Her Victory (27 page)

He reached out, and handed the book to him. ‘Take it with you. I'd like you to have it.'

Tom put it in his pocket. ‘Kind of you. I'll have another crack at it.'

A volume, perhaps on the same subject – he thought all of them were – was dislodged by Paul's haste and fell to the floor, and Tom was amused to see Paul press his lips to the cover before putting it back. He had found a way of filling his days at sea that did not depend on manual dexterity, or the enthusiasm of acquiring different versions of the same object, or the interest of calculations that were an end in themselves, but by a notion that was perpetrated by a belief in God, and reinforced by faith in the destiny of a people to whom he felt linked in a personal and moral way – and who could say how right or wrong he was?

From within his own fortress Tom envied no man, but thought no theory could be insane that kept the radio officer as sane as he generally appeared. Even though he himself needed no religion, and no such bizarre side-issue, he knew that Paul had found more stability than the boozers, gamblers, womanizers, and plain black-dog brooders of the maritime or any other fraternity. He was generous and dependable, good at his profession, and within his simplicity lay imagination and even humour, as well as a keen ability to put forth his argument. He studied Hebrew so as to prepare himself for the day when he would, he said, go to the Promised Land. When it did not interfere with his watch-keeping he listened to short-wave broadcasts from Jerusalem, towards which he beamed an aerial so that he would receive news from the middle of the world: ‘On perilous oceans I can, by God's will, hear everything loud and clear.'

The Old Man nobbled him a few days later, and in spite of his sixty years and an air of nothing on earth being set to trouble him, grasped Tom's arm and said: ‘Has that mad bloody Sparks been getting on to you about all of us being Jews yet? He has? I can see he has. Don't deny it. I'll have to get rid of him. Can't go on like this. He converted the chief engineer yesterday, and once he gets a bee in his bonnet there's no telling what happens. Not that I've anything against the Jews, mind you – no, not at all, Mr Phillips – but I can't have the blue-and-white flag run up on my ship. You know what the Mozzies are – it's like a red rag to a bull. No, I'll have to get rid of him.' And he went away shaking his head. ‘It's a pity, though, a great pity to have such a good Sparks going off his rocker!'

9

He relit his pipe and opened the book while the train was sucked through the lights of Gatwick. Instead of reading, he preferred to sample his own immense space which, if nothing else, made him well off in possessing an area that kept people at a distance, so that he could manoeuvre without harming himself or causing offence to others. Awareness of space had always kept his head clear on meeting the greater and often far from friendly vastness of the sea, for if you weren't afraid of your own space it wasn't difficult to meet that of the ocean which, sometimes denying that space existed, reduced the world to a boxroom of unexpected perils.

Clara had occupied sufficient space in his life for him to send her postcards and telegrams, even the occasional letter, as echo-sounders registering her presence in himself. On their first meeting she had stepped into his space without asking, and stayed there because he realized no person could exist in absolute emptiness. She had gone into a bigger space than he could yet know about, and had left his own space emptier than any in which he had so far existed.

He went to the hospital. His age took on importance now that the one person close to him was dead. He had felt her solid assistance without seriously admitting it, and at the undertaker's kissed her lips for the first and last time. On meeting her he had looked forward to the bigger space seen from her living-room window, and the only other space that lay before him now was the one she had already gone to.

He laid a cool finger on her colder forehead. People moved beyond the curtain. The more subtly you perceived life the more brutal it appeared. He stood straight, hands at his side. She had little space in that narrow box, and would have even less when the lid went down and wet earth was packed around. Who needed more room when the spirit was absent?

He would prefer to be buried into a bigger space than that of soil, for his body to meet water without an encasing box. Either the fishes got you, or the worms. He did not want to die because there was still too much to think about. There would be, right to the end, he didn't doubt. He shrugged, which she would never have allowed, then went out, and walked by the public library and art gallery, to sit in the park by himself for half an hour.

