Mr Busby snorted. ‘I wouldn’t know about such things. It’s not my job to speculate. I just add and subtract the figures and prepare the accounts.’
‘Exactly. So you can see as clearly as I can that we can’t go on like this.’
Another frown creased Busby’s forehead. ‘Don’t let your father hear you say such things. God in his infinite wisdom will provide. We are here on earth only to do His will, and that means we don’t question matters that are not our concern.’
Her colleague bent his head back to his work and Hannah chewed the end of her pencil as she studied him. Small and thin, with a face that was gaunt as a rat’s, he had thinning hair, plastered to his head with plentiful quantities of brilliantine. The collar of his jacket was dusted with dandruff. She wondered whether there was a Mrs Busby, and if so was she as dour as her husband was? There was no point in asking any personal questions of either the man himself or her father, so she picked up the next invoice. Like everything in their view, it was none of her business.
As she worked away, she continued to wonder about the company. As Morton’s outgoings were so low – nothing had been spent on the premises since her father took over and Mr Busby had not had a pay rise in years – it was hard to understand why Morton’s was in such dire straits. Even though sales were down, they were still selling the coffee – yet there was apparently nothing to show for this. It had never occurred to her before to question the oddness of the situation, as she had always accepted the incontrovertible fact that times were hard and the market depressed, but as she stared at the columns of figures something struck her as not being quite right.
She squeezed her lips together and decided to ask Mr Busby. ‘Do you know why the previous owners decided to sell Morton’s to my father?’
Mr Busby looked astonished. ‘What’s got into you today, Miss Dawson?’ He looked around him nervously as though expecting Charles Dawson to pounce on him any minute. ‘It’s really not your concern. Mine neither. I do what I’m paid to do and then I go home.’
‘Yes, but you’ve been at Morton’s a long time, haven’t you?’
‘I worked for your grandfather since leaving school.’ He looked up at the ceiling as though trying to picture those days. ‘Things were different back then before the war. We had much grander offices, off Lord Street and our own warehouse at the Queen’s Dock. Your father and I were two of about four clerks. Morton’s had the lion’s share of the coffee import business through Liverpool.’
‘So things went downhill after my grandfather sold it?’
‘It started before then. Your grandmother died and it was as if Mr Morton lost his spirit and his interest in the business. When he emigrated to Australia he instructed his solicitors to sell. The buyers lost interest very quickly once they realised it was no longer the goldmine it used to be. That’s how your father was eventually able to take over for next to nothing.’
This was all news to Hannah. There was never any discussion of the business at home. She half suspected that to her father commerce was an ugly concept, something grubby and ungodly. He appeared to show little interest in the fortunes of the company, treating it only as a source of personal status.
‘Why do you think he bought Morton’s? My father doesn’t seem to have much appetite for the business.’
Busby coughed. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. ‘I am in no position to comment on such matters.’
‘But Mr Busby, you’ve been here so long, you must know more than anyone. You must have your theories.’
For a moment she thought the clerk was blushing. He opened his mouth to reply, but the door burst open and Charles Dawson walked into the room. Busby dropped his eyes and got on with his work. Dawson gave the two of them a quick look before going into the inner office – a partitioned-off section of the room – and slammed the door behind him.
Hannah returned to the pile of invoices and carried on working, frustrated, as for a moment she had actually believed she was beginning to get somewhere in her questioning of Mr Busby.
Chapter Six
Will and Paolo enjoyed a hearty fried breakfast, washed down with mugs of tea. After two years at sea on a British merchant ship, Paolo had come to appreciate bacon and eggs but still regarded tea as an eccentricity, and constantly moaned that he longed for a decent cup of real Italian coffee.
After he finished his last mouthful, Paolo spoke. ‘I have news, caro amico. Last night, before I went to find you at the police station, I talk to a man who is first mate on an Italian ship, Il Montefeltro, bound for the Mediterranean. He say me they leave from the Queen’s Dock tomorrow and need more crew. It is perfect for me. A ship of my own country. Why don’t you come too?’ He moved his hands in a supplicatory gesture.
