CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Deciding Factor

The wonders of the warship were many and varied. Lindsay had taken several tours of such vessels with her father and her admiration for the mechanical marvels of the big boats had not lessened even when she learned more about their construction. Of the prototype submarine in the slip at Aydon Road she knew little or nothing, however, for the secrets of the navy’s latest ‘box of tricks’ were jealously guarded.

Franklin’s workers refused to talk about it even in bars crowded with men to whom the latest commission at Stephens or Fairfields or Connells held more than passing interest, for they were proud that they had been chosen to participate in forefront development and enjoyed taunting their rivals by singing dumb about what lay behind the specially rigged sail sheets that hid the Aydon Road vessel from prying eyes.

By the first day of May the steel shell was packed with a mass of pipes, cables, tanks and gauges so complex that even Tom Calder, armed with the plans, had a problem relating one part to another. Tours of the prototype were not only forbidden but were well-nigh impossible and neither Tom nor her father would have dared to invite Lindsay to go below. Lieutenant Commander Paget, however, had more authority, and late one May afternoon he collected Lindsay from Brunswick Crescent in a motorised taxi-cab and drove off with her into the softly falling rain. Peering from the front windows of the house, Winn and Blossom were outraged. As soon as the motor vehicle passed out of sight behind the trees, they loped into the piano parlour where Eleanor Runciman was seated by the fireplace casually embroidering a pillow slip.

‘He’s taken her with him.’

‘In a hired motoring car.’

‘Hmm,’ Eleanor purred.

‘Where have they gone?’

‘What’s he going to do to her?’

‘Will they be back before Forbes comes home?’

‘Why won’t you tell us? Is it – bad?’

Eleanor glanced up from her needle which, in fact, was only a prop in her performance and had added hardly more than four stitches to the design.

‘Secret,’ she said. ‘State secret,’ and tapped the side of her nose with her forefinger. ‘I am sworn to tell no one.’

‘Not even us?’ said Blossom.

‘Not even you, my dear,’ said Eleanor, and returned to the work in hand.

*   *   *

In the taxi-cab Geoffrey took off his cap before he kissed her. He did not care that they were in plain sight of the driver and, for once, did not dictate to himself a castigatory memo. He acted on an impulse that had been nurtured throughout a fortnight’s sojourn in Rosyth and a week of tedious meetings in London.

During this time he had thought of Lindsay constantly, even while seated at table with Jackie Fisher and Sir Edward Moncur, chairman of the Navy Estimates Board, gentlemen upon whose good opinion his future depended. Lindsay had accompanied him along the marble corridors of Admiralty House, had been with him in his room in his club, on his strolls across St James’s Park; on the night train, at the breakfast bar at Waverley railway station, on the quays and docksides of Rosyth; had been with him while he shaved in the morning and when he bathed before dinner, even when he addressed the crew who would take over the D-Class prototype and the storemen who would stock her for her sea trials.

He could hardly believe that she was with him now in body as well as spirit and experienced immense relief when she returned his kiss, rubbed it lightly upon his upper lip. She tasted of lemon, he thought, like a fragrant Italian gin. She put her hand down by her side and clasped his fingers.

‘I missed you,’ she said.

He knew he would have to go soon, would have to leave her, not just for a week or two but for months, perhaps years; yet he felt steady, oddly steady, just having her hand to hold.

‘And I you,’ he said.

‘How long do we have?’ Lindsay asked.

‘An hour is all I can spare, I’m sorry.’

‘No. I mean, how long…’

‘A week or so, that’s all.’

‘But you will be back, won’t you?’

‘For the launch and then the trials, yes,’ Geoffrey said.

He had told himself that he only wished to be her friend, to strike up a friendship that was as close to platonic as possible, but he knew now that he had been deceiving himself all along and that if she had not been another man’s wife he would have found a means of possessing her completely. He had never been an opportunist, though, and reluctantly he drew away.

Lindsay said, ‘Will you write to me, Geoffrey?’

‘Is that wise?’

‘Perhaps it’s better to be just a little unwise than totally foolish.’

He nodded: ‘Yes, I’ll write.’

Outlined against the window’s smudges of spring rain, Geoffrey’s features were almost too clean cut, too regular. She saw control there, tautness, the angular discipline of the jawline. She knew so little about him: of his wishes and desires she had no knowledge at all. There would be so much to discover in the months of separation. Next time they met, whenever that might be, there would surely be unity, a kind of harmony, for although they had loved without loving and had nothing but tender memories to share, next time they would not be strangers to the notion of being in love.

The taxi-cab prowled among the tenements that guarded Aydon Road and, forty minutes before shift-change, drew to a halt in front of the office block. Lieutenant Commander Paget gave Mrs Lindsay McCulloch his hand.

But only to help her alight.

*   *   *

Gowry said, ‘Look, I really don’t have much time. I have to pick up his lordship at half past five o’clock.’

‘Kind of you to spare us any time at all,’ said Bertie sarcastically. ‘Does he know you’re meeting me?’

‘Sure and he does. He sent me,’ Gowry said.

‘Why didn’t he come himself?’

‘In case you brought Sylvie with you.’

‘So he really doesn’t want to see Sylvie ever again?’

‘That is about the size of it,’ Gowry said. ‘Talking of size, how is she?’

‘Showing.’

‘Have you called in a doctor?’

‘She won’t have it. It’s her child, she says, and she’ll not have anyone fiddling with it.’

‘That isn’t right,’ Gowry said.

‘I know it isn’t,’ Albert said. ‘If only Forbes would come to the house and talk to her, I’m sure she’d listen to him.’

‘Perhaps she’ll listen to me.’

‘Only Forbes. She’s never listened to anyone but Forbes.’

‘What are they saying about her down at the Mission Hall?’

‘She’s stopped going. In fact, she’s stopped going out altogether.’

‘That isn’t right either.’

‘What am I supposed to do about it?’ Albert said testily. ‘I didn’t knock her up. I haven’t left her in the lurch.’

‘Not exactly in the lurch,’ Gowry said. ‘There will be some sort of financial arrangement. Something to keep you going.’

‘Did he tell you to say that?’

‘He’s not that callous, Bertie,’ Gowry said. ‘He’ll pay rent on the apartment for two years, then, if Sylvie hasn’t found a husband by that time, the arrangement will be reviewed.’

