Offshore

by Penelope Fitzgerald

  ‘I’ve been wanting to tell you, Nenna, that I very much doubt whether you’re strong enough to undertake all the work you do on Grace. And some of the things you do seem to me to be inefficient, and consequently rather a waste of energy. For example, I saw you on deck the other morning struggling to open the lights from the outside, but of course all your storm fastenings must be on the inside.’

  ‘We haven’t got any storm fastenings. The lights are kept down with a couple of bricks. They work perfectly well.’ Now she felt furious. ‘Surely you don’t watch me from Lord Jim.’

  Richard considered this carefully.

  ‘I suppose I do.’

  She had been unjust. She knew that he was good, and kept an eye on everybody, and on the whole Reach.

  ‘I shouldn’t be any happier, you know, if everything on Grace worked perfectly.’

  He looked at her in amazement.

  ‘What has happiness got to do with it?’

  The dinghy followed the left bank, passing close to the entrance to Chelsea creek. They scanned the misty water, keeping a watch-out for driftwood which might foul up the engine.

  ‘Do you talk a great deal to Maurice?’ Richard asked.

  ‘All day and half the night, sometimes.’

  ‘What on earth do you talk about?’

  ‘Sex, jealousy, friendship and music, and about the boats sometimes, the right way to prime the pump, and things like that.’

  ‘What kind of pump have you got?’

  ‘I don’t know, but it’s the same as Maurice’s.’

  ‘I could show you how to prime it any time you like.’ But he was not satisfied. ‘When you’ve finished saying all that you want to say about these things, though, do you feel that you’ve come to any definite conclusion?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So that, in the end, you’ve nothing definite to show for it?’

  ‘About jealousy and music? How could we?’

  ‘I suppose Maurice is very musical?’

  ‘He’s got a nice voice and he can play anything by ear. I’ve heard him play Liszt’s Campanello with teaspoons, without leaving out a single note. That wasn’t music, but we had a good time … and then, I don’t know, we do talk about other things, particularly I suppose the kind of fixes we’re both in.’

  She stopped, aware that it wouldn’t be advisable for Richard to know about Harry’s visits. The crisis of conscience and duty would be too painful. Yet she would have very much liked to keep nothing back from him.

  ‘That leads up to what I’ve really often wanted to ask you,’ Richard went on. ‘It seems to me you find it quite easy to put your feelings into words.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Maurice?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t. I’m amazed at the amount people talk, actually. I can’t for the life of me see why, if you really feel something, it’s got to be talked about. In fact, I should have thought it lost something, if you follow me, if you put it into words.’

  Richard looked anxious, and Nenna saw that he really thought that he was becoming difficult to understand.

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘Maurice and I are talkative by nature. We talk about whatever interests us perhaps for the same reason that Willis draws it and paints it.’

  ‘That’s not the same thing at all. I like Willis’s drawings. I’ve bought one or two of them, and I think they’ll keep up their value pretty well.’

  Beyond Battersea Bridge the light, between grey and silver, cast shadows which began to follow the lighters, slowly moving round at moorings.

  At a certain point, evidently prearranged, for he didn’t consult Nenna and hardly glanced at the banks, Richard put about, switched off the engine and hauled it on board. Once he had fitted in the rudder to keep the dinghy straight against the set of the tide he returned to the subject. A lifetime would not be too long, if only he could grasp it exactly.

  ‘Let’s say that matters hadn’t gone quite right with you, I mean personal matters, would you be able to find words to say exactly what was wrong?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, yes, I would.’

  ‘That might be useful, of course.’

  ‘Like manufacturers’ instructions. In case of failure, try words.’

  Richard ignored this because it didn’t seem to him quite to the point. On the whole, he disliked comparisons, because they made you think about more than one thing at a time. He calculated the drift. Satisfied that it would bring them exactly down to the point he wanted on the starboard side of Lord Jim, he asked –

  ‘How do you feel about your husband?’

