The Girl from Simon's Bay

by Barbara Mutch

  On the streets of Simon’s Town, where the wind blows everyone’s secrets into the open, I’d be attacked once more for my unruliness. We always knew it, they’d say. Got her comeuppance, now. Ma and Pa would be crushed with shame.

  I turned away from the sea.

  The best outcome would be for the Dorsetshire to leave and never return.

  ‘Sister Graham.’ The surgeon commander hurried into the ward late in the day. ‘May I borrow Staff Nurse Ahrendts for the theatre?’

  Sister looked up at the ward clock.

  ‘I can stay,’ I put in and the surgeon nodded, ‘if Sister will release me?’

  ‘Very well,’ Sister pursed her lips. ‘You will report for duty tomorrow afternoon as usual.’

  ‘Yes, Sister.’

  ‘It’s an emergency,’ the surgeon commander muttered as he strode out with me. ‘I wouldn’t impose on you otherwise, Nurse. Not after a long day. Could you scrub up, please?’

  The emergency operation stretched into the early evening and by the time I’d waited for Able Seaman Lane to regain consciousness and then settled him in the ward, it was dusk. I stepped wearily down the path, stumbling a little in the gloom, even though my feet knew the route well. Ma and Pa would be wondering where I was. I sat down to rest my legs and stared over the purple bay. One vessel, with the outline of a frigate, was just visible at anchor, its hull darker than the surrounding sea. Closer in, the ships in the dockyard had already fused into an indistinct tangle of funnels and masts.

  He was surely gone.

  The next day being Thursday, I was able to sleep through the dawn call to prayers and Ma and Pa’s departure for work. By the time I woke, sunshine was already bathing the dockyard, and Dorsetshire was at her usual mooring. I wolfed down a piece of toast, threw on a wide skirt and a shirt and ran – like in the old barefoot days – past the mosque, down Alfred Lane and along St George’s Street. Seagulls swooped above my head, searching but not finding their air perch in a breeze that was too light to hold them steady. The familiar grain of tar bit into my feet as I diverted off the pavement to go past a man wheeling a bicycle. Reality travelled from my bare soles to my brain. Turn around! Don’t risk everything!

  I stopped, glanced back.

  The hospital glimmered against the slope. The Simonsberg brooded in its grey fastness.

  I ran on.

  Seaforth loomed, with its tumble of cottages. I avoided the Philander place and headed straight for the hidden vantage of the grass verge from where I’d seen Piet and his accomplice in the bushes. The beach below was deserted, the tide low to middling, the sand pristine. Morning sun tinted the rocks in creeping stripes of gold and rose-pink. I’ve always felt closer to God at Seaforth than in the confines of St Francis Church or under the watchful gaze of the mosque. If David Horrocks didn’t come, this place was enough. I’d find comfort here, like I always had.

  I walked towards the water, my footsteps sinking into the crystal sand, the first prints to touch the beach since the last high tide. I reached down to splash my face and the water hit my skin with an astringent shock. If I’d brought my swimsuit, I could have taken a quick, restoring plunge before work. A shell was protruding from the sand near my feet and I knelt down and dug it out. These days I was responsible for my own shell gathering. It was a Pink Lady, an elongated, jagged teardrop of a shell. I rinsed it off and held its cavern to my ear. A shadow fell across the sand.

  ‘Hello,’ David Horrocks smiled and squatted beside me. He was wearing white tropical rig and he’d taken off his shoes. The sight of his feet was somehow disconcerting, even though I’d seen them bare so often. I felt myself blushing.

  ‘What do you have there?’

  ‘It’s called a Pink Lady. Normally you don’t find them, they get broken up before they reach shore.’

  I handed it to him and he ran a finger along its sharp ridges. ‘Beautiful. Fierce, but beautiful.’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d be here,’ I looked down, conscious of a stealing shyness, feeling the surface of the sand for more hidden shells. ‘I saw your ship go out yesterday—’

  ‘Yes. We did a full day at sea and got back rather late.’

  He stood and walked closer to the water’s edge, and let the wavelets wash over his feet. I followed him. It was a strangely intimate act to stand fully clothed yet barefoot alongside a man whose body I knew almost as well as my own.

