Sail Upon the Land (6 page)

‘Yes, they do get shy at that age, don’t they?’ the stewardess was saying cosily. ‘I’m Andrews, by the way. I’ll be looking after you all on board for the duration of the voyage.’ And she chatted on about babysitting ‘little one’ in the cabin so Mummy and Daddy could have dinner and maybe even a dance in peace.

Never! Sarah wanted to shriek, and she held on to Lissy all the more tightly. The idea of leaving her little girl alone in the belly of the great green ship while she frivolled with Arthur on the upper deck seemed terribly wrong.

Arthur moved steadily ahead through the mirrored atrium with its huge Constance Spry floral displays. The words ‘flower arrangement’ were simply too prosaic for these intricate fans of lilies, gladioli and gypsophila. He glanced around at the brand new opulent decor as they went down the companionway towards the first class cabin deck. Sarah thought it vulgar, but then decided to stop being such a snob and give in to the cheerful naked green mermaids on the walls and the wildly patterned carpets underfoot.

When they reached the cabin, their suitcases were already unpacked and all their things put away. Like the smarter houses she’d stayed in before the war, thought Sarah, it was nice to be looked after for a change. She turned, pleased, to Arthur, who said: ‘Thank you, Andrews. This looks very comfortable, don’t you think, darling?’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘It will be terrific to have you in here to look after our little Melissa while we go and dine. We’d love to try the haute cuisine, wouldn’t we, darling? And we have an invitation to the Captain’s cocktail party tomorrow.’

Sarah’s heart sank. She was sure he would see that she couldn’t possibly leave Melissa alone with a stranger. She started to protest but he cut her off.

‘Oh, you’ll love it, darling. Whole point of sailing on one of these big liners. Wonderful food and wine. Like going out to a smart restaurant every night. There’s a band as well. We can dance. Treat for you.’ He smiled, delighted to be on holiday. ‘We haven’t been out for ages.’

He glanced at his wife. His gaze made her uneasy as if they weren’t in perfect agreement about her overwhelming need to stay close to her baby girl. They hadn’t made love since the birth. Her body had folded in on itself and rejected his. Not that he ever pressured her in any way. They had fallen into a habit of turning their backs to each other and sliding into bed without touching, both firmly carapaced in winceyette. The white-hot passion of their early marriage, where they could not wait to be naked in bed together – and not just at night – seemed quite vanished.

With a niggle of guilt, she had a vision of herself moping dowdily dressing-gowned in the cabin while he went to the main deck looking eager in black tie. She imagined him wading into a sea of coiffed women with bright red lips in strapless frocks with great ration-defying swathes of skirt below and little or nothing on top. She saw their ankles in her mind’s eye taut and tiny above very high heels. It was so vivid that it made her gasp. What on earth did she think she was doing, preparing to let him venture among the serpents all alone in that paradise?

‘There are some lovely dress shops on board,’ Andrews was saying. ‘Lots of leisure to titivate your wardrobe.’ Sarah would like to present her own naked shoulders like a bouquet bursting from strapless silver satin. She wasn’t at home any more, she had three days on board and then a month with Arthur in America. It was up to her to make sure he remembered their wonderful time together while they were apart. That decided her. With a great tearing wrench inside, she said, ‘Yes, darling, that does sound fun. Now, Melissa, you go to Andrews, and you can get to know each other a bit better.’

The baby whimpered, her blue eyes filling with tears. Treachery, Sarah’s mind screamed, but she knew she would have to be brave. She handed her over, detaching miniature fingers that snatched at her like brambles on a country walk, and turned away when the small face went red with indignation and the rosebud lips opened to wail.

She said, ‘Shall we go and have a stroll on deck, Arthur? See the last of England?’

She saw the delight in his face, and he made a comic little caper, taking her arm and leading her from the cabin. She decided not to look back, whatever the roaring, over which she heard Andrews saying, ‘There there poppet, they’ll soon be back, but we must let Mummy and Daddy have some fun too.’

Indeed we must.

