He chuckled, telling her something of his early days aboard refrigerated cargo ships on the Australian coast. Ships then had spent weeks in every port. To Zoe it sounded like an endless round of parties and fishing trips, and races back to the ship after being ashore all night.
‘But the work was hard – long trips and not much home leave – and all for the princely sum of a few pounds a week!’
He laughed, but then went on more wistfully, ‘When I was a lad, you’d see red ensigns by the score in every port of the world. But all that’s finished now, the Merchant Navy’s finished. It’s been dying, quietly, for all sorts of reasons. Greed, selfishness, government inaction – you name it. And if it’s not dead already, it’s on its last gasp. Just pray there’s never another Falklands, Zoe — because if there is, the government will be hard-pressed to find a fishing boat to supply the Fleet!’
Resenting the fact that he had to go back to a job that was no longer what it had been, Stephen seemed to feel the need to talk it out of his system. Pressing his hand, Zoe let him carry on. She had heard the good side: now, when he was feeling low, she might hear the less attractive aspects, and know him better.
She heard tales of redundancies and enforced retirements, junior officers who were forced ashore in search of whatever other employment they could find. Old-established shipping companies giving up general cargo in favour of container fleets, road haulage, even travel companies selling holidays in the sun. She heard of takeovers by foreign entrepreneurs, British crews ousted by cheaper crews from the Far East. And a few die-hard British companies who ceased to be ship-owners in favour of being ship-managers, managing for foreign-flag consortia registered in the world’s tax havens.
‘They’re no more than box-numbers in places like the Bahamas and Hong Kong. They run ships registered in Liberia and Panama. And they employ people like me. I’m a mercenary these days,’ he added with a touch of defensive arrogance, ‘working for whoever pays best. And it’s a buyer’s market out there, Zoe, which is why I don’t argue too strongly when I get phone calls like the one I had tonight.
‘If I’d refused to go, they might have said okay, and gone on to the next name on the list. They might have given me another call in a couple of months’ time – but there again, they might not. I can’t take that risk – not if I want to go on working for them.’
‘Is it so bad,’ she asked, ‘that you wouldn’t get a job elsewhere?’
‘Oh, no – I’d find another job with another company, all right. But I doubt the pay would be as good. And from what I hear, the conditions could well be a bloody sight worse. At least I know this bunch. They might be tough, but they’re not likely to go under.’
There was tension in him, and an ambivalence Zoe found difficult to understand. She wanted to say: ‘If you hate it so much, why do it? Why not give up, and find something else?’ He had no dependants, and apart from his car, Stephen’s tastes were not extravagant, his lifestyle modest without being miserly. She would not have said that money was particularly important to him, yet with regard to his job, it obviously was. A flash of insight made her suspect that it was part of the hate: if I have to do it, he might have said, I’ll get the best rate there is.
But did he have to do it? She was back to her original question. Perhaps, beneath the resentment, love still existed, desire still burned, as in a failing marriage. The sea had been his first love, and more than that, his refuge; it must be hard to admit that the relationship was over. Stephen Elliott, Zoe began to realize, was a man who liked to succeed, and that might be a clue to his relationship with her. With one broken marriage behind him, he was not about to place himself in a position to lose again.
The road would not have been easy, she reflected, stealing a glance at that uncompromising profile, even if Stephen’s career had kept him in York, but to have him regularly away, and for five or six months at a time, made it hard indeed. Surveying the boulders of his fixed ideas, the chasms of widely differing experience, for a moment Zoe was swamped by gloom. But then she comforted herself with the thought that she had always enjoyed a challenge, and her success so far had not been won without taking chances. To let him go without a fight would be foolish, but to prove him wrong would be no easy task. Suddenly, however, Zoe wanted to do just that.
