Page 93 of The Ship of Brides
‘Get off me!’ she screamed. ‘I can’t believe you’re asking me to do such a thing!’
‘How dare you embarrass me like that! After all I’ve done for you – looking after you, forgetting all that money your mum stole off me, buying you dresses, taking you out, when everyone else in this town said I shouldn’t touch any of the Luke family with a ten-foot pole...’
She was seated now, her hands pressed to her face as if she could block him out. Downstairs she heard someone break into song, and an answering jeer.
‘Neville’s a good friend of mine, you understand, you silly little girl? A very good friend. And his son’s off to war and he’s blue as anything and I’m just trying to take his mind off it all – and so here we are, the three of us having a nice evening, all friends together, and you start behaving like some spoilt kid! How do you think that makes Neville feel?’
She tried to interrupt but he stopped her.
‘I thought you were better than that, Frances.’ Here his voice dropped, became conciliatory. ‘One of the things I always liked about you was that you were a caring sort of a girl. You didn’t like to see people unhappy. Well, it’s not a lot to ask in the great scheme of things, is it? Just to help someone whose son’s gone off to maybe lose his life in battle?’
‘But I—’ She didn’t know how to answer him. She began to cry, lifted a hand to her face.
He took it in one of his. ‘I’ve never forced you to do anything, have I?’
‘No.’
‘Look, sweetheart, Neville’s a nice man, isn’t he?’
A small, grey-haired moustachioed mouse of a man. He had grinned at her all night. She had thought he found her conversation entertaining.
‘And you care about me, don’t you?’
She nodded mutely.
‘It would mean such a lot to him. And to me. Come on, sweetheart, it’s not like I ask much of you, is it?’ He lifted her face to his. Forced her to open her eyes.
‘I don’t want to,’ she whispered. ‘Not that.’
‘It’s half an hour of your life. And it’s not like you don’t enjoy it, is it?’
She didn’t know how to reply. She had never been sober enough to remember.
He seemed to take her silence as acquiescence. He led her to the mirror. ‘Tell you what,’ he said, ‘you go and straighten yourself up a bit. No one wants to see a face full of tears. I’ll have a couple of drinks brought up to you – that nice brandy you like – and then I’ll send Neville up. You two will get on fine.’ He hadn’t looked at her as he’d left the room.
After that she lost count of the number of times she did it. She knew only that each time she had been progressively more drunk – once she had been ill and the man had asked for his money back. Mr Radcliffe got crosser and crosser, and she spent as much time as she could hiding in the bathroom, scrubbing her skin until it came off in raw red patches so that the girls winced as she walked by.
Finally, on the last occasion, as the bar grew noisier and the stairs were heavy with footfall, Hun Li had caught her when she ducked into the cellar. She had secreted a bottle of rum there and, faced with two off-duty servicemen who had gleaned the impression from Mr Radcliffe that they might get the chance to spend some time with her, she had stood in the corner between the Castlemaine and McCracken barrels, swigging from a bottle that was already half empty.
‘Frances!’
She had whipped round. Drunk, it had taken her time to focus, and she recognised him only by his blue shirt and broad arms. ‘Don’t say nothing,’ she slurred, putting down the bottle. ‘I’ll put the money in the till.’
He had stepped closer to her, under the bare lightbulb, and she wondered whether he wanted to paw at her too. ‘You must go,’ he said. He flicked at a moth near his face.
‘What?’
‘You must go from here. This place no good.’
It was the most he had said to her in almost eighteen months. She had laughed then, bitter, angry laughter that turned into sobbing. Then she had bent over, clutching her sides, unable to catch her breath.
He had stood awkwardly in front of her, then stepped forward gingerly, as if fearful of touching her. ‘I got this for you,’ he said.
She had wondered, briefly, if he was going to give her a sandwich. And then she saw that his fist was full of money, a dirty great wad of it. ‘What’s this?’ she whispered.
‘That man last week. The one—’ He faltered, not knowing how best to describe Mr Radcliffe’s latest ‘friend’. ‘The one with the flash suit. He got a gambling place. I stole this from his car.’ He thrust his fist at her. ‘You take it. Go tomorrow. You can pay Mr Musgrove to take you to the station.’
She didn’t move, and he thrust his fist forward insistently. ‘Go on. You earned it.’
