The Ship of Brides(75)
Author: Jojo Moyes

‘Hello there,’ he said, seating himself beside her. ‘I wondered where I might find you.’

She could barely speak. His dark eyes looked steadily out at her from a face softened by the night. She could detect the faint scent of carbolic on his skin, the characteristic smell of the fabric of his uniform. His hand lay on the table in front of her and she fought an irrational urge to touch it.

‘I wondered if you’d like to dance,’ he said.

She stared at that hand, faced with the prospect of it resting on her waist, of his body close to hers, and felt a swell of panic. ‘No,’ she said abruptly. ‘Actually, I – I was just leaving.’

There was a brief silence.

‘It is late,’ he conceded. ‘I was hoping to get up here earlier, but we had a bit of an incident downstairs in the kitchens, and a few of us got called to sort it out.’

‘Thank you, anyway,’ she said. ‘I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening.’ There was a lump in her throat. She gathered up her things, and he stood up to let her pass.

‘Don’t go,’ said Margaret.

Frances spun round.

‘Go on. For God’s sake, woman, you’ve kept me company all bloody night and now the least you can do is have a turn round the dance floor. Let me see what I’m missing.’

‘Margaret, I’m sorry but I—’

‘Sorry but what? Ah, go on, Frances. There’s no point in both of us being wallflowers. Shake a leg, as our dear friend would have said. One for Jean.’

She looked back at him, then at the crowded deck, the endless whirl of white and colour, unsure whether she was fearful of entering the throng or of being so close to him.

‘Get on with it, woman.’

He was still beside her. ‘A quick one?’ he said, holding out his arm. ‘It would be my pleasure.’

Not trusting herself to speak, she took it.

She wouldn’t think tonight about the impossibility of it all. About the fact that she was feeling something she had long told herself it was unsafe to feel. About the fact that there would inevitably be a painful consequence. She just closed her eyes, lay back on her bunk, and allowed herself to sink into those moments she had stored deep inside: the four dances in which he had held her, one hand clasping hers, the other resting on her waist; of how, during the last, even as he kept himself, correctly, several inches from her, she could feel his breath against her bare neck.

Of how he had looked at her when he let go. Had there been reluctance in the way his hand had separated slowly from hers? Did it hurt anyone for her to imagine there had been? Was there not a strange emphasis on the way he’d lowered his head to hers and said, so quietly, ‘Thank you’?

What she felt for him shocked and shamed her. Yet the discovery of her capacity to feel as she did made her want to sing. The chaotic, overpowering emotions she had experienced this evening made her wonder if she was in the grip of some seaborne virus. She had never felt so feverish, so incapable of efficiently gathering her thoughts. She bit down on her hand, trying to stop the bubble of hysteria rising in her chest and threatening to explode into God only knew what. She forced herself to breathe deeply, tried to restore the inner calm that had provided solace in the last six years.

It was just a dance. ‘A dance,’ she whispered to herself, pulling the sheet over her head. Why can’t you be grateful for that?

She heard footsteps, then men’s voices. Someone was talking to the marine outside the door, a young substitute with red hair and sleepy eyes. She lay, only half listening, wondering if it was time for the watch to change. Then she sat up.

It was him. She sat very still for a minute longer, checking that she was not mistaken, then slid out of her bunk, her heart hammering in her chest. She thought of Jean and grew cold. Perhaps she had been so blinded by her own attraction to him that she had not seen what was before her.

She placed her ear to the door.

‘What do you think?’ he was saying.

‘It’s been a good hour,’ the other marine replied, ‘but I don’t suppose you’ve got a choice.’

‘I don’t like it,’ he said. ‘I don’t like doing it at all.’

She stepped back from the door, and as she did, the handle turned and it opened quietly. His face slid round it, an echo of its earlier self, and he had caught her there, shocked and pale in the illuminated sliver of the passage lights.

‘I heard voices,’ she said, conscious of her state of undress. She grappled behind her for her wrap, and flung it on, tying it tightly around her.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you,’ his voice was low and urgent, ‘but there’s been an accident downstairs. I was wondering—Look, we need your help.’

The dance had ended in several unofficial gatherings in various parts of the ship. One had emigrated to the sweaty confines of the rear port-side engine room, where a stoker had been waltzing a bride along one of the walkways that flanked the main engine. The accounts he’d had so far were unclear, but they had fallen into the pit that contained the engine. The man was unconscious; the bride had a nasty cut on her face.

‘We can’t call the ship’s doctor for obvious reasons. But we need to get them out of there before the watch changes.’ He hesitated. ‘We thought . . . I thought you might help.’

She wrapped her arms round herself. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t go down there. You’ll have to get someone else.’

‘I’ll be there. I’ll stay with you.’

‘It’s not that . . .’

‘You don’t need to worry, I promise. They know you’re a nurse.’

She had looked into his eyes, then, and understood what he thought he was saying.

‘There’s no one else who can help,’ he said, and glanced at his watch. ‘We’ve only got about twenty minutes. Please, Frances.’

He had never used her name before. She hadn’t been aware he knew it.

Margaret’s voice cut quietly through the darkness. ‘I’ll come with you. I’ll stay with you. If you’d feel better with a few of us around you.’

She was in an agony of indecision, thrown by his nearness.

‘Just have a look at them, please. If it’s really bad we’ll wake the doctor.’

‘I’ll get my kit,’ she said. She reached under her bunk for the tin box. Opposite, Margaret got up heavily and put on a dressing-gown that now barely stretched round her belly. She gave Frances’s arm a discreet squeeze.