by Peter Rimmer
The pretty girl at the rail leaned over to look down. She had brown hair with a suggestion of red. Len was staring at her. As if she felt his stare she turned and looked at him. The girl had large brown, bedroom eyes that gave him a flash. Under the taut dress, Len thought there were large breasts. When she looked down again at the shore, she looked angry. Not at Len. At something she saw down below.
A girl had appeared from the customs shed to watch the ship sail. She stood behind the crowd. Len could see the girl was just as pretty as the angry girl who had now turned her back on the docks. Len speculated there was a connection between the two of them. The one on the dockside, even at a distance, was strangely familiar to Len. He had seen her before. It was the way she walked. Theatrical. Every movement a gesture.
The girl with the brown eyes flashed another look at Len which told him to mind his own business. How had she known what he was thinking?
At the top of the gangplank, the captain was shaking the hand of the last passenger. The first-class gangplank came away from the ship. When Len looked down to his right, the service gangplank had gone. The hawsers were being removed from the bollards at both ends of the ship. The band was playing ‘Land of Hope and Glory’. The ship’s horn let out three deafening blasts. The passengers were all at the rails, some holding paper chains that ran down the side of the ship to friends below.
The third-class passengers were shouting obscenities to their friends on shore. The girl at the back of the crowd had gone. Len looked for her. The pretty girl near to him had also gone.
A gap appeared between ship and shore. Len saw clear water looking down. The band played ‘God Save the King’. Everyone on the ship and shore came to attention.
By the time he reached the seamen’s quarters in the bowels of the ship, they were at sea.
“Len Merryl. I’ll be damned.”
It was Ben Willard. From the Runnymede. Len had never expected to see him again. They shook hands. At least they both had one friend on a strange ship. It was a good feeling for both of them.
“I want to see Teresa again. Remember the girl in Cape Town? Ancestors came from Java. Slaves of the Dutch. Don’t you remember her, Len?”
“I don’t think so,” lied Len. He was jealous. He thought she had only smiled at him.
“You said you were staying in England. Runnymede was your last voyage.”
“My sister’s in Rhodesia. I’m going to join her. And Mildred.”
“Who’s Mildred?”
“She’s my cousin.”
“How was home?”
“Terrible, Ben. They didn’t even know I was there.”
“Didn’t ask you nothin’ where you’d been?”
“Not a word.”
“Not good. We have two days in Cape Town. The ship’s half cargo and half passengers. Takes two days to unload cargo for Cape Town and take on new. Did you know we’ve got the owner on board?”
“So that was it. Saw him come on board. Why captain was waiting at the top of the gangplank. Who is he?”
“Grandson of the Pirate, they called him. Some did, anyway. The grandson has a farm in Rhodesia where he wants to live. Inherited all that money and not wanted. No telling people. Shot down twenty-three Germans in the war. Came over to fight for us. Came back when he inherited the shipping line. Now he’s going back home. They say there’s something about Africa that makes you go back again.”
“I hope so.”
“You plannin’ staying in Africa?”
“That’s my plan. I signed on as far as Beira. Lucky, I was. A bloke of another Empire Castle ship fell sick in Beira. Yellow fever. Put ’im ashore. Now he’s okay. He’ll take my place back ’ome through the Suez Canal. Lucky, I was. I get paid for going where I want to go. Just pay for the train trip from Beira to Salisbury.”
From the third-class rail, standing back from the paper chain throwers, Mervyn Braithwaite had also watched Harry Brigandshaw come on board. Then he had gone down to the cabin he shared with seven other men. Not even his mother would have recognised him. The face that some said looked like a codfish was covered in facial hair. Ever since Harry had threatened to kill him if he went to Africa he had stopped shaving. The beard had not even been trimmed. For the record of Empire Castle, he was John Perry, emigrating to South Africa to work on the mines in Johannesburg. He had even lied on the forms about having a job with the Serendipity Mining and Explosives Company. The forgery had been simple. He had got the company letterhead printed and written himself a job offer. The South Africans wanted white people on the mines even if the miners were threatening to go on strike. The forged passport and birth certificate were only a little more difficult. Money could buy anything.
No one had even bothered to check his luggage. He was going out of England not coming in. His Webley service revolver was safe in the battered suitcase he had bought in London on the Portobello Road.
This time he swore to himself he was going to kill Harry Brigandshaw and make no mistake. The two women he had seen on the gangplank would also have to die. The thought made him powerful. He wanted to stare into their eyes before he shot them. It did not matter he did not know their names. They were with Brigandshaw. When they caught him, he would go back into the Banstead asylum. They would never hang him. The British never made a bad fuss about their war heroes. Later, when it all quietened down, they would let him out again.
The suitcase with the gun was safely under the bottom bunk he had quickly claimed as his own. No one would ever call him Fishy Braithwaite again. Not even in their minds.
He lay back on his bunk of happiness.
Shortly after, a passenger came into the cabin with hand luggage.
“Hello? I’m John Perry. They called me Johnny in the army. You in the war, cock?”
The man looked at him in amazement. The first part had been spoken with a posh accent. The second in cockney. The man backed out of the door taking his luggage. He was shivering. He had looked into Fishy Braithwaite’s eyes and seen the madness.
