She began to revise her opinion of him. Radio officers, she felt hazily, were really quite clever. They understood a number of matters which to everyone else were incomprehensible and she sat up straighter. Perhaps he would be worth cultivating, to show Jay how stupid he was being in not spending every available moment on board with her instead of in the smoky card room trying to win money.
‘How fascinating!’ she said, still warm and friendly. ‘Does that mean you send all the SOS messages and so forth?’
‘Yes,’ he said, and now he looked up at her. ‘What’s more to the point, I receive them all, too.’
‘Oh! So if we want to know what’s going on at home, we have to come and ask you?’
Amazingly he went bright red and she stared at him, nonplussed. All she had been doing was making small talk, yet there he sat looking as though she had poleaxed him, for his eyes were bulging even more and the look of misery on his hot red face was almost funny in its intensity.
‘I – er – I suppose you put that notice up on the board every day about the main news from England? The one that’s next to the notice about how far we went yesterday and who won the daily sweep?’ she went on, wanting to make him feel better, to put him at his ease.
He nodded miserably and went on staring at her for a long time and then seemed to make up his mind about something, and hitched his chair closer to her, so that he could talk more quietly. There were only a few people in the forward lounge and most of them were asleep over their books or knitting, and those who weren’t were well out of earshot. But clearly he was determined to be very secretive indeed.
‘I’ve been worrying myself stupid over this, Miss Braham. At first it was no problem. It was a secret message and there was no reason why I should ever – and I never have, of course, said a word about what I discover and – well, the thing is I saw you in the dining saloon and I thought –’ The redness which had begun to ebb away came back and he looked at her with his eyes so shining and pleading that she thought he was about to burst into tears. ‘The thing is, I thought when I saw you you looked so sweet and alone and helpless and – well, I felt so sorry for you. I just have to tell you. I can’t let you just – I mean I dare say I’m a fool. You’ve got that chap so what do you care for someone like me? And if I’m caught passing on messages – well, you can imagine – but I thought – I don’t want to be selfish, you see. I want to – to do what I can for you, even though there’s nothing for me in being so – I mean, you’ll just go away when we dock and I’ll never see you again either way, so be generous, I thought, do the decent thing, even if it’s all wrong and –’
He stopped and swallowed and looked at her miserably again and at once she knew what she was dealing with. Allan Foss was just such another as herself, if not so gifted. He wanted things badly and dreamed about having them. He wove great tangled stories inside his own head and lived them as vividly as he could. If he couldn’t get what he wanted one way, he’d get it another. And for some reason he wanted to please her, Maddie, and she was so delighted with him for that that she leaned even closer and set her hand over his fingers which were still writhing round his cap, and smiled deeply into his eyes.
‘Oh, Mr Foss,’ she murmured, ‘can I call you Allan? And will you tell me what all this is that’s worrying you so? Don’t be shy, I’ll understand, truly I will.’
His fingers jerked compulsively so that he dropped his cap and with one hand he seized hers, and his skin felt damp and hot and rather disagreeable though she made no sign of noticing, and with the other he scrabbled for his lost property.
‘Leave it there,’ she said gently. ‘You can pick it up later. Now tell me what all this is about. You aren’t being very clear, you know.’
‘It’s very difficult – the thing is, there was a cable about you. Came in two days ago.’
Sharply she withdrew her hand and stared at him. ‘What did you say?’ And her voice was cold now, not at all friendly.
‘Oh, I know I shouldn’t have said anything!’ he cried wretchedly. ‘I knew you’d be livid. Any person would – other people knowing their affairs and so forth – but if I didn’t tell you, how could you protect yourself? I so much want to protect you, you see. You really are – I think you’re the most marvellous person, Miss Braham. I’ve been watching you and – really, so marvellous, so devoted, so –’ He struggled for the language that would pull her inside his mind and his feelings. ‘So alive and vivacious and –’ He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t let you suffer, not for want of me telling you.’
