The Sea Change

by Rossiter, Joanna

  ‘Why?’ I murmured. The feel of his touch on my ear persisted long after he had removed it.

  He took another drag and made no reply. I waved away the smoke as if I resented the intrusion. In truth, I enjoyed the smell – craved it, even, like a language I could understand but not yet speak.

  I never fully grasped why he chose to spend time with me above everyone else in our cluster of tents. There were prettier girls. And girls who had plenty more to say. As was the way at the festival, we fell into a group, with a handful of Londoners and a Swiss couple. They were pleasant enough. But after a day or so I found myself slipping off to watch performances with James on our own; we sought each other out without even realizing we were doing it. I was taut, unsure of myself or my thoughts; he was full of ease. I kept my distance from him, careful not to brush against him in the crowds. I was aware of his movements always. After three days together, with Sly and the Family Stone on stage, he leant in close and kissed me. I knew then, with a flood of relief, that we were each other’s.

  When I open my eyes again, there’s the heat of the roof on my belly, the bite of the sea on my hands and a faint drone, like a washing-machine, humming in the distance. I sit up to see a snag on the horizon. I’ve seen so many things over the last hours – pure water raining from the sky and falling into my open mouth, a pelican swooping down to pick us up in its beak and fly us back to the shore – that I can’t tell what’s real any more. But I’m sure I can see something. ‘Wake up! Wake up! Quick!’ I shout at Ravindra.

  He snaps out of his sleep and sits up so suddenly that we have to freeze to make sure the roof stays stable. I jab at the shape on the horizon. The more we look at it, the more I’m sure of it.

  ‘Start paddling!’ I cry, rolling over onto my belly and digging my arm into the water. Ravindra mimics the movement he taught me, lying on his stomach on the other side of the roof. We move forward at a snail’s pace. Don’t go. Don’t let the shape go. Then he stands up, the roof tipping like a set of scales beneath him. He waves his arms. Faster and faster he waves them.

  ‘It’s coming!’ I yell. ‘It’s coming! It’s coming!’ I daren’t stand up in case the weight of the two of us sinks the roof but I start to hear the engine, throbbing through the water, cutting it into submission. ‘Help!’

  The ship is a large tanker. A floating house. With a flat, solid deck that I want to spread myself out on and kiss. ‘Over here! This way!’

  At first we think it hasn’t seen us. Our arms grow limp from waving. But when I shut my eyes for a while, then open them, it gets bigger. And bigger. Until the ship slides so close to us that its wake washes over our roof, sinking it an inch under the water. Someone throws a rope with a life-belt attached to it and shouts. Ravindra understands and calls back. He’s grinning: a wide, unquenchable grin. He passes me the belt once he’s fished it out of the water.

  ‘No, you go first,’ I tell him, handing it back. He gives it to me again.

  ‘Alice,’ he insists. ‘Alice!’ He thrusts it at me when I don’t take it.

  I give in and slip it over me, clutching the rope. Then they winch me up. I throw the belt to Ravindra as soon as I’ve set foot on the deck. ‘Hold on!’

  After hours of moving with the moods of the ocean, the surface of the tanker is deliciously solid beneath me. I flop down below the walls of the deck so that the sea is out of sight. A man in a boiler suit stoops to give me a cup of water; half the liquid misses my mouth.

  There is a commotion among the crew. Ravindra is still in the water. He’s clinging resolutely to the roof and the men on board are heckling and shouting in Tamil. He refuses to take the life-belt.

  ‘It’s his house,’ I try to explain. ‘It’s the roof of his house.’

  A huddle of men deliberate on the deck. They can’t leave him. But he’s staying on the water and won’t be persuaded. I watch as three men are lowered in a dinghy onto the sea. He begins to flail and struggle and splash when they take hold of him.

  ‘Ithu yen veedu!’ His voice is pleading, almost a wail. He is inside the boat now, divorced from the roof. Just as the dinghy is winched off the water, the sea swells, overwhelming the sheet of metal. I wait, breath held, for it to reappear. But the water stays taciturn.

