by Peter Rimmer
He thought of the lunch box on his mother’s kitchen table and wondered if any of his family would even remember he had come home and gone. Whether they spoke of him even once. If he had any part of their lives… Would any of them see each other again? Len wondered whether it mattered to any of them.
Pushing the broom to give him the excuse he walked to the bows of the ship while the music faded behind him replaced by the throb of the ship’s engines that were conquering the sea. He was still alone and cherished the feeling. The crew’s quarters were stuffy, full of sweating, unwashed men half clothed lying in their hammocks.
An officer came to the rail high above him on the bridge and looked down. Len walked over quickly towards the music and the sound of party voices mingling in an angry chorus as if they really did not like each other despite all the outward appearance of civilisation that dressed them to look as they were.
For the first time Len looked into the room of standing groups of people, drinks in hand, waiters invisible again, offering the canapés. Strangely, he had no wish to be where they were. No envy.
He had enjoyed his moments of solitude with a deep, inner pleasure, hugging his personal loneliness. He stopped in the shadow to have a look at them. The rich. The privileged. The ones he was supposed to envy.
For no reason Ben Willard come up the deck looking for him.
“Poor sods,” Len said. “They’re all putting on an act. Especially that girl in the red dress with the big tits.”
“Blimey, they are big. Never seen knockers on display like that before. Except the barmaid. Wouldn’t mind fuckin’ her, Len. What you say?… ’Ave a fag. No one is worried about us just now. There’s one in third class with big tits but she don’t look like that one.”
“It’s the girl by the rail. She gave me a filthy look this morning… You really goin’ to see Teresa in Cape Town, Ben?”
“If you’re a good boy, I’ll take you along.”
“Don’t put your fag out on deck or I’ll get it in the neck.”
“You worry too much. Never worry, never hurry, just keep your bowels open. What my grandfather said to me. Good advice.”
“You’re full of shit, Ben Willard.”
They finished their cigarettes in comfortable silence, put them out in the sand-filled ashtrays attached to the inner wall below the window line and walked off down the side of the ship to the steps that would take them back to their quarters. Neither of them spoke.
Harry Brigandshaw watched Len Merryl and Ben Willard pass his cabin window. He found it strange to know the two men worked for him but he did not know their names. On Elephant Walk he knew everyone’s names and most of their family and tribal history. His cabin was the largest on the ship, boasting a small double bed instead of bunks. Felicity and her daughter Justine were in a two-berth at the other end of the passage, comfortable but bunk berths just the same. He still hoped Felicity Voss was right to confront her past. He had agreed to take them to Elephant Walk, an invitation he had extended more than a year ago.
“He’s an old man, Mrs Voss. Not what you remember. He’s been living in the bush for all these years. You remember a soldier. I know an old man conning young immigrants out of a grubstake… Have you told Justine the truth yet?”
“He will still be the same man underneath. We all get old.”
“He looks rough. Very rough. Last I heard he was living with his horses with a friend rougher than himself. You can’t imagine what years of living under the stars can do for a man. Physically and mentally. It can make them mean.”
“I envy him. All the comforts don’t make you happy.”
“When are you going to tell her?”
“When we set sail. When we are on the water.”
“So she can’t run away?”
“So she will have time to realise she has a living father. All he has to be is kind to her.”
“She still thinks she’s looking for his grave. A soldier killed in battle. Not a broken down old man. I think you’re wrong, Mrs Voss.”
“It will put everything finally to rest. I also want to see him again. You won’t say anything?”
“Of course not,” Harry had lied.
Telling the old man what was coming was the least he could do. After telling himself more than once to mind his own business he had written Jim Bowman, to visit Colonel Voss and warn the poor old man of the ghosts coming from his past to blow away his life. Harry rather hoped Voss would get the hell out of the way and save everyone pain. ‘Tell him to vanish into the bush for six months. He is good at that,’ he had told Jim Bowman in the letter.
Harry poured himself a whisky from the bottle he took from a small cocktail cabinet, sat down on the side of his bed and drank it slowly with pleasure. He hated cocktail parties. Hated, for the journey, being the owner of the ship. He sighed inwardly. It was what the captain expected. Sometimes Harry found in life it was better to comply with the rules no matter what.
Emptying the crystal glass of whisky, Harry got up off the side of the bed and prepared himself to join the captain’s cocktail party. Even if the party was halfway through… There would be plenty of time for solitude when he got home.
The thought of the African bush made him smile. He was going to see his dogs again soon. His family. He wondered how much Madge’s children had grown while he was away.
Harry took one look out of the open cabin window before latching it shut. The deckhands had gone. The outside decks of his ship were empty of people. With a wry smile he noticed the fag ends had gone from the deck. People!
With a second sigh, this time audible, Harry opened the cabin door and went on his way.
As agreed, Harry called at the Voss cabin to take his guests to the cocktail party. Later, they were all to sit at the captain’s table for dinner.
When the door of the cabin opened to a beaming Justine Voss, it was clear to Harry her mother had told her nothing about her father. For all of them, Harry held his breath. He could hear the distant thunder. Why people did not live their lives as they found them he never knew. Justine looked so happy.
