Her Victory

by Alan Sillitoe

  PART SIX

  Adrift

  1

  He packed the car as if it were a small boat in which they would be going around the world, with few ports of call from which to get provisions. He had filled an alphabetical notebook with lists of what was to be taken, and had assembled separate collections of cases, kitbags and cardboard boxes on the living-room floor. All feasible preparations had been made. At five in the morning he carried stores and luggage to the hall. He made many trips down the stairs, and needed no help.

  The last item put into the car was his sextant.

  ‘What do you want that for?’

  ‘The Lord only knows,’ he said. ‘But I’ll take it.’

  He was a star-gazer, but with his feet firmly on the earth. She did not ask when they would be coming back. He said they would be away some time. She replied that as far as she was concerned it could be for ever. Already boxed, the sextant was wedged with newspapers into a separate carton.

  I’ll go with you, she had said, adding that by so doing she would be accompanying herself like a jailer, because there was no other way to stay in the world and prevent a return to George. Once a change begins, alterations never stop. If you stop, you begin to retreat. You are lost. So no half measures. She liked that. She might find what she had always wanted, but which up to now she hadn’t known that she had wanted: a destination without salt or tears, wherever it might be. She was his ally in the adversity of having been born and, at her most tender, felt sensations that made all areas of love seem unexplored.

  She slept and dreamed till six o’clock. No sense in both of them getting up, he said. Stay awhile. She sank under water and earth, but could only clamber on to a gaudy fairground roundabout that spun too quickly and made her feel sick. The booth of the headless woman was flashed now and again into her sight. She rushed to the bathroom just in time. Childish to be so excited over a bit of travelling. You look like the miller’s daughter, her face said from the mirror, while she wondered what food of the last few days had made her vomit. A hand scraped around the inside of her stomach as she got on to her knees at the toilet bowl. She went back to bed till he called, and in her sleep knew she was dreaming, till she forgot there would ever be a time to wake.

  It looks as if we’ll need two cars, not one, to shift this lot, she had said. He kissed her. ‘It’ll fit in. Means a bit of judicious packing, that’s all. Balance the weight, to keep the car stable on turns and bends.’ He had already washed the car, and cleaned it inside. She got food, to last a few days. ‘There are restaurants,’ he said on seeing so much. ‘And cafés.’

  She had premonitions of being unable to find a hotel, of dusk creeping down on a road that ran through a gorge where they would stop the car and hear silence but for icy water speeding over rocks. The road was crumbling in places, dangerous to continue in such bleak twilight. Near a wide part of the road, too close to rushing water to feel easy, they would open the back of the car to get at the primus. While he erected the tent under a tree she would open a few tins and slice bread for an evening meal. Or she would put up the tent, and he would do the cooking. Wolfish noises would sound over local music plinking from the radio. But they’d fill mugs with red wine to swill down what they ate. They were on the road and the road led wherever they wanted it to, whether hairpin or straight. Day after day they would pay less attention to the tattered maps, and on parking by the roadside would notice a tin thrown away on last stopping at that spot. They were going round in circles, and would soon get weary. The moon would disappear, never to come back. They would not have the will to continue, nor the energy to return. There would be nowhere to go, and nothing to look for any more. They had been everywhere, yet had arrived at no recognizable destination. When wolves threatened, and it seemed death to take another step, the Wandering Jew would call to God and become strong again. Or would he?