The broad acres of North Yorkshire became Cleveland, and from a raised section of motorway Zoe saw Teesport spread out before her like a glittering, spangled carpet. Black night, black sea, and as they drew closer, the man-made mystery of piers and refineries; shadows and shining steel, massive storage tanks bearing the legends of half a dozen oil companies; ships alongside, funnels lit up, decks that were pools of light. There was excitement here and an air of romance which defied the cold commercial heart of it. Merchant ships, by their very definition, Stephen might have said, were always commercial, yet Zoe could not have been more thoroughly besotted had those prosaic, unlovely vessels been a group of clipper ships or four-masted schooners.
Where are they going? What oceans will they cross? What sights will they see? The questions, unuttered, filled her head. This was Stephen’s world, and with that first glance she both envied and pitied him, beginning to understand the feelings that drew him back to sea, time after time. Like a lover to a fickle mistress, she thought, pressing his hand.
He slipped an arm around her shoulders, leaning across to peer out of the window, trying to get his bearings. There was a light in his eyes which spoke of a challenge accepted, a firmness of speech as he addressed the driver, which held nothing of regret.
From its funnel Stephen was able to identify the ship coming in, but it took their driver some time to find the entrance to the oil terminal. It was almost half-past one when they arrived, with no sign of Mac and Irene. No sign, either, of the agent. The guard on the gate seemed to have little information, and restricted access meant that they could not go through to the berth without an official pass.
Ten minutes later the agent arrived, full of apologies, explaining that the ship was only just alongside, but his information was that they were having problems with the gangway, damaged in heavy weather the night before. With the right documentation and the taxi dismissed, the young man took them through the terminal in his car.
It was so huge, Zoe did not at first recognize it as a ship. It appeared, between two towering gantries, as a sheer black wall of steel some fifty or sixty feet in height. Straight-sided, when she had thought ships’ hulls were curved, bridge and accommodation rising like a floodlit tower-block at the after-end, while the name, Damaris, and port of registry were emblazoned in huge white letters across a squared-off stern.
Men were milling about on deck and quay, and it transpired that a temporary gangway would have to be rigged. While they were waiting for that, another car arrived, this time with Mac and Irene. They exchanged hugs and greetings, and after a rapid assessment of the situation, broke out the coffee and sandwiches. It was like a party, Zoe thought, in the dead of night, in the teeth of a chilling wind, with the biggest ship she had ever seen looming over them. It was so bizarre, she could not help laughing, and her laughter infected Irene, until in the end even the men were dryly amused, shaking their heads and muttering that the performance was about par for the course.
‘And anyway, whoever joined a ship during office hours?’ Mac wanted to know.
But by a quarter to three the gangway was rigged, Customs and Excise officers boarding with the agent. Stephen hoisted his baggage, Mac did likewise, preparing to carry it up that steep and narrow wooden gangway. Zoe eyed the angle and the ropes with horror. It looked like a plank set against the north face of the Eiger. Fortunately, one of the Filipino crew descended halfway to take the luggage, and the two men returned to escort Zoe and Irene to the top.
‘Just think,’ Irene gasped as she struggled to regain her breath, ‘we’ve got to go down that, before long.’
‘I prefer not to think about it,’ Zoe replied with feeling. ‘I might be tempted to
stow away, instead!’
‘Don’t,’ Stephen warned, ‘else I’ll clap you in irons, and feed you on bread and water!’
All jokes ended as they met the Mate. Zoe hung back while he and Stephen discussed the Captain; glancing down onto the quay, she saw an ambulance drawing in between the gantries. Inside the accommodation, they climbed several flights of stairs to reach the Master’s cabin. She waited in the office with the agent and a Customs officer as the Mate took Stephen into a bedroom. Through two open doors, she could just see the foot of a double bed and a man’s legs, one of which was bound into a heavy splint.
‘Bad business,’ the agent commented. ‘He was on the bridge, apparently, and a sudden bad roll sent him flying across the wheel-house. Smashed his leg against the radar.’
