The Little Ship

by Margaret Mayhew

  They had come to the end of the creek now and were sailing out back into the main river. ‘Lee-oh,’ Guy shouted, ‘Ready about.’ She remembered to duck down as the boom went over. Bean Goose was going up and down again and tilting sharply to one side, her cousins hanging far out to the other with their feet braced against the boat. Lizzie clung on for dear life, salt spray half blinding her. The wind caught hold of one of her plaits and whipped it smartly across her face like a slap. She shut her eyes and when she opened them again, to her huge relief, she could see the group of trees with two tall Scots pines in the middle that marked the bend where Tideways stood. The white walls of the house showed through the trees and she could see the jetty sticking out into the river. The dinghy was going up and down even more and if they didn’t get there very soon she knew she was going to be sick. She kept swallowing the sick taste down and when Guy shouted out she didn’t hear him properly. Then something whacked her hard on her head. The sail had gone over and she hadn’t ducked like she’d been told to. She kept her back turned to the cousins so they wouldn’t see that she was crying.

  ‘Are you sure you’re OK, Lizzie?’ Matt caught her up near the top of the steps from the beach as soon as he’d made sure that Bean Goose was securely moored to the jetty. Once a bowline he’d tied had come undone and the dinghy had drifted off. Luckily the wind had blown her onshore and aground or they might have lost her. Father had made him practise tying bowlines until he could have done it in his sleep. Guy was striding on ahead, already halfway across the lawn.

  ‘Yes, thank you.’ But she kept her head turned away from him and he guessed she’d been blubbing. The boom had given her an awful crack but she hadn’t made any fuss. He looked at her anxiously. The sailing couldn’t have been much fun for her at all. He could see that the skirt of her cotton frock was soaked at the back where she’d been sitting in the wet and her white socks and sandals were covered in mud. Her plaits were dripping water and one of her bows had come undone; the other must have got lost.

  ‘I was always getting caught by the boom in the beginning. You’ll soon get the hang of it.’ She nodded. ‘So don’t let it put you off.’ She shook her head. ‘I hope you’ll come out with us again.’

  ‘If Guy doesn’t mind.’

  ‘Why ever should he?’

  ‘I just think he might.’

  She was quite right, of course. Guy hadn’t wanted her with them at all. It had meant they couldn’t go downstream to the mouth of the estuary which Guy liked much better. Not that Matt was going to tell Lizzie that. She was a funny little thing, with her freckles and her long plaits and her round blue eyes. He could remember her when she was very small, visiting Tideways with Aunt Helen and Uncle Richard. She’d toddled about the place and fallen over on the terrace, grazing her knees so they bled all down her legs, but she hadn’t made any fuss then, either. He’d always known that she was adopted because he and Guy had been told so from the very beginning. It was no secret. Aunt Helen and Uncle Richard hadn’t had any children of their own and so they had chosen to adopt a baby instead. He had never actually talked about it to Lizzie because he wasn’t absolutely sure how she would feel. In a way, he and she had something in common because they were both different from normal children. ‘How long are you going to stay with us, Lizzie?’

  ‘Till Mummy and Daddy come back from Vienna next week.’

  ‘That’s the capital of Austria. On the river Danube. We did the Empire last term and all that Hapsburg stuff. Have they gone for a holiday there, or something?’

  ‘No, it’s a doctors’ meeting. A conference they call it. A big one with doctors from all different countries. For psychiatrists. Daddy’s giving a lecture – about all the work he’s done with patients.’

  ‘Uncle Richard must be an awfully good doctor.’

  ‘He doesn’t actually have to cut people open, or anything, you know. He just talks to them.’

  ‘Still, he’s got to know all about how they work, hasn’t he? It takes years to be a doctor of any kind. As a matter of fact, I’d rather like to be one myself one day.’

  She gave him a quick sideways glance and he could see the big bump on her forehead. ‘Would you? I’d hate it. When I had my tonsils out last year I thought it was horrible in hospital. The ether made me sick.’

  ‘I don’t mind hospitals. The parents used to take me to one in London when I was small – to see if they could do anything about my arm.’

