What Was Rescued Page 5

  7

  ARTHUR

  The bond the two of us forged on that boat had been a very strong one. I swear Dora didn’t stop clinging on to me for eight days and nights, and I had no wish to let go of her. I held her close to me, and I can still smell the oily dampness of her hair, feel the milky skin, warm even in the North Atlantic, warm where we touched, chin to cheek, neck to neck, neck to face, face to hair, cheek to chest, arm to back, arm to arm. I swear she kept me going, little Dora, having to reassure her, having someone to look after, to put before myself. She kept me going as surely as Miss Prendergast kept us all going by cheerfully telling us stories and singing songs for us to join in with, fending off her own grief until such time as she could be alone with it.

  I wanted to spend some time with Dora at that reunion. If I’m honest . . . well . . . I hadn’t really expected her to have grown up so much. Of course, I’d been intrigued to see her again, but I’d pictured a schoolgirl. Now here she was, all white and green, eyes sparkling, smiling and youthful. No Atlantic wind in her hair. Not a trace of helplessness. But of course the Atlantic was there. When she touched my arm, I felt it. All those eight long days and nights of fear and longing and thirst and dread and hope. All those thoughts of Philip and my stupidity, she and Miss Prendergast brought them all back. In contrast, Pippa, who had largely ignored me on the long Atlantic drift, seemed like a safe haven. When I’d bought the drinks at the bar, she appeared at my elbow.

  ‘Shall I relieve you of that gin?’

  I smiled, and handed it over. I looked to see if I could discharge myself of the orange juice too, but I could see Dora talking to Miss Prendergast. Pippa watched my eyes.

  ‘Did she upset you?’

  ‘Miss Prendergast?’

  ‘I meant Dora.’

  ‘Dora?’

  Pippa gave me a long look with those extraordinary green eyes and stirred some remote longing in me. ‘I thought she might have said something to upset you.’

  She put her head a little on one side. I felt all her attention upon me, and it was electric. ‘Of course not. I was just thinking about my brother.’ She looked down at her drink, turning the glass slowly with manicured fingers. I realized that, as children, we had been oblivious to the lists of those lost at sea and those who survived. ‘He was never found.’

  ‘Oh.’ She turned her head away, and when she turned it back there were tears welling up in her eyes. ‘I’m so sorry, Arthur. Poor Philip.’

  ‘You remember him?’

  ‘Of course. How could I forget?’

  I was moved by her reaction. She was genuinely upset.

  ‘So . . .’ She looked at me with such angst I felt embarrassed for having brought the subject up. ‘You’ve no idea what happened to him, then?’

  ‘We’re certain he drowned. Probably in one of the early lifeboats that tipped the passengers out. The life jacket wasn’t enough in those freezing waters.’

  A tear rolled down her cheek, and I put down the orange juice to comfort her. I touched her arm, half on the soft wool of her bolero and half on her bare skin. I let my thumb stroke her skin. She didn’t flinch.

  ‘I’m sorry! I’m just a bit emotional. He was such a sweet boy and . . . everyone seems to have lost so much.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Me? Oh, I’m all right.’ She flashed me an affectionate smile. ‘I have everything I could possibly want.’

  I felt a little disappointed at this statement and then wondered if it was meant as some kind of provocation. I looked at her left hand, previously hidden under the base of her glass, and for the first time I noticed a large diamond sparkling from her ring finger. ‘You’re engaged?’

  She looked down at her hand with mock surprise. ‘Oh, that! I should take it off really. It’s all over.’ She flashed me an intense look. ‘I found out he only wanted me for my money, so I had to call it off.’ She fixed her eyes steadily on mine again. ‘I think one should marry for love, don’t you?’

  ‘Aha! You’re all here! I’ve got you all together!’ Miss Prendergast joined us suddenly with Dora at her side. ‘Pippa, how good to see you – and looking so elegant. Now, Arthur, here is your little protégée, all the way from Wales. And what do you think of her now? Somewhat changed, perhaps?’

