The Ship

by Honeywell, Antonia

  I took the letter from him and read it again. I hold you in my heart and let you go. How could Tom honour his grandfather’s wish for him unless he did the same? How could I live the life my mother wished for me, unless I forgot her?

  ‘Maybe we’re on our way to China,’ I said at last. ‘We could be. We could have a life there. Start the factories again, make things. Grow rice.’

  ‘The photos looked like a pandemic,’ he said. ‘Like they’d all just dropped dead where they stood.’

  ‘Maybe we’re going to go and see.’

  He rested his elbows on his knees. ‘A country full of dead people behind closed borders? I don’t think so.’

  I shut my eyes, and leaned my head back against the wall, and thought about the survivors in my monster films. I thought about how people lived and died and made love in films, and how different it was in real life.

  ‘Did you ever see anyone smoking?’ I asked eventually.

  ‘I saw a pile of bodies being burned. Just outside a village on the way to Oxford.’

  ‘No, I meant cigarettes. Like in the films. If we were in a film right now, we’d be smoking cigarettes. You’d light the cigarette, and then you’d pass it to me, and we’d be sitting here talking just like this.’

  He laughed. ‘You’re funny, Lalla.’ I moved closer to him and rested my head on his shoulder. He kissed the top of my head and we stayed like that for a while. I don’t know what he was thinking about, but I was thinking about my mother.

  ‘The worst thing is …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Michael thought I was so brave, putting that picture on my blog. He thought I was telling the truth to the world at my own risk.’

  ‘And weren’t you?’

  He shook his head. ‘I just wanted to see if anyone knew what had happened. So that I could have something to tell my mother. Instead I killed her.’

  ‘You didn’t kill your mother.’ But maybe he had. Maybe that was what drew us so closely together, whether we knew it or not.

  ‘I’m an imposter,’ he said. ‘Everyone else here has done incredible things. I’m scared too, Lalla. I’m scared Michael’ll find me out. He’s told everyone I’m some great truth-telling hero. But I was just an idiot.’

  I loved him more at that moment than at any other since I’d first set eyes on him.

  ‘Let’s go down,’ he said at last. ‘You should eat something. You’re so thin, Lalla.’

  ‘I can’t help it.’

  ‘It’s just not … It’s like there’s not enough food or something. Like you’re rejecting everything Michael’s given us.’

  I said nothing, just sat and looked for non-existent cracks in the wall opposite.

  ‘Let me talk to Michael,’ he said. ‘Let’s stop being a secret.’

  ‘I need a secret.’

  ‘No, you don’t. Not now.’ He stood up and gave me his hands, then pulled me to my feet. He kept his arm around me as we made our way down the stairs, and although it was a bit awkward at the turns, it was nice. By the time we reached the bottom, I had made up my mind. I stopped and turned to face him.

  ‘We’re not the only ones with secrets,’ I said. Tom raised his eyebrows and I went on. ‘There’s a group of people – a small group – I see them meeting and whispering. But I don’t know what they’re saying. And there were clothes upstairs once, clothes for my mother. There must have been, but they’re gone. And the sun never rises and sets in the same place. Ever. There are never any lights on at night. The ship’s full of secrets. It’s not just us.’

  Tom laughed, and then his face softened and he put his hand to my cheek. ‘Your mother’s gone,’ he said softly. ‘Like my grandfather. You miss her. And I wish I’d known her. She loved you so much.’

  ‘How do you know?’ I asked, my voice shaking.

  ‘Because she was part of the ship. Part of what made it happen. Because she was part of what made you. But she’s here, Lalla. Like my mum and dad, and my grandfather, and Patience’s daughter, and Roger’s baby. All that has been and all that is, all that will be. Right here, right now. If you need to ask where we’re going, then you haven’t learned to trust. Secrets just hold us back. And looking for secrets in others – that’s worse.’

  I shook my head; a tear splashed onto his hand and he kissed my wet eyes, very softly. ‘That’s for you,’ he said as he kissed the right one. ‘And that’s for the people we lost, who are here with us now,’ he said as he kissed the left. ‘Do you really love me, Lalla? I love you. We could get married.’

