Somewhere Over England (42 page)

Helen looked at the dark brown liquid, thinking of Laura straining the tea again and again and suddenly her tears came and now Yvonne talked to her, telling her that the trip should only take ten days or so an officer had said because the Captain would be following the shortest route. And so it went on all the night in the large room with thirty bunks full of women who doubted and wept but determined that they would go on.

In the morning the women lined the rails to see the ship leave, but Yvonne and Helen could not watch as England faded out of sight. Instead they stood with their faces into the wind, letting their hair whip back from their eyes, at last breathing in the fresh sea air as the ship steamed towards America.

At nine-thirty the brides were invited to a talk in the lounge about the ship and the voyage. They sat in chairs which were bolted to the floor in case of bad weather and here too the ceilings were ornate and there were gaps where chandeliers had once hung. The years of the war had soiled the walls and
Helen thought of the passengers who must have sat over cocktails, listening to music, playing cards, thinking their tomorrows would be the same forever. Where were they now? Were they the parents of the troops who had sailed across throughout the war? Where were those boys?

Seated later in the dining-room, looking through salt-streaked windows which showed a blue and balmy sea, they ate a lunch which Helen had dreamt of during the long years of rationing, and she wanted to be able to send some back to the village. Chris came running up to her afterwards, showing her the ball held between the thumb and first two joints of two fingers, telling her that it would not spin but turn, and that Ed would have to be sharp to hit that and then he was off again, his face red from the sun and the wind, his eyes bright.

Yvonne talked then of her husband who had been injured in the Ardennes offensive and was now at home in the Bronx. He had told her he lived in a mansion and Helen said nothing but later heard an officer telling her friend where the Bronx was. There were no mansions.

They were out into the Channel now and the feel of the sea was different; it moved the ship. Helen walked around the deck, unused to leisure, missing the feel of the ploughed earth beneath her feet, missing the sound of the birds and the snort of Rocket and the pony she and Chris had learned to ride in the past year in preparation for Montana.

She leaned on the rail, rising and falling with the ship, changing her weight from one foot to another, watching the sea running up against the sides and down. The waves chopped and broke, white froth breaking from their peaks. She looked up at the sky, feeling the weak March sun through the breeze, missing Ed, wanting him, wondering if the darkness inside his head was gone.

That evening they watched a film in the lounge after an early supper and then they slept for some of the night but girls were ill, clinging to their bunks though the sea was not rough, calling for their mothers because some were no more than seventeen and eighteen. Helen and Yvonne padded up and down, soothing, talking, bathing foreheads but the girls were still ill the next day. Sick call was extended and they were told to suck lemons. It didn’t work, and Helen alternated between the girls and the deck, and Yvonne did too. They soothed the sick and
then walked, then sat in deckchairs, talking of the blitz, the rationing, their families, but not yet of the future.

The girls in the bunks had no spare clothes left and so in the afternoon Helen washed and ironed and laughed with Yvonne over the thought that maybe it was better to be seasick. That afternoon the Red Cross gave out long-sleeved sweaters to supplement the meagre clothes that rationing and one suitcase had allowed them all, including the girls who lay on the bunks and who only wanted to die.

Helen wore slacks which Laura had made and pitched balls at Chris and Tom, the twelve-year-old and that night the clocks were put back one hour and they had 2,636 miles to go.

The next day the ship was rolling and the waves were fifteen feet high and no one was allowed on the open decks. The ship stopped for an hour for some repairs and they were told over the loudspeakers that they would be on the water for about twelve days, two more than expected. Helen groaned and so did Yvonne and soon they too were on their bunks wondering why they had ever come as the ship pitched and tossed. The lemons did not work for them either.

