A Complicated Woman

by Sheelagh Kelly

  ‘Gosh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.’ Dorothy lost her smile, though did not go into a huff as Oriel herself would have done if called stupid. Instead she looked rather timid and chastened, awaiting the explanation which was to come after a short bad-tempered hiatus.

  ‘Oh… it’s all right. I’m sorry too. You just made me jump.’ Oriel turned her head to blink away the tears. ‘It’s not you. It’s them.’ She blew her nose and indicated her parents who were still in their own private world.

  Dorothy came closer and leaned over the rail next to her friend. ‘Why, what have they said to you?’

  ‘Nothing, that’s the trouble. I always feel as if I’m intruding, as if they don’t really want me along.’

  ‘But why would they not want their daughter?’

  ‘Oh, it’s just me being silly,’ blurted Oriel. ‘I shouldn’t have said anything.’ She glanced at Dorothy and was about to change the subject but the integrity of the other’s face caused her to have second thoughts. She had never really had a friend in whom she could confide. This privilege had always been reserved for her mother – but how could she divulge these thoughts to her, who was partly responsible for them? The patient kindness in Dorothy’s eyes urged her to risk a confidence. ‘It’s a bit embarrassing. If I tell you—’

  ‘I won’t tell a soul,’ came the promise, and Oriel knew this person could be trusted.

  ‘They were only married a few weeks ago.’

  ‘Who, your parents?’ Dorothy gave a scandalized titter and covered her mouth, looking over her shoulder to make sure they weren’t being overheard before continuing. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to treat it lightly but… d’you mean that they weren’t married when you were born?’

  Oriel nodded and kept a lookout for eavesdroppers too, her expression betraying that her illegitimacy had caused all sorts of problems. ‘He ran off when he found out that Mother was expecting me. She was left to rely on charity in order to bring me up.’

  Dorothy was intrigued. ‘So, how did you meet up again?’

  ‘I found out where he was about three or four years ago. There was an awful row between us.’

  The larger girl craned her neck to study Nat and Bright, then smiled. ‘It must have cleared the air.’

  ‘Yes. I suppose you could say everything turned out all right in the end.’ If you were one of those dolts who voiced such platitudes, thought Oriel.

  ‘You don’t sound as if you’re too pleased at them getting back together.’

  ‘Oh, I am – well, I am and I’m not – oh, I don’t know what I mean. I wish I hadn’t told you now.’ Oriel thought she must sound ridiculous.

  ‘I’m glad you did. It’s really interesting, isn’t it?’

  ‘Oh, very.’ Oriel looked cynical. ‘I like your hair, by the way.’

  Dorothy’s long fingers primped at her new bob before swiftly returning to the topic. ‘Thank you – and so romantic. After all those years apart. Your mother must love him very much.’ At the sight of tears welling in her friend’s eyes the onlooker guessed that this was the problem. ‘But she must love you very much too or she wouldn’t have cared for you all these years – and even if your father did run away he’s come back so he must love you too.’ Receiving a shrug, she felt such great sympathy for the other that she was inspired to utter a promise. ‘I’ll never tell anyone. If ever you feel sad or just want to talk then you can confide in me and I’ll always be here.’

  Moved by this declaration of friendship, Oriel responded to it with a teary grasp of Dorothy’s arm. ‘So, you won’t lose touch after we arrive in Australia?’

  ‘Are you joking? How many friends have I got over there?’

  Oriel smiled back then gave a hesitant wince. ‘Could you think of some way to tell your parents that mine aren’t called Maguire without giving the whole game away? That was Mother’s maiden name. I suppose I should’ve changed mine when they got married but I didn’t give much thought to the embarrassment it’d cause – such as the other evening. It was my fault, I know, for simply introducing them as my parents but it wasn’t my place to explain. Father’s name is Prince.’

  ‘You know what the easy answer is, of course,’ replied Dorothy. ‘Find a nice man and get married! I can’t wait to meet someone and change my name. Don’t worry, I’ll say you’re adopted or something. Come on, let’s go and interrupt your mother and father. It isn’t decent for old people to be so lovey-dovey.’ She grinned. ‘Can’t you tell I’m deeply jealous?’

