East of the Sun (11 page)

“How was your day, Miss Holloway?” the purser, a thickset Scotsman with a relentless smile, was locking up his glass cage. “Did ye enjoy your quick trip to Cairo?”

“Great fun,” she said. She couldn’t even begin to explain how bad it felt.

And now another lifeline had been cut.

“D’you want to put that in here?”

“Thank you.” She threw the crumpled telegram into the wastepaper basket.

“So, will you be after the silly party tonight?”

“No,” she said. “Not tonight. I’ve had enough excitement for one day.”

She glanced at her watch. She could hardly see the time. She’d been gone for ten minutes and would go back in ten.

The worst thing about being on a ship was there was nowhere to hide when things went wrong. If she went to her cabin, Miss Snow would be there, no doubt brimming with good advice and I-told-you-sos. If she went into supper, she’d have to face the Ramsbottoms. The only person she felt temporarily safe with was Frank.

Walking slowly back to the cabin, she thought about him. He seemed so lighthearted, even faintly flirtatious, something to do with his sleepy green eyes, the smile.

But if Rose was right and a brother had been killed at Ypres, he’d suffered and now perhaps concealed his pain too well. She wondered if the brother had been killed outright, or had to take his chances in one of the ad hoc medical centers on the battlefield steeped in mud and blood, and whether, as a consequence, the luxury of this ship angered Frank—he’d joked
once or twice about the rows of passengers that waited for him outside his surgery in the mornings to have ears syringed and smelling salts renewed.

Mad-making, when you thought about it. She wondered if he ever talked about it, and somehow doubted it.

He was still sitting in a chair by Guy’s bed when she walked in. He’d placed a shirt over the cabin’s wall light so that the room was darker and full of shadows.

“How is he?” she said.

“Agitated for a while,” he whispered. “But fast asleep now; he will be till morning.”

“Can we talk here?”

“Well, it’s not ideal,” he said, “but at the moment, I can’t think of a better place.”

There was a silence for a while.

“How old are you?” he asked suddenly.

“I’m twenty-eight,” she said.

“You don’t look it.”

“Don’t I?” She didn’t like lying to him but it seemed important to keep her story straight.

“Do you know anything about his parents?”

“I met an aunt once at my interview. She said something about his father being in the tea business near Assam. Originally they’d hired an older chaperone, but she let them down.”

“They should never have put you in this situation.” He ran his hand through his hair and shook his head.

“What situation?”

“Would you mind if we went into the bathroom?” he said. “I don’t want him to overhear.”

They crept into the bathroom together where they sat awkwardly at either end of the bath.

Guy’s paisley silk bathrobe was hung behind the door. A grubby-looking shaving brush lay in the sink, hairs stuck in the congealed soap. The steward hadn’t been in to clean up.

“Look,” said Frank, “before we start you must understand that this is in confidence, and I don’t have all the answers.”

“I understand.”

“Can I speak openly?”

“Of course.”

Frank didn’t seem to know where to begin, or look. “To start with, how do you get on with Guy?”

“Honestly?”

“Yes,” he glanced at her quickly and smiled, “always.”

“I can’t bear him.”

“Well, that’s pretty unequivocal,” he said.

“Look, I know boys of his age struggle with conversation,” she said, “but he’s barely uttered a word for the last two weeks, and when he does, I get the feeling he hates me.”

Frank thought about this for a while. “He doesn’t hate you,” he said at last. “He hates himself.”

“But why?”

“That, I’m not sure of. Have you seen him in his own setting, at school for instance?”

“Well, I drove down there to pick him up, but when he left all the other boys seemed to be out playing sport. His dormitory was deserted.”

“That’s pretty unusual, wouldn’t you say? He told me he was leaving school for good.”

“He was.”

“Do you know why?”

“Yes, I do. Look, this is all my fault. I should have said something earlier. He’d taken things from the other boys. I didn’t take it seriously enough.”

“What did he take?”

“Not very much, the normal pilfering.”

“Don’t blame yourself too much,” said Frank. “The thieving might be part of a bigger problem.”

“Such as?”

“I’m not sure yet. When you were out of the room he told me he hears voices sometimes. He said they come through his wireless.”

“But that sounds absolutely—”

“I know. He also said something about you being his chosen mother. He said he hates his real one now.”

Viva felt her skin prickle.

“What should I do?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I shouldn’t have left him. Do you think he’s dangerous? Will it happen again?”

Frank put his hand on her shoulder.