The storm eased in the night and the sun shone the next day, bouncing off the water into their eyes. They tap-danced in the lounge that afternoon in a class arranged by the Red Cross and Helen realised she hadn’t laughed as she was doing for a very long time. She sang in the shower which was hot every night and a luxury she had forgotten existed and brewed tea for their room because they were allowed to do so now, after a general complaint that it was too long to last from five-thirty p.m. to seven a.m. without a drink. Bedtime was still eight-thirty, however, and surprisingly they slept.

On Sunday there was a church service in the lounge and there was turkey, asparagus and ice-cream for dinner but that afternoon there was another storm and the waves were eighteen feet high and grew worse during the night so that Yvonne was thrown from her bunk and landed on the floor, torn between laughing and crying. The clocks were put back again one hour and they now had 1,636 miles to go.

There was an orientation talk on food and clothing the next day and an emergency fire and lifeboat drill in the afternoon
and one girl appeared in her towel straight from the shower and she danced in time to the slow hand clap.

On Monday fresh water was rationed because the journey was taking so long and purified water introduced. It tasted strange and Helen found it difficult to swallow.

They tap-danced again and now it was easier, though their next session and the movie had to be cancelled while the crew bored a hole through the lounge wall so that they could pump oil from one part of the ship to another because they were short of fuel due to the delays. They took the hose through the lounge and momentarily Helen saw the fire hoses again and heard the screams beneath the rubble, smelt the smoke and the darkness of the cellar beneath the shop, the arm into which she plunged the painkiller, the dark cupboard in her mother’s house. She wanted Ed and went to her bunk so that she could lie in peace and remember him.

That evening it was announced the ship would travel at half speed to try and eke out the fuel or they would need to put in to Nova Scotia which would delay them even more. As it was, the arrival date was put back another day but there were only another 784 miles remaining. Now the girls were all up and some were visiting the hairdresser, pressing their good suits and dresses as the excitement rose.

Helen and Yvonne performed in a concert the next night, tap-dancing in the back row because they had only had two lessons. Helen did not sing but laughed and listened, eating mince pies after the show.

The next day there were only 523 miles to go and now Yvonne was quieter, twisting her ring and she spoke in a low voice to Helen of the lies Danny must have told, looking out on to the sea which was grey today, reflecting the sky and their mood.

At lunchtime the Red Cross gave out khaki towels for the showers because the women had only been able to pack one in the hand luggage they were allowed. There was a birthday party in the lounge for a bride who was twenty-one. Afterwards Helen sat in a deckchair listening to Chris talking of his friend, his batting action and Mary. She lay her head back and wondered what she would find in Montana, who she would find. Would it be the Ed she knew?

By Saturday there were only 200 miles to go and they were
all given a medical examination and the names of others going to their states. Helen and Chris were the only ones travelling to Montana. Excitement grew even higher on board. Women with babies carried them around the decks, hugging then tightly, talking into their necks, telling them of their daddies their grandmothers. Helen listened and watched as joy, then anxiety, crossed their faces as they hugged their children to them. She found Yvonne crying in her bunk, looking at the photograph of her husband; so young, so handsome, and held her but could offer no words of comfort because what could she say? She felt so old suddenly, and when Yvonne slept she walked the deck herself, calling in on Chris in his berth, staying with him, watching his face, his hands, listening to his laugh She reached across and touched his cheek and he did not draw away but leaned his head against her hand looking at her, and in his eyes too was joy and then anxiety. It was the same in hers.

That night they went to bed, knowing that they were due to pass the Statue of Liberty at six the next morning. The girls whose husbands were meeting them at New York would leave the ship first and Yvonne was quiet and said nothing, not even to Helen.

At twelve-thirty that night it was announced over the loudspeaker that they would be in sight of the Statue of Liberty in half an hour. It woke no one because that night their thoughts were too active to allow sleep. They threw on clothing and rushed up on deck, seeing the lights in the distance, the cars going along the road on Long Island. The Statue of Liberty was floodlit and it seemed strange to Helen to see so much light. The water was calm and oily black in the darkness and all she could feel was the vibration of the ship and her own uncertainty.

