Voyage of Innocence. Elizabeth Edmondson

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       ONE

      Verity came out on deck into one of those pale autumn days that hovers between rain and sunshine; a breath of wind rippling the still waters of the harbour warned that summer was yielding to autumn.

      Despite the light wool jacket she wore, she shivered, both from the chill in the air which heralded the approach of winter, and from an inner cold of fear. Fear for the times, with the shadow of war looming over the country she was leaving; fear for herself. She was no longer afraid of war itself, since there was nothing she could do to prevent or prepare for that. What made her afraid? Her nightmares? Klaus, and his successor, that flat-faced man with no discernible personality? Her future, her brother’s fate?

      All of those.

      Gulls drifted in the sky above her and bobbed on the oily waters far below, their eerie mews a counterpoint to the whistles and hoots of tugs and the flotilla of other vessels going to and fro in the busy harbour. Vee sniffed the salty air, the dockland tang of tar and sea and smoke, and it brought a bitter taste to her mouth. The vast area of Tilbury Docks, alive with the bustle and activity of one of the busiest ports in the world, held no appeal for her; she longed for the boat to leave, for the line of water between the ship and the quay to widen and become an arm’s length, a fifty-yard gap, for the land to fade into the distance, for there to be nothing but green-grey waves and foam and sky.

      By some trick of the breeze, voices floated up to her from the quayside, the words reaching her ears with extraordinary clarity. A cheerful woman’s voice: ‘I say, isn’t that Mrs Verity Hotspur up there? Looking fearfully smart? In the red hat!’

      ‘Who’s Mrs Hotspur when she’s at home?

      ‘She’s a society lady, a widow, her husband …’ the words were lost on the wind, then were clear again. ‘I expect she’s off to Egypt, for the winter.’

      ‘Running away somewhere safe, more like,’ said a morose nasal voice. ‘Wish I could do the same.’

      ‘Come on, Jimmie,’ said the cheerful voice, ‘got to fight for your country, you know. Anyhow, who says there’s going to be a war? Let’s look on the bright side.’

      ‘They’re all running away. One law for the rich and another for the rest of us.’

      Running away. Dear God, if only they knew what she was running away from. War? It was laughable. Inevitable, but irrelevant and nothing to do with why she was standing on the top deck of the SS Gloriana, soon – not soon enough – to be setting off on a voyage to India.

      She rested her arms on the teak rail. On board ship was an orderly world, where wood and brass were polished to a gleaming, reflective finish. It was a world run by bells and routine and people who knew their duty. Where lascars rose before dawn to scrub down and dry the decks to immaculate perfection before foot of passenger or officer stepped on them. Where meals were provided on the dot of the appointed hour, where the distance travelled was noted at precisely twelve o’clock each day.

      It was, nonetheless, a more changeable world than the one she was leaving. As the Gloriana made her steady way across the sea, the stars would move imperceptibly out of their customary places, until, one day, they would be different stars, the stars of the southern skies, and the ship would have sailed out of Europe and into the Indian Ocean.

      New skies, a new country, but an old life. She wished that this voyage marked a clean break in her life, one of those turning points when the door shut on the old and you stepped out into the beginning of something completely new.

      How often in life did that happen? When you were born, of course. When you learned to walk, although no one ever remembered, at least not consciously, what a difference that made to a life: the first steps, the first taste of independence. School, perhaps, was another new start; for her, going away to boarding school had marked the end of her childhood. And the biggest step – no, stride – of all, when she’d taken the train from Yorkshire to university.

      Where, even while she was still an undergraduate, a new, adult life had begun. Like a nun hearing the call of God and taking up her vocation, that was how she had seen it. How wrong she had been, how dewy-eyed and naive and angry and full of herself and so sure of what was right.

      And because of listening to that deceitful inner voice and giving in to her anger, she was here now. On board the SS Gloriana, sailing at another’s bidding, full of fear and hatred, uncertain whether she could possibly do what was asked of her, knowing that she didn’t want to. And the price of failure?

      A life.

      She looked down the steep sides of the great liner, down over three more railings and decks and then rows of portholes, down to the quay, where the wind stirred scraps of paper and litter on the quayside. Down there, pieces on a chessboard, people were milling around as the moment of sailing drew near.

      The last few passengers hurried out of the customs house, checking passports and boarding cards. Porters with trolleys laden to improbable heights with towers of luggage, each suitcase and box and trunk labelled with stickers: P & O; SS Gloriana; initials, a large capital letter in a circle, B for Brown, J for Jones, S for Smith; destination labels for Lisbon, Port Said, Bombay; Wanted on Voyage. The Not-Wanted-on-Voyage luggage had all been taken away to the hold, to sit in staid rows until the port of disembarkation; she wished she could wrap herself up and pass the time among the lumber in the darkness of the hold. That was where she belonged, among the rats and the detritus, not here in the comfort and luxury of first class.

      ‘Rats leaving the sinking ship, that’s what they are,’ said the nasal voice. Vee looked towards the great hawsers stretching to the capstans on the quay, holding the vessel tightly in place; she had heard that rats did indeed know when a ship was going to founder, when something was amiss, and would СКАЧАТЬ