Miss Ranskill Comes Home

by Barbara Euphan Todd

  Miss Ranskill sniffed. A sailor, she knew, could smell the sea from a long way off, and she hoped to catch a whiff of land soon, for already the business of little independent fishing vessels hinted of harbours. They, she remembered, carried home-tangs with them, an accumulated reek of harbours – tar and rope, cork, and salty nets. But big clean ships only smelled of themselves – of paint and metal-polish.

  Tomorrow she would smell England, but what was its characteristic scent?

  Tomorrow she would watch the misty grey edge of the land absorbing slow colour as the ‘return pain’ smote her.

  V

  Next day, a dripping sea-fog made land and sea and ships almost invisible. The foghorns blared like sea-cows calving, as the destroyer, nosing into harbour, carried Miss Ranskill home.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I

  She was ashore at last. Her feet had touched not dry land but the slimy stones of the dockyard. There had been no great moment as she stepped from the slippery gangway into a place of slush and shouting. Mist and drizzle had stolen her own thunder. There was no colour anywhere but the gold stripes on the First Lieutenant’s sleeve and her own reddened finger-tips resting on it. Grey figures moved beyond a sheeting of fine grey rain. Grey shapes varied only in bulk and in tone according to their distance from her.

  ‘Filthy day,’ remarked the First Lieutenant. ‘But I think it’s going to ease up.’

  The misty rain was thinning as they came near to the dreary building by the dockyard gates.

  And now Miss Ranskill was dialling. Two – five – eight – Her fingers slipped on the last number and she began again while the First Lieutenant chatted to the policeman in a lowered voice and incomprehensible jargon.

  She could hear the blaring of the telephone in, so she supposed, Marjorie’s bedroom. Then came a click, and at last a voice answered in strident cockney tones:

  ‘’Ullow! ’Ullow!’

  ‘Is –’ Miss Ranskill’s own voice sounded peculiar to her, ‘is Mrs Mallison in?’

  ‘Naow, she’s not.’

  Miss Ranskill swallowed twice before daring to ask the next question.

  ‘Is she away from home? I mean, she still lives here, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Naow, but she’s out.’

  ‘Could you tell me when she’ll be in?’

  A tooth-sucking noise was the first response, and then, ‘I couldn’t siy, I’m sure. Would you like to leave a message?’

  ‘Are you the maid?’

  ‘Ow naow.’ The voice sounded rather offended. ‘I’m styin’ ’ere.’

  ‘Then perhaps you could take a message?’

  ‘Righty ow! Ow, there’s the doctor just coming in. I’ll fetch ’im. What nime shall I siy?’

  ‘Miss Ranskill, Miss Nona Ranskill, but he won’t –’

  The barking of a dog and confused noises interrupted. Presently a male voice spoke.

  ‘Yes, Doctor Mallison speaking.’

  ‘This is Miss Ranskill – Nona Ranskill – I don’t suppose you’ll have heard of me, but I was at school with Marjorie, and –’

  ‘I’m afraid my wife – I’m afraid Marjorie is out. Perhaps you could give her a ring later. The evening would be best.’

  ‘Yes, but –’ by now Miss Ranskill was almost shouting, ‘I’ve only just arrived. I’ve been –’ She hesitated. It was impossible to say to that remote voice, ‘I’ve been on a desert island for three and a half years,’ so she ended flatly, ‘I’ve been having rather a bad time, and –’

  ‘Sorry to hear that,’ the doctor’s voice sounded wary. ‘Well, Miss Rankin, I’ll certainly give Marjorie your message, and if you could ring up after dinner this evening or –’

  ‘Ranskill!’ she shouted. ‘R-a-n-s-k-i-l-l, Nona Ranskill. Marjorie’s sure to remember me. We were in the same form at St Catherine’s, and –’

  ‘Ranskill, yes, I’ve got that. I won’t forget: I’ll write it down, and now I’m afraid –’

  ‘Won’t Marjorie be in before the evening? You see – it’s all rather difficult – I – I haven’t been very well, and if –’

  ‘That’s bad luck.’