  I can’t help wondering what was actually going through my mind at that time. Had I any idea that the choices I made then would change us all? Of course I didn’t. But what was I actually thinking when I looked at Dora? Did I see the little companion of my darkest days? She made me melt, I know that! She made me helpless. I know I wanted to touch her, to put my arms around her. I wanted to smell her. But what could I do? I hadn’t seen her since she was seven. It was like a madness. She had the same candid blue eyes, the same delicate features, and she hung her head slightly in the same self-effacing way she had as a child. I know I wanted to talk to her. Despite the other temptation at my elbow, she, Dora, was unfinished business, but I doubt I could’ve told you why.

  Dora, Pippa and Miss Prendergast were the only women on Boat Nine. It was hard to believe we’d been in such an intimate space once. There had been no privacy on that boat. I remember that when any of the three needed to use the toilet, there would be a bucket passed down the boat and we’d hold a blanket up and look the other way. Whenever Miss Prendergast needed to go, the lascars would shout, ‘Bucket for Memsahib! Bucket for Memsahib!’ and the bucket would be handed down with a sort of reverence. The rest of us just did it over the side. And as for anything else, well, there wasn’t anything going through us. We were so hungry. All there was were ship’s biscuits and a few cans of sardines and peaches, and we had to make it last. We had one of the ship’s stewards with us, and he sorted out the food. We got one ship’s biscuit per day each and one slice of peach or a sardine. Those biscuits were like rock, and you needed something to wash it down with. All we had to drink was one beaker of water each per day – and those beakers were one inch in diameter and about eight inches deep. So we were always hungry, but after the first two days it was the thirst that got to us. That’s all we could think of: water to drink. We did have a bit of a squall on the second day, I think it was, and we all got empty cans ready. By then we’d found the sail wrapped up under the boards and we’d rigged it up so that all the rain would wash off the sail and into the beakers and cans. But of course the sail was covered in brine, so we couldn’t drink our lovely rainwater. That was a real blow.

  The first night we thought we’d be picked up, but because we’d drifted so far away from the others, the ship that was sent out to rescue everyone, HMS Alexander, didn’t spot us. When it got back to the Firth of Clyde a couple of days later, we were all added to the list of those missing. It must have been unbearable for my mother.

  Well, anyway, after we’d got through that first night, we could begin to see each other more clearly and see the state of the waves. They were mountainous. They had been lashing at the boat all night and soaking everyone to the skin. I was lucky in my coat, even if I was drenched. Most people were in their pyjamas, and the lascars were huddled together for warmth in their flimsy cotton gear. When the sea did calm down a bit, on the second night, it was actually rather beautiful. It sounds funny saying that, but there was a sort of phosphorescence to it, and if you put your hand in, it would become all glowing. And the stars . . . I’ve never seen stars like them. You felt you were just stuck on this little planet suspended in space, space that went on forever. And it was a sort of comfort, somehow, to feel the vastness of it all. It made our problems seem small – for a moment or two at least.

  It’s hard to explain how cold we were. The pads of our fingers were permanently wrinkled, as if we’d been in the bath too long. There were little icebergs around us too – ‘growlers’, they were called – so that gives you an idea of the cold. And the thirst was like nothing else. Daphne Prendergast told us all to suck on a button, and that sort of helped. Also, she came around the boat rubbing our feet to keep the circulation goi
ng. I don’t remember anyone doing it for her. She got us all singing too. We sang ‘Run, Rabbit, Run’ and ‘When You Wish upon a Star’ and ‘Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off’; she really kept our spirits up. She told us stories, made us tell her what we were going to do when we got back, what we were going to eat, what we were going to drink. And we all talked about what we’d do when we were grown-up. I was going to join the Navy, like most of the other boys. Actually, most of them did, and I became an aeronautical engineer, so I design bits of planes. Funny, that. It didn’t put many of us off. I can’t remember what Pippa’s ambition was. Dora never talked. She didn’t say a word all through that voyage. I rubbed her feet and her arms and held her close. She clung on to me and rubbed my back. Never said a word.

