Dangerous Sea (9 page)

‘Have you looked at the so-called art on this ship?’

‘I have. Some of it, at any rate.’

‘What do you think of it?’

‘I –’

‘It’s so bourgeois, as Warren would say. So mediocre. At least, that’s what I think but what do I know? Are there any good artists in England? This is all so – oh, I don’t know – polite.’

Edward, taken aback by this frank criticism of Bernard Hunt’s taste but inclined to agree, said, ‘I know what you mean but –’

‘And this food’s disgusting.’ She held up her fork, on the end of which a small shrimp dangled.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he said. It rather shocked him to find someone daring enough to criticize any aspect of the
Queen Mary
but he had to admit to sharing a certain sense of disappointment, at least as far as the food went. The smoked salmon he had ordered was excellent but why surround it with gherkins? Still, it seemed preferable to the grapefruit cocktail or the scotch broth.

‘Perhaps it’s a bit dull,’ he ventured. ‘I gather it’s better in the Verandah Grill. We might try that tomorrow night.’ She grunted but made no other comment so Edward changed the subject. ‘Are you making a film, Miss Barclay?’

She looked at him darkly. ‘Is that some sort of wisecrack?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Are you the only person on this boat who doesn’t know I’ve been – what do you call it? – blackballed by the studios?’

‘Why is that?’

She looked at him to see if he was trying to insult her but decided he was genuinely ignorant.

‘Because I’m with Warren, of course.’

‘Because he’s a Communist?’

‘Because he’s a
black
Communist,’ she said vehemently. ‘They don’t like it when a white girl gets hitched up to a black guy.’

‘But surely, in 1937 –’

‘You really don’t see it, do you? In the movies, black actors only get small parts, as servants, or do “turns” tap-dancing or what have you, bits which can be cut when the film travels south. Most of America – and I don’t mean just the southern half – is still living in the last century. You know
Gone with the Wind
?’

‘Certainly, it won a Pulitzer Prize, didn’t it? I haven’t read it yet but it’s set in the Civil War, isn’t it?’

‘That’s the one. Well, I heard that Sam Goldwyn, when he bought the film rights, thought of making it in modern dress.’

‘He didn’t realize it is a historical novel?’ Edward hazarded, not understanding.

‘He didn’t want to have to cast blacks in major parts. Goldwyn has never read a book but you could say that about most Americans. People say we’re a new country but our prejudices are ancient and we treasure them. To be black or a Jew . . .’

‘But Mr Fairley is a great singer and actor as well as a political leader – he’s not . . .’

‘He’s not any old “Negro”, you were going to say?’ Her bitterness was poisoning her, Edward could see that. ‘Do you know, the shipping line made a fuss about us sharing a cabin?’

‘But you’re married?’

‘We’re married, but they chose not to believe it. Warren had to show them his marriage licence. It was humiliating.’

‘That’s terrible,’ he said inadequately, ‘but we think he’s a great man.’

‘You do? And that girl you’re with . . . Miss Browne? . . . she’s a Communist too?’

‘She is,’ Edward said, glad for once that Verity’s politics were going to prove a social asset.

‘Well, tell her to keep her mitts off my man, will ya,’ she said, and turned her back on him.

He looked across the table at Verity who was deep in conversation with Sam Forrest. He liked Forrest – who could not? – his open face and hearty laugh were a tonic. He and Verity looked like young lovers so he couldn’t think why Miss Barclay thought that she might be interested in her husband. He mused for a moment. He had been on the point of asking Verity to marry him when they had heard of Frank’s flight to Spain. By the time they had fetched him back, the moment had passed. It wasn’t that he cared for Verity any less but he was coming round to the view that perhaps she was right when she said she wasn’t the marrying type. She liked the attention of men like Forrest and he knew, if he were married to her, he would always be fighting jealousy. But more to the point, Verity was not a stay-at-home. After this trip to the States, the odds were she would be going back to Spain to report on the war there. If not Spain, then some other unpleasant, dangerous corner of the world. She had fought her way up to being a respected war correspondent. It was a unique achievement for a woman and she was hardly going to throw it away for a husband and babies.

When he looked at her again he saw she was now talking to Warren Fairley, and Jane Barclay’s remark suddenly seemed less absurd. There was an intimacy in the way they were talking – their faces barely a few inches apart – that made him stop and reconsider.