‘That’s fine as far as it goes,’ Albert said. ‘But what are we supposed to live on in the meantime? I’m not fit to work and I’m damned if I’m going back to begging on the streets.’

‘You were never a beggar,’ Gowry said.

‘As close as you care to imagine. I couldn’t have done it without Sylvie and I’m not dragging her back to that existence, not now she’s almost a mother.’

‘Fifty shillings a week.’

‘Insufficient.’

‘Sixty, that’s as far as Forbes’ll go.’

‘Three quid a week’ – Albert pulled a face – ‘won’t go far enough.’

‘Three quid a week and a roof over your head,’ Gowry said. ‘Good God, man, thousands of Clydesiders would jump at an offer like that.’

‘I’ll have to let the servants go.’

‘Aww!’ said Gowry.

‘Make it a fiver?’

‘No.’

Albert shifted his buttocks on the massive arm of the lock-gate.

Gowry and he had arranged to meet on the towpath of the canal at the bottom end of Wordsworth Street. At that hour of the afternoon the path was almost deserted and there was little enough traffic on the canal these days, only an occasional horse-drawn barge or a puffer nosing across country. Albert wore a flannel donkey jacket and a knitted cardigan over a collarless shirt. He hadn’t shaved and the stubble on his jowls was frost white. He looked shabby, Gowry thought, like a man on the road to becoming a liability.

Albert said, ‘Forbes isn’t the only fish in the sea, you know.’

‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

‘She’s not entirely dependent on him.’

‘Who is she dependent on then?’ said Gowry. ‘You?’

‘She still has a papa,’ Bertie said. ‘He might be very interested in what’s befell his daughter. I’m sure he’d be willing to shoulder some of the burden if only he knew what sort of plight she was in.’

Gowry swore and got to his feet.

The surface of the canal was smoored with rain, hardly rain at all, really, just a pinkish sort of haze that held the city’s smoke within it, along with tints of early summer. The nap of Gowry’s tunic was pearled with moisture and a little bead or two gathered on the brim of his hat, like sweat.

For a moment there was no sound but the splash of water in the sluice of the lock and the distant clanking of tram-cars from the direction of Maryhill depot. Then Albert said, ‘I mean, your brother’s not the only rich man of my acquaintance, not the only one who’s feathered his nest through marriage.’

Gowry swore again, walked four or five paces along the towpath and returned. He put his hands on his hips. He said stiffly, ‘I take it you’re referring to Tom Calder? Has she been in touch with Calder?’

‘She wants nothing to do with him.’

‘What makes you think Sylvie will agree to taking money from him?’

‘She doesn’t have to agree.’ Albert put his arms behind him and leaned back a little. ‘In fact, if I play it right Sylvie needn’t know anything about it. Like – what – an anonymous benefactor?’

‘Calder won’t fall for that. He’ll want to see her.’

‘Oh, that can be arranged too, I’m sure.’

Gowry dug his hands into his trouser pockets and had another little stroll to himself. He turned, walked, returned, said, ‘It’s a good one, Bertie, that I will admit. Play Calder against Forbes. Blackmail them both.’

‘I thought you’d like it,’ Albert said.

‘I don’t suppose it matters that you might ruin two marriages or, at best, bring a whole lot of misery to two ladies who’ve done nothing to harm you.’

‘I have Sylvie to think of,’ Albert stated.

‘Calder will pay up,’ Gowry said, ‘but Forbes might not.’

‘Forbes might not? Really? Forbes might not? Oh, how I’d like to be a fly on the wall when Tom Calder and your precious brother come face to face. Do you suppose for one minute that Calder will let Forbes keep his mucky little secret intact? He’ll pay, of course he will – Tom Calder, I mean – but he’ll make damned sure that Forbes pays too.’

‘Aren’t you forgetting one thing?’ Gowry said.

‘What’s that then?’

‘The baby.’

‘Baby?’

‘Sylvie’s baby,’ Gowry said. ‘In four months or so there’s going to be a real live baby squawking in your ear.’

‘I’m not scared of babies. I learned a lot about babies from my dear departed wife, though we never had none of our own. I raised Sylvie, didn’t I?’

‘Sure and look at the hash you made of that.’ Gowry clamped a hand to Albert Hartnell’s shoulder. The wall of the lock loomed behind him, dark brown water swirling below. ‘Still, it’s not for me to judge, is it? Poor cow never had much of a chance, however you look at it. She isn’t quite right in the head, Bertie, I suppose you’ve realised that?’

‘She’s just – just her own person.’

‘She’s got a little screw loose, Bertie. She needs a lot of care and attention.’

‘He promised he’d look after us.’

‘He will. He will,’ Gowry said. ‘But he won’t be blackmailed into marrying her, if that’s what’s on your mind. Take it from me: I know my brother, he’s capable of anything when he’s crossed.’

‘I was under the impression he cared for her.’

‘I think he does, or at least he did,’ Gowry said. ‘It could have gone happily on for years and years if only she’d had the savvy to let well alone. She tried to trap him, Bertie. She tried to trap him with the oldest trick in the book and I’m not entirely sure that you didn’t put her up to it.’

‘Now, now, now, no need for that.’

‘All right. I’ll give you the benefit. None the less,’ Gowry said, ‘I’d advise you not to tamper with the Franklins.’

‘Your brother ain’t a Franklin, nor is Tom Calder.’

‘Not to tamper with that family in any shape or form,’ Gowry said. ‘My brother will do what’s right by her.’

‘Like marry her?’

‘Rot! That’s rot – and you know it. Sylvie might have feathers for brains, Bertie, but you certainly haven’t. Marriage was never on. Never. He’ll see her right as far as money goes, but don’t expect any more from Forbes than he’s prepared to give. And don’t – you hear me? – don’t drag Calder or anyone else from the family into this mess.’

‘I thought you liked my plan.’

‘Maybe I do, maybe I don’t,’ Gowry said. ‘But I’ve been around long enough to realise that the best-laid schemes have a way of going wrong, especially if you’re dealing with my brother.’

‘Is that a threat?’

‘No, it’s a warning, Bertie. And you would do well to heed it.’

Albert grunted and, getting to his feet, stepped away from the arm of the lock-gate. He had no qualms about Gowry McCulloch. But behind Gowry stood the Dubliner, the smooth-tongued snake who – as he, Albert, saw it – had corrupted them all. He hated those smart young men who claimed the world for themselves. He hated them with a smouldering hatred fired more by jealousy than justice, a weak-kneed, impotent sort of hatred that crushed him and kept him in his place.