  The shock Nenna felt was as great as if he had made a mistake with the steering. If Richard was not at home with words, still less was he at home with questions of a personal nature. He might as well capsize the dinghy and be done with it. But he waited, watching her gravely.

  ‘Aren’t you able to explain?’

  ‘Yes, I am. I can explain very easily. I don’t love him any more.’

  ‘Is that true?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’re not making yourself clear, Nenna.’

  ‘I mean that I don’t hate him any more. That must be the same thing.’

  ‘How long have you felt like this?’

  ‘For about three hours.’

  ‘But surely you haven’t seen him lately?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘You mean tonight? What happened?’

  ‘I insulted his friend, and also his friend’s mother. He gave me his opinion about that.’

  ‘What did your husband say?’

  ‘He said that I wasn’t a woman. That was absurd, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I should imagine so, yes. Demonstrably, yes.’ He tried again. ‘In any ordinary sense of the word, yes.’

  ‘I only want the ordinary sense of the word.’

  ‘And how would you describe the way you feel about him now?’ Richard asked.

  ‘Well, I feel unemployed. There’s nothing so lonely as unemployment, even if you’re on a queue with a thousand others. I don’t know what I’m going to think about if I’m not going to worry about him all the time. I don’t know what I’m going to do with my mind.’ A formless melancholy overcame her. ‘I’m not too sure what to do with my body either.’

  It was a reckless indulgence in self-pity. Richard looked steadily at her.

  ‘You know, I once told Laura that I wouldn’t like to be left alone with you for any length of time.’

  ‘Why did you?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can’t remember what reason I gave. It must have been an exceptionally stupid one.’

  ‘Richard, why do you have such a low opinion of yourself?’

  ‘I don’t think that I have. I try to make a just estimate of myself, as I do of everyone else, really. It’s difficult. I’ve a long way to go when it comes to these explanations. But I understood perfectly well what you said about feeling unemployed.’

  They were up to Lord Jim. With only the faintest possible graze of the fender, the dinghy drifted against her.

  ‘Where shall I tie up?’

  ‘You can make fast to the ladder, but give her plenty of rope, or she’ll be standing on end when the tide goes down.’

  Nenna knew this perfectly well, but she felt deeply at peace.

  As Richard stood up in the boat, he could be seen to hesitate, not about what he wanted to do, but about procedures. He had to do the right thing. A captain goes last on to his ship, but a man goes first into a tricky situation. Nenna saw that the point had come, perhaps exactly as she tied up, when he was more at a loss than she was. Their sense of control wavered, ebbed, and changed places. She kicked off the wellingtons, which was easy enough, and began to go up the ladder.

  ‘Is the hatch open?’ she asked, thinking he would be more at ease if she said something entirely practical. On the other hand, it was a waste of words. The hatch on Lord Jim was always locked, but Richard never forgot the key.

  9

/>   NENNA’S children neither showed any interest in where she had been nor in why she did not come back until next morning. Back again on Grace, Tilda was messing about at the foot of the mast with a black and yellow flag, one of the very few they had.

  ‘We haven’t much line either,’ she said, ‘I shall have to fly it from the stays.’

  ‘What’s it mean, Tilda dear?’

  ‘This is L, I have something important to communicate. It was for you, Ma, in case you were out when we got back.’

  ‘Where were you going, then?’

  ‘We’re going to take him out and show him round.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Heinrich.’

  Martha came up the companion, followed by a boy very much taller than she was. Nenna was struck by the difference in her elder daughter since she had seen her last. Her hair was out of its fair pony tail and curled gracefully, with a life of its own, over her one and only Elvis shirt.

  ‘Ma, this is Heinrich. He was sixteen three weeks ago. You don’t know who he is.’

  ‘I do know. Aunt Louise told me, but there was some kind of confusion in that she told me that he was due last Friday.’

  ‘The date was altered, Mrs James,’ Heinrich explained. ‘I was delayed to some extent because the address given to me was 626 Cheyne Walk, which I could not find, but eventually the river police directed me.’