  Ravindra sinks to the floor of the boat. The crew don’t understand: it is only a sheet of rusting iron. Once the dinghy is level with the deck, I clamber inside and sit with him. He clasps my sleeve, like he did the roof, still holding on for dear life.

  CHAPTER 7

  Father’s call-up date arrived from the War Office within the week, along with the name of his platoon. The letter sat unopened on the kitchen table – an unwanted turn of events folded inside its envelope.

  My mother and sister ate their breakfast with it next to them and, putting to rest their knives and toast crusts, sat in silence for almost an hour. It was as if the letter were a lingering guest whose presence prevented them getting on with their day. I tried to distract them with talk of my dinner at Mrs Shelton’s but it was no use. Not even the thought of pork could distract Freda. I bragged half-heartedly about it in front of her but she seemed indifferent to it. Every time I expressed excitement, a motherly look would spread across her face, as if she had long since thought better of craving such simple pleasures. I was sent after breakfast to fetch Father from the Plain. Mama did not send me with the letter: she wanted to be there when he opened it. I found him in Wadman’s Coppice, accompanying Albie Nash on his early-morning shooting duties; Imber Court had given the blacksmith a gun and half a crown to keep the rabbit population in check. When I approached, Father was readying his aim with Albie’s rifle at the far end of the woods. The blacksmith stood next to him; he held a dead hare strung by the feet in his left hand. I could see the mark on the animal’s head where the bullet had entered, glistening like a third, knowing eye.

  The hare dropped from Albie’s hand with a thud when I told my father about the letter. Father himself remained unperturbed. If anything, he became more charged, more eager, during the walk back to the parsonage. When finally we were all together in the kitchen, he slit the envelope open, as though it were as commonplace as the electricity bill.

  ‘It seems I’ll be off within the month, Martha.’

  ‘But when?’

  ‘The twenty-eighth of April.’

  Mama paused before collecting together the plates on the table, burying herself in the clatter of china. Freda stared at the floorboards.

  It seems worthless now to look back on our fear of him going off to fight; I cannot imagine it or pity it even, superseded as it was by horrors far closer to home. He had given himself to a war that would not wait for him to make his journey across the sea before it reached over and claimed him.

  The rest of the day was full of silence. Nobody dared mention Father’s departure, but by four o’clock every soul in the village knew. I had only the pork dinner at Mrs Shelton’s to distract me, and even that could not obliterate the thought of him leaving us.

  After I had had dinner at the Sheltons’ farmhouse I met Annie on the path home. She took my hand and delivered her news, breathless.

  ‘Pete’s gone to the dance … I saw Mr Archam on his doorstep, fixing a boot. And he told me straight.’

  ‘Did you ask –’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. He came right out with it, as if it were no secret at all!’

  A pause thickened between us.

  ‘We’ve got to go to the camp,’ I resolved eventually, landing my hand on Annie’s shoulder.

  ‘They won’t let us in, Vi, we’re too young.’

  ‘We can find a way to spy …’

  ‘But t
here’s a war on. They’re not about to let any Tom, Dick or Harry past the barriers.’

  ‘Please, Annie, I’m begging you. Come with me. Or else I’m not afraid to go on my own.’

  She let out a long sigh.

  ‘Please …’

  ‘We can’t very well go there dressed as we are …’ she began. I could see her thawing. ‘If we go, we must play the part in case we’re caught …’

  I took hold of her arm before she could change her mind and set off to the parsonage.

  ‘You’re mad, Violet.’ She sighed, all the while following me home.

  Annie loitered in the dark of the garden while I crept upstairs in search of some clothes. I knocked on Freda’s door and found her room empty. The crêpe dress I had wanted to borrow wasn’t there – I assumed she had given it to Mrs Mitchell to have the hem fixed. It was probably for the best: I’d only have snagged it on something. I settled on an old red chiffon frock for me, a blue-velvet floor-length number for Annie and two fur stoles – one white and the other brown – to keep us warm. Freda’s shoes didn’t quite fit so I stuffed socks into the toes. Annie would have to make do with her school plimsolls; the blue dress was so long that they wouldn’t be seen. We left our clothes in a bush at the far side of the churchyard, painting each other’s mouths with a lipstick I had retrieved from the drawer of the dresser by the front door.

