Trio (16 page)

Pamela grimaced. ‘I hope I’m not.’

‘Let’s go in.’ Eleanor led the way to the lounge. ‘It’s best to sit in the middle, where it doesn't tip so much.’ She flopped into a spare seat. Pamela looked around. The place was almost full and there was a mugginess to the atmosphere which she didn’t like. She didn’t want to spend the whole journey sat in here, she’d feel better in the fresh air.

‘Eleanor, I think I’d rather be outside.’

‘It’s cold though. I think I need to be near the toilet.’

Pamela felt the ship roll to the side and saw Eleanor’s face slacken. She looked grey.

‘Pam, can you get a me a pill from the Purser?’

‘The what?’

‘There’s a place, through the doors there, near the bureau de change. The Purser’s office, they have the tablets.’

‘Fine. Hang on.’

She queued up, feeling responsible, and got a tablet for her friend. When the boat pitched more strongly she felt slightly queasy but it made her feel hungry rather than sick.

Eleanor had disappeared when she returned to the lounge but she came back soon after, looking deathly.

She didn’t want anything else. She swallowed the pill then lay across two seats. ‘I’m going to try and sleep,’ she said. She curled up and closed her eyes.

‘I’ll be back later,’ Pamela said.

She made her way to the cafe and queued up for a sandwich and a lemonade. She was horrified at the prices but she really had to eat something.

A family came in with two boys. The tallest glanced over at her a few times. She pretended not to notice but he was very good-looking. Thank God they hadn’t been made to wear their uniforms for the journey. They were to save them for the performances. Just think, half of them would have been covered in sick. Not a nice picture for the Manchester Girls’ Choir.

The family sat at a nearby table, the boy facing Pamela. She ate her sandwich slowly, aware of his eyes and enjoying the attention. She didn't move when she had finished but waited, fiddling with the packets of sugar on the table.

When the family got ready to move, Pamela got up and went to the top deck, where a few people lingered, some with binoculars, looking for seals or birds, she supposed.

She had almost given up hope when she saw him coming up the steps. The metal clanging as he climbed.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘A strong wind.’

‘Yes.’ She caught at her hair and held the unruly clump round her neck so she could see him.

‘Are you German?’

He nodded. ‘Erik.’ He smiled. ‘And you?’

What an awful name, she thought, for such a dishy boy. ‘Pamela. I’m going to Berlin to sing at the choral festival.’

‘You sing?’ Amusement in his eyes. Did he think that was funny? Light eyes, almost yellow. It made her think of a cat, a lion or something. Yellow eyes, golden hair.

‘What about you?’

‘I never sing.’ He crossed his eyes at her. Like Clarence, the cross-eyed lion on telly.

‘No,’ she laughed. ‘Where’ve you been? Or going?’

‘Ah! Family visit. My uncle lives in London. He was getting married.’

She nodded. Some hair escaped and slapped against her face.

‘Shall we find some shelter?’

‘Where?’

He winked. ‘Follow me.’

There was a small recess on the deck below, a sunken rectangle big enough for the two of them, that offered some protection from the worst of the wind. Erik was easy to talk to. He was sixteen and told her he was going to be an engineer.

‘My father was an engineer.’

‘Yes? What sort of engineering?’

‘I’m not sure. I don’t remember much about his work. He died when I was seven.’

‘That’s bad.’

She shrugged.

‘What will you be? A singer?’

‘I don’t know. I’d like to make lots of money and travel all over the world.’

‘Where will you go first?’

‘America – no, Australia. Somewhere really different.’

‘America is good.’

‘Have you been? Whereabouts?’

He talked and she listened. She was aware of her shoulder and hip touching his. She watched his hands as he talked. He wore an identity bracelet with his name on, a heavy gold chain. His skin was the colour of honey and there were fine hairs on the back of his hands. She could feel the vibration of the ship’s engines in her tummy and excitement too at being here with him.

‘Pamela, can I kiss you?’ He said suddenly.

She turned to face him, looking at his eyes, which were serious now, the tawny colour ringed with black. His lips, fuller than hers, the shadow of darker hairs along his top lip.

‘Yes.’ She raised her face and he bent to meet her. His lips were cool and dry. She wondered for a moment whether she was doing it properly but then she let the sensation take over, eyes closed, feeling dizzy. She felt his hands on her. One at the nape of her neck, wreathed with her hair, the other stroking her back. It felt so good. She couldn’t wait to tell Eleanor. This was going to be just the best week of her life.

Lilian

Six years she’d been working. She started eight months after Peter’s death and couldn’t imagine her life without the job now. The first few weeks had been hell. She’d go to bed with her stomach clenched and nauseous at the prospect of the coming day. But she had stuck it out, she had to. It was the only job she could find that was near home and where she could do part-time and be able to pick Pamela up from school. Plus she didn’t need any qualifications. And it had to get better, or maybe she had to get used to it. There were only two other women in the main sorting room and they seemed to be completely at home among the blue language and the practical jokes and the endless banter. She knew within a week that she had acquired a nickname: the moody widow. She tried not to be standoffish but some of the antics she found genuinely shocking and it was hard to pretend otherwise.