  The words might be sympathetic, but the tone warned her as clearly as though he had said – ‘I am sorry as an acquaintance but not as a doctor. Sharing a schoolroom with Marjorie does not mean the free run of my brains and surgery. Not a bit of it, my good woman!’

  Miss Ranskill interrupted his warning.

  ‘Oh! I’m all right, really, but I should have liked to see Marjorie as soon as possible.’

  ‘Quite. Well, let me think. I’m pretty certain she’s got a committee meeting of some sort here this afternoon: that means she should be in to tea. Could you come along at about half-past four?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Miss Ranskill gratefully.

  ‘That’ll be splendid then. Goodbye.’

  There was a click at the other end of the line, but she did not put down the receiver. Her fingers tightened round the vulcanite.

  It seemed a strange welcome home after all the years of boat-building, hardship and danger.

  She had not expected to be snubbed in a box of a room with a bored policeman standing by and a young Naval officer anxious, of course, to be rid of her, so that he could enjoy his brief leave.

  She hung up the receiver.

  ‘My friend is out. I’m asked to tea there this afternoon. I’d better fill in the time somehow till then. I could go to the bank, couldn’t I, and see if they can get in touch with my bank.’

  ‘Better have a cup of coffee with me first,’ said the Lieutenant, and to the policeman he remarked, ‘You can leave it like that, I think, Sergeant. I’ll OK everything.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  The mist was lifting, shifting and shredding away as they went through the gates of the dockyard to pavements and wan sunlight.

  A Midshipman saluted, a perambulator-faced girl in khaki walked with a swagger and a slight lift back of the shoulders as she noticed the Naval officer.

  A couple of trousered girls, whose curls were half hidden by turbans, stared at Miss Ranskill.

  She did not notice them. She was conscious of nothing but the noise – rattle of army lorries, cars changing gear, horns tooting, a boy whistling and a couple of men shouting. But as soon as any one noise gained dominance so that it could be recognised, another one broke in. Thud mingled with rattle, squeal with blare. The only familiar sound was the crying of the gulls: all the others were tiring.

  A notice informed her –

  ‘Public Air Raid Shelter 500 yards’, and she turned to her companion.

  ‘Have there been any air-raids yet?’

  He returned a blue-jacket’s salute before answering.

  ‘Lord, yes! You ought to see some of the places. Still, we’re giving better than we get now.’

  Once again his hand went up to the salute.

  ‘Look here, I’ll try to get a taxi.’

  One was approaching but its flag was down.

  ‘There’s sure to be another in a minute.’

  ‘But I don’t mind walking at all,’ Miss Ranskill told him.

  ‘Still, a taxi would get us there quicker. One gets so sick of saluting.’

  By this time there was not a uniform in sight, but suddenly a shrill – ‘Coo-er! Look at ’er skirt!’ from a small girl told Miss Ranskill why her companion was so anxious for the privacy of a taxi.

  A cluster of children edged closer and closer, nudging each other, whispering and giggling.

  The young officer swung round, and advanced two steps towards them.

  ‘Off with you!’ he said. ‘At the double!’

  They scattered and ran, breaking into shrill laughter like a chorus of bad fairies.

  ‘Mannerless little brutes. Look, if you don’t mind waiting here, I’ll do a gallop for a taxi: there’s a rank round the next corner.’

  He sprinted across the road but before he had reached the opposite pavement, the children came da
rting back. They stared at Miss Ranskill and surrounded her.

  Then one with a dirty face but a sweet and kindly expression smiled up at her.

  ‘Where are you goin’?’

  ‘I’m going to a shop.’

  ‘Go on then!’ shrilled the child, and put out a rose-leaf tongue. ‘Go on then! Go on, can’t you?’

  A taxi slurred up through the mud, the young Lieutenant jumped from the running-board and opened the door, as the children scattered again.

  ‘Don’t know what’s the matter with the brats of today. Dad’s away and Mum’s hand is too light, I suppose.’