Will grinned. ‘That’s bonzer, mate. Just what you need. But not for me. I don’t speeka da lingo.’
‘I did not speak inglese before I went to sea but I learn fast. You learn italiano too. I teach you.’ Paolo’s stretched out his hands.
‘No, mate. It’d mean going back to the beginning. If I’m sticking at sea, I have to go forwards not back. And I’m not as clever as you are. Too old to start learning a new lingo now. I’m already going to have my work cut out trying to learn enough to go for my mate’s ticket.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘I’ve never been one for studying. School of life, that’s me.’ He paused then added hurriedly, ‘Assuming I do try for the ticket, which I’m not even sure about.’
‘You are a good sailor, you teached me much. You must do what the old man say and study. He’s right you could be il Capitano one day.’
Will gave him a weak smile. Why was he still so uncertain? What was the alternative? Even were he to leave the sea and go to America, he’d need money, and the best way to get more of that was to progress in his job. The pay was abysmal now, but getting a position as bosun and eventually mate would be an improvement, even if a minor one. Better than nothing. ‘The skipper gave me the name of a man who might be looking for crew. Said I could get some experience with a different line then maybe I might be up for the bosun’s job when the Christina sails again. What do you Eyeties say – better to eat the soup than jump out the window? So maybe I’ll try me some soup.’
‘Bravo! That is a good plan. Beggars can’t be choicers.’ He grinned at Will. ‘Ma mi mancherai moltissimo. Yes, I will miss you very much, my friend.’
After saying goodbye to Paolo, and swearing to each other that they would meet again one day, Will made his way to the offices of the Coastal Line near the Nelson Dock. He owed it to Captain Palmer to start with his recommendation – and at least short haul trips to Ireland would mean he’d be on hand to rejoin the Christina as soon as she was ready to sail again.
He tried to push the thought of Paolo Tornabene from his head. The Italian had been the only man – only person – he’d allowed to get anywhere close to him. There had been something about Paolo’s sunny nature, cheeky grin, desire to learn, that had got under Will’s skin. Unlike most of the crew he’d known over his eleven years at sea, Paolo was quiet, happy to sit in a companionable silence, knowing when to keep his counsel and not to pry – so that Will had begun to confide in him in a way he’d never done with anyone else. Perhaps it was the fact that they were so different – language and culture, family background, everything about their circumstances. Yet in many ways, Paolo was similar to how Will had been as a younger man: naive, eager, hungry for life. But most of all, Will had been moved by the way the young Italian had risked everything to get him safely back on board in Zanzibar, thus ensuring Will avoided the ignominy of a return to home port via the consulate and the next passing ship. Paolo had paid a heavy price for his kindness and Will would always feel indebted to his friend. He hoped that one day he might find a way to repay that debt.
* * *
When Will called at the offices of the Coastal Line, any thought that getting a post on a small Irish cargo ship might mean a promotion to bosun was quickly dispelled. Although
unemployment had declined since the height of the depression, the shipping lines could still take their pick of the available work force, and Will found that his choice was between settling for a post as an ordinary seaman or carrying on looking. And at least they agreed he could work as casual labour and sign off as soon as the Christina was ready. He decided to ‘eat the soup’ as Paolo had put it.
He had two days at liberty before he needed to join his new ship, the Arklow, now en route from Dublin and due to dock that night, so he shouldered his kitbag and headed off to the Sailors’ Home on Canning Street. From past experience he knew that here you could get a bed for the night with breakfast for a few bob.
The building was of a grand design with twin turrets and a pair of impressive wrought iron gates which were locked at ten o’clock every night in a strictly enforced curfew. Those heavy gates had collapsed and crushed to death an old lady, then a policeman some years later. Both were rumoured to haunt the place. Will didn’t believe in ghosts but he always stepped quickly through the portal with a nervous look upwards to check that the structure wasn’t about to collapse on him.
