Lone and broken, William wept. Wept till his face was wet, till Sophie mopped it and lay against his chest. ‘Come to bed,’ he said.
‘No, no.’ It was never going to end. Scrambling to her feet, her arms guarding her breasts in maidenly rejection, Sophie tried to explain. She would sleep on the sofa in the front room.
She didn’t. They slept in the double bed. She tried to comfort him.
He brought her a mug of tea next morning. Sleep had restored his rage. Disbelief had gone for ever. Why Sophie? Why Sophie, in heaven’s name? He looked at the heavy eyelids, the dried track of a tear, the skin. She was so fucken innocent. Groper had seen this, had known it all. William gripped the bedhead. After a moment he pulled on his clothes, glanced at his watch. Even the kids were asleep. He strode along the road.
The bell rang for some time. William tried again, kept his finger on it till the door opened. The sod stood there. Crumpled grey hair, unshaven in paisley silk (silk), the swine looked at him. ‘Come in,’ he said.
William leaped at him, hands outstretched, head reeling. Kill him just kill him that was all. Then go home. Go home to his wife and love her.
Edward moved back. His voice was quiet. ‘Watch it.’
William said nothing. He moved closer. The man was still calm. ‘Tollerton’ll be here soon,’ he said.
Tollerton? William shook his head to clear it.
‘There will be a witness. Attack on a senior officer,’ said Edward.
William was shaking. ‘You fucked my wife!’ he screamed.
Edward was startled. He had expected outrage but not passion, not from an uptight automaton like Flynn who had never fired a shot in anger or explored the astonishing depths of his own wife. This dead bore, this homicidal lunatic who was nothing, who knew nothing about anything except gunnery, surprised him. He had expected a more rational approach. Something less gut-wrenching, less shattered, less real from young Flynn. What a mess.
‘I love your wife,’ said Edward.
Through the window William saw Leading Steward Tollerton striding up the road to work. ‘I’ll kill you,’ he sighed. And there were other ways of destroying. He opened the door. ‘Some senior officer,’ said William. At the bottom of the steps he turned and spat it out, ‘Groper!’
Edward closed the door.
He couldn’t go home. Not yet. William turned left, ran down the hill to the still calm of Stanley Bay. It was mid-tide; a line of small waves flounced across the unwarmed sand. There was no one on the tiny cove; the launch was waiting at the old wharf. Two oystercatchers waddled about fussing at the shoreline, then sailed into the air to fly straight and true, their cries echoing in the stillness. Kleep. Kleep.
A Grammar-school boy slipped the rope from the bollard and leaped on board, his man’s work done. He slouched beside the Captain, at ease on his own private boat. The launch departed; no bells, hooters, just a gentle easing out, a widening ripple of wake breaking the mirrored clouds.
Not a soul, not a blind soul. William pulled off his shirt and trousers and raced into the water, hitting it flat with a racing dive. The cold clutched his balls, tightened his chest. The water was melted ice. He surfaced and headed for the harbour, ploughing through the water with long tormented strokes. He turned on his back gasping with pain. What the hell was he doing? He floated, shouted at the sky, gasped for breath. He was getting colder. What a dumb way to die. He dived deep, surfaced and headed for shore. There was someone on the beach. Shit.
He stood upright in the shallows. Ben, a long piece of silvered timber in one hand, lifted the other. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Cold out there?’
Ben. Of all the men in all the world. Ben. William nodded. His teeth were chattering like a six-year-old’s. ‘Yes,’ he said.
Ben draped himself around his length of wood and looked on as William struggled with dry corduroys, wet underpants and streaming legs. ‘No towel, huh?’
‘No.’
Ben’s mouth twisted. ‘Sudden mad impulse?’
William, his jaw locked to disguise hypothermia, nodded.
Ben, his face grave, nodded back. ‘Nice to be home, I guess?’ He was wearing a large homespun jersey. He propped his piece of wood carefully against the steps to the road, pulled the jersey off and handed it to the uni-neuronal idiot gibbering in front of him.
‘No, no.’
‘Take it, man. Take it.’
William took it. Warmth enfolded him, comforted and succoured him. He was alive. ‘Thanks.’