‘Sixty shillings a week,’ Gowry said.

‘Rent paid?’

‘Rent paid,’ Gowry said. ‘And get her to a doctor or, if she really won’t wear that, fetch in a midwife to give her the onceover. If there’s one thing I don’t want, it’s for Sylvie to lose this child.’

Surprised, Albert said, ‘The child? What do you care about the child?’

Gowry grinned. ‘Spare a minute to think about it, Bertie.’

After a pause, Albert said, ‘Don’t tell me you’re setting up the kiddie as protection against your brother?’

‘Got it in one, Bert,’ Gowry said, and, still grinning, went off towards the bottom end of Wordsworth Street where he had parked the motor-car.

*   *   *

Lindsay’s tour of the submarine both excited and depressed her. A team from Vickers-Martin were fitting a wicked-looking machine-gun on the bow quarter, for on submarines, so Geoffrey informed her, the weapons, along with everything else, were installed before launching. The Vickers’ crew was being assisted by several of Franklin’s metal workers supervised by George Crush. Geoffrey had instructed her to wear a tight-fitting skirt, shoes with low heels and to put her hair up into a knot and cover it with a scarf and as she was helped up the scaffolding and led to the conning tower Lindsay was conscious of the men’s eyes upon her. She did not know what awaited her within the fish-shaped hull or if she would be alone down there with Geoffrey and, if so, what speculations that would give rise to and what sort of twisted story might wend back to Forbes before the day was done.

She should have known better. The claustrophobic chambers at the foot of the iron ladder were crowded. There were men everywhere: men kneeling, men lying on their backs, men in overalls, men stripped almost naked. In the operating-room steering cables were being adjusted and it was all Geoffrey could do to find sufficient room to point out the gauges and explain their functions. The engines too were all in place and Lindsay inhaled the odours of oil and sweat mingled with a throat-catching whiff of chlorine from the accumulators. A submarine was no place for a woman, she realised. The word that sprang into her mind was ‘foetal’ as she inched after Geoffrey along the plating to inspect the tiny saloon where the sailors would sleep during off-watches. Franklin’s joiners were busy assembling bunks. The rapping of hammers seemed to vibrate throughout the vessel and Lindsay was soon headachy and rather breathless. She was proud of the Franklin’s workforce, however, for it was plain that it was not just the prospect of wages that kept them hard at it but the satisfaction of creating something intricate and complex by the exercise of their skills.

She was relieved when, after twenty minutes below, Geoffrey guided her up out of the glare of the electric lanterns and into hazy sunlight. She shook her head to clear it and looked at the greeny-brown coil of the Clyde and thought of the open sea and the depths to which that skinny fish-shaped shell would descend, carrying with it all the ingenuity of which men were capable, backed by human lives.

‘Do you ever think what might happen if a piece of equipment fails?’

‘Too much to do making sure that it doesn’t,’ Geoffrey said.

‘How many in the crew?’

‘In this craft, two officers and twenty men. That’s a hefty complement for a submarine but we need a large crew to operate such a powerful vessel.’ Reading her concern, he said, ‘Cruising underwater isn’t as bad as you might imagine, not nearly as bad as chasing through a rough sea in a rocky old destroyer.’

‘Will you be on board during the trials?’

‘Yes, certainly.’

‘Who else – besides the crew, I mean?’

‘Two naval inspection officers, plus three from the yard.’

‘My father?’

‘I doubt it. Tom Calder probably, and a couple of engineers.’

‘Geoffrey?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Is she safe?’

‘As houses,’ Geoffrey said.

On the ride back to Brunswick Park in the taxi-cab, he made no attempt to kiss her, for which Lindsay – in a way – was glad.

*   *   *

Baby Philip was greedy that evening. He suckled on her breast with a petulance that suggested punishment. Harry, on the other hand, was quieter than usual and contented himself by building elaborate constructions on the tabletop with his collection of wooden alphabet bricks. Lindsay watched him out of a corner of her eye and wondered if he had inherited the Franklins’ aptitude for thoroughness and if, in twenty or thirty years’ time, he would be designing and building ships too and, if so, what sort of ships they would be: great liners that would slip smoothly across the Atlantic in three or four days perhaps, or warships so swift and deadly that nothing that sailed in or upon the seven seas would be safe from their guns.

The rain had drifted away and the evening sky had taken on a shimmering brilliance that filled the rooms to the front of the house. In the dining-room the table had been set and dinner would be served as soon as she had finished feeding Philip. With her baby at her breast and Harry in sight, Lindsay felt more relaxed. Winn had gone off in a huff because she, Lindsay, would not say where she had been that afternoon. In fact, she had returned home before Forbes and had spent a few minutes with her father in the parlour discussing the prototype’s place in the navy’s programme of modernisation and what it might mean to Franklin’s future, then she had gone up to the nursery.

Winn had been on to her at once, quizzing, interrogating, probing. There would be more of the same from Forbes, no doubt, an inquisition that she would just have to endure. She had nothing to hide, everything to hide: kisses and state secrets, the effervescent sensation that being in love endowed her with, and the confidence to keep such inspiring secrets to herself.

Forbes would probably make love to her tonight. He usually did when he thought she was avoiding him. He would take her with angry determination, no longer expecting her to give him pleasure or admit that he was pleasing her, thrusting himself into her with all the force of a pugilist, as if she were an opponent from whom he must wrest a victory. She would match his energy stroke for stroke, though, lifting herself rhythmically against him while dwelling only on the spasmodic sensations that he wrung from her, sensations that she had learned to enjoy even although she knew that his purpose was pragmatic, not to give and take love but to teach her a lesson in obedience, and render her pregnant once more.

Geoffrey would soon be gone. At least for a time they would become letter-lovers, their kisses replaced by tenderness of another kind, less satisfying but in its way more tangible. Forbes had simply failed to realise that babies protected her, rendered her more mother than wife. Another baby, another child, would only increase her happiness and strengthen her position, for no matter how many sisters and brothers Forbes imported she would never allow herself to become a prisoner in her own home again.

