On deck it’s damp and shivery in the dawn. The ship’s rail is wet when you put your hand on it. The brown harborwater smells of washbasins, rustles gently against the steamer’s sides. Sailors are taking the hatches off the hold. There’s a rattle of chains and a clatter from the donkey-engine where a tall man in blue overalls stands at a lever in the middle of a cloud of steam that wraps round your face like a wet towel.
‘Muddy is it really the Fourth of July?’
Mother’s hand has grasped his firmly trailing him down the companionway into the dining saloon. Stewards are piling up baggage at the foot of the stairs.
‘Muddy is it really the Fourth of July?’
‘Yes deary I’m afraid it is… A holiday is a dreadful time to arrive. Still I guess they’ll all be down to meet us.’
She has her blue serge on and a long trailing brown veil and the little brown animal with red eyes and teeth that are real teeth round her neck. A smell of mothballs comes from it, of unpacking trunks, of wardrobes littered with tissuepaper. It’s hot in the dining saloon, the engines sob soothingly behind the bulkhead. His head nods over his cup of hot milk just colored with coffee. Three bells. His head snaps up with a start. The dishes tinkle and the coffee spills with the trembling of the ship. Then a thud and rattle of anchorchains and gradually quiet. Muddy gets up to look through the porthole.
‘Why it’s going to be a fine day after all. I think the sun will burn through the mist… Think of it dear; home at last. This is where you were born deary.’
‘And it’s the Fourth of July.’
‘Worst luck… Now Jimmy you must promise me to stay on the promenade deck and be very careful. Mother has to finish packing. Promise me you wont get into any mischief.’
‘I promise.’
He catches his toe on the brass threshold of the smoking-room door and sprawls on deck, gets up rubbing his bare knee just in time to see the sun break through chocolate clouds and swash a red stream of brightness over the puttycolored water. Billy with the freckles on his ears whose people are for Roosevelt instead of for Parker like mother is waving a silk flag the size of a handkerchief at the men on a yellow and white tugboat.
‘Didjer see the sun rise?’ he asks as if he owned it.
‘You bet I saw it from my porthole,’ says Jimmy walking away after a lingering look at the silk flag. There’s land close on the other side; nearest a green bank with trees and wide white gray-roofed houses.
‘Well young feller, how does it feel to be home?’ asks the tweedy gentleman with droopy mustaches.
‘Is that way New York?’ Jimmy points out over the still water broadening in the sunlight.
‘Yessiree-bobby, behind yonder bank of fog lies Manhattan.’
‘Please sir what’s that?’
‘That’s New York… You see New York is on Manhattan Island.’
‘Is it really on an island?’
‘Well what do you think of a boy who dont know that his own home town is on an island?’
The tweedy gentleman’s gold teeth glitter as he laughs with his mouth wide open. Jimmy walks on round the deck, kicking his heels, all foamy inside; New York’s on an island.
‘You look right glad to get home little boy,’ says the Southern lady.
‘Oh I am, I could fall down and kiss the ground.’
‘Well that’s a fine patriotic sentiment… I’m glad to hear you say it.’
Jimmy scalds all over. Kiss the ground, kiss the ground, echoes in his head like a catcall. Round the deck.
‘That with the yellow flag’s the quarantine boat.’ A stout man with rings on his fingers - he’s a Jew - is talking to the tweedy man. ‘Ha we’re under way again… That was quick, what?’
‘We’ll be in for breakfast, an American breakfast, a good old home breakfast.’
Muddy coming down the deck, her brown veil floating. ‘Here’s your overcoat Jimmy, you’ve got to carry it.’
‘Muddy, can I get out that flag?’
‘What flag?’
‘The silk American flag.’
‘No dear it’s all put away.’
‘Please I’d so like to have that flag cause it’s the Fourth of July an everything.’
‘Now dont whine Jimmy. When mother says no she means no.’
Sting of tears; he swallows a lump and looks up in her eyes.
‘Jimmy it’s put away in the shawlstrap and mother’s so tired of fussing with those wretched bags.’
‘But Billy Jones has one.’
‘Look deary you’re missing things… There’s the statue of Liberty.’ A tall green woman in a dressing gown standing on an island holding up her hand.
‘What’s that in her hand?’
‘That’s a light, dear… Liberty enlightening the world… And there’s Governors Island the other side. There where the trees are… and see, that’s Brooklyn Bridge… That is a fine sight. And look at all the docks… that’s the Battery… and the masts and the ships… and there’s the spire of Trinity Church and the Pulitzer building.’… Mooing of steamboat whistles, ferries red and waddly like ducks churning up white water, a whole train of cars on a barge pushed by a tug chugging inside it that lets out cotton steampuffs all the same size. Jimmy’s hands are cold and he’s chugging and chugging inside.
‘Dear you mustn’t get too excited. Come on down and see if mother left anything in the stateroom.’
Streak of water crusted with splinters, groceryboxes, orangepeel, cabbageleaves, narrowing, narrowing between the boat and the dock. A brass band shining in the sun, white caps, sweaty red faces, playing Yankee Doodle. ‘That’s for the ambassador, you know the tall man who never left his cabin.’ Down the slanting gangplank, careful not to trip. Yankee Doodle went to town… Shiny black face, white enameled eyes, white enameled teeth. ‘Yas ma’am, yas ma’am’… Stucka feather in his hat, an called it macaroni… ‘We have the freedom of the port.’ Blue custom officer shows a bald head bowing low… Tumte boomboom BOOM BOOM BOOM… cakes and sugar candy…
‘Here’s Aunt Emily and everybody… Dear how sweet of you to come.’
‘My dear I’ve been here since six o’clock!’
‘My how he’s grown.’
Light dresses, sparkle of brooches, faces poked into Jimmy’s, smell of roses and uncle’s cigar.
‘Why he’s quite a little man. Come here sir, let me look at you.’
‘Well goodby Mrs Herf. If you ever come down our way… Jimmy I didn’t see you kiss the ground young man.’
‘Oh he’s killing, he’s so oldfashioned… such an oldfashioned child.’
The cab smells musty, goes rumbling and lurching up a wide avenue swirling with dust, through brick streets soursmelling full of grimy yelling children, and all the while the trunks creak and thump on top.
‘Muddy dear, you dont think it’ll break through do you?’
‘No dear,’ she laughs tilting her head to one side. She has pink cheeks and her eyes sparkle under the brown veil.