Sheltering Rain (21 page)

“I want to go as Carmen Miranda. But I don't suppose they'll be able to get me the fruit,” said Stella, as they walked back from the dining rooms. Pieter had not appeared at dinner that evening, which had put her in a foul temper, so Joy didn't say what she thought: that Carmen Miranda's outfit might be just a little revealing for a married woman to wear without comment.

“Or I could go as Marilyn Monroe in
How to Marry a Millionaire
. If I could get some new trimming for my pink dress.” She paused, gazing at herself in the reflection of a window. “Do you think it would be worth having my hair tinted a few shades lighter? I've been thinking about it for ages.”

“What would Dick think?” said Joy, aware as soon as she said it that it was the wrong thing to ask.

“Oh, Dick will take me as he finds me,” Stella said dismissively. “He's lucky to have me, after all.”

Pieter has said that to her, thought Joy, uncomfortably. It was not something the old Stella would have said. But then it was difficult to know what this new Stella was ever going to say—or, indeed, what it was safe to say to her. From years of feeling able to entrust her with her most painful confidences, Joy now found talking to Stella a little too close to walking on shifting sands. One had to tread carefully, and even then never knew whether one was going to trip and fall.

“Well, if you think Dick would like it . . . I'm sure it would look terribly pretty. But don't you want to look exactly the same as when you left him? So he doesn't feel . . . well, uncomfortable?”

“Oh, Dick, Dick, Dick,” said Stella crossly. “Honestly, Joy, you do go on. I told you, Dick would be glad to see me if I turned up looking like an oriental. So why don't you stop harping? It's only a fancy dress, after all.”

Stung, Joy said nothing for the rest of their walk to the cabin. At which point, predictably, Stella said she couldn't face listening to those snoring kids and was going for a walk around the decks. By herself.

Her mood had recovered the next morning, and the following few days she became a little more like the old Stella, engrossed as she was in trying to find the right materials to create her outfit. When they got to Port Said, a couple of traders were allowed to come aboard, with trinkets and beads in huge wooden baskets, so that even those women, like Mrs. Fairweather, who would normally have dismissed the Egyptians as beneath their consideration, found themselves fussing and fighting over trimmings and feathers in a manner that was, according to Georgina Lipscombe, frankly undignified.

Joy tried to engage herself in thoughts of costumes and disguise, but as they finally entered the milder waters of the Mediterranean, all she could think of was the fact that within days now, not weeks, she would see Edward again. Sometimes she fancied she could even feel his increasing proximity as a physical presence. Although no doubt Stella would have made gagging motion at that, too.

T
he night of the party, they were to cross the last lengthy stretch of water and finally enter the English Channel. The Bay of Biscay, the old traveling hands warned, was renowned for its choppy waters so the girls “should keep ahold of their glasses.” “And if they can't keep ahold of their glasses, they can keep a hold of me,” Pieter had said, too loudly, so that the women nearest him discreetly shrank away, their smiles calcifying on their faces. But the prospect of the party, or its proximity to home, had gradually infected everyone so that on the last evening, even as the decks became cold and wet with Atlantic spray, whoops of misbehavior could be heard as various exotically costumed passengers ran from one cabin to another.

Mr. and Mrs. Fairweather had dressed as an Indian raja and his wife, wearing genuine costumes that they had acquired during a short and, according to Mrs. Fairweather, rather testing posting to Delhi, and that they appeared to carry with them on sea journeys in case of such events. Mrs. Fairweather had painted her face and arms with cold tea to get just the right shade for an Indian, she assured everyone authoritatively, tugging at her exotic fabrics to disguise the flashing revelation of pale flesh around her middle. Stella, having given up on Marilyn after being told what ship's bleach would do to her hair, had now metamorphosed into Rita Hayworth in
Salome
, sporting an outfit that appeared to have at least two of its seven veils missing. She was slightly peeved to find herself if not outshone then at least equaled by Georgina Lipscombe, who had persuaded one of the naval officers to lend her his whites, and looked rather astoundingly glamorous with her dark hair swept up under its peaked cap. Joy had left it all too late, and subsequently been rather uninspired, so Stella had made her a foil crown and told her to go as the Queen. “We can trim my purple robe with cotton wool to look like ermine. And she doesn't wear a lot of makeup, so you'll be quite comfortable,” she said. Despite her passion of less than a year earlier, Stella was no longer interested in Elizabeth. After a brief spell of Margaret (“
much
better dress sense”), she had now moved on to Hollywood.

