The rhythmic hiss of the ocean sounds vaguely like the tsk of a tongue.Don’t you start, too.
After washing down everything, including the bread and cheese, with a glass of lemon-flavored water, I wish I could do it all over again but slower.
At the bottom of the trunk, I find my belongings: two plain dresses that I wore as a maid, a flannel nightgown, a knit cap, wool stockings, and Mum’s Bible.
I haven’t gone to church since Ba died and Reverend Prigg told me it was God’s will I join the convent before my feet led me down Jezebel’s path. I told him that if God had such a lack of imagination, then I wanted no part of His religion.
Opening to the book of Ruth, which Mum had read often, as Ruth had married outside of her tribe, I pull out the only photograph I have of my parents. Ba, in his wedding suit, sits on a chair, grinning as wide as a crescent moon. Mum, with her curly hair puffed around her head, stands patiently besidehim, her hand on his shoulder. Her big eyes, which always magnified her emotions, today look troubled.
“I know, Mum, you disapprove. But I have to staysomewhere, and you don’t want me bunking with Jamie’s mates, do you? So it may as well be here, where—had they let me board—I would’ve stayed anyway. I’ll be as careful as if I were walking a line of cobweb. And I’ll keep what’s left of our family together, I promise.”
Drawing the heavy brocade curtains closed on the late-afternoon sun, I undress to my knickers. Then I lie on the bigger of the two beds, my hands resting on my full belly. With tonight’s stop in Cherbourg, and tomorrow’s in Queenstown, I told Jamie I would keep my chin tucked, and that’s precisely what I’ll do. Anyway, perhaps a little time to digest the shock of seeing me will bring him to his senses.
In case I drop off into a nap, I switch on the reading lamp by the gold call button.
The dark is an old enemy. It doesn’t bother me so much when others are around, like the Sloanes’ cook, with whom I shared a room. But when I’m by myself, the dark waits to ambush me, so I won’t give it the chance.
Then I sink into the thick feather comforter, which is how I imagine sitting in a cloud might feel. It turns out the wealthy sleep higher than us, too. Before long, my eyelids grow heavy.
Ba leans againstthe trunk of a live oak, struggling. Bees are swarming him, enough to cover him with a buzzing coatof armor. They crawl out from his shirt and up his narrow brown face. They cover his thinning hair, a blurry, angry mob.
Jamie perches high up on a branch, swinging his legs. He’s always up there, lost in his own world.
“Jamie,” I scream, “get down here and help me!” But Jamie just points his nose to the sky.
A horn rouses me from my slumber.
I sit up, trying to remember the end of the dream. I never remember. I only know that Jamie holds the key.
I flick a switch, and the ceiling lamps shine down at me like four eyeballs. I draw open the curtains, giving the evening a peek into my room. Sure enough, the tiny lights of a harbor are growing ever distant as we leave Cherbourg. One port down, one to go.
My stomach grumbles, and I feel thirsty from the cheese. Jamie must have had a good dinner with his mates. I don’t know what I envy more, his having dinner or his having mates.
Loneliness, like a fledgling returning to an empty nest, creeps into my soul. The crimson walls strike me as too bright, and the gilded furniture, too pretty. Luxury is like good news, hard to enjoy without someone to share it with.
Well, how can I not be lonely, after all those years alone? Long days of toiling with no one to confide in, only a sad father who hardly acknowledged my presence after Mum died. But I muddled through it, didn’t I? And all the while, I kept myself limber for the day Jamie and I would fly again.
I dab my eyes, my anger petered out. We never stayed angry with each other for long. Mum wouldn’t let us.Don’t spendtoo long looking behind you, or you’ll miss out on what’s ahead,I hear her say with a cluck of her tongue.
Despite promising to keep my chin tucked, I decide to pay Jamie another visit. I dress in one of Mrs. Sloane’s boring brown dresses and tie on the garden-hoe hat.
Someone knocks. I steal to the door, not breathing.
“Hello? Is anyone there? It’s April Hart. Don’t be afraid. I’d like to talk to you.”
It’s the American who saved my Queen Mum on the well deck. A warning bell sounds in my head. There’s no chance I’m going to answer this door.
“It’s Valora Luck, isn’t it?”
I cringe. She must have remembered my name from the gangway. She might as well bang the brass bell they keep in the crow’s nest. Especially with Mr. Ismay right down the hall.
“Are you in there, Miss Luck?”
Before she calls my name a third time, I wrench open the door. “It’s Mrs. Sloane. May I help you?”
Lime-green silk pours over Miss Hart’s slender figure, interrupted only by a navy silk sash slung low across her hips. A headband with a single peacock feather cinches her short hair in place. What a simple but bold hair accessory. In her hand, she carries a suitcase made from some reptile’s skin, probably one of those alligator monsters from America.
With an unimpressed tilt of her fine-boned face, she reaches out and lifts my veil.
