Maddie

by Claire Rayner

  But she could not stop it happening, because as she looked at the sliver of darker grey that was the Isle of Wight and saw a few faint winking lights there, a picture of her father swam sharply into her head; Daddy with his eternal cigar and his head bent over his books on his desk, cursing because she wasn’t there to sort out the letters he needed, and the great rush of guilt and longing for him that rose in her was more than she could handle; and there she stood, holding on to the rail of the ship, her head down and her shoulders hunched against the cold, weeping like a terrified three-year-old, wanting her Daddy, needing to be picked up and held close and looked after.

  It was like one of her magazine stories, she decided then. It really was. Because suddenly she was being held close and warm and safe by a pair of strong arms that came round her from behind and she caught her breath as again the ship rolled, pushing her even more closely to whoever it was, so that she couldn’t turn to look. But she knew the smell of him and she lifted her chin and cried, ‘Jay!’ as loudly as she could, and twisted herself in his grasp and looked at him.

  He was blank with amazement. She looked up into those beloved familiar blue eyes and at the thick cap of dark gold hair and knew every single fleck and variation in colour, every fine line on the lightly tanned cheeks and round the eyes and knew that she was the last person he had expected to see, because of the glazed, almost fish-like expression on his face. And she laughed and lifted one hand to pull off her cap, not caring about the cold any more at all, and said softly, ‘Oh, Jay –’ and then, as the wind snatched the words away from her, said it more loudly, ‘Oh, Jay –’

  ‘Jesus bloody Christ, what in the name of all that’s holy are you doing here?’ He almost shouted it and then half shook her, for he still had his arms around her. ‘You said goodbye at the dock –’

  ‘I know,’ she said and gasped a little as another roll of the ship pushed them closer together. ‘I lied.’

  ‘Christ, Maddie, you aren’t stowing away or anything crazy like that, are you? Because if you are –’

  ‘Darling, of course not! I’m not that sort of fool! I’m a passenger with a ticket! Not as fancy a passenger as you, I dare say. I had to settle for what I could get. I’m in a six-berth cabin, God help me, right down in the bowels somewhere. It was all I could get. Are you on your own?’

  He was still staring at her as though she were an apparition. ‘How did you –’

  ‘Darling, you didn’t think I’d give in that easily, did you? Of course I had to come too. If you’re going to America, then I’ve got to go. If you won’t take me, then I have to bring myself. It’s all very simple –’

  He shook his head, and then shivered as a sharper wind began to blow across the otherwise empty deck. ‘Listen, we’d better go below, get out of this –’

  ‘Not yet –’ She clung to him. ‘There’ll be people all over the place and I have to talk to you and –’ She stopped very suddenly and stared up at him. ‘You didn’t know it was me, standing there crying. Did you?’

  ‘No, of course not. I told you – I thought we’d said goodbye at Southampton.’

  ‘So you were just trying it on with me? Thought you’d get yourself a bit of skirt for the crossing? Anyone’d do, as long as she was female and available?’

  He went a sudden brick-red and stood there very still and then before she could say another word, bent his head and kissed her. He’d kissed her before, of course, and she had learned a great deal about his reactions and his needs from the way he behaved when he did, but this was something totally new. He was as passionate as she had ever longed for him to be, but it wasn’t a storybook passion, an imagined excitement. This was vividly real, filled not just with desire but with anger and guilt and fear and a number of other emotions besides, and as his teeth bruised her lips and his tongue forced its way into her mouth so violently and so far that it ceased to cause pleasurable pain and became frightening, a part of her mind shouted exultantly at her. She had done it. She had imagined this man being hers, wanting her as much as she wanted him, had longed for him and fantasised over him for long months, and now she knew it was true and that Daddy was right. It was just a case of wanting badly enough, and trying hard enough and in the end you got exactly what you desired.

  She pulled away from him, using all the strength she had, pulling her lips back from her teeth and biting against his tongue – not that it was easy for the tension in him was so strong that her efforts seemed puny against the power of control he had – but she was at last able to get her head away and both hands set on his chest so that she could push him, and she did and then stood there, her elbows straight and firm so that he could not get close enough to try to kiss her again.

  ‘That’s not an answer,’ she said breathlessly and stared at him with great sternness, though what she wanted to do was laugh and shout her excitement and delight and pull him close to her. But she had to be as clever in victory as she had ever been in the chase. She didn’t know how she knew that, but she was as certain of it as that she stood here and that he was staring at her, with the pupils of his eyes so dilated that they looked black in the rapidly fading light, and breathing heavily as sweat appeared in a fine row of beads on his upper lip in spite of the cold.

  ‘Tell me the truth, damn you! Were you trying it on with another girl – as you thought – only an hour or two after saying goodbye to me, and knowing how I felt?’

