Rags to Riches

by Nancy Carson

  Pansy fetched Toots from the cabin he shared with the other lads while Maxine called for Brent. They decided to take a light lunch in the Verandah Grill. From there, they would have a good view over the stern of the hustle and bustle on the quay below. Besides, it should be quiet with everybody else engaged in disembarkation. After they had eaten, Brent said he was going to the toilet and disappeared. When he returned he waved three envelopes at Maxine with a triumphant grin on his face. Immediately she coloured up and sat on the edge of her chair with eager anticipation.

  ‘Here you are, Maxine,’ he said pleasantly, ‘three letters for you.’

  ‘Three?’ Her face was a picture of joy and relief. ‘Oh, thank you, Brent. I wondered whether you’d gone to get them since you were so long.’ She studied the envelopes and shuffled them. ‘Well, this one is my mother’s handwriting…this is Henzey’s.’ A lump came to her throat and she felt hot. ‘And this one is…’ She prised her finger under the sealed flap and opened it. She took out the letter an unfolded it…and frowned with bitter disappointment. ‘Is this all there was, Brent? This one is from my Uncle Joe and Aunty May. Are you sure there wasn’t another one?’

  ‘That’s all they gave me, Maxine. You could always go to the bureau to check.’

  ‘I think I’ll have to. Howard would have written. I know he was going to write.’ She got up from her seat to go.

  ‘Maybe he was too busy,’ Brent suggested. ‘Especially if he’s just moved to Norfolk.’

  ‘He would have found time.’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t want to write,’ he said tactlessly. ‘Maybe he thinks it’s all over between you.’

  ‘But it isn’t all over, Brent. Of course, it isn’t all over.’

  ‘Yes, but does he know that? You told him you weren’t going to forgive him. That’s what you told me. You know what forgiveness means to a Christian…’

  ‘I also know what turning the other cheek means, Brent. I just can’t believe he hasn’t written. They must still have a letter from him at the bureau. I’m going to check.’

  There was no further letter. Brent had collected everything there had been to collect. It was the bitterest disappointment of Maxine’s life. She returned to her cabin in a daze of misery, hoping to be alone, hoping Pansy would not be there. She was not. Maxine took off her skirt and blouse and, still in her underslip and her stockings, she slumped into her bunk, buried herself under the covers and wept. She could scarcely believe that Howard had given up hope of a reconciliation so soon and turned his back on her.

  But what could she do about it from here? What could she do about it from the middle of the Atlantic? She did not know where he was so she could neither telephone him nor write. The very best option would be to scour Norfolk and all its churches when she returned home. But that would take an age; and it would be another six weeks at the earliest before she could attempt it.

  That awful afternoon Maxine knew, for the first time in her life, how acutely the wounds of love could sting. She knew the absolute heartache of being rejected by the one man she earnestly loved. Never had she thought it possible she could feel so miserable. Never had she felt so unwanted or known such despair. Oh, she had been dumped by Stephen Hemming in favour of Eleanor, but that was farcical compared to this. There seemed to be a lump of ice-cold marble throbbing inside her where her soft, warm heart should be beating. She felt discarded, like an old cardigan that is of no further use.

  Was this the punishment love doled out for having principles and sticking to them? Was this the reward she was entitled to for expecting Howard to apply the same standards of consideration as herself? Did he feel so damnably little for her after all, that he could nonchalantly ignore her now and not even have the decency to let her know it was over with a few courteous lines?

  Her normally sparkling eyes were puffy and red from hot, salty tears. Thank God, the band would not have to perform tonight. Thank God, she could cry all day and all night if she felt the need.

  And she felt the need.

  She took her saturated handkerchief and wiped her nose, wondering if she had been so unrealistic in expecting him to stay around to be with her? Had she been too naive? By acting the way she had, had she irrevocably turned him against her?

  Maybe she had.

  But there had been a principle at stake; that basic principle of commitment that she possessed but he evidently did not. That had really caused their ship to capsize. He had broken faith with her devotion as if it never existed, as if it was of no consequence.

  But he was a man, and men played by different rules.

  Even clergymen played by different rules if this was anything to go by.

  But she could have sworn…

  She fell asleep.