At four-thirty names were given out over the loudspeakers of those whose husbands were waiting for them at New York and although everybody had returned to their bunks they were not disturbed because sleep had never been so far away. Those leaving in the morning had red labels given to them and Yvonne looked at hers, turning it again and again in her hand and hardly ate her breakfast. Helen touched her hand but she didn’t look up and so she went on to the deck and stood at the rails, watching the tugs coming to tow them in, staying there as
they berthed. She could see the Empire State Building immediately ahead and young men waiting behind a cordon, cheering and waving and she wondered which was Danny, with the smiling face and the black heart.

Chris joined her at the rail.

‘It’s all so big,’ he said. ‘I hadn’t thought it would be so big.’

Helen nodded. ‘It’s a different world,’ she replied, her voice quiet, still looking for Danny, but the faces were too indistinct, too far away. The clothes were a shock; no uniforms, just vivid shirts, warm jackets and trousers.

Only those who were being met in New York were allowed off the ship, the others had to stay until train reservations had been made but a tour of New York was organised for the next day. Helen nodded as Mrs Senton of the Red Cross told them this, but she was looking past her, at Yvonne who was waving to her from the head of the gangplank, her face white.

Helen ran through the other women and held her friend, pressing her address into her hand, telling her to come to her, to write if she needed help, and then she watched her walk down the gangplank, seeing her look over to the men and hesitate, try to turn, but another girl pushed her on. Helen watched as the other girls ran towards the cordon. There was only one woman walking and that was Yvonne and now Helen could see nothing more because her eyes were blurring and it was more than she could bear. And so she turned away, back to Mrs Senton. At least all the brides were entitled to a free return ticket.

It was quiet on board that night and she sat watching the movie flicker in the lounge, hearing the click of the projector and the laughter of the audience, but she was wondering how the Bronx would feel on a hot summer night with a man you had thought was someone else. Would Ed be someone else?

The next day they left the dockside in a coach to see the sights and drove through streets towering with skyscrapers which seemed to block out the light and would trap the heat. They drove round Radio City and wherever they went, Helen felt she had been there before, knowing that it was because of the movies she had watched on the ship.

They stopped outside a diner and she saw a road worker in unbuttoned shirt sitting next to a man in a business suit eating salami on rye, and knew that this mingling would not happen
in Britain and it was good to see it. Trucks hooted, whistles were blowing and buildings were being knocked down. There were police sirens, yellow cabs and cars, so many cars in the wide multi-laned streets and through the windows of the bus came the smell of gasoline, cigars, steam and restaurants. Helen leaned her chin on her hand, seeing people running down subways or clambering on to buses, so many people, so many different races and colours. She felt homesick for small streets, short buildings, trees and felt angry that here there were no gaps in the streets like rotten teeth. How could these people she had come to live amongst understand those who had survived? She wiped away her condensed breath from the window. How were Ed’s parents understanding him?

When the coach returned to the ship, Claus, dear Claus, was there, flashing his press badge, coming on board, taking photographs, hugging her, hugging Chris who stood stiff because this man was a German.

‘So, how are you?’ Claus said, looking at Helen. He touched his nose when she asked how he had known, saying that the press had access to all sorts of information.

‘A bit older,’ she said, wanting to cry because he was from her past and he was here, the first person to meet her in her future land. He knew Heine, he knew her mother, her flat, so much that had made her. But he did not know Ed, or did he?

They talked of him and he had remembered the picture she had drawn in her letters.

‘The dreams?’ he asked. ‘What about the dreams?’

But she didn’t know and then he held her hand and told her that this is what must be solved, and she knew from his deep-set eyes that his mind had its darkness too because the shadows were there. His dark face was as thin as always, as handsome as always.

He told her of the business, which was thriving, of his wife, who was having a baby, of his parents, whom he had not heard from, but who he thought had been in Buchenwald. She asked of Herr and Frau Weber but he shook his head.