  Later, Oriel thought it best to inform her mother that she had disclosed the family secret in order to explain the difference in name. Bright looked devastated. ‘I hope you won’t see the need to do it with everyone!’ After years of being regarded as a fallen woman, her recent marriage had just brought with it a degree of respectability. What was the point of that if Oriel was to go around advertising the fact that she herself was illegitimate?

  ‘Of course I won’t! I just had to explain about the difference in our names if we’re going to keep seeing them. It’s only Dot who knows. She’s going to make up some story for her parents.’

  ‘Well, find out what she’s told them or things could get really complicated.’

  This had been Dorothy’s experience on trying to explain about the discrepancy in names, at first telling her parents that Oriel was adopted. Her mother had not believed her. ‘She can’t be, she looks just like a mixture of both of them! Come on, child, spill the beans.’

  ‘Oh well…’ Dorothy was not as strong as her appearance would suggest and under her mother’s forceful demand caved in without further argument. ‘I promised I wouldn’t tell but – I know you’re very tolerant!’ She lowered her voice. ‘Actually Oriel was born out of wedlock.’

  Mrs Ratcliffe hid a smirk behind her hand. ‘I’d never have thought it about Mrs Prince; she doesn’t seem vulgar at all.’

  Mr Ratcliffe agreed but from then on vowed to pay keener interest to the scarlet woman and her daughter.

  ‘You won’t say anything?’ Dorothy looked concerned.

  ‘Of course not!’ Her mother was genuine. ‘I like them – well, I like her, he’s morose – but I wouldn’t hold it against anybody for one indiscretion.’

  On next meeting the Ratcliffes Bright watched their eyes closely for signs that they knew about her past but they treated her no differently than before so it appeared her secret was safe. Mrs Ratcliffe was to reiterate her opinion that the two families should keep in touch and Bright said they would for they were the only people she knew in Australia, which sounded a bit insulting in Oriel’s opinion but Mrs Ratcliffe took it the right way and a firm friendship was established.

  The weather grew increasingly warm. They had shed their coats weeks ago but even their summer attire felt as heavy as bearskin as they cruised into Port Said. The entrance to the Suez Canal was crammed with shipping – coal barges, fishing boats and another troopship bound in the opposite direction. There was a great roar and a scurry of khaki as thousands of soldiers flocked to the rail and a lot of barracking and hurling of missiles took place as the ships glided past each other. Oriel shared a smile with Dorothy. Over the weeks many of the faces had become familiar to them and they often chatted to the soldiers, though the liaisons were purely platonic. Despite the girls’ best efforts, neither had found romance.

  With aching slowness, the vessel bearing Oriel and her family was lined up behind three large steamers, all ready to make their voyage down the waterway. The area around Port Said was flat, with little activity to be seen on the concrete jetties but there was exotic-looking architecture – domes and turrets – upon which to feast their fascinated eyes. After an interminable wait their liner joined the procession along the Canal, a journey of around a hundred miles, taking the jaded passengers deeper into the heat and dust and smells of Egypt.

  After several hours of monotony the artificial cutting opened on to the deeper waters of a lake where lay the midway station of Ismailia. Soon afterwards
, though, the canal became so narrow that Bright was fearful that their huge ship was going to become wedged. There was little to thrill the eye now. The sandy banks that sloped gently to either side were decorated only with sparse shrubby growth and the odd dhow undergoing repair.

  From time to time there would be villages where small dark-skinned boys would run alongside the liner, waving and flashing their white charming smiles shouting, ‘Baksheesh! Baksheesh!’

  Seated in her deck chair, parents by her side, Oriel tweaked at the front of her embroidered cream blouse and shook it, attempting to create a draught. ‘I wonder what they’re saying?’ She hardly had the energy to cock her ear.

  Even in the buff lightweight flannel suit Nat felt as if his head were about to explode into flames, and he fanned himself with his panama. It was hard to believe that this was winter. ‘I don’t know, but if they don’t shurrup I’m gonna start legging a few bricks at ’em.’ His foot twitched like an angry cat’s tail, displaying incongruously garish socks above the Oxford-style lace-ups, Nat’s one concession to flamboyance. ‘I can’t stick this much longer. I think I’ll go and lie down, are you two coming?’