  It was five o’clock when Pansy returned to their cabin and switched on the light.

  ‘Maxine? Are you awake?’

  ‘Oh…Hello, Pansy,’ she croaked. ‘Gosh, I must have fallen asleep.’

  ‘Oh, Maxine, have you been crying again?’ Pansy’s voice manifested a wealth of compassion. ‘When are you going to learn that men are not worth the heartbreak?’

  Maxine tucked her hair behind her ear and sighed as she sat up in her bunk. ‘Oh, Pansy…I don’t know whether Howard’s worth it or not.’ She sighed again, a deep, heart-rending sigh. ‘I always thought he was worth everything. Now I’m not sure any more. I’m just so confused…and frustrated that I can’t do anything about it. Not stuck in this tub at any rate. Anyway, I’ve stopped crying now. Where have you been?’

  ‘Ashore.’ Pansy threw off her coat and hung it up. ‘You should come out with us after. It seems a nice town, Southampton. Nothing like New York, but it’s a nice town. There’s a dance hall at the start of the pier and it looks as though there are some decent pubs. I think we’re all going to explore the pubs tonight.’

  ‘Think I should come?’

  ‘Are you kidding?’ Pansy kicked off her shoes and began getting undressed. ‘You need company, Maxine. You need somebody to take your mind off things. You’re coming out with us tonight and you’re going to enjoy it. A few drinks will get you in the mood. It’s no good crying over spilt milk any longer. You have to accept things the way they are.’

  Maxine shrugged. ‘Maybe you’re right. I make myself so unhappy dwelling on things…on things that might have been. I know I do.’

  Pansy unfastened her suspenders and putting her left foot on a chair, slid a stocking down her leg. ‘Anyway, I always reckon things happen for a reason. Everything that’s happened to you, Maxine, has happened for a reason.’

  ‘I know. To make me miserable.’

  Chapter 23

  In mid-Atlantic on the second voyage, Maxine rose earlier than the others and breakfasted alone in the Tourist Class Dining Room on C Deck, just yards from their cabins. To her enormous surprise, she was feeling indifferent to recent events, and thus guilty that her emotions were not as intense as she reckoned they ought to be. She took the staircase to the Sun Deck, drawn by the need for some bracing sea air and to ponder the perplexing phenomenon. As she leaned on the rail with the cold wind blowing through her hair she gazed into the surging sea below and watched how it swirled in endless turmoil alongside the ship. And she was mesmerised by it. Despite the awesome power that could easily lift this eighty-one thousand ton colossus like a cork, despite the crash of enormous waves breaking incessantly against the hull, the sibilant, erratic harmony of the sea was hypnotic and sedating. The heaving ocean stretched away to the horizon and beyond and Maxine felt surprisingly at peace. If this was what being at sea did for you, no wonder those involved with it were so addicted.

  But there was something else. Life aboard this luxury liner was good. They had nothing to worry about except performing, and performing was a joy in any case. It was like being on holiday. All the time they were meeting interesting new people, discovering something new about the ship. And New York…oh, she couldn’t wait to return to New York.

  She
flicked her hair out of her eyes and turned up the collar of her coat. As she huddled inside it for warmth she felt a presence and turned round. Brent Shackleton was beside her, his hair blowing in the wind.

  ‘Hi!’

  She smiled her welcome. ‘Brent! Hello. Have you had breakfast yet?’

  ‘Just. Have you eaten?’

  She nodded and peered into the fermenting brine below.

  ‘So how long have you been here?’

  ‘Ages. I think I could stay here all day. It seems to have a beneficial effect on me.’

  ‘Oh? How?’

  ‘Every day I’m at sea I feel a bit more remote from the real world. It’s so peculiar. Everything seems so distant…I can’t explain…I feel like I’m somebody else. I feel, somehow, that I’m no longer the same Maxine Kite who lived in Dudley and played cello in the CBO. It’s as if that was another life – somebody else’s life…’ She shook her head. ‘It really is peculiar.’

  ‘I feel the same,’ he said and stood alongside her leaning against the rail.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. All that business with Eleanor…I know exactly what you mean…Detached. As if it really was another lifetime.’

