlier, her mother had been the beating heart of Trevelyan House, her father was dedicated to his work, Sarah an awkward, affectionate schoolgirl and she herself in love with Stephen. What had been the point of it all? What value now was her middle class morality? She was even angry with poor, dead Stephen. They had walked in the sand dunes at Birkdale early in September 1914, just weeks after the war was declared. She had offered herself to him but he demurred. He had thought the war would be over before winter, but instead he was dead the next year. She was bitter at his misplaced gallantry. Why was he so keen to join up? Why had he been so reluctant to make love before they were married? She was torn. Loving him, yet angry that because of his wretched principles, her first sexual experience had been one of pain and violence, not love and tenderness.

  'Damn you, Stephen and your bloody, high-minded sense of honour and your pig-headed desire to do the right thing.' Yet it was hard to be angry with someone who had been dead for five years; a man who had inhabited another world, a world long gone: an age of innocence – or blindness, before the war had sent young men in their masses to their unmarked foreign graves.

  What if Stephen hadn't jumped to his feet and brushed the sand from his new uniform and stretched out a hand to pull her onto her feet beside him? If instead he had let her undo the brass buttons on his tunic and done the same with the small ivory buttons that ran down the back of her silk blouse? But he had believed he would be home from the Front within a couple of months, that the War would be over, that they would be married and have the luxury of making love for the first time in the comfort of a large bed in a first class London hotel, en route to a continental honeymoon. Instead he was sleeping forever in his continental grave. She knew he had wanted her as much as she had him, but 'Do the right thing' had been his motto, and sticking to it had cost him his life and cost Elizabeth what could have been a memory of a moment of happiness to offset some of her pain. Instead, every time she closed her eyes, her head was filled with the image of Dawson.

  Michael stared at the featureless expanse of open sea, as the wind cut the back of his neck in the space between his collar and the back of his cap. His coat blew open as the strength of the gale increased. It was going to be rough. The steward had warned him earlier that they were in for a bumpy passage across the Bay of Biscay. He looked around the deck. Deserted. The few passengers who had been taking the air when he first emerged, had retreated to the warmth below decks. Good. He preferred to be alone.

  The ship that had seemed so huge and solid when he had gazed up at it from the Liverpool quayside, was bobbing about like a cork. The sea was swollen - it had happened so quickly, without warning, changing from millpond into pitching roller-coaster. He set his feet apart and leaned into the motion, giving himself up to the power of the waves and the razor-like slashes of spray on his cheeks. He would have some colour in them after this - unless he succumbed to seasickness. He doubted that would happen; it was too exhilarating, like a wild joy ride. Not rough enough to cause him unease - all those tons of steel looked protection enough against the harshest of seas - but then they'd said that about the Titanic and look what happened to that.

  Someone tapped his elbow. It was the cabin steward. 'You should move below, sir. It's getting very rough. You'll be safer below. Nip into the saloon for a nice cuppa and warm yourself up.'

  'Thanks, mate, but I want to stop here a while longer.'

  The steward shrugged and stepped away, moving on down the deck, presumably to warn any other crazed thrill seekers. Michael turned his face back into the wind and spray, feeling the shafts of icy, cold, salt water sear his face. The wind was so strong that he had to gulp to take in air. He wanted to smoke a cigarette, but it would be futile trying to light it. Bracing, that was the word - no - abrasive was more like it. The salty spray scrubbed the surface off his skin; it was as harsh as the scrubbing his mother used to give his back on a Saturday, when she got the tin bath out and he, his father and Danny took turns to soak away the week's grime from the mines and the fields, ready for chapel on Sunday.