She’d been very foolish to try Arthur’s patience for so long, often sleeping in the nursery instead of with him. Being cool and unfriendly, making excuses about not trusting babysitters when he had tried to suggest going out dancing, or for dinner or even just to the local cinema. And he had gone to parties without her, his exasperation not always perfectly hidden.

Well, Melissa could manage without her, but Arthur wouldn’t have to any more. The baby would have her mother to herself soon enough. There was warmth in the pit of her stomach, such as she had not felt for years, at the thought of what was to come. She welcomed it and strode forth laughing into the chilly January air at her husband’s side.

Later that evening the ship began to roll, gently at first and then quite vigorously. Their table in the empty Balmoral Restaurant had a dampened cloth and raised sides to prevent their dinner from taking flight. The wine was served in a decanter with a broad, stable bottom. The menu was lengthy and in French, and Sarah enjoyed every mouthful. The wine warmed her.

Back in their cabin, they found Melissa fast asleep in her sea cot that swayed like a hammock with the movement of the vast sea, as Andrews sat in one of the armchairs knitting, oblivious to the rough weather. The stewardess rose to greet them and reassured them that Melissa had settled soon after they had left.

The bunks were as wide as a normal single bed, one above the other. Sarah lay waiting for her husband in one of her silk trousseau nighties. The winceyette would not see the light of day again until after he had gone back to England. After cleaning his teeth in the little bathroom, he checked that Melissa was asleep, before coming across and slipping off his dressing gown. She saw his body in the faint light of a shaded lamp, and wanted him with an intensity of love and desire that surprised her. He slipped in beside her and began to kiss her. Memories of how it had been – before the tension of her failure to conceive immediately had spoilt their love making – flooded into her mind.

‘Darling, I think we shouldn’t risk a pregnancy, do you mind?’ He dealt with the French letter, and then he was within her where he belonged and her body folding around his like a flower around a bee.

The ship lurched. They had failed to put up the safety rail and rolled right off the bunk on to the bedside rug with a thump. She gasped at the impact and froze, expecting Lissy to wake and wail but all was quiet. Arthur seemed unperturbed by the change in altitude, and they were together, riding the waves until she was trembling, feeling deep within a rolling boil of tingling bliss. Arthur held her tightly, sighing with relief that he had his wife back at last. They lay cooling on the shifting deck, legs tangled, arms flung out. Then they turned to face each other, laughing and kissing.

‘Better get you back into bed,’ said Arthur.

‘Stay there, please, just for a moment.’

She wrapped her arms around him, looking into his grey eyes. ‘I love you, Dr Reeves,’ she said.

‘And I love you too, Mrs Reeves.’

The letter arrived on Monday morning while Albert and his mother Pearl were having breakfast, before she went to work and he to school. It was official looking, and addressed to Albert Hayes Esq. Mrs Hayes suspected it was for her late husband, who had also been called Albert, as her son was only thirteen.

‘Open it for me, would you, Bert? I think it’s probably meant for your father.’

She pushed herself up from the table and walked across to the sink, looking out of the window over their small garden. Bert noticed that she moved more slowly than usual.

He tried to push his thumb under the envelope flap, but found it so stiff that he picked up a knife from the table to slit it open instead. Inside was a letter topped with the engraved name and address of a solicitor’s partnership in Belgravia, London. This meant nothing to Bert, so he scanned down to see what it said.

‘Who’s it from?’ his mother asked, still with her back to him.

‘It says Jenkins and Jenkins, solicitors, at the top.’

She turned around, making as if to snatch it from him, and then hesitated. ‘No,’ she said, as if to herself. ‘You read it to me.’

Dear Mr Hayes,

We are the solicitors and trustees for the title and estates of Baron Mount-Hey of Hey in the County of Sussex, and we wish to disclose some important information pertaining to yourself, following the death on the ninth of June 1953 of Baillie John Hayes, thirteenth Baron Mount-Hey.

As the situation is complicated and delicate, we would like you to attend our offices in London at your earliest convenience. Please telephone or write for an appointment.

If you have any family papers such as birth, marriage and death certificates to hand, please do bring them with you if it is not inconvenient.

