A Greater World: A woman's journey

by Clare Flynn

  'I dare say you're right. But then I doubt I've read as many books as you.'

  He looked away, appearing distracted, bored even. Elizabeth was keen not to end the conversation so abruptly this time.

  'You like books?'

  'Aye. Though I expect yer friend from Cape Town thought I couldn't even read.'

  'Mrs Briars may think she has a superior education, but she's an ignorant old... Sorry. I shouldn't speak that way.' She smiled. 'She caught me reading Sons and Lovers and told me reading it would corrupt me.'

  'And have ye been corrupted?' he smiled.

  She laughed. 'Actually I was moved. I've never read anything like it before. Brutally honest. Painful. What do you like to read?'

  'Anything as comes my way. I suppose it were being deprived of books for so long. They taught us well enough at the local school. The mining company saw to that. Believed in good works and education. God knows why, when it were no use to most of us as went underground. We had no books at home apart from the Bible. I got into reading in the War. My commanding officer had been studying Classics at Oxford University when the war started. Read all the time. Shells going off all around and he kept his head buried in his book.'

  'When he was supposed to be fighting?'

  He smiled and rolled a cigarette. 'We didn't do much fighting. Not where we were. None at all really. We sat around until it were time to go and dig a big hole in the ground, then we'd sit around again waiting to be told where and when to dig another big hole. We talked and smoked, wrote letters back to Blighty and read the ones we were lucky enough to get.'

  He looked thoughtful and she could see he was mentally back there. He carried on speaking, drawing on his cigarette. 'He were called Rockhill - Greville Rockhill. He weren't like the rest of us. All he ever wanted to do was study. Some of his books was in Latin and Greek, but he loved novels too. Dickens, Trollope, Henry James. Used to get a few books sent every week. I don't know how he pulled it off – must have 'ad a mate or a relative in the War Office. When he were done, he'd pass the books on to the rest of us and I always got first crack.' He drew on his cigarette again, watching the smoke curl in the air. 'He didn't make it.'

  'He died?'

  'Aye. Day after he were killed another parcel of books came. They kept us going till the War were over – it were only five or six weeks more, though we didn't know that then. I took some of his books back to Blighty. Read 'em again and again. Trouble with books is they put ideas in yer head and make it hard to put up with what you've got.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'When I got back to the dale, I wanted more. I wanted to see something of the world.'

  'So what do you want, Mr Winterbourne? What are you looking for?' She leaned forward as she spoke and he moved away slightly and looked out to sea, frowning.

  'I'm not sure as I know any more, Miss. The world doesn't seem quite so enticing once you're out in it.'

  'Feeling homesick? Do you want to go back?' She raised an eyebrow.

  'I'll never go back. What's done is done.'

  'You make it sound as though you've done something terrible! Are you running away, Mr Winterbourne?'

  He frowned and his eyes darkened. 'Mebbe I am.'

  She folded her hands in her lap and looked up at him earnestly. 'Maybe we all are. The whole ship! I can't imagine what else would possess so many people to give up everything, pack their bags and sail across the oceans into the unknown. Not if they didn't have to.'

  'They? Or you?'

  'Me too, I suppose. I certainly never planned to do this. I didn't lie awake dreaming of seeing the world or going to Australia. I'd have been happy to see my days out in Northport.'

  'So why are you here?'

  There was a tremor in her voice when she spoke. 'My father needs me. My mother's dead and he misses her. There's nothing for me at home. Not any more.'

  'What'll you do in Australia?'

  'Try and make the best of things I suppose. I play the violin and hope to make a living teaching it and I'll keep house for my father of course. Who knows? Maybe one day we'll have saved enough to return to England?'

  'To go back?'

  'Yes. Why not?'

  'It's never right to go backwards. You have to keep moving forward in this life. To keep going. To move on.'

  She smiled at him. 'Quite the philosopher, Mr Winterbourne?'

  'I'm just a survivor is all.'

  They fell into an awkward silence and then Elizabeth picked up the threads of their conversation again. 'So, what book are you reading now?'

