She hiccuped and giggled. I'm tipsy, she thought, but I'm not frightened anymore. I've written that awful letter at last.
She felt her way carefully back to the easy chair. The letter on the table beside it was addressed to Commander John Shadde, R.N., HMS Retaliate, GPO London. "Darling John," she said unsteadily and burst into tears. "What have you done to us?"
She buried her face in a cushion and sobbed, loudly at first, then catching her breath like a child crying himself to sleep. Finally she got up and stood in front of the mirror. I used to be pretty once, she thought. She made a mouth in the mirror. "Awful!" she said. "Sterile cow! If only you'd given him babies."
The letter would reach him in Copenhagen. What would he think when he read it? It didn't really matter. She had made her decision. She was thirty-three; any personality, any character she'd ever had he'd crushed and subdued. She had to get away from him. The legal things were being seen to and the passage to Australia was booked.
But it was hopeless; she couldn't stop thinking of him. Tall, dark, immensely rugged and masculine. Inscrutable brown eyes that never really let you know what thoughts were going on inside. She remembered the night he'd proposed. It was coming back from a dance three weeks after they had met. Somehow or other they ended up in a funny little lane between high hedgerows. He said he'd lost his way.
When the car stopped, he said: "We're lost!"
She laughed. "Better turn the car and get unlost."
"Lots of time. Look at that moon."
"Where? It's all cloudy."
"Of course you can't see it. Just imagine it."
They both laughed. He put one arm around her and kissed her for the first time. Rather a timid kiss; she remembered thinking he'd not had much experience. Then he said, "Have you ever thought of joining the Navy?"
"As a Wren?"
"No. As my wife."
Her heart had leaped. She was twenty-five. Behind her was a hopeless tangle with a married man. And now this large, frightening but attractive naval officer was asking her to marry him.
"If that's a proposal, John ..." She felt his arms go around her, and she finished in a whisper. "I'd love to join the Navy."
But all that was long, long ago. She settled back into the armchair, and picked up her glass again. She didn't really like whisky, but without it she would never have had the courage to write those letters. Neither the one to Oslo, nor this final one. He had written a rather shocked, contrite letter in reply to the Oslo letter. It told her how deeply attached he was to her, and how she mustn't make any decision until they had discussed things. She knew what that meant; a monologue. John laying down the law.
I am terrified of him, she thought. I'm broken and cowed.
For the first six years their marriage had been a success. She had found from the start that he was a moody man. But in his good moods he could be gay and charming. Lately, however, they had been few and far between, and in recent months he'd been quite impossible. She knew he'd never tell her why, but she supposed it was because of her failure to give him children.
The climax had come during that last dreadful leave in March. For days he just sat and brooded. When she suggested golf or walks or the pictures, he'd say angrily, "Stop fussing! If I wanted to go for a walk I'd go."
"John, what's wrong?" He would turn around, his mouth set in that hard, tight line. "Nothing's wrong. All I want is privacy. Surely you don't grudge me that?"
After a week of leave he went up to London for the day. He left in a black and desperate mood without saying good-by. At nine o'clock that night she heard the Rover come into the garage. Fearfully, she went out to meet him. But the moment he said, "Hullo, darling!" she knew his mood had changed. He kissed her and they went into the house arm in arm. "Lisbet, I've got a surprise for you." He didn't often call her Lisbet nowadays, but when he said "a surprise" she didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The last surprise had been two months ago when he bought the Rover and she had borrowed five hundred pounds from her mother to get them out of the financial scrape it landed them in.
Now she was smiling, but apprehensive. "What is it, John?"
"Spain," he said. "You, me and the Rover. We'll chase the sun. Get away from this bloody rain."
"John," she whispered. "How can we afford it?"
He laughed. "Don't worry about that, old girl. Look!" From his pocket he produced a paper travel wallet. "Here are the tickets. It's not necessary to book at hotels this time of year. We'll just jog along and stop where we like. Should be absolute heaven."
She looked at him compassionately. "Where's the money to come from, John? We haven't got it."
He laughed. "Installment-plan place in the Haymarket. They've paid for the tickets and given me hotel vouchers and cash for the balance. The whole thing'll cost us about a hundred and twenty pounds including interest. Pay it off over twelve months at about ten pounds a month."
Desperately, she had said, "But we can't remotely afford ten pounds a month, John. Think of what we owe already."
He looked puzzled, as if he'd not understood. Then he frowned, the veins on his forehead stood out, and his jaw muscles began to work. "I see," he said. "Your customary appreciation of anything I try to do." He flung the tickets violently across the kitchen. "Very well, we'll stay and rot in this godforsaken, rained-out bloody place." For three days after that he didn't speak to her.
Now, sobbing again, she picked up the letter and let herself out the front door. It was raining and almost dark when she reached the mailbox.
When Shadde and Rhys Evans got back on board the captain suggested a nightcap in his cabin. It was more an order than an invitation. They raised their glasses and drank, but Shadde sat hunched and withdrawn, barely replying to the Welshman's attempts at conversation. Worried by this gloomy preoccupation, the engineer officer at last muttered apologies and left.
Shadde slumped back into the chair and sat there, head sunk, for upwards of two hours before he got onto his bunk. It was going to be difficult to sleep. All his problems would clamor at him in the dark. The row with Number One at Skansen. How had that started? Over Symington. No, the beginning was the flippancy about Russia. Couldn't they see what was happening? What did they think they were in Retaliate for? Why didn't they sense the danger? He felt his heartbeat quicken. The forces of darkness were gathering. The testing time was coming nearer. But England was soft, having it too good. People laughed when you talked about mortal danger. High patriotism was needed. A man would have to come forward. There had always been a man to save England.
His thoughts went back to Skansen. Symington's offensive behavior. How dare the first lieutenant support Symington and the doctor? Discipline in the submarine was not what it should be. In the morning he would talk to Cavan.
Then with a sick feeling he thought of Elizabeth. She had been his sleeping and waking thought since he had received that incredible letter in Oslo. It was ten days now since he had answered it. Why hadn't she written again? He'd not taken seriously her threat to leave him, at first. But slowly it had dawned on him that she might actually do it.
It had been a shock to learn that she was unhappy. Why? Because they had no children? For years he had taken Elizabeth for granted, and the thought of losing her terrified him. She was all he had. She must know that. But what if she didn't? He could never tell her. Those were things that couldn't be said.
He turned uneasily in his bunk, torn by doubt and anxiety, falling finally into a disquieting sleep.