  ‘I –’ He swallowed and started again. ‘Oh, God, Maddie, but I wanted you! I watched you go – or I thought I did, damn you – and I wanted to call you back. I had no idea how much you’d moved in on me, for Christ’s sake! I thought – I’ll get over her. How can I marry a girl who ain’t a Catholic? Pa’d go bananas, and as for my mother – I wanted you, but it was crazy. And then I saw you go and I knew it didn’t matter a damn. I don’t give a shit what Pa says, and I care less what my mother says. I want you and I was going to send a cable to you or something to say come over – and I came up on deck here to talk myself out of it, because believe me, Maddie, us getting married has to be the craziest idea in the world. It’ll bring me such grief from the old man – and then I saw this girl crying and I felt so lousy I thought – what the hell. And put my arms round her – and it – it was you – I tell you, Maddie, it was like some saint in heaven had done it. I was never so knocked over in my life – come here, you crazy –’ And his voice thickened as he tried to pull her closer and kiss her again.

  But she was too quick for him and slid out of his grasp, beneath his arm, and went half sliding, half running, along the deck towards the port side boat deck and he came lunging after her as still the ship rolled majestically and steadily onwards, settling now to a regular rhythm.

  He caught up with her under the shadow of the third boat which was about what she had intended, and she laughed softly as again his arms came out and grabbed for her.

  ‘Do you want me, Jay, my own darling? Do you? No more worrying about whether you should –’

  ‘Want you?’ He had one arm round her again, but the other hand was scrabbling at her coat, the new coat she had bought in Paris, and she laughed softly again as she felt one of the buttons give way and she seized his hand in one of her own and cried, ‘Jay – for God’s sake – not here – not on the deck!’

  ‘Here – now – anywhere –’ he said, and his voice sounded more like a grunt than the voice she knew and again exultation rose in her. To have brought him to this pitch – oh, it was better than she could ever have hoped for. Even in her best fantasies, it hadn’t been as violent as this. He was going to hit her, and hurt her and make her suffer because he wanted her so much, and the thought of it sent a great frisson of excitement down her back that almost buckled her knees under her. But not quite. She still had some of her wits about her and she lifted her head and looked upwards and said, ‘In one of the boats – you can reach. Untie it there and give me a lift up.’

  He looked up too and then grinned. It was almost dark now, wit
h just a few lights burning along the deck, but there was enough illumination to see the shape of the lifeboat above them, and he let go of her and reached up and with a swing of his legs hoisted himself up.

  She couldn’t see exactly what he was doing but she heard the rattle of metal-ended ropes and the heavy flap of tarpaulin and then he was hissing down at her from the darkness above and she reached up and felt his hands, and put both hers into them, and with a wrench that almost dislocated her shoulders she was up, swinging away from the rolling deck and scrambling over the edge of the lifeboat into its dark damp interior.

  He pushed the way through to the centre so that they could lie across the boat between the thwarts and even before she was there, he was trying to get her down on her back and was pulling on her clothes, tugging at her expensive coat so that all the buttons burst off, and then hauling up her skirt, reaching for her as she was reaching for him. She had her first climax even before she had managed to unbutton him, but it didn’t matter. There was plenty more ecstasy where that came from. There always had been.

  12

  April 1987

  ‘Well, I just can’t,’ Annie said. ‘I really do have a rotten cold and I just can’t,’ and she sniffed heavily as much to prove her words as because she needed to, although in fact her nose was running and her eyes felt as though they’d been sandpapered.

  Sister’s voice clacked tinnily in her ear and she felt her lower lip come out mulishly as she listened; damn the woman, she had no right to go on at her like this! She wasn’t a member of her staff, and even if she were she had the right to have a cold and stay at home, surely?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said sharply, and with no hint of apology in her tone. ‘But there it is, I have a cold, and someone else will have to look after Maddie today. Just put her fork in her hand and her plate in front of her, and as long as it’s food she likes, she’ll eat it. And I’ll be in again as soon as I feel fit.’ And she put the phone down as firmly as she could without being obviously rude. The woman couldn’t help being a twittering fool, and she didn’t really want to antagonise her totally. Maddie would still need her care and if Annie rubbed her up the wrong way, maybe she’d take it out on her –

  She frowned and went back to her chair by the electric fire and sat down and glowered at the red bars. Damn Maddie, why the hell should it matter to her either way whether she was victimised or not? The woman had been at Greenhill for so many years now and survived that it was obvious the care she’d had had been good. If it hadn’t she’d have died long since, or gone even madder, wouldn’t she?

  But that argument wouldn’t hold up. Hadn’t Maddie changed and blossomed under her, Annie’s, care in a way that everyone said was amazing? In less than six months she had started talking – to Annie at any rate, if not to anyone else – and moving about of her own volition. She no longer sat and rocked interminably in her chair, no longer looked like an unkempt witch. The clothes that Annie had taken to her and the haircut she had arranged had taken years from her; she now looked what she was, a once handsome woman in her fifties rather than a decrepit wreck in her seventies, and could have passed a cursory inspection as a normal, if quiet, person, rather than the patently mad one she had been. And hadn’t it been Annie’s care that had wrought that change? And didn’t that make it clear that the care she had had previously had been bad?