  Miss Ranskill sniffed as she sat down. She had forgotten that the inside of a taxi smells of leather, stale tobacco, oil and metal-polish. For the first time that morning she had found something recognisable. The taxi gave her assurance; she knew how to put her feet and how to rest her arm. She had not, it seemed, forgotten civilisation.

  II

  There were a few cakes in the window of the café and many large boxes decorated with pictures of chocolates. Miss Ranskill stared at them while the taxi-man was being paid.

  She had never been particularly fond of sweets, but now her sense of taste, that had been first nauseated and then lulled to rest by the taste of fish and almost fishier sea-birds, was stirred by the sight of so many little portraits of chocolates. One with a crinkle of violet on the top almost made her mouth water, though her adult palate had always resented the flavour of scent and cloying cream.

  Now Lieutenant Maddock was at her elbow.

  ‘Let’s go in and find a table, shall we?’

  The café was empty except for a few country shoppers who were having early morning coffee.

  Her companion led the way to a table in a corner far from the door, ordered coffee, and then produced an envelope from his pocket.

  ‘Commander Wrekin asked me to give you this. If you’ll excuse me I’ll go and wash my hands. Coffee’s sure to be ages.’

  As soon as he had gone, Miss Ranskill glanced at her own hands with their still sore fingers and blunted nails.

  She decided it would be pleasant, no, more than that, almost exciting to wash her hands in a ladies’ room, to dab her nose with tinted powder instead of the white talcum that Lieutenant Maddock used after shaving.

  A notice at the foot of a staircase showed her the way.

  At the turn of the stairs, Miss Ranskill saw herself full length in a looking-glass for the first time since her arrival on the far away island. The small mirror in the destroyer’s cabin had been shadowed in a kindly gloom. There, her coat and skirt, pressed and darned by the ablest of seamen, had looked almost smart in comparison with its island shabbiness, though she had noticed how much he had shortened the skirt in order to cut away rags that had been six inches long in places. She was wearing a Midshipman’s shoes: they were shiny enough but much too big, in spite of the extra pair of socks. His golfing stockings, even though their tops were turned up and showed the wrong side of rather wildly-coloured knitting, did not quite reach the hem of her skirt but showed an inch of bare brown leg and four strips of wide black elastic, each ending in a braces’ tag. This was because the Able Seaman, a resourceful man, had made a suspender belt out of the only material he could find and had sewn trouser buttons to the golf stockings. She remembered being told how lucky she was that Midshipman Sparke’s rather casual selection of a sea-going wardrobe had made the long stockings possible. But now she was not so sure.

  Her coat was so shrunken that it did not meet and the soft white shirt (gift of Lieutenant Maddock) looked tactlessly clean and new. Also it bulged.

  How had she managed to forget the navy blue mackintosh that he had lent her?

  Her face looked old and weather-beaten, the cracked lips showed little ruckings of brown skin. Only the lines, radiating from the corners of her eyes, carried whiteness. The rest of her skin, now that the tan was beginning to wear off, looked dirty. Two tufts of hair rose defiantly from between the folds of a turban she had made from a sailor’s silk.

  She turned away from the mirror and slunk up the stairs towards a door marked Ladies’ Toilet.

  There were more mirrors above the rows of white wash-basins. From the centre one the exquisitely-coloured face of a girl stared at her. It was a silly little face, pink and white, except for the darkened lashes, surprised blue eyes, and lips that were receiving a fresh coat of crimson. The effect was synthetic, but the expression had an insolence that terrified Miss Ranskill. She was defenceless against that stare and without woman’s weapon. There would be privacy though behind that row of white enamelled doors and she tried the handle of one of them.

  A woman in an overall rose from a chair, snatched a cloth from a hook and held out her right hand. Miss Ranskill, staring down at the pink palm, realised that she was expected to produce a penny.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, as her persecutor continued to display that toil-free palm. ‘I mean, I haven’t –’

  The attendant shrugged her shoulders and sat down again. The girl smiled so that the slight movement of her mouth altered the progress of her lipstick and sent the flaming colour off the line of her upper lip. That made Miss Ranskill feel a little better.