‘I’m suffering a good deal right now from not knowing what the hell you’re talking about,’ she retorted. ‘What cable, for God’s sake? What about me?’
‘It’s your father. There’s been a fuss at home.’ He sounded wretched still but as he realised that he had her attention fixed on him, he gained confidence, and seemed to swell a little. ‘It seems the papers are full of you, runaway heiress and so forth. I’ve checked with our shore people and they’ve let me know all about it – your father says you’re under age and you’ve run away and he has reason to think you might be going to America. So he checked with the shipping line –’
‘He shouldn’t have known where I was!’ she said and stared at him, her eyes wide with the shock of it all. ‘I told him I was going to Wales for a few days with a friend, told him I’d be in touch at the weekend – he wasn’t supposed to go and –’
‘That’s the thing,’ Allan Foss said softly and again hitched himself closer. ‘It said in the paper that he said he got this note that you were away with a friend but then the friend rang up and you weren’t there and she knew nothing about you going to Wales with her so he got suspicious and thought you might be going to America. Does he – er – does he know this chap you spend all your time with?’
She stared at him, dazed at the suddenness of it all. She had been so sure she’d arranged it all so neatly; the casual note dropped in the post to say that after she’d seen her friend Mary off at Southampton some of their other friends had suggested that they all go off to a weekend cottage in Barry Island one of them had, and she’d be home the following Monday. It had all been explained simply and casually and there had been no reason for him to do more than curse her for being out of the office for so long and to tell her off when she came home. Or so he was supposed to think. It had never occurred to her that anyone would bloody well phone and tell him otherwise, and she stared blindly at Allan Foss and said loudly, ‘Oh, Christ!’
Across the lounge, one of the old ladies asleep over a book woke abruptly and stared round, startled, and he set a hand over hers and pressed it warningly and after a moment the old lady closed her eyes again.
‘Come to the radio cabin,’ he murmured. ‘I’m on duty about now, and the other chap’ll be glad to go early – then we can talk. Don’t worry, Miss Braham, I’m sure we’ll think of something we can do to stop him –’
‘Stop him what?’ she said, but he was already on his feet and across the lounge, walking busily towards the door, his gait assured and his cap, which he had seized as he stood up, held in one hand and tapping irritably against his knee as he walked, and she scurried after him, her chest tight with anxiety. However much Allan Foss might be enjoying the little drama he was unfolding – and he clearly was delighted with all the excitement of it – she was alarmed. It hadn’t occurred to her that her father might find out so soon where she was; he wasn’t supposed to know till he got a letter from America telling him she was married. She had arranged it all so carefully – but not carefully enough. And as she went hurrying along the companionways after Foss, she felt rage against herself rise in her.
She had been stupidly arrogant, that was the thing. In all her dealings for Jay she had been ultra-careful, checking and double-checking that there was no way anyone could ever find out what she and Jay were up to. She had laid covers and then further covers for her covers so that no one could ever suspect anything. But for herself, at one of the most
important times of her life, she had been careless. She should have phoned her friends, told them all to lie for her, told them to make sure they didn’t inadvertently let her down. After all, hadn’t she done it often enough for them? These were the people she had sworn were spending weekends at her flat when their parents called, so that they could have their illicit pleasures elsewhere, yet for herself she had failed, sailing cheerfully along into disaster, certain that she was invincible.
And the self-hatred and self-blame that had filled her thickened and curdled and turned itself round as she thought of her father hearing from some damned silly girl on the phone that she had lied to him, and instead of just being hurt and waiting till she came home to explain, had set about making searches for her, and checking shipping lines, and sending cables – how could he be so wicked to her? How could he treat her so? She wasn’t his possession, after all. She was herself, Madeleine Braham, her own person. She had the right to do what she wanted when she wanted. Hadn’t her father himself taught her that? Yet here he was, when she went to get what she wanted, setting out to make it hard for her, exposing her to the pity of silly round-eyed pink boys in officers’ uniforms – oh, but she hated her father that moment, and knew he had to be dealt with. He had no right, no right at all – and the words went round and round in her head as she clattered down the last set of stairs to the last corridor and the door of the radio cabin, after Allan Foss.
