The Unforgiving Sea (The Searight Saga Book 2)

by Rupert Colley

  ‘Mr Jenkins, what do you know about a boy called William?’

  ‘William?’

  ‘The one in baggy shorts and a jacket.’

  ‘Oh yes, William. Quiet boy, intelligent, a little strange maybe. But then, he’s had a difficult time, poor lad. His father was killed last year in North Africa. It’s affected him, of course.’

  ‘Does he have friends?’

  ‘Not at school he doesn’t. The other kids don’t know how to talk to him. Rita, his mother, is nice enough. Can’t be easy for her.’

  After a few more minutes, during which Gregory continued his playing, Jenkins announced he had had enough and was off home. Having watched him leave with, on my part, a degree of envy, Rebecca asked me whether I saw much of my parents. We resumed our earlier conversation, talking about my life as a merchant seaman and hers as a teacher, when Gregory’s recital came to an end. He received a boisterous cheer for his efforts and, as he came back to us, Parker slapped him on the back and thrust another pint of beer in his hand.

  Gregory came to join us. ‘You two s-still t-talking, I see,’ he said to us, clearly disgruntled.

  ‘Yes, we were just–’

  ‘I don’t n-need to know.’

  ‘You all right, Gregory?’ I asked.

  He gulped his drink. Placing the glass on the table, he announced he too was off. And with that, he was gone, the beer still swirling in its glass.

  ‘Is he OK, do you think?’ asked Rebecca.

  ‘Yeah, he’s just a bit grumpy. He doesn’t like being treated like a performing monkey.’

  ‘No, don’t suppose he does.’

  ‘He’ll get over it.’

  Chapter 23

  Today is Sunday. Today would have been my first wedding anniversary. One year of marriage. All the more reason not to go to church. But still I plan to go. I dress slowly, imagining I am dressing on the morning of my wedding. I put on my suit, a drab brown affair that used to belong to Clarence. A year ago, it would have been a morning suit with tails, top hat, the works. Mum and Father would have arrived in their finery, my mother wearing something green, as she always did on special occasions. Special occasions always brought the Irish out in her, hence the green, a nod to home. I put on my tie – plain, dark red. A year ago, it would have been a bowtie. I put on my ordinary brown loafers; a year ago it would have been a pair of shiny black leather shoes. I brush my hair. A year ago, I would have added a bit of pomade – Brylcreem. I remembered the advert, promising glossier hair. A year ago, instead of getting married to the woman I loved, I went to visit my parents, needing to escape the village and all the sympathetic faces. My mother fretted, wanting to make sure I was all right. As if I’d be all right. I sat in the kitchen, my mother making me cups of tea, unsure of what to say, offering to take me out for lunch. At least she tried. My father’s only effort was to say ‘plenty more fish in the sea’. My mother shooed him out of the kitchen. I didn’t see him for the rest of the day.

  The first time I met the woman who almost became my wife was at the cinema in Plymouth in April of 1943. Plymouth had been badly hit by the Blitz a couple years back. Damaged and ruined buildings still lay all about, piles of rubble, massive craters, everywhere devastation. Charles Church near the city centre had been reduced to a skeleton, destroyed by German incendiary bombs in 1941. All but one of the city’s cinemas had been destroyed and, two years later, were still out of operation. One cinema, however, the Forum, although damaged had survived. The buildings either side were still being patched up having fallen victim to the bombs. And it was there, at the Forum, that I’d been to see Gone With the Wind with Owen and a couple of pals from work. Afterwards, I waited for them in the foyer while they collected their coats. I saw a cinema ticket on the floor behind a blonde girl in a knee-length coat talking to a couple of friends. Picking it up, I asked her whether it was hers.

  ‘Why yes, it is. Thank you.’

  ‘Did you enjoy the film?’ I asked, wondering why I had.

  ‘Oh my, it was heavenly.’

  ‘“Frankly, my dear…”’

  She completed the quote and we laughed. Stepping away from the companions, she waxed lyrical about Vivien Leigh. ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’

  ‘I prefer a blonde,’ I said, pointedly, trying to imitate Clark Gable’s voice.