Pappy Owen had given her a measure of independence and for that she was grateful, but in hindsight she resented his ill-considered match-making, the fact that he had thrown Forbes and her together to heal old wounds, the wounds of a former generation. She missed Pappy, his joviality, his appetite for life, but he had been replaced by others, particularly by her children. They were her family now, her centre, her future. They were the deciding factor, if only Forbes would realise it, that kept her from taking Geoffrey Paget as her lover or of running off with him to live in scandal and in sin.

She watched Harry place one brick precariously upon another and heard Philip sigh as he removed his mouth from her nipple.

‘Hello,’ said a voice from the landing. ‘Anyone home?’

Harry looked up. He cupped his little fists over the tower of bricks and held them, squeezing down, as the nursery door opened and Gowry put his head around it.

‘Oh, sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ll come back when you’ve done.’

‘It’s all right.’ Lindsay turned the chair and covered her breast with a square of cotton cloth known as a Mother’s Modesty. ‘Come in if you wish. If you’re looking for Winn, though, she isn’t here. I believe she’s in the kitchen with Blossom.’

‘I’m not looking for Winn,’ Gowry said. ‘I’m looking for you.’

‘Me?’ said Lindsay, surprised.

‘You, and this lump,’ Gowry said. Harry, abandoning his tower, raced across the floor and threw himself against his uncle’s legs. Gowry stooped and lifted the little boy into his arms. ‘I’ve never been up here before.’ He swung Harry down to his hip and round again as if he were as weightless as a straw doll. ‘It’s nice and quiet.’ He tucked Harry under one arm and pulled out a nursery chair. He placed it at a discreet angle and seated himself upon it, Harry on his knee.

The boy chattered, ‘I builded a steeple, Uncle Gowry. See, I builded a steeple.’

Gowry gave his attention to the bricks on the table, nodding. ‘So you have, sure and you have,’ he said. ‘That’s a marvellous bit of architecture, Harry, but if I let you go will you be tiptoeing over there and make sure it doesn’t fall down.’

‘Won’t fall down.’

‘Well, it looks a wee bit shaky to me.’

‘Archy – archy…’

‘Archy-teck-ture,’ said Gowry. ‘It means a building.’

‘My building.’

‘Yes, your building. Go and look after it. Add some more.’

Harry slid from his uncle’s knee and returned to the table. He clambered on to a chair and stared hard at the bricks. ‘Archy-teck-ture,’ he said, frowning, as if the nature of the word had changed the concept of construction for him. ‘Archy-teck-ture,’ then he lifted a coloured block and with exaggerated care placed it on top of the column.

Philip, meanwhile, returned to the breast.

‘What do you want, Gowry?’ Lindsay said. ‘Did Forbes send you?’

‘I do have a mind of my own, you know,’ Gowry said. ‘Forbes doesn’t know where I am.’ He looked around. ‘So this is where the kiddies live, is it? Got everything they need, I see.’

‘Winn could have told you that.’

‘You can’t always be trusting what others tell you. Him, for instance.’ He nodded at Philip, hidden in the crook of Lindsay’s arm. ‘How long will he be feeding off you?’

‘I thought you would know that, given all those sisters and brothers.’

‘I didn’t pay enough attention when I was a boy at home.’

‘He will have milk for another month or two, until he’s fully weaned.’

‘Is it sore?’

‘Gowry!’

‘Well, is it?’

‘I’m tender, if you must know. But, no, it’s not painful.’

‘Good,’ Gowry said, with an odd little nod of the head. ‘That’s good.’

He sat silent for a moment, contemplating the crown of the baby’s head, then he said, ‘Supposing you – I mean, supposing a woman has no milk to give, what happens then?’

‘A wet nurse is employed.’

‘Yes, I’ve heard about those.’

‘Or a milk formula can be purchased from the chemist’s suitable for even small babies,’ Lindsay said. ‘Why are you asking me these questions, Gowry? Surely Winn or Blossom would have been able to answer them.’

‘I don’t want them to know I’m interested in babies.’

‘Why are you interested in babies?’

‘In the lodging where I live there’s a girl, a young girl. She’s been left in the lurch in – well – a delicate condition. I feel sorry for her.’

‘Do you mean that she’s pregnant?’

Gowry nodded.

‘Is it yours?’ Lindsay said. ‘Are you the father?’

He looked startled, then shocked. ‘God, no! She’s not my sweetheart. No, no, it couldn’t be mine, not mine.’

‘I take it the father’s absconded?’

‘Yes, and I feel sorry for her.’ Gowry shrugged. ‘I only have to sleep there, thanks to God, but those further down the ladder have to live there. Families. Singles. This girl, she’s a single. I’m not sure what she’s going to do.’

‘There are places she can go. Charities.’

‘I don’t think she’d be doing that.’

‘She could go back to her parents.’

‘They’d never take her in. Anyhow, I think she’s an orphan.’

‘Are you making this up?’ Lindsay said.

He grinned. ‘No. It’s all true, I swear it is.’

Lindsay looked down at her son who, at last, seemed to have had his fill. His lips had slipped from her teat and his eyes were closed. She glanced at Harry who, in spite of his uncle’s presence, had become absorbed in play again. He wrestled with hands and arms to keep the pile of bricks upright while balancing another on the top. Disaster, Lindsay reckoned, was inevitable.

Gowry said, ‘That’s not why I came up here, really.’

‘Why did you come?’

‘I’ve something to tell you.’

‘What’s that?’

‘My mam, she’s planning to stay in Glasgow for the whole summer.’

‘Does Forbes know?’ Lindsay asked. ‘Of course he does. Who will look after your father while she’s away?’

‘He can look after himself,’ Gowry said. ‘Anyhow, I thought you might like a wee bit of a warning and I know Forbes won’t say anything.’

Lindsay was wary of Gowry. She suspected some trick or ruse but could not imagine what purpose would be served by it. She did not like her Aunt Kay, but she could hardly refuse to have her in the house. She would, however, issue due warning to her father who might choose to take a holiday just to escape, two or three weeks in a good hotel down the coast, after the submarine was launched and trials completed. Two or three weeks with Miss Runciman to look after him and provide him with company: would that be considered outrageous? Lindsay wondered. Given their ages, probably not. If they weren’t too far off she might take the children down for a week or so, without Winn and, needless to say, without Forbes. Tom and Cissie might come too and Lilias and Uncle Donald; like old times it would be, happy times in the Bruce Hotel, only with a whole new cast of sand-babies.