‘Wait here,’ he hissed as he went in. ‘Wait till Joe comes out –’ and she stopped, uncertainly, not sure whether to obey him or not. She was eaten with impatience now, fed by her anger at her father. The sooner she knew what he had done the sooner she’d be able to undo it. Or better still, pay him back for his wicked unkindness to her.
She was about to ignore Foss’s warning and go marching in to the radio cabin when the door opened and another young man, in the same uniform, came out and nodded affably at her as he passed her and she watched him go whistling along the corridor to disappear round a corner before pushing the door open and walking in.
The place smelled odd; that was the first thing she noticed and in time to come whenever she smelled that particular odour of crisp crackling air that always seems to hang about radio installations she was to see Foss, sitting there at his console and staring at her with his bulging eyes alight with excitement and a sort of lascivious pity. He looked more at home here, less awkward and baby-faced and she halted beside the door and stared at him as he sat importantly at his console in his shirt sleeves, a set of earphones hanging negligently about his neck, and smiling at her.
‘Now, come and sit down, Miss Braham, and I’ll show you all the cables we’ve had about you. And then you can decide what to do. Not that there’s a lot you can do, I reckon. But if there’s any help you need, you can count on old Allan –’ And he held out his hand invitingly, and then patted the chair beside him. And slowly she came across the cluttered cabin and sat down.
13
April 1987
‘Oh,’ Annie said and didn’t know what to say next.
‘Heavens, don’t look at me as though I were the rent man!’ he said and grinned. ‘May I come in? Or can’t you believe I’m not the rent man?’
She blinked. ‘The what man?’
‘You clearly had a richer childhood than I did.’ He followed her into the flat as at last she stood aside to make way for him. ‘Where I grew up, he was the man who turned up on Friday afternoon and made my mother very bad-tempered.’
‘Is that why you’ve come here? To make me bad-tempered?’
‘Not at all. To get myself some tea. I like your Earl Grey tea. And to make sure you’re all right.’ He quirked his eyebrows at her and then laughed as he saw how angry she immediately looked. ‘No, it’s no use getting annoyed with me. You’re stuck with me, and you might as well accept it. When Sister B told me you were too ill to come in to the ward today, I was concerned. I decided to risk your undoubted wrath and as soon as I’d finished at the hospital to come and see how you are. And to get that cup of tea.’
‘I’m fine. I mean, I have a stinking cold –’
‘I can see. Your eyes look as though they’ve been boiled, you poor dear.’
‘Thank you for your kind encouragement. It’s such a comfort when one is cheered up in ill health.’
‘Oh, I can’t be doing with dishing out lollipops. You must know you look as though you’ve been stuffed as well as boiled and to pretend you didn’t would be an insult. You need tea more than I do. May I go and make it?’
‘If you like.’ She went back to the last tea chest. ‘I want to finish this anyway.’
She went on unwrapping the last of the Worcester dinner service as he went through to her kitchen and she heard him whistling as he clattered about and set the kettle to boil. It was an agreeable sound, and she sat back on her heels and stared at the blank wall in front of her and tried to imagine how it might be always to have someone around this flat, whistling and making occasional friendly noises like that, and then was angry with herself. Being alone was what she was for; after all the years of Jen and the tie of the way they had shared their lives, it was mad to contemplate any other lifestyle now she was free.
And even if she did want company, where was she to find it? Advertise for someone to move in with her? She’d seen ads like that and they made her shiver. It sounded so desperate somehow. ‘Girl wanted, must be quiet non-smoker to share expenses and care of lovely two-bedroomed flat, select neighbourhood –’ No, that wasn’t for her. She’d live alone and like it, and the sooner Joe Labosky drank his tea and went away and left her in peace in her quiet aloneness the better.
