Page 66 of The Ship of Brides
There had been several reported cases of smallpox and it had been announced earlier that it was not considered wise for the women to go ashore. Here, anchored in the clear blue waters several hundred feet from shore, was as close as they were going to get to Ceylon.
Margaret, who had been desperate to leave the ship, who had spent days anticipating the feel of solid earth under her feet, had been furious. ‘Your man at the PX says they’re still going to allow the men ashore so it’s okay for us to catch the bloody smallpox off our own.’ She had almost wept with the unfairness of it.
‘I suppose it’s because the men are inoculated,’ said Frances. Margaret chose not to hear her.
Perhaps in consolation, one of the storemen had lent them a cable to which he had attached a basket. They were to lower it and pull it up when it was full, so they could examine the goods at their leisure. He had pointed out two other warships anchored in the harbour, where she could see clusters of little boats involved in the same activity. ‘French and American. You’ll find most of the traders end up round the Americans.’ He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together, grinning and raising an eyebrow. ‘If you can swing your basket that far you might get yourself some new stockings.’
‘This batch looks good, girls. Get your purses ready.’
Margaret, puffing with exertion, brought the basket carefully over the rail, then placed it on the floor of the gun turret where they were seated. She rummaged through, holding up beads, strings of shell and coral that rippled through her fingers. ‘Mother-of-pearl necklace, anyone? Better than that thing with all the chicken rings, eh, Jean?’ Jean raised a thin smile. She had been silent all morning. Before the ‘wakey-wakey’ call, Margaret had heard her exchanging whispered words with Frances. Then they had disappeared to the bathroom for some time. Frances had taken her medical kit. No one had talked of what might have taken place, and Margaret hadn’t liked to ask, wasn’t sure even of the question. But now, pale and subdued, looking frighteningly young, Jean sat mutely between them. When she walked, she did so gingerly.
‘Look, Jean. This would go well with your blue dress. See how the mother-of-pearl catches the light.’
‘Nice,’ said Jean. She lit another cigarette, her shoulders hunched around her ears as if she were cold, despite the heat.
‘We should get something for poor old Avice. Might make her feel better.’
She heard her voice, determinedly cheerful, and in the answering silence the suggestion that Frances might not want Avice to feel better.
There had been a terrible argument between the two after they had returned to the cabin the previous night. Frances, her normal reserve dissolved, had screamed at Avice that she was selfish, a traitor, merely concerned with saving her own skin. Avice, flushed with guilt, had retorted that she couldn’t see why she should jeopardise her future because Jean had the morals of an alleycat. They would have found out her name in the end. Her own temper had been sharpened because her friend Irene had vanished. It had been all Margaret could do to stop the pair coming to blows. The following morning, when Avice had left the cabin, the others had assumed they would probably not see her again that day.
The voices of the traders floated up to them: ‘Mrs Melbourne! Mrs Sydney!’ They gestured prices with their fingers. In the midst of their boats, a small boy’s head broke through the shining surface of the water. He was grinning as he held aloft something metallic. Then he looked closely at it and his face darkened. He hurled it at the ship. It pinged off the side like a bullet.
‘What’s that all about?’ said Margaret, peering down.
‘The sailors throw them old nuts and dowels. They let them dive thinking they’re coins,’ said Frances. ‘Their idea of fun.’ She stopped. They had new views on sailors’ ideas of fun.
But Jean didn’t appear to have heard. She had been examining a little pearl necklace, and now stuffed it into her pocket.
‘Want me to get that for you?’ said Margaret. ‘I don’t mind if you forgot your purse.’
Jean’s eyes were still pink-rimmed. ‘Nah,’ she said. ‘I’m not paying. More fool them for sending it up.’
There was a brief silence. Then, wordlessly, Margaret got up, removed a few coins from her purse and lowered them, with the remaining trinkets, to the boat below. Then, perhaps to comfort herself as much as the younger girl, she said to Jean, ‘Did I ever tell you how Joe proposed to me?’
She sat down, nudged her. ‘This’ll make you laugh. He’d already decided he wanted to ask me. He’d got Dad’s permission. And he’d bought a ring. Oh, I’m not wearing it now,’ she explained. ‘Fingers are too swollen. Anyway, he decides Wednesday’s the day – it’s his last but one day before the end of his shore leave, and he turns up, nervous, his boots shining like mirrors and his hair slicked. He’s got it all planned in his head. He’s going to go down on one knee and make the one romantic gesture of his life.’
‘Wasted on you,’ said Frances.
‘Well, he knows that now,’ Margaret grinned, ‘so, anyway, he gets to ours, and he knocks on the door, and just as he’s stepping in, I’m screaming at Daniel about him not leaving all his clothes on the floor because I’m darned if I’m going to run around after him like Mum did. Poor old Joe’s standing in the hallway and me and Dan are going at each other hammer and tongs. Then Dad runs in, yelling that the cows have got out. Joe’s standing there, still in shock at the sight of me swearing like a navvy, and Dad grabs him and says, “Come on, lad. Look alive,” and hauls him out to the back.’
Margaret leant back. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it was chaos. There’s around forty of them out and they’ve brought down one of the fences, and there’s two tearing up what’s left of Mum’s garden, so Dad’s beating them with a stick, tears falling down his face, trying to prop up Mum’s flowers. There’s Colm racing down the track in the truck, horn blaring, trying to head off the ones stampeding towards the road. Liam’s on one of the horses, acting like John Wayne. And then there’s me and Joe trying to corner the rest of them in the shed.’
She looked around the faces opposite her. ‘Ever seen a frightened cow, girls?’ She lowered her voice. ‘They shit like you’ve never seen. And where they’re wheeling around, it’s going everywhere. Poor old Joe is covered with it, top to toe, his beautiful shoes, everything.’
‘How disgusting,’ said Jean, raising a small smile.
‘And then, to add insult to injury, our biggest girl decides to make a break for it, and she goes straight over him. Don’t get me wrong, he’s no pushover – but the way she went into him it was as if he wasn’t even there. Bam.’ She mimed falling backwards.
Even Margaret, supposedly immune to the farmyard smell, had held her nose when she helped him get up, tried to wipe him down. She had thought he was swearing, but eventually realised he was saying, ‘The ring, the ring.’ The two of them had spent almost half an hour on their hands and knees in the cowshed, trying to find Joe’s token of everlasting devotion in the slurry.
‘And you – you still wear it?’
‘Cow dung included. To me that’s part of the romance.’ Then, as Jean’s hand went to her mouth, ‘Oh, Jean! Of course I washed it before I put it on. I had to do the same for Joe. My first evening as his fiancée was spent washing and ironing his uniform so that he wouldn’t get into trouble back at base.’
‘Stan asked me while we were at a dance,’ said Jean. ‘I reckon I was the youngest there – I was still fifteen. But it was lovely. I was wearing a blue shantung silk two-piece, it belonged to my friend Polly, and he said I was the most beautiful girl in the room. He’d had a few, but when they struck up with “You Made Me Love You” he turned to his mate and said, “This is the girl I’m going to marry. You hear that?” And then he said it louder. And I made out I was dead embarrassed but, to be honest, I really liked it.’
‘I’m sure you did,’ said Frances, smiling.