A patient at the hospital told him that Beryl had gone to lunch. Must have seen us holding hands when we left last night. He signed for his aunt's wallet and suitcase in the ward sister's office, then took a taxi to Clara's flat. From the large window he saw the roughening indigo sea on which two boats struggled. The surface changed from hour to hour, but was the same that had press-ganged him thirty-five years before.

He could sit without being told, but looked at the elegant unsafe chair and smiled at the thought of breaking it leg by leg. He took the marble-encased timepiece from the shelf, set the hands and turned the large key at the back, offended to see a clock not fulfilling its purpose. In the kitchen he opened a bottle of whisky and poured half a tumbler before returning to his stance by the window.

The view paralysed him. He sipped at the glass and looked at the sea. Toy boats on a bilious pond. Arms dead except to drink, sea dead except to swallow, landfall every few days, the stink of diesel oil and salt, coffee and disinfectant, stale tobacco and stew. The smell of heat and that peculiar odour of invigorating cold: he did not want to go back. The spell was broken. She had kept him at it long enough. He had searched all lanes and knew it well, yet had found nothing. More years than he had fingers and toes, as an old salt said. His contract had two months to run, then he would take his last sway down the gangplank to ironical cheers, and never a look back from dock gate or customs shed. A mote in the eye for ever as his first love vanished.

Dust flew when he hit a velvet-covered chair. He telephoned the hospital. She hadn't given her second name, but they knew who he meant. ‘Are you free for dinner?'

A tone of nothing-doing came from her. ‘Boy-friend tonight. Really. All right?'

‘Some other time?'

‘Try when you can. It was fine last night. Really came off well, didn't it?'

‘I liked it, too.'

‘Sorry about your mother.'

‘Aunt.'

‘Aunt, I mean. Must go. Busy-busy! Bye now.'

‘Goodbye, old girl.'

He was still a sailor: ‘as much at sea on land, as I am on land at sea' – so the ditty went. The vacuum cleaner fell from its cupboard, and he took his jacket off, running the machine along lane after lane of carpet till dusk came and he switched on every table lamp and the overhead chandelier in a flush expenditure of amps that the flat couldn't have seen for years.

A few dozen tins of food stood ready as if for another bout of wartime shortage. He opened asparagus and corned beef. There was a case of wine, and bottles of port and sherry. He found a jar of coffee beans, and tinned pineapple for dessert.

He wandered around the flat while eating. The built-in wardrobe held scores of dresses. A mothball smell when he slid back the door was almost solid. He banged it shut. In a drawer of her desk he found an album with snapshots of his mother which Clara had never shown. She hadn't cared to disturb him, he supposed, by what he had never known. Not wanting to complicate their relationship, she had kept him totally in her power.

He went back to the dining-room to finish his meal, turning off the electric lights and setting out enough candles to see by. Clara had tied him firmly to herself by the simple trick of endeavouring to keep him as far away from her as possible. He regretted not having visited her more often. She had wanted it that way, and could no longer answer his questions. Perhaps her purpose had been to open his mind to speculation the moment she was no longer here.

She had disliked him so much, yet been kind to him. There was no doubt about it. His sextant and deckwatch from Potters had been paid for by her, and she had settled the bill for his third mate's uniform, all by way of accepting responsibility for his fateful glance out of her window.

‘Responsibility,' she told him, and he wondered in his young arrogance where she could have read it, ‘is the hallmark of maturity. I accept the responsibility for whatever I have caused in this life, and I expect you to act in the same way.'

She had said no more, for he was being taken to tea at the Metropole, where she talked only about the weather, and his career. She checked his appearance and behaviour as if he were still a boy, and he held himself from being cheeky because he knew by then that he was afraid of her.

He fetched a pack of Jamaican cigars from his bag, and smoked by the living-room window so that he could hear the thump of breakers between passing traffic. He notified her death to
The Times
, more to inform himself than to tell anyone who might still remember. On the telephone her solicitor said he would like to see him. ‘You're her only beneficiary, and have a fair amount coming to you after probate, taxes, duties and all costs have been settled. Hard to say how much. Something like three hundred thousand, I'd say. She was fond of you. After the funeral will be a good time for us to meet. You will be staying till then, I expect. Keep account of all receipts and expenses regarding death certificate, funeral costs, rates on the flat, and so on. It's your responsibility now.'

