Moonshine

‘We’ll have to do without it tonight. It must be at least ten o’clock.’

Kit shone the meagre beam of his torch on to the dial of his watch. ‘Half past. Are you ready for your berth, Bobbie? Shall I escort you to the door or will that give rise to impertinent gossip, do you think?’

‘I don’t think I can face it. I went to look at my cabin when I came aboard. It’s several floors down. Horribly claustrophobic. I booked too late to get a single berth. My bunkmate was jolly and friendly but smelt penetratingly of the stables. Apparently she’s going to Ireland to buy horses. I’m not sure my stomach can stand being tossed about all night in a miasma of manure. Anyway, it’s rather lovely up here and I’m not cold now.’ And it was, in truth, lovely – if rough. The wind seemed to be blowing hard, or perhaps that was the motion of the ship, but the moon, three-quarters full, suffused the drifting clouds with silver. ‘But you must go to bed. You’ve looked after me beautifully and I’m grateful. I shall be perfectly all right.’

‘I’m not at all sleepy. Why don’t you put your feet up and I’ll tuck you in. Here, rest your head on my coat. Don’t worry,’ he said as I made noises of protest, ‘the steward’s keeping us under observation from the saloon window. He’ll be the perfect chaperon. And as soon as I’m the least bit weary I shall leave you to it. Will it bother you if I smoke?’

‘Not at all.’

The delicious smell of a Gauloise mingled with the tang of salt. The stars rolled languorously to and fro above my upturned face as the giant cradle rocked beneath me. It was strange to be lying with my head almost in the lap of a man I had known for two hours but at the same time it felt companionable. I began to relax. For ten days now I had slept patchily, always with a sense of foreboding. My rib cage stopped aching; my eyelids ceased to twitch.

‘Marvellous, aren’t they?’ Kit blew out smoke. ‘Impossible to believe they’re indifferent to our joys and sorrows, isn’t it?’ I realized he was talking about the stars. ‘There’s one that’s definitely winking at us. No wonder people make wishes by them.’

‘If wishes were butter-cakes, beggars might bite,’ I said drowsily. At least I thought I had said it, but it may just have been part of my dream.

THREE (#ulink_d4be5151-61db-554b-a1e8-043cf380b1b6)

Something brushed against my cheek.

‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.’

I opened my eyes. The sky had paled mysteriously. It took me a second or two to realize that this must be the dawn. I twisted my head and saw someone – Kit – looking down at me, smiling. Something hard pressed against my ear. I put up my hand. It was a coat button. I struggled to sit up, encumbered by blankets, my muscles unresponsive with cold. ‘How long have I been asleep? What time is it?’

Kit looked at his watch, squinting in the grey light. ‘Ten to five.’

‘It can’t be!’

‘You were terribly tired.’

‘I hope I didn’t snore.’

‘You were as quiet as a little cat. From time to time you purred and once you shouted “No!” quite fiercely. That woke me up.’

‘Have you been here all night?’

He nodded.

‘You must have been so uncomfortable. Really, you should have gone to bed.’

‘I’m as stiff as an ironing board,’ he admitted, ‘but I managed to doze. I’m one of those lucky people who can get by on not much sleep. I’ll just walk about a bit and I’ll be fine. We’ll be in Cork in less than an hour.’

‘Cork!’ I felt a rush of emotions, predominantly apprehension.

‘Where did you think we were going?’

‘Well, there of course. It’s just that I’ve never been to Ireland before. And everything was arranged at the last minute. Oh, Lord, I can’t move my fingers! And my neck’s broken, I think.’

‘Come on.’ Kit pulled me up from the bench. ‘We’ll get our circulations going.’

We strolled about together until the blood had returned to our hands and feet. There were no other passengers on deck, only members of the crew who gave us particular looks and pointed smiles. Probably they assumed we were lovers who had preferred a romantic consummation beneath the stars to a struggle within the confines of a narrow bunk in a prosaic cabin. We stood at the stern rail, drank brown tea and ate tasteless white rolls filled with hard-boiled eggs and mayonnaise. We watched the sky blush with gleams of coral, salmon and rose. Slowly it flooded with gold.

‘Lovely, isn’t it?’ said Kit. ‘Doesn’t it make you glad to be alive?’

‘Mm … yes,’ I said, more decidedly than I felt. Foam streamed in the wake of the ship. Gulls slid up and down the grey-green waves and quarrelled over the last crumbs of my breakfast. I wished the ship would sail on and never come to land.

‘Now I can see for myself that you are fair,’ Kit said. ‘In at least two of the … let’s see’ – he counted on his fingers – ‘six meanings of the word that I can think of immediately. Neither a market-place nor good weather. Beautiful and with light-coloured hair, yes. And I’m willing to bet that you’re just and impartial. But never mediocre.’

‘Oh, don’t! It was so lovely to forget about me. I must look a wreck. And of course I’m not impartial. No one is, however hard they may try to be.’ I attempted to run my fingers through my hair but it was tangled by the wind.

‘I’ll comb it for you,’ suggested Kit. The brightening rays of the sun shone through his ears, turning them crimson. His hair was curly and brown. His eyes were blue and intelligent. It was an appealing face, with its high forehead and good-humoured mouth. Not handsome but attractive.

‘Certainly not. People will think I’m an escaped lunatic and you’re my keeper.’

‘I shan’t mind if you don’t. That steward hasn’t taken his eyes off you since you woke up. You’re putting colour into his drab existence. Can’t you gibber a little and play with your lips? Where’s your sense of civic duty?’

‘I probably am a lunatic. Only a madwoman …’

I paused. Kit had been so sympathetic that I had been tempted to tell him something of my circumstances but then I thought better of it.

‘Oh dear. That suspicious look again. You’re as wary as a bird of paradise who’s just spotted a woman in a rather dull hat.’

I laughed but said nothing.

Kit turned to lean his back against the rail so that he could look directly into my face. ‘Forgive me if this is an impertinent question, but when we get into Cork will there be a husband or a boyfriend standing on the quay, counting the seconds?’

I thought of Burgo, imagined him with the collar of his coat turned up against the importunate July breezes, hands in pockets, frowning, impatient of delay, already running ahead in his mind, planning what we were going to do, where we were going to eat, make love. I felt a pang of desolation.

‘No.’

‘I see. Would it be presuming to ask where you’re going to in such solitary splendour? I promise not to divulge the information to MI5.’

‘I’m going to Galway. To Connemara.’

Kit whistled. ‘Among the mountainy men? It’s a wild sort of place and they’re a strange, interesting breed. “To Hell or to Connaught”, as they used to say. Meaning, of course, that there was little to choose between them.’

‘Where’s Connaught?’

‘Where you’re going. The ancient kingdom of the West. Where Cromwell sent the indigenous Irish after dispossessing them of their nice, fertile, well-drained lands in the east. Are you an accomplished Gaelic speaker?’

‘Not a word. Will it matter?’ I had a vision of myself shut away in some mountain fastness, in a household of eccentrics of whose culture and language I was entirely ignorant. Anthropologists would no doubt have delighted in the prospect. I found it alarming.

‘Not at all. Despite the efforts of the Gaelic League and Sinn Fein to establish it as the first language, it’s fiendishly difficult and the majority of Irish speak English. I just wondered if you were writing a book about the Gaeltacht or researching the dress code of the high kings or something like that.’

‘I’m going to be housekeeper to a family named Macchuin.’

Kit whistled again. ‘That’s the last thing I’d have guessed. What do you know about them?’

‘Almost nothing. I answered an advertisement in a newspaper. When I telephoned, the woman I spoke to said she was desperate for help. She engaged me on the spot.’