  ‘Oh, you do, do you?’ she said, flicking her hair with a rakish smile.

  She wore a lime green blouse with large buttons, a string of pearls, and a small red bow in her hair, its colour matching that of her lipstick. Her face, so pale, radiated kindness and fun, her eyes, vibrant green, drew me in. I thought her the most beautiful person I’d ever seen. Yet, her beauty, far from inhibiting me, brought out the best in me. My pals reappeared. I was about to introduce her when she was called away by her friends. ‘Well, it was lovely to meet you,’ she said, offering me her hand. Before I had chance to respond, she’d been whisked away out into the street.

  ‘You old dog, Searight,’ said Owen. ‘Can’t leave you for a minute.’

  ‘Did you catch her name?’ asked my other friend, a chap called Peters.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or her number?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Then you’re a bloody fool,’ said Owen. ‘Go catch her up. They won’t have got far.’

  ‘I’m not sure–’

  ‘Go, man; just go.’

  So I did. Pushing past people leaving the cinema, I barged out into the warm spring night. Looking left and right, I saw them turn the corner into Albion Road. Running, jumping over a pile of masonry, I caught them up. ‘Excuse me, excuse me.’ I bumped into someone, a dark figure in a coat. ‘Hey, watch where you’re going, can’t you?’

  ‘I’m sorry. Excuse me.’

  They turned. The girl stepped towards me. ‘Did I drop something else?’ she said with a playful smile.

  ‘No, I just… I mean…’

  ‘Yes?’

  One of her friends behind giggled.

  ‘You lot go ahead,’ she said to them over her shoulder. ‘I’ll catch you up in a minute.’ We looked at each other, unaware of people passing, of a car beeping its horn, of someone laughing on the other side of the street. She smiled. ‘My name is Alice and the answer is yes.’

  *

  I had a terrible case of first date nerves. I scrubbed myself clean, donned my best suit and tried on various ties trying to decide which looked the most suitable – nothing too showy but which still had a bit of colour. I settled for plain blue. I slicked back my hair and splashed myself with liberal amounts of aftershave. All the while being watched by Angie, sitting comfortably on my bed. It was a Saturday night. I came downstairs to find Clarence sitting in the living room with a glass of beer, sucking on a cigarette, reading the paper. ‘You’re going to great effort for this new girl. I hope she appreciates it – that is if you don’t knock her out first with that perfume. Is she worth it?’

  ‘I’ll say.’

  ‘So who is she? Will I approve?’

  ‘Don’t know much about her, to be honest, and as to whether you’d approve or not…’

  He put his hand up. ‘I know, I know, you couldn’t give a fig what I think…’

  ‘Right, how do I look?’

  ‘Like a spiv.’

  ‘What? Do I? Heck…’

  ‘Good God, I wish I’d never said it. No, really, you look fine. Quite the gentleman around town. Now get out of here. Go forth and sweep this young belle off her feet. And don’t let her get you drunk.’

  I waited for her outside the theatre. On seeing her walking towards me, this blonde siren, looking divine in a dark blue jacket over a mauve dress, I felt almost weak.

  The play by Terence Rattigan, although good, was poorly acted. Afterwards, we went to a restaurant on Union Street where we ordered a beef pie and giggled and mocked the awful acting.

  ‘I’m so sorry about the play,’ I said once we’d ordered.

  ‘Don’t be silly; it’s hardly your fa
ult.’

  ‘The local rag gave it a good review.’

  ‘Shows how much they know. Anyway, it’s the company that counts. Don’t you think?’

  I laughed.

  And so we had a pleasant evening – eating, drinking too much wine and finding out about each other. She lived not so far from me, a village about eight miles hence, and, from what I could tell, came from a well-to-do family, her father being the local estate agent with a large remit of properties at any given time. He had given her a car for her most recent birthday – a brand new Ford Anglia. Indeed, she said, she’d parked it just up the road. ‘I’ll give you a lift home tonight, if that would please sir.’

  ‘That would very much. But can you drive after so much wine? I don’t have a car but when I drive my dad’s old banger, I find alcohol makes me go blurry and I usually end up in the hedge.’

  ‘Oh, Robert, you sound like my father. I find I drive better after a few glasses.’