  ‘Can I ask you something,’ I paused, ‘David?’

  ‘Of course.’

  When he smiled at my use of his name, his face changed utterly. I could see what he must have looked like as a young man, when there was no scar.

  ‘What is it like, to wage war at sea?’

  He looked at me in surprise, then stared out towards the rim of mountains on the far side of the bay.

  ‘There’s no set battlefield. You have to be on constant alert. I think of it as a blind chess match, where you can’t see the other man’s pieces. You try to stay out of his sights, here’ – he gestured left – ‘but within your own range to knock him out of the water, there,’ he pointed right.

  A blind chess match, I shivered, with death the price of miscalculation.

  ‘And in the case of submarines, the horizontal becomes the vertical.’

  Layers of water, like those through which Piet used to dive for shells, but multiplied a hundred times in depth, and made for an ambush.

  ‘I hate to think of the sea being used like that.’ I reached down and ran my hands through the familiar, lapping tide. Fragments of brown kelp and green sea lettuce, churned up by the recent spring tides, were beginning to deposit a frilly line at the dying edge of the wavelets.

  ‘I know what you mean,’ he glanced at me. ‘When the water closes over a sinking ship, it feels like an outrage. And all that remains is a streak of oil, a few spars of wood. And memories.’

  I closed my eyes for a moment, recalling the ships’ crests on the dry dock wall, the pride of the sailors in keeping them touched up, Pa’s dismay when a lack of paint prevented them doing so.

  ‘And then it becomes my war,’ I said. ‘Nursing the survivors.’

  He nodded, bent and gathered a handful of wet sand and let it dribble through his fingers.

  I wondered how much he told his wife. And if she understood the visceral connection he felt to water, to the elements, to his men.

  The incoming tide began to lick higher up the egg rocks. A feather of cloud briefly covered the sun. Where we were standing, we’d be clearly visible to anyone looking down from the cottages. But it could still be classed as a chance encounter …

  ‘When it’s over, how will you look at the oceans? Won’t they be too damaged for you?’

  ‘Oh no,’ his blue eyes sparked. ‘Thank God I don’t look at it like that! The sea recovers despite how we use it.’

  ‘I like that,’ I smiled. ‘I like the thought of water being forgiving.’

  His eyes rested on me warmly. I fought the urge to slip my arm through his.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked. ‘What are you thinking?’

  I inhaled the crisp, salty air and felt its freshness lift me.

  ‘I’m starting to feel that I know you. And yet that can’t be right. We only ever meet here.’ I pointed at the green slopes, the dancing sea, the hospital.

  ‘It’s strange for me, too, Louise.’

  ‘In what way?’

  He sighed, gave a wry smile and touched my hand.

  ‘I should go,’ I began to edge away. I shouldn’t have pressed. And it was long past the moment to reinstate the distance Sister Tutor had drummed into me, and Matron had warned me to observe. I’d crossed every boundary, Vera would call me a fool—

  ‘No, don’t,’ he ran a hand through his fair hair, exposing the pale terminus of his scar, ‘not yet.’

  His eyes roamed over my face.

  I wavered, poised to run, my toes digging into the sand.

  ‘I didn’t plan on falling in love with my nurse, beau
tiful and accomplished though she is.’

  The rosy morning exploded, peppering me with a brief, gasping brilliance. I wanted to leap and catch its shards, as if they held the magic I’d called up as a child. Bright. Promising. Reckless …

  ‘You can’t!’ I stumbled backwards. The sand became heavy, clinging. ‘You’re married, I’m coloured, we mustn’t meet like this again—’

  ‘Please,’ he caught my arm urgently. ‘Don’t go till I tell you why.’

  I pulled away, pressure building in my chest. Pa would soon find out, so would Ma, Matron and Sister Graham at the hospital, Piet on Long Beach, Vera, the rest of the Terrace.

  ‘Forgive me,’ he lowered his voice. ‘Shall we go and sit down?’

  I followed him up the beach and squatted on my haunches, a little away from him, still ready to run. But it might be too late for escape.

  He stared into the blue distance.