  'The War of the Worlds. You'd think I'd have had enough of wars wouldn't you? But it were on the shelf in the general room so I thought I'd give it a go.'

  'Any good?'

  'Aye. It's keeping me gripped enough. And defeating a bunch of alien beings is a change from taking on the Kaiser.'

  'I don't know how I'd exist without books.'

  'Me neither.'

  'Was the War very hard for you?'

  He looked thoughtful. 'I had an easy war compared to most. Never went over the top. Had plenty of mates that did. Being a miner, they reckoned to keep me digging underground and that kept me out of the worst of it.'

  'I'm sure it was still terrible for you. I can't imagine what it must have been like over there. Did you lose many friends, apart from the officer you told me about?'

  'We lost nine men from our little village. That left a big hole. One of 'em was me cousin, Joe. He were me best pal.' Before she could reply he added, 'What about you? Any of your family?'

  'My father was involved in planning troop movements. All done from a desk in Liverpool. I have no brothers. But I did lose someone close to me.'

  'I'm sorry to hear that.'

  'We were engaged to be married but he never came home.'

  'Where did he die?'

  'In the Ypres Salient. On the Menin Road. His name was Stephen. And do you know I can't even remember what he looked like any more. Isn't that terrible?'

  'Mebbe it's how we get over things. How we're able to carry on when summat like that hits us.' As he spoke the words he wished them to be true in his own case but feared they were not.

  She carried on. 'I feel guilty. You know. That I don't think about him all the time. Some days I don't even think of him at all. The time we spent together seems unreal, as if I dreamt it rather than lived it. It was another world we lived in before the war, wasn't it? It's all different now and I find it hard to be the person I was before or even to understand the person I was before. Stephen is now just a name carved on a war memorial.' She hesitated, then stretched her hands out in front of her as though appraising them. 'I stopped wearing his ring. It didn't feel right. I gave it back to his mother. It had belonged to his grandmother and I thought his mother should have it back. I don't know why I'm telling you all this. It's like I'm betraying him and yet... I don't really know who he was any more. Am I making any sense?'

  He sighed. 'You are and I know exactly what you mean. The chaps I grew up with who died over there are like ghosts, like shadows. Hard to believe they existed. Even me cousin Joe. We were in the same company - signed up together. He caught it early on. Shrapnel. I didn't know it were him at first when I carried him on a stretcher, he were that cut up. But he knew it were me. He must have recognised me voice because he grabbed me hand and said me name as we was lifting him into the ambulance. Died before we got him to the hospital tent. At least I were there with him I suppose. Even though I couldn't do a bloody thing about it.' He banged his fist on his knee. 'I'm sorry. I didn't mean to swear in front of you.'

  'When I think about Stephen dying, I like to think that if it wasn't instant then someone like you or some kind nurse held his hand as he died. I don't suppose that's what happened, but it makes me feel better to imagine it.'

  'I know what you mean about the war changing everything.' He was gazing out at the water in front of them. 'I were engaged to be married too. We were that close afore the war. Did everyt
hing together. We'd known each other since we were bairns. But when I came back after Armistice it were different. We still got on and all. But different things were important to us. She wanted it all to be the same and I knew it couldn't be. She wanted to stay put and I wanted to see the world.' He laughed drily. 'Sounds stupid I know. Now that I'm on me way to t'other side of the world I'm not so sure I want to be.'

  'What happened to her?'

  He paused for a moment, weighing his words then said, 'She decided she didn't want to be married to me after all.'

  'I'm sorry.'

  'Don't be. We'd grown apart. She probably saw that afore I did. You women are much quicker at seeing that sort of thing. And anyway I wanted to get out of the mine and the dale and she'd never have gone along with that.'

  'And Australia?'

  'Not sure it's about Australia so much as about just getting away. I'd as easily 'ave gone to America. There's so much more in the world than I'd ever get to see in our little village. I don't know what I'm looking for. Just reckon there has to be more. How about you?'