Joy felt rather silly as Queen Elizabeth, unsure whether it was the presumptuousness of the choice, or the childishness of her outfit that was making her more uncomfortable. But when they finally arrived in the dining hall, and Joy caught sight of some of the other outfits, her mood began to lighten.

Pieter had dressed as an Egyptian trader, his body exposed from the waist up and blacked up with what could have been boot polish so that his muscles glowed and rippled in the dimmed lights. His blond hair was covered with a woolly black cap, crocheted by the elderly Mrs. Tennant, and he carried a basket of beads and wooden carvings. Thoroughly overexcited already, every now and then he would launch himself at one of the women, who would squeal theatrically, and wave him away, laughing and yet looking faintly cross. He never launched himself at Joy.

“Have I gone blotchy?” said Mrs. Fairweather, approaching her as she sat down at the table. “I'm sure the spray has given me spots.”

Joy studied her tea-stained complexion.

“It looks fine to me,” she said. “But I'll touch it up if you like. I'm sure one of the waiters will do us some cold tea.”

Mrs. Fairweather pulled her compact from her handbag and studied her reflection, straightening the jewels in her headdress. “Oh, I'm sure I don't want to bother them. They'll all be terribly busy tonight. It's a special supper, I'm told.”

“Hello, Joy. Or should I say Your Majesty?” It was Louis, who bowed low before her and then took her hand and kissed it, making Joy blush. “I must say, you look like you were born to it. Doesn't she, Mrs. Fairweather?” He was wearing a scruffy tweed skirt and a headscarf, as well as a rather alarming shade of lipstick.

“Oh, definitely,” said Mrs. Fairweather. “Positively regal, she looks.”

“Oh, please don't,” said Joy, laughing, as Louis sat down beside her. “I shall get ideas above my station. May I ask what on earth you have come as?”

“Can't you tell?” Louis looked downcast. “I can't believe you can't tell.”

Joy looked at Mrs. Fairweather and back again.

“I'm sorry,” she said.

“I'm a land girl.” he said, holding up a pitchfork. “Look! I bet you can't believe I got ahold of this!”

“A land girl?”

Mrs. Fairweather began to laugh. “Now I see it,” she said. “Can you see it, Philip? Mr. Baxter's come as a land girl. Look, he's even got a bag of potatoes.”

“What's a land girl?” said Joy, tentatively.

“Where have you been? Timbuktu?”

Joy looked around her, to see if anyone else shared her lack of knowledge. But Stella was squealing at Pieter, and Georgina Lipscombe was talking to the First Officer, and the only other bystander, a ballet dancer with suspiciously hairy legs, didn't appear to be listening.

“When did you last come to England?” said Louis.

“Oh, Gosh. When I was a child, I think,” said Joy. “When Hong Kong was invaded, we were all sent to stay in Australia.”

“Fancy that, Philip. Joy didn't know what a land girl was.” Mrs. Fairweather nudged her husband, who, from under his turban, was gazing benignly at his gin and tonic.

“Fancy,” he said, mildly.

“Did you really never see one?”

Joy began to feel rather awkward. There was always something in gatherings like these, she observed, to make her feel ignorant, or stupid. That was why she loved Edward. He never made her feel that way.

“I don't suppose there was any reason why Joy should know what a land girl was,” said Louis, briskly. “I'm sure there are loads of things about Hong Kong that I should never understand. Can I get you a drink, Joy? Mrs. Fairweather?”

Joy smiled at him, grateful for his solicitousness. And the moment passed.

The swell gradually built up as they finished their main courses, so that the waiters had to occasionally clutch at passing bits of furniture to avoid dropping the plates, and the wine in Joy's glass began to tip at alarmingly violent angles.

