Jojo Moyes - Ship of Brides

Then she stopped.

He was standing outside the dormitory, removing a cigarette from a soft packet. He put it into his mouth, glanced sideways at her. The way in which he did this told her that her appearance was no surprise to him.

She had not seen him since he had arrived on the gun turret with Tims. She had had to fight the suspicion that he had avoided her since then, had several times considered asking the younger marine why he had taken over the night watch.

She had pictured him so many times, had taken one side in so many silent conversations, that to see him in the flesh was overwhelming. Even as her feet took her towards him she felt her own reticence return and brushed vaguely at her skirt.

She paused at the door, unsure whether to step inside. He was in his dress uniform, and she was overcome by a flash memory of the night they had danced, in which she had been held against that dark cloth. ‘Want one?’ he said, holding the packet towards her.

She took one. He held the flame towards her so that she didn’t have to bend to him as it lit. She found, as she ducked, that she could not take her eyes off his hands.

‘I saw you at the captain’s table,’ he said eventually.

‘I didn’t see you.’ She had looked. Several times.

‘Wasn’t meant to be there.’

His voice sounded strange. She drew on her cigarette, conscious that however she stood she felt awkward.

‘Quite unusual for him to invite one of the women to join him.’

The temperature of her blood dropped a couple of degrees. ‘I wouldn’t know,’ she said carefully.

‘I don’t believe he’s done it once this trip.’

‘Is there something you want to say?’

He looked blank.

She forgot her previous awkwardness. ‘Surely what you’re asking is why I, of all people, was seated at the captain’s table?’

He set his jaw. For the briefest moment, she could see how he might have looked as a child. ‘I was just . . . curious. I came to see you the other afternoon. And then I saw you . . . outside the captain’s—’

‘Ah. Now I see. You weren’t asking, just implying.’

‘I didn’t mean—’

‘So you’ve come to question me over the standard of my conduct?’

‘No, I—’

‘Oh, what will you do, Marine? Report the captain? Or just the whore?’

The word silenced them both. She chewed her lip. He stood alongside her, his shoulders still squared as if he were on duty.

‘Why are you talking like this?’ he asked quietly.

‘Because I’m tired, Marine. I’m tired of having every single one of my actions judged by ignorant people who then find me wanting.’

‘I didn’t judge you.’

‘The hell you didn’t.’ She was suddenly furious. ‘I can’t be bothered to explain myself any more. I can’t be bothered to try to improve anyone’s opinion of me if they can’t be bothered to see—’

‘Frances—’

‘You’re as bad as the rest of them. I thought you were different. I thought you understood something about me, understood what I was made of. God knows why! God knows why I chose to invest you with feelings you were never capable of—’

‘Frances—’

‘What?’

‘I’m sorry about what I said. I just saw you . . . and . . . I’m sorry. Really. Things have happened that have made me . . .’ He tailed off. ‘Look, I came to see you because I wanted you to know something. I did things in the war . . . that I’m not proud of. I haven’t always behaved in a way that people – people who don’t know the full circumstances – might consider to be admirable. There’s none of us – not even your husband probably – who can say they did.’

She stared at him.

‘That’s all I wanted to tell you,’ he said.

Her head hurt. She put out a hand to the wall, feeling the floor rise and fall under her feet. ‘I think you’d better go,’ she said quietly. She could not look at him. But she could feel his eyes on her. ‘Goodnight, Marine,’ she said, emphatically.

She waited until she heard his footsteps walking smartly back towards the hangar area. The rocking of the ship’s floor made no difference to their rhythm and she listened to them, metronomic, until the sound of a hatch door closing told her he had gone.

Then she closed her eyes, very tightly.

In the centre engine room, somewhere below the hangar deck, the number-two oil spray, the high-pressure feed pump that transferred fuel to the boiler, succumbed to what might have been age, stress, or perhaps the bloodymindedness of a ship that knows she is about to be decommissioned and, split. A tiny fault line, perhaps less than two centimetres long, which allowed the pressurised fuel to bubble out, dark and seething, like spittle in the corner of a drunk’s mouth. And then to atomise.

It is impossible to see the hot spots in a ship’s engine, the places where small areas of metal, weakened by fractures or the strain on its joints, reach terrible internal temperatures. If they cannot be detected by the many gauges around the engine room, or by the treacherous act of feeling for them through rags, one discovers them by chance – conclusively when fuel leaks on to them.

Unseen and unheard by the humans who relied upon it, the Victoria ’s centre engine hammered energetically forward, unseen, too red, too hot. The fuel hung briefly in the air in tiny, unseen droplets. Then the exhaust duct, inches from the cracked fuel pipe, glinted, like malice in a devilish eye, ignited and, with a sudden whumph! took its chance.

Fool. Bloody fool. Nicol slowed outside the oilskin store. One more night until she left for good, one more in which he could have told her a little of what she meant to him, and instead he had acted like a pompous fool. A jealous adolescent. And in doing so he had shown himself to be no better than any of the other judgemental fools on this leaking old ship. He could have said a thousand things to her, smiled at her, shown her a little understanding. She would have known then. If nothing else, she would have known. As bad as the rest of them, she had told him. The worst of what he had always suspected of himself.

‘Blast it,’ he said, and slammed his fist into the wall.

‘Something bothering you, Marine?’

Tims was blocking the passageway, overalls thick with oil and grease, something more inflammatory illuminating his expression. ‘What’s the matter?’ he said softly. ‘Run out of people to discipline?’

Nicol glanced at his bleeding knuckles. ‘Get on with your work, Tims.’ Bile rose in him.

‘Get on with your work? Who d’you think you are? Commander?’

Nicol glanced behind him at the empty corridor. No one was visible on G Deck; those not on duty were all in the hangar area, enjoying the dance. He wondered, briefly, how long Tims had been standing there.

‘Your ladyfriend bothering you, is she? Not giving it up, like you thought?’

Nicol took a deep breath. He lit a cigarette, extinguished the match between finger and thumb and thrust it into his pocket.

‘Got an itch you can’t scratch?’

‘You might think you’re a big man on this ship, Tims, but in a couple of days’ time you’ll just be another unemployed matelot like the rest of them. A nothing.’ He tried to keep his voice calm, but he could still hear in it the vibration of barely suppressed rage.

Tims stood back on his heels, crossed his huge forearms across his chest. ‘Perhaps you’re not her type.’ He lifted his chin, as if a thought had occurred to him. ‘Oh, sorry, I forgot. Everyone’s her type, provided they’ve got two bob . . .’

The first punch Tims seemed to expect and ducked away. The second was blocked by the stoker’s own blinding upper cut. It caught Nicol unawares, exploding under his chin so that he crashed backwards into the wall.