54

It was nearly midnight when Patrick MacQueen let himself out of the little gate of the club and stepped onto the deserted street. The night was hot and dry, and he was mildly drunk. The club was still alight as his mother bravely attempted to entertain an American and a British admiral with all of their officers and ladies. The grey-hulled CNS Lady Nelson was berthed at the pier on the other side of the city, and his gear was all stowed in a cabin.

MacQueen was wearing his white mess jacket with a maroon cummerbund and tie. His patent leather shoes were wearing thin, but this would probably be their last trial. He walked past the Catholic convent and the large Roman cathedral. The hill crested at the bookstore where he had seen King Carol, then angled sharply towards the harbour. He passed a bar with swinging doors and a loud jukebox. It was playing “Red Sails in the Sunset”, and some American sailors were singing.

Swift wings you must borrow
Make straight for the shore
We marry tomorrow
And she goes sailing no more…

He stopped to light a cigarette and looked down upon the familiar shape of the Lady Boat that was to take him back to Canada. All of these ships had once been painted a dazzling white, with patriotic red, white, and blue single funnels. Now they were drab grey, and he had heard a rumour that one of them had been sunk.

His farewell to his mother had not been charged with emotion. They had been saying hello and goodbye for all of his life. He left her as he was always inclined to remember her: trying to be gallant while surrounded by portly, beaming gentlemen. Patrick felt that she was probably a little relieved to be rid of this young man and his rites of passage. The navy would be good for him, she had said.

MacQueen angled across the empty street, under the filtered lamps, and walked down the hill. He resisted the temptation to visit the 21 Club and crossed Front Street, towards the floodlit wharf and terminus building. A gangway protruded from the ship’s side, and a small knot of people were gathered there. A large net of cargo was being hoisted by the ship’s crane into the after hold.

On his way from Somerset by train on the previous day, MacQueen had glimpsed his beige and blue cadets running out of the schoolhouse to form up on parade. He remembered each individual boy, and a lump had risen in his throat. When he had announced his departure, Connie had been defensive and had looked at him as though she were being betrayed. That had really been the hardest moment of all.

MacQueen stepped out of the terminus building and noticed two horses standing in the shadows. A man was silently sitting on the box behind them, and Patrick’s heart gave a little leap. He stepped to one side and saw the scarlet dress reflected in the lamplight. He quietly walked over to the carriage. She was nestled in a corner of the back seat, slowly smoking a cigarette.

“I have waited for two hours,” she said in mock irritation.

Patrick MacQueen smiled, and his eyes suddenly fogged with tears. He grimaced, shook his head, then climbed into the seat beside her.

“I thought we had said goodbye,” said Patrick MacQueen.

She purred deeply in her throat. Her perfume was heavy…she might have been a lazy tigress. Her smile mocked him gently. He felt awkward, like Don Quixote going away on a fool’s errand to tilt at windmills. Her lands had been littered with dead young Wandervögel, but there were always more to come. One has to be insane to live in a mad world.

“I just wanted to see the outline of your face again,” she said. “The memory will have to last me a long time.”

They kissed, but only gently.

“Stand here,” she said. “Let me drive off. I don’t want to see you climbing into that ship.”

Patrick MacQueen got out of the carriage and turned to face her. He felt a desperate urge not to let her go. She looked back at him through her dark-lidded eyes. “Drive,” she ordered.

The coachman cracked his whip and the horses started forward. Patrick took a step, then caught himself. The red lights behind the carriage’s lanterns blinked at him, and a square of white circled down from the livery and landed on the stone road. She was gone.

Patrick stifled a sob, wiped an eye with the back of his hand, and picked up the square ivory envelope. It had a large coronet raised in gold on the flap. He checked in at the gangway and boarded the ship.

“You’re almost late, sir,” said the tired purser behind the waxed counter. “Tuck yourself in and secure everything tight—I hear we’re in for a blow.”

Patrick walked down the gently concave corridor and found his cabin. The hatches were being secured on the after hold, and distant footsteps were audible throughout the vessel. Patrick switched the light on to reaccustom himself to the familiar little world of painted portholes, humming ventilators, and inviting, turned-down bunks. He placed the envelope on the glass-covered bureau, glanced at himself in the mirror, then opened a suitcase to get the bottle of rum that his mother had presented to him. He poured some into a glass, topped it with water from a decanter on the wall, and raised it to toast himself in the mirror.

He opened the envelope and spread the large bills in a fan across the glass top. He did not count them, but they would certainly pay for his uniforms. He felt a tremor run through the ship, and some muffled bells rang in the distant engine room.

Patrick slowly unfolded the note.

There are no roses on a sailor’s grave,
No lilies on an ocean wave,
The only tribute is the seagull’s sweeps
And the teardrop that a sweetheart weeps.

—R.