He made the best cup of tea on the ship, whatever his opinions and obsessions. ‘I’ll think about it.’
The effort of talking made Paul sweat more than when he worked at his wireless gear. ‘If you believe, the thought comes of itself. Logic falls into place when you have faith. When I took the log to the captain for signing the other day and explained to him that we were all Jews he seemed a wee bit puzzled, but he’s a man of learning, and agreed eventually that the State of Israel was vital to our world. Other nations resent it, but that’s because the idea of redemption through Israel is anathema to anti-Semites.’
Paul’s monologue sung on in the pertinent tones of his native Ulster, and Tom wanted to continue listening, because the voice of this biblical contortionist comforted him like the rhythmical swish of the sea when he was trying to rest. But to stay was a luxury he could not enjoy. ‘I have to get back to duty. Then I must write a letter to my aunt – or a postcard at any rate. Save me doing it on shore tomorrow.’
He reached out, and handed the book to him. ‘Take it with you. I’d like you to have it.’
Tom put it in his pocket. ‘Kind of you. I’ll have another crack at it.’
A volume, perhaps on the same subject – he thought all of them were – was dislodged by Paul’s haste and fell to the floor, and Tom was amused to see Paul press his lips to the cover before putting it back. He had found a way of filling his days at sea that did not depend on manual dexterity, or the enthusiasm of acquiring different versions of the same object, or the interest of calculations that were an end in themselves, but by a notion that was perpetrated by a belief in God, and reinforced by faith in the destiny of a people to whom he felt linked in a personal and moral way – and who could say how right or wrong he was?
From within his own fortress Tom envied no man, but thought no theory could be insane that kept the radio officer as sane as he generally appeared. Even though he himself needed no religion, and no such bizarre side-issue, he knew that Paul had found more stability than the boozers, gamblers, womanizers, and plain black-dog brooders of the maritime or any other fraternity. He was generous and dependable, good at his profession, and within his simplicity lay imagination and even humour, as well as a keen ability to put forth his argument. He studied Hebrew so as to prepare himself for the day when he would, he said, go to the Promised Land. When it did not interfere with his watch-keeping he listened to short-wave broadcasts from Jerusalem, towards which he beamed an aerial so that he would receive news from the middle of the world: ‘On perilous oceans I can, by God’s will, hear everything loud and clear.’
The Old Man nobbled him a few days later, and in spite of his sixty years and an air of nothing on earth being set to trouble him, grasped Tom’s arm and said: ‘Has that mad bloody Sparks been getting on to you about all of us being Jews yet? He has? I can see he has. Don’t deny it. I’ll have to get rid of him. Can’t go on like this. He converted the chief engineer yesterday, and once he gets a bee in his bonnet there’s no telling what happens. Not that I’ve anything against the Jews, mind you – no, not at all, Mr Phillips – but I can’t have the blue-and-white flag run up on my ship. You know what the Mozzies are – it’s like a red rag to a bull. No, I’ll have to get rid of him.’ And he went away shaking his head. ‘It’s a pity, though, a great pity to have such a good Sparks going off his rocker!’
9
He relit his pipe and opened the book while the train was sucked through the lights of Gatwick. Instead of reading, he preferred to sample his own immense space which, if nothing else, made him well off in possessing an area that kept people at a distance, so that he could manoeuvre without harming himself or causing offence to others. Awareness of space had always kept his head clear on meeting the greater and often far from friendly vastness of the sea, for if you weren’t afraid of your own space it wasn’t difficult to meet that of the ocean which, sometimes denying that space existed, reduced the world to a boxroom of unexpected perils.
Clara had occupied sufficient space in his life for him to send her postcards and telegrams, even the occasional letter, as echo-sounders registering her presence in himself. On their first meeting she had stepped into his space without asking, and stayed there because he realized no person could exist in absolute emptiness. She had gone into a bigger space than he could yet know about, and had left his own space emptier than any in which he had so far existed.
He went to the hospital. His age took on importance now that the one person close to him was dead. He had felt her solid assistance without seriously admitting it, and at the undertaker’s kissed her lips for the first and last time. On meeting her he had looked forward to the bigger space seen from her living-room window, and the only other space that lay before him now was the one she had already gone to.
He laid a cool finger on her colder forehead. People moved beyond the curtain. The more subtly you perceived life the more brutal it appeared. He stood straight, hands at his side. She had little space in that narrow box, and would have even less when the lid went down and wet earth was packed around. Who needed more room when the spirit was absent?
He would prefer to be buried into a bigger space than that of soil, for his body to meet water without an encasing box. Either the fishes got you, or the worms. He did not want to die because there was still too much to think about. There would be, right to the end, he didn’t doubt. He shrugged, which she would never have allowed, then went out, and walked by the public library and art gallery, to sit in the park by himself for half an hour.
A patient at the hospital told him that Beryl had gone to lunch. Must have seen us holding hands when we left last night. He signed for his aunt’s wallet and suitcase in the ward sister’s office, then took a taxi to Clara’s flat. From the large window he saw the roughening indigo sea on which two boats struggled. The surface changed from hour to hour, but was the same that had press-ganged him thirty-five years before.
He could sit without being told, but looked at the elegant unsafe chair and smiled at the thought of breaking it leg by leg. He took the marble-encased timepiece from the shelf, set the hands and turned the large key at the back, offended to see a clock not fulfilling its purpose. In the kitchen he opened a bottle of whisky and poured half a tumbler before returning to his stance by the window.
The view paralysed him. He sipped at the glass and looked at the sea. Toy boats on a bilious pond. Arms dead except to drink, sea dead except to swallow, landfall every few days, the stink of diesel oil and salt, coffee and disinfectant, stale tobacco and stew. The smell of heat and that peculiar odour of invigorating cold: he did not want to go back. The spell was broken. She had kept him at it long enough. He had searched all lanes and knew it well, yet had found nothing. More years than he had fingers and toes, as an old salt said. His contract had two months to run, then he would take his last sway down the gangplank to ironical cheers, and never a look back from dock gate or customs shed. A mote in the eye for ever as his first love vanished.
Dust flew when he hit a velvet-covered chair. He telephoned the hospital. She hadn’t given her second name, but they knew who he meant. ‘Are you free for dinner?’
A tone of nothing-doing came from her. ‘Boy-friend tonight. Really. All right?’
‘Some other time?’