The Judas Tree (11 page)

But now they were through the grey turbulence of the Bay, sunshine suddenly blazed, sky and sea were blue as they passed through the Straits and cruised up the south-east coast of Spain towards Marseilles, where more cargo was to be taken aboard. Deck games were being set out and Moray was advised by the first officer, a long, lean, goodnatured Irishman named O'Neil, that part of the doctor's duty was to organise them. So Moray, taking paper and pencil, approached the task of rounding up the passengers, at first with a sense of his unfitness for large-scale social intercourse, yet, after some preliminary self-consciousness, with success. His official position made things easier than he had imagined. He need not seek, he was sought after – a ship's surgeon was apparently a position of some consequence. When they arrived at Marseilles, lists of competitors for deck quoits, shuffle-board and table tennis had been drawn up and Moray, with a grimace, began to overhear himself referred to as ‘our nice young doctor.'

At Marseilles a long, five-page letter from Mary awaited him. In his cabin he read it eagerly, smiling at her little bits of news, touched by the simple record of all she had been doing, through which there breathed a constant solicitude for his health. She hoped that his pain was gone, his cough less, that he was taking good care of himself. She sent him all her love. Dear Mary, how he missed her. In the surgery, squaring up to his desk, he wrote his reply, telling of all his activities, and was able to catch the outgoing mail before the sack was closed. The
Pindari
was no more than twelve hours in port. Loading completed, the hatches were battened down; then, almost at the last moment – the night train from Paris was late – three new passengers came on board. Since most of the tables in the saloon were fully occupied they were seated with the doctor, and their names added to the passenger list: Mr and Mrs Arnold Holbrook, Miss Doris Holbrook. Surreptitiously, Moray examined them, as they sat down to lunch.

Holbrook was a man of about sixty, not tall, but so heavily thickset as to be short of breath, with a red, porous, mottled face partly covered by a short grizzled beard, and small, bloodshot, genially knowing eyes. He was badly dressed in a greenish readymade suit, grey flannel shirt and a stringy maroon tie. His wife a little homely woman with small features and a gentle expression, was, in contrast, wearing heavy, fashionable clothes and an elaborate black-sequined toque. Yet she carried them without ease, as though they encumbered her and she would have preferred much simpler attire – instinctively Moray thought of her in an old loose print wrapper, busy with her household duties in a well-stocked kitchen. She wore also so much jewellery that he erroneously assumed it to be paste. The daughter appeared to be not more than twenty. She was tallish, of a pale, dull complexion, with a good figure, dark hair and slate-grey eyes which, sitting erect and silent, she kept lowered sulkily during most of the meal.

Not so Holbrook. In the accents of Manchester, genially, expansively, with an air of experience, he broke the introductory ice, tactfully set conversation going, jollied the Tamil table boy until he had him grinning, started Mahratta off on a diverting account of his recent gastronomic difficulties in London that brought a smile even to the meagre lips of Mrs Hunt-hunter. When he had awakened the table to life, he casually revealed that his son was in Calcutta opening a branch of his business, that Dorrie – he looked towards his daughter, who ignored the affectionate glance – had just left Miss Wainwright's Finishing School in Blackpool, and that their voyage to India was pleasure and business combined. It was only when he proposed ordering champagne all round that a reproving glance from his wife drew him up.

‘Ah, well, Mother,' he deferred humorously, ‘we'll have it at dinner tonight. That suit you, Dorrie?'

Doris gave him a pettish glance.

‘You stop it, Dad. The story of your life will keep.'

‘That's my girl.' He laughed indulgently, with a note of pride. ‘ I like to have you keep me right.'

‘And about time.'

‘Now, Doris,' her mother warned gently: then, looking round the table, she added, as though in extenuation: ‘Our daughter hasn't been too well lately. And the night journey was real tiring for her.'

That same afternoon, as Moray came along the companionway towards his surgery, he found. Holbrook standing before the notice board with his hands in his pockets, studying the sports lists.

‘It looks as though you've got everyone pretty well booked up, doctor.'

‘I've gone through the passenger list fairly thoroughly, sir.'

