The Harbour

by Francesca Brill

  He heard her try to control the sob but it escaped, muffled and hopeless. In an act of selflessness he stilled his own dreams.

  ‘For all of our sakes, please, go find him, sweetheart.’ He never called her ‘sweetheart’.

  She opened her eyes.

  The next morning was cool and limpid. The window was open and the breeze brightened even the dustiest corners of the apartment. Stevie had been on the telephone all morning since dropping Hal at kindergarten. She gripped the receiver tightly – a lifeline.

  ‘I don’t understand. Are you saying I can’t speak with him or that he can’t speak with me?’ Her voice was tight with restraint. ‘I’m sorry but this is ridiculous.’

  She slammed the phone down on to its cradle and in a sudden moment of decision she picked up her coat from the back of the chair and practically pulled the door off its hinges as she flung it open.

  It wasn’t until she was outside the imposing skyscraper that she paused to collect herself. She stood on the slippery reflections of the wet sidewalk and she listened to her own pulse as if to an engine ticking as it cooled down. She checked her watch – midday. Should she wait in a coffee shop until they all came out and grab Harry then? She glanced around for an appropriate place with a plate-glass window on to the street. Yes, there was one, right across from the building, its window comfortingly steamed up.

  She had left the apartment without even looking in the mirror, compelled to action by the adrenalin of frustration. Now she was losing courage. She bent to catch her reflection in the side-mirror of a parked car. Her flushed cheeks, anxious eyes and unkempt hair irritated her. She straightened up and shrugged her vanity away. He wasn’t going to refuse to talk to her because of a bad haircut.

  Stevie negotiated the military-style doormen with her shoulders squared, a gaze directed into the building beyond and a flash of her press card. Not knowing where she was going, she followed the corridor and her instinct took her to the doors of the main conference room. She quietly opened the pale wood door and slipped into the back of the room with practised discretion. The slightly raked tiers of seats were half-full. Mostly men, but a few scattered women listened soberly as a man in a sharply cut suit spoke from the platform at the front of the room.

  ‘It only remains for me to thank each of you for your valuable contributions to our better understanding of the process of this terrible conflict.’

  Behind him, there was a row of men wearing various different military uniforms. Second from the right was Harry.

  The speaker continued while a soft rustle of discreet seat-shifting and paper-gathering pre-empted the end of the session. He turned to the men behind him and gestured towards them, an acknowledgement both gentle and formal.

  ‘You have experienced unimaginable sufferings. It is our duty and our intention to ensure that the world will never again have comparable dark hours to contend with. Thank you.’

  Now the representatives removed their translation headsets and there was polite applause. Stevie slid against the tide down the wide shallow steps towards the platform. She was suddenly unbearably hot and if she could have turned around she would have. But it was impossible. She was being pulled towards him as if by a tightening thread.

  As he stepped off the platform Harry was talking to one of his colleagues and it wasn’t until he turned, mid-sentence, to find his bearings that he saw her.

  They sat at a small formica table by the window of the coffee shop. There was steam and noise and life all around but between them was deep silence. The small space that separated them, the table with its orange plastic bird-of-paradise lolling in its vase and the salt and pepper and sugar, may as well have been the space between the sun and the moon. Two cups of burned coffee cooled. Harry had barely looked at her even as they walked across the street. They had not touched. She was acutely aware of his physical presence. He had stood at the counter to order and she had not been able to avert her eyes from him. Who was this bony, sunburned man in uniform? If she had not known, would she have noticed him if they had passed in the street? If they had found themselves by chance in the same coffee shop? Would her eyes have done more than brush over him?

  Even now as he looked out of the window, seeing nothing, trying to still his own racing hope, she wanted him.

  ‘I’m sorry about the ambush.’ Her voice was low and he had to turn towards her to catch at the words. ‘Thought you could avoid me, huh?’

  Harry shook his head slightly and his tone when he spoke was both wary and angry. ‘How could you write about us like that?’

  The anger took her by surprise. She had thought that maybe he would be disconcerted, yes, or maybe he had changed his mind about her, but to have stayed away from both Hal and her because of the stupid book? She hadn’t imagined that.

  ‘It was about all the stuff before the war, the politics, I hardly mentioned us. I mean it’s not about us, it’s about the important things.’

  ‘Complete strangers have asked me questions more private than even my own family would dare.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She was suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion. She could easily have put her head down on the cold table and slept. The pale-blue surface was speckled with flecks of brown. ‘I warned you, stay away from writers.’

  Harry sat back in his chair. ‘I will.’

  Alert again, she looked at him. ‘What are you saying?’ The dread stopped her throat.

  Harry hunched his shoulders even higher and she noticed how he supported his left arm with the other as he leaned across the table. ‘Look, you’re under no obligation to me. I appreciate everything you did to keep me alive while we were there. And I was never so happy as I was with you. But that was then.’

  Stevie felt herself grow heavy and slow. ‘Are you leaving me?’

  Their hands were inches from each other.