  ‘Fancy that. You as well. It’s not that I can’t remember Howard, I can, but I can’t seem to summon any emotion anymore. It’s as if he’s just a figment of my imagination now. Why should it be? I’m still the same person but I feel completely numb. I should feel guilty that I do, and yet…and yet the relief from it more than compensates. I tell you, Brent, this sudden indifference is so much easier to bear than all that anxiety.’

  ‘Then go along with it, Maxine.’

  ‘But that’s just it, I am. Nothing’s bothering me anymore and I can’t believe my luck. I keep telling myself it’s the ship, the sea, the air, the change…’

  ‘It’s a whole different world, Maxine…’

  They fell silent for a while, listening to the crash of waves in the chilly winter Atlantic, and the incessant roar of wind and sea that drowned the low hum of the ship’s engines.

  Brent said, ‘You know, Maxine, I’d like us to be closer, you and me. I see no reason why we shouldn’t be closer.’

  She looked at him puzzled. ‘Aren’t we close already?’

  ‘I want us to be closer than we are already.’

  ‘You mean…as close as you were with Eleanor?’

  ‘Closer than that, Maxine. Like I said, I’ve forgotten Eleanor…’

  ‘But you must miss her a little bit.’

  ‘Not here. Not on this ship. Certainly not when I’m with you…Funny, but I could never imagine you doing to a man what she did to me.’

  ‘No, I don’t think I ever could.’

  ‘The longer I know you, Maxine, the more I realise what a treasure you are.’

  She laughed. ‘I know. Buried treasure,’ she replied with typical self-effacement.

  Brent laughed too, unstintingly, but another pause developed in the conversation.

  ‘You know, Maxine,’ he said presently, ‘I did go with a girl from the dime-a-dance saloon…’ She looked up at him, apprehensive at what he might admit, because she did not really want to know. ‘I want you to know, Maxine. But I also want you to know she meant nothing. Nothing at all.’

  Maxine shrugged. ‘You don’t have to confess your indiscretions to me. Why should you want to? What you do with your own money is no—’

  ‘I just want you to know, Maxine. I’d hate you to think I’d normally do such a thing. It was the booze, the place, the moment…the loneliness – without you.’

  ‘But you were with me. Right up to the moment you left to go there.’ She shrugged at his strange logic.

  ‘But you weren’t mine, Maxine. And I needed you.’

  ‘So you went off with Blanche, the beautiful young girl with no knickers, eh?…And what about Dulcie?’ This seemed as good a time as any to mention Dulcie. ‘Did she mean nothing when you telephoned her and asked if you could go to her cabin?’

  ‘Oh, she told you about that?’ he asked, surprised.

  ‘Oh, yes. She told me.’

  ‘You weren’t jealous, were you?’

  ‘No, not jealous, Brent…I was peeved. After you were nursing me in your arms the night of that terrible storm, I think I’d started to believe I was the only one entitled to that sort of attention from you.’ She shrugged and uttered a little laugh of self-mockery. ‘Stupid of me.’ She paused and looked out to sea, at the heavy swell glinting and sparkling as here and there the sun escaped through a lattice of dark clouds. ‘I’m not sure whether Dulcie was just trying to sound me out, Brent, when she told me. You know?…To see how the land lies between you and me before she made a play for you. She’s a very attractive girl, you know, and from a very wealthy family. She’s unattached too. Did you know that? She would be a prize catch if you could land her.’

  ‘You think so?’ he asked, amused. ‘Yes, well…Dulcie is an attractive girl, Maxine, as you say, and I confess I did fancy her…but I think somebody else captured her heart.’

  ‘Oh? Anybody I know?’

  ‘Only Kenny Wheeler.’

  ‘Kenny? You’re pulling my leg. And she kept insinuating that I should take up with Kenny.’

  ‘To put you off the scent.’

  Maxine laughed. ‘The crafty monkey! Well, they kept it very quiet.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think anything happened between them, Maxine. In fact, I know it didn’t, but there was something going on.’

  She chuckled with delight. ‘He’s a right one, isn’t he? I don’t know how he gets away with it all the time? And what’s going to happen about his poor wife and baby?’

  Brent shrugged his shoulders and leaned on the rail again. ‘It’s his concern, not mine. I’ve got enough to occupy me…’

  ‘Poor you. What problems have you got to occupy you?’