Gowry got to his feet. ‘You won’t say anything, will you? I mean, you won’t say anything to Forbes, or to Winn and Bloss?’

‘About what?’ said Lindsay. ‘Your mother – or this girl of yours?’

‘Either,’ Gowry said.

‘No, I won’t say anything,’ Lindsay promised.

He watched her button her blouse and then came closer. He looked down at the child drowsing in her arms. ‘May I hold him?’

Lindsay felt a curious little squinch of apprehension. Gowry looked so tall, standing over her, and the uniform made him menacing.

‘Just for a minute,’ Gowry said, ‘let me hold him.’

Forbes had never taken either of his babies into his arms. Even now it was all he could bring himself to do to allow Harry to clamber on to his knee for a few minutes at a time. She arranged the shawl about Philip’s legs and feet then very carefully transferred the sleepy child to the Irishman’s arms.

In spite of the uniform, Gowry was not awkward, not nervous. When Philip sighed and nestled against him, he uttered a crooning sound, and with the tip of his little finger brushed away a fleck of milk from the baby’s bottom lip.

He looked up at Lindsay, grinning broadly.

‘That’s fine, isn’t it now?’ he murmured. ‘Sure and isn’t that fine?’

‘Indeed, it is,’ said Lindsay.

*   *   *

Once before, on the Niger, Tom had feared for his life. He had been alone on the river, alone that is without Britons around him and only two gruff French agents for company. It had rained with tropical force most of the night and the currents had become so strong that the launch in which he had been travelling had lost power and had swung back and across the basin, broadside to the walls of cocoa-brown water. There was danger, but not an excess of it; what had really frightened him had been the smell of the floodwater, of Africa, a sudden awareness of his isolation and an uncharacteristic dread that he was being punished for daring to be there at all.

On the days of the submarine’s trials there was no turbulence on the surface of the Gareloch, not a breath of wind, not a ripple on the shingle shore, and the moorland hills that flanked the upper waters of the firth were as still as painted scenery against a deep blue August sky; yet Tom was frightened, more frightened than he had ever been on the swirling flood currents of the Niger. He had attended several trials on the sheltered stretch of water that branched off the Clyde estuary. Measured miles and testing grounds for paddle steamers were here and the piers at Cree, Mambeg and Clynder had a familiarity that should have been calming. Nothing could calm Tom that hot August week, however, for an irrational fear had corroded his common sense.

Royal Naval observers manned the pier at Cree. It was a stubby, high-sided construction that nosed into water deep enough to accommodate the salvage vessel, Kettledrum, which had been brought up all the way from Sheerness to assist in the trials. Tom had already spent three hot glaring days on the deck of the Kettledrum watching the Snark, as the prototype was now called, being sealed and lowered to a depth of sixty-nine feet without crew or observers on board, sealed, lowered and raised again to ensure that the hull was absolutely watertight. She crossed this first hurdle with flying colours and as Commander Coles, chief naval observer, remarked, had ‘come up drier than she had gone down’.

But Tom was fretful and impatient. He knew that the hull would withstand pressure down to one hundred and fifty feet and he was uncommonly aggrieved at the navy’s thoroughness. On the first manned trials, the Snark was given a good surface run, a little sniff of the wind, as it were, though there was no wind, not a breath. Results were not recorded; the official trials for speed and manoeuvrability, above and below water, would take place later in the week.

The navy’s high brass were lodged in a hotel in Helensburgh and ferried round to Cree each morning, but Tom went home to Glasgow each evening to take a late supper with his wife, kiss his little boy, to lie down to sleep in his own bed with dread growling in his brain like an overture. There were several aspects to his anxiety. One which he shared with all Franklin’s partners was a fear that the submarine would fail to meet the requirements of the Admiralty’s commissioning body and that the vessel would prove ‘unacceptable’.

On paper the Snark was a perfect fighting machine, sleek, supple and fast, an ocean-going monster with a strike-range far in excess of anything that the Royal Navy so far possessed. On paper she represented a feat of advanced engineering and – on paper – she could not fail to satisfy. But a rejected submarine had no market whatsoever, was fit only for the scrap heap; if the navy did turn her down then Franklin’s financial loss would be considerable if not ruinous and he, Tom, would have to bear a lion’s share of the blame.

Tom’s other anxieties were much more personal: fear of the unknown, of the underside of the sea, of pressures he could calculate mathematically but could not imagine, of tensile strengths and submergence limits, and darkness, the suffocating darkness that might turn the graceful metal shell into a tomb. He was afraid, desperately afraid, of going down in her.

But on Thursday, come what may, he would have to do just that.

*   *   *

It was early, far too early, so early in fact that dawn was still little more than a pearly promise in the eastern sky. Ewan was fast asleep in the room to the rear of the apartment, clothes thrown off, his little limbs spread out across the sheet for coolness.

In the kitchen, Cissie fussed with a frying-pan, breaking eggs and sliding ham into a clean, sizzling pool of fat. She wore a thin cotton dressing-gown over her nightdress and had stuck her bare feet into a pair of Tom’s old carpet slippers. At that moment she reminded him of his Aunt Sarah who had raised him after his mother’s final illness, and his mood lightened at the realisation that Cissie was not so very different from any one of the thousands of women across Clydeside who would be cooking breakfast and packing their husbands off to work. Cissie was a good wife, an attentive wife, a loving wife: Tom regretted that he could not explain what troubled him, not without seeming like a coward.

He had a suspicion that Cissie had guessed the reason for his brooding silences, and this morning she too was quiet. He missed her prattle, her small talk, the sharing of inconsequentialities. She plonked a second fried egg on to a clean tea-plate and put it down beside him.

‘Eat,’ she said.

Tom was already dressed in his suit, shaved, groomed, ready for the long day ahead. He looked at the eggs, at the crimson slices of ham, and felt his throat close. He lifted his teacup and tried to sip the hot sugary liquid without gagging.

‘You’re not being shot at dawn, Tom Calder,’ Cissie said. ‘Stop behaving as if this is your last meal on earth.’ She spoke over her shoulder from her stance in front of the gas stove, a green and black object that occupied a cupboard left of the sinks. The kitchen was spacious. Jenny, the maid, kept it spotless.

Cissie went on, ‘You built the blessed boat. If you can’t be sure that it’s watertight then who can?’