  ‘Oh …’

  He’d stuck his left hand in the pocket of his grey shorts but the wonky right one wouldn’t reach the other pocket which meant that he could never hide it properly if he wore short sleeves. He put it behind his back. He didn’t know whether Lizzie minded it or not but it was best to be careful in case she did. ‘They couldn’t, of course, but the doctors were very decent. I sort of thought then that I’d like to be one. I don’t suppose I could ever become a surgeon, but I think I could manage to be a GP all right.’ Terribly sorry, old chap, but there’s nothing we can do to improve it much for you. The thing is, though, you’ve got a thumb and the first finger and they’re the most important ones. You can do almost everything with those. Doesn’t matter too much about the rest. Look. The doctor had pressed his own thumb and forefinger together and worked them open and shut like pincers.

  He’d soon discovered that it was true and began to use his right arm and hand just as much as he used his good left one; he even taught himself to write with it. He could hold the pen or pencil quite normally with the thumb and forefinger and by leaning forward so he was closer to the paper and turning his shoulders to the left, he could write as well as anybody else. One thing the doctors at the hospital hadn’t warned him about was that he’d have to put up with people staring at him for all of his life. Once people got used to it, of course, they stopped staring – none of the chaps at school ever did – but strangers nearly always gawped. In trains and buses and shops he could feel their eyes fixed on his stump of an arm and on the ugly thing on the end of it. And sometimes, out of the corner of his eye, he could see them shudder and shrink away as though he was as bad as a freak in a circus. Small children often blurted something out aloud and their mothers would hush them up, so everybody got embarrassed, himself included. He’d learned to keep it covered up as much as possible but he wasn’t sure if he would ever learn not to care.

  They’d reached the terrace and Matt led the way round to the side door. ‘We’d better take our shoes off before we go in,’ he said. ‘Mother’s not too keen on the mud indoors.’ He levered off his plimsolls at the heels and Lizzie sat down and unbuckled her sandals. ‘We can give them a wash out here.’ He rinsed both pairs under the outside tap and set them to dry in the sun. His old plimsolls were already permanently mud-coloured and Lizzie’s sandals didn’t look as though they’d ever be the same again. ‘I expect your socks will have to be washed properly. I’m afraid the mud stains everything.’ He wasn’t sure what to do about Lizzie herself. Mother had gone shopping in Burnham and the bump was awful. ‘I’ll get some ice to put on that bruise,’ he told her. ‘It’s the best thing.’

  He got the ice tray out of the freezing compartment of the fridge, wrapped some lumps in a clean tea towel and made his cousin sit down at the kitchen table. ‘This is what Mother always does. It’s supposed to bring down the swelling.’ She kept her eyes screwed tight shut while he was holding the ice-pack against the lump with his good hand. He put the other one behind his back again in case it bothered her having it so close. After a bit the ice started to melt and run down her face and soon the front of her bodice was as wet as the back of her skirt. He took the ice-pack away and touched the lump gently with his fingertips for a moment, wishing the pain away for her, like he did sometimes with Mother’s headaches. It generally worked. ‘There, I think that’ll’ve done the trick.’

  She opened her eyes and felt her forehead gingerly. ‘It doesn’t hurt so much now. Hardly at all.’

  ‘Good. Sorry about your fro
ck. Perhaps you’d better go and change into something else.’

  ‘Yes, I’d better. I’m wet all over.’ At the kitchen door she turned back, still holding the lump as though she was afraid to let go. ‘Thank you very much, Matt.’

  ‘Gosh, it was nothing. Oh, Lizzie …’

  She peered at him with one eye from under the crook of her elbow. ‘Yes?’

  He said hesitantly, ‘If you come out sailing again, we could lend you something else to wear – so you wouldn’t spoil your frocks. We’ve got some old shorts and things …’

  ‘Oh … thank you, Matt. You’re very kind.’

  He went to refill the icetray at the kitchen sink, grinning to himself. She was awfully funny.

  * * *

  Guy was rummaging for dry clothes in the chest of drawers in his bedroom. He heard his cousin come up the stairs and go into the spare room next door and felt guilty about her. Bit of a poor show on his part, letting her get a crack like that … He pulled on a pair of grey flannels and an old cricketing sweater and ran a hand through his hair – a habit of his whenever something bothered him. The thing was, they shouldn’t have had to take Lizzie out with them. It wasn’t fair to have to keep watching out for her all the time when he was trying to concentrate on helming. He shouldn’t have to play nanny to little girls. Look at the way she’d gone and stood up like that when he’d told her quite clearly to stay exactly where she was. He’d had to keep his eye on her the whole time. He thrust his feet into his gym shoes without bothering to untie the laces, wriggling the toes home. Still, she hadn’t meant to be a nuisance, and it wasn’t really her fault that Mother had made them take her. In fact, he wasn’t sure she’d wanted to come at all. She’d looked pretty scared most of the time, and she’d taken a nasty whack … Guy pushed his fingers through his hair again. The decent thing would be to go and say he was sorry about that. She was only a kid. He ought to go and do it – right this minute.