  No hotels would accept them. They would park in a field and bed down in the car, no water to wash with and no food to speak of. The land, ordinary enough except when not pretty in its pastoral way, was inhospitable, and without accommodation. It would rain. The earth, smelling of soil and water, would soften into mud. The car would sink to its axles. They would get out. They had feet: they could walk. They had legs: they could abandon everything and move. With travellers’ cheques, even at walking speed, they would eat and pay their way. But they might lose the cheques, or be robbed in their sleep. Deprived of protection and sustenance, they’d be collected into a group of similarly bereft travellers and left to perish, or deliberately killed for what possessions they still had. They would die without anyone either knowing or caring. Or if they did know, the other people of the world would be glad they had been put out of the way, because they wouldn’t then be a bother with their problems any more. Yet if they were murdered they would cease to torment themselves, which would annoy the world even more, no matter how aggravated the world had been by their existence, because as long as they were present the world could torment them. You couldn’t win. They travelled, and had no country. What business had they to travel, and have no country into the bargain? If they had no country they shouldn’t travel. If they travelled they shouldn’t be without a country. If they stayed where they were they should move. If they moved they ought to have stayed where they were. The only answer was to have a country, and they would have one to hold forever, but at this moment, before the matter was rectified, they were chased through a forest in which it was muddy underfoot. The menacing breath of deadly hunters close behind was like the noise of an animal as high as the sky and about to pounce.

  He kissed her forehead. ‘My love, everything’s in. It’s a quarter past six.’

  She hadn’t slept well. On her various holidays it had been impossible to get much rest the night before departure, either going or coming. ‘Are we really leaving?’

  ‘We have tickets, passports, money and a loaded car. I seem to feel we are.’

  She sipped her coffee. ‘How’s the weather?’

  ‘The sea will be calm.’

  ‘I’ve never been on a ship.’

  ‘You’ll enjoy it. Can you eat scrambled eggs for breakfast?’

  ‘I’d rather have bread and jam. I feel queasy.’

  ‘Excited at leaving?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘So am I.’ But he wasn’t. All travelling was going home, and she was coming with him. It was as simple as that – on one level. Where they were going seemed hardly to concern either of them. The move couldn’t be said to matter to him, being part of his mechanism that no longer needed attention.

  They would get to the mainland and wander. She felt at peace with herself and in no way worried at what was to happen. She relinquished the knowledge that she loved him. The word had no meaning anymore. They were together, and she was free, hoping he felt the same.

  He drove carefully so as to accustom himself to the load. By eight o’clock they were half-way to Lewes. A letter on the table explained to Judy where the rubbish was to be put, how to work the central heating, and what ought to be eaten first from the provisioned refrigerator. He was systematic. The lists were prominent and legible. ‘It’s not much trouble,’ he said, ‘and makes life easier for everyone. Judy will be glad of them, I’m sure she will.’

  Could one live without advice, information and instructions – iron orders couched in the velvet glove of a request? She supposed not. She could figure no alternative to giving such help. Perhaps he knew Judy better than she ever could.

  A cheque for five hundred pounds lay on the piano top, and a note that his solicitor would pay her every month now that she was caretaking the flat. A van hired by him had been sent up to London to move her goods, and three railway tickets had been posted in a registered letter.

  When they had seen Judy in London and told her, she had not believed them. The argument was fierce, almost final, and she only agreed half an hour after they had stopped pleading for her to accept. It had been done because her ne
ed seemed great, as was that of the children. They would get something of what he and Pam had. With the monthly cash Judy would live without going out to work, or skiving (Tom had thought it diplomatic not to soften his words), and the children might enjoy the sea to the south and open country to the north. He would do what he could for them.

  Waiting at a traffic light in Folkestone, she noticed that his hand shook when he lit a cigarette, and touched his wrist. ‘It feels right to be on the move.’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘We should have met twenty years ago.’

  He frowned. ‘Why do you say that?’

  Youth was too sure of itself to think of the future, and middle age too despondent, but Tom reflected further that at fifty the possibility of endless time could be sensed, where it had formerly seemed hardly worth waiting for and living through. There was now a change, and if there was to be any time at all, and he felt there must be, it was to be reached by crossing a wilderness which his life of wandering had taught him how to sow and his spirit to make fertile.

  He found it impossible to define what had guarded him in years gone by, except to assume that there had been an unconscious and unassailable strength accompanying him on those journeys which had seemed no more than an end in themselves – everyday work encased by the discipline of a mariner’s certificate. There had been a purpose in all he had done by way of duty, and in what had happened by way of destiny.

