She was helped up the stairs by a young steward. The fresh air calmed her a moment. The gray of the water stretched endlessly. It fell into shapes like a child’s painting.
The boat hit some choppy water. A loud whistle cut the air. The umbrellas were folded and put away. The deckchairs skillfully stacked.
Somehow a maplewood guitar had been left on the upper deck. A stain of rain on its dark neck. She picked it up and shuffled back to the stairs. She wanted to return it to its owner. A sharp, warm pain moved across her forehead. She was at the point of exhaustion. Her cane dropped and skittered down the stairs. She grabbed the handhold. Slowly eased herself down. She was careful not to clang the guitar against the stairs as the boat rolled.
A reek of vomit came from the corridor. A garbled message shot over the loudspeaker. The last thing she could recall was the falling clang of the guitar as another wave hit.
EMILY WOKE WITH the ship’s doctor leaning over her. He held a stethoscope to her chest. Took her pulse. He wore a reflecting mirror on his forehead. When he backed away to look at her, she could see the shimmy of her form in the round mirror. She struggled to sit up and speak. There was a quality of gauze to the world.
Lottie hovered in the background, chewing her nails. Her tall frame, her pale blue eyes, her short bobbed hair.
The doctor ran his hands along the length of Emily’s arm, checking for swelling at her neck. A stroke, she thought. She mumbled something. The doctor soothed her, put a hand on her shoulder. He wore a wedding ring on his left hand.
— You’ll be all right, Mrs. Ehrlich.
She felt her body tighten. She saw Lottie lean across and mention something to the doctor. He shrugged, said nothing, unhinged the stethoscope from around his neck. He turned to the row of cupboards behind his head, reached for a bottle of pills, counted some out in a silver dish, scooped them into a small glass jar.
SHE REMAINED IN the sick bay for three days. A severe dehydration, he said. A possible strain on her heart. She would have to go for tests when they arrived in Southampton. Lottie stayed beside her, morning to night.
A damp cloth was placed on her forehead. She wondered if a part of her had fallen ill precisely because she wanted to dwell for a while longer in the presence of her daughter. The desire not to lose her. To keep her nearby. To live inside that alternative skin.
A DAY FROM England, she was brought up on deck. A little haze of brown in the mist. An indistinct form of dark. Lottie told her that it was the coastline of Ireland. The headlands of Cork disappeared behind them — at the rear of the boat the phosphorescence shone.
IN SOUTHAMPTON SHE gave the porter a few shillings to carry their trunk off quickly. She would not go to the hospital. They had already made arrangements for a driver to bring them to Swansea. She couldn’t change anything now.
She saw Lottie, on the gangplank, shaking hands with the ship’s doctor. So that was it. That was all. She felt a vague sadness.
She took Lottie’s arm as they walked down the gangplank together. Her legs felt hollow beneath her. She stopped a moment to gather her breath, adjusted her hat and they walked down to a line of drivers who were waiting on the quayside. An old Ford. A Rover. An Austin.
A portly young man with a clean-shaven face stepped forward. He extended a soft hand and introduced himself. Ambrose Tuttle. He wore the blue of an RAF uniform, a pale blue shirt, trousers that accordioned at his ankles. His head came to Lottie’s shoulder. He glanced up at her as if she were walking on stilts.
He gestured towards a maroon-colored Rover with spoked wheels and a tall silver ornament on the hood.
— Sir Arthur is expecting us, he said.
— Is it a long drive?
— Afraid so, yes. We might not get there until nightfall. Make yourselves comfortable. I’m afraid the roads are rather bumpy.
When he bent to pick up the traveling trunk he exposed a wedge of skin at the small of his back. Emily took the front seat. Lottie settled in the back. The car pulled away from the docks. They drove out of the city into a sudden bright sunlight and a tunnel of chestnut trees.
THE ROAD RATTLED through them. On occasion the shadows fretted them as they went beneath an arc of trees. The hedges were long and green and manicured. They seemed to coax the car along.
They were traveling at close to forty miles an hour. Emily glanced at her daughter in the backseat, the wind nibbling at the low of her blouse. The blue of the sky had barely changed since noon. The road was largely empty. She thought the English countryside at ease with its order. Nothing at all like Newfoundland. The fields were angular. They could see a great distance, the ancient highways narrowing towards the horizon, an empire quality to it, regimented, well-mannered. Different from what she had expected. No coal mines, no slag heaps, no gray English slouch.
It was difficult to talk over the noise of the engine. On the outskirts of Bristol they stopped at a small tea shop. Ambrose took off his cap and revealed a head of curly fair hair. He spoke with a curious accent. Belfast, he told them, but Emily figured from the way he said it that he must have been a child of privilege. His accent was more English than Irish. A musical formality to it.
He had been with the RAF for a few years now, in the communications division, but had never graduated to the flying division. He patted his stomach as if to make an excuse.
The sky darkened. Lottie called out instructions from a giant map that gunneled in the wind. Ambrose glanced backwards at Lottie as if she herself might suddenly take flight, a parachute of intrigue.
AS THE LIGHT failed, Ambrose geared the Rover down, banked the corners skillfully, headed into another long stretch of hedges. They neared Wales. A series of small hills, like a sleeping woman silhouetted sideways.
By early evening they were lost. They pulled up to the edge of a field and watched a falconer ply his art: the bird being trained on the end of a string, the long curl of his flight slowly learning its limits. It hovered a moment, then landed superbly on the falconer’s glove.
THEY WERE FORCED to stop in Cardiff for the night. A dingy hotel. The air hinted of sea and storm. Emily felt feverish again, lightheaded. Lottie helped her up the stairs and slipped into bed beside her.
In the morning, they drove out along the coast road. The sun rose high behind them, burning off the fog. Children waved from the sides of ditches, boys in gray shorts, girls in blue pinafores. Some were barefoot. A few bicycles came rolling along, mud-splattered and rickety. An old woman waved a walking stick in the air and shouted something in a language they couldn’t understand. A line of golden hayricks crossed a field.
The three of them stopped by a narrow stream and shared a flask of hot tea, using just the one cup, shaking the last of the contents into the grass. Emily shuffled along the river. She could hear Lottie’s laughter ring high in the air. Down by a bend, at an overhang of trees, Emily saw an older man standing in high wading boots. He had a fishing rod but he made no motion at all, just stood thigh-deep in the water, contemplating. As if rooted in the stream. She raised her hand to wave, but he looked beyond her. She was glad for the anonymity. She was certain now that she would speak to Brown alone.
The man in the river turned, but still he didn’t cast his rod. It was as if he was there to hook the light. She raised her hand again and he nodded, more out of obligation than friendliness, she was sure.
When she returned to the stream bank, Ambrose and Lottie were huddled together, sharing a cigarette.