Queen of the Mersey (39 page)

Chapter 13

On 1 November, Queen of the Mersey made her maiden voyage. Trefor Jones had hired a crew of three for six weeks, but the boat was returning to England without its two passengers who were flying back from Athens. Theo wanted to be back in Liverpool well in time for Christmas, December being Freddy’s’ busiest month. He had never been away from his precious shop for such a long time before and had spent weeks preparing the senior staff for his absence. All had been given the telephone number of the villa in Kythira should an emergency arise that they were incapable of dealing with themselves – something he visualised happening every day – and he could be contacted on the boat by radio telephone.

A ship-to-shore set had been installed in his office, and Ronnie Briggs, one of the clerks, had been taught how to use it, much to his delight.

Queenie hadn’t envisaged deserting Liverpool and leaving behind everyone close to her, apart from Theo, when they were all so desperately unhappy. Laura and Vera hadn’t spoken to each other since the wedding. A bitter and unforgiving Hester had returned to work, but had sworn, understandably, that she never wanted to see her best friend or her ex-fiancé again. Mary and Duncan, also understandably, weren’t getting on at all well. Mary had left Freddy’s and was stuck in the Waterloo flat by herself when Duncan was at school, stuffing herself with chocolate and gradually becoming covered in spots. She felt too listless to take herself as far as Bootle to see her mother. According to Laura, the other staff, aware of what Duncan had done, hardly spoke to him, and he seemed to have lost all interest in teaching. Twice the headmaster had felt obliged to advise him to pull his socks up. Vera said he hardly opened his mouth at home and slept on the settee in the frontroom, leaving Mary to sleep alone.

While she packed her clothes, made arrangements for her own job to be covered while she was away on what should have been the holiday of a lifetime, Queenie felt nothing but sadness that the friends, once so close, were friends no more and she had become merely the link between them. She longed to stay and try to put things right, though there was little she could do. It seemed nobody wanted to speak to each other.

Queen of the Mersey had been brought from its permanent mooring in Wales to Gladstone Dock, where the gleaming hull and polished decks provided a stark contrast to the rusty tankers and elderly cargo boats that were its neighbours.

On the day they set sail, Queenie felt a sensation of foreboding when she and Theo got out of the Mercedes – Roy Burrows, Theo’s right-hand-man, was driving it back to the garage – and saw the boats were rolling violently in the choppy water. Theo must have noticed her expression and explained it was only because the tide was coming in. ‘It’ll be calmer out at sea.’

But it didn’t feel calmer, not to Queenie. The rolling was slower but just as violent when they ventured into the Irish Sea. She stood on the deck with Theo, aware that land was getting further and further away, that they were surrounded, not just on both sides, but underneath as well, by millions of gallons of water.

Queen of the Mersey, which had seemed so big, suddenly seemed very small, and her stomach started to heave along with it. She pulled her hand away from Theo’s, rushed downstairs into the bathroom of their pretty cabin and, just in time, vomited in the lavatory.

‘Darling!’ Theo said behind her. ‘I never dreamt you would be seasick!’

All Queenie could manage in reply was a groan.

She spent three days in bed, unable to move except to crawl to the lavatory, unable to eat, too ill to talk. Trefor Jones provided her with a bucket to be sick in. Theo slept in the other cabin as she preferred to be by herself, to fling her wretched, aching body all over the bed without having to care if he was being disturbed.

They had reached the Atlantic by the time she emerged; still aching, still wretched, extremely pale and weak. She managed a bowl of clear soup for lunch and a sandwich for tea. Next day, she ate more, but didn’t feel much happier.

The water was a dirty grey, it was very cold, the sun was invisible, and she had no wish to goup on deck. There was nothing to see except endless miles of nasty-coloured water. Trefor kept appearing to say they were abreast of somewhere she’d never heard of or, on one occasion, to report they were just leaving the Bay of Biscay, an enormous relief, as she would have been horrified to learn they were in it. She seemed to remember, from the books she’d read, that it was where pirate ships usually came to grief. The weather was relatively calm, though she found even the slight swell quite terrifying.

The fact she found sailing so unpleasant only made her feel more wretched, though in a different way. She hated her boat and everything about it and longed to set foot on dry land, yet Theo had had Queen of the Mersey built specially for her, had even named it after her, and she badly wanted to love every minute, but all it did was make her feel sick.