  ‘You and Hal have made a life for yourselves. Of course, you had to. I can’t tie you to me, I don’t want to.’ His voice dropped even further. ‘I’m tired and half-useless and I’m not the man you think I am.’ He looked down at the table. ‘I’m done in.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘You don’t understand.’

  Her hand brushed against his. The skin felt rough but the bones were thin. ‘I don’t care what happened. I don’t care what it took – you’re here, you’re alive.’

  ‘It’s no good.’ He looked at her. ‘You’re free, Stevie. It’s all right.’

  The hysteria was rising. She thought she might throw up. ‘It’s not all right.’

  And then he ambushed her. ‘The thing is, I love you.’

  ‘So then –?’

  ‘So then, don’t you see?’ His fingers found hers and the electric shock of it nearly broke her. ‘That’s why I’m letting you go.’

  The rage took her by surprise. ‘Oh, yes, I see.’ She pushed her chair back and the fierceness felt like a knife. ‘I see clearly. It’s flashing over your head in a damn neon sign. Coward is what it says. Coward.’

  She took a few steps away but couldn’t let it go like that. Despite the fury she did see clearly. And with the clarity came a kind of calm.

  She went back to the table and looked at him and for the first time that day she really saw him, saw his strengths, saw his weaknesses, and knew that what she felt for him was love. But love in a new, unexplored form. Love as fresh as the love she felt for Hal when he was raw and alien. A whole continent of love, not desperate and needy and reliant on turmoil for its rationale but a place of lush, dark stillness.

  ‘Want to know something? This is it. Life. Life is what’s happening now, this instant. This moment.’ She gestured around the coffee shop. ‘This is all we’ve got, buster, so you’d better step up and take your chances while you can.’

  She could see herself reflected in Harry’s eyes. Twin shadows. And she knew she could walk away because it really was true that wherever she was so was he. Even if he wasn’t ready to join her in the new world.

  S
he was almost at the door when she heard him. He had called her name and was on his feet. She waited. The door opened and closed. A young woman swished past, her scent a wake behind her. Stevie stepped away from the door and found a pocket of quiet by the wall. Harry was close. He put both his hands on the wall on either side of her head and he looked at her.

  ‘I’m afraid,’ he said.

  ‘So am I.’

  The door opened and closed. Orders were shouted from the counter to the kitchen. At the table nearest to them a mother watched her teenage daughter light a cigarette and chose to hold her tongue. Outside the light breeze blew again; yesterday’s newspapers wound themselves around traffic lights. A cab let three over-excited salesmen out on to the sidewalk.

  And Harry heard her voice as if it was his own, ‘What are you doing later?’

  They arranged to meet in the park.

  Stevie brought Hal to the playground and was pushing him on the swing when Harry arrived. The grey winter sky lifted and sharp rays of light pierced the clouds. Hal was instantly suspicious of this man and the way he shook his mother’s hand. He started to cry and when Harry tried to lift him off the swing, he clung hard to the cold iron ropes and wouldn’t let go until Stevie stepped in.

  Stevie had explained on the way there that they were going to meet Hal’s daddy. She could see that this was confusing to him. His daddy was a long way away and always had been, so how could he be here? From his scowl it was obvious that he was far from sure that he wanted one and when he saw Stevie smile at the man and heard her laugh in that special private way, he made it quite clear that he didn’t. Later, when Harry had bought him an ice cream and Stevie had actually let him eat it, even though it was snacking, she hoped that Hal might be persuaded that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  They walked slowly, their voices low while Hal ran ahead chasing pigeons.

  ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was here. When the debrief in California was over they asked me to help with the war crime prosecutions. I was very glad. I didn’t care where they sent me.’ He paused, dropped his voice even lower. ‘Actually, I was more than glad. I was grateful.’

  They watched Hal as he ran in circles, the pigeons always just out of reach.

  ‘He’s a tribute to you, Stevie.’

  ‘I’m sorry he’s been so difficult.’

  ‘Hardly surprising, is it? I’m a complete stranger to him.’

  ‘It’s good he was so young. He doesn’t remember anything from before New York.’

  ‘Who’d have thought it, my son – a New Yorker.’

  ‘Could have been worse. He could have been an Englishman.’

  Harry glanced at her, a wry smile, the first today. ‘God forbid.’

  Stevie held his gaze. ‘You’re not a stranger to me, however much you may wish you were.’

  Harry stopped. The leaves in the trees above them clattered in the wind. He struggled for the words. ‘The problem is that I’m a stranger to myself.’

  ‘That’s why you need me. I’ll remind you who you are.’

  Harry tried to interrupt her but she put her hand on his arm to stop him.

  ‘I knew you weren’t dead. I knew it even when everybody had given up hope. And I wasn’t just in denial; when I heard that Chen was dead I didn’t doubt it was true. What I’m trying to say is that I don’t care how tough it’s going to be, it can’t be worse than it’s been already.’

  Almost before she had finished talking, Harry pulled his arm away from her. He seemed to shrink before her eyes. He turned aside and then he took a few steps away. He didn’t seem to know quite what he was doing, as if he was lost. Stevie held her breath, not wanting to deepen his obvious distress, but also not understanding it. His voice when it came was desolate. ‘I had no choice. I had to do it. They were going to kill all of those boys. I had to give them something, tell them something to make them stop.’