The man found the second purser on the lower deck and changed his cabin.
“There’s a bloke down there who’s bloody nuts.”
The purser, used to complaints, gave the man another berth. So far as the purser was concerned, anyone travelling in an eight-berth cabin was nuts. He thought no more about the incident. The man who wanted his berth changed was lucky. There were only a few left.
Brett Kentrich was feeling miserable when she caught the train that would take her back to London alone, not sure if she had made the biggest mistake of her short life. Now he had gone he was far more important to her. Everything was suddenly nothing. Hollow. Mrs Schneider’s training and the musical were just what they were. Not the great desire they had been yesterday. A West End star in waiting could still be unhappy.
“Aren’t you Brett Kentrich?” A well-dressed woman was smiling at her from the seat opposite. They were both travelling first class. “I saw you in that Somerset Maugham play. You are very good.”
Brett felt instantly better for being recognised. She smiled deferentially at the woman as she was meant to do. The train began talking to her through the rails. Taking her back. She was going to be famous. Really famous. The rhythm of the train repeated and repeated itself. She was numb. She hoped it mattered more than being happy on a farm in Rhodesia. She could feel the ship sailing away from her. Brett forced herself not to cry. She knew she would never sing again on a hop-covered veranda to Harry Brigandshaw, however famous she became.
In her mind, she saw Tina Pringle leaning over the rail looking down at her. If she had known that bitch was on the boat she would have changed her mind. The bitch was after Harry. Why else would she be on the boat? Justine Voss was no kind of competition. Tina Pringle had power over men.
“Brett, you can still come.”
They had been inside the customs shed.
“I don’t have a ticket.”
“You do have your passport? You just got one.”
“I’m not sure, Harry. I want to be in the show. Oscar Fleming says I’ll be a sensation.”
“I’m sure you will, Brett.”
“You put up so much money for the show.”
“My present to you, Brett. Well, not really. It’ll run for a year and treble my money. You know that better than me.”
“It is good. Thank you, Harry. Have a wonderful trip. I’ll write. I promise you. Tell me how big the baby giraffes are grown. I love you, Harry.”
“You’re far too young to love anyone but yourself. I mean that in the nicest way, Brett. At your age, love the world. Not the hope of one man who is too old for you. Have a good life, Brett. And thank you.”
“Are you all right, Miss Kentrich?” It was the woman in the carriage.
“I’m a damn fool.”
“Darling, we all are.”
The theatrical columns of the London newspapers had been full of The Golden Moth. The star of the musical was splashed across the pages. Everyone in London knew Harry Brigandshaw had put up the money to make Brett a leading lady on the West End stage… The war hero and the showgirl. Love had returned after the tragedy of his wife’s death. The resurrection. The great wealth of Colonial Shipping. Not wanting the job or the wealth. Going home to the heart of Africa. A new, shining Africa where Englishmen were going to remove the darkness so tellingly described by Joseph Conrad… It was a publicist’s dream and it worked. Even before the opening night, the Drury Lane theatre was booked solid for weeks. The fact Harry Brigandshaw was going home before the opening night made the drama of love that much more poignant. The voice would sing to him across the water, all the way to the heart of darkest Africa. It had made Oscar Fleming tremble with the pleasure of greed.
Tina Pringle, reading it all, had been jealous of Brett’s success far more than Brett’s relationship with Harry Brigandshaw. With all her social success, with all the photographs of her in the social press, Tina knew her world would never shine so bright as Brett Kentrich. Even for a moment.
Barnaby had been his usual selfish self. The papers had gushed at his magnanimity towards his father. Everyone she knew toasted his generosity. Even CE Porter gave lip service to the lie. Barnaby had bought himself a small townhouse in Mayfair. They said one day soon he would be a millionaire with the stock markets of the world rising every week. He was above her. He ignored her in public.
“I’m going home.”
“To Dorset?”
“Don’t be a fool. Africa. Johannesburg is my home.”
“Don’t be a fool, Tina. Corfe Castle and that little railway cottage along the river. That is your home.”
“You really are a snob, Barnaby. A fraud and a snob. You’ll come a cropper one day.”
“You wish, Tina. People never come a cropper when they are rich. Father’s story in the papers has put me beyond reproach.”
“One day you’ll crawl back to me.”
“You go on off to Africa. Why don’t you go back on the SS Corfe Castle? Did you know Harry named the new ship after my family’s first home? The one Cromwell tore down. To remember Lucinda. I thought it rather a nice touch. Has its maiden voyage at the end of the month. Harry will be sailing. Rumour has it that rather plain Justine Voss and her mother are taking the same trip. To look for her father’s gravestone or something. What on earth is she going to do with a gravestone even if she finds it?”
“You really are very nasty, Barnaby.”
“We’re exactly the same, Tina. Never forget that. Have a good trip. You will excuse me now, won’t you? I want to talk to that man over there about his company. His accounts are due out next month. I want to know whether to buy or sell his company shares. Now be a good girl and run along… How’s your mother?”
They had stood and glared at each other for a good ten seconds.