  Married? The shock of the word brought on a wave of nausea, and I took deep breath after deep breath, trying to quell it. And yet why was the suggestion such a surprise? What was marriage, except two people who loved each other and wanted to be together? What more did I want than what I already had?

  Marriage. It meant that things had worked out. That the film was over. I felt as though I was back in the museum, staring at a shapeless lump of stone while my mother told me how exciting and interesting it was. What was wrong with me, that I saw only a shapeless lump of stone? The world should have been tinged pink and gone misty, and I should have been happy.

  I made Tom go into the dining room ahead of me. I wasn’t ready to give up my secrets. I hadn’t answered his question and I certainly didn’t feel like eating.

  FOURTEEN

  Helen’s trial Tom’s confession what I want

  I ate what I could of my dinner, and Solomon Asprey ate the rest. I wondered what would happen to the packages of clothes if I grew too thin for mine and he grew too fat for his.

  Tom kept catching my eye and smiling. I smiled back, but my attention was focused on the doctor’s small group. They came together at the table where the water jugs stood; they passed each other in their quests for cutlery, for napkins, for second servings. Why don’t they just sit together? I asked myself, but when they saw me looking, they separated as though they’d burned each other. I sat over a glass of water until everyone else had left, including Tom, borne away by a chattering group I didn’t care about.

  I left the air-conditioned dining room and went out into the heated air to walk to my cabin. Most people walked through the ship to get from place to place; it was more comfortable, especially in the heat, and usually quicker. But I liked to watch the sea, to feel a connection with where we were. I hadn’t intended to go to the goodnight meeting, but as I passed the ballroom I heard a noise, soft whispering overlaid with something harsher and more urgent, like a high wind. Curious, I pushed open the doors, and the first person I saw was Helen herself, white-faced and slumped at the desk on the raised podium where once my father had checked the manifest. The people, instead of being sat on the blue velvet benches, stood surrounding the podium talking at her. Helen’s eyes were red, and although I was half a room away from her, I could see her lips forming the single word, ‘But,’ over and over again. But … but … but. No one gave her the chance to finish, and no one met her eyes. They fell silent when they saw me, and shifted uncomfortably.

  And then I stopped dead. There, on the desk, sat the photograph album. All around the room, people were looking at the album, then at Helen. She looked at Finn, at Greg, at Alice, at Mercy, but they all turned away from her. Then the doors opened and my father came in. Everyone turned towards him, and I slipped quietly onto an empty bench.

  My father looked at where Helen sat, sobbing and shaking her head.

  ‘Sit, friends, sit,’ my father said, and as he walked to the podium, they moved to the benches, as though the sea itself was making way for him. I bit my lip and wiped my palms on my dress.

  Look carefully, Lalla. That’s how you learn.

  My father stepped onto the podium. Helen concentrated on him, her eyes wide and adoring. He surveyed the room slowly then asked, ‘We have no laws on the ship. Why do we need a courtroom?’ He stood next to Helen and put his hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Where is Gabriel?’ he asked.

  Finn stepped forwar
ds. ‘It was better that he didn’t come tonight,’ he said. Several of the people nodded. But Emily did not nod. The doctor’s head was still. Was there a division among the people of the ship? The exhilaration of thinking I was not alone brought my mother before me with startling clarity. I felt a hand on mine and saw that Tom had slipped onto the bench beside me. His hands were hot and damp; he must have been walking outside too.

  My father frowned. ‘You think Gabriel is better without his mother? Did his mother agree?’

  Finn stood up. The air he displaced pressed heavily on my shoulders. ‘Michael, you said we must not look back. You said there should be time no longer. And we threw away the mast and we said goodbye to the people we left behind.’

  My father nodded, gesturing at Finn to continue, but he did not take his hand from Helen’s shoulder. Finn’s voice rose in pitch, filling the ballroom with unease. ‘You became the children’s father. So Gabriel is your child. Our child. But Helen’s keeping him from you. From us. How can we be family to him, when she keeps showing him photographs of a man who’s dead?’