  The spare-room door was ajar and he pushed it further open. The first thing he saw was Lizzie’s bare pink bottom bent over towards him. She was stepping into some knickers and wrenched frantically at them. Guy felt like laughing but he kept a straight face. ‘Sorry, Lizzie. I didn’t realize …’

  She turned round, scarlet in the face. ‘I was just changing. I got a bit wet.’ The lump on her forehead looked awful and he felt guiltier than ever. ‘So did I. Everybody does, sailing. You can’t help it. Look, I came to say I’m sorry about that bash you got from the boom. It was all my fault. I hope it isn’t too bad.’

  ‘It’s all right.’ She had grabbed a frock off the bed and was dragging it on over her head so that her voice was muffled. Her face reappeared, still bright red. ‘Matt put some ice on it. It made it better.’ She put both arms behind her, buttoning up her frock.

  He knew he ought to have thought of the ice. He’d been a real rotter. ‘I promise I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again. Next time.’ He smiled at her – his best smile. ‘You will come out with us again, won’t you, Lizzie?’

  ‘If you want.’

  ‘Of course I want you to. And so does Matt.’ She was having trouble with the buttons, fumbling clumsily behind her. ‘Look, I’ll give you hand with those. Turn round.’ She stood obediently, head bent, while he redid the buttons. ‘You’d got half of them wrong, you little idiot.’ There was a sash thing hanging down on each side that he could see was meant to go in a bow at the back. ‘Do you want me to tie this for you?’

  ‘No, thank you. I can manage.’

  From the stiff tone he knew she was still embarrassed. He smiled at her again. ‘So, that’s settled, then. You’re coming out with us again next time, aren’t you, Lizzie?’

  ‘Yes, Guy.’

  ‘Jolly good.’ He went off downstairs, whistling. At least he’d done the decent thing. It’d still be a bore having her around but it wouldn’t be for long. She’d be going back home soon.

  Lizzie heard him calling to Matt and when she peered out of her bedroom window she could see them setting up cricket stumps in the far corner of the lawn in front of some bushes. Guy was doing the batting, Matt the bowling. She watched from behind the curtain as Matt ran up and hurled the ball with his left hand. It went skew-whiff and disappeared into the bushes. Nereus bounded after it and presently came out with it in his mouth, looking pleased with himself. He trotted over to Matt and laid it carefully at his feet. The next ball was better and Guy hit it so hard that it sailed right across the lawn and landed on the terrace, bumping and rolling over the flagstones beneath the window until it came to rest against the wall. Nereus came and fetched it again. Lizzie went on watching. She knew that Guy was in the first cricket team at school so he must be good. Poor Matt couldn’t help not being so good, having to bowl left-handed. She touched the lump on her forehead again. It felt much better. And Guy had said it had been his fault and that he was sorry.

  Matt shoved Bean Goose’s bows well clear of the jetty and the water slapped gently against her hull as the dinghy made way. The big white sail above Lizzie’s head had been flapping away like a flag but now it began to fill up and bulge outwards and the wind started to push them along. They sailed downstream, towards the mouth of the river, but the water looked quite friendly this time, sparkling away calmly in the sunshine. And she trusted Guy. ‘Lee-oh, Lizzie,’ he shouted out very loud and clear every time he changed tack and the boom was going to go over. He turned Bean Goose round before they got to the sea and gave Matt a turn at the helm coming back. She could tell that Matt wasn’t nearly as good at sailing from the way Guy kept giving him orders, and on one tack they got stuck on a mud bank. The dinghy suddenly stopped dead and if Guy hadn’t taken up the centre board quickly and paddled the bow round so the wind blew them off they might have been there for hours. After that, Guy took over again and let her sit right beside him. He explained about the water flowing against the rudder under the boat and about moving the stick one way to go the other. ‘You can make her go about, if you like, Lizzie.’ He kept hold of the mainsheet and put his hand over hers on the tiller. ‘Look, you push it away from you to turn the bow round towards the wind … and about she goes.’ Bean Goose swung round smoothly as though by magic. Guy laughed at her. ‘Well done, Lizzie, you did that all by yourself.’ She hadn’t really, of course. His hand had made hers do it.

