Benjamin Wood - The Ecliptic

If I could not see the movements of the other passengers, or sense the quiet workings of the crew around me, it was hard to maintain perspective. Alone, my problems smothered me and I grew so dismayed with myself that I could not pass my own reflection in the mirror without wanting to destroy it. I drank cups of pennyroyal tea with honey, and soaked for hours in a bathtub that never quite got hot enough, silently composing telegrams I did not have the courage to wire back to England:

WILFRED: GREETINGS FROM RMS QE. HALFWAY TO NYC ALREADY. HATING YOU MORE BY THE NAUTICAL MILE. 5 WKS PREGNANT AND COUNTING. ELSPETH.

Leaving the men to scrutinise The Ocean Times , I went out to stretch my legs awhile, going up and down the promenade deck until I got weary. It proved difficult to go ten yards without having to side-step a meandering old lady, or skirt around a steward undertaking some fresh errand. I stopped at the guardrail for a moment to breathe in the air. The grey Atlantic swathed the hull. The soft seam of the horizon was too vast to comprehend. It occurred to me that I was as far from Clydebank as I had ever been in my life, that I was sailing first-class on a ship my own father had helped to build in the John Brown & Company yard. He would have smiled at the thought of me now, being kept afloat by joints he and his friends had caulked, but I did not feel proud. I wanted the ocean to swallow me whole.

A part of me believed I would find Jim Culvers hiding in New York. I tried to tell myself that I would have made this trip regardless, and that any dreams I had of chancing upon Jim and his sister in Washington Square Park were not a factor in my decision. When people on board asked my reasons for travelling, I said that I was going to meet the owners of the art gallery that represented me. Invariably, this would lead to the question of how much money my paintings sold for, as though it were the defining credential of any real artist. Dulcie would often interject at this point; but, in her absence, I would say, ‘Enough to travel first-class,’ and this would prompt them to confess they were embarrassed not to know my name. People would have been less enamoured of the truth, I suspect, which is why I never told it. The fact was, I had not finished a single piece of work since that awful night I spent with Wilfred at the Connaught, and had felt so anxious about painting since his Statesman piece was published; therefore, an exhibition of new work — be it in London or the depths of Siberia — was a very distant prospect.

I had only made the trip on Dulcie’s insistence. ‘You need a change of scenery,’ she had told me. ‘Go and travel round Europe for a month, see some things, take a few pictures, meet a few men. Get that imbecile out of your mind. Or better still—’ One of the founders of the Roxborough, Leonard Hines, was looking at potential sites for a sister gallery in Manhattan. ‘Len’s got some ridiculous idea that I should run the place for him. I keep saying I don’t have time to gallivant across Midtown, sizing up locations, but he’s been getting rather adamant lately. We should go together — I need a good sailing companion, and he needs to get better acquainted with your face. It’ll do us both some good.’ I would not have considered going anywhere with her except New York; the faint hope that Jim was lurking in its midst had never left me. And I knew that seeing him was the only thing that could rid my heart of Wilfred’s strangle-marks.

Desperate now for peace and quiet, I took the stairs up to the sun deck. It was a warm day and the cheerful wives of first-class were out on the terrace. As I scouted for a table, passing sunhats and bare shoulders, I realised there was no comfort to be found amongst these women either. I could not sit listening to their appraisal of the entertainments bulletin: ‘Gordon Cane and his Orchestra — quarter to four in the lounge. I’m game for it if you are, Lucy. Unless you’ve other plans?’ I did not even interrupt my stride, just walked a perfect loop around the terrace, back downstairs, gripping my damp copy of Below the Salt .

There was nothing left to do but head up to the racquet court. For the past three afternoons, Dulcie had been competing in the ship’s squash tournament. She was an avid player — a fact she had surprised me with early in the voyage, when she had come to my door wearing a bright white tracksuit with a towel tucked inside the collar. She claimed that everyone had to have a reliable form of exercise unless they wanted ‘to stroke out in their fifties’, and explained that squash was ‘sort of an art form in itself — the only one I’m any good at, anyway’. The standard of the competition on board was low by all accounts, and Dulcie had advanced through the early rounds with ease, giving me a shot-by-shot report of every set she played in the Verandah Grill at dinnertime. Today’s match, however, was a tricky semi-final (her words) against a woman she knew from her old racquet club in Mayfair. ‘Amanda Yail’—she had announced the name with a slight tremor. ‘Beat me last year at the Open, second round, then got smashed off court by Heather McKay in the next. I must have missed her on the passenger list. It’s going to be a long old match.’ I had never heard Dulcie sound so unconfident, which led me to suspect that she did not want me there to cheer her on.

As I went up the steps to the viewing gallery, I could hear the rhythmic pop of rubber against walls, the skid of sports shoes. I had never seen a squash match in my life and did not understand how one was played, or how to follow it as a spectator. When Dulcie used phrases like ‘the nick’ and ‘counter drop’ and ‘short line’ in her summaries, I would nod as if I knew exactly what she meant. She had a certain skill for describing the to-and-fro of her matches and it seemed rude to interrupt her. I envied this gift of Dulcie’s, in fact — she could find enthusiasm for the most tedious of things and bestow it unto others through sheer force of will.

The viewing gallery was empty, but for one man standing at the railing with his son. I was going to ask for the score, but then it struck me that the proper etiquette might be to wait for a break in play, so I held back. ‘Daddy,’ the child said, staring at me. ‘Do we have to move our things now?’ He was not quite tall enough to see over the top rail — a boy of seven or thereabouts, all buttoned up in a stiff Oxford shirt and trousers pulled too high over his waist. The balcony was smeared with his handprints; he was in the throes of driving his Dinky cars over the glass in slow figures-of-eight. His father hummed. ‘Huh, what?’

‘For the lady. She wants to sit down.’

‘Which lady?’

The man turned. He was what Dulcie liked to call ‘a studious fellow’, meaning he was bearded and bespectacled and not especially handsome. He had hair that thinned on top and greyed around the edges. His jacket was slung over his left arm like a waiter’s cloth. It had not been apparent right away, but now I could see that his attention was on something other than the court. He was wiping a leaky fountain pen with a handkerchief. Blue ink marred the fabric of his shirt — a jagged island right below his nipple. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘just a moment.’ He finished cleaning off the pen and carried it to the chairs behind me.

I told him not to worry. ‘Really, I’m better off standing.’ But he seemed intent on clearing his belongings, as though they were in some way humiliating. There was a briefcase full of dog-eared folders and a few of the child’s toys were scattered on the seat — plastic soldiers, horses and artillery; a tin rocket with chipped-off paint. The man snapped the case shut and began to collect the toys rather hurriedly. ‘Come and help,’ he told the boy. ‘Put them in your pockets.’