  'The last thing I wanted was to leave Northport. My life was calm - every day the same and I liked that. But now everything's changed. I feel a bit lost. I don't know. Perhaps I'm like your fiancée – wanting to keep things the way they've always been.'

  'Aye but they're not the way they've always been. They can never be like that again. Not since the war.'

  'I know. But that doesn't mean I'm happy about it.'

  They were silent for a few moments as he lit another cigarette.

  'How did your friend Greville die? If you weren't in the fighting?'

  'He took a stray bullet. From a sniper. It were quiet. No gunfire. He just fell down in front of me. One minute walking along and the next lying there dead. Got it straight through the heart. It were a bit of a fluke.'

  'How dreadful.' But as she spoke, she saw he was already withdrawing from her. His face was pale and pained and he scrambled to his feet, throwing his cigarette into the ocean.

  'Have to go now. Good morning Miss.' And he disappeared behind the bulkhead.

  She tried to carry on reading but her heart wasn't in it. When she pictured Mr Heathcliff, his features were those of Michael Winterbourne: the dark, heavy hair, the intense brown eyes, the ill-concealed unhappiness. Pull yourself together, Elizabeth she told herself, but there was something about the man that aroused her curiosity and drew her in. His manner was sometimes abrupt and distant and yet she felt a kind of intimacy between them that went beyond the words they exchanged.

  The next day, he appeared again, standing in front of her as she leaned back against the ventilation fan on the boat deck.

  'I told you, Mr Winterbourne, you'll give me away if you stand there like that and I shall be banished below by the captain. Or thrown to the fishes! Come and sit down out of sight!'

  He took his place next to her, his long legs in their brown corduroy trousers, stretched out in front of him. He fished in his pocket for his tobacco tin and she watched fascinated as he rolled a cigarette. He said 'You want one? I'm afraid they're just hand rolled.'

  She didn't know any women who smoked but on a whim she said, 'Yes please! I've never tried before. I've always secretly wanted to.'

  'I'm not sure that would be such a good idea if you've not tried before. This is strong baccie. You'd be better off with a ready rolled one – and mebbe one of those long fancy cigarette holders.'

  'Not at all!'

  'First time I tried smoking I were sick as a dog. Nine years old. Our Joe dared me I couldn't smoke two in a row. I coughed and spluttered and then I were sick. Me Mam gave me a right good hiding when she found out.' He grinned at her and she fancied she could see the mischievous nine year old in his eyes.

  'It's a wonder you ever took it up then.'

  'Hard not to. Everyone smokes in the mines. First thing you do when you come up from below is light up. Then in the trenches all the men smoked. Passed the time. Calmed the jitters.'

  At that moment calming the jitters seemed an appealing prospect to Elizabeth. Why did his proximity make her nervous? But in a good way, like opening a present when she was a child.

  'Go on. Let me try,' she said.

  He moved closer and handed her the unlit cigarette he had just rolled and she placed it between her lips. She could feel his leg against hers as he leaned towards her, cupping his hands over the match. She bent to take the light, steadying his hand with hers as she guided it to the end of the cigarette. His skin was warm and she wanted to keep her hand there, but the moment was destroyed as her throat filled with smoke and she began to cough and splutter.

  'Don't say I didn't warn you!' He was laughing at her as she handed the cigarette back. His face changed when he laughed – the little worried lines that were usually etched around his eyes and mouth relaxed and his face was open and happy. She expected him to throw the cigarette overboard but he put it to his own mouth and inhaled. She blushed at the thought of the thin paper moistened from her own lips now resting between his. It seemed a curiously intimate thing for him to do.

  They sat in silence, as her breathing gradually returned to normal and he puffed away contentedly on his roll-up.

  'Still with Cathy on the Yorkshire Moors then?' He nodded towards the book on her lap.

  'No. I finished it. But I wish I were. I mean I wish I were there really, instead of here amidst all this endless ocean. I long to feel grass under my feet again. Solid ground.'

