The Ship of Brides(106)
Author: Jojo Moyes

He glanced behind him as he walked towards the door. Smiled when he saw she was still watching him, one hand raised unconsciously to her hair.

‘I don’t suppose you particularly want to be stuck with me, do you?’ As he closed the door, Avice’s voice cut into the silence.

Reluctantly, Frances brought her thoughts to the woman in front of her. ‘I don’t mind who I’m with,’ she replied coolly.

It was as if their hours in the lifeboat had never happened, as if Avice, uncomfortable at having been rescued by this woman, was now determined to restore the distance between them.

‘I’ve got a stomach-ache. This bodice is too tight. Will you help me out of it?’

Avice slid slowly out of her bed, her hair separated into pale, salted fronds. Frances helped her out of the ruined party dress, the stiff girdle and brassière, with impersonal care. It was only as she helped Avice back on to the bed that she saw the mark spreading slowly across the back of the peach silk robe. She stooped to pick up the soiled dress and saw further evidence. She waited until Avice had lain down, then stood stiffly beside her. ‘I have to tell you something,’ she said. ‘You’re bleeding.’

In the little room, piled high with boxes, they examined the robe in silence. Avice took it off and stared at the ruby stain, which was even now making its way on to the sheet. She saw in Frances’s face what it meant. There was no visible change in her demeanour. She accepted the clean towel that Frances fetched without comment.

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Frances, a pebble of discomfort lodged inside her. ‘It – it may have been the shock of the water.’ She had been prepared for Avice to scream at her, that she might relish the chance to add this lost child to Frances’s list of supposed sins. But she said nothing, just acceded to Frances’s quiet requests to lie still, put this towel there, take a painkiller or two.

Finally she spoke. ‘Just as well, really,’ she said. ‘Poor little bastard.’

There was a brief, shocked silence, as if even she was surprised by her choice of words.

Frances’s eyes widened.

Avice shook her head. Then suddenly, lurching up and forward like somebody choking, she began to wail. Racking sobs filled the little room and she sank back on to the narrow bed, her face buried in the sheet, the muffled noise passing through her as if with seismic tremors.

Frances dropped the dress, clambered quietly on to Avice’s bed and sat beside her, stunned. She stayed there for some time until, unable to bear the terrible sound any longer, she put her arms round the girl and held her. Avice neither pushed her away nor leant in to her. It was as if she was so locked into her own private unhappiness that she did not know Frances was there.

‘It will be all right,’ Frances said, not knowing if she could justify her words. ‘It will be all right.’

It was some time before the sobbing subsided. Frances fetched more painkillers from the dispensary and a sedative, in case it proved necessary. When she returned, Avice was lying back against the wall, a pillow propped under her. She wiped her eyes, then gestured to Frances to pass her her dress, from which she pulled a piece of tattered, damp paper. ‘Here, you can read this properly now,’ she said.

‘Not Wanted Don’t Come?’

‘No. Oh, he wants me, all right . . .’

Avice thrust it towards her and, conscious that they had traversed some barrier, Frances took it and this time read properly the bits that had not run in the waters of the Atlantic.

I should have told you this a long time ago. But I love you, darling, and I couldn’t bear the thought of your sad face when I told you, or the slightest possibility of losing you . . . Please don’t misunderstand me – I’m not asking you not to come. You need to know that the relationship between me and my wife is far more like brother and sister than anything. You, my darling, mean far more to me than she ever could . . .

I want you to know I meant every word I said in Australia. But you must understand – the children are so young, and I am not the type to take my responsibilities lightly. Perhaps when they are a little older we can think again?

So, I know I’m asking a lot of you, but just think about this in your days left on board. I’ve got a fair bit put away, and I could set you up in a lovely little place in London. And I can be with you a couple of nights a week, which, when you think of it, is more than most wives see their men in the Navy . . .

Avice, you always said that us being together was all that mattered. Prove to me, darling, that this was the truth . . .

As Frances digested the final words, she didn’t know whether she should look Avice full in the face. She did not want her to think she was gloating. ‘What will you do?’ she said carefully.

‘Go home, I suppose. I couldn’t while there was . . . but now, I suppose, it can be like nothing happened. None of it happened. My parents didn’t want me to come anyway.’ Her voice was thin and cold.

‘You will be all right, you know.’

In her reaction to this, there was just a hint then of the old Avice: the superciliousness that told Frances that what she had said, what she was, were worthless. Avice dropped the letter on to the bedcover. The way she looked at Frances now was naked, unembarrassed. ‘How do you carry on living,’ she asked, ‘with all that hanging over you? All that disgrace?’

Frances understood that, for once, the words were not as harsh as they sounded. Beneath Avice’s pallid complexion, there was genuine curiosity in her eyes. She chose her words carefully. ‘I suppose I’ve discovered . . . we all carry something. Some burden of shame.’

Frances reached under the girl, pulled out the towel and checked the size of the stain. She hid it discreetly, then handed her another.

Avice shifted on the bed. ‘And yours has been lifted. Because you found someone prepared to take you on. Despite your – your history.’

‘I’m not ashamed of who I am, Avice.’

Frances picked up the soiled items for the WSO to take to the laundry. Then she sat down on the bed. ‘You might as well know. I’ve done one thing in my life that I’m ashamed of. And that wasn’t it.’

The Australian Army Nursing Service had set up a recruiting depot in Wayville, near the camp hospital. She had been a trainee nurse for some time at the Sydney Showground Hospital, had worked for a good family in Brisbane to finance her training, and now, single, medically fit, without dependants and with a glowing reference from her matron, the newly formed Australian General Hospital was keen to take her. She had had to lie about her age, but the knowing look the CO had given her when she calculated her new date of birth told her she wasn’t the first. There was a war on, after all.