A Quiet Life. Natasha Walter
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Growing up in a home so insulated from the world had left Laura ignorant, but also curious, so she responded in a vague but friendly manner to the woman’s statement about the heroism of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. The woman continued to talk about one of the boys who had come home, and his experiences at the hands of the Fascists in Spain. ‘No,’ Laura said at the right moment, ‘How – how terrible.’ But she could tell that her responses were limp.
‘There are lots of them still over there, you know – desperate to get home. I’ve been helping to raise the money. Shall I tell you something else? Such a strange coincidence, I’ve been thinking and thinking about it. The last person I know who sailed this way on this actual ship was a stowaway. This guy wanted to get to Spain, he didn’t have a cent, so he crept in behind a wealthy family, just as if he were one of the entourage, and then kept walking once he was on board.’
‘Really?’ Again, Laura’s expression was encouraging, although she was unsure of the right thing to say. ‘Where did he sleep?’
‘He said there was a steward involved – sympathetic to the cause, I guess, who slipped him food too.’
‘It’s hardly believable,’ said Laura, whose imagination was suddenly stirred by the thought of a lonely man attempting invisibility on a crowded ship. She leant forward to ask more, but just then they were interrupted.
‘It’s true enough, though,’ came another voice. Laura turned. At the table next to them was a young man sitting alone. Although he wasn’t unattractive, with a mobile face and dark hair falling over his forehead, both women frowned as they realised that he had been listening to their conversation.
‘How do you know?’
‘I remember seeing a report about them. They were arrested when they landed in Le Havre, though, poor boys. Didn’t have the papers, didn’t have any money.’
‘The man I’m talking about, he wasn’t arrested. He got to Spain and fought and was wounded and now he’s in southern France somewhere. Can’t get home, but he’s written to his mother to tell her he’s safe. That’s how I know all about it.’
‘That’s a great story – do you know his name?’
‘What’s it to you?’
‘Hey, don’t be suspicious.’ The man rose and stepped over to their table. ‘Mind if I join you?’
‘We’re happy as we are.’
‘Well, you won’t mind if I perch here,’ he said, sitting down anyway and tapping his cigarette in the empty ashtray. ‘I’ll be honest with you – I’m a journalist. Name’s Joe Segal. I like stories like that. Wouldn’t hurt the man to have the story told now.’
‘What if the line came back at him for the stolen passage?’
‘The French Line’s got more on its hands than chasing a stowaway from years back.’
‘Last year—’
‘Tell me more about the story without the name. I can tell you’re sympathetic. Wouldn’t you like to inspire others to do what he did?’
‘It’s a bit late for that now, isn’t it?’ The woman shook her head. ‘To be honest, I don’t know a lot more. Just what I said: he stowed away, a steward helped him, brought him food – some of the best food he ever ate, you know, stuff that the people in the top suites hadn’t bothered to touch – caviar, you name it. He had to hunker down in some equipment room most of the time, and then when he got to Le Havre the steward tipped him off to come out only when the staff were getting off, so everyone assumed he was from the engine room. He looked pretty grubby, you can imagine, by then. Apparently the staff here is so huge that he got away without anyone really knowing him. This steward just walked alongside him – and then someone met him at Perpignan station, and you know, there were loads of boys going over then. It’s not impossible …’
The journalist smiled, and Laura saw how the story tickled him. ‘The idea of a Red holed up in this ship – have you seen the first-class decks?’
‘I’ve heard about them,’ Laura said. Although in the rather down-at-heel tourist-class lounge it seemed unlikely, in fact the ship that they were travelling on was a byword for glamour. At this, the man seemed to notice Laura for the first time, turning his attention to her. He told her that he had seen someone he thought was Gloria Swanson getting onto the ship on the first-class side, and although Laura just raised her eyebrows at the thought, this, too, stirred her imagination. She thought of the lonely star, drinking martinis in her suite, perhaps, or taking a shower and feeling the warm water fall onto her ageing body, and the whole boat seemed to contain the extraordinary multiplicity of adult life and desire in a way that made her feel how right she was to have come, to have insisted to Mother that even now, even without her sister, a trip to London would be safe.
‘If you walk through the engine room, you come out on the first-class deck and no one’s going to stop you if you want to go have a look at those palatial surroundings …’ the man was saying.
‘Is that so? Will no one mind?’
‘They say girls do it all the time – though the stewards might not be so pleased about the boys drifting over.’
Laura had finished her coffee by this time, and just then the boat dipped alarmingly in the swell. She felt, to her horror, a heat rise through her stomach. ‘I’m going to lie down,’ she said.
‘You’re not feeling ill already, are you?’ The woman was looking at her with what seemed like real concern.
Laura shook her head. At not quite twenty, she still had all the awkwardness of adolescence. Although she didn’t want to be rude to these strangers with their interesting stories, equally she had no idea how to talk to them. She got up. To her surprise, the woman stood too, saying that she was going to go to her cabin.
‘I’m Florence Bell,’ she said, as they walked down the corridor. ‘You?’
‘Laura. Laura Leverett.’
‘I didn’t want to ask just then in front of him – seemed like he might be thinking of getting fresh – thought it would be better if he thought we knew each other.’
This statement, innocuous as it was, seemed to turn the woman suddenly from a stranger into an ally, so as Laura got to her cabin she turned to Florence. ‘Will you knock for me when you go up for dinner?’ The way the words came out, there was something needy about the request, and Laura braced herself for a dismissal, but Florence’s assent was so matter-of-fact it reassured her.
Alone in her cabin, Laura still felt self-conscious, almost as though she were being watched. She even found herself, as she put her purse on the bed and took off her coat, composing the first few lines of a letter to Ellen. In her mind, she presented the cabin as having a certain charm – ‘blue as the sea should be! With quite enough room to swing a cat!’ – although in reality it was small and ugly. The fact that all the furniture was bolted down and the room carpeted in a springy felt only added to its claustrophobic feel, and here, she noticed, the reverberations of the engine seemed exaggerated, thrumming through the soles of her feet. Looking for the lavatory, she opened a door in the side of the room. It revealed a tiny toilet and shower stall, which smelt reassuringly of disinfectant. She stripped and got under the shower. For a while it puzzled her that her lavender soap would not lather, until she realised that the water was salt.
After her shower she dressed, but then lay down, and the exhaustion engendered by all the strange new impressions pushed her into a half-sleep, so that when the rap on the door came and she heard the clear voice of her new acquaintance calling through it, she had to ask her to wait while she rebelted her dress. ‘I fell asleep,’ she said apologetically, opening the door, ‘can you wait a second?’
She was looking for her lipstick, clipping on her earrings. ‘Are you the only one in this cabin?’ asked Florence, stepping inside. ‘The boat isn’t even half full, is it?’
‘Actually