but she couldn’t have been more surprised when the woman turned too, and said in a matter-of-fact tone, ‘How about getting a drink?’
Of course Laura had imagined meeting people on board; no young woman could step onto a ship that year and not think of Elinor and her doomed onboard romance in Till My Heart Is Still, which Laura had read in a creased paperback lent to her by a school friend, but she had not imagined such a quick advance into acquaintanceship with a woman who did not seem quite her kind. A part of Laura wanted to go on standing on deck, taking the measure of her solitude and the start of her journey, but the woman’s nonchalance was appealing. So Laura found herself following her into a low-ceilinged, airless lounge on the floor below. As soon as she saw the people – mainly men – at the tables, she paused at the door, but the woman walked forward without hesitation, putting her purse and a book she was holding on a table and sitting down in one of the worn, tapestry-covered chairs.
When the waiter came up to them, the woman ordered a beer immediately. Laura was slower. She could not pretend that ordering alcohol would be natural for her, and she was thirsty and tired. ‘A cup of coffee, please. And a glass of water.’
‘Funnily enough, I was here yesterday – not on the boat, on the pier – welcoming those boys home—’
‘You mean—’
‘The boys they brought back from Spain. Heroes, one and all.’
‘They were brave, weren’t they?’ Laura’s comment was uncertain. She came from a home that was so lacking interest in politics that her father rarely even took a daily newspaper. He voted Republican, she was pretty sure, but she had never felt able to ask him about his views, or why, whenever he mentioned Roosevelt’s name, he sounded so disparaging. As for her mother, an Englishwoman who was proud to understand little about America, she often shook her head about what the world was coming to, or expressed grave misgivings about one leader or another, but she had never – in Laura’s memory – stated any positive political view. 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