  ‘Well, in any case I’d like to welcome you on board, Heinrich, hullo.’

  ‘Mrs James. Heinrich von Furstenfeld.’

  Heinrich was exceptionally elegant. An upbringing designed to carry him through changes of regime and frontier, possible loss of every worldly possession, and, in the event of crisis, protracted stays with distant relatives ensconced wherever the aristocracy was tolerated, from the Polish border to Hyde Park Gate, in short, a good European background, had made him totally self-contained and able with sunny smile and the formal handshake of the gymnast to set almost anybody at their ease, even the flustered Nenna.

  ‘I hope Martha has shown you where to put your things.’

  Martha looked at her impatiently.

  ‘There’s no need for him to unpack much, he’s got to go to the airport tomorrow. He arrived here very late, and they had to find a bunk for him on Rochester. Willis was much more cheerful and said it reminded him of a boarding house in the old days.’

  ‘I must go and explain to Mrs Woodie.’

  ‘Oh, it’s quite unnecessary. And I’ve shown Heinrich all round Grace. He understands that he can only go to the heads on a falling tide.’

  ‘I am not so very used to calculating the tides, Mrs James,’ said Heinrich in a pleasant conversational tone. ‘The Danube, close to where I live, is not tidal, so that I shall have to rely for this information upon your charming daughters.’

  ‘What’s your house like in Vienna?’ Tilda asked.

  ‘Oh, it’s a flat in the Franziskanerplatz, quite in the centre of things.’

  ‘What kind of things are you used to doing in Vienna?’ said Nenna. ‘If you’ve only got one day in London, we shall have to see what we can arrange.’

  ‘Oh, Vienna is an old city – I mean, everybody remarks on how many old people live there. So that although my native place is so beautiful, I am very much looking forward to seeing Swinging London.’

  ‘Heinrich has to stand here on the deck while you drone on,’ said Tilda. ‘He ought to be given a cup of coffee immediately.’

  ‘Oh, hasn’t he had breakfast?’

  ‘Ma, where are your shoes?’ asked Martha, drawing her mother aside and speaking in an urgent, almost tragic undertone. ‘You look a mess. From Heinrich’s point of view, you hardly look like a mother at all.’

  ‘I don’t know what his mother’s like. I know his father’s an old business acquaintance of Auntie Louise and Uncle Joel.’

  ‘His mother is a Countess.’

  Tilda had taken Heinrich below, and put a saucepan of milk on the gas for his coffee. To his dying day the young Count would not forget the fair hand which had tended him when none other had heeded his plight.

  ‘Why is your mother barefoot?’ Heinrich asked. ‘But I won’t press the query if it is embarrassing. Perhaps she is Swinging.’

  ‘Oh, you’ll get used to her.’

  A diplomat by instinct, Heinrich considered which of his twenty or thirty smaller European cousins Tilda most resembled. The Swiss lot, probably. His tone became caressing and teasing.

  ‘I shall have to take you back with me to Vienna, dear Tilda, yes, I’m sorry, I shan’t be able to manage without you, fortunately you’re so small they won’t miss you here and I can take you for a Glücksbringer.’

  Here he went astray, for Tilda did not at all like being so small. ‘Get outside this,’ she said, slamming the tin mug of coffee in front of him, and sawing away energetically at the loaf.

  With a faint smile the young Count turned to thank his saviour, while some colour stealed, stole, back into his pale cheeks.

  On deck, Martha and Nenna had been joined by Maurice, who had decided to consider himself on holiday, and had not been to the pub for several nights.

  ‘Who’s the boy-friend?’ he asked Martha.

  ‘He is the son of the friend of my aunt.’

  ‘Have it your own way. Pretty face, at all events.’

  ‘Maurice,’ said Martha. ‘Help me. I’m trying to get my mother to dress and behave properly.’

  It was just ten minutes to nine, and Richard walked by on his way up to World’s End to catch a bus to the office. Nenna thought, if he doesn’t look my way I’ll never speak to him again, and in fact I’ll never speak to any man again, except Maurice. But as he drew level with Grace Richard gave her a smile which melted her heart, and waved to her in a way entirely peculiar to himself, half way between a naval salute and a discreet gesture with the rolled umbrella.