  Until now he had avoided the public spaces of the vast ship, eating his meals quickly in the anonymity of the enormous dining room, then returning to the cabin he shared with three brothers from Manchester or taking a solitary walk around the decks. But he knew the three lads were suffering from seasickness and he couldn't face the the smell of vomit and the groaning from their bunks. He was tempted by the prospect of the warming effects of the cup of tea the steward suggested and was about to head for one of the state rooms, when he realised he was not the only passenger still on deck braving the elements. A few feet away, a woman was gripping the guardrail, staring out to sea as though in a trance, oblivious to his presence and to the wind and spray battering her face. He paused for a moment, curious. She looked well-to-do, in a smart green coat with a fur collar, well-polished leather ankle boots and a hat that perfectly matched the coat. Her hair was light brown, slightly wavy and swept back into a loose knot at the back, where several undisciplined strands were escaping from under her hat. He could see her face only in profile, but it looked as though it carried all the cares of the world. Her brow was furrowed and her mouth set firm. He could not see her eyes, but sensed instinctively that they were as troubled as his own. He wanted to walk over and stretch out his hand to touch her, to offer some words of comfort for whatever was troubling her. As he fought this instinct, she pulled away from the railings and stepped off the deck and into the hatchway. She had not even registered his presence.

  His thoughts returned to what had happened back at home. It was like watching the moving pictures. The images moved across his brain but, unlike the flicks, they were in vivid colour and flowed smoothly and relentlessly.

  He thought about climbing onto the metal balustrade and diving into the cold wind-tossed waters below. He was a strong swimmer, so it might take him a while to die, although the cold of the water would overwhelm him soon enough, if he wasn't sucked down under the draught of the ship and crushed by the propellers. Pointless even speculating; he knew he couldn't do it, much as he wanted to. The impulse that drives some men to take their own lives was absent in his make-up.

  His hair was plastered to his head, his cap so sodden he took it off and stuffed it in his pocket. As he did so his hand closed around the small stone with the hole in the middle that had been his brother's. He ran his hand across his face, wiping the water away and watched the violent sea and the darkening sky.

  Elizabeth headed for the upper deck. Most of the passengers had retired to their cabins, so she thought there was a good chance she'd be undisturbed in the general room or the writing room. She was keen to avoid the woman with whom she was sharing a cabin. At least she had managed to secure a two berth rather than a four on this single class liner, although her cabin companion, Mrs Briars, talked enough for three people.

  The general room was almost deserted and she settled herself into a cane settee beside one of the large brass-framed windows. She picked up a magazine and flicked through the pages without reading them, distracted and restless. The ship was rising and falling over the swollen sea and hoped she was not going to succumb to seasickness. The room smelled, as did the whole ship, of an odd mixture of linoleum polish
, brass cleaner, wood varnish and coal smoke. Today it was accented with the tinge of damp wool. At the far end of the room, a man was playing dominoes with a small boy, the boy laughing loudly when the pieces fell off the table with the pitch of the ship. On an adjacent table two women were engrossed in a game of cards.

  A shrill voice interrupted her solitude. 'There are you are Miss Morton. I've been looking for you everywhere! I was about to sound the alarm – I thought you'd been washed overboard!' Her laugh was like a snort.

  Elizabeth tried not to show her irritation. 'No need to worry. I'm quite safe and sound and enjoying a moment of quiet.'

  The woman didn't take the hint. 'I was going to suggest afternoon tea in the writing room, but you look well settled in here so I'll ask the steward for tea.' She signalled to a young man hovering in the distance. 'Pot of tea please, Reggie dear. And some of those nice cheese scones.'

  'Mrs Briars, I'm about to go below.' Elizabeth said.

  'Nonsense, my dear. You need to keep out of the cabin. If you lie down, you'll end up like the rest of them. They're dropping like flies! A good walk on deck would sort them all out. Lying down on a bunk makes it worse; very unsettling to the stomach with all this pitching and rolling about.'

  'I'm not feeling ill at all. I was just thinking I might have a nap.'

  'A nap!' The woman snorted. 'You're far too young for afternoon naps. A cup of strong tea, a nice game of cards and a brief promenade on deck, and you'll be ready for your supper!'