Thinking of how much nicer the voyage would have been to have Lucinda by his side, he led the way. For Harry, there was a sense of vulnerability without his wife. For the first time in weeks, as if someone had walked over his grave, he thought of Mervyn Braithwaite. He was glad to be out of England. Away from it. Africa was so much less complicated. So fewer people.
There were many young officers on board. He would ask them to pay special attention to Justine Voss.
He hoped Brett would enjoy the present he had left for her in London. A small red car outside his flat in Regent Mews. Where she was to live for as long as she wished. With his love and memories, the flat was only a short walk from Drury Lane. By now even she would have found herself a new boyfriend. Feeling a twinge of regret, Harry walked into the first-class lounge behind Mrs Voss and her daughter to come face-to-face with Tina Pringle.
“Where’s Barnaby?” he gasped in surprise.
“In London, I expect.”
“What are you doing here, Tina?”
“I bought a ticket. You may remember my real home is in Johannesburg. Can’t you look a little pleased to see me, Harry? How do you like my dress? Straight from Paris. Only the French know how to dress a woman.”
“Sensational, Tina.” Harry hoped he had recovered himself.
“See you at dinner. The captain asked me to join his table.”
Brazenly and to Harry’s amusement, Tina turned her back on him. Even the back of the dress was sensual. The voyage was going to be better than he thought. They were both now single…
“Why is she on board?” asked Justine Voss at his side.
“I’m really not sure.”
“Wow. What a dress.”
“Yes, it does do something for her don’t you think? I’ll bet not a man in the room is unaware of Tina. Poor old Barnaby. How true it is that the best things in our lives are under our noses and we d
o nothing about them.”
“You think so?… Mother told me, Harry. I’m so excited.”
“Oh, my God,” Harry had spoken soundlessly, under his breath. They were all going to perdition.
The captain of the ship saved any further embarrassing conversation, doing an exhibition in servility to the owner of the shipping line that made Harry cringe. He leaned forward close to the captain’s ear, still holding the hand that had tried to pump off his arm.
“I’m a farmer, Thom. You’re the boss here, not me.”
Harry stood back and smiled at the now flustered captain and retrieved his hand from the man’s gnarled grip. Harry introduced Mrs Voss and her daughter. The captain recovered his authority though his eyes were still bewildered. To the captain there was a chain of command. It was how it worked. How everything worked.
Harry found a drink in his hand, took a sip and smiled, it was the same brand of whisky from his cabin. The same brand he had drunk since his days at Oxford long ago. The captain was watching his face. The captain grinned at him. He wondered how the captain had found out about his whisky. Harry grinned back. At that moment they both knew they liked each other.
Harry began to circulate. There was not a person in first class, it seemed, who was not aware of his controlling interest in Colonial Shipping. Quite a few owned new shares. All were happy with their acquisition.
The chatter of trivia went on until they filed into the elaborate dining room for dinner.
The dining room was splendid. Harry made a mental note to write to the interior decorator. There was one thing Harry had learnt in his short stint at running a shipping line. It was all in the detail. If each small part was perfect, the whole became very profitable. Everyone in the company had their part in the success or failure. Harry hoped Percy Grainger, now ensconced in the managing director’s office, would remember the little bits that meant so much. Praise was as important to any person for a job well done wherever they stood in the company hierarchy.
Keeping the smile on his face, Harry went on talking to the passengers until he reached his seat at the captain’s table.
“May I introduce to you, Mr Brigandshaw, the delightful Tina Pringle who has so graciously agreed to sit at our table.”
“You may, Captain. Though it is not necessary. Tina Pringle and I are old friends. There is hope one day she will marry my brother-in-law, the Honourable Barnaby St Clair and live happily ever after. There is nothing more beautiful than a couple who have been friends since childhood, becoming one under God and growing old together in a loving home surrounded by the same loving happy children.” The sarcasm he hoped, was only understood by Tina. The two of them understood each other far too well.
“That’s so beautiful,” burst out Justine Voss. “I’m so happy for you, Tina, to love forever. It is my dream. One, big, happy family. You are the luckiest girl alive. Please come and sit next to me. The grown-ups can sit at the top of the table.”
“Aren’t we grown up, Justine?” said Tina, acidly all the time thinking what she was going to do to Harry.
“Oh, you know what I mean. Harry is an absolute darling, but he’s old enough to be your father. At that age they talk about boring things. Ask my mother… We girls like to talk about clothes. Now, where please, just where did you get that dress?”
Harry, wincing at the innocent jibe at his age, realised Justine thought he was after her mother. That the idea of the voyage was as much to set him up with the mother, something that had never even crossed Harry’s mind. To add to his consternation, Tina looked at him with a long, sympathetic smile before slowly pushing the tip of her tongue along the lower lip of her mouth. Then Tina gave him a barely recognisable wink.
Harry shook his head while looking at his soup. Now the father was alive, he wondered what the daughter would think of him as her mother’s potential beau. Maybe mother telling daughter had been a blessing after all.