‘It’s not that,’ said Tom, abashed.

She carried her plate to the table and sat opposite him. The window was behind her, the blind drawn up. Pale light illuminated her head and shoulders and she looked cool and soft. He did not want to leave her, did not want to run the risk that he would not return, that the sea would claim him and transform poor Cissie into a grieving widow.

‘Yes, it is,’ Cissie said. ‘You can’t fool me, Tom, you’re frightened of going underwater, aren’t you?’

He managed to nod.

‘How deep is the Gareloch?’ she asked.

‘We test at a hundred feet.’

‘I mean, how deep is the loch?’

Tom swallowed. ‘Deep.’

‘Theory and practice,’ Cissie said. ‘Theory and practice; you just can’t have one without the other. Don’t start with the “what-ifs”. I had quite enough of those from my father and brothers.’ She looked, he thought, a lot less soft than she had done a minute ago. She frowned, freckles glowing. ‘I’m not having it, Tom Calder. I’m not going to let you worry over nothing. Now eat that egg and hurry up or you’ll miss the train, and that would never do. Eat.’

Alarmed and oddly amused, Tom ate.

She was right, of course. There was nothing much to be afraid of. The Snark was his responsibility as much as anyone else’s. If he was reluctant to accept responsibility what hope was there for the programme in future? She wasn’t made of paper; she wouldn’t crumple under pressure. Every gram of steel had been checked for flaws; every rivet, every cable, every hinge, every valve double-checked. Experts had built her engines and boilers, the fuelling systems were infallible, the ballast tanks and air-supply intakes had been adapted by no less a person than Arthur Franklin. He would be safer inside the Snark than on the train to Helensburgh.

‘See, you see,’ Cissie said, as if she could read his thoughts. ‘I’m right, aren’t I? She’s just another boat, really, even if she does run underwater.’

‘That’s true,’ Tom said.

‘I’m not worried. Why should you be worried?’ Cissie said, then, with mock severity, ‘Now, sit up straight and finish your breakfast.’

‘Like a good boy?’ Tom said.

‘Like a good boy,’ said Cissie.

Ten minutes later, feeling better, Tom stepped out into daylight and headed west for the railway station. Above him in the window bay of the handsome sandstone tenement, Cissie waved and blew kisses until he turned the corner out of sight.

And then she wept.

*   *   *

The commander of the Snark was Captain John Bridges. He had been deputy in charge of submarines at Devonport for the best part of five years and had fought shoulder to shoulder with Geoffrey in the war of red tape. He had been instructed to select a crew of experienced submariners and had spent the best part of a fortnight prior to launch familiarising himself with the Snark’s operating systems. The crew, based at Rosyth, had been brought over only after the submarine had taken to the water, and had nursed her downriver under cover of darkness to the test berth at Cree.

The Snark was a powerful vessel brimful of innovations. Captain Bridges very much looked forward to taking her on her first sea-going voyage to Gibraltar as well as steering her through gunnery and torpedo trials and mock attacks that would surely prove her value as a fighting machine. He had no doubt at all that she would perform well in the flat calm of the Gareloch and would live up to all expectations.

Three Royal Navy observers would be taken on board for the first submergence run, together with three ‘workers’ from the shipyard. Captain Bridges had met with Arthur Franklin and Thomas Calder several times but the third member of the shipbuilders’ party was a stranger to him. He was not well pleased at being distracted from his preparations by the young man’s questions and curtly took himself off.

‘What the devil are you doing here?’ Arthur said.

‘I wangled an invitation,’ Forbes said. ‘I’m a partner, after all, and this is too good an opportunity to miss.’

‘Why wasn’t I told? More to the point, why wasn’t I consulted?’ Arthur said. ‘I knew nothing of this. Precisely what did you do to “wangle” yourself on board the Snark during secret trials?’

‘I asked our friend here,’ Forbes said. ‘Didn’t I, Geoffrey?’

Geoffrey Paget nodded, rather bleakly.

‘And he could hardly refuse,’ Forbes said. ‘Could he?’

They were gathered on the pier above the submarine. She was already fuelled and the smell of oil hung heavy over the water. Four or five small craft flitted on the firth far away and the long, splinter-like shape of a paddle-wheeler, wafting blue smoke, passed across the narrow mouth of the Gareloch. It was quiet, very quiet in the sun-stunned morning light. Even the gulls were lazily propped on weedy posts or along the ridge of the gear-shed that backed the pier.

Outward, three or four hundred yards off, two small launches and the ugly bulk of the Kettledrum were easing into positions clear of the marker buoys, and most of the activity on the Snark was taking place within the hull.

The navy observers were not so much aloof as preoccupied. Divided by rank and station into three teams, each of which would conduct a series of specific tests and accurately record the results. Commander Coles, a former engineer and very important person, had chosen the Kettledrum as his vantage point. If he were sceptical about the Snark’s capabilities he gave no sign of it. He said little to any of the officers, not even to Geoffrey Paget who was an old adversary from the boardrooms of Whitehall.

The whiff of autocratic tensions and service politics was strong in the air, like the smell of baking seaweed, but Tom was oblivious to it. He experienced a flash of annoyance at Forbes’s unexpected appearance, however, at his brother-in-law’s gall in begging a trip in the Royal Navy’s prize possession. It occurred to him that Forbes might have employed a form of blackmail to persuade Paget to invite him on board and – just before fear closed in again – wondered if Cissie’s conjectures were correct and Lindsay, the model wife, really had embarked on an affair with the English officer.

Tom noticed the smirk on Forbes’s lips, his swagger as he went towards the ladders. Then it was his turn to go forward and he became encased in icy fear again, cut off by the sure and certain knowledge that he would soon be dead and Cissie, poor Cissie, would be left to mourn alone.

He walked stiffly to the ladder and forced himself to descend.

There was no motion on the deck, not even tidal sway. The piles of the pier loomed above him, the water already deep. He pushed himself clumsily through the hatch, and looked up despairingly at the oval of sky above just before it vanished, sheared off by metal. Then he stopped breathing for a time, suspended, as he was ushered forward into the diving station. He was free to go where he wished, to take notes and make recordings against which the accuracy of the naval observers’ reports could be checked. Arthur had already gone back into the engine-room and Forbes, trailing Geoffrey Paget like a fox, had vanished into the forward control-room. Sweating, Tom pressed himself against the ladder, unable to bring himself to move.

