A Greater World (7 page)

'How dreadful.' But as she spoke, she saw he was already withdrawing from her. His face was pale and pained and he scrambled to his feet, throwing his cigarette into the ocean.

'Have to go now. Good morning Miss.' And he disappeared behind the bulkhead.

She tried to carry on reading but her heart wasn't in it. When she pictured Mr Heathcliff, his features were those of Michael Winterbourne: the dark, heavy hair, the intense brown eyes, the ill-concealed unhappiness. Pull yourself together, Elizabeth she told herself, but there was something about the man that aroused her curiosity and drew her in. His manner was sometimes abrupt and distant and yet she felt a kind of intimacy between them that went beyond the words they exchanged.

The next day, he appeared again, standing in front of her as she leaned back against the ventilation fan on the boat deck.

'I told you, Mr Winterbourne, you'll give me away if you stand there like that and I shall be banished below by the captain. Or thrown to the fishes! Come and sit down out of sight!'

He took his place next to her, his long legs in their brown corduroy trousers, stretched out in front of him. He fished in his pocket for his tobacco tin and she watched fascinated as he rolled a cigarette. He said 'You want one? I'm afraid they're just hand rolled.'

She didn't know any women who smoked but on a whim she said, 'Yes please! I've never tried before. I've always secretly wanted to.'

'I'm not sure that would be such a good idea if you've not tried before. This is strong baccie. You'd be better off with a ready rolled one – and mebbe one of those long fancy cigarette holders.'

'Not at all!'

'First time I tried smoking I were sick as a dog. Nine years old. Our Joe dared me I couldn't smoke two in a row. I coughed and spluttered and then I were sick. Me Mam gave me a right good hiding when she found out.' He grinned at her and she fancied she could see the mischievous nine year old in his eyes.

'It's a wonder you ever took it up then.'

'Hard not to. Everyone smokes in the mines. First thing you do when you come up from below is light up. Then in the trenches all the men smoked. Passed the time. Calmed the jitters.'

At that moment calming the jitters seemed an appealing prospect to Elizabeth. Why did his proximity make her nervous? But in a good way, like opening a present when she was a child.

'Go on. Let me try,' she said.

He moved closer and handed her the unlit cigarette he had just rolled and she placed it between her lips. She could feel his leg against hers as he leaned towards her, cupping his hands over the match. She bent to take the light, steadying his hand with hers as she guided it to the end of the cigarette. His skin was warm and she wanted to keep her hand there, but the moment was destroyed as her throat filled with smoke and she began to cough and splutter.

'Don't say I didn't warn you!' He was laughing at her as she handed the cigarette back. His face changed when he laughed – the little worried lines that were usually etched around his eyes and mouth relaxed and his face was open and happy. She expected him to throw the cigarette overboard but he put it to his own mouth and inhaled. She blushed at the thought of the thin paper moistened from her own lips now resting between his. It seemed a curiously intimate thing for him to do.

They sat in silence, as her breathing gradually returned to normal and he puffed away contentedly on his roll-up.

'Still with Cathy on the Yorkshire Moors then?' He nodded towards the book on her lap.

'No. I finished it. But I wish I were. I mean I wish I were there really, instead of here amidst all this endless ocean. I long to feel grass under my feet again. Solid ground.'

'Aye me too. The best part of the sea is the bit that's next to the land. All this empty space gives me the willies. It's as though we're at the end of the earth and over the horizon there we might just sail off the edge and fall into space.'

'So you're a flat earther are you, Mr Winterbourne?'

He smiled. 'If I am, I reckon this voyage'll cure that!'

'If you don't like the open sea, what do you like?'

He didn't hesitate. 'The fresh air on me face and the smell of cut grass in summer. The sound of a curlew flying over the dale. Burning leaves on an autumn afternoon. Catching a trout in a stream as clear as glass, me bare feet in the cold water and smooth stones under them. Me mam's lamb hotpot when times are good and her vegetable soups when they're not. And me old dog. I s'pose I sound right daft don't I? But I do miss the dale. Like I never thought I would.'

'You lived there all your life. It's understandable.'

'What about you? What do you like?'

'Let me think... the sound of the conductor tapping his baton to ready the orchestra and that little tremor of silent excitement and anticipation that ripples up inside you as you wait for the first chord to sound and the concert to begin.'

'You like music then?'

'Don't you?'

'I don't know anything about that kind of music. I grew up with just hymns in chapel. I've never been to a concert or heard an orchestra. Only the music hall. That were alright – but there's no conductor tapping his baton and no one waits in silence for it to start. More like as they're all yelling for the performers to get on with it. I like the idea of a classical concert though. A proper one.'

'Then you must go! When you get to Sydney.'

'That kind of music isn't for the likes of me.'

'It's for everyone. For anyone.'

'I'd be uncomfortable.'

'Then come with me!' As the words spilled out of her mouth she felt embarrassed but excited, fearful she had overstepped the mark, but already anticipating the pleasure of sitting in a darkened auditorium beside him. 'I mean, only if you'd like to... I could explain what the music was about. Just to get you over the first time. Then you'd be relaxed enough to go on your own.'

'In that case, I'll have to do the same for you.'

'What do you mean?'

'Take you to a music hall or take you fishing.'

'I'd love that!' Her face lit up.

Then Michael's face clouded over. She sensed him withdraw from her. She was confused by him: one moment enthusiastic, open and warm, making her feel privileged as his confidante, and the next closed down and silent, brooding. She supposed it was the War. So many men were like that these days.

The next day, when she went into the dining room for lunch, he was sitting alone.

'Mr Winterbourne, may I join you?'

The man got to his feet and nodded at the seat opposite him.