I remain yours sincerely

C. Jenkins

Senior Partner

Bert glanced up at his mother, who looked pale. It must be because the letter was addressed to his father, who had died when he was a baby.

‘Well,’ she said, slowly. ‘That is the most extraordinary thing. I knew Albert had grand relations. But I never heard of any lords, or at least he never mentioned any.’

‘What shall we do?’ Bert was bewildered. He lived with his mother in Eastbourne, where he went to the local grammar school, pedalling around the town on a heavy old butcher’s bicycle delivering groceries on Saturdays and in the holidays. They kept very quiet. Even though she had been widowed for more than ten years, Mrs Hayes had never looked at anyone else and their social life was confined to the family and her fellow employees at her parents’ grocery business.

‘I suppose we’d better go up to London. You must come with me as you’ll be the person they want to see. Get me the writing paper and my pen, and I’ll reply for you.’

Bert went over to the little desk and fetched his mother’s fountain pen and some sheets of blue Basildon Bond. As she used the hand-held press to indent their address into the top of the paper, he went and fetched his satchel, kissed his mother’s cheek and left for school.

Mrs Hayes, left alone, wrote a brief note informing Mr Jenkins that her husband Albert had died in a bombing raid on Eastbourne on 8 December 1942. She explained that he had left a son, also called Albert, who was now thirteen. She added a convenient date and time that they could both come, once the Easter holidays had started, and that she would bring the family certificates with her.

Grief ambushed her when she remembered him dying like that. Albert, who worked as a buyer for her parents, had taken a day off to do the family’s Christmas shopping. She was due to go with him but little Bert had the croup, so she was at home in the kitchen holding him near a steaming kettle to soothe his seal-like bark. When the sirens wailed there was the familiar hollow fear and then the sound of bombs falling. Grabbing the kettle, she had hurried her son and herself under the Morrison shelter that doubled as their dining table.

The police came after the all-clear had sounded. Her Albert was one of nineteen killed. She had collapsed. And now this, a voice calling out to her from an unknown family hinterland. People she had never met and knew nothing about, but clearly very different from anyone she had ever imagined. Could it be an unexpected legacy? Pearl felt pleased on behalf of her son. She herself would be provided for by her parents.

Her Albert had just been a nice eligible man as far as she was concerned. Privately educated, but not too smart to court the grocer’s daughter. His parents had lived in India, his father managing a tea plantation in Darjeeling. He’d been sent back to England to school, before returning to live in Calcutta, working as a trainee tea trader. But he’d become ill with tuberculosis and returned to England to be treated at the South Downs Sanatorium in the clean, salubrious air above Eastbourne. Pearl had met him at the annual Sanatorium Christmas dance before the war. While he was recovering in England, his parents had both died, leaving enough to buy the newly married couple a decent house in a nice area. He had been a kind man and Pearl Hayes had loved him dearly, but that was long ago now.

A week later, mother and son were on their way by train to London as early in the morning as they could manage. They walked up from Victoria to a tall white stuccoed house in Elizabeth Street. The brass plate on the area railings told them it was the offices of Jenkins & Jenkins, Solicitors. They went up the steps and rang the bell. A young woman dressed in a smart navy costume answered the door. Pearl gave their names and they were asked to wait in a room to the right of the hall.

After about ten minutes, during which Bert just had time to take
The Golden Hawk
out of his satchel and read a couple of pages, and Pearl had a flick through
Modern Woman
, the young woman came back and said, ‘You can come up now.’

They both stood and followed her up the stairs into an office that occupied the first floor front room. Pearl had always imagined a lawyer’s office to be dark and full of old books, but this was quite different. The curtains were a bright abstract pattern of yellow, blue and white, and there was a warm blue fitted carpet covering the floor. A sea-green linen-covered sofa and armchairs were grouped around a coffee table in front of the white marble fireplace. The solicitor was a surprise too. Pearl saw a woman wearing tortoiseshell spectacles, elegant in a fitted black dress, her violet-rinsed grey hair smoothed into a French pleat, who rose from behind a modern desk of light-coloured wood. Picking up a file, she approached, smiling warmly.