The Snark shuddered, the lights flickered, and the engines thundered.

Tom felt the pressure of sound, not water, pressing upon him. He had heard all this before, of course, had endured it with grim satisfaction while the craft had been tethered to the shore. But he was at sea now, or the next best thing, the Gareloch opening unseen around him.

He clung to the steel ladder and stared at the depth indicator over the crewman’s shoulder. Sense told him it would be five or ten minutes before the Snark was ready to dive. At the moment she was running light, ballast tanks empty. First she would travel a short distance awash, the bridge lookout replaced by the periscope, then she would submerge to periscope depth and finally to full submersion and, with only the compass to hold her on course, would descend to a depth of sixty feet.

He tried to fix on that, on sixty feet.

The rating at the wheel tapped the gauge, turned and grinned at him. ‘Fine morning for a trip on the Skylark, sir?’

‘Yes,’ Tom got out thickly. ‘V-very fine.’

‘Not a thing to worry about, sir. She’s sweet as a nut, she is.’

The glass on the gauges was still unsmeared. Everything around him was shining and new, glossy with fresh paint. He tried to make himself listen to the engines, to interpret changes in pitch and tone as she picked up speed. He tried to visualise her route, the short, button-hooked shape of the cruising run, past familiar hills and friendly piers, but all he could think of were the depths beneath his feet, the dark and waiting depths. He was blanking out, not swooning, simply blanking out.

Geoffrey Paget came swarming up towards him, Forbes on his heels.

In spite of his height, the Lieutenant Commander moved with the grace of a tea-dancer, slipping past crew members at their stations.

Forbes was less nimble, less careful. He seemed almost to be scurrying, as if he had found his hole at last, a burrow-like tube narrow and straight enough to contain his ambition. He should, Tom thought, be fired out like a torpedo, sent back the way he had come to explode harmlessly on a distant shore, lost in a puff of smoke, or not go up at all, just lie there, a dud rusting on the shingle.

Geoffrey touched his shoulder. ‘All right, Tom?’

‘All right, thanks.’

The officer and his leech moved forward.

Tom knew that he should follow them, pretend to assist Arthur Franklin or at least observe the navy’s observers. He could not move, though. He was limp with the effort of sustaining dread. He wanted nothing but to put the trial behind him. He heard the sound of voices crackling through the tubes, the scramble upstairs as the deck hamper was removed. He thought he smelled fresh air again as the hamper was dropped, then heard the clang of the conning tower and the squeak of the wheels and conduit valves as the Snark was finally sealed for submersion. He clung tightly to the ladder, watching the gauge.

‘First time under, sir?’

‘It – it is.’

‘You’ll hardly notice a thing.’

He doubted that. He knew more about the Snark than any ordinary seaman, except the captain. What was disturbingly novel was the sensation of being carried underwater, the claustrophobic pressure of being taken down, deliberately, intentionally, voluntarily drowned. The crackle of voices, more distinct: a command. He glimpsed Paget and Forbes against a bulkhead ahead of him, the smooth broadcloth of a navy observer’s uniform. Soon water would be allowed to pour into the ballast tanks and the greater part of the vessel’s capacity to float would be destroyed.

She would, in effect, be sunk.

‘Here we go now, sir,’ the sailor said, very quietly.

The man’s voice was lost as the engines were switched over and a strange, cold, creaking closed around him, more sensation than sound. The arrow on the big, moon-faced dial began to ascend, counting off feet. The angle of the ladder altered. A hose behind him hissed. Trimming, she’s being trimmed fore and aft, Tom told himself, ashamed of his incapacity, his crippled intelligence. Declination: two degrees. Declination: easing back to one and a quarter. He could still summon up figures and facts, the algebraic equations that had flickered off the point of his pencil in the drawing office at Aydon Road. Was she underwater yet? Was she groping forward under the surface of the loch? No, she was still gliding, gliding down on an almost imperceptible declivity.

Tom closed his eyes and swallowed dryly as the vessel that he had helped the Franklins build sank with hardly a trace.

*   *   *

‘Are you as concerned as I am, dear?’ Cissie asked. ‘About the trials, I mean.’

‘I’m not concerned at all,’ Lindsay said, truthfully.

‘Forbes won’t be on board, of course.’

‘Knowing Forbes, he probably will be,’ Lindsay said. ‘He went off early this morning with a smile on his face; very unusual, I assure you. I’ve a feeling he’s hoping to persuade the powers-that-be to allow him to participate in one of the submergence tests.’

‘Why?’

‘He finds the prospect exciting.’

‘Exciting!’ Cissie shook her head. ‘Tom’s worried. Tom’s frightened.’

‘Surely Tom doesn’t consider the Snark unsafe?’

‘No, of course he doesn’t consider her unsafe. It’s just that he’s been nursing this – what? – presentiment for weeks now. I think the delay in beginning the trials had something to do with it.’

‘The Navy Board caused the delay. The Snark’s been lying in Aydon Road for weeks while experts from the navy have been crawling all over her, suggesting “modifications”. No wonder Tom’s nervous.’

‘I don’t understand any of it,’ said Cissie. ‘Tom doesn’t talk much about his work and I feel it’s intrusive to ask questions. I suppose shipbuilding’s all anyone ever talks about in your house.’

‘There isn’t much talk about anything in our house these days,’ said Lindsay. ‘Aunt Kay has the unhappy knack of killing conversation.’

‘How long will she be with you?’

‘I have no idea,’ said Lindsay. ‘According to Gowry she might not go back to Dublin at all.’

‘Really?’ Cissie busied herself with the teapot, did the honours for her cousin, set the pot down again, lifted her cup in both hands and looked across the little table at Lindsay. She hesitated. ‘Do you think Kay’s here to keep an eye on you, by any chance? To make sure you behave?’

‘Behave? What do you mean?’

‘Because of – you know.’

‘No, I do not know, Cissie. Explain yourself.’

‘I mean’ – Cissie’s plump cheeks glowed – ‘I mean, well, there have been rumours about you and, well, Lieutenant Commander Paget.’

‘Ah!’ said Lindsay.

‘He’s very keen on you, that much is obvious.’

‘He is keen on me,’ Lindsay admitted.

‘And are you – you know, with him?’

‘I’m in love with him, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Good Lord!’