The ground floor of the institution was the home of the ‘Pool’ where sailors came to seek their next ship. A series of counters were staffed by clerks who exerted their power to make or break men’s lives by finding them suitable jobs, consigning them to months of misery on a bad ship, or turning them away with no job at all. Will stood in line, just in case he found something better than the Ireland job, but the only other options on offer were a tramp ship heading for the Arctic Circle or a place on the Mersey ferries. He decided to be grateful that he had secured a job that would keep him employed until the Christina was ready to sail. The Arctic tramp would have meant signing articles for the next year or more – and not knowing the clerk responsible for deck jobs, he would have been at the back of the pecking order for any other available options.
Will’s quarters here at the Sailors’ Home were basic but no worse than what he’d been used to on board ship. The cell-like rooms, although on dry land, were known as cabins. Wood-panelled and painted an ugly green, they contained only a simple iron bed and a chest of drawers, known, like the onboard equivalent, as a locker, even though it had no key. The men shared a communal toilet and washing facilities. The place was reminiscent of a Victorian prison – with galleries surrounding an open central space, but finer than those of a prison, made with intricate wrought iron balustrades, featuring mermaids and sea creatures. Blind to the lavish carvings, all Will needed was a bed to lie on and some food to keep him going. And the place was cheap. Beggars can’t be choosers, he told himself, then remembered Paolo saying the same thing that morning but getting his words wrong. He’d miss him.
Will was rootless – little more than an itinerant. No one waited for him to return home from each long voyage. There was no home for him at all for that matter, no family, no wife to greet him with a decent meal and a warm and welcoming bed.
He stowed his few possessions in the locker, lay down on the bed and stared at the cracks in the tobacco-stained ceiling. Residents were not permitted to lie around in their rooms all day. Just as there was a curfew for night time, so too the cabins had to be unoccupied during the day, so he swung himself off the bed and headed back downstairs and out of the building.
His board settled, Will went for a walk around the city, savouring the solid feel of the ground beneath his feet. It would take a long time to lose the involuntary sailor swagger that came from constant adjustment to the swell of the sea.
Liverpool, as always, was thronged with people, the jangle and ding-dong of the trams, the blare of horns on motorcars and buses, and the background buzz of the population going about their business. It was a grey grizzled day and he missed the brilliance of the African sun. That made him wonder what Rafqa was doing now but he pushed the thought away. Walking through these crowded streets past the grandiose soot-blackened Victorian buildings, the memory of Zanzibar was a distant dream, a different planet, an impossibly vibrant palette of explosive colour in contrast to the monochrome of these charcoal-coloured streets and sky.
For the first time since he had left his home in Australia more than ten years ago, Will admitted he was lonely. It wasn’t that he had a need for company, conversation, conviviality. No, it was a deeper, darker gnawing inside him, a kind of despair. Is this all there is? All there will ever be? The future stretched in front of him and he didn’t like what it looked like – a long empty road to nowhere, marked out by a series of ships and ports, miles of empty oceans and endless skies. What was the point of it all?
On impulse, he headed into a public house and ordered a beer. But the drinking did nothing to lighten his mood. He drained his pint quickly and ordered another, staring down into the dark liquid, while all the time the words ‘is this all there is?’ eddied around his brain.
Over at the bar, two men, the only other occupants of the hostelry, one of them the barman, were evidently discussing Hitler’s annexation of Austria – or the Anschluss as the newspapers were now calling it.
‘There’s no question about it, Ron,’ the barman said. ‘One way or another we’ll be at war with those bastards again before long. I’m glad I was too young last time and with a bit of luck I’ll be too old this time around – and there’s me bad leg too.’
‘I’m too old myself of course. I did my bit last time around. But they wouldn’t touch you with a bargepole. They’d never be that desperate.’
