The Fisherman's Girl

by Maggie Ford

  His arm tightened about her shoulder. ‘It’s not at all trivial. But it’s not unique, my dear. Many young women, and young men, fresh out from England feel as you do.’ ‘But not for as long. Alex adjusted well.’

  ‘He has his work.’

  ‘And I’m supposed to have the social life, make friends, but I don’t seem to have adjusted at all. It’s me, I know: but everything’s been such a huge disappointment. And it’s not just the Anglo-Indians.’ She used the old colonial words for the British in India. ‘I’ve been here a while now and I’ve met no Indians beyond the servants and they only try to ape us. Everything is so false, everyone pretending they’re part of India. But they’re not. The truth of it is, I’ve seen nothing of the real India beyond gazing out of a railway carriage or from a tonga. I see it passing by but I’m not part of it, and I thought I would be.’

  ‘You haven’t missed much,’ he said.

  ‘I think I have. In a way I feel a little cheated. I don’t feel I belong anywhere. I’m so lonely, even with the friends I have made. Alex just doesn’t see it. He doesn’t understand. I miss him. I miss his company, not just his, but any company. We go to friends and have tea. I meet them in the club. I play bridge and golf and bowls – I’m no good at tennis – but I never seem to have company. I don’t know if you understand what I’m trying to say.’

  He did understand. The firmness with which he held her told her so. There’d been no need to say as much in words, but he said it nevertheless.

  ‘May I be your company?’

  Made desolate by all she had said, Annie nodded. She so desperately wanted someone close and Alex was never there; when he did come, apart from making love in bed, he treated her casually, his mind taken up with other things around him, his work, his enjoyment of the social life. Annie needed a closeness of companionship and she wasn’t getting it and it was slowly destroying her. Automatically she let Ansley kiss her again, let him slip the straps of her dress, his hand gentle against her breast, and this time no panic came rushing into her head at all, not even thoughts.

  It had gone on from there. And now when Alex did not appear, it was Ansley who visited her, became her lover, and it did not matter any more that she and Alex lay together in their bed only to sleep those odd weekends when he could find time to come up to Simla. He said often how pleased and relieved he was to see her so cheerful and independent and went back to his office in Jalapur with good heart, leaving her to long for the next weekend of his non-appearance when Ansley would take over his role of lover. And so clever was he at visiting her that no one knew about it.

  Now the heat down on the plain was beginning to slacken its fierce grip and up here in Simla the nights were getting chillier. Monsoon clouds were gathering to the south and before long it would be time to pack up and leave for another year. A few more weeks yet with Ansley. She didn’t want it to end, felt the heaviness of losing him, for she couldn’t imagine this carrying on with Alex home every night, nor did she want clandestine meetings and shabby intrigue, yet she felt she was in love with Ansley, who was so kind and gentle and understanding, not at all like Alex. What would she do back in Jalapur without Ansley to visit her? But it had been a wonderful summer.

  All summer Danny’s thoughts had been on nothing but Lily – all to no good.

  All the while he stood at the window at the rear of the dilapidated wooden cockle shed, leaning on the little counter with its basins of cockles and its string of cotton bags and its salt and pepper pots and its vinegar bottle and little saucers to hold a portion of cockles for eating on the spot, he looked among the Sunday summer visitors for her in case she might come by. He lay awake at nights pining for her. He should have married her, found a nice little house for themselves and let Mum and Dad get on their own way. It needn’t have been far away so he’d have been within shouting distance if they’d needed him. Then common sense would raise its merciless head: him trying to keep himself and Lily and them? He could never have done both. His marriage would have descended into arguments, disruption. But she shouldn’t have walked out on him. If that’s what she was like …

  Yet still he pined for her, cursed the fate that had parted them, traced that fate right back to the night of his father’s boat going up in flames, and, like reading a book, followed its progress forward to the day Dick Bryant appeared on that mound of cockle shells as Dad was traversing the springy board with his load of cockles on his shoulders. And as with his dad, Danny felt the hatred rise up inside him against Dick Bryant. But for him he would have Lily for his wife and a nice little house and even a family on the way, his and Lily’s child.

