The Ship of Brides(51)
Author: Jojo Moyes

But Irene had already slid her arm from Avice’s and was reaching for Margaret. ‘Better? Come on, take my arm. We’ll have a little adventure.’

Come on, girls, she had said. Haven’t had the remotest bit of excitement since setting foot on board. Let’s go and rescue a damsel in distress. And Avice heard Jean’s bawdy laugh in her ears, heard her saying that Margaret was ‘as itchy as an itchybug in Itchyville’ or some such and watched Irene – her only lifeline to a proper social life during this voyage – prepare to float away from her on a mist of disapproval. She closed her eyes, rehearsing her excuses and ways to distance herself from Jean’s vulgarity.

But Jean, when they found her, was not laughing. She wasn’t even standing.

They saw her legs before they saw her, emerging awkwardly from behind a stack of canisters by the overheated starboard engine room, her shoes, half on her feet, pointing towards each other. As they came closer their voices, which had been hushed down the long, narrow gangway, stilled as they took in the tableau before them. They could see enough of her top half to gather that she was drunk – drunk enough to murmur incoherently at nobody in particular. Drunk enough to half sit, half lie, legs splayed, on the hard, oily floor. Drunk enough not to care that her blouse was unbuttoned and a small pale breast had spilled out of a dislodged brassière.

Frances stood over her, her usually pale, grave face flushed and animated, her hair somehow uncoiling from its usually severe pinning, her being radiating electricity. A man, possibly a seaman, equally drunk, was reeling away from her, clutching his shoulder. His flies were undone, and there was a flash of something purple and obscene in the fleshy gap they exposed. As the new arrivals stared in mute, shocked horror, another man peeled out of the shadows behind Jean and, with a guilty glance at them, straightened his dress and rushed away. Jean stirred, muttered something, her hair in dark, sweaty fronds over her face. Amid the shocked silence, Margaret knelt down and tried to pull Jean’s skirt over those pale thighs.

‘You bastard,’ Frances was screaming at the man. They could see she was holding a large spanner in her bony hand. He moved and her arm came down, the spanner connecting with his shoulder in an audible crack. As he ducked away, tried to shelter, the blows rained down on him with the relentless, manic force of a jackhammer. As one hit the side of his head, a fine arc of blood spattered into the air from above his ear.

Before they had a chance to digest this scene, to let its meaning, the ramifications, sink in, Dennis Tims was running towards them, his taut bulk bringing renewed threat. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ he said, cigarette still in hand. ‘Mikey said—What the hell . . . ? Oh, Jesus,’ he said, taking in Frances, the man’s trousers, Jean on the floor, now supported by Margaret. ‘Oh, Jesus. Jesus . . . Thompson, you bloody—’ He dropped his cigarette and grabbed at Frances, who tried to shake him off, her face contorted. ‘You bastard!’ she yelled. ‘You dirty bastard!’

‘All right, girl,’ he said. ‘All right now. All right.’ As his mate pulled the man away from her, he closed his broad forearms around Frances’s collarbone and pulled her back, until the spanner was waving futilely in the air.

Tims’s mate released the man who, too shocked or perhaps too inebriated to react, fell like a stone. The noise of the engines was deafening, a never-ending timpani of thumping and grinding, yet even over this the sound his head made was a sick, echoing thud, like that of a watermelon when it is dropped to the floor.

Irene shrieked.

Tims let go of Frances and shoved the man on to his side, at first, one might have suspected, to inflict further damage. But he was roughly checking the head wound, muttering something unintelligible under his breath.

Two of the girls who, until then, had been whispering together ran off, hands pressed to their faces.

Avice was shaking. Tims was on his knees, shouting at the man to get up, get up, damn him.

Margaret, behind the men, had begun to haul Jean away.

Frances was standing, legs hip-width apart, the spanner loose in her fingers, shaking convulsively. She was possibly unaware that she was weeping.

‘We should call someone,’ said Avice to Irene. There was a terrible energy in the air. Her breath emerged in short bursts, as if, even as an observer, she had been overfilled with adrenaline.

‘I don’t . . . I . . .’

It was then that they caught sight of the women’s officer running towards them, her feet echoing on the metal floor. ‘What is going on here?’ Scraped-back dark hair, large bosom. She was still twenty feet from them.

Tims stopped, a fist raised. One of his mates said something to him, put a hand to his elbow, then the man melted into the darkness. Tims straightened, ran a hand through his short, straw-coloured hair. He looked at Margaret, as if he had only just noticed she was there, his eyes wide and strained, his hand still moving involuntarily. He shook his head, as if to say something, to apologise perhaps. And then she was there, in front of them all, her eyes darting between them, a regulatory air emanating from her like a bad perfume.

‘What is going on here?’

At first she didn’t seem to see Jean on the floor, Margaret still trying to make her decent. Her stockings, Avice saw were looped round her knees.

‘Bit of an accident,’ said Tims, wiping bloodied hands on his trousers. He did not look at the woman. ‘We’ve just been sorting it out.’ He mouthed the words as much as spoke them.

The officer looked from his hands to Avice, to Margaret, was briefly distracted by Margaret’s belly. ‘What are you girls doing down here?’

She waited for an answer. No one spoke. Beside her, Avice realised, Irene’s hand was pressed to her chest, clutching a handkerchief, in the manner of a consumptive heroine. Her social assurance and confidence had deserted her and her mouth hung a little open.

When she turned back Tims had disappeared. The injured man now sat lopsidedly on the floor, his knees drawn up to his chest.

‘You do know there are grave penalties for being in the men’s area?’

There was a heavy silence. The officer bent down, took in the state of the man, the fact that the other had vanished. Then she saw Jean. ‘Oh, my goodness. Please don’t tell me this is what I think it is.’

‘It’s not,’ said Margaret.

The woman’s eyes moved to her. ‘Oh, my goodness,’ she said again. ‘The captain will have to be informed.’