  One night we had a pod of whales next to us. Minke whales, according to the seamen on board. It was magical. We forgot how cold and thirsty we were for a while and were just mesmerized by these enormous, gentle creatures. Then someone reckoned they liked to rub up against the bottom of boats, so we were all splashing like mad to shoo them away. Still, I remember the enchantment of that night when the whales came.

  Then on the sixth day one of the kids spotted a ship. No one believed him at first, because we were always imagining ships, but when you focused on the spot in the mist, you began to see it was a ship. We’d set up a canvas awning over the bows to provide a tiny bit of shelter from rain and wind, but at this point we threw it overboard to speed us up and worked the paddles like mad. We set off our last remaining smoke flare, and we were all cheering and shouting like mad. I swear we were within fifty yards of that ship – you could see the crew walking around on deck. Then, to our utter amazement, her propeller started up, there was a belch of smoke from her funnel, and off she went.

  She must have seen us, but she was heading away from us. That was the worst day. That really was torture. Up until then we’d all had hope, but after that we were down to half a beaker of water a day, and it wasn’t enough. We knew we were slowly dying of thirst. No one could make any sense of what had happened. The only thing anyone could think of was that German U-boats sometimes followed lifeboats, waiting for a rescue ship to come along, and then they’d torpedo it. That was the only reasoning we could come up with.

  So there we were, marooned in the Atlantic, weakening day by day with hunger and thirst, all hope now gone, and what did Daphne Prendergast do? She said if there was one ship then there could easily be another, and she started singing. She must have been feeling as despondent as the rest of us, and privately grieving for a lost love, but she sang her heart out. That’s Daphne Prendergast for you, and we owe her everything.

  8

  DORA

  There was a newspaper photograph of us on board the rescue ship, and Our Dad cut it out. There I am with a sailor’s hat on, and Arthur’s wearing one too. And there’s Miss Prendergast. ‘Aunty Daphne’ we called her. If it weren’t for the photo, I’m not sure I would’ve recognized her at all at the reunion. I had a sense of her as a person, but not a visual one. So the photo filled things in for me. I’ve looked at it a lot over the years, and all the faces are like family, almost.

  I was surprised when I saw Arthur again. He was still very recognizably himself, but the face was longer and the jaw more pronounced, altogether more manly than I’d imagined. I’m not sure what I’d expected – he was nearly twenty-three after all – but I certainly wasn’t disappointed. As I said, Pippa hadn’t changed significantly (you’d recognize that triumphant, pigeon-shooting stance anywhere), but Miss Prendergast seemed determined to tell everyone how transformed I was. It was wonderful to see her there, looking pretty much as she does in that photo, but so strange to be singled out by her and to be the object of so much attention and affection. I thought I looked totally different to my seven-year-old self. I’d been surprised that Pippa knew me in the ladies’ cloakroom, but at least she had taken a few moments to work it out. Miss Prendergast found me so instantly familiar, she might have seen me only the day before. And yet her insistence, like a visiting relative, on how much I’d grown (as if this were a surprise after ten long years) did at least make me feel that my efforts with the sewing machine had been worthwhile. I was blushing with embarrassment and pleasure in equal measure.

  In retrospect, she was probably surprised to see me in fresh summer clothes instead of a grey ship’s blanket, my hair flattened to my head with sea spray. She would’ve remembered every detail of those eight long days with a greater poignancy than the rest of us. I was also, of course, living proof that her dear Mr Dent was indeed the bravest of men. I was his successful rescue attempt. My life lent something crucial to the meaning of his passing. But aged seventeen, I wasn’t thinking any of this. I was thinking about Arthur touching Pippa’s arm at the bar.

  Daphne Prendergast was asking me all sorts of questions: where I lived now, what my plans were, whether I needed any references and so on. I don’t think I asked her a single question about herself. It makes me shudder to think how socially inept I was. But she was always on the ball: I think she could see where my attention lay.

