Tiger Ragtime (10 page)

‘You’ll see,’ she murmured mysteriously.

‘I don’t want a fight. I’m going to sea,’ he added superfluously.

‘No one’s going to roll you, lover boy.’

‘Roll me?’ He looked at her in confusion.

‘You really are wet behind the ears, aren’t you?’

David almost walked away at the taunt, but she lifted her skirt even higher. The even greater expanse of bare thigh below the green French knickers decided him. He followed her around three corners and along a street to an ordinary-looking terraced house.

She opened the door, and shouted, ‘Come and get the sugar.’

‘Why should we?’ answered a bored voice.

‘Because I’ve found myself a lover boy.’

What seemed like dozens of scantily dressed girls flooded into the narrow passage and stared at David. Embarrassed, he retreated towards the door, but Gertie grabbed hold of his hand and held him tight.

One of the girls brushed her hand over David’s cheek.

‘Very pretty, Gertie. Did you find him in the babies’ class in Sunday school?’

‘No, next to the sugar sack in Abdul’s. Catch.’ Gertie tossed the brown paper bag at her.

‘Careful,’ the girl cried out. ‘Good job Abdul twists the top good and hard or we’d be clearing up sugar for a month.’

‘Come on, lover boy, up the wooden hill to paradise.’ Much to the other girls’ amusement and David’s mortification, Gertie grabbed his tie and led him up the stairs, making him feel like one of the lambs he dragged into the slaughtering shed every spring.

Micah didn’t stop running until he reached the south end of Bute Street. The road ended at the dockside and he walked past the Pier Head to where the larger vessels were berthed, on the premise that David might have decided to ask some of the captains for work. But there were few people around. He was just about to give up when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He whirled around and his face fell.

‘Not glad to see an old friend, Micah.’

‘Very, Lars.’ Micah took the hand the old sea captain offered him and shook it firmly. ‘But I was looking for someone else.’

‘A girl, judging by the disappointment on your face.’

‘You’re wrong, it’s a boy.’

‘Young boys have a habit of turning up, especially when you don’t want them to,’ Lars said wryly.

‘This one ran away and he’s particularly stupid.’

‘And you think he’ll turn up here?’

‘I was hoping he would, but if he’s going to,’ Micah looked around again, ‘he’s not here yet.’

‘Is he likely to go anywhere else?’

‘Helga’s house, possibly, he’s lodging with her.’

‘I have a bottle of aquavit in my cabin on the
Vidda
. We could crack it open?’

Micah hesitated, Lars Nordheim had been a good friend of Micah’s parents, and had helped him when he’d needed it most, just after their deaths. The thought of sitting in Lars’ comfortable cabin and drinking a glass of aquavit or two or three – and knowing Lars’ hospitality, eating a bowl of Norwegian fish soup to soak up the alcohol – was very tempting. But the anxiety on Edyth’s face when David had run off haunted him.

‘Send a message to Helga to tell her you’re on board the
Vidda
. Ask her to let you know if the boy turns up there. In the meantime, we can sit on the wheel deck and look out for him. You won’t get a better vantage point on the dock,’ he added persuasively.

‘No, I won’t.’ A thought occurred to Micah. ‘When are you sailing?’

‘Dawn tide in the morning. It’s a short stopover, this trip, otherwise you would have found me in your sister’s house. So don’t say you’ll come back tomorrow.’

‘I wasn’t going to, Lars.’ Micah laid his arm around the old man’s shoulders. ‘Can I ask you a favour?’

‘Does it involve money?’

‘Mine, possibly, if you need it.’

‘Ask away.’

‘Welcome to cloud nine, my bedroom and soon to be your paradise.’ Gertie walked into the room, kicked off her shoes and faced David. ‘Before you close the door I want to see your entrance ticket.’

‘My what?’ Mouth dry, heart thumping with anticipation – and fear – David stared at her dumbly.

‘Your money? Two shillings, remember.’

He pushed his hand into his pocket and fingered the coins. Discarding the large heavy pennies, he pulled out a shilling, two small silver threepenny pieces and a sixpence. He held them out to her. She looked at them, took them from him and dropped them into a slot on a piggy bank on the mantelpiece.

‘I’m Gertie.’

‘David,’ he muttered, summoning the courage to look around. The bedroom was untidy but not dissimilar to his younger sister Martha’s, apart from the clutter of lipsticks, face creams, pots of rouge and, scent bottles on the dressing table, and clothes scattered on and around the only chair.

