Dangerous Sea (8 page)

Perry looked at him oddly. ‘Don’t let her sucker you. She’s like that girl in
Great Expectations
– they made us read it at college – she has no heart. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

Frank wasn’t listening. With a graceful bounce, Philly had dived. Clean as a knife she cut the surface of the water and then swam to the side to join them. ‘Look,’ she whispered, ‘we’re not alone any more. I’m going. I hate being looked at.’

This was so obviously untrue, Frank opened his mouth to object. Then he saw the old man and his wife at the other end of the pool climbing gingerly down the steps into the shallow water. She meant she only liked being watched by people she wanted to impress. He saw that now and it cheered him up no end. He understood that, for some reason, this wonderful girl wanted to impress
him
. He gathered up Philly’s wrap and helped her put it on. He was tender and she shot him a look of gratitude which made his pulse race. At that moment, he would have done anything she asked him. He looked apologetically at Perry who was smiling compassionately at him.

Not many hours had passed since those who had boarded the
Queen Mary
at Southampton had looked about them with, as the poet Keats puts it, ‘a wild surmise’. They had struggled to find their way about, found their berths and lost them again, expressed wonder and awe at the grandeur and luxury of their new abode while worrying, at least in the case of the females, at the inadequacy of their wardrobes. These same passengers now watched with amused condescension the absurd floundering of the lost souls joining the ship at Cherbourg. The ‘old hands’ chatted amongst themselves, no longer strangers, but an aristocracy bemoaning the necessity of absorbing these interlopers, many of them, it was whispered, ‘foreigners’.

A sea voyage, it has been said, suspends time so that, whether it last four or five days, as would this transatlantic crossing, depending on the weather, or weeks, had the destination been Australia or India, the time would pass both very slowly and so fast that, when dry land was achieved, the days at sea would be immediately forgotten. Intimacies, even love affairs, fanned by the sea breezes or the music of Henry Hall’s dance band, would dissolve in the dirty air of reality when feet were once again on solid ground. ‘It was a dream,’ a passenger would say to herself or himself. ‘I must have been bewitched. Did I really give those awful people our address and
beg
them to come and stay whenever they were next in London or Leeds, Boston or Philadelphia? Did I really think this man handsome enough to kiss by the lifeboats? Or, the girl with her appalling mother – did I really ask her to spend the rest of her life with me?’

Fortunately, it was generally agreed, promises made on a luxury liner were as gossamer. There was a code or formula, Edward had once been told, which excused actresses’ indiscretions on the film set – DCOL. Amy Pageant had told him it stood for ‘doesn’t count on location’ and, when it had been explained to him, he was shocked and Amy had laughed at him. However, he was soon to think there must be a similar exculpation covering shipboard flirtations. He had happened to see his nephew deep in conversation with a pretty American girl. Frank said something – Edward could not hear what – and the girl threw back her head and laughed, exposing her exquisite throat. Frank half raised his hand as if to shield himself but had then laughed too, with the delicious complicity of the acknowledged lover. Edward sighed as he watched the besotted boy and then chided himself. Were he Frank’s age, would he not be in love with this elfin child? Hadn’t he seen Verity looking at Sam Forrest with just such intense fascination? He wondered if, after all, this was going to be the right moment to ask Verity to be his wife.

An elderly couple called Dolmen, who came aboard at Cherbourg, were immediately and instinctively judged to be beneath the notice of many of the English. It was generally held to be unfortunate to be foreign, a deliberate affront not to speak English and thoroughly reprehensible to be German. Mrs Dolmen fell foul of all of these tenets. She spoke no English and only a little French. Mr Dolmen spoke English with a heavy accent but Frank, who was the first to meet him – he had the cabin on the other side of his – rather liked the look of him.

He had no such feeling about the couple occupying the cabin on the other side. ‘Major Cranton,’ the man had barked, thrusting his hand out to Frank when they had happened to leave their cabins at the same time. His little moustache, wrinkling as he spoke, and military bearing advertised the truth of his assertion. From what Frank overheard – quite involuntarily – the Major seemed to have little time for his wife whom he ordered about as if she were his batman. The walls of the cabins were not thin but nor were they completely soundproof and Frank, registering this, hoped he wasn’t going to be disturbed by the Major’s parade-ground expletives.

