Page 45 of The Ship of Brides
Thirty-two men were billeted in the stokers’ mess, and even with only half of that number present, the women found themselves in a proximity to the opposite sex that in normal circumstances would have left them awaiting imminent betrothal. Frances spent the first half an hour pressed up against the only spare six inches of wall, apparently too terrified, faced with the presence of several semi-dressed males, to sit down. Jean was giggling and blushing, saying, ‘Saucy!’ in a scolding voice whenever she couldn’t think of anything sensible to say, which was often. Margaret was perhaps the least perturbed: her condition and her ease in the company of large numbers of men enabled them to treat her like an honorary sister. Within an hour, she had not only won several hands of cards, but had answered several queries about the best things to write in letters to sweethearts, how to handle interfering mothers-in-law and, on one occasion, which tie to wear for a civilian event. The air was thick with cigarette smoke, alcohol fumes and the occasional curse – followed by an apology, as a concession to the presence of ladies. In the far corner, a rake-thin man with slicked red hair played a trumpet quietly. He was ignored, which made Margaret think this was probably a nightly occurrence.
‘You ladies want a drink?’ said Dennis, leaning over them with a couple of tumblers. They had quickly established that he did not operate by the normal rules of the ship. Alcohol, smokes, a sub till payday – all of these flowed either to or from him like water. Frances, who had been persuaded to sit down beside Margaret, shook her head. She was apparently immune to the men’s admiring looks, and had spent so much time staring at her shoes that Margaret felt guilty for having insisted she come. Jean, meanwhile, had drunk two tumblers already and was getting sillier by the second.
‘Steady now, Jean,’ Margaret whispered. ‘Remember how sick you were earlier.’
‘Davy here says it will settle my stomach,’ said Jean, prodding the man beside her.
‘Sittle yer stummick?’ One of the ratings, Jackson, had found their accents fascinating, and had made a point of parroting whatever they said.
‘You don’t want to believe anything this lot tell you,’ said Margaret, raising her eyebrows. ‘Settle your stomach, indeed.’
‘That what your Joe told you, was it?’ said Dennis, pointing at hers, to the sound of ribald laughter.
There were bars on the walls to support the hammocks, and rows of lockers, their owners identified by postcards or hand-drawn lettering. On what little wall space remained, pictures of scantily clad starlets jostled for elbow room with grainy, less glamorous shots of wives and girlfriends, beaming children, a nicotine-stained reminder of other, wider worlds far from here. Around them, those men not playing cards at the wooden tables lay in their hammocks, writing letters, sleeping, smoking, reading or just watching – simply enjoying the presence of women. Most had covered themselves, out of deference, and many had proffered boiled sweets, cigarettes, or even photographs of their sweethearts for admiration. Despite the close confines, there was no undercurrent of threat as there had been in the days when Dad brought all those blokes back from the pub. The men were hospitable, friendly and only mildly flirtatious. Margaret thought she understood; having spent months away from those they loved, just having someone there as a reminder of world away from war and men and fighting was enough. She had felt it herself when she had seen men in the same uniform that Joe wore.
‘Frances? You sure you won’t play a hand?’ Margaret had won again. Dennis had whistled and thrown down his cards, threatening dire revenge on the next occasion they met. There seemed no doubt in his mind that there would be another.
‘No. Thank you.’
‘You’d be great at it.’ She would. Her face was almost entirely impassive; her neat, slightly sharpened features revealed none of the discomfort that Margaret knew she felt. Several times now she had mentioned that Frances was a nurse, and several times Frances had rebuffed any attempt to get her to talk about her time in service. There was just enough grace in her manner to prevent the suggestion of rudeness. But only just.
‘Your mate all right?’ Dennis murmured to her.
‘I think she’s a little shy.’ Margaret had no other explanation. She had kept her head down, embarrassed to be claiming familiarity with a woman she had only recently met.
‘A liddle shoi,’ murmured the rating behind her.
‘Shut up, Jackson. So, who’s your man with, then?’
‘Navy,’ said Margaret. ‘Joseph O’Brien. He’s an engineer on theAlexandra.’
‘An engineer, eh? Hey, lads, Mags here’s one of us. An engineer’s wife. I knew you had taste, Mags, as soon as I laid eyes on you.’
‘And I bet you lay eyes on plenty of women.’ Margaret raised her eyebrows.
‘Very few with taste,’ said his mate.
They played four or five more hands, the game and the surroundings swiftly displacing the women’s sense of being strangers. Margaret knew she was a safe prospect to someone like Dennis: he was the kind of man who enjoyed female company if the possibility of sexual conquest was removed. She had feared her pregnancy might make things difficult on the voyage; now she saw it might make things easier.
Even better, paradoxically, was that these men didn’t define her by her belly. Almost every woman she had met so far on this ship had asked her how far gone she was, whether it was a ‘good’ baby (what, she thought, was a bad one?), whether she hoped for a boy or a girl. It was as if she had ceased to be Margaret at all but had become a walking incubator. Some wanted to touch it, and whispered unwanted confidences about how they longed for their own. Others, like Avice, eyed it with vague distaste, or failed to mention it at all, as if they were afraid it might be contagious in some way. Margaret rarely broached the subject: haunted by images of her father’s cows giving birth, she had still not reconciled herself to her biological fate.
They played two, three, several more hands. The room grew smokier. The man in the corner played two songs she didn’t recognise, then ‘The Green Green Grass of Home’, unusually fast, on his trumpet. The men had stopped the game to sing. Jean broke in with an unrepeatable ditty, and forgot the last few lines. She collapsed into squawks of laughter.
It grew late, or at least it felt late: without natural light or a clock it was impossible to tell whether time had stalled or sped on into the early hours. It became a matter of good or bad hands, of Jean’s giggling, the trumpet in the corner, and sounds that, with a little imagination, bore the faintest resemblance to home.
Margaret put down her hand, gave Dennis a second to register. ‘I think you owe me, Mr Tims.’
‘I’m all out,’ he said, in good-natured exasperation. ‘Settle for cigarette cards? Something to give the old man?’
‘Keep them,’ she said. ‘I’m feeling too sorry for you to take anything else off you.’
‘We’d better get back to the dorm. It’s getting late.’ Frances, the only one of them who was still stiff and formal, looked pointedly at her watch, and then at Jean, who, helpless with giggles, was lying on a hammock, looking at a young rating’s comic book.
It was a quarter to twelve. Margaret stood up heavily, sad to have to leave. ‘It’s been great, guys,’ she said, ‘but I suppose we should go while the going’s good.’
‘Don’t want to get sent home in a lifeboat.’
Frances’s face revealed that, for several seconds, she had taken this remark seriously.