“Here’s the tricky bit, I don’t really know. His reaction did seem quite extreme. Obviously I’ll have to talk to my senior, Dr. Mackenzie, about it, but my instinct is to keep an eye on him for a couple of days. I’ll attempt to persuade him to come into the san; we’ll try and keep the lid on things. It’s only ten days to Bombay and the weather will be too hot for anyone to do much in the Indian Ocean.”

“What’s the alternative?”

“To put him off the ship at Suez, but then he’d have to wait for his parents to come and that won’t do anything for his state of mind.”

“What if he won’t go to the san?”

“Well, the other alternative is to keep him under some form of house arrest in his cabin. They’d fit his door with an extra lock, but how would you feel about that?”

She shuddered and shook her head. “I honestly don’t know. Did you know that his cabin is right next door to Tor and Rose’s?”

“No,” he said. “I didn’t.”

“Shall I tell them?”

“Not for the time being. No point in frightening them.”

“What would you do if you were me?” she asked.

“I’d review the situation first thing tomorrow. I’ll talk to Dr. Mackenzie; you won’t be left alone with this. And then,” he stood up, looked at his watch, “it’s ten-thirty, so I’d go upstairs and find someone to have a drink with. You could do with a break.” He looked at her again. “Are you all right?”

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

“You look very pale.”

“I’m fine, thank you.” She didn’t want to tell him about the migraine.

“It must have been a shocking day for you.”

“No. No. It’s all right.” She took a step back from him. It was so instinctive not to ask for help, a habit she couldn’t break. She shook his hand formally. “But thank you,” she said. “You’ve been most helpful.”

He smiled at her, the smile that made the other girls go weak at the knees.

“Part of the P and O service, madam.” He was back to his bantering self again.

He turned off one of the lights in the cabin and straightened the blankets over Guy. She collected her wrap and her bag.

“Don’t worry too much,” he said. “I’m sure he’ll be all right.” He brushed against her arm as he locked the cabin door behind them. She stepped backwards into a figure in the corridor. It was Tor. She was dressed in a black-hooded cloak, with a rope tied around her neck like a noose. Attached to the noose was a bottle with the label “The last drop” written on it. When she saw them both she stopped smiling.

The Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb

T
or had looked forward to the Arabian Nights party ever since she’d arrived on board. Held on full-moon nights, on the day before the ship slipped into the Red Sea, experienced travelers on board said it was one of the highlights of the voyage and she’d worked herself up into a fine froth even thinking about it. Exotic costumes were expected and the dress she’d planned to wear—long, slinky, and made of fine gold silk—begged for a cigarette holder, red lips, and a weary expression. It was a vamp’s dress and any other mother but hers would have flatly forbidden it.

A few days ago when she’d hung it in the steamy bathroom to get the creases out, she’d literally shivered with anticipation at the sight of it. She’d decided to wear it with a short gold mask, a long rope of pearls, and lipstick. She was to be an Egyptian goddess in it, which one she wasn’t sure of, her knowledge of such things being hazy, but certainly one who was autocratic, splendid, and above the law. Every time she’d thought of the party, she ran a little film in her head in which Frank took off her mask of gold and looked deeply into her
eyes. Sometimes he told her she had wonderful eyes, sometimes he simply led her terrified but thrilled down to his cabin where he made a woman of her. And, once again—what was wrong with her?—her mind had raced ahead to babies and houses and photograph albums.

On the morning before the ball they slept in their cabin and Tor woke early, furious with herself all over again. The gold dress swung limply on a hanger outside her wardrobe door, taunting her now with its idiotic promises. How long, she wondered, would it take her to get it into her fat head that men didn’t like her? The only part of her plan that now appealed was the mask, because she felt so wretched.

She thumped her pillow and turned over. Jealousy was such a horrible emotion, she decided. From the moment she had seen Viva and Frank leaving the boy’s room it had stolen into her sunny picture like the villain in a Laurel and Hardy film, with pitchfork and gleaming eyes and smoke coming out of his ears.

The sight of them—so conspiratorial, so somehow changed-looking—had made her accept that Frank, in spite of their jolly turns around the deck, was not, and never had been, the slightest bit interested in her. Why, with the memory of her humiliating attachment to Paul Tattershall so recent in her mind, she’d ever imagined he was, was a complete mystery to her now. But this time, she told herself, squaring her jaw on her pillow, this time she would behave like a grown-up.
Stop caring so much
had been her stern message to herself over the past few days,
simply cut them out of your mind.

