Sheltering Rain

  Stella became bored, and restless, so that sometimes Joy actually preferred it when she disappeared. But it all suited Joy, who having found the narrow parameters of ship life a little too close to those she had left in Hong Kong, found she could indulge her antisocial nature without remark. She liked to retire alone to the cabin when she knew the others would all be out, and gaze at what she privately thought of as her Edwardian treasures: his letters, which were fast becoming grubby and fragile from overhandling, her framed wedding photograph of them both, and the little Chinese painting, a blue horse on rice paper, that Edward had bought her on their first day of married life, strolling through Hong Kong.

  He had roused her early, and she had opened her eyes wide, briefly uncomprehending in her half-slumber how she could have ended up in the same bed as this man. When she remembered, she had reached for him, linking her arms languorously around his freckled neck, squinting against the light. He had pulled her closer, murmuring softly. She could hear nothing but the whispered rustling of the sheets.

  Afterward, as the sweat cooled on her exposed skin, he had pushed himself up on one elbow and kissed her lightly on the nose. "Let's get up," he whispered. "I want us to have our first morning by ourselves, before the others get up. Let's disappear." Joy had fought a vague feeling of disappointment that he didn't want to stay in their honeymoon bed, and wrap his warm limbs around hers. But, anxious to please, she had raised herself, and climbed into the raw silk dress and short jacket that her mother had had made for her "going away" outfit. They had ordered tea from room service, and drunk it swiftly, gazing shyly at each other across the breakfast table, and then had emerged, blinking, onto the rude, honking streets of the capital, their senses assaulted by the battery of sights, sounds, and less-than-fragrant smells that constituted Kowloon in the early morning. Joy had stared at it all with the stunned incomprehension of a newborn, wondering at how different the world could look in twenty-four hours.

  "We'll get the Star Ferry," Edward said, clutching her hand and pulling her toward the terminal. "I want to take you to Cat Street."

  Joy had never been to Cat Street market. Her mother, had she dared to suggest it, would have paled, pointing out its history as a haven for criminals and prostitutes (except her mother would have called them "loose women") and remarking on the fact that no one of any class ever went there. It was also, based in the Western end of the island, in an area Alice would have described, somewhat perversely, as "too Chinese." But as they sat on the wooden seats of the ferry, cocooned in newly married bliss and oblivious to the chattering voices around them, Edward told her that since the 1949 revolution in China, the area had apparently been flooded with family possessions, many of which were valuable antiques. "I want to buy you something," he said, tracing her palm with his finger. "So you've got something to remember me by until we see each other again. Something special to you and me." He had called her Mrs. Ballantyne then, and Joy had flushed with pleasure. Every time he reminded her of her wifely status, she couldn't help but think of the marital intimacies of the night before.

  It was shortly after seven in the morning by the time they arrived, but Cat Street market was already teeming with life; traders cross-legged behind flat cloths, upon which sat old watches, or intricately carved jade on red thread, old men seated on benches next to small fluttering birds in their cages. Ornate gilded trunks. Enameled furniture. All overlaid by the sweet, fried smell of turnip paste, cooked by hawkers who catcalled and shrieked, speaking so fast that even Joy, who knew far too much Cantonese for her parents' comfort, could not hope to understand.

  It had felt like the Wild West. But Joy, observing Edward's enthusiasm, had fought the urge to cling to him. He didn't want a clinging wife, he had told her as much the evening before. He liked her strength, her independence. The fact that she didn't "flap and flutter" like the other officers' wives he knew. He had known only one other woman like her, he said quietly, as they had lain, entwined, in the dark. He had loved her, too. But she had died during the war, killed by a bomb in Plymouth, where she had been visiting her sister. Joy had felt her heart clench when he mentioned the word love, despite knowing that this woman could no longer be a threat in the conventional sense. And with that sudden emotion had come the terrifying realization that from now on her happiness was a captive thing, hostage to his unthinking words, almost entirely dependent on the kindness of another.

  "Look," he said, pointing at an overcrowded stall. "That's it. What do you think?"