A swollen bank book would be an affliction. His savings and pension plan were enough for his needs. Having been free of land-ties all his life he had no worries. See her well buried, get back to the ship, and stay for as long as you can stand by the wheel and lift a sextant, then find a Pacific island where you can live like a king on your bit of income. He'd heard talk of places where you wanted for nothing as long as you didn't want much.

The sea glistened in the morning, ominous blades of light across the surface, that could change all too quickly into a white-capped Force Ten blow-up with four horizons only as far away as the hand could reach. Yet it would alter to a grey and tolerable chop before long. The state of the sea never stayed the same, you could be sure of that, which fortunately applied to everything else as well.

He once heard talk of a sailor who carried a piece of rope in his kit to hang himself if things got too bad. When he showed the rope to his shipmates they had a good laugh and thought what a way to make sure you never did yank yourself up. The tale of the bloke with the portable rope went the rounds for years till he met an acquaintance in Galveston who said: ‘Remember Jimmy Hawkins on the old ship
Alinoa
who always had a rope in his kit? Well, he actually topped himself. The Sparks told me, who'd got it from another sparky-bloke who was on the very old tub that Jimmy did for himself. We learned it only a few hours after it had happened. You know how fast news can travel when those mad wireless operators get spirit-tapping away. I expect the story is still bouncing into all sorts of one-eyed french-letter grateholes that haven't heard about it yet. But what misery old Jimmy must have gone through before doing a crazy thing like that.'

No, he wasn't built in any way, shape or form, he told himself, to go the way of Saintly Jimmy. Neither the igloo of his heart nor the fireplace of his brain was set on it, and in any case what would Clara say if ever he did, and they met in the lobby of the ‘Nevermore Hotel'?

10

The train squeaked alongside the platform, and stopped to the sound of a few doors banging back against the carriages. He steadied the handle and manoeuvred his luggage. There were no trolleys, and no such people as porters any more. Which was why, Clara said, she hadn't travelled in the last ten years. One needed looking after, but nowadays no one wanted your florins, so you had better stay at home.

He lugged his stuff through the desolate station. There were more down-and-outs on the benches than a few years ago. He found it strange that though there were a million unemployed no one wanted the work of cleaning the station, which was looking more like some God-forsaken place in South America.

At Clara's funeral, sunlight flamed through the windows while the chaplain read his piece. There were more people than expected. She had given money every Christmas to those who worked in the shops, to the milkman and the postman, to rubbish collectors and caretakers, and some came to see her buried.

By the grave Beryl held his hand, her glove curving over his, but he drew away so as to bring his right arm up into a salute which he assumed his aunt would expect. They went to the flat for food and drinks, and when everyone had left he telephoned for a taxi to take Beryl to the hospital. He was glad to be alone.

A few more trips at sea allowed him to ponder on what to do, and to get so fed up with life on board that he had no alternative but to leave. When taxes had been paid from Clara's estate he found it hard to believe that so much money was his. In the orphanage he started with a penny a week, and never had more than the ten-shilling note she had given him till he went into the Merchant Navy. He made certain never to lack a reserve of money. Even with the few pounds a month of those days it was possible to put a little cash into the bank, his self-respect added to by the fact that he had earned it. Instead of spending more than he allowed himself, he found excitement in spare-time reading for his various certificates. He searched secondhand bookshops in Liverpool and Preston for texbooks which, though a few years out of date, served for his studies. After thirty years of varying parsimony he would need no other money than his own to live on when he left the sea, yet the invested capital of Clara's assets would bring in more than thirty thousand a year before tax. Twelve months ago he'd been alone in his simple life, but now he had a lawyer, an accountant, and a broker. The whole of the family money had devolved on to him.