Last night, when their group had met up in the bar for a few pegs, she’d flirted and danced with everyone to show just how fine she was. When Frank had arrived suddenly, had a quick
drink, and then left just as suddenly with Viva, she, conscious of Rose shooting her a protective look, had turned away. And laughed nonsensically at something somebody else had said. She’d danced with Nigel, who was a sweetheart but too gentle and poetic for her, and then with Jitu Singh, who, she and Rose agreed, was the most exotic man they’d ever seen. Now, because she’d drunk too much, she had a thumping headache and a horrible taste in her mouth.

As she looked for some Eno’s salts in the bedside table, she thought for no particular reason of a girl who she’d had a crush on at school who had seemed even then to have some elusive quality that she entirely lacked. The girl’s name was Athena, and she was dark and beautiful and used to spend her school holidays in South America, where her father did important and secret things for the government.

After the school holidays, most of the girls would get on the train and talk without drawing breath until the train arrived in Cheltenham, where their school was located. All except Athena, who, while they babbled about shrimping in Salcombe or having wizard fun in the Isle of Wight, would sit enticingly silent.

“Please, Athena,” they’d beg, “tell us where you’ve been.”

“Buenos Aires,” she might say, in her not quite English accent, and then she’d wait, smiling.

“And? Come on, Athena, you beast! Tell!”

“Oh, you know, the usual things: parties, boys.”

As Tor had waited hungrily with the rest for more scraps that never came, she saw how powerful silence could be and even tried it once herself.

On a school trip to London she’d forced herself to keep a secret (so important but for the life of her she couldn’t remember what it was now) until Reading at least. But by Didcot, she’d blabbed to Athena, who, to add to the humiliation, had politely raised her eyebrows, and said “Golly” with the same
dying fall that her own mother said “Anyway” when she wanted people to get off the phone.

Another memory surfaced about Athena: when they were out on school trips, and given sandwiches and bars of chocolate to eat at lunch, she kept hers until lunch.

Tor had usually demolished hers by about a quarter to ten. No self-control, Mother was right about that.

Viva was like Athena. When Frank had asked her about her plans, she hadn’t babbled helplessly as Tor would have done, or seemed to ask for his approval or advice. She’d merely said “I’m not sure yet,” and Tor could tell he was completely hooked.

It had been left to Rose and herself to fill in the tantalizing gaps, by telling him that Viva was going to be a writer; that she may or may not go to Simla, where her parents had been killed—nobody knew exactly how—and where there was this mysterious trunk waiting for her, probably filled with jewels and things, and that in the meantime, she would probably try and live on her wits in Bombay.

Tor’s biggest problem, she decided, was that she had no idea of how to wait: for food, for love, or for people to find her interesting, which she wasn’t.

Tor, creeping across the cabin in the half-light of dawn, took down the invitation that had been stuck behind a mirror and studied it again.

Captain and crew have great pleasure, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, champagne and oriental dishes to be served when the moon rises at seven p.m.

What a horror the whole thing sounded now. She briefly considered the possibility of crying off—Rose could tell people she was in the cabin with a raging fever or Delhi belly, but then Frank might appear, avuncular and kind, with Viva at his side. Also—she glanced at Rose, calmly asleep in her bunk—
this time she really didn’t feel like involving Rose. She was just so tired of being her ugly sister, the eternal gooseberry, the child with its nose pressed wistfully against the window of love when all Rose had to do was look at a man and he fell fainting at her feet.

But darling,
Rose might reasonably have said,
you hardly know him,
or she might speak to her more generally about shipboard romances, which would make her feel slightly common.

I melt, I rage, I burn.

Hard to imagine Rose melting, raging, or burning. Life just seemed to happen to her, maybe because she was so pretty.
I try too hard.

Her groan woke Rose up. She sat up in her lace nightdress and stretched her perfect arms toward the ceiling.

“Um, divine,” she said sleepily, “I had the strangest dream that I had this little baby and it was riding an elephant in the tiniest topi you’ve ever seen and everyone was saying it was too early but I was so happy with it.”

“Gosh.”

In the silence that followed Rose said, “Oh golly, it’s that Arabian Nights thing tonight. Can we have a clothes chat?”

“Sorry, but no,” Tor said. “I’m asleep. Good night.”

“All right, but do you think my floaty pink thing will do if I use the shawl part as a veil?”

“Couldn’t be less interested. Sorry.”

“You actually owe me this, Tor, because you were very noisy last night—you were thrashing around like some mad fish in a net.”

“I’m asleep, Rose, sorry. No further bulletins.”

It isn’t as if Frank is even madly good-looking,
she thought as soon as she heard Rose breathing regularly again. A lovely smile, a quick wit, but not quite tall enough for leading-man material and slightly bandy-legged if one was being absolutely
brutal. And Mummy wouldn’t have been thrilled about him being a doctor, although he wasn’t really a ship’s doctor; he was, when he got to India, going up north to do research into something horrible.