  And so, once we’d eaten and I’d paid the bill, Alice took me home driving at an alarming speed through Plymouth and out into the Devon lanes. In no time, I was home. Deposited outside my door, feeling rather nauseous, I wondered whether I should invite her in. Somehow, I couldn’t face subjecting her to Clarence’s scrutiny or the inevitable comments afterwards – comments like What does a girl like that see in you? or She seems far too good for the likes of you. ‘I guess you’ll be wanting to head home,’ I said, ‘but if you want to…’

  ‘No, awfully sweet of you but you’re right – I ought to get home. I may be a big girl now but Daddy will still be waiting up for me, the old sausage.’

  ‘Yes, of course. Well, anytime… I mean, if you’d like…’

  ‘Another time? Would love to.’ She planted a kiss on my cheek. I watched her drive off, a cigarette between her lips, careering round the corner, and disappearing into the night.

  ‘My God,’ I muttered to myself. ‘What a girl.’

  I found Clarence still up, still in the armchair, a book face down on his lap, the empty beer glass at his feet. I wondered whether he’d moved at all during the time I was out. The only difference was now he was wearing a pair of slippers.

  ‘What are you reading?’ I asked.

  ‘Never mind about that? Where’s the girl?’

  ‘She went home.’

  ‘She went home? You are a gentleman. So, tell me all. What she like?’

  ‘She’s lovely,’ I said, exaggerating a yawn. ‘I’m really tired.’

  ‘Is that it? Lovely?’

  ‘Lovely and unconventional.’

  ‘Lovely and unconventional? Oh Lord, I don’t like the sound of that one bit.’

  *

  I woke the following day, a fine spring Sunday morning, and positively leapt out of bed. I felt different somehow. I looked the same; the world outside looked the same, yet everything was different. Wanting to avoid my brother, I scoffed down an early breakfast, listening to but not absorbing the news on the radio, and gulped down my tea. Feeling in need of exercise, I decided to take Angie for a walk on the moor. Outside, the church bells rang for early matins, a service I left for those more pious and appreciative than myself. Waving hello to various people, I cycled briskly through the village and out onto the track that led up to the moor gate. Although sunny, the air had a cold pinch to it – summer was still a long way off. The moor smelt fresh, the grass still damp with dew. The shadow of a cloud drifted across the beacon. A flock of starlings skimmed past, a stray sheep kept a worried eye on Angie who, unusually, too enamoured with other olfactory delights, failed to spot it. Yes, I thought, Alice was certainly unconventional – she smoked, she drank, she drove, she made jokes, she turned up at dates without a chaperon. My father would be scandalized; he’d be appalled that I should make the acquaintance of such a woman. There are unspoken rules and civilised people, people of a certain class, should know how to abide by them. Alice seemed to delight in doing all the things that ‘nice girls’ shouldn’t do. I laughed aloud, feeling absurdly proud of her, my ‘lovely and unconventional’ companion. It was then, at that moment, with Angie yelping at some unseen foe, that I realised why I felt so different – I was in love.

  *

  The first time I took Alice home to meet my parents wasn’t exactly an unqualified success. I’d already met her parents. Her father, a short, rather plump man, shook my hands with both of his, and peered at me over his half-moon spectacles while puffing on his pipe, producing clouds of thick blue smoke. I took her over to my parents one Sunday morning for lunch. Clarence had come too, arriving separately – it was the first time the two of them had met. ‘So, you’re the girl that’s got my brother all hot under the collar,’ he said, as we gathered in my parents’ hallway.

  ‘I have that effect on men,’ she said as quick as a flash.

  Clarence laughed but I could tell that my father hovering in the background was less than impressed by her response.

  ‘It’s lovely to meet you,’ said my mother.

  ‘And you, Mrs Searight.’

  ‘Oh, please, call me Mary. And this is my husband, Lawrence…’

  With introductions over, we adjourned to the drawing room where my father offered aperitifs before moving to the dining room for a lunch of roast rabbit. Clarence, rejecting my father’s offer of wine, helped himself to a bottle of beer. Although she tried to hide it, I noticed Alice, sitting between us, place her hand over her nose.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I asked her in a whisper.

