Page 68 of The Ship of Brides
‘I think I shall put in a special request to the captain to wire my family and tell them the news. I don’t think I can bear to wait until we reach England.’ Her name, called in clipped tones, echoed through the canteen. ‘Letters!’ she said, standing. ‘Letters! In all the excitement I hadn’t even thought – oh, you two have got yours.’ She looked at Frances, as if suddenly remembering, and said nothing.
‘Congratulations,’ said Frances. She didn’t look at Avice.
Frances’s name was called an hour later; it was almost the last, and cut across the canteen when the once-packed room was nearly empty. Margaret had thought several times about leaving them all to drink in Joe’s words in private, then re-examine them with the benefit of silence, but there was such bad blood between the other girls now, and Jean was still fragile, that she felt obliged to wait.
Avice had received two letters from her family, and two very old ones from Ian, sent only days after he had left Sydney. ‘Look at the date on them,’ she had said crossly. She had seemed to count it as a personal insult that Jean and Margaret had received more than she had. ‘Ian’s are nearly six weeks old. Honestly, you’d think the least the Navy could do is make sure we get our letters on time. How on earth am I meant to tell him about the baby if he’s going to get my next letter a week after we reach Plymouth?’
She studied the postmark bad-temperedly. ‘It’s really not on. I should have had lots more by now. They’re probably piled up in some godforsaken outpost somewhere.’
‘I think you were just unlucky, Avice,’ said Margaret, absently. She had reread Joe’s first several times now. He had numbered them thoughtfully so that she could read them in the correct order. ‘Hello, love,’ he had written. ‘Hoping by the time you get this you’ll be on board theVictoria. Couldn’t believe it when you told me you’d be on that old girl. Keep a lookout for Archie Littlejohn. He’s a radio man. We trained together back in ’44. Good chap. He’ll look out for you. Then again I reckon there’s not a man on board who won’t look out for you girls. They’re a good bunch on theVic.’
Margaret gulped as his words became audible in her imagination, and thought of Joe’s trusting faith in the good nature of the men around him. She sneaked a look at Jean, who was gazing intently at Stan’s letters. ‘Want me to teach you?’ she asked. ‘While we’re on board? Bet we could have you reading by the time we disembark.’
‘Really?’
‘Nothing to it,’ said Margaret. ‘An hour or two a day and you’ll be a regular bookworm.’
‘Stan doesn’t know... about the reading. I always got my mate Nancy to write letters for me, see?’ she said. ‘But then I remembered when I came aboard that if anyone else writes them it’ll be in different handwriting.’
‘All the more reason to get you started,’ said Margaret. ‘You’ll be able to write your own And I bet you Stan won’t know any different.’
Jean’s obvious delight lightened the mood. ‘You really think I could do it?’ she kept saying, and grinning when Margaret responded in the affirmative. Her mother had always told her she was thick, Jean revealed, her eyes darting between them. ‘Mind you, she’s gotta be the thick one. She’s stuck back there working in the cracker factory, and I’m on a ship to Blighty. Right?’
‘Right,’ said Margaret, firmly. ‘Here, give us your envelope. I’ll write out your ABCs.’
Frances had arrived back at the table. Avice glanced up from her letters at Frances’s hand. ‘Only one?’ she said loudly. She failed to keep the smile off her face.
Frances was unperturbed. ‘It’s from one of my old patients,’ she said, with shy pleasure. ‘He’s home and walking again.’
‘How lovely,’ said Margaret, patting her arm.
‘Nothing from your husband?’
‘Avice...’ said Margaret, warningly.
‘Well, I’m only asking.’
There was a brief silence.
Margaret made as if to speak, then couldn’t think of anything to say. ‘Oh, well. Perhaps he was overcome at the thought of seeing you again,’ she said. Avice raised her eyebrows, stood up and strolled away.
Having failed to elicit a reply from you to any of my correspondence, I am writing out of courtesy to let you know that I have applied for a divorce, on grounds of three years’ desertion. While you and I know this might not be quite correct, I am hoping you will not contest. Anton is paying for the children’s and my passage to America, so that we can join him there. We leave Southampton on the 25th. I would have liked us to do this in a civilised manner, for the children’s sake as much as anything, but you are obviously determined to show me the same lack of concern as you have displayed the whole time you have been gone.
Where is your humanity? Perhaps there is nothing left of you underneath your rules and regulations. I know things must have been hard for you. I know you have probably seen and coped with no end of horrors. But we, here, are living. We would have been your lifeline if you had let us.
Now I feel no guilt in choosing life, a better life, for me and my children...
‘What’s the matter, Nicol? You look a bit pale. Got a Not Wanted Don’t Come?’ Jones-the-Welsh was lying on his hammock, flicking through a dozen or so letters. They would be from a dozen or so women.
Nicol stared, unseeing, at his. Crumpled it into his pocket. ‘No,’ he said, then coughed to stop his voice cracking. ‘No... just a bit of news from home.’
A few of the men around him exchanged glances. ‘No one ill?’ said Jones.
‘No,’ said Nicol. His tone halted further enquiries.
‘Well, you look terrible. In fact, you’ve looked like buggery for weeks. Working middle watch does that to you, doesn’t it, lads? You know what you need, man?’ Here he punched Nicol’s arm. ‘You need a bit of R and R. You’re off tonight, right? Come ashore with us.’
‘Ah... I think I’ll just sleep.’