  Joy had turned to follow his finger, and seen a small picture, framed in bamboo, propped up against an ornate iron pot. In loose brushstrokes of ink on white paper, it showed a blue horse, twisted as if in the act of breaking free, and yet surrounded by dark lines that suggested some kind of border.

  "Do you like it?" he said. His eyes were shining, childlike.

  Joy stared at the picture. She didn't, really. Or at least she wouldn't have noticed it, if just she had been looking. But his expression prompted her to try to look at it through his eyes.

  "I love it," she said. Her husband. Wanted to buy it. For her, his wife.

  "I really love it."

  "How much?" he said, motioning to the stallholder, who had been eyeing them, taking in the good clothes, the naval whites. From behind his long, stringy mustache, he shrugged, as if he couldn't understand.

  Joy paused, and glanced at Edward.

  "Geido tsin ah?" she asked.

  The stallholder looked at her, and then shrugged again. Joy stared at him, knowing he understood her.

  "Mgoi, lei, Sinsaahn," she said, more sweetly. "Geido tsin ah?"

  The man removed the clay pipe from his lips, as if considering something. Then he named a figure. An exorbitant figure.

  Joy looked at him incredulously.

  "Pengh di la!" she exclaimed, asking him to think again. But the man shook his head.

  She turned to Edward, trying to keep the fury from her voice.

  "He's being ridiculous," she said, quietly. "He's asking for ten times what it's worth, just because you're wearing your uniform. Let's move on." Edward gazed at Joy, and then at the stallholder.

  "No," he said. "Just tell me how much. I don't care what it costs today. You're my wife. I want to buy you a present. This present."

  Joy squeezed his hand.

  "That's lovely," she said. "But I can't take it. Not at that price."

  "Why?"

  Joy gazed at him, wondering how to say what she meant. It would ruin it for me, she said silently, because when I looked at it I wouldn't see your love for me, I would see your being conned by an unscrupulous man. And that's not how I want to think of you.

  "Look," she murmured into his ear. The smell of him distracted her, making her wish suddenly that they were not in this market at all, but back in their hotel room. "Let's just pretend to walk on. It'll frighten him into thinking he's losing the sale. Then he'll probably offer something reasonable."

  But the man just stood and watched as they walked away, so that Edward became increasingly agitated. There was nothing else he liked, he said, as they browsed stall after stall. The picture was perfect. He wanted to buy the picture.

  "Let's go into the temple," said Joy, in an attempt to distract him, gesturing at the vibrant red and gold of the Man Mo temple on the corner of Hollywood Road, where incense smoke seethed out, as if only reluctantly offering itself to the gods on its appellants' behalf. But he said distractedly that she should go in alone. He was going to go for a little walk. He shifted a little on his feet, suggesting some bladder discomfort.

  Joy turned away from him, feeling wretched, as if she had in some way disappointed him. The morning wasn't turning out how she'd intended.

  In the dark confines of the temple, she half wished she'd changed her mind. The group of Chinese people lighting their offerings in the back turned silently to look at her, the gweilo invading their sacred space. Not wishing to offend, Joy muttered a greeting in Cantonese, and this seemed to
appease them a little, so that they turned away, at least. Joy stared up at the ceiling, from which immense incense spirals dangled, slow burning, and wondered how soon again she could walk out. How soon she could persuade Edward to climb back aboard the Star Ferry so that she could make the most of the last few hours they had to spend together.

  Then Edward appeared by her side, beaming.

  "I got it," he said.

  "Got what?" she asked. But she knew.

  "I got it. At a good price." He held out the little painting with both hands, as if making his own offering. "The man dropped his price when you'd gone. Must have not wanted to lose face in front of a lady, eh? I know all this 'face' stuff is very important out here."

  Joy gazed at the proud, smiling face of her new husband, and at the little horse on rice paper he held before him. There was a brief pause.

  Then: "Aren't you clever," she said, kissing him. "I absolutely love it."

  He was so pleased as they walked out, there was really no point her mentioning the fact that she had never actually told him the price to begin with.