There were still three empty seats at the table. One was the Captain’s and he wondered idly who else was missing. Having crossed the Atlantic before, he knew that to come to the table after the Captain was seated, without a very good reason, was considered a grave discourtesy.

At that moment Captain Peel arrived, apologizing for being so late.

‘No trouble, I hope, Captain?’ said Mr Dolmen in a worried voice.

‘Nothing to worry about – nothing at all – except that I’m afraid we’re in for a bit of a blow.’

‘Oh dear,’ Lord Benyon said, his face falling. ‘I’m afraid I’m not a very good sailor. However,’ he added more cheerfully, ‘I am reliably informed the
Queen Mary
is the most stable ship afloat.’

‘And so she is,’ the Captain said firmly. ‘There’s nothing to worry about, I can assure you, sir. Our ship is the product of modern engineering at its best. We’re a long way from Mase-field’s “dirty British coaster butting through the Channel in the mad March days”!’

Edward tried to suppress his instinct that the time to worry was when the experts took it upon themselves to reassure you that they had everything in hand.

‘But you’re not eating, Mrs Dolmen?’ the Captain said, with a hint of disapproval.

‘We’re vegetarians, Captain,’ Mr Dolmen said in a low voice, as though this was something to be ashamed of.

‘And have you been properly looked after?’ Captain Peel inquired sharply.

Dolmen nodded and opened his mouth to speak, but the Captain prevented him. ‘Good! Mr Dolmen, if you – and your wife, of course,’ he added with a little bow, ‘would find it interesting, one of my officers will take you round the engine room after dinner. Lord Edward,’ he said, obviously keen to involve the whole table in general conversation, ‘perhaps you are not aware that Mr Dolmen – or should I say Professor Dolmen – is one of Germany’s leading engineers. Aeronautical rather than naval, I believe?’ he said, turning back to Dolmen for confirmation.

‘That would be very good of you, Captain,’ Dolmen said in his thick German accent. ‘
Danke, Herr Kapitän. Ich möchte
. . . I would like to see the engine room.’ His wife leant over to him and said something in his ear. ‘
Natürlich, liebling!
’ he replied and turned again to the Captain. ‘
Meine Frau
. . . my wife asks whether it would be possible for her to see the kitchens. It is so wonderful that you can feed all of us.’ He spread his arms wide, almost knocking off his wife’s spectacles to encompass not just the First Class dining-room, huge though it was, but the other dining-rooms and restaurants below them.

‘Oh, yes, I would so like that too,’ Miss Zinkeisen said. ‘I have been so busy with making my Verandah Restaurant perfect I have never seen the kitchens. I mean, I went round them on the maiden voyage but I was so exhausted and excited I couldn’t take it all in.’

‘That’s settled then,’ said the Captain genially. ‘Two tours after dinner, but I expect the young will want to go dancing. Lord Benyon, perhaps you have work to do?’

‘I do but I could not possibly fail to take up your invitation to visit the engine room. And Frank, you’ll come, won’t you?’

‘Oh yes, sir, I would love to. Thank you, Captain.’ He had wanted to spend the rest of the evening with Philly, if he could find her, but felt it would be rude to have said so. He thought longingly of the nightclub and fancied he could feel Philly’s slim white arms round his neck as they danced the night away. Ah well! He had his duty to do and that meant sticking to Benyon, unless relieved by another member of the party. Who could guess what dangers there might be in the ship’s entrails?

‘You will come with us to see the kitchens?’ Miss Zinkeisen said pleadingly to Edward. ‘Or is it not manly to prefer kitchens to engines?’

‘Of course, I shall come with you,’ he replied gallantly. ‘I am sure there will be another time when I can see the engines. I agree with you, Professor Dolmen,’ he said, smiling across the table, ‘that it is a miracle, comparable with feeding the five thousand, to keep all the passengers well fed. After all, when one is suspended outside real time with no responsibilities, as we are at sea, we eat and drink more than we would on land and probably to excess.’

At this moment the head waiter appeared, escorting a large, coarse-featured man about fifty years of age and a woman, presumably his wife, covered in jewellery which only served to emphasize her strong resemblance to a sheep.

All the men rose and the Captain said, with a hint of a reprimand, ‘Ah, Senator and Mrs Day, we thought you must have been taken ill.’