  Life’s neat pattern had never allowed any escape, having shown that while no one was the master of his fate, some were the victims of their destiny in such a way that they were shown a fair distance towards what their fate had in any case ordained. He could, at the moment, think of it in no other way, merely claiming as a flourish to his reflections that since he had been a Jew without knowing it, the Wandering Jew must now take over in order to give purpose to his peregrinations, which he would pursue to that point where great circles and loxodromes converged at the centre of all graticules.

  ‘If we had met twenty years ago, I would have been younger for you,’ she said.

  Due to ambiguous signposting on the one-way system he made two attempts before getting into the harbour area, but then drove past the terminal buildings and joined a queue of cars. ‘It makes no difference,’ he replied. ‘If we had met then we wouldn’t have met when we needed each other most. It’s better this way. In two years we’ll be able to marry.’

  She had registered her separation from George with a solicitor, but wanted no more of matrimony. Having been poisoned once, she had found the drug to have terrible withdrawal symptoms. Tom did not see things the same way because he had never been married, and one of her reasons against it was because she did not want the responsibility of inflicting such a state on him.

  Sun bleached the car roofs. A man came limping up the line taking tickets, and sticking a number on each windscreen. He was stout and elderly, had a leathery face and pale blue eyes. Tom took out his RAC wallet of reservations, insurance vouchers and travellers’ cheques. ‘Hello, Brian!’

  The man, wearing a nautical jersey and cap, bent his head close to the window, and sounded as if he would have thrown in a few curses if a woman hadn’t been in the car when he growled: ‘How do you know my name?’

  She thought it wrong and uncharitable of Tom to play a joke on the man who was, after all, only trying to do his job on a hot day. ‘The first mate never forgets a face. Or a name. At least I didn’t. Sedgemoor, isn’t it?’

  ‘What’s it to you?’

  He mentioned a ship, then his own name. ‘In 1956. Don’t you remember?’

  Now he did. She had never seen a smile emerge from such unpromising features. Tom got out, and they shook hands. ‘Are you still painting by numbers? That “Mona Lisa” was very good, in my view.’

  Sedgemoor glanced at Pam. ‘I’ve got four kids to think about, Mr Phillips. It’s a different life nowadays, but I don’t regret the old one.’

  ‘You always did want a cushy billet! But I think I noticed a limp as you came up, didn’t I?’

  Sedgemoor winked, so that only Tom could see the huge lid close over his eye, and the gargoyle twist of his mouth – and the fist that indicated the apex of both legs. ‘It ain’t wood yet, though it ought to be. Gets harder to straighten, and no sawbones has got a remedy for it. One says this, and the other yaks on about that, but they all try something while it goes on getting worse. It does its main work, mind you, and between you and me, my missis don’t complain – though I’m getting to think as maybe she ought to!’

  ‘Then that’s all that matters,’ Tom said, having measured his drift.

  ‘Yes, but women are funny creatures, and don’t we know it, eh? When mine gets on to me I say: “Why did you marry me, then?” And she says: “Well, it was because I thought seafaring natures be very good for shorn lambs!” And she laughed, and I don’t deny she’s got something there!’

  Tom agreed that no one could. Meeting an old sailor was a pleasant way to see the time off while waiting for a boat to France.

  ‘Let me get your car out of this lot,’ Sedgemoor said after a while. ‘I don’t like to see you in a queue, Mr Phillips, especially when you’re going on holiday with your wife.’ He gave another wink, bent down to look inside the car. ‘You’ll be all right with Mr Phillips, missis. He was a good officer.’

  She smiled, and thanked him as he began motioning the car behind to get back and out of the line, but Tom declined. ‘We’ll find space, don’t you worry. I’ll look for you on the way in, and maybe we’ll have some time for a drink.’ He gave ten pounds to buy something for his children, and Sedgemoor, saying that duty called, went on to the next car whistling a lively tune, in spite of the obvious pain of his limp.

