When they had seen Judy in London and told her, she had not believed them. The argument was fierce, almost final, and she only agreed half an hour after they had stopped pleading for her to accept. It had been done because her need seemed great, as was that of the children. They would get something of what he and Pam had. With the monthly cash Judy would live without going out to work, or skiving (Tom had thought it diplomatic not to soften his words), and the children might enjoy the sea to the south and open country to the north. He would do what he could for them.
Waiting at a traffic light in Folkestone, she noticed that his hand shook when he lit a cigarette, and touched his wrist. ‘It feels right to be on the move.’
‘I think so.’
‘We should have met twenty years ago.’
He frowned. ‘Why do you say that?’
Youth was too sure of itself to think of the future, and middle age too despondent, but Tom reflected further that at fifty the possibility of endless time could be sensed, where it had formerly seemed hardly worth waiting for and living through. There was now a change, and if there was to be any time at all, and he felt there must be, it was to be reached by crossing a wilderness which his life of wandering had taught him how to sow and his spirit to make fertile.
He found it impossible to define what had guarded him in years gone by, except to assume that there had been an unconscious and unassailable strength accompanying him on those journeys which had seemed no more than an end in themselves – everyday work encased by the discipline of a mariner’s certificate. There had been a purpose in all he had done by way of duty, and in what had happened by way of destiny.
Life’s neat pattern had never allowed any escape, having shown that while no one was the master of his fate, some were the victims of their destiny in such a way that they were shown a fair distance towards what their fate had in any case ordained. He could, at the moment, think of it in no other way, merely claiming as a flourish to his reflections that since he had been a Jew without knowing it, the Wandering Jew must now take over in order to give purpose to his peregrinations, which he would pursue to that point where great circles and loxodromes converged at the centre of all graticules.
‘If we had met twenty years ago, I would have been younger for you,’ she said.
Due to ambiguous signposting on the one-way system he made two attempts before getting into the harbour area, but then drove past the terminal buildings and joined a queue of cars. ‘It makes no difference,’ he replied. ‘If we had met then we wouldn’t have met when we needed each other most. It’s better this way. In two years we’ll be able to marry.’
She had registered her separation from George with a solicitor, but wanted no more of matrimony. Having been poisoned once, she had found the drug to have terrible withdrawal symptoms. Tom did not see things the same way because he had never been married, and one of her reasons against it was because she did not want the responsibility of inflicting such a state on him.
Sun bleached the car roofs. A man came limping up the line taking tickets, and sticking a number on each windscreen. He was stout and elderly, had a leathery face and pale blue eyes. Tom took out his RAC wallet of reservations, insurance vouchers and travellers’ cheques. ‘Hello, Brian!’
The man, wearing a nautical jersey and cap, bent his head close to the window, and sounded as if he would have thrown in a few curses if a woman hadn’t been in the car when he growled: ‘How do you know my name?’
She thought it wrong and uncharitable of Tom to play a joke on the man who was, after all, only trying to do his job on a hot day. ‘The first mate never forgets a face. Or a name. At least I didn’t. Sedgemoor, isn’t it?’
‘What’s it to you?’
He mentioned a ship, then his own name. ‘In 1956. Don’t you remember?’
Now he did. She had never seen a smile emerge from such unpromising features. Tom got out, and they shook hands. ‘Are you still painting by numbers? That “Mona Lisa” was very good, in my view.’
Sedgemoor glanced at Pam. ‘I’ve got four kids to think about, Mr Phillips. It’s a different life nowadays, but I don’t regret the old one.’
‘You always did want a cushy billet! But I think I noticed a limp as you came up, didn’t I?’
Sedgemoor winked, so that only Tom could see the huge lid close over his eye, and the gargoyle twist of his mouth – and the fist that indicated the apex of both legs. ‘It ain’t wood yet, though it ought to be. Gets harder to straighten, and no sawbones has got a remedy for it. One says this, and the other yaks on about that, but they all try something while it goes on getting worse. It does its main work, mind you, and between you and me, my missis don’t complain – though I’m getting to think as maybe she ought to!’
‘Then that’s all that matters,’ Tom said, having measured his drift.
‘Yes, but women are funny creatures, and don’t we know it, eh? When mine gets on to me I say: “Why did you marry me, then?” And she says: “Well, it was because I thought seafaring natures be very good for shorn lambs!” And she laughed, and I don’t deny she’s got something there!’
Tom agreed that no one could. Meeting an old sailor was a pleasant way to see the time off while waiting for a boat to France.
‘Let me get your car out of this lot,’ Sedgemoor said after a while. ‘I don’t like to see you in a queue, Mr Phillips, especially when you’re going on holiday with your wife.’ He gave another wink, bent down to look inside the car. ‘You’ll be all right with Mr Phillips, missis. He was a good officer.’
She smiled, and thanked him as he began motioning the car behind to get back and out of the line, but Tom declined. ‘We’ll find space, don’t you worry. I’ll look for you on the way in, and maybe we’ll have some time for a drink.’ He gave ten pounds to buy something for his children, and Sedgemoor, saying that duty called, went on to the next car whistling a lively tune, in spite of the obvious pain of his limp.
Tom drove down the rattling gangway and into the ship. ‘I thought you were going to get into an argument,’ she said.
He parked between lines of buses and lorries. ‘He was a good man to have on board. However much things change, you’ll always have his sort in the Service. A dirty old devil, but as good as gold. The Old Man once said that Sedgemoor looked as happy as the day was short. He certainly seems more contented now than he was then; but he was never as rough as he looked. Only hard. He’s the sort that if he hadn’t been a sailor would have been a rougher, perhaps brutal man. It was a case where the hard life had an opposite effect to what you’d imagine.’
She felt he knew what he was talking about. He’d got on well with people like Sedgemoor. The open deck was crowded with people on day trips to Boulogne. A gull flew crying alongside, turning its head with button-eye to observe them. ‘You must feel good,’ Pam said.
There were no vacant seats, and they stood by the rail to look at the town and cliffs. ‘It’s certainly a change being a passenger, with no work to do or decisions to make. I feel a bit like a log of wood, but it’s not unpleasant!’
She carried some food, as well as her handbag, and he had the briefcase with money and papers. They walked the length of the ship, then queued for tobacco and drink from the duty-free shop. At the radio officer’s counter he wrote a telegram to book a one-night room at the Hôtel de L’Univers in Arras.
‘Do you remember the name?’
‘Does the place still exist?’