Voyage of Innocence. Elizabeth Edmondson

the times, with the shadow of war looming over the country she was leaving; fear for herself. She was no longer afraid of war itself, since there was nothing she could do to prevent or prepare for that. What made her afraid? Her nightmares? Klaus, and his successor, that flat-faced man with no discernible personality? Her future, her brother’s fate?

      All of those.

      Gulls drifted in the sky above her and bobbed on the oily waters far below, their eerie mews a counterpoint to the whistles and hoots of tugs and the flotilla of other vessels going to and fro in the busy harbour. Vee sniffed the salty air, the dockland tang of tar and sea and smoke, and it brought a bitter taste to her mouth. The vast area of Tilbury Docks, alive with the bustle and activity of one of the busiest ports in the world, held no appeal for her; she longed for the boat to leave, for the line of water between the ship and the quay to widen and become an arm’s length, a fifty-yard gap, for the land to fade into the distance, for there to be nothing but green-grey waves and foam and sky.

      By some trick of the breeze, voices floated up to her from the quayside, the words reaching her ears with extraordinary clarity. A cheerful woman’s voice: ‘I say, isn’t that Mrs Verity Hotspur up there? Looking fearfully smart? In the red hat!’

      ‘Who’s Mrs Hotspur when she’s at home?

      ‘She’s a society lady, a widow, her husband …’ the words were lost on the wind, then were clear again. ‘I expect she’s off to Egypt, for the winter.’

      ‘Running away somewhere safe, more like,’ said a morose nasal voice. ‘Wish I could do the same.’

      ‘Come on, Jimmie,’ said the cheerful voice, ‘got to fight for your country, you know. Anyhow, who says there’s going to be a war? Let’s look on the bright side.’

      ‘They’re all running away. One law for the rich and another for the rest of us.’

      Running away. Dear God, if only they knew what she was running away from. War? It was laughable. Inevitable, but irrelevant and nothing to do with why she was standing on the top deck of the SS Gloriana, soon – not soon enough – to be setting off on a voyage to India.

      She rested her arms on the teak rail. On board ship was an orderly world, where wood and brass were polished to a gleaming, reflective finish. It was a world run by bells and routine and people who knew their duty. Where lascars rose before dawn to scrub down and dry the decks to immaculate perfection before foot of passenger or officer stepped on them. Where meals were provided on the dot of the appointed hour, where the distance travelled was noted at precisely twelve o’clock each day.

      It was, nonetheless, a more changeable world than the one she was leaving. As the Gloriana made her steady way across the sea, the stars would move imperceptibly out of their customary places, until, one day, they would be different stars, the stars of the southern skies, and the ship would have sailed out of Europe and into the Indian Ocean.

      New skies, a new country, but an old life. She wished that this voyage marked a clean break in her life, one of those turning points when the door shut on the old and you stepped out into the beginning of something completely new.

      How often in life did that happen? When you were born, of course. When you learned to walk, although no one ever remembered, at least not consciously, what a difference that made to a life: the first steps, the first taste of independence. School, perhaps, was another new start; for her, going away to boarding school had marked the end of her childhood. And the biggest step – no, stride – of all, when she’d taken the train from Yorkshire to university.

      Where, even while she was still an undergraduate, a new, adult life had begun. Like a nun hearing the call of God and taking up her vocation, that was how she had seen it. How wrong she had been, how dewy-eyed and naive and angry and full of herself and so sure of what was right.

      And because of listening to that deceitful inner voice and giving in to her anger, she was here now. On board the SS Gloriana, sailing at another’s bidding, full of fear and hatred, uncertain whether she could possibly do what was asked of her, knowing that she didn’t want to. And the price of failure?

      A life.

      She looked down the steep sides of the great liner, down over three more railings and decks and then rows of portholes, down to the quay, where the wind stirred scraps of paper and litter on the quayside. Down there, pieces on a chessboard, people were milling around as the moment of sailing drew near.

      The last few passengers hurried out of the customs house, checking passports and boarding cards. Porters with trolleys laden to improbable heights with towers of luggage, each suitcase and box and trunk labelled with stickers: P & O; SS Gloriana; initials, a large capital letter in a circle, B for Brown, J for Jones, S for Smith; destination labels for Lisbon, Port Said, Bombay; Wanted on Voyage. The Not-Wanted-on-Voyage luggage had all been taken away to the hold, to sit in staid rows until the port of disembarkation; she wished she could wrap herself up and pass the time among the lumber in the darkness of the hold. That was where she belonged, among the rats and the detritus, not here in the comfort and luxury of first class.

      ‘Rats leaving the sinking ship, that’s what they are,’ said the nasal voice. Vee looked towards the great hawsers stretching to the capstans on the quay, holding the vessel tightly in place; she had heard that rats did indeed know when a ship was going to founder, when something was amiss, and would be seen streaming down the ropes and on to land. No, there were no rats. She was the rat, in that man’s eyes. She and all the other passengers.

      ‘Watch out for Sam and don’t be so uncharitable.’

      That was the cheerful-sounding woman who had recognized her; who had no doubt seen her photo in Tatler, or in the more scurrilous papers when … No, she wasn’t going to think about that.

      Vee narrowed her eyes, trying to identify who, of all those standing so far down there, had called her a rat. It was that man in the shabby mac, with a hat that had seen better days. Beside him stood a perky young woman, wearing a coat too thin even for this weather. She had a look of dogged good humour on her face; her hair, escaping from a velvet hat that had been brushed to raise a fading pile, was blonde and brassy. She wore too much lipstick, but she had a personality, a confidence about her. Vee envied her. She felt that whoever she was, Miss Velvet Hat had a better, less complicated life than her own. She probably slept soundly and dreamlessly at night, and woke with a curiosity and excitement about the day to come, even though she no doubt had to work hard for a meagre living, never had quite enough to eat and little hope of a better future.

      ‘Sam’s not running away, Jimmie. He’s got a job to do out there, same as you and me have here.’

      ‘I didn’t say Sam was running away, and I don’t suppose the rest of them going tourist class are either. Ordinary people they are, like Sam and you and me. No,’ with a contemptuous gesture up at the deck where Vee was standing, ‘it’s that lot up there get my goat. All those first-class passengers, hoity-toity, not lifting a finger to do anything for themselves. Seven-course meals and dancing every night, and not a care in the world, and get out of England, quick, before the Nazi bombs come raining down and they might get hurt.’

      ‘Like I said, maybe there isn’t going to be a war.’

      ‘Like the sun isn’t going to rise tomorrow. Those toffs all know there’s going to be a war. If they can’t scarper to America, then they think they can hide away in some warm spot where life isn’t going to change, and they can have their servants and their whiskies and let other people be blown to pieces. It makes me sick.’

      ‘Everything makes you sick, Jimmie.’

      ‘I know who that Mrs Hotspur is.’ Jimmie’s voice was indignant. ‘It was all in the paper when her husband died, fishy business, that, if you ask me.’

      Vee was following the swooping, soaring flight of a gull with her eyes, but she saw nothing. She was looking inwards, at another scene, a bloodstained study. Klaus’s words, from that day in Paris, came creeping into her mind, ‘We have arranged for certain things to happen.’