  ‘Now all we need is a ride,’ I whispered, as we joined the Warminster road.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ moaned Annie, hitching up her skirt to avoid dusting the hem in chalk.

  ‘Don’t you dare back out on me, Annie.’

  ‘But nobody’s going to give us a ride – we look so silly! Besides, the road is always deserted at this time of night.’

  ‘Nonsense. Somebody’s bound to drive past and take pity on us.’ I sat down abruptly on the lump of chalk that marked the edge of the track to Warminster. From there we could see all of Salisbury Plain; its contours curved in every direction from our point on the track so that it felt as if we were teetering precariously on an upturned basin. As the light began to leave us, the texture of the grass and the scars of the paths were soon smoothed into the surface of the land, like clay on a potter’s wheel. I had grown to love the feel of this unbroken expanse on the eyes; the awareness it instilled in us of the distance between places. Imber was miles from any town, but at dusk it was as if it didn’t exist. It stowed itself away in the base of the valley so as not to disrupt the Plain. If Annie and I were travellers – strangers to Wiltshire – we could have walked up to this point without ever knowing that there was a village beneath us.

  Just then, the distant sound of an engine tapped its Morse code along the track.

  ‘Can you hear that?’ I asked Annie, standing up. She stepped up to the road and stooped into the darkness to see if she could make out an approaching vehicle.

  ‘Dash these blackouts! I can’t see a thing! It’s probably not coming our way.’

  ‘It must be! It’s getting louder!’ I said excitedly. ‘We should stay by the road and make ourselves known.’

  I joined her by the side of the track but Annie shrank back into the grass. It was only when the vehicle was nearly upon us that I realized it was a troop-carrier. By then, it was too late to hide ourselves, although Annie did her best by jumping behind the chalk rock.

  I could think of no other course of action but to feign an attempt to walk to the dance so I turned as swiftly as I could and began to pace down the track towards Warminster. Soon the vehicle pulled up alongside me and the first of three officers leant out of the window.

  ‘Where can you be off to at this time of night, Miss, and dressed like that?’

  ‘I’m going to the dance, sir, as I’m sure you’re quite aware.’ My reply was curter than I would have wished.

  ‘Walking? To Warminster Camp?’ He smiled at me to let me know he had seen straight through my ruse. ‘The dance will be all but over by the time you get there! Hop in, there’s plenty of room in the back. Your friend can come too.’ He nodded towards the rock. I was about to deny all knowledge of Annie when again I caught his eye and realized there was no point: he had definitely spotted her. Either I took the ride or missed the dance. And I wasn’t about to turn him down for the sake of Annie’s pride. She could jolly well look a fool.

  ‘Annie!’ I called, to little effect. She remained behind the lump of chalk.

  ‘Annie! These gentlemen have offered us a ride to the dance … They know you’re there. They saw you hiding.’

  I waited for a few more seconds, relieved that my scarlet face was most likely masked by the darkness. Then she emerged, brushing dust from her clothes and holding her head a little too high to conceal her indignation at being caught. I watched as the gaze of the officer driving the van locked on Annie’s dress and ran down its length, briefly pausing on the velvet that clung, like a second skin, to her hips. She looked beautiful, and I was glad.

  One of the other officers swung open the door at the back of the van and offered us his hand, which I took first. Annie did her best to hide her plimsolls.

  ‘You must be Imber girls,’ the third officer said, once we were seated inside. I half nodded in reply, unsure how much to tell him. If Father were to find out where we were going … It did not bear thinking about.

  ‘It can’t be pleasant down there, what with all the artillery fire. A proper flap, I imagine.’

  ‘Oh, we don’t mind it, do we, Annie? It’s home, after all.’

