Avice stared back at the ship. A bride was running recklessly down the gangplank in high heels. When she reached the bottom she launched herself into the arms of an officer, who lifted her off the ground, twirling her round and round in his arms. She could see he was an officer from his uniform. She had always been good on uniforms. Don't say anything else, Avice willed them, biting her lip. Don't say one more word. Or I'm going to stand here and howl so loudly that the whole of Plymouth will be brought to a halt.
Her mother adjusted her hat, pulled her fur a little closer round her shoulders, then took Avice's arm and tucked it into the crook of her own. Perhaps understanding, perhaps seeing something in her daughter's expression, she chose not to look her full in the face. When she spoke, there was a faint but definite break in her voice. 'Well, dear, when you're ready we'll have a little chat at the hotel.' She began to walk. 'It's a very nice hotel, you know. Beautiful-sized rooms. We've got our own lounge area attached to the bedrooms and views all the way to Cornwall . . .'
Frances walked slowly down the gangplank, her suitcase in her right hand, the other trailing lightly down the handrail. She was, she thought, invisible in this crowd of cheering, embracing people. As she drew closer to the dockside, she saw faces she recognised from the past six weeks, wreathed in smiles, contorted in emotional tears, pressed in passion to their husbands and, just for a moment, she allowed herself to imagine what it would have been like to be one of those girls for whom there was an embrace at the end of the gangplank, for whom there was not one but several pairs of welcoming arms to claim her.
She kept walking. A new start, she told herself. That was what it was all about. I have made a new start.
'Frances!' She turned to see Margaret, her dress riding up over her plump knees as she waved wildly. Joe stood beside her, an arm round her shoulders. An older woman held her other arm. She had a kind face, not unlike Margaret's own, which was now beaming and tear-stained.
Frances went towards her. Her steps felt surprisingly unsteady on dry land and she struggled to walk without lurching. The two women dropped their bags and embraced.
'You weren't going to go without my address, were you?'
Frances shook her head, sneaking a glance at the two proud people who had claimed Margaret as their own. On the ship she and Margaret had felt like equals; now, alone in a sea of families, she felt diminished.
Margaret took a pen from her husband and accepted a scrap of paper from her mother-in-law. She put pen to paper, paused and laughed. 'What is it?' she said.
He laughed too, then scribbled something on the paper, which Margaret placed in Frances's hand. 'As soon as you get settled, you write me with your address, you hear? My good friend Frances,' she explained to the two of them. 'She helped look after me. She's a nurse.'
'Pleased to meet you, Frances,' said Joe, thrusting out a huge hand. 'You come and see us. Whenever.'
Frances tried to return some of his warmth in her own grasp. The older woman nodded and smiled, then glanced at her watch. 'Joseph, train,' she mouthed.
Frances knew it was time to leave.
'You take care now,' Margaret said, squeezing her arm.
'I'll look forward to hearing how it all goes,' said Frances, nodding at her belly.
'It'll be fine,' Margaret said, with confidence.
Frances watched the three of them as they made their way to the dockyard gates, still chatting, arms linked, until people closed round her and she couldn't see any more.
She took a deep breath, trying to dislodge the huge lump in her throat. It will be all right, she told herself. A fresh start.
At that point, she glanced back at the ship. There were men moving around, women still waving. She could see nothing, no one. I'm not ready, she thought. I don't want to go. She stood, a thin woman jostled by the crowds, tears streaming down her face.
Nicol pushed his way to the front of the queue and several of the waiting women protested loudly. 'Frances Mackenzie,' he shouted at the WSO. 'Where is she?'
The woman bristled. 'Do you mind? My job is to sign these ladies off the ship.'
He grabbed her, his voice hoarse with urgency. 'Where is she?'
They stared at each other. Then her eyes narrowed and she ran her pen down several pages. 'Mackenzie, you say. Mackie . . . Mackenzie, B. . . . Mackenzie, F. That it?'
He grabbed the clipboard.