  Maurice folded his arms. ‘Congratulations, Nenna.’

  ‘Oh, don’t say that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘God made you too quick-witted. I don’t know what’s happening to me exactly.’

  ‘Weak-mindedness.’

  ‘Self-reproach, really.’

  ‘What’s that, dear?’

  Martha left them, and went down the companion. Armed at all points against the possible disappointments of her life, conscious of the responsibilities of protecting her mother and sister, worried at the gaps in her education, anxious about nuns and antique dealers, she had forgotten for some time the necessity for personal happiness. Heinrich at first seemed strange to her.

  The three children sat round the table and discussed how they were to spend the day. Tilda, unwatched by the other two, shook out the packets of cereal, at the bottom of which small plastic tanks, machine-guns and images of Elvis had been concealed by the manufacturers. When she had found the tokens she shovelled back the mingled wheat and rye, regardless, into the containers.

  ‘You have no father, then, it seems, Martha,’ Heinrich said quietly.

  ‘He’s left us.’

  This was no surprise to Heinrich. ‘My father, also, is often absent at our various estates.’

  ‘You’re archaic,’ said Martha. Heinrich, while continuing to eat heartily, took her hand.

  ‘I really came to bring you a telegram,’ Maurice said. ‘I fetched it from the boatyard office.’

  ‘Did you, well, thank you, Maurice. I seemed to have missed some mail lately, my sister kept asking me whether I hadn’t received her letters.’

  ‘They have to take their chance with wind and tide, my dear, like all of us.’

  The telegram was from Louise. They’d arrived in London. They were at the Carteret Hotel and Nenna was to call her there as soon as possible.

  ‘Hullo, can I speak with Mrs Swanson? Hullo, is that Mr Swanson’s room? Louise, it’s Nenna.’

  ‘Nenna, I was just about to ring you on that number I called before, from Frankfurt.’

  ‘I’d as soon you didn’t ring there,
Louise.’

  ‘Why, is there anything wrong?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Is Edward with you, Nenna?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s what I anticipated. We want you to come and have lunch with us, dear.’

  ‘Look, Louise, why don’t I come over and see you both right away?’

  ‘Lunch will be more convenient, dear, but after that we’ve put the whole of the rest of the day aside to have a thorough discussion of your problems. There seems to be so much to be settled. Joel is of one mind with me about this. I mean of course about yourself and the little girls, the possibility of your returning to Halifax.’

  ‘It’s the first time you’ve ever even mentioned this, Louise.’

  ‘But I’ve been thinking about it, Nenna, and praying. Joel isn’t a Catholic, as you know, but he’s told me that he believes there’s a Providence not so far away from us, really just above our heads if we could see it, that wants things to be the way they’re eventually going. Now that idea appeals to me.’

  ‘Listen, Louise, I went to see Edward yesterday.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. Did he see reason?’

  Nenna hesitated. ‘I’m just as much to blame as he is and more. I can’t leave him with nothing.’

  ‘Where is he living?’

  ‘With friends.’

  ‘Well, he has friends, then.’

  ‘Louise, you mustn’t interfere.’

  ‘Look, Nenna, we’re not proposing anything so very sensational. I think we have to admit that you’ve tried and failed. And if we’re offering you your passage home, you and the children, and help in finding your feet once you get there, and a good convent school for the girls, so that they can go straight on with the nuns and won’t really notice any difference, well, all that’s to be regarded as a loan, which we’re very glad to offer you for an extended period, in the hopes of getting you back among caring people.’

  ‘But there are people who care for me here too, Lou. I do wish you’d come and see Grace.’

  ‘We must try and make time, dear. But you were always the one for boats – I’m always thankful to remember how happy that made father, the way you shared his feeling for boats and water. Tell me about your neighbours. Do you ever go and visit any of them?’