The wallpaper was printed with pink roses against a background of leafy greenery, the linoleum was green and the bed was covered by a rumpled cream cotton cover that looked as though someone had been lying on it. Every inch of the mantelpiece and chest of drawers was crowded with china animals, mainly dogs and cats, and there were two vases, one on the window sill and one perched amongst the clutter of make-up on the dressing table. Both held bouquets of dusty purple and blue wax flowers.

Gertie took a book from the bed, dropped it to the floor and went to a marble washstand. To David’s astonishment she continued to meet his steady gaze, while unbuttoning her frock. It dropped in a puddle at her feet and she stood before him dressed only in her stockings, garters, and French knickers.

‘My regulars tell me I’m quite an eyeful and have a very nice pair of gentlemen’s comforters.’ She thrust out her chest, and fingered her nipples. ‘Do you like them?’

‘They’re very nice,’ he mumbled, embarrassed at being asked and even more embarrassed because he couldn’t stop staring at them.

‘A “very nice” is hardly poetry, but I suppose it’ll have to do.’ She walked to the washstand and poured water from a china jug patterned with cornflowers into a similarly patterned bowl and shook some coloured crystals into it. He peered over her shoulder and watched the water turn purple. ‘You can wash in this.’

‘Wash?’ he looked at her blankly.

‘Wash,’ she repeated.

He plunged his hands into the bowl and she burst out laughing.

‘You’ve never visited a pro before, have you?’

‘Lots of times,’ he blustered.

‘Really?’ she mocked. ‘Do you even know what to do?’

‘Of course I do.’ He meant to look at her face but his gaze kept slipping lower.

She moved close to him. ‘There has to be a first time for everyone and I think it’s nice of you to trust me to see you all right.’

He jumped back when he realised she was unbuttoning his fly. She slipped her hand inside his trousers and clamped it over the front of his underpants. ‘Now that is very welcoming.’

‘Gertie …’

‘That’s why you came, isn’t it? Time to get you undressed, washed, and on the bed so this,’ she pinched him lightly, ‘can start having fun. Nice suit you’re wearing.’ She unbuckled his belt and unclipped his braces. ‘Is it your best?’

‘My only, and I’ll undress myself.’ He grabbed his trousers as they slipped down.

‘It’s your two bob.’ She pulled down the waistband of her French knickers and wriggled out of them. He froze, mesmerised by the sight of the first naked woman he had seen.

‘Wash,’ she reminded him after his clothes had joined hers on the floor. ‘Or do you want me to do it for you?’ Without waiting for him to reply, she soaped her hand and washed his private parts, but before she had time to reach for a towel he pushed her on to the bed. Unable to contain himself a moment longer he rolled on top of her and thrust himself into her. She cried out.

It took every ounce of willpower David had to pull away from her. ‘I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?’

‘Yes. You’re clumsy but I suppose that can be cured by practice – yours, not mine.’

He looked down at her. ‘Your legs, your arms, you’re covered in bruises. I’m so sorry …‘

‘The ones you’ve given me haven’t had time to come out yet.’

‘Then …’

‘You’re not my only clumsy customer. Come on.’ She opened her arms, but he held back.

‘They look painful.’

‘Just slightly.’ She wrapped her arms around his neck and he bent his head to kiss her lips. She turned her head aside. ‘House rule, no kissing on the mouth, but you can kiss anywhere else.’ She moved sideways and leaned over him, lifting her breasts to his eye level.

‘Gertie…‘

‘Ask me how a nice girl like me got into a business like this and I’ll give you a few bruises.’

Terrified of hurting her a second time, he lifted her on top of him and thrust himself into her, as gently as his passion would allow. ‘I was only going to say, this is bloody great,’ he cried as he moved inside her.

‘It might be for you, but I’m telling you, nicely mind, you do need a lot of practice. I’ll clear a spot for you in my diary tomorrow and the day after. A couple of weeks of hard work on my part and I’ll make every girl you do this with in future grateful that you picked me to teach you the basics.’

Micah was finishing his third glass of aquavit when he saw David leaning on the railings on the dockside. He made his excuses to Lars, shook hands with him and left the ship. He joined David, but although he was convinced that David had seen him, the boy continued to stare down at the dirty, grey-green water, flecked with coal-speckled foam.