  Tom drove down the rattling gangway and into the ship. ‘I thought you were going to get into an argument,’ she said.

  He parked between lines of buses and lorries. ‘He was a good man to have on board. However much things change, you’ll always have his sort in the Service. A dirty old devil, but as good as gold. The Old Man once said that Sedgemoor looked as happy as the day was short. He certainly seems more contented now than he was then; but he was never as rough as he looked. Only hard. He’s the sort that if he hadn’t been a sailor would have been a rougher, perhaps brutal man. It was a case where the hard life had an opposite effect to what you’d imagine.’

  She felt he knew what he was talking about. He’d got on well with people like Sedgemoor. The open deck was crowded with people on day trips to Boulogne. A gull flew crying alongside, turning its head with button-eye to observe them. ‘You must feel good,’ Pam said.

  There were no vacant seats, and they stood by the rail to look at the town and cliffs. ‘It’s certainly a change being a passenger, with no work to do or decisions to make. I feel a bit like a log of wood, but it’s not unpleasant!’

  She carried some food, as well as her handbag, and he had the briefcase with money and papers. They walked the length of the ship, then queued for tobacco and drink from the duty-free shop. At the radio officer’s counter he wrote a telegram to book a one-night room at the Hôtel de L’Univers in Arras.

  ‘Do you remember the name?’

  ‘Does the place still exist?’

  ‘I checked it in the Michelin.’

  They were well out from land, but mist reduced visibility to a few hundred yards. Engines vibrated underfoot as if to remind her that she had cut herself loose. How long would it be before Tom seemed familiar? It had not yet happened. Her eyes looked from the middle of a stone that would never dissolve. To break out was to know him absolutely, but being on a ship emphasized how hard a move it would be. There was too much of him that she did not know, because there was so much of herself she had never known. Leaving the flat had robbed them of what familiarity they had gained.

  Did he feel the same, or was he more sure of himself, or less caring? Greater confidence diminished the importance of the problem. He assumed her attachment to him, and was
content with the quality of his to her. He had often set out from coastlines in his life, and on every occasion alone, so how did he view the present departure now that he had company? The newness of everything eased her speculations. She was new to herself, yet trusted to whatever might happen. She had accepted, and couldn’t swim back. As Sedgemoor had said, ‘He was a good man,’ though perhaps she had gambled at setting out with him. She repeated the word whenever another ship passed by. Every move you made in life was a gamble, big or small. Hard to know whether she had done right or wrong. The main thing was that she had done it. Yet she felt that leaving England with Tom was of absolutely no importance. It was impossible to explain. She could not regard it as in any way significant, being tired of considering every uttered word as vital, of looking on all her moves in a way that seemed crucial.

  There was less mist near the French coast. Buoys and breakwaters could be seen, and Tom was interested in observing the ship go in. Her resistance was breaking down. But resistance to what? The boat rocked faintly as it made a turn. Before the change that mattered, any resistance formed by the past must finally crumble away. When an announcement said they should return to their cars she followed him down the companionway.

  2

  Every car started at once, and their exhaust fumes made her feel sick, but when on the ramp and in the open air she felt better. They passed the police and customs posts, and drove by railway lines towards the town. He went with care, not heeding that cars behind wanted him to get a move on. ‘I’ll speed up when I’m used to this side of the road.’

  A red sports car, flat as a bug, shot out and overtook, and narrowly missed a French van coming the other way. ‘Probably going to Barcelona,’ Tom said, when they found the car waiting at the first set of traffic lights, ‘so you’d think the odd minute wouldn’t matter.’

  She could tell he was glad to get out of the built-up area. He felt his freedom. So did she, with the wide rising fields on either side. French cars came towards them like bullets along the tree-lined roads. Threading Montreuil, as he said, for the hell of it, he thought aloud that he had read of Sterne’s passing through on his somewhat sentimental journey, and hiring a servant there.