  Joy, wiggling her toes at the door, stared at the blue horse. Then at her wedding photograph. Then debated whether to treat herself with one of his letters. She was having to ration herself now, conscious that they were beginning to fall apart, but sometimes it was so hard to conjure him up without them. She could get bits of him: the tenor of his voice when he laughed, his broad hands, the way his legs looked in his whites; but it was increasingly difficult to picture him as a whole. The last few weeks before they had boarded the ship she had felt quite panicked, because she had barely been able to do it at all. One week and four days, she told herself, now such an expert at such mental arithmetic that the dates came as naturally to her as her own birthday. Then I will see him again.

  "Are you nervous?" Stella had said to her the previous week, as they had discussed what they would wear for the day they actually met their husbands. "I know I will be. Sometimes I wonder if I'll actually recognize him." Stella hadn't seen Dick for almost three months, an absence much shorter than Joy's from Edward.

  But Joy wasn't nervous. She just wanted to see him, wanted to feel the solidity of his embrace, to see his face shine, like the sun, down upon her. When she had told the other wives this, during a hairstyling session, Stella had made a fake gagging motion, which Joy had found hurtful, even if she understood why Stella was doing it, and the other wives had exchanged knowing looks. Like her mother's, all those months ago, they suggested that she was still an innocent, a naif, with a lot to learn about men and married life. Only Mrs. Fairweather had smiled, and nodded as if she understood, but then her husband had never been in the services, and appeared to be joined to her at her well-padded hip. Joy had not said anything public about Edward after that; she had simply kept him to herself, as if guarding some precious secret.

  One letter, she told herself, unfolding the most recent, like someone unwrapping a particularly succulent chocolate. One letter a day until I see him again. And then I will pack them away for safekeeping so that I can look at them again when I am an old, old woman, and remember how it was to be separated from the man I love.

  The atmosphere subtly altered as they approached the Suez Canal, the faint buzz of potential conflict rousing the passengers from their dreamlike state. The words Suez and government began to be bandied about at suppers, and the men, conversing in huddles, would look terribly serious, so that Joy, who had no idea what its significance might be, suddenly found herself feeling almost anxious and rather glad of the presence of servicemen. The Brits, according to the First Officer, still occupied the African side of the canal. "But I wouldn't go too near the sides of the decks while we're inside it," he advised, gravely. "You can't trust those Arabs. We've had reports of them galloping up and down the shoreline bearing arms. And it's not unknown for them to use foreign ships for a bit of target practice." All the women had gasped at this, and clutched their necks theatrically, while the men nodded sagely, muttered about the Aswan Dam, and acted as though the women were flapping. Joy hadn't gasped; she found herself electrified. And despite the dire warnings, she found herself unable to sit inside for the entire time that the S.S. Destiny passed through the canal, but often sat alone, outside, her head camouflaged by her sun hat, smiling blandly at passing officers' warnings and secretly hoping to see some turbaned assassin on a camel. She knew the officers thought she was a little wild, that the Hindu deck crew were talking about her, but she didn't care. How often was she going to get the chance to take part in a real adventure?

  The canal itself turned out to be not the war-torn, concrete-lined canal she had imagined, but a mercurial silver strip of water lined by sand dunes, and punctuated by a near-silent stately procession of ships, gliding along as if strung together. It was hard to believe, in this silent, orderly line, that there could be anything to fear. The only real frisson she felt was that night, when the Captain ordered the lights to be turned out, and they had all sat, temporarily hushed in the darkened dining room, but even then she had found herself perversely grateful for the feeling that something, other than bridge or deck tennis, was actually happening.

  It was as the ship headed toward Egypt that the First Officer told them about the fancy dress party. It would be held on the night before they docked at Tilbury, a fitting climax to the voyage, and the Captain had wanted to give them all enough time to prepare their costumes. Joy thought privately that he had probably wanted to distract them all from the journey through Egypt, but she said nothing, as everybody suddenly got very excited, as if mentioning the final night had somehow brought it closer, and they began planning their outfits.

  "I want to go as Carmen Miranda. But I don't suppose they'll be able to get me the fruit," said Stella, as they walked back from the dining rooms. Pieter had not appeared at dinner that evening, which had put her in a foul temper, so Joy didn't say what she thought: that Carmen Miranda's outfit might be just a little revealing for a married woman to wear without comment.