Ben was still watching him. His sleepy hooded eyes saw through and out the other side. His eyelashes were too long for a man. They splayed across his bottom lids in deep sweeping arcs.
William was still shaking. ‘Bit early in the morning for you, isn’t it?’
‘Ordinarily that would be true but I’m into lumber at the moment.’ Ben patted his find. ‘First up, best dressed for lumber.’ He shouldered the useless dozy slab of four-by-two. ‘Coming?’
There was nothing for it, not if he was ever going to be warm again. They set off up the hill.
‘How’s Sophie?’ drawled his saviour.
‘Fine. Fine.’
‘And the kids?’
‘Great. Great.’
The length of timber swung dangerously as the man turned to him. ‘That’s nice.’
‘Yes.’ William had thought of something. ‘How’s Mary?’
‘Why, thank you. Mary is out for the count at the moment but I guess she’ll surface, maybe two, three hours.’
‘Good,’ said William, misery sweeping over him once more as he thawed.
The timber on Ben’s shoulder swung again. The lashes were vertical jalousies. ‘Great old guy, that Arnie who’s stopping with you.’
‘Arnie? Oh, Arnie.’ A twist, a twist of the knife. At the top of the hill William pulled off the jersey. No, no, he was quite warm now.
‘I enjoyed yarning with him about the mutiny.’
The wet rat head turned. ‘What mutiny?’
‘I don’t recall the name.’
The lawns needed cutting. The washing machine was thundering away as he stood at the back door. He touched the box of rotten feijoas with one foot. Couldn’t she have chucked them on the compost? No time. No time even for that. He walked through to the kitchen, nodded at the old man and his son in the dining room. Kit lifted a hand. She must be in the shower. William rubbed a hand over his stubbled chin, poured lukewarm tea into a mug and picked up the photograph propped on the window sill. His jaw dropped, stayed hanging. How could she have got it? It must have been Wellbone, he would have sent it to his wife. Typical, typical, he’d known from the start the man was a scrubber, would shop every man on board if he had the chance. He stared at the black-and-white photograph, hypnotised by three-inch-by-four-inch. There were only the two of them. Missie was plastered against him, glued from knee to crotch and further. Supple as a liane and about as wide, her head flowered against his shoulder, her mouth was wide open. She was boneless, timeless, without will or support. She was his and had been all week in Hawaii.
‘It fell out of a pocket,’ said Sophie from the door. Her hair was wet. She was wrapped in a towel.
TEN
‘I would’ve told you,’ he said.
‘Kids,’ mouthed Sophie. They were fighting; vicious recriminations from the allegedly pinched and the definitely framed filled the dining room.
William put his head through the slide and roared. ‘Pipe down, you lot.’ They did so. Wounded and misunderstood they lapsed into the body language of hate; fingers stiffened, elbows came into play, a quick foot.
Her face was serious but unconcerned. Iced to the bone once more, he slammed the slide shut. She gave a small ridiculous start (she could see the thing bang), hugged the towel tight and headed for the bedroom.
‘I would’ve told you,’ he said again.
She turned her back on him as she dropped forwards into her bra, adjusted alignment, tugged on her pink spotted pants. The chill splintered, stu
ck in his heart, tightened his groin. ‘I’m your husband,’ cried William. The knowledge that it wasn’t that photo-snapping prick who’d shopped him but his own carelessness increased the pain.
She turned. Again that balls-aching polite attention. ‘What do you mean?’
He couldn’t say it. He couldn’t say, you do not have to turn your back on me while you dress. I know your breasts. I love them. I know your bush, I … There were tears in his eyes. He shook his head. She was dressed now, a blue jersey, a skirt made years ago. He had crawled around on his knees pinning the hem. (Stand still can’t you.) He watched her. A woman parting her hair, bending forward, flinging it back, getting it straight. He picked a loose hair from her shoulder, wondered if he had ever seen her before. Ever seen her before in his whole fucken life.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You’re wet.’ She’d noticed. After ten hours his wife had finally noticed. ‘Where’ve you been?’
‘I went for a swim.’
Her smile was slow, almost loving. ‘Oh.’ She was making the bed, tugging, aligning, tucking away as if there was still some point in doing so. From habit, sheer merciless habit, William adjusted his side, smoothed the pillow, pulled up stripes and straightened them.