  ‘More like what I haven’t got, Maxine…You. I haven’t got you.’

  ‘Then count your blessings, Brent Shackleton.’ She uttered a derisory little chuckle. ‘You don’t know when you’re well-off. You’ve got all those other girls…those in the dime-a-dance saloon. There must be lots of places like that in New York. You could have a whale of a time. Then there’s all those other young rich girls that keep making eyes at you while we’re playing in the Verandah Grill. And I’ve seen you making eyes back at them too. The fact that they’re dancing with somebody else doesn’t seem to make any difference. Just think – you could have a different girl every night of the week. Why should you want to saddle yourself with me?’

  ‘Because you’re the only girl I’m really interested in, Maxine.’

  ‘Piffle! You could never be true to one girl.’

  He turned to face her. ‘Then you don’t know me, Maxine,’ he said very seriously.

  ‘I know what I see.’

  Silence fell between them; a silence filled with the roar of the sea and the bracing wind that from time to time blew fine spray into their faces; a silence that prompted them to ponder each other’s feelings.

  ‘Remember how I kissed you when you came to my house that time?’ Brent said eventually.

  ‘Did you?’ she answered, affecting disinterest by pretending not to remember.

  ‘You know I did. And you didn’t dislike it. Well, I’m going to kiss you again.’

  ‘Are you? And if I won’t let you?’

  He guffawed roguishly. ‘It makes no odds. I shall kiss you anyway.’ He held his arms out to her.

  Unwittingly, she turned and stood with her back to the rail, waiting to receive him. Her arms reached out submissively and she looked into his eyes with a kittenish smile.

  ‘Okay, kiss me before I’m completely out of practice. God knows I’ve got nobody else to kiss.’

  Their lips met in a deliciously long embrace.

  The band’s time in New York fell into much the same routine as their previous stay. They all trooped along to the Hotel Pennsylvania once more to listen to the Benny
Goodman Swing Band and some returned to the Billy Rose Music Hall for the supper show to see again the tableau of naked girls. The lads did not venture near a dime-a-dance saloon this time, as Brent wished to stay close to Maxine. He was at last making some headway and did not want to jeopardise his gains by unnecessary laddish behaviour. On the Tuesday they ventured to the top of the Empire State Building and viewed the rest of the world from the 102nd floor observatory before spending some time drooling over the high class establishments on Fifth Avenue. Later, as they headed back to Pier 90, they happened on a place called the Onyx Club on West Fifty-second Street.

  ‘I’ve heard of this place,’ Brent said. ‘It’s where all the great jazz musicians hang out. We really must try and get in there one night. Perhaps next voyage, eh? And look – there’s the Famous Door Club…And the Hickory House is there as well. Oh, this town’s unbelievable, Maxine. I want to live here.’

  On the Tuesday night, after the band had been playing for early passengers, Brent told Maxine that he was desperately in love with her and asked if she would sleep with him. The suggestion came unexpectedly and Maxine was surprised although, as Pansy told her later, she should not have been. Maxine was not ready to sleep with Brent. Oh, they were chummy enough when they were together in a crowd, even lovey-dovey at times. When they were alone, she enjoyed the tenderness she felt with his arm around her waist, and basked in the contentment his admiration elicited. His attention was enjoyable and far preferable to feeling sorry for herself over Howard Quaintance. Brent could be utterly charming, and he was charming when they walked together hand-in-hand through the streets of New York, or when they sat in a club or restaurant with the others, giggling and whispering syrupy nonsense to each other.

  The problem was the night. Although she felt this detachment from real life during the day, the night could be a terse reminder of reality. Her dreams were still about Howard. The rage that she felt before re-emerged night after night, followed inevitably by the sheer sadness and heartache of losing him. She grieved in her sleep and, while she was pleased to awake from it in the morning and leave it behind, it took some time to shake it out of her system once she had woken up. No, she was not ready to sleep with Brent Shackleton and maybe she never would be. In any case, when they arrived at Southampton next time there should be a letter waiting for her. Maybe last time Howard had just missed the post. Because, if it transpired that Howard still wanted her, that was where her future lay. Brent was merely a pleasant diversion.