  "Or I could go as Marilyn Monroe in How to Marry a Millionaire. If I could get some new trimming for my pink dress." She paused, gazing at herself in the reflection of a window. "Do you think it would be worth having my hair tinted a few shades lighter? I've been thinking about it for ages."

  "What would Dick think?" said Joy, aware as soon as she said it that it was the wrong thing to ask.

  "Oh, Dick will take me as he finds me," Stella said dismissively. "He's lucky to have me, after all."

  Pieter has said that to her, thought Joy, uncomfortably. It was not something the old Stella would have said. But then it was difficult to know what this new Stella was ever going to say--or, indeed, what it was safe to say to her. From years of feeling able to entrust her with her most painful confidences, Joy now found talking to Stella a little too close to walking on shifting sands. One had to tread carefully, and even then never knew whether one was going to trip and fall.

  "Well, if you think Dick would like it . . . I'm sure it would look terribly pretty. But don't you want to look exactly the same as when you left him? So he doesn't feel . . . well, uncomfortable?"

  "Oh, Dick, Dick, Dick," said Stella crossly. "Honestly, Joy, you do go on. I told you, Dick would be glad to see me if I turned up looking like an oriental. So why don't you stop harping? It's only a fancy dress, after all."

  Stung, Joy said nothing for the rest of their walk to the cabin. At which point, predictably, Stella said she couldn't face listening to those snoring kids and was going for a walk around the decks. By herself.

  Her mood had recovered the next morning, and the following few days she became a little more like the old Stella, engrossed as she was in trying to find the right materials to create her outfit. When they got to Port Said, a couple of traders were allowed to come aboard, with trinkets and beads in huge wooden baskets, so that even those women, like Mrs. Fairweather, who would normally have dismissed the Egyptians as beneath their consideration, found themselve
s fussing and fighting over trimmings and feathers in a manner that was, according to Georgina Lipscombe, frankly undignified.

  Joy tried to engage herself in thoughts of costumes and disguise, but as they finally entered the milder waters of the Mediterranean, all she could think of was the fact that within days now, not weeks, she would see Edward again. Sometimes she fancied she could even feel his increasing proximity as a physical presence. Although no doubt Stella would have made gagging motion at that, too.

  The night of the party, they were to cross the last lengthy stretch of water and finally enter the English Channel. The Bay of Biscay, the old traveling hands warned, was renowned for its choppy waters so the girls "should keep ahold of their glasses." "And if they can't keep ahold of their glasses, they can keep a hold of me," Pieter had said, too loudly, so that the women nearest him discreetly shrank away, their smiles calcifying on their faces. But the prospect of the party, or its proximity to home, had gradually infected everyone so that on the last evening, even as the decks became cold and wet with Atlantic spray, whoops of misbehavior could be heard as various exotically costumed passengers ran from one cabin to another.

  Mr. and Mrs. Fairweather had dressed as an Indian raja and his wife, wearing genuine costumes that they had acquired during a short and, according to Mrs. Fairweather, rather testing posting to Delhi, and that they appeared to carry with them on sea journeys in case of such events. Mrs. Fairweather had painted her face and arms with cold tea to get just the right shade for an Indian, she assured everyone authoritatively, tugging at her exotic fabrics to disguise the flashing revelation of pale flesh around her middle. Stella, having given up on Marilyn after being told what ship's bleach would do to her hair, had now metamorphosed into Rita Hayworth in Salome, sporting an outfit that appeared to have at least two of its seven veils missing. She was slightly peeved to find herself if not outshone then at least equaled by Georgina Lipscombe, who had persuaded one of the naval officers to lend her his whites, and looked rather astoundingly glamorous with her dark hair swept up under its peaked cap. Joy had left it all too late, and subsequently been rather uninspired, so Stella had made her a foil crown and told her to go as the Queen. "We can trim my purple robe with cotton wool to look like ermine. And she doesn't wear a lot of makeup, so you'll be quite comfortable," she said. Despite her passion of less than a year earlier, Stella was no longer interested in Elizabeth. After a brief spell of Margaret ("much better dress sense"), she had now moved on to Hollywood.