And if he preferred Viva, fine. She wasn’t going to make a meal of it or even give them the satisfaction of a scene. If living well was the best revenge, that’s what she’d do tonight. Dance and flirt and not care, not care at all. There were plenty of men who would dance with her.

She switched on the fan above her bed, finished the glass of water beside her bed, still half listening for sounds that might or might not be coming from the cabin next door. Why they’d been in that cabin was still a complete mystery to her. Where was Guy Glover, come to think of it? She hadn’t seen him for days. When she’d asked Viva about why she’d rushed back to him, she’d laughed it off as a false alarm.

Rose had noticed nothing, but with only six days to go before they got to Bombay, her mind was understandably caught up with meeting Jack Chandler, another reason why she shouldn’t be burdened with the trivial business of why Frank didn’t want her. It was a shipboard romance. She’d done it again: woven a ridiculous fantasy out of nothing.

The Arabian Nights party was in full swing when Tor went up on deck later that night. The sky flamed with the colors of coral and claret, and all the faces of the partygoers were bathed in its light. The crew had scurried around all day, wrapping tables in pink cloths and piling fruits—figs, mangoes, pawpaw, and sweetmeats—and Turkish delights on the tables. There were colored lights hung around the deck rails, and what was usually the sports deck had been magically transformed into a sultan’s tent.

There was a fire eater inside the tent and a throng of shout
ing people in masks and Turkish sandals, saris, and flowing robes. Colonel Kettering, in a long caftan, swayed to the music of the Egyptian band.

Tor took a deep breath.
Shoulders back. Head up. Smile. Walk.
Her destination was the other side of the crimson deck where she could see her group drinking and laughing.

“Heavens,” said Nigel, bowing elaborately. He was wearing a sharkskin dinner jacket and a fez. “It’s Nefertiti, and how, um, how ravishing she looks.”

“Thank you, Nigel.” Tor kissed him on the cheek.

“Who are you?” she asked Patricia Ormsby Booth, the strapping young woman by Nigel’s side, who was not a natural candidate for the sari.

“Unsure,” came the good-natured reply. “Someone foreign.”

“Thank you, darling.” Tor took a glass of champagne from Nigel and arranged herself casually against the deck railings. Her golden mask was in her evening bag in case it all got too much. “Isn’t this divine?”

“It’s our last proper sea before India,” said Jane. “How are we ever going to adjust to real life again? I—”

She was interrupted by a group of people saying, “Ooooohh!” Rose had appeared in brilliant pink silk, and as the band struck up “Ain’t She Sweet?” she did a little jig in the direction of the colonels and the mems who were sitting at their own table. “I’m Scheherazade,” she told them gaily, “and I’ve got lots of stories that I’m not going to tell any of you.” They laughed indulgently.

The band flared, trumpets sounded, and there was another general intake of breath. Marlene and Suzanne had appeared masked and in daring and sumptuous evening dresses, followed by Jitu Singh, swaggering across the deck and flashing his eyes and teeth. He was wearing a blue silk jacket, baggy trousers, and soft leather boots into which, Valentino-like, he had casu
ally stuck a dagger. Around his waist there was a leather belt with some cartridges in it and on his head a silk turban with a large diamond.

“Jitu,” they called, “come over here and tell us who you are.”

He smacked first Marlene and next Suzanne gently on their bottoms and then walked over and salaamed deeply, touching eyes, mouth, and chest.

“My name,” he announced, “is Nazim Ali Khan. I am a Mughal emperor. I bring gold and perfume and diamonds.”

As he nuzzled Tor’s hand with his lips, she hoped Frank was watching.

After the sun set in a final blaze of glory, the stars came out and the partygoers danced and then ate sitting on silken cushions arranged inside the tent. Afterward, they played a parlor game called Who Am I?, in which you had a strip of paper stuck on your forehead with the name of somebody famous on it. You had to ask the others questions to guess who you were. It caused great mirth and when it was ended most of the elderly passengers went to bed.

The Egyptian musicians were ferried back to their villages—their boats causing a brilliant bubbling mass of phosphorescence. The resident band appeared and played breathless foggy late-night music; couples danced cheek to cheek; shadows were seen kissing in the far corners of the deck.

Tor watched it all from a table littered with snapped streamers and lipsticked cigarettes. Her dress was damp with perspiration and she had the beginnings of a blister on her heel. Nigel had just left and she was summoning up the energy to go to bed when Frank suddenly arrived at her side. He looked pale and out of sorts.

“Have you had a good evening, Tor?” he said with unusual formality.