‘Less of the lip, old man. One thing’s sure – we won’t be lining up in trenches and blasting the crap out of each other this time. I was reading in the Echo that future wars will be mostly fought from the air. That little Kraut with the silly moustache will get what’s coming to him as soon as we drop a big fat bomb on him. Blow him and his bleeding Reichstag and goose-stepping idiots to blazes. Won’t know what’s hit them!’
The old man chuckled in response, and the laughter turned into a fit of coughing. He stretched out his empty glass to the barman. ‘Another one in there, pal, when you’re ready. Believe me, it’ll take more than a bomb to stop that devil. The rate he’s been building up his armies he’s probably already got a damn sight more bombs than we have.’
The barman shook his head as he pulled the pint. ‘Didn’t they tell us there’d never be another war and here we are, not yet twenty years later, and we’re already talking about the possibility.’
‘I’ve four sons under twenty-five and I don’t want to see them in uniform.’
‘In uniform or out of it, if they do drop bombs we’ll all cop it. Women and kiddies too.’
‘Nah! They’d not do that. Not wage war on civilians.’
‘Says you. They dropped bombs from those Zeppelins last time. I’ll bet they wouldn’t hesitate. You can’t trust the Hun.’
Will couldn’t avoid listening. They were talking loudly, the pub was otherwise empty and there was nothing else to distract him. It seemed the whole world was more up to date with the threat of Adolf Hitler than he was and everyone seemed to think there would be a war. Part of him wished there would be. At least then he might be expected to do something that might make a difference. And war also brought the possibility of an end to everything. Then at least he’d be past this terrible empty pointlessness.
Twenty minutes later the old man was still droning on about the possibility of war. Will decided he’d had enough. He downed the last of his pint and left the bar.
It was too early to return to the Sailors’ Home, so he went towards the waterfront and carried on walking until he reached the shore at Seaforth. Hands thrust into pockets, collar drawn up and woollen hat pulled low over his ears, he walked along the sand between the sea and the dunes. He must have walked for an hour before turning round and heading back the way he had come. It was already dusk. He lay down on the slope of one of the dunes and, overcome by a sudden tiredness, dozed off. Waking with a jolt, he saw it was now fully dark. He stared up at the black of the sky. It was a cl
ear night and he gazed at the stars, trying to make out the various constellations.
A vivid memory of the first time he had met his new stepmother, Elizabeth, suffused him. He had come upon her at Wilton’s Creek trying to light a fire outside, with no thought to the risk. Will had shouted at her, kicked out the fire and then discovered to his astonishment that this young English woman was his father’s new wife. She had been equally astonished to discover that her husband had a teenage son. Never had been much of a conversationalist, Jack Kidd. Will found himself smiling as he remembered that evening: how he’d shown her how to build a safe fire and they’d baked potatoes and the fish he’d caught and then talked and watched the stars together and he had called her Lizbeth. She had been surprised that the southern skies were different from the northern ones she was used to in England. He had been instantly and hopelessly smitten, and had loved her with a wretched, hopeless passion to which she had been oblivious. Lying here in the sand now, Will still felt the sting of shame and embarrassment he had experienced when he had finally confessed his feelings and Lizbeth had shown him a kindness that had cut him to the bone. He’d never forget her words or the expression on her face when she’d admitted that she loved his friend Michael Winterbourne.
‘Right now, Will, you believe you love me, but I promise you, it’s just a crush.’
Just a crush! Here he was, more than ten years later, and his feelings were as strong. His love for her had shaped his life and ruined the possibility of him ever loving anyone else.
She’d told him, ‘Your time will come.’ Her face had been full of sadness and pity and he hadn’t been able to bear it any longer. That was the moment when he’d decided to go to sea.
He’d told Lizbeth that day that he wanted to look at those stars she’d told him about, in the northern skies. Now his eyes moistened as he looked up and studied them. Brushing the threatened tears away, he jerked himself upright and got to his feet. Stuffing his hands deep in his pockets and fixing his eyes on the lights of the city, he walked briskly back towards the Liverpool docks.
Storms Gather Between Us Page 7