Every Man for Himself - Beryl Bainbridge [8]
The hysterical woman on my left expressed disappointment at the lack of ceremony, there being neither bands to serenade our leaving nor the customary salutes from vessels berthed nearby. ‘I expected more of a show,’ she complained.
For myself, I was past caring one way or the other, being in that disembodied state of mind induced by a sleepless night and a double brandy. As the ship slid away and the town, nudged by its purple forest, slipped along the horizon, I drifted somewhere above the giddy circling of the smoke-wreathed gulls.
I remember the woman with the parasol asking if it wasn’t grand to see the look of gratitude on the castaway’s face – she identified him as a stoker – now that his kit-bag had been flung down to him on the dock, and I said yes, yes, pretty darn grand, although I was no longer looking at the quay but one deck below to where the man with the split lip stood beside the woman who had been his companion in the hotel. She was clearly agitated, leaning at a dangerous angle over the rail and gesticulating wildly. A breeze blew up, threatening the stability of her hat, and he took her by the elbows and forced her round to face him. He actually shook her, at which she crumpled. Awkwardly, for she was at least six inches the taller, she hid her face in his shoulder. He spoke to her then and in spite of the hullabaloo all around I had the curious notion I heard what he said. ‘All is not lost. There is always another way.’
I came to myself then, and some moments later Charlie Melchett clapped me on the back, full of apologies for the mishap of the night before.
‘I did look for you,’ he shouted. ‘I sent the car round to Princes Gate at four o’clock this morning.’
‘My fault,’ I bellowed. ‘Don’t give it a thought.’
‘They said they hadn’t seen you for two days. Where the devil have you been staying?’
‘I told you the whole story last night,’ I said.
‘You went through the revolving doors like a dervish, but when Hopper—’ He broke off and tugged at my arm. ‘Look, there’s my mother. She’s seen us.’
I waved dutifully at the onlookers side-stepping to keep pace with us, though it was impossible to distinguish one face among so many. I was genuinely fond of kind Lady Melchett – but then, almost all mothers I have known have been kind to me. Besides, we had now reached that point where the dock waters met the upper reaches of the sea and the ship was beginning a ninety-degree turn to port. A tremor was felt on deck as the propellers churned to combat the incoming tide.
The nearby docks were full of ships, including the Olympic, laid up on account of the recently ended miners’ strike. It was the strike and the uncertainty of a sailing date that had caused the cancellations. My aunt had cabled that I should make it to France and transfer to the Mauretania, but as my baggage had already gone on ahead and I hadn’t wanted to miss the fun of travelling with Melchett and Van Hopper I’d stuck to my plans. More to the point, I knew Thomas Andrews would be aboard.
The Olympic was berthed in the Test Docks alongside the SS New York, whose stern we were now approaching. A man in a bowler hat ran back and forth across her poop deck waving his arms windmill fashion. As we drew level both ships rocked under our swell; I clearly saw the tethering ropes slacken, then grow taut.
‘Promise to shoot me,’ shouted Melchett, ‘if you ever catch me sporting a bowler at sea.’
Some people heard what they thought were revolver shots when the New York broke her moorings. The man on the poop leapt in shock as her hawsers whipped the air. Hissing, the crowd surged backwards. Hopper later swore he’d seen a woman lashed round the waist and spun like a top across the quay, but I doubt it;