“Do you believe in fate, Captain?” asked Harry.
“Always, Mr Brigandshaw. What shall be shall be. There’s nothing we can do about it.”
The captain stood up and raised his right hand. The dining room fell silent. The captain picked up his glass.
“I ask you all to rise… To the good ship SS Corfe Castle and all who sail in her. God Save the King.”
“GOD SAVE THE KING!”
Late next morning the ship was alone on a vast ocean with nothing in sight. They had passed the Spanish coast in the night and were headed for the Portuguese island of Madeira where they were to spend a few hours picking up tropical fruit and a few passengers who would be ferried out to the ship in the same lighter that brought the hands of bananas. Anyone who wished would be allowed to go ashore. There was a tangible excitement at three o’clock when the high cliffs of the island were first sighted.
For Justine it would be her first step ashore that was not on the land of England. She had slept not a wink all night thinking of her father and all the wonderful days they were going to spend together while she told him everything that had been in her life while they were separated. How a man who had died in the Anglo-Boer War had suddenly come alive she was yet to question. In that new morning she could only feel the joy, not the strange reality of a man coming back from the dead.
Standing on deck alone looking at the slowly looming island coming out of the ocean sea she felt the first small bell of alarm. Of danger. Of something most terribly wrong. She felt a cold shiver despite the warm summer air from the African desert far lost over the sun-soaked sea to the east.
Her mother had given her the night to think, overjoyed by her daughter’s first burst of excitement in their cabin the previous night.
Now she watched her daughter standing alone by the rail. Mrs Voss was seated in a deckchair that let her see without being noticed. She had watched for some time.
Felicity saw the girl’s shudder and got to her feet. Still not sure, she walked halfway across the deck and stopped. Most of the passengers were down below getting themselves ready for the trip ashore. For some reason Harry Brigandshaw was standing next to the funnel. She had not seen him from her deckchair. She thought he could also see Justine without being noticed. He waved forward. They both had seen the girl’s shoulders convulse in sharp violent shudders.
The girl turned on her. “If he’s alive why do I only find out now, Mother? Why didn’t he come to us long ago?”
“He was married to another woman.”
“But then how did he come to be my father if he was already married?”
“Because we made love. With passion, love and no care for the consequence. The only time in my life I have been happy with a man. Do you grudge me a few weeks of happiness?… That dreadful marriage of his! Married to a woman for the sake of convenience is no way to spend a life. I didn’t want the same with another man. I needed something to remember. A girl has to have something to remember for the rest of her dreary life.”
“Have I been dreary for you, Mother?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then what do you mean?”
“You will go soon. Find a man and go and just maybe look back on your dear old mother once in a while. When your life is full with your own family, your mother won’t matter very much.”
“I would never discard you.”
“You wouldn’t even know you’d done it. I had a mother too. Yes, I think of her sometimes.”
“So would this father of mine have made so much difference?”
“Probably not… We are going to find out… Memories live better than life.”
“Then I’m a bastard,” Justine spat at her mother.
“So am I, Justine,” said Harry coming out from the shadow of the forward funnel where he had been waiting. “Luck was my mother ran away from her husband with my father and went to Africa where my grandfather who started this shipping line could not find them. Not at first, anyway. He was so concerned about himself he had my father arrested in Cape Town. The police were go
ing to bring my father back to England to face the charge of abduction. My grandfather hated his younger son that much for destroying his dream of pushing the family up a social class or two!”
“Are you part of all this, Harry? It’s a charade, isn’t it? It can’t be real. Are you part of it, then?”
“Reluctantly.”
“SO, you do know who my real father is?”
“Not well. He’s an old man. Much older than your mother. There are many more years between your father and mother than you and me, Justine. And I’m not quite old enough to be your father or Tina’s.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was said without malice.”
“Does he know I’m coming?”
“He will by the time we arrive.”
“Harry! You said you wouldn’t,” said Mrs Voss.
“Larry has the right to make up his mind.”
“So I’m not Justine Voss, legally. Who am I then?”
“I suppose you should carry my maiden name. I brought back a forged birth certificate from Greece where you were born.”
“So I’m a Greek!”
“No, darling. I had your birth registered at the British Embassy.”
“My word, that really is something. I’m going to the cabin. Please leave me alone. Both of you. I shall not be going ashore. The father I didn’t have yesterday doesn’t know I’m even alive.”
“Oh, he does. I wrote him. Told him your name.”
“Then why by the name of God didn’t he come to me?”
“Why don’t you ask him when you meet?”
“MEET him? I wish he were dead.”
They watched her go.
“You still think I’m wrong, Harry? She’ll think through all this and want to see him.”
“I told Jim Bowman to tell Larry to do one of his bush trips. Where no one can find him.”
“Maybe he’ll spruce himself up and not run away. All men are vain… Thanks for the bastard bit, Harry. She won’t believe it, of course. Life really isn’t what it was made out to be… The bar is open. Will you buy me a drink?”