‘What’s her name?’ said Sophie.
‘Missie.’
Again that gentle enquiring smile. ‘Missie? I suppose that was one of the hilarious photos Tricia Wellbone was going to show me.’
He had been right then. In one small, minor, unavailing point he had been correct.
‘Did you sleep with her?’
‘Yes.’
She looked into his eyes. Dark, swimming with tears, the eyes of her ex-husband stared back. ‘Why did you never tell me you really liked me,’ she said.
‘Rear Admiral Tower requests,’ said the invitation. ‘HMS Cheetah.’
‘I’m not going,’ said William.
Arnie, who had been heading towards the verandah, stopped in mid-shuffle and reversed. The tapping of his stick filled the silence. William stared after him. ‘Why does he always bugger off when I say anything?’
‘He thinks he’s interrupting.’
‘What’s there to interrupt?’
She tried again. ‘I thought you’d be pleased. Going on board a whatever it is.’
‘Cat class cruiser,’ he said automatically.
Who was the man who walked on eggshells? Edward would know, but perhaps not. The Bible was not his field. ‘Why don’t you want to go?’
‘I wouldn’t mind seeing a Cat class. But we won’t see it. We’ll just fart around.’ Pain still clamped his forehead. ‘And he’ll be there. Groper.’
Sophie said nothing. It is easier to hate if you insult the enemy, call them names. It has been going on since strumpets, harlots and trollops and still is. Shock had slapped his face the other night. If it gave William comfort to be absurd about the lover she ached for, so what. He needs all the help he can get and I can’t give it. ‘Accommodating’ old men, puddling about with plastic pottles of pudding and canisters of meat and two veg will not help William, even if it helps Mrs Rimmel who has just retired from her own cake shop where she worked six-thirty a.m to p.m. for thirty-five years and where has it got me, she asks beneath her plastic pixie hood wet or fine, eyes flashing as she takes her meal. ‘I’m a miller, you know,’ she says, ‘I trained as a miller. I’m not just a baker. Thirty-five years day and night and where has it got me?’ To broken health and near destitution, Mrs Rimmel, but think of your children and the good start you gave them after he left you for a floozie so long ago. Does this help your enlarged heart as the Mother’s Day cards slip into your letterbox which is adorned with a wrought-iron Mexican asleep beneath his sombrero.
Meals on Wheels will not help William, nor the brass gleaming in the sanctuary, nor grateful lepers, nor Harvest Festival. Fluffing about with pumpkins is not enough. Charity begins at home, does it not Mrs Rimmel.
‘Yes,’ said Sophie, switching to robust mode. ‘Edward probably will be. It’s an honour for you to be asked. What are you going to do? Hide?’
‘I went to see him.’
Her hand went to her mouth in a travesty of surprise. ‘No.’
‘Yesterday morning. The bastard pulled rank.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Ask him.’ He picked up Arnie’s binoculars, twiddled them, hid his eyes. ‘I suppose the whole base knows.’
‘I think there are rumours.’ And if you look so naked, so wretched, every rumour will become fact, though this I can’t say to you and anyway it already is. The facts are down.
‘That’s one of the reasons we must go,’ she said.
Admiral Tower’s day cabin was a large room with soft chairs and mushroom pink sofas. Old prints of sailing ships beating round the Horn and up the Main and elsewhere lined the walls. They all looked very similar. A female face (long nose, lobeless ears) stared unsmiling from a blue leather frame on the desk. A thin man came forward to greet them. He bent from the hip and extended a dry leaf hand. ‘How nice to meet you, Mrs Flynn. I had the pleasure of meeting your husband off Tonga recently. Taut-run ship it was too. My Flag Captain and I went over by jackstay, didn’t we, Jasper?’ A whiskered Captain beside him laughed in happy accord with his senior officer. ‘No one ditched us either. Have you met …’
He turned to introduce his other guests, all of whom they knew. William’s Captain and his wife Brenda talked to Celia and Harold Pickett. Harold was looking hunted; he had got stuck with an olive stone. The lights were very bright. A high-ranking member of the Navy League and his wife breathed recently demolished fish balls at Sophie. A well-known criminal lawyer stood beside his dark unsmiling wife who was telling the Commodore about her childhood in Miami City, Florida. After some time she hissed at Sophie, ‘Where’s the John?’ Celia took charge. All the women present decided the John was what they had in mind. They were directed through the Admiral’s sleeping cabin which had no photographs at all nor any sign of human habitation except a narrow bed. It is a strange life.