‘Our Dorrie likes a game,' said the other in a reflective tone. ‘And she's a dab at most of them. Surely you could find her a partner, doctor.' He paused. ‘ How about yourself? You're an active young fellow.'

Moray hesitated.

‘I'll be glad to, sir,' he said, adding quickly: ‘If it's permitted. I'll … I'll speak to the first officer.'

‘Do that, lad. I'd appreciate it.'

Moray's impressions of Holbrook's daughter had not been favourable; he had no wish to be let in for this job. Besides, as a ship's officer, he doubted if he could participate in the competitions. However, when he had finished his consultations he found O'Neil on the bridge and explained the situation; the big Irishman had already been friendly and helpful, casually tipping him off on his more important duties.

‘Sure ye can play, doc,' said O'Neil, in a Belfast accent you could cut with a knife. ‘Ye're expected to be nice to the women. Besides, I saw this little bit come aboard. She looks as if she has something.' O'Neil's blue eyes twinkled. ‘ With luck ye might get a tickle.'

‘I wouldn't be interested,' Moray said flatly. His pure-minded feeling for Mary made the suggestion, however goodnatured, unutterably distasteful to him.

‘Well, anyhow, be civil – it'll do ye no harm and may do ye some good. The old boy's rolling. Holbrook's Pharmaceuticals. Began in a back street chemist's shop in Bootle. Made a fortune out of pills.' He grinned. ‘Moving the bowels of humanity. The answer was in the purgative. Say, that reminds me. Did you ever hear this one?' O'Neil, a brave and gallant soul who had been torpedoed in the war, swimming for five hours in the Atlantic Ocean before being picked up, had a positive mania for telling off-colour stories. Submitting, Moray prepared his smile as the other went on: ‘A Yank was coming tearing along the street in Chicago when another Yank standing on the sidewalk stopped him. “Can you direct me to a good chemist?” says he. “Brother,” says the other, in a raging hurry, “if ye want God's own chemist just …' At the unprintable punch line O'Neil topped his cap to a more rakish angle and lay back on the binnacle, roaring with laughter.

Moray remained on the bridge for another half hour, pacing up and down with the first officer, watching the French coastline slip away, his cheeks whipped by the invigorating wind, which was always keener up top. Drummond had been right; there was health in the tang of the open sea. How much better he was feeling now, and how agreeable life was on board. He had forgotten his promise to Holbrook but when he went below it came to mind, and, with a shrug, he entered Miss Holbrook's name and his own in the doubles events.

The weather continued fine, the sea calm, the sky brilliant by day, shading through violet sunsets into velvet and luminous nights through which, the
Pindari
traced its phosphorescent wake. This was the sea of Jason and Ulysses; at dawn the ship seemed suspended between sky and water, timeless and unreal, except that there, on the starboard bow, was Sardinia, the healthy fragrance of the island borne on a soft and fitful breeze.

Drawing deep, free breaths of this aromatic air without pain or hindrance, Moray knew that his pleurisy had gone. No need now to put his stethoscope on his chest. His skin was tanned, he had never felt better. After those years of prolonged grind, the present conditions of his life seemed altogether too good to be true. Awakened at seven by his cabin ‘boy', who, padding barefoot from the galley, brought his
chota hazri
of tea and fresh fruit, he got up half an hour later, took a plunge in the sports deck swimming-pool, then dressed. Breakfast was at nine, after which he made his round of visits or, once a week, accompanied Captain Torrance on the official inspection of the ship. From ten-thirty till noon he was in his surgery. Lunch came at one, and thereafter, except for a nominal surgery at five o'clock, he was free for the rest of the day, expected only to make himself agreeable and obliging to the passengers. At seven-thirty the melodious dinner gong boomed up and down the alleyways – always a welcome sound, since the meals were rich, spicy and plentiful, the native curries especially delicious.

On the following Monday the tournaments began, and just before eight bells, recollecting his engagement, Moray closed the surgery and went up to the sports deck for the first round of the deck-tennis doubles. His partner was already there, wearing a short white skirt and a singlet, standing beside her parents who rather to his embarrassment, had taken deck chairs close to the court so that they might miss nothing of the game. As he apologised for keeping her waiting, although actually he was not late, she did not speak, and barely glanced at him. He scarcely knew whether she was nervous or, as he had suspected at table, merely perverse.