Zoe winced. She noticed, suddenly, an object on the floor which looked like an instrument of medieval torture. The agent told her it was a stretcher, the type which enclosed a body from neck to foot. The Captain, he said, would be manhandled off the ship in that. Thinking of that perilous gangway, Zoe did not envy him, at the mercy of whoever was carrying him down.
Two uniformed ambulance men arrived at the door. They were shown through into the bedroom; two very slight crew members stood out in the alleyway, looking nervous. As well they might, Zoe thought, wondering whether they were the ones designated for the job of carrying the stretcher. Stephen appeared, carrying a sheaf of papers. He had a word with the Customs officer and then turned to Zoe.
‘I think you should make yourself scarce while they get him out of here. I’ll take you to Mac’s cabin – you can have a natter with Irene. I’ll give you a shout when we’re all clear.’
Mac and the Chief Engineer were busy in the office, but the retiring Chief greeted Zoe cheerfully, showing her through into his dayroom where Irene was flicking through a magazine. He told her to help herself to a drink.
Irene was sipping a glass of cola. ‘I’m driving,’ she explained, ‘but there’s spirits by the bottle there. You have what you want.’
Gratefully, Zoe helped herself to a generous tot of brandy. Despite her padded jacket, cold had seeped into her bones, and there seemed to be no heating on the ship. The warming liquid stilled her shivering and dispelled the tiredness, but her conversation with Irene was interrupted by sounds of activity from the other end of the alleyway. At a sudden shout, both Mac and the Chief responded instantly. Hesitantly, the two women went to see what was wrong.
‘We need a bit more muscle,’ Stephen was saying. The two ambulancemen were kneeling by the stretcher, obviously unhappy with the situation. Mac was strong enough to oblige, and as though from nowhere another burly figure materialised, oil-streaked and boiler-suited, with forearms like an Olympic weight-lifter. Between them they began the journey down those endless flights of steps, past at least half a dozen fire-doors, and onto the deck.
Kneeling on the couch beneath a large, square window, Irene watched their progress with bated breath. Beside her, Zoe could hardly bear to look. As the stretcher was lifted from deck to gangway, and over the side, she pictured that tremendous drop and felt sick. The little group slowly disappeared from sight and Irene turned away, her face blanched of colour.
‘I think I will have that drink, after all,’ she said shakily.
Stephen was standing at the top of the gangway, tension in every muscle. Eventually, he relaxed, turned with a smile to the Mate standing by, and Zoe knew that they had handled the man on the stretcher without mishap.
‘It’s all right,’ she said, and the two women clasped hands in mutual relief.
Despite the chill of the night, Mac was sweating when he returned, his red beard glistening. Dismissing his wife’s concern as so much fuss, he poured himself a beer, and returned to the office and that mound of paperwork.
Zoe’s remark that there seemed an awful lot to do was greeted by laughter from Irene. ‘There always is. It’s like having a new head of department every five or six months – and only half a day for the handover. After that, they’re on their own.’
Zoe shook her head. ‘I couldn’t cope – it would drive me crazy.’
‘Me too, but they seem to thrive on it...’
When Stephen reappeared he had changed into smart black trousers and a navy-blue, military-style sweater. As though emphasizing his air of authority, the four gold stripes of his epaulettes glinted in the light, and Zoe suddenly found herself thinking of Robert Duncannon, wedded far more securely to the army, it seemed, than he had been to any woman. The uniform might be different, she thought, but its effect was the same, completing the change in Stephen which had begun, she realized now, with that telephone call in York. He was colder, harder, behind some invisible wall that she sensed but could not break. He was responding to people and situations with his usual good humour, but that ready smile – so genuine before – never quite reached his eyes.
She followed him back to the cabin with the word Captain over the door; a cabin which was now his. He closed the door between office and dayroom, and for a moment leaned against it.
‘And so it begins,’ he said laconically. ‘But I thought you might like to see what I’ll be calling home for the next few months...’