  Word had come to him that she was seeing some other chap, going steady with him. It hurt. All the time he went out with his mates to dances, cinemas, playing football on Sunday mornings if the tide was in and he wasn’t working, it hurt. He didn’t so much as glance at any other girl these days. Because a lot of his mates were going out with girls, one seriously, the rest on casual dates, he was urged to snap out of it, ribbed, even downright derided. ‘All this once-bit-twice-shy, lark,’ he was teased jovially, but he’d grin and let it slide like water off a duck’s back. It wasn’t easy to find another girl after Lily. He didn’t want a girl anyway. Girls! They weren’t worth it. Throw you over soon as look at you!

  Sunday marked the end of the schools’ summer break. The kids were all going back tomorrow and London families were coming down for a last glimpse of the sea on the cheap. Special cheap trains were scheduled to catch the last end-of-season punters, and he was having his work cut out selling cockles as fast as he could. All the sheds were doing a good trade, but in a month’s time there’d be hardly anything.

  Connie was helping, home for once instead of visiting with her young man the vicar – Ian something-or-other – as she had been doing every other Sunday. She’d finally got over Ben.

  Today Josie too was helping behind the counter, her pretty face and flying fair hair helping to drum up trade from the young lads who came to ogle her. Her Arthur ought to have been here to see it but he was laid up with an attack of summer flu, otherwise no boys would have been allowed to whistle and ogle Josie. Still, she was making a bit of money for herself. She’d had a casual job this summer waitressing in a seafront café in Southend, but that had finished, and nothing else seemed in the offing. Danny hoped she’d get a job soon. With hundreds of girls all after the same ones if they came up, no one stood much of a chance.

  ‘I’ll take a sixpenny bag, please.’ He hardly glanced at his customer as he measured the pint of cockles into a bag for her. It was only her lively voice that made him look up as she added. ‘Thank you very much,’ as though it only just hid a merry laugh.

  Blue eyes dark as a tropical summer ocean met his, half querying his gaze, then looked away as she took the bag he passed to her, dropping her money into the palm of his hard hand.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said again and the lightness of her tone prompted a small leaping sensation in the depth of his chest. But she was already on her way, moving with a swift springy walk.

  Danny moved on an impulse that he himself did not quite understand nor pause to interpret.

  ‘Look after this lot,’ he called to Connie, leaving her standing as he sprinted after the retreating figure. He caught her up several yards along the path that ran beside other sheds, all surrounded by people.

  ‘I say!’ She turned. He came to a stop beside her, swallowed hard to catch his breath. ‘You forgot your change.’

  How he’d thought of that one he had no idea. They were the first words to spring to his lips, and it was only then that he realised she had given him the right money. Now he had to bluster his way out of that.

  ‘I … I thought … I thought you’d given me a shilling.’

  ‘No, I gave you sixpence.’

  ‘Oh, did you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She wasn’t pretty. Why had he thought she was? Infact she had quite a plain face, square, no make-up, st
raight mousy hair pulled severely back. What was the matter with him? But no, it was those eyes, large, wide-spaced and an incredible dark blue. They held his gaze.

  ‘It was specially nice of you to run after me like that’. And that voice, as though laughter had been caught up in it. ‘But I assure you it was six …’

  ‘I’ve not seen you here before,’ he blurted. The pounding against his ribs hadn’t ceased. Yet there was nothing about her to inspire. She was thin rather than slim, of average height, her complexion showing the pallor of one whose work was predominantly indoors. Her clothes were far from fashionable or even alluring: severe white blouse, burgundy skirt and – despite the warm day – cardigan, serviceable flat shoes, and now he noticed the rimless spectacles that hung from her neck by a slim black cord, obviously used only for reading.

  She was smiling. ‘I expect there are quite a few people you don’t see more than once.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said, then hurried on without thinking, ‘but I don’t always notice other people. I mean …’ What did he mean? ‘I s’pose it was your eyes. I’ve never seen eyes so dark blue before.’