Tina had taken an outer cabin in first class without even telling Harry Brigandshaw. It was going to be her surprise. Early in the morning, turning her back on Brett Kentrich from on board the ship had given her pleasure. Seeing the girl had made her angry. The pleasure had come a moment later from Brett seeing her up on deck. Even from the distance across the dockside, she was well aware Brett Kentrich would have liked to scratch out her eyes. She doubted Brett had known she was travelling on the same boat as her darling Harry… Being a bitch was such a pleasure.
She was going to wait until evening before coming out of the cabin. Then she would make the grand entrance into the dining room in her new evening dress that would stop them all dead in their tracks. She liked making a room full of women jealous… She was going to have one more go at bowling over Harry Brigandshaw. The very idea made her want to have sex.
After that spat with Barnaby and when she dressed for dinner, she had worked it all out in her mind. They would live in England. There was no point in being rich in Rhodesia. Nobody would see her. Nobody would envy what she had. They would live in a fine house in Mayfair. Regularly go to the theatre to be seen. Especially by Brett Kentrich from the stage. They would eat supper in the right restaurants. At weekends they would host wealthy friends at Hastings Court where all the rooms would again be in use. They would buy a villa in the South of France. Once every now and again she would allow Harry to take the Prince of Wales and his friends on safari to Africa while she would stay at home and have some fun behind his back. The thought of her infidelities made her quite dizzy… Never even once would Barnaby St Clair ever forget who she was, the lady of the manor.
Dorset and Purbeck Manor were backwaters. Hastings Court was only twenty miles south of London. Later, much later, she would have two children. To bind her marriage for later in life when her power of sex over men had left her.
She had it all worked out. To hell with Brett Kentrich and The Golden Moth. Long after the theatre had forgotten Brett she would be rich and famous. A hostess to whom everyone in London deferred. Later manipulating grande dame.
She looked at the diamond watch she had bought for herself. She was nicely ten minutes late for the captain’s cocktail party that preceded the opening ball in the first-class lounge.
In her mind’s ear, she could actually hear the music.
The dress caused an audible gasp as she stepped forward to shake the captain’s hand. She was no longer a flapper. Gone was the bodice that strapped her together to look like a boy. Gone was the pencil dress that illuminated her curves. If she had jumped down from the roof from the chandelier it would have caused no less of a sensation.
The man in Paris had smiled his approval but not at Tina’s body that spoke sex louder than words. The dress designer was queer; preferred young boys. His smile had only been for the red dress he had made from silk that flowed from the sumptuous breasts he was going to show to the world. There were no shoulder straps to see. Flawless skin all the way up from the bosom that pushed from the top of the dress. The dress was showing off the body, not the other way round. He had dressed Tina Pringle in the antithesis of the current London fashion.
Even the captain was unable to avert his eyes from the largest breasts in the room, abundant, glorious and both on full display in front of his popping eyes.
“Madam, will you join me at my table for dinner?” said the captain, leaning forward to kiss her hand and to get a better look down her dress.
Inside her head, Tina was screaming with laughter at the dirty old man. He was sixty to a day. White beard, white mutton-chop whiskers. And a belly the size of a large wobbly balloon.
“Captain, it will be my pleasure,” she said, giving him a smile she knew would go straight to his genitals.
“Till later, Miss Pringle. Welcome on board for the maiden voyage of SS Corfe Castle. I trust you will have a pleasant journey on the great high seas… You are alone, Madam?”
“I’m afraid so, Captain.” This time her smile was sweet and innocent.
All the time she was giving her performance, Tina was looking for Harry Brigandshaw who was nowhere to be seen. Within seconds she was surr
ounded by the ship’s officers trying their luck. She went on smiling at them all. Enjoying herself. A place at the captain’s table would give her a position of strength for the rest of the voyage. Even Harry would be her captive audience at mealtimes. Smugly, she flirted with each of the officers in turn, knowing that in her cabin were different dresses for every night of the voyage, all as provocative as the one on display.
As luck would have it, the Bay of Biscay was as calm as a millpond though Tina was unaware of the luck. The orchestra was good. The ship full of admiring men. For the first time in her life, she was the total and absolute centre of everyone’s attention.
Len Merryl had been sent to first class now all the passengers were congregated at the captain’s cocktail party. The rich, Len found, were mostly contemptuous and trod out their cigarettes on the deck. Only a few used the sand-filled ashtrays at intervals around the deck, the deck where the rich old farts, as Len thought of them, took their constitutional before going off to drink themselves silly and stuff themselves with the rich food that in Lambeth would feed a whole family for a month. The orchestra was playing medleys from the West End shows, invisible men in evening dress pulling their bows and playing the trumpet as much ignored as Len outside on the deck pushing his broom. Len could watch through the windows from the deck. The windows followed the first-class lounge and dining room around the ship that was ploughing its way through the sea, the bows making waves down the side of the ship.
There was no one else on deck and Len stopped his work to look down over the rail at the black sea. He stood with his back to a cupboard that housed the fire hoses and the deckchairs he had begun to put away for the night. Len was melancholy. Sad for leaving England. Apprehensive for what he would find.