‘Quite. Well, let me think. I’m pretty certain she’s got a committee meeting of some sort here this afternoon: that means she should be in to tea. Could you come along at about half-past four?’
‘Thank you,’ said Miss Ranskill gratefully.
‘That’ll be splendid then. Goodbye.’
There was a click at the other end of the line, but she did not put down the receiver. Her fingers tightened round the vulcanite.
It seemed a strange welcome home after all the years of boat-building, hardship and danger.
She had not expected to be snubbed in a box of a room with a bored policeman standing by and a young Naval officer anxious, of course, to be rid of her, so that he could enjoy his brief leave.
She hung up the receiver.
‘My friend is out. I’m asked to tea there this afternoon. I’d better fill in the time somehow till then. I could go to the bank, couldn’t I, and see if they can get in touch with my bank.’
‘Better have a cup of coffee with me first,’ said the Lieutenant, and to the policeman he remarked, ‘You can leave it like that, I think, Sergeant. I’ll OK everything.’
‘Very good, sir.’
The mist was lifting, shifting and shredding away as they went through the gates of the dockyard to pavements and wan sunlight.
A Midshipman saluted, a perambulator-faced girl in khaki walked with a swagger and a slight lift back of the shoulders as she noticed the Naval officer.
A couple of trousered girls, whose curls were half hidden by turbans, stared at Miss Ranskill.
She did not notice them. She was conscious of nothing but the noise – rattle of army lorries, cars changing gear, horns tooting, a boy whistling and a couple of men shouting. But as soon as any one noise gained dominance so that it could be recognised, another one broke in. Thud mingled with rattle, squeal with blare. The only familiar sound was the crying of the gulls: all the others were tiring.
A notice informed her–
‘Public Air Raid Shelter 500 yards’, and she turned to her companion.
‘Have there been any air-raids yet?’
He returned a blue-jacket’s salute before answering.
‘Lord, yes! You ought to see some of the places. Still, we’re giving better than we get now.’
Once again his hand went up to the salute.
‘Look here, I’ll try to get a taxi.’
One was approaching but its flag was down.
‘There’s sure to be another in a minute.’
‘But I don’t mind walking at all,’ Miss Ranskill told him.
‘Still, a taxi would get us there quicker. One gets so sick of saluting.’
By this time there was not a uniform in sight, but suddenly a shrill – ‘Coo-er! Look at ’er skirt!’ from a small girl told Miss Ranskill why her companion was so anxious for the privacy of a taxi.
A cluster of children edged closer and closer, nudging each other, whispering and giggling.
The young officer swung round, and advanced two steps towards them.
‘Off with you!’ he said. ‘At the double!’
They scattered and ran, breaking into shrill laughter like a chorus of bad fairies.
‘Mannerless little brutes. Look, if you don’t mind waiting here, I’ll do a gallop for a taxi: there’s a rank round the next corner.’
He sprinted across the road but before he had reached the opposite pavement, the children came darting back. They stared at Miss Ranskill and surrounded her.
Then one with a dirty face but a sweet and kindly expression smiled up at her.
‘Where are you goin’?’
‘I’m going to a shop.’
‘Go on then!’ shrilled the child, and put out a rose-leaf tongue. ‘Go on then! Go on, can’t you?’
A taxi slurred up through the mud, the young Lieutenant jumped from the running-board and opened the door, as the children scattered again.
‘Don’t know what’s the matter with the brats of today. Dad’s away and Mum’s hand is too light, I suppose.’
Miss Ranskill sniffed as she sat down. She had forgotten that the inside of a taxi smells of leather, stale tobacco, oil and metal-polish. For the first time that morning she had found something recognisable. The taxi gave her assurance; she knew how to put her feet and how to rest her arm. She had not, it seemed, forgotten civilisation.
There were a few cakes in the window of the café and many large boxes decorated with pictures of chocolates. Miss Ranskill stared at them while the taxi-man was being paid.
She had never been particularly fond of sweets, but now her sense of taste, that had been first nauseated and then lulled to rest by the taste of fish and almost fishier sea-birds, was stirred by the sight of so many little portraits of chocolates. One with a crinkle of violet on the top almost made her mouth water, though her adult palate had always resented the flavour of scent and cloying cream.
Now Lieutenant Maddock was at her elbow.
‘Let’s go in and find a table, shall we?’
The café was empty except for a few country shoppers who were having early morning coffee.
Her companion led the way to a table in a corner far from the door, ordered coffee, and then produced an envelope from his pocket.
‘Commander Wrekin asked me to give you this. If you’ll excuse me I’ll go and wash my hands. Coffee’s sure to be ages.’
As soon as he had gone, Miss Ranskill glanced at her own hands with their still sore fingers and blunted nails.
She decided it would be pleasant, no, more than that, almost exciting to wash her hands in a ladies’ room, to dab her nose with tinted powder instead of the white talcum that Lieutenant Maddock used after shaving.
A notice at the foot of a staircase showed her the way.
At the turn of the stairs, Miss Ranskill saw herself full length in a looking-glass for the first time since her arrival on the far away island. The small mirror in the destroyer’s cabin had been shadowed in a kindly gloom. There, her coat and skirt, pressed and darned by the ablest of seamen, had looked almost smart in comparison with its island shabbiness, though she had noticed how much he had shortened the skirt in order to cut away rags that had been six inches long in places. She was wearing a Midshipman’s shoes: they were shiny enough but much too big, in spite of the extra pair of socks. His golfing stockings, even though their tops were turned up and showed the wrong side of rather wildly-coloured knitting, did not quite reach the hem of her skirt but showed an inch of bare brown leg and four strips of wide black elastic, each ending in a braces’ tag. This was because the Able Seaman, a resourceful man, had made a suspender belt out of the only material he could find and had sewn trouser buttons to the golf stockings. She remembered being told how lucky she was that Midshipman Sparke’s rather casual selection of a sea-going wardrobe had made the long stockings possible. But now she was not so sure.
Her coat was so shrunken that it did not meet and the soft white shirt (gift of Lieutenant Maddock) looked tactlessly clean and new. Also it bulged.
How had she managed to forget the navy blue mackintosh that he had lent her?
Her face looked old and weather-beaten, the cracked lips showed little ruckings of brown skin. Only the lines, radiating from the corners of her eyes, carried whiteness. The rest of her skin, now that the tan was beginning to wear off, looked dirty. Two tufts of hair rose defiantly from between the folds of a turban she had made from a sailor’s silk.
She turned away from the mirror and slunk up the stairs towards a door marked Ladies’ Toilet.
There were more mirrors above the rows of white wash-basins. From the centre one the exquisitely-coloured face of a girl stared at her. It was a silly little face, pink and white, except for the darkened lashes, surprised blue eyes, and lips that were receiving a fresh coat of crimson. The effect was synthetic, but the expression had an insolence that terrified Miss Ranskill. She was defenceless against that stare and without woman’s weapon. There would be privacy though behind that row of white enamelled doors and she tried the handle of one of them.