Finding a dead bird in one of her sorting cubicles had made her scream and another day the big joke had been letting off a stink bomb which made the back of her throat burn and her eyes water. There were dirty pictures from under-the-counter magazines sellotaped to the walls. She felt humiliated, hating the thought that the men might talk about her looks and speculate about what she was like under her clothes. Each day when she arrived she was greeted by a deafening barrage of wolf-whistles. She kept make-up to a minimum, her hair was cut short and practical and of course she had her glasses. She wore nothing that could be considered immodest but it made no difference. Even the older men acted like schoolboys and there was an astonishing amount of skiving went on.

She would end her shift with a headache from the noise and the tension, her teeth grinding together as she worked, ears alert for any mischief directed her way. Walking down to pick Pamela up she would try and free herself from all that. When she watched the news on television, barricades on the streets in France, students and workers, thousands of them ready for change, and people proclaiming a new beginning in the Czech republic, it seemed like the whole world was in turmoil. People talking about revolution and all she could do was fret about the pressure at work. By bedtime each day the dread began again.

After three weeks she was told to see the supervisor. She waited, biting her nails, until he called her into his office. There was a short-term vacancy in Lost and Missing, would she take it on until Norma came back?

She agreed readily. A tiny office down a corridor off the main sorting hall. Lost and Missing would be her refuge. She was taken in to Monica, who explained in heavily accented but precise English how they went about delivering the items with inadequate or absent addresses, or how they tried to trace items reported as lost.

Lilian was saved. Monica was a delight to work with after the others and soon confided in Lilian that she too was appalled by the general standards of behaviour. ‘It is as if the teacher is out and they are seeing who can win the medal for the naughtiest boy. What I do is I smile, like this . . .’ She beamed at Lilian, even white teeth framed by scarlet lips, ‘and in here –’ she pressed a finger to her forehead – ‘I think, You poor, pathetic creatures, you are a bunch of monkeys. Yeah? Apes, I think.’

Lilian smiled. They were like monkeys with their chattering and leaping about and their endless obsession with sex. She remembered being embarrassed at Southport Zoo when they’d seen a monkey fiddling with itself, the children squealing with laughter and pointing. She tried not to blush again as she had at the time.

‘You’re widowed?’ Monica asked, once they’d got over the preliminaries about work.

Lilian was a bit taken aback at the direct approach but perhaps it was better to get it out in the open. ‘Yes. What about you, are you married?’ she looked at Monica’s hand, no ring.

‘Single. Waiting for Mr Right to come along.’

‘Where are you from?’

‘Spain. But my father was English. I came here after school and I seem to have got stuck.’

‘Would you like to go back?’

‘No.’ She smiled again and pulled a face. ‘Where I am from it is just farming, nothing to do. And Spain is a very poor country. There are better opportunities here, I think. I’d like to go to London maybe, that must be something. Have you ever been?’

‘Once,’ Lilian replied. ‘For our honeymoon. It was lovely, so much to see.’

‘Well, now we better get going. What you still need to see are the forms. There are a lot of forms in this office.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Millions of forms.’

Norma never returned to work and Lilian became friends with Monica and two other women who worked in wages. The four of them sat together in the canteen. Lilian no longer felt like a belisha beacon shining to attract the attention of the pranksters. Monica invited the other three to celebrate her birthday with a meal out at an Italian restaurant in Albert Square. Lilian asked Sally to baby-sit and they agreed it would make sense for Pamela to sleep over at her auntie’s.

Lilian hadn’t been out since Peter’s death and she had a rush of anxiety, worrying about what clothes to wear, how much money to take and what sort of gift to buy Monica.

Nevertheless she enjoyed the evening, caught herself laughing. Caught herself forgetting about Peter for a little while. It was peculiar coming back to the small terraced house that they’d moved into in Fallowfield and letting herself in and hearing the silence. Knowing she was alone, that Pamela wasn’t there.

After that the foursome went out every month or so – to the pictures or for a meal. Lilian no longer dreaded work and she took some pride in being able to provide for herself and Pamela.

Pamela

She’d locked the bathroom door and taken everything off. She started at the top and worked down. Nice hair, black and wavy. Eyes a bit small but a nice deep-blue colour. Nose awful, much too long and it looked swollen at the end instead of smooth and neat. Ghastly complexion, blackheads and a million spots on her forehead and two on her chin. Eleanor had a facial steamer. She was going to borrow that. She’d tried Anne French and Clearasil and nothing worked. Nice ears, OK neck. Boobs too big and she was sure the left one was bigger. Big and lopsided. Flat stomach, good. Horrendous legs, big thighs and too thick at the ankles. Feet OK. She turned around and looked over her shoulder at the mirror. Bottom just awful.

She turned back. Maybe her boobs were even bigger because of her periods starting. Maybe they’d settle down and shrink a bit. Some people did swell up like that, didn’t they? She pouted at herself and blew a kiss, touched the tip of one finger to her nipple. Watched the small, pink cone swell and darken.

‘Pamela!’

She jumped. ‘OK!’ she yelled.

She dressed and flushed the toilet.

Downstairs she waited until they’d eaten before confiding in her mother.

‘I’ve got my period.’

‘Oh, Pamela.’ Her mother smiled, a soppy look on her face. ‘Everything all right?’

‘Yes, it doesn’t hurt, not yet anyway.’

‘Some people get more cramps than others.’