Their opponents arrived, a newly married Ditch couple, the Hendricks, who were on their way out to Chittagong, and the match began. At first Doris was carelessly erratic but, although he had never played the game before, he had a quick eye and managed to cover her mistakes, which he made light of, with his usual good humour. At this, she began to try, and to play brilliantly. She had a straight yet well-developed figure – round, very pretty breasts and hips, and long, well-shaped legs, revealed in motion by her short skirt. The Hendricks, a plump and heavy-footed pair, were no match for them. They won handsomely by six games to two. As he congratulated her, saying, ‘ Your father told me you were good at games, and you are,' she gave him one of her rare direct looks, fleeting and unsmiling.

‘Yes,' she said. ‘ I've been taught a few tricks, and picked up some on my own. But aren't you going to buy me a drink? Let's have it up here.'

When the deck steward brought two tall lemon squashes, filled with ice, she lay back in her deck chair, with half-closed eyes, sipping her drink through the straw. He glanced at her awkwardly, at a loss as to what to say, a strange predicament for one who could invariably find the right word in the right place. The heat of the game had brought a faint colour into her pale complexion, and caused her singlet to adhere to her breasts, so that the pink of her nipples showed through the thin damp cotton. She's an attractive girl, thought Moray, almost angrily, but what the devil is the matter with her? Had she lost her tongue? Apparently not, for suddenly she spoke.

‘I'm glad we won. I wanted to knock out that sickening pair of Dutch love-birds. Can you imagine them in bed together. “Excuse my fat, dear.” I'd like to win all the tournaments. If only to spite our delightful passengers. What a crowd they are. I hate them all, don't you?'

‘No, I can't say I do.'

‘You can't mean it. They're an appalling lot, especially our table. Mrs Hunt-hunter – what a horse-faced hag. Makes me sick. She's common as mud, really. And the ship's lousy too. I never wanted to come on this damn trip. My devoted parents dragged me on board by the hair. My cabin is supposed to be one of the best on A deck. Dad paid through the nose for it. You should see it. A dog kennel, with a bath like the kitchen sink. That's the worst, for, if anything, I like to wash. And can you imagine, natives serving one's food. Why can't they have white stewards?'

‘Our table boy seems a very decent jolly sort.'

‘Haven't you noticed how he smells? It would kill you. I'm very sensitive about smells, it's something to do with the olfactory nerves the doctor told Mother. Phooey to him – smarmy windbag. The point is, I like people to smell clean.'

‘Do I?' he couldn't help asking, ironically.

She laughed, stretching her long legs widely apart.

‘Wouldn't you like to know? Frankly, you're the one faint gleam on the horizon. Didn't you notice me taking you in that first day at lunch? I either take to a person or I don't. I can tell at a glance. To be quite frank, I asked Father to get you as my partner. He's not a bad old bird though he is a bit of a soak. And Mother is passable, if only she'd stop clucking over me. But I have to keep them in order, quite often I absolutely
freeze
them, to get them to do what I want. I'm talking an awful lot. Sometimes I talk all the time, sometimes I say nothing, absolutely nothing. I like to treat people that way. I'm proud. I used to drive old Wainwright out of her mind. When she'd start lecturing me I'd simply look at her and throw myself into a coma.'

‘She's your headmistress?'

‘Was,' she said idly. ‘ She threw me out.'

‘What on earth for?'

She gave him her slow smile.

‘That may be revealed in a later instalment.'

On the following afternoon Doris and the doctor successfully played two rounds at bull board and one at deck quoits, and Doris's parents were again spectators. Moray quite enjoyed the games. He'd never met anyone like her before, so amusingly prejudiced and intolerant, so sure of her own privileged position, and yet with a streak underneath of commonness, of vulgarity almost, that redeemed her absurd pretensions. The fact that she liked him was flattering. It was now apparent that the Holbrooks doted upon their daughter, unresponsive though she might be, and he was less surprised than he might have been when they rose and came towards him, quite unusually pleased by the triple victory. Mrs Holbrook gave him a noticeably kind smile.