  Whilst Oriel said she would go and look for Dorothy, her parents peeled themselves from their deck chairs and wandered lethargically below deck.

  Oriel approached another flight of steps that led towards Dorothy’s cabin. She was about to go down them when she saw ascending towards her one of the diggers whose face she had come to know well. Head down, his first sight of Oriel was her pretty ankles upon which his eyes lingered before he glanced up and smiled a greeting, touching his slouch hat as he drew level with her. There were few other people on deck and no one at all in this vicinity. Feeling bolder than if she had encountered him in a group, Oriel paused with her hand on the rail, showing an eagerness to chat.

  She and Dorothy had already divulged their names, but the soldiers had hitherto remained an anonymous mass. Today, however, the young digger revealed his appellation. Without the company of his mates, he was less impudent, though his eyes showed that he found her very attractive. The feeling was reciprocated. Without a hint of romance, Oriel experienced a thrill in her abdomen as his smooth-skinned face bent near to hers to share one of the less risqué jokes he had learned on his travels. She responded with amusement. Sunshine percolated the tiny holes in her straw hat, casting spangles of light to dance upon her nose. Presented with this laughing vision the digger had but one option. He kissed her.

  It lasted three seconds but to Oriel, who had never known such contact, it was a transportation to heaven. She closed her eyes, experienced every contour of those warm young lips, would remember the taste of them for ever.

  Strolling, cane in hand, along the deck towards the steps that led to his cabin, Mr Ratcliffe faltered as he saw his daughter’s friend tilt back her head to receive the soldier’s kiss. Pricked by a long-forgotten excitation, he rested the cane upon his shoulder to watch in envy.

  The young digger pulled away, issued a triumphant grin, then with a flick of his hat allowed his ecstatic victim to go on her way. Alas, her exhilarated descent of the stairs was abruptly halted by the sight of Mr Ratcliffe who had obviously been watching her for the expression he wore was all-knowing. Blushing furiously, she gave a self-conscious smile and not waiting for him to catch up hurried on her way, praying that he would not be so unkind as to tell her parents.

  Throughout the afternoon and evening she squirmed, waiting for Dorothy’s father to betray her, but the treachery failed to take place. In the confidence that it never would, Oriel ceased to fear every encounter with Mr Ratcliffe, even going so far as to share the secret winks he would throw at her in passing, and feeling nothing but gratitude towards this fellow conspirator.

  * * *

  In spite of Dorothy’s envious yearning to reproduce her friend’s experience, the kiss was to remain an isolated event, though its mental repetition served to occupy Oriel for the remainder of the voyage through Egypt.

  Twelve hours after squeezing its way into the Canal the vessel emerged from the last narrow section of cutting and stopped in order to take on fresh food.

  Oriel was eager for a chance to explore the dramatic landscape with Dorothy, to gasp at the superb views of mountains and rivers that were hitherto only names in the bible, but her mother was afraid that she would be captured by white slavers and her father was concerned for his money, and so she was condemned to a boring wait until the ship was moving again, nosing its way through the biblical landscape into the simmering heat of the Red Sea Passage.

  Wilting under the sun, the passengers were less energetic now. Even dressing for dinner was too much of an effort, yet out of habit, Nat donned his swallow-tailed dress coat and braided trousers, a white waistcoat, white pique bow tie, starched wing collar and cuffs, and patent leather shoes, whilst Bright draped herself in a creation of salmon-pink chiffon and silk, laden with fringing and beads.

  Red-faced, she wafted herself. ‘God, this weather really gets my back up! I’m mafted now but I know I’m going to be freezing by the end of the evening.’ The nights had been very cold. ‘I hope it isn’t as hot as this in Australia. I’ve had to take my corset off – do I look too lumpy?’ When Nat berated her with his eyes she came up behind him to try to catch her reflection in the mirror. ‘I shouldn’t have worn this colour, I look like a boiled shrimp. I wonder if we’ll be invited to sit at the Commander’s table tonight.’ All the paying passengers seemed to have had this honour but them and the Ratcliffes.

