Gypsy - Lesley Pearse [202]
The boat was juddering with the sound of hobnailed boots stomping across its deck. Outside her cabin she could hear a man with a booming voice complaining that his cabin was too small, and the crew member responding by telling him in no uncertain terms that if he didn’t like it he could get off the boat and he’d sell his tickets to someone else for double.
A woman’s voice piped up then, saying it was a disgrace that the boat was so overcrowded. She got a similar reply to the one given to the male complainant.
Beth got down off the bunk when she heard the steam horn blast out to hurry the last stragglers on board. She felt she had to take one last look at the place which two years earlier she’d set off for with such excitement.
The window was only a square foot of glass and it didn’t open, so her view was limited only to what was directly in front of it: just a group of young men with kitbags, heavy coats and shovels, still hoping they might be allowed on at the last minute. Behind them was a saloon, the fancy carved decoration on its facade suggesting the interior would be equally lavish. But it was a false image; inside it was little better than a shed, and tears welled up in Beth’s eyes for it seemed to symbolize how she’d been suckered into believing Jack was the real thing. She had believed he had no false facade, no tricks or cons. Honest Jack, a man she could depend on, who could be her friend, her love, her everything.
She was certain now that his baby was growing inside her, for she’d felt that nausea again as soon as she smelled coffee this morning. She knew she would love the baby despite Jack’s betrayal. Perhaps in time she would even forgive him. But she also knew she would never trust another man, not for as long as she lived.
Her view was out of focus because her eyes were swimming. She saw a man running behind the men in the queue, and although she only saw him for a brief second, she had the fleeting impression that he was tall, with dark hair. Her heart leapt involuntarily, yet she turned away from the window, irritated that she could imagine it was Jack.
But then she heard shouting and she pricked up her ears, for the man yelling that his wife had his ticket sounded just like Jack.
She was out through the cabin door and running down the steps to the crowded lower deck like the wind. There were passengers and luggage taking up every inch of space, but beyond them she could see the crew had already pulled in the gangplank and cast off, and on the wharf, with the boat moving slowly away from it, was Jack, red-faced and furious.
‘That’s my husband,’ she shouted, jumping over cases and kitbags and pushing people aside. ‘Let him on, please!’
The crew looked round at her in surprise. Jack took a few steps back, then ran forward and leapt out to the boat.
There was a united gasp from all the passengers on the lower deck, for the gap between boat and wharf was widening fast.
Beth clamped her hand over her mouth, for it seemed that Jack was suspended in space and would surely land in the water. But he landed on the boat with less than an inch to spare, falling forward on to his knees.
He was filthy and unshaven, but to Beth he looked wonderful. She ran forward, arms outstretched to hug him.
‘Thank God I made it,’ he panted as she ran to him. ‘You would’ve thought I’d run out on you!’
Ten minutes later in their cabin, Jack was still breathless. ‘I had to go to see to Oz,’ he wheezed out. ‘He’d been attacked. Willy the Whistle couldn’t get him in his boat.’
It was some little time before he got his breath back to explain fully. He was on his way back to the hotel the night he’d left her to go for a wander, when Willy the Whistle (so named because he played a penny