  She dropped her gaze, coyly it seemed. One hand came up to worry the spectacles lying against her chest, a small chest he noticed, which three years ago would have been all the rage but which now merely looked prim.

  ‘If that’s a compliment, thank you,’ she said quietly.

  ‘No, I meant it.’

  ‘Still, thank you.’ Her voice was light. She seemed to say ‘thank you’ an awful lot.

  ‘I really am serious.’ He was fumbling for words, wondering at this inane urge to keep her here talking. ‘I was just wondering, now you’ve been here, will you be coming here again?’

  She shook her head. ‘I’m afraid I seldom have the time to come this far. I teach, you see. A primary school in Prittlewell.’

  ‘Prittlewell’s not all that far away.’

  ‘Most days I get off are spent marking school work and preparing work for the next day. It often takes up much of my weekend as well, and when I do get time for myself, I just spend it quietly reading and relaxing.’

  It sounded bloody boring. Danny felt himself squirm at her idea of a life. ‘Don’t you ever take a holiday? Like a summer holiday?’

  ‘Not really.’ They had begun to walk on, side by side, dawdling. ‘I’m only a primary school teacher. I don’t earn enough for holidays. Now and again I go to London, to an art gallery or the museums, and treat myself to lunch somewhere.’

  ‘Where d’you live?’ He was beginning to grow sorry for her. Not much of a life. Yet she seemed happy enough.

  ‘I’ve a furnished room not far from the school.’

  He was surprised. ‘I thought you might live with your parents.’

  ‘I’m an orphan.’ She gave a small smile. ‘If you can call someone my age an orphan.’

  He had judged her to be around twenty-five, but the way she voiced that afterthought made her sound as if she saw herself more as forty though he guessed she was really trying to make the impact of being without parents. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said hurriedly, trying to sound sympathetic.

  ‘No, not at all. I’ve never had parents. At least, I don’t know who my father was. My mother died when I was born. I was put in an orphanage.’.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. It sounded as repetitive as her thank-yous.

  ‘It’s all right.’ She shrugged and smiled. ‘I’ve a good job – something to be grateful for these days. And I have somewhere to live.’

  ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’

  ‘I get little time for meeting anyone, and all my fellow teachers, the male teachers, are married.’

  ‘I was wondering … if you like …’ Danny broke off abruptly, an inexplicable eagerness mingling quite unannounced with his pity for her sort of life. But he felt compelled to finish what he’d begun to say, though now he was stammering. ‘Could I … if you like … I mean … do you have any time for yourself to be, well, taken out for an evening?’ She had stopped walking, was gazing up at him. ‘I mean, would you like me to take you out?’ The last came out in a frantic gabble. He almost wanted to add, I’m sorry, again, but he merely stood looking down at her, seeing the sunlight shining in her eyes making the blue much lighter.

  Her lips came together as she contemplated him. He saw her lower her eyes. And then she said slowly, ‘Yes, I’d like that. Thank you.’

  ‘I don’t know your name.’ He felt suddenly bolder, self-assured.

  ‘Holly.’ She gave another of her light laughs. ‘The orphanage – I was born a week before Christmas, you see. Orphanages are like that, all for the appropriate name.’

  He laughed with her. ‘Mine’s Daniel. But my dad’s Daniel as well. The father’s name is usually passed on in Leighmen’s families like ours. I’m known as Danny, but my dad’s known as Dan. He was a cockler – a cockle picker. But he don’t work now. He can’t. He had an accident.’

  Before he knew it he was relating half his family history. He also realised all at once that he was gabbling too much about his family and she had none. He stopped, reverting to his first enquiry. ‘When can I take you out? What about next Saturday, say around three o’clock?’ His fisherman’s mind had already calculated the tides a week ahead, when the Saturday afternoon would be no good for his work and the cockles all boiled and bagged.

  ‘I could meet you here, on this spot.’ He looked around. Talking as they walked, they’d left the cockle sheds well behind, and had already reached the High Street, the small square building of Leigh Station looming. His house was at the other end. He didn’t want to go further.