  ‘I hate the smell of beer. Can we swap places?’

  ‘Is it something I said?’ asked Clarence.

  ‘No, no,’ I said quickly. ‘Alice’s got the sun on her back.’

  Poor Alice – throughout lunch she endured my father’s interrogation – where do you live; what do you do; what do your parents do? He wasn’t impressed by what he would have considered her frivolous lifestyle – a bit of work in her father’s office every now and then, she said, driving round Devon lanes too fast; shopping, going to the pictures, nothing too strenuous. If Alice could sense my father’s disapproval, she certainly made no attempt to tone herself down. But I could tell Father was rather more impressed with her father’s estate agency – an occupation that made money and carried prestige, things my father looked favourably on.

  Noticing his framed display of medals on the war, Alice asked, ‘You fought in the war, Lawrence?’

  My father bristled – my mother may have given her permission to use her first name but he certainly hadn’t. ‘Yes. Nothing too heroic but I was there.’

  ‘My father was too – Gallipoli. Where were you?’

  ‘Yes, where were you, Father?’ echoed Clarence. ‘You never talk about it.’

  ‘Alice,’ said my mother, ‘more potatoes?’

  ‘It’s not something one talks about.’

  ‘Or more carrots, perhaps?’

  ‘Did you see the whites of the enemy’s eyes?’ asked Clarence.

  ‘Or fired a gun?’ I added. ‘Uncle Guy undoubtedly did.’

  ‘Of course,’ said my mother. ‘Guy lost a leg.’

  ‘I have an uncle,’ said Alice quietly. ‘But he didn’t fight. He didn’t do anything. He was old enough. Asthma, he says. Asthma, my eye.’ She stabbed a carrot.

  A few moments of awkward silence hung in the air.

  ‘Yes, well…’ said Clarence. ‘Go on then, Father, do tell.’

  ‘Boys,’ said my mother. ‘Leave your father be.’

  ‘But you’ve never mentioned it,’ I said.

  ‘You will one day, won’t you, Father?’ asked Clarence. ‘You know, before it’s too late. Perhaps you could write it down.’

  ‘That a good idea,’ said Alice. ‘Like a memoir. I should ask my dad to do the same.’

  ‘Look, I’d really rather not talk about this any more, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Quite right, Lawrence,’ said my mother. ‘Now, there’s more of everything if anyone wants seconds.’

  ‘
Wouldn’t mind a top-up of your fine wine,’ said Alice. ‘If I may?’

  Clarence and I exchanged glances – Father wouldn’t like that.

  Afterwards, as Alice drove Clarence and me home, I apologised for my father’s barrage of questions.

  ‘Don’t be silly. Your father’s lovely. They both are.’

  ‘Lovely?’ said Clarence from the back. ‘I’ve never heard him described as that before.’

  *

  The nation may still have been at war but my life had changed entirely for different reasons. I was in love – utterly and totally in love. We went for day trips out to the seaside, took Angie for walks on the moor, dined in Plymouth, a city under blackout, went to the theatre and the pictures. We were in love, and that was all that mattered.

  Chapter 24

  The church, for the size of the village, is ridiculously large. Thus although most of the villagers were attending the Sunday morning service, the place still seemed half empty. The church, I knew of old, was perpetually cold, with its thick sandstone walls discoloured in several areas by dark green patches of damp. The smell of damp hung in the air. If drabness had a smell, then this was it. I sat towards the back, hoping that by my mere presence and participation, I could reconnect to a faith I had long since lost, if indeed I ever possessed it in the first instance. Reverend Pritchard led the service, his white cassock perhaps not as white as it once was. He delivered his sermon without much enthusiasm, as if his own words bored him. I tried to concentrate but instead remembered how Davison had led the prayers on the boat. There, with our lives in the hands of an unseen force, it felt real. Here, in this cosy if claustrophobic village, with half the congregation drifting off and the other half preoccupied by their own thoughts, Reverend Pritchard’s words felt almost irrelevant. The whole ceremony felt little more than a charade – the vicar feeling obliged to preach, his congregation, their attendance more an act of routine than an act of faith, obliged to play their part by being present.