'She's gone,' she said, snatching it back. 'She's already disembarked. Now, if you'll excuse me.'
Nicol ran to the side of the ship and leant over the rail, trying to see her in the crowd, trying to make out the distinctive, strong, slim frame, the pale reddish hair. Below him thousands of people were still on the side, jostling, weaving past each other, disappearing and reappearing.
His heart lodged somewhere high in his throat, and, in despair, he began to shout, 'Frances, Frances,' already grasping the scale of his loss, his defeat.
His voice, roughened with emotion, hovered for a moment over the crowds, caught, and then sailed away on the wind, back out to sea.
Captain Highfield was almost the last man to leave the ship. He had undergone his ceremonial goodbye, flanked by his men, but at the gangplank, he stood, looking out, as if reluctant to disembark. When they realised he was in no hurry to move, a number of senior officers had filed past, wishing him well in his future life. Dobson made his goodbye as brief as possible, and talked ostentatiously of his next posting. Duxbury departed arm in arm with one of the brides. Rennick, who stayed longest, declined to look him in the eye, but enclosed his hand firmly within his own and told him in a tremulous voice 'to take a little care after yourself'.
The captain laid a hand on his shoulder and pressed something into his palm.
And then he was alone, standing at the top of the gangplank.
Those few who were watching from the dockside, the few who were minded to pay him any attention, given the more pressing matters they had to attend to, remarked afterwards that it was strange to see a captain all by himself on such an occasion when there were so many crowds below. And that, strange as it might sound, they had rarely seen a grown man look more lost.
26
It was the last time I ever saw her. There were so many people, screaming and yelling and pushing to get to each other, and it was impossible to see. And I looked up, and someone was pulling at my arm and then a couple ran towards each other and just locked on to each other right in front of me and kissed and kissed, and I don't think they could even hear me when I asked them to get out of the way. I couldn't see. I couldn't see a thing.
And I think it was then that I realised it was a lost cause. It was all lost. Because I could have stood there for a day and a night and hung on for ever but sometimes you just have to put one foot in front of the other and move on.
So that was what I did.
And that was the last I saw of her.
PART THREE
27
It seems so sad that I left so many wonderful mates, and never heard about them from that day to this . . . one met so many people during the war in times of great comradeship. Most people who recall those days admit to making the same mistake of not keeping in touch.
L. Troman, Wine, Women and War
2002
The stewardess walked down the aisle, checking that all seatbelts were fastened for landing, with an immaculate, generalised smile. She did not notice the old woman who dabbed her eyes a few more times than might have been necessary. Beside her, her granddaughter fastened her belt. She placed the in-flight magazine in the pocket on the back of the seat in front of her.
'That's the saddest story I've ever heard.'
The old woman shook her head. 'Not that sad, darling. Not compared to some.'
'I guess it explains why you had such a reaction to that ship. My God, what are the chances of that happening, after all those years?'
She shrugged, a delicate gesture. 'Pretty small, I suppose. Although perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised. Lots
of ships that leave the Navy are recycled, as it were.'
She had recovered her old composure. Jennifer had watched it ease back over her, a clear shell, hardening with every mile that stretched between themselves and India. She had even managed to scold Jennifer several times, for mislaying her passport, for drinking beer before lunchtime. Jennifer had been amused and reassured. Because by the time they had got on to the flight she had said almost nothing in sixteen hours. She had been reduced somehow, more frail, despite the restorative comforts of the luxurious hotel and the first-class lounge in which the airline staff had allowed them to wait. Jennifer, holding her hand, touching the papery skin, had felt the guilt bear down on her with even more determination. You shouldn't have brought her, it said. She's too old. You dragged her across continents and kept her waiting in a hot car, like a dog.
Sanjay had whispered that they should call a doctor. Her grandmother had barked at him as if he had suggested something indecent.
And then, shortly after take-off, she had begun to talk.