‘Come now, Cissie, don’t pretend you’re shocked. You threw us together in the first place, if you recall, right here in this very room.’

‘I’m not taking the blame for…’

‘Blame? Who said anything about blame?’

‘Aren’t you miserable?’ Cissie blurted out.

‘Of course I’m not miserable,’ Lindsay said.

‘Are you and he … Oh, no!’ A pause: ‘Are you?’

‘Cissie, I’m married to Forbes McCulloch, in case you’ve forgotten.’

‘But you don’t, you don’t belong to him, do you?’ Cissie said.

‘I most certainly do not “belong” to him,’ Lindsay said. ‘But I do not belong to Geoffrey Paget either.’

‘I thought you said you loved him; Geoffrey, I mean.’

‘I do.’

‘But…’

‘He is not my lover, Cissie, if that’s what you’re driving at. He’s not my lover and never will be.’

Flame-cheeked with embarrassment, Cissie set down her cup, and confessed: ‘That’s what Tom said.’

‘Have Tom and you been discussing my private affairs?’

‘Well, it has been rather obvious, hasn’t it?’ Cissie settled in her chair, sensing that the awkward part of the conversation was behind her. ‘I mean, you’ve made no secret of your – not your affair; I don’t know what to call it.’

‘Friendship.’

‘I thought you said it was love.’

‘Cissie, stop all this fiddle-faddle.’

‘Yes, I’m sorry. You’re right, dear. Even if I am your cousin I’ve no right to pry into your aff—business. You thought you were in love with Forbes once, didn’t you?’

‘So did you.’

‘I’m so glad I got over it.’

‘Do you still think I stole Forbes from you?’ Lindsay asked.

‘Stole? No, not exactly. Forbes simply preferred you to me. I didn’t have enough to offer him, I suppose. Look at me. I’m no oil-painting, am I? But, do you know, I’m rather glad I’m not? Tom likes me the way I am and I’m not liable to have handsome naval officers throwing themselves at me.’

‘What if one did?’ said Lindsay.

‘I’d soon send him packing.’

‘Even if he loved you, or if you loved him?’

‘I can’t imagine it,’ Cissie said. ‘In any case I wouldn’t let it happen. I wouldn’t betray Tom, not for anyone.’

‘Yes,’ Lindsay said, ‘but that’s because you love Tom.’

‘I do,’ said Cissie without irony or embarrassment. ‘I do, very much.’

Lindsay nodded. How could she grudge Cissie her happiness? Now and then, though, she regretted that she had not encouraged Tom Calder’s interest; had, as it were, let him slip. She would not hurt her cousin for all the tea in China by bringing it up now. Besides, they had both moved on, had grown up. The selfish passion she had once felt for Forbes McCulloch had been partly competitive, genuine at the time but not enduring, the marriage itself less a mistake than a misjudgement.

Cissie, innocent and contented, would only be baffled by the nature of her relationship with Forbes, by its unrefined intimacy. Cissie could not possibly understand how she, Lindsay, could satisfy her sexual needs with one man while she professed to love another. It was, perhaps, the ultimate deceit, the ultimate revenge, though Lindsay did not regard it as such. What she did with her body was one thing, what she did with her heart quite another, which was too modern a concept for Cissie ever to grasp.

Cissie said, ‘You’re not, I mean, you’re not planning to do anything rash, Lindsay, are you?’

Lindsay guessed what was coming. ‘What, for instance?’

‘Like running off with Geoffrey Paget.’

Lindsay laughed. ‘Running off where with Geoffrey? To sea?’

‘If you don’t love Forbes any more,’ Cissie said, ‘and you do love Geoffrey Paget … I mean, there is such a thing as divorce.’

‘One needs grounds for divorce,’ said Lindsay, ‘and not caring much for one’s husband would not, I imagine, be sufficient for the court. Besides which, I will never desert my children.’

‘I think that’s very wise, very admirable.’

‘Do you?’

‘A romance,’ Cissie said, ‘not an affair.’

‘There’s nothing romantic about it,’ said Lindsay curtly. ‘I didn’t ask for it to happen. I wasn’t on the lookout for another chap. It isn’t a flirtation, Cissie. I care about Geoffrey and I believe he cares for me. The feeling is both comforting and uncomfortable at one and the same time.’

‘Perhaps it’s just as well he’s going away.’

‘No,’ Lindsay said. ‘No.’

Cissie, nonplussed, said, ‘Well, at least you’re keeping your feet firmly on the ground. I’m glad of that – for the children’s sake.’

Eleanor Runciman had volunteered to accompany Lindsay to Sandyford Avenue that afternoon. Philip had been left behind with Winn, for hot weather and strong sunlight did not agree with him and he had been a little out of sorts for a day or two. Eleanor, too, was anxious about the submarine’s trials. She was still Arthur’s confidante and knew how much importance attached to the results. She had offered to take the two boys, Harry and Ewan, out to visit the Victoria Park, a far piece for little legs, but Lindsay had no doubt that they would be sustained by the purchase of ice-cream along the way and a glass of lemonade when they got there. She wished now that she had gone with them, for she was beginning to find Cissie’s remarks just a little irksome, and the parlour stuffy.

In the hallway, the clock chimed the half-hour; half-past three o’clock. Though Cissie’s apartments were spotless, sunlight slanting through the bay window found a few loose motes of dust and expanded them into a pale silvery ribbon. Beyond, the red sandstone facade of the tenements on the other side of the avenue, flattened by sunlight, seemed to exist in only one dimension.

Cissie had just reached for the hot-water jug to refresh the teapot when the doorbell rang. The cousins glanced at each other in mild bewilderment.

‘The boys are back early,’ Cissie said.

‘Perhaps it’s too hot for them,’ said Lindsay, frowning.

They listened to the padding of the maid’s shoes on the carpet of the hall, heard the outer door open and the strange sifting emptiness of the tiled close; voices, low voices, not gruff or grumbling but very light and airy, almost blithesome in the flocculent air of the August afternoon.

A moment later Jenny, the day-maid, came into the parlour and said in a puzzled tone, ‘There’s someone here to see you, ma’am.’

‘Who is it, Jenny?’

‘I don’t know, ma’am. She says her name is McCulloch, Mrs Forbes McCulloch.’ And before the servant had finished speaking, little Sylvie Calder waddled past her and, smiling, entered the room.