The men were talking about the structure of Civil Defence in this country when they returned. ‘Is it well organised?’ asked the Admiral. ‘Very,’ said Harold Pickett.
‘The deputies are officer types too, I presume?’ said Admiral Tower.
There was a pause. New Zealanders examined the carpet; the John lady lit a cigarette. The smoke trailed from the side of her mouth, Marlene Dietrich giving herself time. She, the Admiral and the Commodore were at ease.
Edward smiled at Sophie. The John lady looked thoughtful, William distracted.
The Admiral’s hectic eyebrows invited them to sit. The lights were even brighter. Place names were displayed in tiny silver holders—a rickshaw man, a fisherman beneath a large coolie hat, a fish jumping with open mouth. They come from Singapore. People buy them.
A string trio, who presumably doubled in brass in the band, assembled. Soup was served, consommé plus small floating squares of something waxy and pallid. The trio was a mistake, if not slightly nuts. They played too loudly. And shouldn’t you listen. And talk. And eat. And smile.
The meal was served. You should not smile at Royal Naval stewards (William). They do not like it. It is not the custom of the country.
Celia was sitting on her host’s left. ‘Goodness,’ she said, glancing at his plate and being forthright. ‘Don’t you like venison?’
Admiral Tower’s smile was wistful. ‘I had too much of it at prep school,’ he explained. People nodded understandingly, their faces solemn. Sophie snorted. William watched her bleakly. It was part of her, that ridiculous explosion of mirth. He did not mind it.
The meat was very high. So high that no one asked its provenance. It must have been shot on the hoof in the wild. An old shipmate, perhaps, now farming somewhere in the back country who wished to honour his friend Tommy with a well-hung haunch. The trio played on.
The port was passed. Women were allowed, in fact encouraged, to pour their own.
There was a little flutter from the solicitor’s wife who was unskilled in the procedure but it is quite simple if you keep your head.
At Holy Trinity Devonport before he sailed William had handed Sophie, Rebecca and Kit money for the offertory. Sophie handed hers back. She had explained to him several times in the past. ‘I am a grown woman,’ she had said. ‘I will give my own.’
She sat there remembering, passing the open decanter to the Navy League on her left with a polite murmur and despair in her heart. Why had it taken her so long to wake up? She had been asleep, sound asleep like some bumble-footed child bride dozing her life away in rented naval castles. Edward was not responsible for her awakening. She had woken herself. She had heard the delayed-action alarm on its last whirr, its final gasp. She glanced across the table at her lover who was explaining that although he had never been lucky enough to visit Miami City, Florida, he knew the northeastern seaboard quite well, particularly Rhode Island where he had once attended a Sea Power symposium. Did Mrs erm happen to know Rhode Island? She surely did. She had had a sophomore classmate at Cornell and had visited over several vacations at Newport and what about the cottages of the millionaire robber barons? Weren’t they something? They were indeed. Sophie watched him with pride. He could talk with anyone on anything; with good sense and gravity, with playful use of his well-stocked mind, he could entertain and inform. The whole world minus God was his field: geographically, emotionally and in depth.
William was still looking at her. His hair was all over the place, his eyes dismal as a slow thaw. The Navy League lady had given him up, abandoned herself to Harold Pickett on the other side. Sophie could stand it no longer. She pushed her chair back. ‘Excuse me,’ she said. How many times had the phrase been murmured at her in the last fourteen years. Five thousand? Ten? ‘Excuse me,’ she said again and walked to the door. The Admiral, caught in mid-salmon cast, rose belatedly. William was already upright. The Commodore rose and sat quickly. Celia, her hair burnished by light, her rings resplendent, was also on her feet. ‘I am not well either,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Perhaps it was the venison,’ she explained to her host. ‘Anyway, I’m going. Thank you so much.’
All the Nice Girls Page 17