  ‘He’s mine.’ The voice that broke across Finn’s rising pitch was so thunderous that I thought it was my father who had spoken. It was not until I saw Helen standing, shaking, her hands clutching at the desk for support, that I realised that the words had been hers. Finn stepped away, staggering on the edge of the podium as he did so. The ballroom pulsed with the collective instinct to steady him, but he saved himself and kept his feet, staring at Helen. Helen stood still and white, the blood completely drained from her lips. I willed Finn to say nothing. We had all seen fights in the time before, people so driven by one need that they forgot everything else. And it was that single-mindedness – the single-mindedness that forgets humanity and community and all thoughts of tomorrow in the pursuit of bread, or blankets, or shelter – that we saw suddenly flash before us in the challenge the mother threw down before the old man. The sky beyond the ballroom was black and oppressive, pushing at the windows.

  Finn and Helen were looking at each other, breathing hard.

  ‘Helen?’ my father said.

  ‘Simon was my husband, Michael. I loved him, and we had Gabriel together. I brought the photographs to the holding centre, and I brought them onto the ship. And I show them to Gabriel. But I’ve never spoken against you, Michael, or the ship. Never.’ My father’s expression did not change and Helen’s voice tailed off. ‘Michael, have I done wrong?’ she asked him, her eyes damp and wide.

  My father shook his head. ‘You’ve caused a storm, that’s all.’ He pulled the photograph album to him and turned the pages slowly. ‘So this is Simon?’ he said. ‘He looks like he was a good man.’

  ‘He was. He left just after Gabriel was born, to claim land under the Land Allocation Act.’

  ‘And he never came back. What did you do when he didn’t return? Did you give up and wallow in your misery?’

  ‘Everyone’s already heard my testimony.’

  ‘Everyone except you.’ He was speaking as he spoke to the children, with soft encouragement. ‘I wonder whether you’ve ever really listened to your own story.’

  ‘I didn’t do anything,’ she faltered. ‘Everyone else did incredible things. But I … I didn’t do anything. I don’t deserve to be here. I’m not like all the others.’

  ‘Is that why you cling to what is gone, because you don’t believe in your own worth? I didn’t choose you because you loved Simon. I never knew Simon. Neither did Gabriel. I chose you because I saw the stories of the children you saved. People wrote about you, Helen. Do you know how far some of them travelled to find you? The hope you gave to parents who thought everything was lost? I read about you, and I saw at once that you embodied not motherhood, but ship-motherhood.’

  ‘All I did was feed the babies,’ Helen whispered. ‘That was all. I was lucky. I made so much milk for Gabriel, and so many of the babies were starving. And Gabriel loved it. They held him while I fed their babies, and – oh, he was so loved.’

  ‘Can’t you see that it was a heroic thing to do, Helen? That the ability to let others love your child was what marked you out for the ship? Have all the testimonies, all the time we’ve spent together, taught you no more than that? It’s not just Helen.’ He turned to the room, frustration verging on anger etched across his forehead. ‘Every single one of you – every single one – was chosen. No one slipped onto this ship by mistake. If you doubt yourself, then you doubt me.’

  Tom sat beside me, his gaze fixed on my father, his eyes wide.

  ‘All this I’m not worthy rubbish. It has to stop. It’s dangerous. If everyone had acted as you did – each one of you – then the ship would never have been necessary. Think about it. If every nursing mother fed a starving child alongside her own. If every able human took the food they did not need and gave it to one who did. If every witness of injustice, or cruelty, or exploitation, or murder, stood up and said, Here is something happening that is wrong. If everyone put another’s ease ahead of their own pain. I’m not talking about other people.’ He looked around the room at the upturned faces, the clasped hands, the tears. ‘I am talking about you. All of you.’

  ‘But what about love?’ Helen cried out, and I saw my father flinch. He turned to her slowly, and I saw a dangerous light in his eyes that made me wish she had not spoken. ‘Simon loved Gabriel. Why is it wrong to keep that love alive?’

  ‘I had photographs of Debbie,’ Luke called out, speaking very fast. ‘I threw them overboard. After that night we all said goodbye.’ Other people spoke in agreement; Michael had said to get rid of mementoes, and they had done so, and they felt better. Relieved. Lighter. Helen could feel better too. Misery was unnecessary.