Micah searched his mind for something to say. He loved Edyth and was certain she loved him – but that didn’t stop him from feeling unaccountably guilty for causing David pain.

‘What do you want?’ David asked eventually, in a more civilised tone than Micah had expected.

‘It’s a free world and a nice evening, I came out for a walk in the hope that I would find you,’ Micah said quietly.

‘Why?’

‘I thought we should talk.’

‘I have nothing to say to you.’ David was angry, and not just with Edyth. He hadn’t given her a thought when he had been with Gertie. But he hadn’t been able to stay in Gertie’s room for as long as he’d wanted. Half-a-dozen theology students had turned up unexpectedly and he’d been unceremoniously bundled out at five minutes’ notice. Gertie had told him he had no right to feel slighted because he’d had more than his two bob’s worth. He sensed that he had, and he hadn’t argued with her because she’d offered him another half an hour at her special Monday morning price of one shilling, but only on condition he left quietly.

He’d hoped to stay with Gertie long enough to make Edyth and Micah worry and feel guilty about what they’d done to him. The problem was he wasn’t sure why he wanted Edyth to worry about him when she clearly didn’t love him. For the first time he realised just how futile his feelings for Edyth were. And his experience with Gertie had complicated the situation. She’d introduced him to a whole new world of sensuality and sexual excitement that he couldn’t wait to sample again.

‘Please, David, you have to talk to someone.’ Micah’s plea broke in on David’s thoughts.

He finally looked at Micah. ‘Even if I wanted to talk, and I don’t, you’re the last person I’d talk to.’

If looks could kill, Micah knew he would have been six feet under. ‘I’ll buy you a drink if you’d like one.’

‘It’s Sunday.’

‘All the pubs and hotels on the Bay serve travellers. We could be travellers. Please, David, give me a chance to explain my relationship with Edyth.’

‘I’ve eyes in my head. What I saw you doing to Edyth doesn’t need explaining.’

‘Edyth’s upset –’

‘And you both probably had a bloody good laugh at my expense,’ David interrupted furiously.

‘If you think that, you don’t know Edyth – or me – very well.’

‘I’ve known Edyth for a damned sight longer and better than you. As for you,’ David added contemptuously, ‘I don’t want to know you. You’re supposed to be some sort of vicar and you were kissing a married woman.’

‘A woman whose marriage was a short-lived disaster. I’ve asked Edyth to marry me as soon as she’s free,’ Micah confided.

‘I hope she had the sense to tell you to go to hell.’ Even as David said it he knew he wasn’t making any sense. Micah hadn’t been forcing himself on Edyth. From what little he’d seen, she’d been kissing Micah as passionately as he’d been kissing her.

‘At the moment she’s not free to give me an answer.’ Deciding that a change of subject might be tactful, Micah said, ‘Judy told me you want to be a sailor.’

‘What if I do?’

‘I can help you.’

‘I don’t need your help.’

‘Please, David, you’re a member of Edyth’s family –’

‘I thought Judy’s uncles were your friends,’ David interrupted.

‘They are,’ Micah confirmed, mystified by David’s train of thought.

‘They need jobs on ships, so why don’t you help them?’

‘Because I only know Norwegian ships’ captains who ferry timber out of Scandinavia and carry coal back, which doesn’t pay well. Most of them are having a hard time employing their existing crews, but see that ship over there?’ Micah pointed to the
Vidda
.

‘I’ve eyes in my head,’ David snapped.

‘The captain is a friend of mine and if you’re prepared to work for your keep and a seaman’s ticket, he’ll take you on as an unpaid apprentice ordinary seaman. He’s sailing out on the dawn tide tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow!’ All David could think about was Gertie’s offer.

‘You don’t have to go if you don’t want to, but it will be a chance for you to sample life at sea and see something of the Norwegian coast.’

‘You just want to send me as far from Edyth as possible.’

‘I don’t want that at all, David.’ Micah looked back up Bute Street. Couples and families were walking out in their Sunday best, on their way either to or from church, chapel, or visiting friends and neighbours. He wished he and Edyth were among them. ‘When Edyth saw you run off like that, she was worried about you.’

‘If she was so worried why didn’t she come and find me herself?’ David questioned.

‘Judy told us that you were staying at my sister’s boarding house. Edyth went to look for you there. She said she’d wait until you turned up.’