The Ship of Brides(48)
Author: Jojo Moyes

‘He’s nodding at you,’ said Margaret, waving cheerfully. ‘There! You not going to wave back?’

But Frances didn’t appear to have heard.

‘Look!’ interrupted Jean, grabbing Margaret’s elbow. ‘Bloody hell! They’ve got one of the officers!’

‘And he’s no ordinary officer,’ said Avice. ‘He’s the executive officer. He’s terribly high up, you know. Oh, my goodness!’ Her mouth twitched under her hand, as if she thought that, for the sake of propriety, she shouldn’t be seen to enjoy this quite so much.

Swearing and spluttering, the XO had been carried from beside the captain to the ducking stool and strapped in. There, set upon by Bears, his shirt was removed and, as the brides shrieked their approval, he was smothered in grease and his face plastered with what might have been oatmeal.

Several times he twisted in the seat, as if to appeal to someone behind him, but syrup was rubbed into his hair and feathers scattered on top. With every humiliation the noise level grew higher, until even the gulls circling the scene were shrieking. It was as if, having been made brutally aware of their own lack of control over their lives, the women took a cathartic pleasure in determining what happened to someone else’s.

‘Off! Off! Off!’ yelled the crowd, men’s voices mingling with women’s.

Margaret’s own humiliation was forgotten. She was grinning and shouting, reminded of her brothers’ rough-housing, of the way, as children, they had pinned each other to the dirt and forced cow dung into each other’s mouths.

She was distracted by a tap on her shoulder. Frances was mouthing something at her. It was impossible to hear what she was saying, but she seemed to be gesturing that she was leaving. She looked pale, Margaret thought, then turned back to the XO’s misery.

‘Look at him,’ yelled Avice, marvelling. ‘He looks absolutely furious.’

‘Mad as a cut snake,’ said Jean. ‘I didn’t think they’d do it to someone that high up.’

‘Are you okay—’ Margaret began, then saw that Frances had already gone.

At the urging of the now delirious crowd, the Royal Barber applied foam to the officer’s hair, then took a pair of oversized scissors and hacked at it. Then his mouth was cranked open by gleeful men and he was fed what Neptune announced as ‘seafarer’s medicine’. As he retched and spluttered, his face now all but unrecognisable, one of the Bears walked round the assembled women, proudly detailing its ingredients – castor oil, vinegar, soapsuds, and powdered egg. Two rotting fish were stuck into the XO’s ears, a woman’s scarf tied around his neck. There was a brief countdown, and then he was ducked, emerging twice to express his outrage.

‘You’ll all bloody well pay for this,’ he was shouting, through the suds. ‘I’ll get your names and take this up with your superiors.’

‘Hold your tongue, Dobbo,’ ordered Queen Amphitrite, ‘or you may find something even fishier on it.’

The women laughed louder.

‘I really can’t believe they’re meant to do that,’ said Avice fizzing with excitement. ‘I’m sure someone so high up isn’t meant to be included.’ Then she took on the stillness of a gun-dog scenting sport. ‘Oh, my goodness! That’s Irene Carter!’

Neptune’s court – and her companions – forgotten, she stood up and pushed her way through the jeering crowd, one hand raised to her hair as she went. ‘Irene! Irene! It’s Avice!’

‘Do you think the captain will report them for it?’ Jean said, wide-eyed, as the noise subsided and the spluttering victim was unstrapped from the ducking chair. ‘You’d think someone like that was off-limits, wouldn’t you?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ said Margaret.

She scanned the deck for Frances and spotted the captain. He was standing beside the island, his face partially obscured by the men around him. A shorter man with a heavily lined face stretched up to mutter something into his ear. It was hard to tell from that distance, what with the captain wearing his cap, and with so many people moving around, but she could have sworn he was laughing.

It was almost two hours before she found Frances. National Velvet was playing and she was seated alone in the cinema, several rows from the front, her sunglasses pushed back on her head, apparently absorbed in the sight of Mickey Rooney drunk in a saloon bar.

Margaret paused at the side of the little aisle, squinting in the dark to confirm to herself that it was Frances, then went over to her ‘You all right?’ she said, easing in beside her.

‘Fine,’ Frances murmured.

Margaret thought she had never met someone so determinedly emotionless in her life. ‘The ceremony was a good laugh,’ she said, raising her feet on to the seat in front. ‘The chef was charged with cooking inedible food. They stuck a dead squid on his head and made him eat yesterday’s slops, all mixed up. I thought it was a bit unfair. I mean, I couldn’t do any better.’

In the light from the screen she saw Frances smile in a way that suggested a complete lack of interest.

Margaret continued doggedly: ‘Jean’s gone to take tea with the able seamen. Oh, and Avice has left us. Found some old friend and they fell on each other like long-lost sweethearts. They even looked like each other – perfect hair, lots of makeup, that kind of thing. My guess is she’ll drop us like a hot brick now. I got the feeling we were a bit of a disappointment to her. Or I was,’ she said hurriedly. ‘You know, the fat old milkmaid with the stinky little dog. Probably not her idea of a social scene.’ The baby was kicking. Margaret shifted, scolding it silently.

‘I . . . was wondering why you left,’ she said. ‘I thought . . . well, I just wanted to check you were all right.’

At this point Frances evidently realised she was not going to be allowed to watch the film. Her posture softened a little and her head dipped towards Margaret. ‘I’m not very good with crowds,’ she said.

‘That it?’ said Margaret.

‘Yes.’

Elizabeth Taylor mounted her horse with the kind of easy leap that suggested weightlessness, a joy in the simple act of movement. Margaret watched her, reminded of her mother’s bad-tempered mare, remembering how, months earlier, she had been able to vault lithely on to its back, and then, showing off to her brothers, spin round athletically to face its rear. She had been able to do handstands on the older, quieter horse.