The Ship of Brides(42)
Author: Jojo Moyes

‘Oh?’

‘Rationing and somesuch.’ She sniffed. ‘Frankly, once we get to England I plan to do as little cooking as possible.’

Behind them a group of girls pushed back their chairs noisily and rose from their table, barely breaking their conversation.

The two women watched them go.

‘Have you finished your letter?’ Frances asked.

Avice’s hand closed over her writing-pad, as if its contents might somehow become visible. ‘Yes.’ It had come out sharper than she’d intended. She made a conscious effort to relax. ‘It’s to my sister.’

‘Oh.’

‘I’ve written two others this morning. One to Ian, and another to an old schoolfriend. She’s the daughter of the McKillens?’

Frances shook her head.

Avice sighed. ‘They’re very big in property. I hadn’t written to Angela since I left Melbourne . . . I don’t know when we’ll be able to post them, though. I’d love to know when I’ll get one from Ian.’ She examined her fingernails. ‘I’m hoping it will be Ceylon. I’ve been told they might bring aboard post there.’

She had dreamt of a fat little cushion of Ian’s letters, waiting in some sweltering tropical post office. She would tie them with red ribbon and read them in private, luxuriously, one at a time, like someone enjoying a box of chocolates. ‘It’s rather strange,’ she said, almost to herself, ‘going all this way and not speaking for so long.’ Her finger traced Ian’s name on the envelope. ‘Sometimes it all feels a bit unreal. Like I can’t believe I married this man, and now I’m on this boat in the middle of nowhere. When you can’t speak to them, it’s hard to keep hold of the fact that it’s all real.’

Five weeks and four days since his last letter. The first she had received as a married woman.

‘I try to imagine what he’s thinking now, because the worst thing about waiting so long for letters is that you know all the feelings are out of date. Things he might have been upset about then will have passed. Sunsets he described are long gone. I don’t even know where he is. The one thing we all count on, I suppose, is that their feelings for us haven’t changed, even if we’re not speaking. I suppose that’s our test of faith.’

Her voice had dropped, become contemplative. She realised that for several minutes she had forgotten to feel sick. She sat up a bit. ‘Don’t you think?’

Something odd happened to Frances’s expression: it closed over, became neutral, mask-like. ‘I suppose so,’ she said.

And Avice knew she might as well have said that the sky had gone green. She felt unbalanced and irritated, as if her gesture towards intimacy had been deliberately rebuffed. She was almost tempted to say something to that effect but at that moment Margaret waddled back to the table bearing a tea tray. Propped in her mug was a large vanilla ice-cream, the third she had eaten since they had sat there.

‘Listen to this, girls. Old Jean will love it. There’s going to be a crossing-the-line ceremony. It’s a sailors’ tradition, apparently, about crossing the equator, and there’s going to be all sorts of fun on the flight deck. The guy at the tea urn just told me.’

Frances’s rudeness was forgotten. ‘Will we have to get dressed up?’ Avice’s hand had risen to her hair.

‘Dunno. I know nothing about it – they’re going to post something on the main noticeboard later. But it’ll be a laugh, right? Something to do?’

‘Ugh. I’m not joining in. Not with my stomach.’

‘Frances?’ Margaret had bitten the top off her cone. A small blob of ice-cream was stuck to the tip of her nose.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Ah, come on,’ said Margaret. The chair creaked in protest as she sat down. ‘Let your hair down, woman. Cut loose a little.’

Frances gave her a tentative smile, showing small white teeth. She might even, Avice saw, with a start, be beautiful. ‘Perhaps,’ she said.

Frances had thought she would resent the man outside. On the first night he had stood there, on the other side of their door, she had been unable to sleep, conscious of the stranger’s proximity. Of her own state of undress, her vulnerability. Of the fact that, in theory at least, he was in authority over her. She had been acutely conscious of his every movement, every shift of his feet, every sniff or cough, the sound of his voice as it murmured a greeting or instruction to a passer-by. Occasionally, lying in the dark, she would ponder on his significance: his presence highlighted the fact that they were cargo, a consignment to be ferried safely from one side of the world to the other, in many cases from fathers to husbands, one set of men to another.

Those heavy feet, that rigid stance, the rifle told her they were to be constrained, imprisoned, yet guarded, protected from the unknown forces below. Sometimes, when the nearness of so many people, so many strange men, teamed with their isolation made her feel anxious, she was glad that he was stationed outside the door. But more usually she resented him for making her feel like a possession, someone’s property to be safeguarded.

The others seemed to indulge in little such philosophical consideration. In fact, they didn’t notice him; for them, like so much on board, he was part of the nightly furniture, someone to call good evening to, to smuggle the dog past, or even themselves, if they were tiptoeing downstairs to another party. As they were tonight. Margaret and Jean were off to meet Dennis for another poker session, chatting in surreptitious whispers as they brushed their hair, fiddled with stockings and shoes and, in Jean’s case, borrowed everyone else’s cosmetics. It was nearly nine, not late enough to confine them to their cabin, according to the curfew, but after both supper shifts: late enough to warrant a legitimate query about where they were going, should their movement be noticed.

‘You sure you won’t come with us, Frances?’ They had been to several parties now. Jean had stayed sober during at least one.

Frances shook her head.

‘You don’t need to behave like a nun.’ Margaret finished doing up her shoe. ‘I’m sure your old man won’t mind you enjoying a bit of company, for goodness’ sake.’

‘We won’t tell,’ said Jean, shaping her mouth into a moue as she reapplied her lipstick.

Margaret lifted her dog on to what remained of her lap. ‘You’ll go nuts if you spend every evening in here, you know.’