  Stevie suddenly remembered Frank Hopkins’ vitriolic voice, spitting out those accusations, and as she looked at Harry, his troubled face worn into crags, she was clear that there were things she did not need to know.

  ‘Don’t. Please don’t.’ Stevie flung her arms around him. She wanted to contain him. Hold him together.

  His voice cracked. ‘Was anybody else there?’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘When they found Chen at the hut.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about a hut, my love. Chen died somewhere in the south-west, on the front line in a battle.’

  Harry frowned as if trying to clear his head. ‘In battle? Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. We can get more details if you want. Madame Kung’s people are full of information.’

  Harry didn’t seem to hear her. He shook his head.

  Misunderstanding him, Stevie said, ‘If you don’t trust the Chinese version, maybe your military people could find out.’

  Still shaking his head, his voice was low. Stevie had to step right up to him to catch the words. ‘I did a terrible thing, Stevie.’

  For a moment the bare New York trees dissolved and she was in that stifling Hong Kong Supreme Court room and she felt again the pressure on her head from Shigeo’s hand. A sharp wind cut into her and she leaned even closer into Harry. Her eyes were inches from his, their eyelashes almost touching. Her voice was firm. ‘I don’t care what happened. I don’t care what it took. None of it matters.’ She felt more intimate with him than ever. ‘I love you and that’s all there is to it.’

  Harry could feel the warmth of her breath. He allowed himself to take comfort.

  She felt a tug on her coat. Looking down she saw Hal holding up a bedraggled brown leaf. He was breathless and solemn though his gaze was triumphant. Stevie let go of Harry and bent down to Hal.

  ‘That’s great, Hal. Is it for me?’

  He shook his head. ‘It’s for the man.’

  Harry bent down now too. He accepted the offering with great ceremony. ‘Thank you.’ He slipped the stem through his buttonhole.

  Hal was delighted. ‘It’s a medal.’

  Harry saluted him and Hal laughed. Stevie took his hand and they all three walked slowly into their new world under the shadow of the trees, testing the ground, alert to the unexpected, making it up as they went along.

  Much later

  The night was a velvet curtain. His voice was soft. His touch, gentle.

  ‘Is this all right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This? No?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘All right. That’s all right.’

  A pause settled over them. Shared, the silence was as intimate as any passion. The whisper came from him.

  ‘Can I look at you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Thank you. You’re so beautiful.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s fine. It’s enough. Really, this is enough.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘There’s time.’

  ‘I just can’t.’

  ‘It’s all right. It’s more than all right.’

  ‘Something terrible happened to me.’

  ‘You don’t have to say anything.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘You don’t. It doesn’t matter. I mean, it doesn’t make any difference.’

  He had his own damage. His own scars. Some of which were visible and which she traced with the tip of a finger.

  ‘I’d say the odds are three to four on.’

  ‘Don’t bet on it. Because what if I can’t. Ever.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I can wait.’

  ‘For ever? I don’t think so.’

  ‘Let’s see. We have all the time in the world.’

  He took her hand in his.

  ‘Is this all right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Feel me. I’m here.’

  In the photograph of the wedding they stand on the steps of City Hall in the spring sunshine. Hal hides behind St
evie’s legs. Declan is on the step just behind them, his face half-obscured by Harry’s hat. Madame Kung, immaculate and precise in her suit, stands next to Stevie.

  Everybody is smiling.

  Acknowledgements

  There are many people with whom I have shared this adventure and to whom I owe great thanks. First among them are the amazing Amanda Boxer and Carola Vecchio, who have been kind enough to share their family’s stories with me and let me take liberties with them. Caroline Wood, without whose encouragement and vision there simply would be no book, and everybody at Felicity Bryan Associates. I have been lucky enough to have Helen Garnons-Williams as my patient and clear-sighted editor, ably assisted by Erica Jarnes, Trâm-Anh Doan and everybody else at Bloomsbury. Thanks also to the inexhaustible energies of Rachel Holroyd and Sophie Dolan at Casarotto Ramsay who have kept many wolves from the door. My first reader Linda Fraser gave me the courage to keep going. Sandra Yarwood, Elizabeth Dench and Jenny Borgars had faith in this story long before it came together. My thanks also to Sue Brill, Marius Brill, Agatha Sadler, Sian, Kit, Caitlin, Molly and Helena Line, Claire Jephcott, Claire Scudder, Oliver Rose and Jane Haynes for unwavering and generous support of every kind. Also to Anne Stamper, the archivist of the Women’s Institute, who helped me with some vital research and to Phyllis Lusher for sharing her invaluable Hong Kong knowledge.

  Finally, for their constant good humour and patience, sometimes against the odds, Bobby Allen, Rebecca Bowen and Romy Brill Allen, my undying gratitude.

  Author’s Note

  I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the dazzling and brave men and, above all, women whose real life experiences inspired this novel. Most particularly I am grateful to the wonderful Emily