  My father crumpled slightly, as though something had tugged painfully at the very centre of his being, and all of a sudden I felt that, little as we seemed to speak these days, there was nothing I would not do to save him that pain. Emily, braver than I, walked over and laid her hand upon his arm, and he put his hand over hers and pressed it for a moment. Helen looked at Emily, and two red patches flamed on her pale, pale face.

  Patience stood up, but before she could speak, there was a movement at my side and Tom was marching to the podium. He stepped up on to it and raised his hand, and for a moment I thought he was going to strike Helen. ‘Because love is where we’re going!’ Tom cried, bringing his hand down onto the desk so hard that the drawer handle rattled. ‘The ship is the important thing now. If we all sit around loving what’s gone, we might as well have died in London.’ He looked across the ballroom, straight at me, and I was overwhelmed with piercing green and longing. ‘If you don’t let go of the past, you’ll never find the love that’s here for you. On the ship.’

  My father fell on Tom, hugging him so hard I could barely see him. The entire room burst into applause, and my father let Tom go and joined in. I looked at Finn, expecting to see him triumphant, but he seemed younger, uncertain, and he looked at Helen as though he was hungry. I saw a but rise from Helen’s heart to her throat; I saw her swallow it; her face cleared, and I knew that I had lost her.

  The meeting broke up. The people made themselves into smaller groups. Helen and Finn ran to each other as though they’d been joined by elastic, and my father stayed with them, and although I could not hear what they were saying, a golden glow seemed to come from them. Tom was there too, looking over and beckoning to me. He did not come and fetch me. He wanted to stay with the laughing, touching, happy people, inside their magic circle. Eating cookies. People who were a shining example to the world. I was no shining example. What would the world have been if everyone had done as I had done? Exactly what it had become.

  My father’s shadow fell over me.

  ‘Lalla,’ he said. ‘It’s so good to see you at a meeting. I’m glad Tom brought you.’

  ‘Tom didn’t bring me,’ I said. ‘I heard the noise and wondered what was going on. That’s all.’

  My father nodded. ‘And what do you think?’


  ‘I think you’re all wrong.’ I spoke louder than I meant to, and the people near us fell silent. ‘You can’t stop Helen showing Gabriel photographs of his father. I think Helen should be allowed to teach Gabriel anything she wants.’

  ‘But she can.’ My father called to Helen, who came hurrying over to us. ‘Helen,’ he said. ‘Lalla’s worried about you. How are you now?’

  Helen held out her hand so we could all see it trembling, and she laughed. ‘It’s like being found all over again,’ she said. ‘I was so worried I couldn’t think straight. And there was no need to worry. No need. Simon will always be a part of Gabriel, but Gabriel needs a mother who’s with him now. And a father who’s able to give him what he needs.’ She turned to Finn. ‘And new friends,’ she said quietly, and he took her shaking hand and squeezed it.

  ‘Michael,’ Tom said. ‘Michael, I have a confession.’

  My father inclined his head.

  ‘Shall I leave?’ Helen asked.

  Tom shook his head. He spoke very fast. ‘You know my story,’ he said. ‘But what you don’t know is that I’ve been worse than Helen. I’ve been clinging onto something that I should have let go.’ He felt in his shirt pocket and took out his grandfather’s letter. I leaned forwards to stop him, but he held it out to my father. My father stood aside and gestured Tom towards the podium.

  ‘Michael,’ Tom said, ‘everyone.’ The room fell silent. ‘This is the last letter my grandfather wrote to me. I have kept it until now. Please forgive me. I’m giving this letter up, in the hope that might help anyone who’s still struggling. I didn’t think I was worthy either. But Michael thought I was, and I’m glad. And I’m going to do what my grandfather told me, and look to Michael as my father, because he believed in me enough to bring me here.’ He looked straight at me. ‘And by being happy on the ship, as my grandfather wanted, I’ll be keeping him with me.’ My father strode over to the podium. He put his arms around Tom and held him as close as he had ever held me. The applause broke out again, stronger this time, and I thought that if the applause went on for long enough, I would be able to tell who else was still keeping mementoes of the life before simply by studying the force with which they clapped.