“It's always like this,” said Louis, who was seated next to her. His lipstick had rubbed off with his meal, so that she could now look at him without giggling. “First time I came across, I slid right off my bunk in my sleep.”

Joy didn't mind. Every huge wave brought her closer to Tilbury. But some of the ladies began to exclaim disapprovingly, as if there should be someone to blame for this meteorological lack of consideration. Their voices rose shrilly, like those of the gulls, above the music, which the captain had ordered to continue, even though as the musicians kept having to steady themselves, it became increasingly disjointed. It was at this point that Stella, making her way unsteadily toward the rest rooms, had almost fallen over, and Pieter had leaped up to help her, sending his chair crashing backward. Joy saw Stella's expression as she thanked him and felt suddenly deeply uneasy.

Louis, watching her, refilled her wineglass, and told her to drink up. “If you drink enough you'll think it's just you swaying, instead of the ship,” he said, and his hand accidentally touched hers. Joy, still staring at Stella as she held Pieter's supporting arm just a little too long, had almost not noticed that.

So she had drunk. She had been relatively abstemious up until tonight, but now, like the others, had been infected by a sense of something ending, a recklessness brought on by their isolation, and the thought of the more sober life, a more adult existence ahead. The toasts became louder, and more ridiculous: to the late King; to the old country; to Elizabeth, at which she found herself standing and nodding regally; to the Lone Ranger and Tonto; to the pudding, an elaborate confection of cream, sponge, and alcohol; and to the S.S.
Destiny
itself, as she lurched and swayed her way through the waves.

Joy found herself giggling, and not minding so much when Louis put his arm around her, and stopping noticing quite so much who had disappeared from the table and when. And when the Captain had climbed onto the podium and announced that he was about to award the prize for the best outfit, Joy had rather rudely heckled him as mercilessly as the rest of her table.

“Shhh! Shhh! Ladies and gentlemen!” the First Officer had insisted, tapping his brandy glass with the edge of his knife. “Quiet! Please!”

“You know, Joy, I do think you're absolutely wonderful.”

Joy tore her gaze away from the podium and stared at Louis, whose brown eyes had suddenly taken on the liquid longing of a puppy dog.

“I've been wanting to tell you since Bombay.” He placed his hand over hers, and Joy quickly withdrew it, fearful that someone might see.

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, steady, please. C'mon, c'mon.” The captain held his hands, palm down, before him, and then threw one up sharply as the ship lurched suddenly to starboard, so that the passengers whooped and catcalled.

“It's an awful long time to be separated from the one you love, Joy. I know that. I've got a girl at home, too. But it doesn't stop you wanting someone else, does it?”

Joy gazed at him, feeling suddenly saddened by the fact that he had had to complicate everything. She liked him. In other circumstances—well, perhaps. But not this . . . Joy shook her head, trying to instill a little sense of regret into that small motion, just to save his feelings.

“Let's not talk like this, Louis.”

Louis gazed at her for slightly too long, and then looked down at the table.

“Sorry,” he said. “Probably had a bit too much to drink.”

“
Shhh!
” said Mrs. Fairweather. “Will you two be quiet! He's trying to speak!”

“Now, I know this is the moment you've all been waiting for, and I'd like to say you've all made a tremendous effort . . . but that wouldn't be true.” The captain paused, to the sound of laughter.

“No, no. I'm just joshing. Now, I've deliberated long and hard over these costumes. And over some I've deliberated as long as possible.” Here he looked meaningfully at Stella's diaphanous veils. Joy, preoccupied as she was, found herself relieved by the fact that Stella was still at the table. Pieter had been absent for some time. “But the overwhelming decision of myself and my colleagues, has been to award our prize”—he held up a bottle of champagne—“to a man who has proven he is capable of barefaced cheek. Literally.”

The assembled passengers paused, briefly silenced.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Pieter Brandt. Or, should I say, our Egyptian trader!”

The dining hall burst into applause, with napkins and half-eaten bread rolls thrown high into the air. Joy, along with the rest of her table, glanced around, trying to locate Pieter among the many elaborately disguised heads. As his woolly black wig failed to reveal itself, the clapping slowly filtered out and a small murmur began to swell, as passengers' heads swiveled around.