‘I love you.’ He relaxed his embrace. ‘I can go through the shoals and the shallows with you.’
One day he went out on his own and was away longer than usual. The sky was black with a threat of rain, and streetlights came on as he reached for the gate latch. He sat in the armchair as if he would never get up again.
She stroked his face. ‘I wish you wouldn’t overdo it, Sailor. You aren’t as young as you were.’
‘I know. I walked too far.’
‘Where did you go?’
He yawned. ‘To damn near Strelley and back. When I get going it’s hard to stop.’
‘That’s miles away.’
‘No buses went by, and when I was near home three shot by.’
‘If I’d been with you I’d have called a taxi.’
‘It’s all right, love. I’m better now I’m back with you.’
She followed him down the spirals and discovered it was where she wanted to go. If he pawned or sold their possessions it was only because she had always wanted to do the same. All that mattered was for two people to use them so that they could live the way they wanted. Love wasn’t love unless you could break free of the crushing pressures inside yourself.
She kept a glistening sort of order in the house, everything spick and span, as if to spite Fate at her surrender to the way it said she should live. Energy came from she didn’t know where as she pushed the Electrolux in and out of the bedrooms. A green cloth suitcase with a number stencilled across in black lay at the bottom of the wardrobe. She lifted it, to suck dust from the corners. What he kept inside she didn’t know. Her own papers were stowed in a cigar box of Sidney’s which she kept on her dressing table. Now and again she threw away old bank statements and cheque stubs, or took out cashpoint and credit cards when they were short of money.
She swilled dishes and cutlery, and stowed everything in its place until she felt exhausted. By the time Sailor came down from the mists of sleep, she had cooked the breakfast he was so fond of, and put biscuits and coffee out for herself.
‘I eat so much of a morning,’ he quipped, ‘that you’d think I was going to be hanged.’
‘Except it’s almost midday,’ she smiled, ‘so it’s a bit late for that.’
He took the empty plate to the sink, looking around before lighting his pipe. ‘The place is as clean as a new pin. I don’t know how you do it, my love.’
‘I have to,’ she said. ‘I like it that way.’
‘Same here. Squalor would be the death of me. You get a horror of it after a life on the mess deck.’
He went for a walk, so she put on the front-room light and gazed at the jigsaw, finding it hard to pick from the multitude of pieces. About a third was done, and the ominous French ship was taking shape through smoke and bloodshed. A chair eased her aching back, and she wasn’t sorry to lose the overall view.
Dabbling among the blue-grey of the upper right she found three pieces to slot in. Then she stared, discouraged at what was yet to be done, though glad they had accomplished so much. The mast of the Victory was reassuring in its girth. Sailor had assembled it in earlier days, his face like a child’s while it came together. She smoothed a finger up and down, as if there were no curving interlocking lines and she was carressing three-dimensional wood.
He made no mention of her progress, but sat in his usual armchair by the fire. ‘You look as if you went a long way,’ she said.
‘I did, but not too far from you, and that’s what keeps me going.’ After a silence he turned to her. ‘I saw a face I had to leave behind.’
His fear alarmed her. ‘What face?’
‘I can’t explain. I just want to rest, love.’
If there was more to his walk than was hinted at she would only find out by following him, but would die of shame if he turned and saw. On the other hand maybe the act of doing so would prove her love.
Whisky cooled his tea, and she reached for the bottle to pour some in hers as well. ‘Eating and drinking will wake me up.’ He drained his cup, and took a piece of cake. ‘Do you believe in God?’
Such a question could only be answered by saying yes.
‘Why?’
‘I’ve got to,’ she said.
He relished another fill of potent tea. ‘What sort of a chap do you think He is?’
‘I don’t know. How could I ask?’ The talk disturbed her. ‘But I’m sure He’ll look after us.’
He stroked Midnight, who jumped down, sensing his unease. ‘I think He’s got it in for me.’
‘Why’s that, Sailor?’ She couldn’t bite her tongue and keep silent. ‘Is anything wrong with your life?’
He altered tack, her question warning of further turmoil. ‘I’d just like to be able to make you happier.’
‘I’m as happy as I want to be, and it’s all because of the way you care for me.’
‘I get this ache up my left arm.’ He lifted it, let it fall. ‘It might be rheumatism.’
‘You should see a doctor.’
‘It comes and goes.’ He splashed more whisky into his cup. ‘But this puts the melters on it.’
She would believe in God a little less if He had it in for Sailor. ‘Still, you should call at the doctor’s,’ though she knew he wouldn’t, and hoped her heart would go bang before his, a massive cardiac explosion landing her in the middle of nowhere for ever and ever.
Blue veins pulsed on the back of his hand. ‘I will. But if God has it in for me I can’t say I blame Him. If I’d been Him I would have killed me years ago.’
Silence was the only way to question him. She stroked his face, a drop of clear water falling onto her hand, and he fell asleep before she could ask.
He only came alive in the morning after getting at the bottle. Nor did she feel part of the world till the first strong drink had gone down. Neither said much after it had. The lines of walls and windows sharpened as the liquor took effect, and whoever felt like it stood up to make breakfast.
Through the mist of her apparent wellbeing Sailor sat with smouldering pipe, looking as young as ever. In the hours that passed he told matelot stories in a clear voice, Ann not caring that they’d been heard before. The ghost that threatened him was harmless while he talked. After tea they sat drinking till going to bed at eleven, by which time two bottles had gone dry.
He rubbed a hand across his eyes as if to order the thoughts behind. ‘It gets worse, and I don’t know why that should be.’
She hoped he wouldn’t say, as if any revelation would be too late. ‘What does?’
‘It’s eating me to death. I’m starting to see them everywhere. I know it wasn’t my fault, but that don’t help, though I had to live through it.’
To tell something dreadful about herself might have comforted him, but all she could do was listen, pulling Midnight onto her lap for comfort. ‘I don’t know what you mean, Sailor.’
‘It’s my first wife I’m talking about. She did it on me a few times, though I was no angel, either. We had a daughter, a wonderful girl she was, and then my wife told me she was somebody else’s. She let me know in such a way that I could see a mile off how true it was. I’d loved Melanie for ten years as my own kid, but she had been put into my wife by somebody else. I went mad. That sort of thing’s murder land.’
Ann didn’t know whether her face went flour-white or blood-orange red at the certainty that he had killed his wife, and that that was his appalling secret.
For a smile he managed a bleak jack o’ lantern grimace. ‘No, my love, I never touched her. It was too big a blow. I’d take nobody’s life. Nor have I ever gone in for hitting women.’
She wished there was some way of stopping him, because what did anything from the past have to do with the way they lived now? His blue-glow eyes looked ahead, as if he was telling everyone in the world because he could hardly bear to let her know, or recall it himself. ‘You should have told me before, Sailor.’