‘No, sir, but we should certainly have been taken ill if we had not changed our cabin. My wife is not a good sleeper at the best of times but the noise from the engines on this boat is very bad. Now the
Normandie
. . .’

Edward wanted to hide under the table. It was true that he had been surprised by the noise, or rather the vibration, from the ship’s great propellers but to say as much to the Captain in front of important guests was close to an insult. The Captain, recognizing no doubt that here was one of those difficult customers who had to be endured, said with a smile, ‘And are you happier in your new cabin?’

‘The Purser has given us one of your executive suites or whatever you call them. It’s better but I –’

The Captain cut him short by turning to the steward and muttering something in his ear. At once two waiters appeared with champagne. ‘I’m afraid, Senator, we started our meal without you but we waited on you for the champagne. It is customary for us to make a toast. I hope you will all join me in wishing our great ship well?’

‘I never touch wine,’ the Senator said virtuously, ‘and champagne is particularly bad for my stomach. A little bourbon and a brandy after dinner is all I can manage. Isn’t that right, Marlene?’

The sheep-faced woman looked at her husband in what Edward identified as naked terror and said nothing. The Senator stared round the table and his eye rested first on Sam Forrest and then on Warren Fairley. ‘What’s that coon doing at this table,’ he whispered to his wife so loudly that the Captain heard, as no doubt Day intended.

Captain Peel’s face turned red and then almost purple. ‘Senator Day, I hope I am wrong and I did not hear you make a personal remark about one of my guests.’

No one spoke, all present frozen in embarrassment and horror. Even Warren Fairley was speechless. The silence was broken by the rasping voice of the Senator, whose southern drawl sounded to Edward marinated in hatred. ‘I was merely expressing my surprise, Captain, that you should choose to sit down to dinner with bolsheviks and –’

‘Mr Day . . . I cannot allow you to continue. I must ask that you apologize to the table or leave us.’

‘I shall certainly not apologize for expressing an honest opinion.’

‘In that case . . .’ the Captain said, rising, ‘I must ask you to leave my table. The steward will see that you have a table to yourself.’

‘I see, sir, you take the side of the enemies of our two great democracies. That is your privilege, though I confess to being mighty surprised. I shall be writing to Sir Percy Bates, your chairman, whom I was talking to at our embassy the other night and you can bet your bottom dollar you haven’t heard the end of this. My friend Congressman Dies is setting up a committee to investigate un-American activities and I note several Americans at your table, Captain Peel, who I expect to see appearing before it. And you, young lady, if you hope to work in Hollywood you will have to do something about the company you keep.’ He looked directly at Jane Barclay and she returned his stare unblinkingly. ‘Come, Marlene, this is not a place where I could feel like eating.’

When the Senator had departed, the Captain turned to Warren Fairley and said, ‘On behalf of the Company, I apologize for what that man said in your hearing, sir.’

‘It’s nothing, Captain, but thank you all the same.’ The Captain turned away, believing that his apology had been gracefully accepted and the ugly moment brushed over, but Fairley was not finished. He spoke calmly enough but, just beneath the calm, they could all hear his intense fury. ‘I am sorry to say there are many like Senator Day in my country, Captain Peel, which is why I prefer to live in England. These politicians from the southern states are good haters, I’ll give them that. I put it down to sexual frustration, if you will forgive me for saying so, ladies. They like to lynch a Negro before taking their wives to bed and, when they are prevented as Senator Day was this evening, they spew out their filth like the devil in the Bible.’

Even Edward was surprised by Fairley’s bitter words but he had no idea of the nature of the struggle in which he had been engaged for so many years. In a typically English way, Edward had expected Fairley to dismiss the affair with a wave of his hand and change the subject, as he would have done, but Fairley would never let such a moment pass without forcing its significance down the throats of the witnesses. Until the day arrived when he had no need to fight the unthinking racism of fellow Americans, he would always make his protest and he knew he would never live to see the battle won.

A waiter discreetly removed the two place settings and the Captain’s guests inched apart from each other, covering over the space like a growing hedge. Everyone at the table was unsettled, as though they had each been physically assaulted. Frank whispered to Verity, ‘I wanted to punch his mouth, and I would have done if he hadn’t gone.’