Chrissie's Children (33 page)

Sophie stared out at the huge, wild, white-topped breakers bursting over the pier, and shivered.

The ship, an old steam tramp with one tall funnel, came in over the bar in a welter of foam. She tied up at the quay, and finally Peter Robinson walked down the gangway of the
Chatterton
with the rest of her crew. Sophie had not seen him for five months and she was breathless with excitement.

Peter stared at her in delighted surprise. ‘Hullo!’ He had thought of her all the time he was away but never expected to see her waiting on the quay. Then he remembered that she was
still Jack Ballantyne’s daughter. He went on in a more neutral tone, ‘How did you know I was coming in tonight?’

‘I came home for a day or two and just happened to hear.’ In fact she studied Lloyd’s list every day to follow the progress of his ship and had travelled north from Bournemouth
when she saw the
Chatterton
was due to dock that night.

They took a tram to his home, talking in friendly fashion of ordinary things. As Peter pushed the door open and entered the kitchen his mother put her arms around him and young Billy Hackett
grabbed his hand. They all laughed together and there were tears on Margaret Hackett’s cheeks. Excitement and joy had given her a little colour, belying her fragile health. She held Peter out
at arm’s length and said happily, ‘By, it’s grand having you home! I got a ham shank and I’ve made some broth. Sit down, the pair o’ you.’

So Sophie shared the meal and afterwards Peter went with her, hurrying, to catch the last tram. Sophie squeezed his hand. ‘I was pleased to see you.’

Peter answered, ‘It was lucky you were here. I won’t be home for long. The
Chatterton
has paid off.’

Sophie laughed. ‘So you’ll be throwing your money around.’ Sailors were notoriously open handed with their pay. Then she realised what his words also meant and said with
dismay, ‘You’re out of a job, then?’

Peter shrugged. ‘I’ll have to look for another ship. And I won’t be tossing my money away. I have to buy some books. One of the mates lent me his but I want my own for the next
trip.’

‘Books? What for?’

So he told her how Harry Latimer had urged him, ‘Get your tickets to be a mate . . .’

Sophie had to jump on the tram then as the conductor yanked on the bell cord. She called down from the platform to Peter, ‘I’ll drop you a line with my address! Let me know what ship
you get!’ so leaving him no chance to argue or refuse. She waved to him as the tram pulled away and he lifted a hand in reply. But Peter, after that first moment of pleased surprise, had kept
his distance – and kept her at a distance.

When Sophie arrived home she found only a note left by her mother for her father. She concluded that he must be coming home and was glad, but felt unhappy about Peter.

Jack arrived in a taxi at midnight, returning from a fruitless visit to Greece. He read the note that Chrissie had left for him, saying that she would not be home until late. He was disappointed
but told himself there had to be a good reason. He mixed a stiff whisky and took it up to bed. Tomorrow he would continue the fight to save the Ballantyne yard. He was not finished yet.

Chrissie returned at one in the morning. The storm had passed and the night sky was clear and sprinkled with stars. She saw Jack’s overcoat tossed over the back of a
chair in the hall and the note she had left for him lying opened on the table. She kicked off her shoes and ran lightly upstairs. In the bedroom she undressed without putting on the light and
slipped into bed with the sleeping Jack. Then she woke him.

Chrissie had asked Randolph Tourville, ‘Did you hear Chamberlain’s agreement with Hitler?’

He had, as had everyone. ‘Promising “peace in our time”.’

Chrissie shook her head. ‘I don’t believe it. Hitler won’t stop now. He moved into the Rhineland, then Austria, now he has Czechoslovakia. He intends to rule Europe.
There’s a war coming and we’ll need ships. Remember 1917 when the U-boats nearly starved us into surrender? Your oil won’t be worth a penny if you haven’t ships to move
it.’

Tourville said drily, ‘I know all this, and we have a programme to buy a new ship every year for the next five years. There’s one building on the Tyne now.’

Chrissie said, ‘I think Hitler has a programme, too – and you should speed up yours. Buy another tanker this year.’ Then as he stared at her, impressed by her grasp of world
politics, she pressed him, ‘Suppose Hitler went to war in the next twelve months?’

Tourville said slowly, ‘It is possible.’ He was silent a long time, then said, ‘I’m the boss but I have a board of directors representing a hell of a lot of shareholders.
That board doesn’t want to spend the money now.’

