EPILOGUE

THE TAXI DROVE up to the quay and the taxi driver got out. Then Colin and Malcolm got out. A drunk was wandering about the quay singing and waving a bottle in his right hand, spittle at his mouth. The ship itself loomed up white against the stone, some officers in white on the deck looking like waiters. The gangway was already laid down. The taxi driver led Colin to the back and Colin took the green case out of the boot. He humped it on his back and without saying anything carried it down the gangway, pretending that it wasn’t heavy. Like a servant. Malcolm watched him out of a deep desolation. That moment was one of his worst, if not the worst. The taxi driver had taken out a cigarette and gone away by himself to smoke it.

Malcolm looked into the taxi where his mother was sitting very black and very frail with a sparse fur at her neck. He said, “Well then.” She said: “Make sure that you write. And take aspirins if you catch a cold. And ask the landlady for a hot water bottle.” He leaned down briefly and touched her dry lips with his. She almost cried but didn’t. He turned away and met Colin coming back up. They shook hands like adults, Colin grinning and squeezing Malcolm’s hand as if to show his strength.

Malcolm walked down the gangway and turned back once to wave. Colin had got into the taxi, into the front seat this time, and the driver was already stubbing his cigarette, stamping it carefully with his boot. Malcolm stood looking down at the green case and then turned again as the taxi accelerated and drove off, his mother waving frantically through the back window. He waved back once and then picked up his case. He descended the stairs with it, making his way to the berth which had been reserved for him, kicking aside one or two beer bottles which were lying at the foot of the stair. He wondered if James was on the boat as well and felt again the same anger and contempt. To think that James should have won the Bursary after all and he himself get nothing. Sheila’s parents hadn’t liked it. No doubt about it: their attitude had changed and so had Sheila’s. It had been in the paper too and no way of hiding it. He made his way along the lit corridors white as milk, passing a steward on the way. It was like being in an underground prison, cell after cell on each side. He consulted the numbers on the doors and finally opened one of them. He switched on the light and saw the shining wooden dressing table with the mirror, the bed with the one grey blanket and the white sheets folded below it, the single chair at the side of the bed.

He went out to look for a lavatory and found it not far down the corridor. It was white and tiled like a palace, with lots of mirrors and liquid soap in a silver container that you tilted over into the water. He washed his hands and his face in the blazing bare light, in the marble whiteness, and dried himself with a roller towel.

Then he went back to his room, took his pyjamas out of the case, and laid them on the bed. He removed his jacket, tie, collar and trousers and shirt and laid them on the back of the chair. He put on his pyjamas and got into the bed, which was rather chilly with only the one blanket. Below him he could hear the thud of the engine.

He switched off the light and lay there in the darkness alone for the first time in his life. Absolutely alone. From now on he was on his own. He crawled down the bed and drew aside the curtains on the porthole. Looking out he could see the water lapping against the side of the ship. It was oily and greasy and dirty, shore water. Drifting ahead of him he could see an almost swamped wooden box. So far the ship hadn’t moved and he wanted her to move so that he could get out of there.

Somewhere above he thought Ronny and Janet might be moving but he wasn’t sure if they would be leaving for a day or two. Ronny might not be going to the university anyway. And he himself was going to do maths. He might also study philosophy. He pulled the bedclothes up towards his chin, thinking that he felt a slight change in the hammering resonance of the engine. He moved over to the porthole again and pulled the curtains aside. Sure enough the ship was moving. He could see white waves thudding against the side of the ship and then thin green threads through the spray. But he could see nothing else except the sea high against the side of the ship which moved on absolutely majestically. He lay back on his bed again. At last he was alone. Free of everything, everyone. Ready to begin. He lay in the darkness deep in the bowels of the ship, feeling the waves thudding against the sides, imagining the bows cutting into the green water, hearing also as he dropped into sleep, high above him as if in another world, the gay laughter of the passengers from the disordered saloon, and then high above the again a piper playing “The Barren Rocks of Aden.”