It was good tea and he’d managed to find some biscuits too, and he came and set the tray on the empty tea chest, turning it on its side to make a handy low table, and then came and sat on the floor beside her to drink it.
‘Bliss,’ he said after a long silence while they drank, and she went on unwrapping Jen’s special plates. ‘I’m really a charwoman at heart, you know. All I ever want is a nice cuppa and a bit of a gossip.’
‘I can only provide the former,’ she said.
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ He refilled his cup and held the pot up to her invitingly. ‘I like talking to you. You usually start responding eventually and then you’re fascinating. I dare say it wouldn’t be as interesting if I didn’t have to pull the words out of you with pincers.’
‘There you go again, treating me like a patient.’
‘Not at all,’ he said vigorously. ‘When will you understand that I’m the same with everyone? Listen, come and find out, will you? Just for once, accept an invitation. I’m a good cook and I make the best chicken soup in the world. My mother taught me how and all I have to do is exactly the opposite of what she did. Then it turns out perfect. And it soothes even the worst of lousy colds. I’ve got some really rather pleasant people coming tonight. Not at all psychiatric – he’s an actor and she teaches slow readers – and they’re fun. And the soup’ll do you good.And so will hearing me talk to them in exactly the same way I do to you and everyone else. Not like patients at all –’
‘Why?’ She had stopped her unwrapping and was sitting back on her haunches holding the last plate in her hands. Her face felt hot and sticky and she knew she was smudged with dust, but was unconcerned. ‘Why on earth do you bother?’
‘You silly woman,’ he said after a long moment and then leaned forwards and rubbed one of the dust smudges off her cheek with the back of one forefinger. ‘Because I like you.’
October 1950
She read them all, one after the other, trying to keep her face under control, though really what she wanted to do was shout and weep and then scream her fury. How dare he treat her so? Wasn’t she grown up, a real person? He had no right to carry on as though she were still a baby –
‘I shouldn’t have shown them to you,’ Foss said worriedly. ‘I know I shouldn’t. And I wouldn’t have done if it hadn’t been that I saw you in the dini
ng saloon and then at the dancing and I thought – I liked you so much. I just couldn’t let you suffer without knowing what was going on.’
She looked up at the glistening pale eyes and the pink forehead now dewed with a film of earnest sweat, and managed to smile. He was so transparent with his I’m-a-knight-errant-saving-a-damsel-in-distress look, but also very irritating. She wanted to snap at him, to tell him to shut up so that she could sit and think quietly about what to do next. But she couldn’t do that; he’d been too kind and she tried to smile even more widely and then bent her head to read the cables.
Clearly her father had been more alarmed than she had imagined was possible. She knew he cared about her and Ambrose; who else did he have to care about, after all? She knew he was always willing to fork out money for them and liked nothing better than to show off to them, as well as through them, as he always did at their respective birthday parties, but he had never spent that much time with them. Most of her life in London had been spent alone or with her girlfriends. Her father was always out with his own cronies, dealing with business or gambling, and of course with the various girls he collected and then shed as he went through his life, and showed no taste for excessive amounts of his children’s company. Ambrose, of course, was always away on his own affairs. She hardly ever saw him, and doubted her father saw much more.
Yet in spite of this semi-detached life they had all led, here he was sending off cables of inordinate length and therefore cost, pouring out his anguish at the loss of his dear beloved daughter. She was a minor, she was to be stopped. She was to be returned to her adoring father, he told the ship’s captain. On no account was she to be allowed to leave the ship, but must be kept aboard till he could come after her in the next available ship and bring her home –
She lifted her head sharply and looked at Foss. ‘Has the captain seen these?’
‘Of course – I had to show him. Didn’t I?’
Maddie Page 15