'I hate eating alone, don't you?' she said.

He shrugged and she wished she'd sat elsewhere. Her words were not even true. She preferred eating alone to making small talk with other passengers. The fact was she wanted to be with him. Just as she was debating whether to apologise and excuse herself with a forgotten item in her cabin, he looked up at her with a shy grin.

'Truth is, Miss Morton, I find eating in 'ere a bit of an ordeal. I were used to eating at home with me family or out of a mess tin in the army and at the pit. I find all this a bit much. Having to mind me Ps and Qs.' He gestured around the room. 'S'pose you're used to it?'

'Not really. I'd never dined in a vast room like this one.' She looked around them at the long lines of wooden tables with the ranks of swivelling polished wooden chairs, each fixed to the floor. 'Not since school. We had long tables there, but I thought I'd left all that behind me!'

He studied her face for a moment. 'Posh school was it?'

She blushed. 'I wouldn't say that exactly. But it was a private school. My father was quite wealthy.' She looked down at her lap. 'Not any more though.'

'It were the village school for me. And then just till I were 11. Then I went to work washing the ore. No time for schooling after that.'

'Gosh, that's awfully young to be working.'

'That were the way. We all did it.'

'Did you mind?'

'Didn't think about it. Me Da were in the mines too and his father afore him. It were the same for the whole village. And there's worse work.'

He told her about his life in the mine and his childhood in the dale. She could not imagine a life more different from her own. As he spoke, his face relaxed and he became less laconic. It was as though the dale was in front of his eyes and he was watching the men trundling into the mine.

'Was it very beautiful up there? When you spoke about it yesterday you seemed to miss it very much? It must have been hard to leave?'

'Not so hard. Not leaving the mine. But yes the dale is beautiful. Quiet. You could walk all day and never see another soul. It's wild and when you're there, you know it's been the same for centuries.'

'But not the mining?'

'That too. They've been digging the lead out of those hills for hundreds of years. Even the Romans mined there.'

He talked on and she listened, transfixed by words and his face. But she felt he was holding back, slightly guarded, almost suspicious. Yet when their eyes met it was as if she could see right inside him. She liked his face: the still boyish features and the bright eyes and the way his hair was always rumpled as though he'd just got out of bed. She wanted to run her hands through it. She surprised herself with the way she sought out his company: she had never been so forward with any man and had certainly never met or spoken to a working man like him. But it felt right being there with him.

Lying in her cabin that night she thought of him again. What was she doing? Where was this leading? So much for the promise she had made to herself to close herself off from other people? And what future was there in this? But then she told herself that they would soon be in Sydney and she would never see him again, so what harm was there in spending time with him while they were stuck on the ship? Avoiding him in this confined space was futile. Once they landed, they could say their farewells and go their separate ways.

The next morning she woke from a nightmare about Dawson. The sheets were drenched with sweat and she ran into the bathroom and threw up. She decided, rather than facing the world, to stay in her cabin and have her meals brought to her by the steward. But it was worse. Stuck in the small space she felt cornered and trapped and every time she closed her eyes Dawson's face was looking down at her. She went up on deck to get some air.

Returning to her cabin, as she rounded a corner, she saw Winterbourne ahead of her in the corridor, engaged in conversation with a woman. She stopped in her tracks and slid into the recess of the door to the empty smoke room. Leaning out cautiously, she saw him place a hand on the woman's shoulder – Betty, one of the stewardesses. Elizabeth watched him pull the woman towards him and hold her for a moment in his arms, her head on his shoulder as his hand stroked her hair. Then the pair pulled apart and after a few words that Elizabeth couldn't make out, the stewardess went off up the passageway. Elizabeth stood motionless in the doorway, trying to take in what she had seen and the effect it had had on her.

Back in her cabin, she tried to sort out the thoughts that were racing through her head. Why should she be surprised? Betty was an attractive woman and Winterbourne was a free agent. But she felt a sense of loss as the emotion welled up inside her. She had thought him an ally and believed he was becoming a friend: the only person on the ship with whom she had willingly spent time. Betrayed. Not just that. Jealous too. She wished it was on her shoulder that he had placed his hand and that it was she who had been folded into his arms. She thought about how it would feel to have those arms around her, to bury her head in the warmth of his chest; to feel his hands upon her hair. Sitting there on the bunk, she clenched her firsts and smashed them down into the mattress, a little cry escaping from her lips. All those intentions to be strong, to be hard, to be brave, had abandoned her. She was alone, lonely and felt rejected.

He had made no advances, had made no promises, had behaved impeccably. She could not blame him for seeking the company of an attractive woman. No doubt he felt more at home with a woman nearer his own social class. She cursed her naivety and stupidity and swore to avoid him for the rest of the voyage. She got up and looked at her reflection in the mirror. You silly goose. Fancy falling for a fellow like that! You've no business to fall for anybody. Not any more. Not after what's happened to you. Stop thinking about him. Focus on the future. On Father. On your new life together.

She abandoned her daily expedition to the boat deck, preferring to go to the ladies' saloon or stay in her cabin. At mealtimes, she waited until the dining room was almost empty and he had already finished. Whenever she reminded herself of her stupid suggestion that she take him to an orchestral concert she cringed and wondered what must he think of her?

As the Historic sailed into Sydney Harbour she couldn't help but feel uplifted. The panorama in front of her was so beautiful: the clear blue sky mirrored in the crystal water, the myriad inlets and outcrops of the natural harbour, the rich green vegetation and the impressive growing development of the city spreading inland from the water's edge. As the ship docked at the quayside, she searched in vain for her father's face among the crowds, then remembered he would have had no idea she would be on this particular ship or arriving so soon after his letter.