Jennifer had ignored the stewardess offering drinks and peanuts. The old lady pushed herself a little upright and spoke as if they had spent the last hours not in terrible silence but deep in conversation.
'I hadn't thought of it as anything but a travel arrangement, you see?' she said suddenly. 'A means of getting from A to B, a hop across the seas.'
Jennifer had shifted uncomfortably, unsure how to respond. Or whether a response was even required. She let her thoughts drift briefly, wondered if she should have rung her parents. They would blame her, of course. They hadn't wanted Gran to go. It was she who insisted that they go together. She had wanted to show her, she supposed. Widen her horizons. Show her how things had changed.
Her grandmother's voice had dropped. She had turned to the window, as if she were speaking to the skies. 'And there I was, feeling things I never expected to feel. And so exposed to all those people, knowing it was only a matter of time . . .' She gazed out of the window, at the heavenly landscape, the rippled carpet of white clouds sitting serenely in space.
'A matter of time . . . ?'
'Till they found out.'
'About what?'
There was an abrupt silence.
'About what, Gran?'
Her grandmother's eyes landed on Jennifer and widened, as if she was surprised to find her there. She frowned a little. Lifted her hands an inch or two from the armrests, as if reassuring herself that she could.
Her voice, when it came, was polite, unemotional. A coffee-morning voice. 'Would you be kind enough to get me a drink of water, Jennifer dear? I'm rather thirsty.'
The girl waited a moment, then got up, found an obliging stewardess from whom she took a bottle of mineral water. She poured it into a glass, and her grandmother drank it in efficient gulps. Her hair had matted during the journey, and stood upright round her head like a dandelion halo. Its fragility made Jennifer want to weep.
'What did they find out?'
Nothing.
'You can tell me, Gran,' she whispered, leaning forward. 'What it was that upset you back there? Let it out. There's nothing you could say that would shock me.'
The old woman smiled. Then she stared at her granddaughter with an intensity the young woman found almost unnerving. 'You with your modern attitudes, Jenny. Your little arrangement with Sanjay and your therapeutic phrases and your "letting it all out" . . . I wonder just how modern your views really are.'
She didn't know what to say to that. There was something almost aggressive in her grandmother's tone. They had sat, watched the in-flight film and slept.
And then finally as she woke, her grandmother had told her the story of the marine.
He was waiting, as they had known he would be, by the arrivals barrier. Even in that crowd of people they would have recognised him anywhere: the erect bearing, the immaculately pressed suit. Despite his age, and failing eyesight, he saw them before they saw him and his hand was already signalling to them.
Jennifer stood back as her grandmother picked up speed, and then, dropping her cases on the floor, embraced him. They held on to each other for some time, her grandfather's arms wrapped tightly round his wife, as if fearful that she would absent herself again.
'I've missed you,' he murmured into her grey hair. 'Oh, my darling, I've missed you,' so that Jennifer, kicking at the toes of her shoes, looked around at the other families, wondering if anyone had noticed. She felt somehow as if she was intruding. There was something pretty unsettling about passion in a pair of eighty-year-olds.
'Next time, you come with me,' her grandmother said.
'You know I don't like to go far,' he said. 'I'm quite happy at home.'
'Then I'll stay with you,' she said.
In the car, their bags stowed behind them, her grandmother somehow rejuvenated, Jennifer had begun to tell her grandfather the story of the ship. She had just got to the part where they had discovered the broken vessel's name when he turned off the ignition. As she tried to express her grandmother's shock - in a way that did not reflect too badly on herself - she saw that he was staring at her with unexpected intensity. She broke off and he turned to his wife.
'The same ship?' he said. 'It was really Victoria?'
The old lady nodded.
'I thought I'd never see her again,' she said. 'It was . . . It gave me quite a turn, I can tell you.'
Her grandfather's eyes didn't leave his wife's face. 'Oh, Frances,' he said. 'When I think of how close we came . . .'
'Hang on,' Jennifer said. 'Are you saying you were the marine?'
The two old people exchanged a glance.