  'Aye me too. The best part of the sea is the bit that's next to the land. All this empty space gives me the willies. It's as though we're at the end of the earth and over the horizon there we might just sail off the edge and fall into space.'

  'So you're a flat earther are you, Mr Winterbourne?'

  He smiled. 'If I am, I reckon this voyage'll cure that!'

  'If you don't like the open sea, what do you like?'

  He didn't hesitate. 'The fresh air on me face and the smell of cut grass in summer. The sound of a curlew flying over the dale. Burning leaves on an autumn afternoon. Catching a trout in a stream as clear as glass, me bare feet in the cold water and smooth stones under them. Me mam's lamb hotpot when times are good and her vegetable soups when they're not. And me old dog. I s'pose I sound right daft don't I? But I do miss the dale. Like I never thought I would.'

  'You lived there all your life. It's understandable.'

  'What about you? What do you like?'

  'Let me think... the sound of the conductor tapping his baton to ready the orchestra and that little tremor of silent excitement and anticipation that ripples up inside you as you wait for the first chord to sound and the concert to begin.'

  'You like music then?'

  'Don't you?'

  'I don't know anything about that kind of music. I grew up with just hymns in chapel. I've never been to a concert or heard an orchestra. Only the music hall. That were alright – but there's no conductor tapping his baton and no one waits in silence for it to start. More like as they're all yelling for the performers to get on with it. I like the idea of a classical concert though. A proper one.'

  'Then you must go! When you get to Sydney.'

  'That kind of music isn't for the likes of me.'

  'It's for everyone. For anyone.'

  'I'd be uncomfortable.'

  'Then come with me!' As the words spilled out of her mouth she felt embarrassed but excited, fearful she had overstepped the mark, but already anticipating the pleasure of sitting in a darkened auditorium beside him. 'I mean, only if you'd like to... I could explain what the music was about. Just to get you over the first time. Then you'd be relaxed enough to go on your own.'

  'In that case, I'll have to do the same for you.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Take you to a music hall or take you fishing.'

  'I'd love that!' Her face lit up.

  Then Michael's face clouded over. She sensed him withdraw from her. She was confused by him: one moment enthusiasti
c, open and warm, making her feel privileged as his confidante, and the next closed down and silent, brooding. She supposed it was the War. So many men were like that these days.

  The next day, when she went into the dining room for lunch, he was sitting alone.

  'Mr Winterbourne, may I join you?'

  The man got to his feet and nodded at the seat opposite him.

  'I hate eating alone, don't you?' she said.

  He shrugged and she wished she'd sat elsewhere. Her words were not even true. She preferred eating alone to making small talk with other passengers. The fact was she wanted to be with him. Just as she was debating whether to apologise and excuse herself with a forgotten item in her cabin, he looked up at her with a shy grin.

  'Truth is, Miss Morton, I find eating in 'ere a bit of an ordeal. I were used to eating at home with me family or out of a mess tin in the army and at the pit. I find all this a bit much. Having to mind me Ps and Qs.' He gestured around the room. 'S'pose you're used to it?'

  'Not really. I'd never dined in a vast room like this one.' She looked around them at the long lines of wooden tables with the ranks of swivelling polished wooden chairs, each fixed to the floor. 'Not since school. We had long tables there, but I thought I'd left all that behind me!'

  He studied her face for a moment. 'Posh school was it?'

  She blushed. 'I wouldn't say that exactly. But it was a private school. My father was quite wealthy.' She looked down at her lap. 'Not any more though.'

  'It were the village school for me. And then just till I were 11. Then I went to work washing the ore. No time for schooling after that.'

  'Gosh, that's awfully young to be working.'

  'That were the way. We all did it.'

  'Did you mind?'

  'Didn't think about it. Me Da were in the mines too and his father afore him. It were the same for the whole village. And there's worse work.'

  He told her about his life in the mine and his childhood in the dale. She could not imagine a life more different from her own. As he spoke, his face relaxed and he became less laconic. It was as though the dale was in front of his eyes and he was watching the men trundling into the mine.