There was an awkwardness between them, and both were aware of it. Zoe played her part, looked round, obligingly poked her head into the bedroom. It was beautifully fitted out, finished in teak like the dayroom, with cupboards everywhere and tasteful though unimaginative pictures on the walls. The dayroom even had potted plants growing in a window-box.
‘Like Captain Bligh,’ she said in a feeble attempt at a joke.
‘Well, let’s hope the Mate is no Mr Christian.’
In the ensuing silence, he looked out of the window. ‘It’ll be getting light, soon. Irene will want to be going. She said she’d give you a lift to the station.’
He reached for her, held her in his arms, but Zoe could not respond. She felt sick and cold inside, and was wishing she had not been so eager to come. It would have been better, surely, to have said goodbye in York; in this environment, of which he was so obviously a part, he was a stranger. When he had said, once, that she did not know him, Zoe had thought him callous, the words an excuse for setting distance between them. Now she saw the truth of the claim, and wanted only to escape. The vow she had made in the car was folly in the extreme.
Turning away, Stephen wrote something quickly on a piece of card. It was the ship’s name and the company’s London address. As he handed it to her, he said tersely: ‘This will always find me. Let me know how you get on with the letters.’
‘Yes, I will.’ Any pleasure she might have felt was neutralized by that request. He had given her permission to hold all those letters for as long as was necessary, but Zoe wondered whether she really wanted to know what they contained. A catalogue of tragedy, caused by at least one unresolved love-affair, was how they were beginning to strike her. Did she really need them to underline her own particular misery?
Ten
The film Stephen had had developed and printed in La Coruna had produced two passable photographs of Zoe and one that was excellent. It had been taken beneath the archway where they had first kissed, on a bright day with light reflecting into her face. Her hair was loose and soft, like a dark cloud about her head, pale skin and clear grey eyes luminous in the surrounding shadows. About her mouth hovered a gentle half-smile which made her more tantalizing than ever. Sometime, Stephen promised himself, he would have the print enlarged and framed, but for the moment it was mounted on a hand-made card beside his bed.
It had been another hot, breathless Mediterranean day, their third spent drifting off Greece, awaiting orders. Showering after an afternoon swim in the ship’s tiny pool, Stephen changed into fresh white shorts and shirt and sat down to fasten a pair of sandals. As always his eyes went to the photograph, and yet again he remembered his last sight of her, the brief wave before she stepped into Irene’s car, the bright little smile that was so obviously forced.
That determined bravery had touched him more deeply than tears ever could. By comparison he thought of Ruth, who had wept copiously every time he went away, wringing guilt out of him like blood. Just one of his reasons for not wanting Zoe to accompany him to Teesport.
Dread, however, had been outweighed by the need to keep her with him to the last possible moment, that and a desire to show off a little, to let her see something of what the job entailed. And in the seeing, perhaps she might understand for herself the impossibility of anything lasting. Nevertheless, Stephen could not help lacerating himself with memory, could no more consign her photograph to the watery deep than he could cast himself overboard. He needed Zoe Clifford, and in itself that knowledge was a crippling thing.
He had wanted, so often, to put his feelings into words. The first time it had come unbidden, and with such force that even now he could recall the effort to contain it. He had been aware, even then, that the affair was more than just physical.
As ever, he told himself that it was unfair to impose a lifetime of separations upon a woman he loved, that promises which could not be kept should neither be made nor exacted; that he was being cruel to be ultimately kind. Somehow, though, those fine principles had an empty ring about them when he thought of Zoe, and he seemed to be thinking of her all the time, remembering things she had said and done, her sympathy and tenderness, and the ease he felt, just being with her.
Stephen had known he was going to miss her, but it was worse than that: he wanted her so much that he ached with it. The job was usually an antidote to such feelings, sufficiently demanding in the first month to erase most memories of home; but this was a ship that behaved itself, the crew competent and good-humoured, his officers professional. Within days Stephen had come to grips with the paperwork, and things were ticking over with all the ease of a well-oiled machine. He hated himself for wishing problems, but he could have done with a few to take his mind off Zoe.
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