  She moved towards a table that held a powder-bowl, a box of cotton-wool pads and a sapphire and diamond ring. She could powder her nose without paying a penny, she could go on powdering it until the girl had gone. Then, perhaps, the attendant could help her to tidiness. But, before her hand could reach one of the little pads, another and scarlet-nailed hand snatched at the ring on the table.

  The movement startled Miss Ranskill into dropping the envelope she had been clutching. Her own name stared up at her from the floor.

  If she opened the letter, the reading of it would give her something to do. She need not look at the brutal mirror or pretend that she did not want to take refuge behind one of those white doors, or that she didn’t mind being suspected of trying to steal a ring.

  She picked up the envelope and slit it.

  HMS Halliard.

  Dear Miss Ranskill,

  It has occurred to me that you may like to do a little shopping before the bank gives you facilities, so will you, please, accept the loan of the enclosed. My own movements are uncertain, but c/o Admiralty, Whitehall, London, SW1, will always find me.

  I hope you will soon recover from the rough and ready treatment you received aboard, and get in touch with your friends.

  With best wishes,

  Yours sincerely,

  L R Wrekin

  Here was something kindly and warming, and something, as well, to restore self-respect. Miss Ranskill took one of ten notes from the envelope.

  ‘I should like a clean face towel, please,’ she said.

  ‘Haven’t you anything smaller?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid not.’

  ‘Well,’ the attendant made the announcement proudly, ‘we never have much change at this time in the morning, but I suppose I’ll have to see what I can do.’

  Miss Ranskill picked up one of the little pads from its bowl, dipped it into powder, dabbed her nose with it, looked at herself in the glass, and wondered whether to laugh or cry. Peach-coloured powder looked sad and ludicrous against her tanned skin. She dropped the pad back into its box and tried to rub the powder away with another one.

  The girl looked at her disdainfully and then addressed the attendant.

  ‘Could you give me some clean pads?’

  ‘The box was filled with fresh ones this morning, Madam.’

  ‘I know, but …’ a thin finger pointed to the bowl, where the pad Miss Ranskill had used showed a peach-coloured dusting, ‘a dirty one has been put back on top of them. I really couldn’t use any of them now.’

  The attendant made clicking noises with her tongue, emptied the box of pads into a bin, flounced to a cupboard, took out a packet of new pads and looked scornfully at Miss Ranskill.

  ‘This is the receptacle for soiled pads.’

/>   It was absurd that the scorn of a lavatory attendant and the insolence of a knock-kneed chit should have had the power, so Miss Ranskill reasoned, to make her feel as ignominious as a disgraced puppy.

  What had the attendant seen of the world? She spent her days amongst plugs and taps and porcelain, her life in ministering to the lowest needs of the human body, dependent on their coppers for the price of a seat at a cinema.

  And what had the girl got, apart from a slick sophistication and a second-hand complexion that must be renewed eight times a day? Her body was neat and slim – a narrow fashionable little body unsuited to child-bearing or to any other hard labour. Her knowledge of life came mostly from the theatres and light novels. The sea meant a row of bathing-huts and sun-tan cream, a desert island meant a sexy novel. The country meant new tweeds and an evening or two in village pubs where she would pretend to be ‘too rurally rustic with divine yokels’. Tragedy was a spot on the chin, and ‘fun’ meant cocktails and screaming and dancing till dawn.

  Feed the two of them on dried fish for a month, set them to boat-building and grave-digging, and what sort of shape would they make of their lives? What would they look like then?

  So Miss Ranskill argued and questioned but no answer could help at this moment.

  It was ridiculous that, after years of longing for companionship, her greatest wish should be to shut herself away in a lavatory, and that not because of any bodily need, but so that she could be alone – away from the people she had travelled so hardly to see.

  She had heard of prisoners battering their heads against the insides of cell doors. Now she wanted to beat on one of those locked doors, force her way in and hide. If only the girl would go away, and if only the attendant, who had presumably gone to find change, would come back! The civilised scent of soap and powder began to stifle her.

  She doubled up her hands in an attempt to hide scars and scratches, made suddenly shameful by a girl’s glance.