  ‘That would be very nice,’ she said. Her eyes held an eager look. ‘I’ll be here, I promise. I must go now. My train for Southend, you see. And then I get a bus. Goodbye then.’

  He watched her go. She walked quite briskly. His heart felt light as her cheerful goodbye repeated itself over and over in his head. Summer had taken on a brightness he hadn’t noticed all season and he found himself already longing for Saturday to arrive.

  Saturday found him waiting at the appointed place in a fever of panic. Would she turn up? It had occurred to him sometime during the week how well spoken she had been, how far above him in education, and now he cringed. She had probably thought herself above the likes of him and had decided he wasn’t worth turning up for. But he hadn’t taken her for that kind of girl, she hadn’t been at all offended by his rushing after her; not at all stuck up. But a person couldn’t always go on first impressions …

  ‘Hello! It is Danny, isn’t it?’

  He spun round to the voice, such relief taking hold of him that it was hard to resist an impulse to grab her to him. Instead he stood there politely smiling and resisting a second impulse to reply that she had turned up then.

  ‘I’m glad you came,’ he managed.

  She was smiling too, ‘I promised to, Danny. Besides, I wanted to.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said inadequately, then lapsed into silence.

  He saw her look down at the gloves she wore. They were white. They matched her sandals. She was wearing a blue summer dress with white flowers on it. Her handbag and her small cloche were white as well. She looked trim and efficient, her glasses dangling on their thin cord. He was beginning to feel just slightly intimi dated as the hiatus began to extend itself. A little desperately he searched for something to say.

  ‘How was school?’ It struck him as a stupid question, but she tilted her head a fraction, a little wearily he thought, leaving him wondering if she really liked her job.

  ‘It went quite well,’ she replied. As though by some unspoken mutual decision, they’d begun to wander in the direction of Benfleet. ‘The first week is always a bit of an anxiety,’ she continued. ‘New term, new faces, the new class trying to assess how far they can go in playing their teacher up. One has to walk quite a tightrope for the first few weeks.’ She spoke so easily.

  Having started, she was proving to be a good conv
ersationalist to the relief of Danny, who’d imagined it becoming something of a strain getting to know each other. He’d even had visions of them saying goodbye at the end of their day, going off in their own directions never to meet again. It wasn’t at all like that. By the end of the day, she’d told him all about herself, and he about his life as a cockle picker and almost all of his family history.

  When the time came to take her to her bus stop, he felt he had known her all his life. It was almost a foregone conclusion to meet the next Sunday, and again after that. In fact, it was she who suggested popping on a bus to see him on odd evenings after school. ‘It’s only a hop,’ she’d said lightly.

  So the month went by. Of course there was a distinct difference in their education, her diction way above his own local one, yet she seemed not to notice, or if she did, it didn’t appear to concern her. It was obvious that she derived pleasure telling him things he’d not known before, but he didn’t mind. It was funny to watch her eyelids blink rapidly in the joy of imparting these snippets. He in turn entertained her with knowledge of marine shore life, the set of tides, wind directions and weather signs. She’d listen avidly as though storing it all away in that filing cabinet of her teacher’s brain.

  It did occur to him how much they did converse, hardly stopping for breath, often cutting across each other’s words, neither of them being put out by it. It was a common bond; one, it went through his mind, that would hold a marriage together where most couples only ever had anything to say if it had to do with what the kids had said, how naughty they’d been, what he wanted for dinner, or she needed more money for housekeeping.

  Danny smiled as he imagined him and Holly married, talking on a much higher level, maybe even while they were engaged in something far more urgent, such as making love …

  He stopped thinking suddenly to realise that his mind had actually formed the words, marriage and making love. On the strength of that, on their next date he had kissed her as they parted company, the first time he’d ever ventured to do so. She had kissed him back, her arm coming up about his neck to hold his lips against hers that much longer. And Danny knew that the word, marriage, that had crept into his head had real substance after all.