'You?' She turned to her grandmother. 'Grandpa? You never said! You never said Grandpa was the marine.'
Frances Nicol smiled. 'You never asked.'
He had run, he told Jennifer, as they drove out of the sprawling mass of Heathrow, the equivalent of a mile and a half by the time he had searched the ship and worked out she had already gone. All the time he had been shouting her name. Frances! Frances! Frances! And then he had done the same on land, pushing his way through the throng of people on the dockside, running in circles, physically pushing people out of the way, his uniform crumpled and dirty, the sweat beading on his skin. The pitch of emotion around him was such that nobody paid him the slightest heed.
He had shouted until he was hoarse. Until his chest hurt from running. Then, as he despaired, chest heaving, hands thrust on to his knees, the crowds at the jetty had thinned, and by chance he had seen her. A tall, thin figure, standing with her package and suitcase, her back to the sea, staring at her adopted homeland.
'What happened to the others?'
Frances smoothed her skirt. 'Margaret and Joe went back to Australia after his mother died. They had four children. She still writes to me at Christmas.'
'So no regrets?'
Frances shook her head. 'I think they were very happy. Oh, don't get me wrong, Jenny dear, no marriage is without its hiccups. But I always had the impression that in Joe Margaret had found a good man.'
'What about Avice?' She laid a heavy emphasis on the A, as if still amused by the anachronistic nature of her name.
'I don't really know.' It had begun to rain, and Frances was watching the drops streaming diagonally across the glass. 'She wrote once to say she'd gone back to Australia and to thank me for everything I'd done. Rather a formal letter, but I suppose that wasn't a surprise.'
'I wonder what happened to him,' said Jennifer. 'I bet he divorced that woman in the end.'
'Do you know? He didn't. We met him once, didn't we?' Her grandmother nudged her grandfather. 'At a drinks do about twenty years ago. We were introduced to them and I remembered where I'd heard the name before.'
Jennifer leaned forward, interested. 'Did you say anything?'
'No. Well, not exactly. But in conversation I made sure I told him what ship I'd come over on, and gave him a bit of a look. Just so he knew. He went quite pale.'
'Went home pretty e
arly, if I remember,' said her grandfather.
'That's right, he did.' They beamed in joint satisfaction.
Jennifer sat back in the upholstered seat, wishing she could light a cigarette. She pulled her phone from her back pocket to see if Jay had texted her again, but her inbox was empty. She would text him when she got home. He would be back in two weeks and she wanted to see him again, but she didn't want him getting any ideas. He had the potential, she thought, to get clingy. 'You know, I don't understand why you two didn't just get it together on the ship, if you liked each other so much,' she said, putting her phone away. She was vaguely irritated by the way they looked at each other then, as if what they had shared had been something she could not possibly understand.
Her voice became more assertive. 'It just strikes me that people of your generation often made things far more difficult for yourselves than they needed to be.'
They said nothing. Then, from the back seat, she watched her grandfather's hand slide over to take her grandmother's and give it a squeeze. 'I suppose that's possible,' he said.
When he had told her the truth about his marriage, about what it meant for the two of them, she had been silent. She had sat down on the grass, her expression stilled, as if she were only just able to absorb what he was telling her.
'Frances?' He seated himself beside her on the grass. 'Remember what you said to me, the night the planes went over the side? It's over, Frances. It's time to move on.'
She had turned to him slowly, her expression almost fearful, as if she could not trust herself to believe what he was saying.
'This is the beauty in it, Frances. We're allowed this. No, we're entitled to it.'
Underlying the determination, there was a faint note of panic in his voice, as if she might somehow disallow herself the chance to be happy, as if he, too, might be one of the things for which she felt the need to atone.
'We're entitled, you hear me? Both of us.'
She had stared fiercely at her feet, and he had thought briefly that she was still closed to him. Unreachable. And then he had seen that she was hiccuping, as if her chest struggled to contain some huge, unbalancing emotion.