They reached the coast of Spain, took an entire day passing Portugal, then Spain again – she couldn’t understand why, her knowledge of geography was nonexistent.

She went to bed, feeling better physically, but fed up to the teeth.

Next morning, Theo woke her with a kiss. ‘There’s a surprise for you outside,’

he said with a chuckle.

‘Have we reached Kythira?’ she asked hopefully. She’d done her best to hide how miserable she was.

‘Not yet, darling. Put on your dressing gown and come and see. There’s no need to get dressed.’

‘But I’ll freeze,’ she protested.

‘No, you won’t, I promise.’

They went upstairs into the lounge, out on to the deck, where the air sparkled brilliantly and the water was a lovely lucid blue and the long, smooth waves were trimmed with lacy white foam. The motion of the boat was a gentle sway.

Through the thin material of her dressing gown, she could feel the warm, early morning sun caressing her shoulders. Hector Sutton, who took over Trefor’s duties when he was otherwise engaged, waved to them from the wheelhouse. An exhilarated Queenie waved back. So far, she’d hardly exchanged a word with Hector, or the other members of the crew.

‘What’s happened?’ she gasped. It would appear a miracle had occurred overnight.

‘We sailed through the Straits of Gibraltar while you were asleep,’ Theo said gleefully. ‘We’re in the Mediterranean. Oh, Queenie!’ He took her in his arms.

‘I know you’ve hated every minute so far, even though you didn’t say a word.

Next time we come, we’ll fly halfway and you’ll never have to make that terrible journey again. Now, do you feel like a hearty breakfast?’

‘Yes!’ she breathed. Afterwards, she’d put on her shorts and sunbathe.

That night in the lounge, she and Theo drank champagne and danced to Frank Sinatra records. It was turning out to be the holiday of a lifetime, after all.

Five days later, having stopped for twenty-four hours at the island of Majorca to take on more fuel and fresh supplies of food, they arrived at Kythira, by which time Queenie had acquired a rich, golden tan and couldn’t recall ever having felt so relaxed and rested before. She thought frequently about her friends back home but, perhaps because she was so happy, was able to convince herself that everything was bound to turn out all right in the end.

At eleven o’clock one morning, Queen of the Mersey docked in the bustling little port of Kapsali, dwarfing the fishing vessels and tiny cargo boats delivering supplies from the mainland, which were being loaded on to horse-drawn carts.

Beyond the port, the village of Chora, the capital, soared upwards in a cluster of pretty white houses. Hector Sutton carried the suitcases ashore and Queenie wished him and the crew a temporary goodbye. Trefor, Jim McCardle, the engineer, and Frankie Lucas, who did a bit of everything and was a wonderful cook, were about to sail to Athens for a little holiday of their own, returning in four days to take Theo and Queenie on a cruise around the Ionian Islands.

She was wondering how they would get to the villa in Potamos on the other side of the island, hoping it wouldn’t be by horse and cart, when an ancient black taxi drove on to the quayside, the horn honking madly. A giant of a man with long black hair and a delightful smile leapt out and shouted, ‘Theo! I’ve been watching for you from my window. I came as soon as I saw your monstrous boat dock.’

‘Peter!’

The two men embraced warmly. Theo took Queenie’s hand and drew her forward.

‘Darling, this is Peter Vandos, my favourite cousin and best friend, whom I’ve told you about many times. Our fathers were brothers. We went to school together in Liverpool and he was best man at my wedding, but we haven’t seen each other for a good ten years. Peter, this is Queenie Tate. I’ve mentioned her in my letters, now here she is in the flesh.’

‘How do you do, Miss Queenie Tate.’ Peter shook her hand politely.

‘Your English is perfect,’ she commented. ‘I don’t know a word of Greek.’