Once they had left Cherbourg, it was time to dress for dinner. Marcus Fern, who had been to the States on several occasions, agreed with Edward that it was important to make ‘a good impression’ on the first night, particularly as they were invited to sit at the Captain’s table – a compliment they owed to being stars in Lord Benyon’s firmament. So it was that, come seven o’clock, Frank could be found struggling with his white tie, cursing his starched shirt front and hopping about on one leg looking for an errant sock. Ready at last, he leant over the basin to peer in the mirror and prepared to do battle with his hair. Springy at the best of times, it could not be made to lie flat. He risked a little brilliantine but in the end gave up. He cursed for the last time as one of his gold shirt studs popped off his chest and down the plughole. Awash with pleasurable self-pity, he comforted himself that, whatever he wore, he would still feel inadequate when he saw Philly Roosevelt again.

He went to Lord Benyon’s suite on the deck above where Edward, Verity and Sam Forrest were already congregated, drinking cocktails. He noticed that Sam had chosen to wear a dinner jacket, or tuxedo, as he referred to it to Frank who had not heard the word before. Instead of a waistcoat, Sam wore a white cummerbund. He looked rather dashing and Frank felt overdressed and half-throttled by his collar.

‘Where have you been?’ Verity demanded. ‘I told Mr Forrest he needn’t put on the whole soup-and-fish but never mind,’ she said, seeing Frank’s face fall, ‘you do look very handsome in it. I would kiss you but I don’t want to smudge my lipstick.’

If she was looking for a compliment from her young admirer, Frank did not oblige. He still hadn’t altogether forgiven her for the part she had played in his ignominious return from Spain. In any case, for the last three hours there had been only one girl in his life and it wasn’t Verity.

‘According to my uncle, First Class passengers never wear dinner jackets on the first night at sea,’ Frank replied, then, seeing the American wince, realized he had been rude. He added hurriedly, ‘But what does it matter. It’s all bunk anyway!’

Verity appeared not to have noticed the slight to her friend because she carried on as if Frank had not spoken. ‘Sam wants to tell you about the Youth Congress and the struggle for workers’ rights,’ she continued bossily. Frank was unable to feel any enthusiasm for a political lecture and his face must have shown it because Forrest winked at him and after a moment’s hesitation the boy smiled back. He decided that Sam was ‘a good chap’ for all he was an American. In fact, come to think of it, he was starting to like Americans more than some of his own people.

Verity looked at Frank sharply. ‘What
have
you been up to? You’ve been up to something.’ Then, remembering she had no rights over this young man, she added hastily, ‘Not that it has anything to do with me, of course.’

‘I was swimming. You said you didn’t need me, sir,’ he said, turning to Benyon.

‘No, that was all right by me, my boy, but I’m not in charge of your political education.’

Verity looked a little put out. She had a feeling she was being teased. Given that her political example had led Frank – or so his family thought – to run away from school and nearly get himself killed in someone else’s war, her attempt at ‘educating’ him might be seen by two or three of those present as something of a disaster.

‘I’m hungry,’ Edward announced to his nephew’s relief. ‘Shall we go in to dinner? I confess to being curious as to what the food will be like. I hear they have employed a famous French chef.’

‘I agree,’ Benyon said. ‘All my instincts – and I should add the steward’s instincts – suggest that we’re in for a bit of a blow, so who’s to say we’ll feel like dining tomorrow night.’

‘Don’t say that,’ Verity wailed. ‘I really mean to live like a capitalist exploiter for a few days. I’ll be devastated if I spend the whole trip writhing on my bunk, or whatever you call it.’

As they entered the restaurant through the silver-metal screens, they were all struck by the magnificence of the scene that presented itself to their gaze. Surmounted by a vast dome, the great room, the whole width of the ship and over a hundred feet in length, glistened in subtle, indirect lighting. A huge painting of the English countryside embraced the bronze grille doors which dominated the room. The tables laid with silver were reflected in glass wall panels but the brilliance was tempered by the wood and bronze. Most striking of all, a huge map of the Atlantic Ocean, decorated with aeroplanes and stars, covered almost the whole of one wall. Remarkable though this was, it was made even more marvellous by a model of the
Queen Mary
which passed over the painted ocean between representations of London and New York, enabling passengers to plot the progress of their ship.