  ‘I wouldn’t count on it. If you were married to a civil servant or a general then maybe.’ Nat gave a last tweak of his bow tie and moved away from the mirror. ‘I couldn’t give a monkey’s.’

  He went to answer the knock at the door. It was Oriel, clinging with crêpe georgette and a beaded headband. At the sight of her parents she gave a flattering exclamation. ‘Oh very swanky!’

  Bright wafted the ostrich feather fan, a recent purchase, and said in a worried tone, ‘You don’t want to wear that headband in this weather, it’ll cut your circulation off.’

  Oriel’s heart sank. ‘It feels all right.’ She had at least expected a compliment in return. Mother was a paradox in that she had always brought her child up to believe that she could do anything she wanted if she put her mind to it, that she was as good as anyone else, but she also had the knack of eradicating all this support by one derogatory, if unintentional, comment to paralyse Oriel’s confidence. Her father, she had learned, would give a compliment even though he might not mean it, just to make a person feel better, but Bright would speak her mind if not granted time to ponder on her response first.

  ‘You look lovely,’ said her father.

  ‘Well, she knows that!’ Bright laughed. ‘She doesn’t need telling.’

  I do, thought Oriel.

  ‘You go on ahead, love,’ ordered her mother. ‘I’m not quite ready and there’s hardly enough air in this cupboard for two, let alone three.’

  Having an aversion to entering the dining area alone, Oriel said, ‘I’ll go and see what Ratty’s doing then.’

  On her way along the corridor she met Mr Ratcliffe, who cried out with admiration, ‘My, what a bobby-dazzler!’ The young woman grinned as his appraising eyes ran up and down her. ‘Oh dear, we’re going to have to squeeze past each other, I’m afraid.’

  A trolley was parked outside one of the cabins, narrowing the passage. Oriel did not consider it that much of a restriction and it certainly did not warrant the type of pressure that Mr Ratcliffe was bestowing upon her body. The contact was unwelcome and had it been a younger man she would have been suspicious, but Dorothy’s father was older than hers so there could not possibly be anything untoward in his actions. Thus, not wishing to offend the man who had been so nice to her, she gave a polite giggle as, with great leisure, he dragged his belly over hers.

  At that moment Bright and Nat emerged into the corridor, saw their daughter’s giggling encounter and stopped dead.


  ‘Oriel!’

  At Bright’s horrified admonishment Mr Ratcliffe offered a blustering apology – ‘They should move the blessed trolley out of the way. Somebody’ll be tripping over it!’ – and beat a hasty retreat into his own cabin.

  Oriel stared at the disgusted faces of her parents, wondering what on earth she had done. Her mother was quick to tell her.

  ‘I’m sure I didn’t bring you up to behave like that!’

  ‘What do you mean?’ She looked bewildered. ‘Mr Ratcliffe was just trying to squeeze—’

  ‘We saw what he was trying to squeeze!’ Nat was furious. ‘And you didn’t look as if you were doing much to deter him.’

  Belatedly, Oriel deciphered the accusation and reflected their horror with scorn. ‘But he’s old!’

  ‘Oh, so it’d make a difference if he was young, would it?’ demanded her father. ‘Showing us up like that. Acting like a trollop.’

  Only now did it really dawn on Oriel what they were accusing her of – and totally unjustly. Her stomach was seized in a cramp-like grip, her flesh prickled and tears sprang to her eyes. She tried to barge past them to her cabin but was waylaid.

  ‘I don’t know how I’m ever going to show my face!’ accused Bright. ‘I never thought you capable of such behaviour.’

  ‘Well, what do you expect of me with a prostitute for a grandmother?’ Oriel shrieked at them both with tears of injustice streaming down her face – just as the assembled Ratcliffe family opened their cabin door to go for dinner.

  Everyone aghast, the door was hurriedly closed and so were Bright’s eyes. ‘Oh, Oriel, how could you?’ When her daughter took off she pursued her into the cabin leaving Nat standing shocked and wan.

  ‘I haven’t done anything!’ Oriel felt corrupted by the man whom she had only regarded in avuncular fashion, but the lack of trust from her own mother was what hurt most. She plumped herself down on the bunk and hunched over, sobbing.