From a man maimed and a man dead and a look in another man’s eyes, his memories of the ship took a sweep over a void and only found lodgement again in the week before she was launched. There were difficulties with the figurehead, which continued almost up to the last minute, due to his father’s wish for changes and his consequent altercations with the carver, Samuel Oates.
Oates was a notable craftsman, famed for his execution of figureheads, quarter figures and all kinds of ornamental scrollwork for the timber heads. He had been a shipwright till a fall from scaffolding had lamed him and sent him back to his boyhood passion for carving wood. With the expansion in shipbuilding he had prospered greatly and now employed two journeymen and several apprentices. These days he did not take kindly to customers who pestered him over details.
Kemp, however, was adamant. He knew the importance of emblems; and he knew what he wanted. For the rudder he wanted the bust of a man in a plumed hat and full wig, to epitomize the newly formed Company of Merchants Trading to Africa, of which he had become a member. For his figurehead he wanted the Duchess of Devonshire as the Spirit of Commerce, flanked by two small lions. He had seen the duchess once and thought her splendid. It was she now who was causing the difficulty. Either Oates had misunderstood his instructions or – as Erasmus suspected – his father had changed opinion, which he more frequently did these days. In any event the carver had fashioned her bareheaded, whereas Kemp had decided that he wanted some regal adornment, something like a diadem or coronet. ‘Not a crown,’ he said. ‘It would not be seemly for her to wear a crown. But if she is to represent the enterprise that creates the nation’s wealth, she must have a coronet at the very least.’
It was here, in Oates’s workshop, that Erasmus came nearest to a sense of wonder at what they were setting in motion, felt something of the spirit that emanated from his father, among these staring effigies in this long gallery of a room, amidst smells of paint and wood shavings, viscid brews of varnish and oil, resinous bubblings from the open jars where Oates distilled his turpentine. A naked, waxy nymph, her lower regions concealed in bright green foliage, a turbaned Turk, two gilt cherubs and a prancing unicorn looked down at them through the vaporous air. Oates stumped among his creatures, limping and irascible. ‘You must understand, Mr Kemp,’ he said, ‘I have other work in hand, I cannot begin her over again and have her ready in time for you.’
The huge, brightly coloured duchess loomed above them, her blue eyes fixed in a wide stare. She was sealed and waxed and shining, ready for all weathers. Her long yellow hair flowed down her back. Her royal blue gown, voluminous at the skirts, left her white shoulders bare, and her great smooth breasts with their brilliant crimson nipples. Her arms were drawn back behind her, disappearing in the folds of her dress, and this gave her a poignant look, like a captive giant pinioned for sport or sacrifice.
Kemp turned passionate eyes on Erasmus. ‘By God,’ he said, ‘she makes a fine figure. But I must have a coronet for her.’
‘I can fashion you a gilt coronet in best elm,’ Oates said, with a sort of irritable resignation, ‘I can set it on her brows and fix it into quarter-inch panels round the head and glue it in place – I make a glue here that will stick you till the last trump, Mr Kemp. It will be a separate piece but there is no stress on it to speak of.’
This was the solution finally agreed on; but because of the delay the installation of the duchess had to be done almost at the last, the shipyard carpenters hoisting her into place and setting her on the prow amidst other last-minute tasks, finishing the hatches, mounting the swivel guns on the bulkheads of the quarterdeck, coating the ship’s bottom with the mixture against ship-worm newly recommended by John Lee, the master-caulker of the Royal Dockyard at Plymouth, composed of tar and pitch and brimstone.
The launching itself was a quiet affair. It had come to Kemp that he would be tempting fate to make a show. In the event there was just father and son and a few bystanders and the people of the shipyard to see her into the water. Kemp had champagne served at the dockside and he made a short speech, thanking the men who had worked on her. They cheered him with full throat; he had always been popular with them and it was known that he had dealt generously with the widow of the man who had been killed and the family of the disabled survivor.
There was the customary silence as the last of the scaffolding was removed, the shores knocked away and the ship eased up from her blocks. She seemed at first undecided whether to settle again, then she moved massively forward down the greased slipway, the timbers that cradled her keel moving with her. For those few moments she glided resplendent, all below the water-line new-painted white, her clean plank above shining with resin, her mainwales and the lettering of her name picked out in dapper black; but she lost this gliding grace when she touched the element she was made for, ducking her rear into the dark water, wallowing there while the timbers of her cradle, freed at last, floated up alongside.
The last Kemp saw of his ship was the duchess yearning away from him, as the Liverpool Merchant was towed out stern-first into midstream, where her masts would be fitted. It is true that on the eve of her sailing he would stand at the dockside, peer across the misty water, see, or have the illusion of seeing, the masts and spars of his ship where she lay anchored out in the Pool; but this was any ship now, a shape become generic, universal. His last real sight of her had been that swanning glide, that brief, ungainly wallowing, that yearning retreat of the figurehead. It was the last of her he would ever see.