  ‘Aha, here they are! So Arthur, what do you think of little Dora now?’ That’s what she said, or something like that. I was mortified, and a little bit thrilled.

  And there was Pippa, of course, shocked to find herself standing face to face with me and to have Arthur’s attention wrenched away from her by the very direct question. I looked down at the floor, where Pippa’s red patent shoes trounced my little white ones and the brown suede pumps of Miss Prendergast.

  ‘I think, Aunty Daphne, that she’s radiant.’ He held Miss Prendergast’s hand in both of his own and turned his smile on me. ‘Of course, I would’ve expected nothing less.’

  ‘Do you know,’ she continued, grabbing my elbow, ‘that watching you and this young Dora was one of the things that kept me going? You were so affectionate towards her. It was wonderful – really moving – to see a young lad take so much care of a little one.’ She patted my arm with her other hand. ‘It warmed my heart.’

  Pippa closed her eyes in a slow blink, clearly bored. Arthur looked intently at my arm, as if expecting to find an appropriate reply written upon it. ‘I . . .’ He looked up at my face and our eyes met. ‘It was important.’

  That’s what he said: It was important. That’s all he said, but it was enough to keep me hoping. Pippa broke the moment, saying the do was marvellous and what a super idea of Miss Prendergast’s to bring us all together, and had she seen Jack Heggarty yet, and so on. I suppose she hoped to move the conversation away from Arthur and me, but it gave us the opportunity to look at each other urgently and awkwardly, interrupted suddenly by the exhortation of one of the bar staff to eat up the sandwiches at the buffet or they’d all be going to the pigs.

  ‘Addresses!’ Miss Prendergast said suddenly. ‘I must remind everyone to write down any new addresses.’

  Pippa put her glass down on the nearest table, confidently slinging someone’s handbag over a chair to make way for it. ‘Arthur!’ she said, leaning in close to his ear (but I could still hear her). ‘Can I speak with you privately a moment?’

  He followed her out of the function room to the entrance hall. He never came back.

  9

  ARTHUR

  ‘Arthur, I really need to get away from here. Will you take me somewhere?’

  ‘What is it? Are you feeling unwell?’

  She looked disorientated, and a frown appeared. ‘I just need to get away. It’s all been too much – too many memories. I can’t see how people can be enjoying this. It’s dreadful.’ Her voice began to wobble. What could a man do?

  I took her out on to the street, vaguely thinking I might take her to a nearby cafe for a sit-down and a chat, but looking up and down the street, there seemed to be nowhere inviting. She grabbed my arm and breathed deeply. ‘Let’s get a cab – let’s get out of here altogether.’

  Obediently, I hailed a taxi.

  ‘Where to, sir?�
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  ‘The Ritz,’ she replied for me, sinking into her seat as though she had just escaped a nasty incident.

  I thought of the wallet in my jacket pocket. I had no idea how much tea at the Ritz would cost, but I had taken out three pounds from the bank to pay for an overnight stay if necessary. I think I would have panicked more had Pippa not leant into me slightly, and that gentle pressure seemed to tell me any cost was worth it. The taxi drove right up to the front entrance, and Pippa waited for the door to be opened for her, turning her back as I paid the taxi driver. She had plainly done all this before, whereas I was a total novice.

  We were shown into a high-ceilinged, elegant hall called Palm Court, where the white-clothed tables were set out for tea, and where the buzz of conversation was softened by the rippling notes of a grand piano. There didn’t seem to be any prices displayed anywhere, so when the waiter came round and Pippa said, ‘Shall we have tea?’ I nodded and asked the waiter for tea for two. There followed a series of questions about which type of tea, choice of sandwiches, choice of scones and so forth. I felt such an idiot, and couldn’t help wondering if she had taken me there to test me out. I think I fumbled by okay, but I remember that awkward feeling of not quite knowing what she was up to.