  Aunt Sheila took her to Burnham station to catch the train back to London. Matt came with them but Guy was busy building a model aeroplane out of wood. When she had gone to say goodbye to him he had shown her a picture of how it would look when it was finished. ‘It’s a Bristol Bulldog,’ he’d said. ‘A Royal Air Force fighter. The pilot’s got two guns, see, and they’re synchronized to fire through the propellers.’ She hadn’t really understood what he had meant but she’d nodded as though she had. ‘One day I’m going to learn to fly fighters,’ he’d told her. She had believed him completely.

  Matt carried her suitcase into the compartment and heaved it up onto the luggage rack, hooking his funny hand through the handle. ‘There you are, Cousin Lizzie.’

  ‘Thank you, Matt.’

  ‘Come and stay again, won’t you?’

  He looked as though he really meant it. She wished Guy had said that too.

  Chapter Two

  ‘This is my daughter, Anna.’

  Mama had spoken in English because the visitors were from England. If they had been French from France it would have been easy – it was one of her best subjects at school – but she only knew a few words of English: Good morning, good night, thank you very much, my name is Anna Stein … The woman from England was smiling at her and holding out her hand.

  ‘How do you do, Anna.’

  She shook the woman’s hand and then the husband’s afterwards. He was a doctor – a psychiatrist, like Papa. They were the first English people she had ever met and she watched them closely at the dinner table; studied them as they ate and drank and talked with Mama and Papa. They weren’t Jewish, she was sure of that. They had t
he wrong colouring and the wrong-shaped faces and noses and they’d never eaten matzos or klops before. They were well-dressed but their clothes were boring. The woman wasn’t elegant, like Mama, and she showed large front teeth when she smiled. The husband leaned across the table and asked in very bad German how old she was. His pronunciation made her want to giggle but Mama’s eye was on her and she answered him politely. ‘Vierzehn? Fourteen,’ he said, nodding. ‘Unsere Tochter, ist zwölf Jahre alt.’

  He smiled at her and the woman smiled too. They were being friendly, she realized, but she couldn’t see what them having a daughter of twelve had to do with her. After the meal was over Mama played the piano to entertain them: a Beethoven sonata, a Chopin mazurka, and a Strauss waltz. The English sat as still as statues and at the end of each piece they clapped hard – hardest for the Strauss. She could tell that they liked the waltz best.

  ‘We will excuse you now, Anna,’ Mama said. ‘You may say good night to our guests.’

  She went to her room, relieved to escape from a dull evening. Mama and Papa went on talking in English with the visitors. They talked on and on for a long time but whatever it was they were discussing couldn’t have been very amusing because nobody laughed once. It sounded an ugly language to her. After a while she shut her door so she couldn’t hear them any more, undressed and put on her cotton nightgown. It was stiflingly hot in the room and she opened the two windows as wide as she could and leaned out. The lamplight fell in golden pools on the old cobblestones of the Wallstrasse, and squares of light glowed from windows up and down the street. She could see straight into the Fischer family’s sitting-room directly opposite. Papa Fischer was in his armchair reading, his wire spectacles stuck on the end of his big nose and his black beard jutting out from the end of his chin like a spade. Mama Fischer, fat as a barrel, was bent over her sewing and Jacob and Gideon were sitting at the table, studying. They were always studying, always buried in books, always so serious. Once she had asked Gideon if he ever did anything else and he had looked at her with his gentle brown eyes, all puzzled, and said exactly what sort of thing did she mean? Anna leaned a little further out of the window. It was so hot – the air as thick as soup. All of Vienna was suffocating. Not a breath of wind for days and days. Too hot to sleep. Too hot to do anything. Footsteps sounded from further along the street and two men came into one of the pools of lamplight: young men strolling along. She drew back quickly but one of them had caught sight of her. He stopped and stared upwards. ‘Guten Abend, Fräulein.’ He had nice blond hair and he was handsome. A student, most probably, by the cheap clothes he was wearing – but he wore them with style, a loose black tunic slung across his shoulders. He smiled up at her. ‘Es ist ein schöner Abend, und Sie sind ein schönes Mädchen.’ She was used to men smiling at her – men of all ages – and paying her compliments, telling her she was beautiful. Because he was handsome she smiled back. After all, she was perfectly safe where she was. ‘Guten Abend, mein Herr.’