‘Tell them if they don’t spend it now they won’t have it for long.’

Tourville had grinned at her then. ‘I’ll do it.’ They had gone on to discuss details.

Tourville had also volunteered to put up the money for the rebuilding of the original Railway Hotel: ‘I think you’re a good investment, Mrs Ballantyne.’ He went on wrily,
‘This has not been the evening I expected. You’re an honest woman and Jack is a lucky man.’

Chrissie had told him the simple truth that had given her the confidence to seek him out: ‘Jack is the only man for me, always was and always will be.’ As she had told young Sarah
Tennant: ‘Be sure of your man. And let him be sure of you.’

So that Saturday morning Chrissie and Jack shared a cheerful breakfast with a subdued Sophie. Jack was eager to go to the yard and break the news that the
White Elephant
was sold and work
could start again, while Chrissie had similar good tidings for the hotel. Then the post arrived. One of the letters was in a buff envelope that bore the words: ‘On His Majesty’s
Service’. All three guessed what it contained. Jack opened it, scanned its contents quickly then laughed at Chrissie and Sophie. ‘They’ve found Matt and Helen!’

It was agreed reluctantly by both Chrissie and Jack that he should stay to work in the yard now it was active again and also to handle the negotiations with Tourville. Chrissie would go to
Spain.

When Jack dropped her from the Ford she almost ran into the hotel. During the drive into town she had planned what she had to do, so as she hastened across the foyer she called to Dinsdale
Arkley: ‘I need to see you now, please!’

He came limping into her office and Chrissie remembered how she had first taken him on when he came home from the war, invalided out of the Army after losing a leg. That had been twenty years
ago and she congratulated herself now on a wise decision taken then, because she could leave the management of the hotel in safe hands. ‘I have to go away for two or three weeks, maybe
longer, and you’ll be in charge . . .’ Then she went into details of what she wanted done in her absence and Arkley wrote them down in his notebook.

They had been at it ten minutes when Mrs Featherstone, the housekeeper, tapped at the open door. Normally cheery and bustling, she was now tearful and explained, ‘I have to give me notice
in, Mrs Ballantyne.’ Her husband had been given a better-paid job in the South and they were moving in a week’s time. Chrissie consoled her and reassured her when she wailed,
‘You’ve always been good to me, Mrs Ballantyne, and I don’t like letting you down all of a sudden like this.’

Chrissie said, ‘We don’t want to lose you, but you and Mr Featherstone have to take this opportunity. We’ll just have to manage.’

When Chrissie had finished with Arkley she spent the morning clearing her desk and planning her trip with a railway timetable and numerous telephone calls to shipping agents. Then, with all
settled save one pleasurable duty, she ate a late lunch in the hotel dining-room, her mind still churning with details of times and routes.

Afterwards she sought out Sarah Tennant and told her, ‘Mrs Featherstone is leaving and I want you to take over her job . . .’ Sarah listened to her open mouthed, delighted and
excited at the promotion, as Chrissie explained, ‘I have to go to Spain. We’ve heard where Matt and Helen are.’ Then she remembered another letter received that morning and
mentioned its news as she turned away, her thoughts already running ahead to her trip. ‘And Tom will be home in a week or so.’

Sarah said, ‘Oh! That will be nice.’ She tried to keep her voice neutral as Chrissie walked away, told herself it did not matter to her when Tom came home. But in truth she did not
know if she was thrilled or frightened.

Sophie accompanied her mother as far as London. They parted there, Sophie to go back to the Beaumont Band on the South Coast, Chrissie to take the cross-Channel packet from Dover. Sophie hugged
her mother. ‘Take care, Mummy. Bring them back.’

‘I will.’ Chrissie prayed that she could.

And so they parted.

Tom Ballantyne came home a week later on the sleeper, and his father met him at the station. Even in his preoccupation, Tom noticed the change in his father: the worry lines
smoothed out, the old familiar grin back on his face. Tom was glad to see him and to hear the news that had wrought the transformation, but after the first warmth of their meeting Tom was impatient
to be away. As the porter put his suitcases into the taxi Tom asked his father, ‘Can I see you at home later? I have some . . . things to clear up.’

Jack mentally raised his eyebrows but only said, ‘That’s fine.’

Tom crossed the road to the Ballantyne Hotel and asked the receptionist, ‘Where is Sarah Tennant, please?’