  I closed my eyes briefly and listened for the healing rush and retreat of the waves.

  ‘My wife,’ he touched the gold ring on his finger, ‘is the daughter of our neighbour. My father encouraged the match because it would benefit both properties, but Elizabeth has always been more of a younger sister to me. We married at the time of Dunkirk.’

  He hesitated.

  ‘I think we both hoped my affection for her would turn into love, but it’s never reached more than fondness.’

  I sank down. He watched as I spread my skirt over my legs, then reached across the distance I’d imposed and touched his fingers on the side of my cheek.

  ‘It must sound silly from someone over thirty – but I’ve never been in love before.’

  I felt my skin respond.

  Perhaps he felt it, too, for he began to speak more intently.

  ‘The war has made me realise how precious love is when you happen to find it. The men who died on Achilles will never know it again.’

  I touched the sand, let it slide through my fingers. ‘You told me, on the mountain, that all that will remain are the elements. Land, sea, and now love?’

  ‘Yes,’ he rubbed a hand across his scar. ‘I couldn’t say so at the time, it was too soon. I’d have shocked you.’

  ‘But I thought it.’

  ‘You did?’ His voice leapt.

  The waves began to push further up the beach. A cormorant landed on one of the egg rocks and extended its wings to dry them in the passing breeze. I wanted him to keep talking, I wanted to hear more of that quiet, fervent voice.

  ‘You said you only wanted to be friends.’

  ‘Yes,’ he admitted, ‘maybe that’s all I can hope for. Even so, you deserve to know the truth.’

  I realised I was still clutching the Pink Lady in my left hand. I opened my palm. The shell’s ridges had driven red indentations into my flesh. He leant closer and rubbed them with his thumb.

  ‘Louise,’ his voice lingered over my name, ‘I know you can’t feel the same way about me. I saw you, once, with a young man. He seemed very keen.’

  He looked away from me like he used to on the ward, searching the cloud-topped mountains, the ships that came and went. I sensed he was releasing me back to Piet, like a bird tossed into the sky to rejoin its mate; offering me the chance to leave without embarrassment – after all, I’d said that I wanted to go, that we shouldn’t meet again …

  ‘Piet and I aren’t together any more.’

  He turned to me in surprise.

  The heaviness ebbed out of my body and an altogether new emotion took hold. I fingered the shell and held it out to him. ‘If you hold it to your ear, you can hear the sea. Perfect. Unspoilt. Wherever you are in the world.’

  Or the whisper of someone who loves you.

  He searched my face as he slipped the shell into his pocket. ‘I’ll treasure it.’

  He lifted one hand to stroke my hair.

  Then he reached across and kissed me on the lips. His mouth was tender.

  I pulled away, scrambled to my feet.

  ‘We can’t meet again like this, not in the open—’

  I left him on the sand and raced up the grass verge, up the lane past the Philander cottage and along St George’s Street, wondering who had seen me, who would be the first to tell.

  Who might guess just by looking at me …

  A gum tree was shedding feathery red blossoms onto the pavement, making it slippery. I stopped to brush the underside of my feet. A black motor car with a pennant flying on its hood, drove by. I caught a glimpse of gold braid. Vera, loitering by Sartorial House, watched it pass with her hands on her hips, then spotted me and beckoned. I waved back but continued on my way, ignoring her shouted invitations for a gossip. I turned up Alfred Lane, hurried past the mosque and into Ricketts Terrace beneath the quiet fronds of our palm and surely beneath the sceptical gaze of Jesus and Allah, feeling all the while a deep, wondrous, dangerous, elation.

  Chapter Thirty

  Dear Louise,

  It is night here, and while the Southern Cross has dipped below the horizon, you have not left my thoughts since we parted on Seaforth Beach. It’s not just the feel of you, the brief kiss we exchanged, it’s a deeper current.

  I realise this is a breach of my vows to my wife. Even so, I can’t shake off the feeling that when one finds love – however unexpectedly – one should cherish it. I’ve no sense, though, how to take it further without hurting you or Elizabeth. I know we run the risk of severe reprimand if we’re discovered together, and that the cost for you will be greater than for me. War may have shaken much of the old world and its ways, but I would never want to endanger your career, not after you’ve broken down so many barriers to achieve so much.