  Yes it did, Annie thought, and was filled with a wave of self-pity; and who appreciates what I’ve done anyway? She sat and glared at the red bars of the fire until her already smarting eyes, cold filled, began to water and although they weren’t tears of sadness, still the wetness on her cheeks made her feel lugubrious, and that was not to be borne; and she got to her feet purposefully and rubbed her eyes with her handkerchief and looked round the room. To hell with Greenhill, to hell with Joe Labosky, to hell with Maddie. Let them all see how much they needed her. She had a right to stay home and take care of her own health and her own life just for once. Let them miss her. It would do them good. And the flat really needed some attention.

  She looked disgustedly at the scatter of still unpacked tea chests and shook her head irritably. This was not good enough. Efforts had to be made. And she began to pull the chests into some sort of order so that she could start taking out the contents and putting them away in the places where they were supposed to be. Better to do that than spend all her time with someone who didn’t appreciate her, or really need her.

  October 1950

  He doesn’t deserve to have me here, Maddie thought mournfully and bit into another biscuit and then put it down. Three days of devoted eating and already her skirt waistbands were making themselves felt; it had been such a shock to see so much food so lavishly provided that she had eaten like a schoolgirl out on a spree, enchanted to discover that because the ship victualled on the American side of the Atlantic, it could offer a cornucopia of goodies that even Alfred Braham hadn’t been able to provide. Jay had eaten heartily too, but it seemed to show less on him, and that had irritated her too. Altogether a number of things were irritating her about Jay at a time when she ought to be lyrically happy with him.

  Not that it was entirely his fault that it hadn’t been possible to rearrange the cabins so that they could be together. Heaven knows he’d tried, nagging the purser and offering bribes to the stewards to rearrange the accommodation in some way, but as Maddie had found when she tried to book a ticket, the ship was packed to the gunwales; not a berth to be had anywhere. So, the only time they could make love was in the early evening, up on the boat deck after the last straggling hearties who insisted on running round the deck and doing press-ups before dinner had vanished below; and it was all much less delightful than it ought to be.

  That first time, when they had stayed there in their lifeboat for two hours or more, not caring about dinner or anything else but the delight they were giving each other, it had been wonderful, and now, sitting in the forward lounge and staring out of the glassed-in deck at the heaving horizon she remembered it and felt her skin crawl under her tight waistband. He had been so urgent, so hungry, that he had made her breathless, and had fed her own need amazingly. Had they really managed to go on as long as they had? Had he really been able to make such violent and satisfactory complete love – satisfactory for both of them – fully three times? And lazily she rehearsed in her mind each episode and counted the waves of feeling that had swept her up, more than matching the waves through which the ship was rolling, and almost felt them again. Almost but not quite, and she leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes and tried again to remember, to bring the feelings back. It was amazing what she could do with just thinking about it –

  ‘I hope you aren’t feeling the sea, Miss Braham.’ The voice seemed to come from behind her and she snapped her eyes open and looked upwards and backwards and saw the face upside down behind her; a silly round face with silly round eyes where the mouth should be and a silly pouting mouth in the middle of its forehead and she blinked and turned her head and the face swam sideways and came right side up. Almost as silly this way up as the wrong way, she thought, and then smiled. It was an instinctive thing to do for he was looking at her with such sheep’s eyes that it would have been cruel to do otherwise.

  At once the expression changed. He did indeed have a very babyish look about him in spite of the crisp uniform and the cap neatly tucked under his arm which proclaimed him one of the ship’s officers, but there was no doubt that he thought she, Maddie, looked wonderful, for his fair skin developed blotches of red across the forehead and cheeks as he stared at her, and that made him more interesting to her.

  ‘If you are feeling too much put out by the motion, Miss Braham, I know the ship’s doctor has some excellent draughts you can try. I used to get seasick when I first took this job, but not any more. Not with his help.’

  ‘No, I’m not seasick.’ She smiled again as he hovered, looking anxiously at her, and said graciously, ‘Won’t you sit down?’

  At once he f
lopped into the seat beside her and sat turning his cap between his fingers, and looking at her with those silly round eyes so mournfully that after a while she began to feel embarrassed and uncomfortable and that made her snap a little.

  ‘Is there something wrong with my face?’ she asked sharply. ‘You do seem to be staring rather.’

  ‘Oh, dear, I’m sorry!’ he said and went even redder. ‘It’s just that – I was looking for you – I was wondering whether – if I could – what to say about – oh dear –’ And he collapsed into silence and bent his head and began to turn his cap around even more industriously.

  She was charmed. Since Jay had appeared on her horizon she hadn’t bothered at all with the young men she met; there had seemed little point in London. But she hadn’t forgotten how agreeable it was to have someone tongue-tied and entranced at your feet and she leaned back in her chair now to bask a little. This would show rotten old Jay what his damned poker games could do! Though it would be nicer if the boy were a little more prepossessing, or even interesting. He really did look very stupid.

  ‘What’s your name?’ she asked in as friendly a voice as she could manage and he bobbed his head and glanced at her and then away again and said in a tight little voice, ‘Er – I’m Allan Foss. Ship’s radio officer.’