‘Why, Mr Ballantyne! It’s lovely to see you again. Your mother did say you were coming home.’ The girl remembered his question and finished, ‘I think she’s on the
first floor. I saw her go up—’ But she stopped there because Tom was already taking the stairs three at a time. He found Sarah in the corridor, giving instruction to a pair of new
chambermaids, girls a year older then herself. Because of them she did not try to evade Tom when she saw him coming, presuming he would pass her by in that company. She was wrong.

Tom smiled at the two girls and nodded. ‘Excuse us.’ He took Sarah’s arm and she found herself steered through the open door of an empty room. Then the door closed behind
them.

‘Tom!’ She knew the girls would be giggling, couldn’t hear them but could picture it. Her anger rising, she demanded formally, ‘What do you think you’re doing, Mr
Ballantyne?’

‘I’m trying to talk to you because you didn’t answer my letters. No!’ As she started towards the door he stepped in front of it so that she almost walked into him. Then
as she drew a breath he urged, ‘What are you afraid of? Me?’

Faced with the direct question and with him hanging over her, Sarah could only admit, ‘No. I . . .’

Tom went on quickly, ‘So just listen for a minute. Hear me out because I won’t let you go till you do.’

Sarah saw that he meant it, and realised they stood very close together. She took a half pace back so she could breathe. ‘Well?’

Tom was tongue-tied at first, fumbling at how to start. ‘I know what upset you that day, what you heard those girls say, but it wasn’t – isn’t true. I knew somebody like
that. She wanted to marry the boss’s son, though it was her mother who put her up to it. But it’s not like that with you and you’re not like her. I was talking to a friend –
’ He paused on the word for a second. Dagger a friend? Well, he was now. Tom went on, ‘This friend of mine was about to get married. He was having to leave home and go down south to
find work but he was taking this girl with him and he said he was happy. He’d got all he wanted and he didn’t care about anything else.’ He stopped to draw breath, then asked,
‘See?’

Sarah said hesitantly, ‘You mean, no more hiding? Out in the open like ordinary people?’

‘We
are
ordinary people and we ought to give ourselves a chance and never mind what anybody says.’

Sarah remembered that his mother had said something like that, but her gaze slid to the door, remembering the girls giggling outside. ‘I don’t think it will be as simple as
that.’

Tom admitted, ‘No, I don’t suppose it will.’

‘But you don’t care.’

‘No.’

So long as he got what he wanted. Now Sarah recalled that Chrissie had also said, ‘Just be sure of him.’

Sarah took a half pace forward into his arms.

Sophie travelled north again. She had written Peter a short letter, to give him her address, that was friendly and only mildly affectionate. She tore up a half-dozen drafts
before posting the final copy. He had read it over and over. When Sophie had returned to her lodgings one evening, after singing at a
thé dansant
, she found his letter awaiting her.
He had found another ship. She was on a train early the next morning and at eight that night she went with him as he went to join the
Florrie Dawe.

As the tram clanked and swayed across the bridge he said drily, ‘She’s not really new. In fact she’s older than me by ten years, but she’ll do.’

Harry Latimer had told him, as they stood in the shipping office in Tatham Street, ‘It’s her or nothing. We ship in her or we stay on the dole.’ So Peter had signed on.

Sophie asked, ‘Is she a good ship?’

‘She was still afloat the last time I saw her.’ Peter grinned at her. He did not tell her of Harry Latimer’s doubts: ‘She’s been laid up for years and she’s
rusted to hell, had her hull repaired with cement.’

Peter had questioned, disbelieving, ‘
Cement?
’

‘Aye.’ Harry explained, ‘It’s a cheap way of curing leaky seams and rivets. You get a carpenter to make a wooden box to fit over that section of the hull then you fill it
with cement.’ While Peter digested this, Harry added, ‘And her skipper is a wrong ’un. He’s lucky he hasn’t lost his ticket afore now. The mates aren’t any
better.’ But as Harry had said, it was sign on in her or go on the dole.

Peter told Sophie now, ‘She’s a ship and she’ll do.’

So when Sophie stood on the quayside, cold in a biting wind, and watched him walk up the gangway she had no more worries than any woman seeing her man off to sea. Except that he had not kissed
her. She took another tram to the sea front and watched his ship steam out between the piers and fade into the night.