  What should we do?

  I nearly died on Achilles. At the moment, the only anchors I have are the sea, my ship and the pull towards you. So, although I’ve no clear answer, I must see you and hold you again.

  Shall we wait to see how the wind blows?

  There may be possibilities for us that we cannot yet imagine.

  Thank you for the time we spent together.

  Whatever happens, it will remain the most precious of my life.

  My love,

  David

  I sat on my bed, holding the letter.

  Why? What possibilities could there be? He was married, his family was titled, many hundreds of acres waited for him after the war.

  In the sitting room, Ma’s sewing machine competed with the rumble of Pa talking with Mr Phillips about foundations and plaster and how to stabilise the Terrace against the mountain. There’d been more slippages.

  ‘Louise?’ Ma called. ‘Old man Phillips has gone. Can you help lay the table?’

  ‘Have you heard?’ Pa muttered to me as he clattered knives and forks. ‘There’s a huge flap on. The battleship Bismarck’s got out. They think she’s making a run for the Atlantic through the Iceland gap.’

  ‘So what’ll you do?’ asked Vera as we sat on the sea wall below Jubilee Square a week later. Gulls bobbed on the swells. A crane manoeuvred above a moored warship with a squeal of metal.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Well,’ Vera considered, as she pointed her bare feet, ‘you’ve thrown over Piet, you won’t go out with anyone else, you’re making a good living. What’ll you do now?’

  I looked across the bay towards Muizenberg, nestling below its ridge of mountain, and laughed.

  ‘I’ll buy my own cottage, and then I’ll marry someone I haven’t met yet!’

  ‘What about someone at work?’

  I darted her a glance.

  ‘I knew it!’ Vera squirmed around to face me. ‘You’re blushing!’

  ‘I’m not!’ But Vera has known me all my life.

  ‘Why should it always be a secret with you, Lou? Is he a porter? One of the storemen?’

  ‘Nothing will come of it,’ I said, swinging my feet back over the wall and gathering up my bag.

  Vera scrambled after me and grabbed my hand. ‘He’s married?’

 
; ‘I don’t want to talk about it, Vee.’

  ‘Why not? Why should it be a secret?’

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’ I leant down and kissed her on the cheek.

  Vera ran in front of me.

  ‘I know why,’ she breathed triumphantly. ‘It’s because he’s white!’

  War log

  North Atlantic, 48 degrees north, 16 degrees west

  Fog. A freezing wind out of the north.

  Bismarck has sunk HMS Hood, with 1400 men lost. I pray my old Dartmouth friend, Bob, was spared. We’re racing at full speed to join the attack. Bismarck’s shells have a range of thirty miles. We must close inside that to fire on her. There will be more losses.

  Does unfaithfulness to my wife require an act of betrayal, or merely the thought of it?

  Elizabeth haunts me in the cold daylight.

  Louise fills my dreams.

  It was the not knowing that was the worst.

  ‘Lou?’

  Pa stumbled through the darkness to where I was sitting on a ledge above the Terrace. I’d taken to going there after supper, wrapped in an old blanket against the winter cold. The blackout meant that the stars glittered with a stark brilliance I’d never seen in peacetime.

  ‘This is not good, my Lou, you out here moping every night.’ He settled down beside me. ‘Your ma and I are worried. Is it because of Piet? Are you sorry you gave him up?’

  ‘No, Pa. It’s just the war. It seems never-ending.’

  ‘I know,’ Pa put an arm around me. ‘And HMS Hood. I can’t believe she’s gone.’

  ‘She was my seven-years-and-one-day birthday treat.’

  ‘Ja,’ he considered, ‘so she was. But here’s some interesting news on that front. When Bismarck was finally sunk, remember that lieutenant commander you nursed, the one with the DSO? His cruiser fired the final torpedoes. Fancy that!’

  I fell against Pa, turned my head into his shoulder.

  ‘Lou?’ Pa rocked me gently. ‘What’s the matter? It’ll be over one day. Then you’ll meet another young man, better than Piet. I’m sure of it.’