‘Most of the books I read are in English, I didn’t want to lose touch with the language,’ Peter said as he stowed the cases in the boot of the cab. ‘My father sent me to live in Liverpool with Theo because he wanted me to have a good education, be successful, and make pots of money, something he had never done himsel fand I was unlikely to do in Kythira. I stayed until I was twenty-one, then decided I’d had enough. I was missing my island too much. I came back and brought her with me.’ He patted the roof of the cab affectionately with his big hand. ‘She’s called Helena. Thirty years ago, you would have seen Helena parked outside the Adelphi Hotel. She is the love of my life, the only taxi on the island, and has provided me with a reasonable living over the years. I am the only Vandos of my generation,’ he said proudly, ‘who hasn’t made a fortune or married into one. I don’t believe in having more than is necessary for my simple needs.’

‘Peter is very clever, much cleverer than me. He is also a communist,’ Theo said with a smile. ‘We used to argue all the time. He accuses me of being a capitalist.’

‘Of course you are a capitalist.’ Peter gave a good-natured snort. ‘You use people, hire and fire them when it suits you. You are a leech on the bum of mankind, sucking the life out of us little people.’

‘He’s very good to the staff,’ Queenie said mildly. She found Theo’s cousin somewhat intimidating. She tried to think of other things Theo had said about him and remembered his wife had died in childbirth when they’d been married less than a year. He’d never married again.

‘That’s nice of him. What does he do? Give them half a crown bonus at Christmas?’

‘Are we going to stand on this quay arguing for the rest of the day?’ Theo enquired.

‘Get in, man. Get in,’ Peter boomed. ‘What are you waiting for?’

‘For you to stop accusing me of all sorts of dreadful misdeeds.’ Theo helped Queenie on to Helena’s back seat and got in beside her. ‘And for your information, I give my staff an extra week’s wages at Christmas.’

‘Huh!’

To Queenie’s relief, Peter forgot about politics and treated her to a running commentary on the various sights as Helena rattled her way through the lush, spectacular scenery, up and down hills, past tiny, whitewashed cottages, bigger houses with intricately tiled fronts, a beautiful Venetian mansion with a coat of arms over the studded doors, abandoned houses, the windows empty, gardens overgrown. Now and then she glimpsed a white, deserted beach.

After a while, Helena turned off the road, and went down a steep path, coming to a halt inside a paved courtyard surrounded on three sides by a single-storey white stone building.

‘This is it.’ Theo opened the cab door and helped her out.

‘It’s very nice,’ Queenie said dutifully.

‘My darling girl, this is only the back. Wait until you see the front.’

The sun woke Queenie next morning; narrow stripes of brilliant light bursting through the slatted blinds. Theo was fast asleep beside her. She crept out of bed and went through the door that led to a terrace with a cream tiled floor that ran across the entire front of the house. There were three more doors leading to other rooms. An elaborate stone balustrade separated the terrace from the garden, sheering sharply away in a series of broad shelves, about six feet in depth, covered with lacy vines. Stone steps cut the garden into two halves and finished at a stretch of sand, pure white, looking more like ice the way it glittered in the light of the sun.

She held her breath, reminded a little of her first visit to the sands at Caerdovey, though the view hadn’t been nearly so grand, the water not nearly so blue, nor the sand so pure and white. It was hard to credit that so much had happened between then and now.

The sun had only half-risen and looked unnaturally big. She watched it emerge, very slowly, knowing that somewhere else in the world other people were watching as it slipped away and disappeared behind a different horizon. She went down a few of the steps, despite feeling quite chilly in her thin nightie, and turned to look at the white building, but all she could see was the wide terrace and the black tiled roof. There was nothing to tell it was like a palace inside, with its Venetian tiled floors, arches leading from one room to another, little round stained glass windows in the most unexpected places, including the black marble bathroom. Theo said the fittings and the furniture had come from all over the world. His father had spared no expense with his villa in Kythira. He wanted the whole island to know he had become a very rich man.

Queenie ran up the steps, into the bedroom, where Theo was sitting up in bed, rubbing his eyes. He looked rather old, rather creased, rather more than his fifty-three years. She sat on the bed and kissed him. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘For what, my darling,’ he said sleepily.

‘For being you, for loving me, for bringing me to this lovely place, for buying me a boat. For everything.’ For some reason she wanted to cry because she loved him so much.

He patted the empty space beside him and she was about to get into bed, when there was a knock at the door and a harsh voice said something in Greek. It was Evadne the housekeeper. Theo shouted back in the same language, then said, ‘Evadne saw you outside and has made coffee. Would you like some now?’