  Annie nodded, not daring to lift her gaze from her lap.

  ‘Well, I’m jolly glad you’re coming out to the dance. The folk on the Plain are known for keeping themselves to themselves.’

  The rest of the journey to Warminster was conducted in silence. I noticed the officer at the wheel of the vehicle steal more than one glance at Annie in his mirror. But she did not meet my eye when I tried to catch hers.

  As the vehicle approached the barrier to the camp, I tugged at her arm and pointed at a string of women in high-heeled shoes and coats queuing at the entrance to a hall. ‘Yours’ and ‘You’ll Never Know’ crescendoed, one after the other, through the windows and doors, making the air outside the hall feel warmer than it was. The women’s dresses glittered like rivers at the edges of their coats. One of them balanced a cigarette pencil-like between her painted fingers.

  ‘We can do it, Annie! We look just as good!’ I whispered to her. But the sight of the women seemed only to make her more sullen.

  ‘I’m afraid,’ said the first officer, ‘that I’ll have to leave you by the barrier. I’m not off-duty for another hour or so. And the officers on the gate will want to admit you formally.’

  My pulse quickened. I thought of Pete, already inside, asking somebody else to dance. After the officer had let us out of the troop-carrier, Annie seemed ready to turn back and walk home.

  ‘Don’t you dare leave me,’ I said, taking her arm. ‘It’s too late to go back.’ Before she could pull away, I marched her to the barrier, my heart thumping faster than the Glenn Miller song that was now playing. We joined the queue and waited our turn.

  ‘We’re here for the dance, please,’ I told the officer at the barrier, making sure I met his eye with confidence. There was a younger soldier standing behind him – he stifled a giggle at the sight of us. He didn’t look much older than Pete.

  ‘What are you laughing at?’ I turned on him, not knowing how else to react.

  ‘Looks like you brought half the county with you, ma’am.’ He laughed, pointing at our muddy hems.

  ‘Indeed. Along with its wildlife,’ the first officer added, gesturing towards the fur stoles
. Annie looked as if she wanted to curl up in hers and hibernate.

  ‘Hurry on in, then, or you’ll catch a cold,’ called a voice from behind us. It was the officer who had driven us to the barrier. Seeing Annie blush, he frowned at his colleagues as if to tell them off for upsetting us. Then he waved us through, lifting the barrier, his stare lingering on Annie.

  He stopped me as we passed and whispered that if we required a ride home at the end of the evening we should come and find him at the gate.

  ‘Lucky he took a shine to you,’ I remarked to Annie, as we neared the hall.

  ‘I’m going to be sick, Vi.’ She put two hands on her stomach and grimaced at me. ‘Please can we just watch from the outside? I can’t bear being seen like this.’

  ‘That officer back there thought you were beautiful,’ I said, spelling it out as plainly as I could. ‘You have nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Please, Violet, I’ve come this far. We can look for Pete without going in. It won’t be difficult.’ Her hands had started to shake.

  Swallowing my disappointment, I led her round the side of the hall. I had secretly been imagining the look on Pete’s face when he saw me. I hadn’t had much time to think of what he would say or what explanation I would give for being there. But I had hoped that I would be prettier than whoever he had brought with him and that, maybe, he might ask me to dance.

  The windows were a foot higher than our heads but Annie found a barrel for us to stand on. I could taste the warmth inside the hall from the yellowness of the window panes, some of which had clouded slightly with the heat. It was difficult to make out the faces of the people on the dance-floor. The band had been taking a break when we first climbed onto the barrel but now they resumed their places, lifting trumpets and clarinets to their lips and starting a tune I had not heard before. I spent many an evening in the parsonage with my ear to Freda’s door when it was her night to use the wireless. She’d sing of grey Decembers and faraway shores, of people leaving and then meeting again. I had learnt the words to a lot of the favourites. I didn’t like to listen to her for too long. It made me think of Father going away. I knew that was why Freda liked the songs. Perhaps the singing made her feel better, as if rehearsing his departure might lessen the blow when it came.