The head waiter, who now approached them, might have been welcoming them to the Savoy Grill or the Berkeley. Without being required to identify themselves, they were ushered the whole length of the restaurant to the Captain’s table which rested on a slight dais. The Captain was not yet present but Verity was delighted to see, half hidden behind a huge swan sculpted in ice and dripping from the beak on to a silver salver, Warren Fairley and Jane Barclay. Proudly, she introduced them to the party and was glad to see the respect and warmth with which Edward greeted Fairley. She admitted, grudgingly, that, whatever his faults, Edward’s manners were perfect. Rather unexpectedly, Edward considered, the Dolmens were also brought to the Captain’s table as was Bernard Hunt accompanied by a lady wearing the most extraordinary coiffure which looked as though an exotic bird had died in her hair. This was Miss Doris Zinkeisen.

Miss Zinkeisen was one of the best-known names in theatre and film on both sides of the Atlantic. She had designed the costumes for
Nymph Errant
and
Wild Violets
and numerous Cochran reviews. She was a friend of many Hollywood stars who depended on her, on and off the set, to look their best and she had been appointed ‘Personality Creator’ to one film studio. She was also a successful artist and had her first picture hung in the Royal Academy when she was seventeen.

Hunt introduced her to the company, mentioning that she had been appointed by Cunard to decorate the Verandah Grill, one of the alternatives to the restaurant, in which First Class passengers could eatà la carte.

‘What an honour!’ Edward said politely.

‘Well, you know,’ she said, sitting down next to Edward, ‘the idea appealed to me but I said I must be allowed to decorate the whole room – curtains, chairs, carpets – not just do the murals. They wanted something light-hearted and gay. What a shock they got when I chose black carpets and deep red velvet curtains! They had in mind one of those awful twirly carpets you get in bad hotels. I said to them, “You’re mad. With a black carpet, when a bit gets worn you can cut it out and replace it with another square of black. You can’t do that with a twirly bit.” They were thrilled. They’d never thought of that.’

‘I haven’t had a chance of seeing the mural in the Verandah Grill yet.’

‘As for the mural, my dear, everyone says it’s divine, but I wouldn’t know. I was quite exhausted when I’d finished it but I think it
is
a success.’ She cocked her head on one side and looked more like a peacock than before. Edward tried to keep a straight face. ‘Do you know, darling, it was so long it wouldn’t fit in my studio. I had to borrow another one and then people would keep on dropping in to chat. When it was ready I took it to Glasgow and, my dear, I found total chaos. Can you imagine! There was I surrounded by hundreds of workmen, all very jolly, and passing remarks in their broad and oh-so-sweet Scottish accents and exhibiting their even broader humour. One of the dear fellows said to me, “Och aye, she must be a polisher,” because, you see, I had my overalls on. There were wires all over the place and they discovered the clock in the smoking-room below could only be regulated from up there. So do you know what, my dear, they calmly cut a bit out of my mural so the damned clock could be controlled! I do believe you could go through my mural like Alice through the looking-glass.’

‘I say, how fascinating! You mean there are passages between the decks?’

‘I guess so – service tunnels or something like that. Anyway, as I was saying, when the King came round to look at everything he stood in front of my mural for a long time and then pointed to an elderly lady I had painted and said, “How like my dear mama!” And do you know, it was! Quite unconsciously, I had painted Queen Mary into the picture!’

Miss Zinkeisen’s flow came temporarily to a halt through lack of breath and she sipped her champagne. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘do tell me, who are you?’

On the other side of Edward was Jane Barclay. He thought she might be one of those empty-headed bottle-blondes who he supposed were bred in Hollywood but he was soon made aware that she was no fool and had a keen eye for pretension and patronage.

‘Isn’t Doris exhausting?’ she said in a West Coast accent. She only used a southern drawl when she was annoyed with her husband as she knew he hated it.

‘Miss Zinkeisen? She is rather but I like her and I certainly admire her energy.’