Every Man for Himself (6 page)

‘But you reckon we’ll reach New York Tuesday?’ pressed Ginsberg, and the purser replied, ‘Tuesday night, yes. Barring accidents,’ at which they both laughed.

The office was cosy from the warmth of an electric fire. Above the desk was pinned a photograph of an infant scowling beneath the shadow of a summer bonnet. ‘A fine little chap,’ Ginsberg remarked. ‘What do you call him?’ Assuming a sugary expression he touched the child’s paper jowls with the tip of one finger.

‘Eliza,’ said the purser. ‘After her mother.’

Remembering I hadn’t a receipt for the luggage transported by Melchett’s chauffeur, I enquired if it was to hand. After much rifling through the compartments of his desk the purser produced the relevant docket. ‘One medium sized trunk,’ he read, ‘and a consignment of theatrical manuscripts in the name of J. Pierpont Morgan.’

We were about to leave when Ginsberg said, ‘I noticed when looking out of the saloon windows that while the sea and the skyline were evident on my left, only the sky was visible to starboard. From which I gained the impression we’ve a distinct list to port.’

‘Very well observed, sir,’ exclaimed the purser. ‘It’s no doubt due to more coal being consumed from the starboard bunkers than from the port side.’

‘Which is occasioned, no doubt,’ said Ginsberg, ‘by the fire blazing in the stokehold of Number 10 bunker.’

The purser looked shaken. ‘A fire, sir? What do you mean?’

‘Come now. We both know what I’m talking about.’

‘A fire?’ I reiterated, stupidly enough. ‘What sort of fire?’

‘The sort that burns,’ retorted Ginsberg.

‘If what you imply was true, sir,’ the purser said, ‘the Board of Trade inspector would never have signed the clearance certificate for us to leave Southampton.’

‘Well then,’ cried Ginsberg, ‘we have nothing to worry about, have we?’

‘What was all that about?’ I asked, when we were in the corridor. He replied that he was a cautious man, which struck me as absurd, and that he had always found it inadvisable to take anything on trust.

I didn’t return with him to the smoke-room; his know-all attitude irritated me. Sissy has constantly warned that my intolerance will land me in hot water. I’ve always felt that if a man tries to adopt attitudes which are not innate then sooner or later he will discover Nature cannot be forced. We are what we are, and it’s no good dissembling.

Pleading lack of sleep and a mild queasiness of stomach, I loitered outside the Palm Court and listened to the band. A vocalist was singing
Put your arms around me honey, hold me tight
. Peering through the glass panels of the doors I caught sight of Rosenfelder, coat-tails flying as he strutted Molly Dodge across the floor. There was no sign of Wallis Ellery.

Before retiring I went out on to the boat deck. There was a breeze but the air was far from cold. An elderly couple sat on steamer chairs, hands folded on their laps. From somewhere ahead came the squeal of bagpipes; walking astern I joined a group of passengers who stood at the rails looking on to the steerage space beneath. They were dancing down there, a kind of skirl, the men whooping as they swept the women in figures of eight about the deck. Someone next to me murmured, ‘They know how to enjoy themselves,’ and another said, ‘How steady the ship is,’ to which her companion replied, as though quoting from the brochures, ‘We’re on a floating palace, my dear.’

Standing there, watching a woman who stood with her back to the crowd, shawl draped about her head and shoulders, I fancied I half remembered my own steerage passage to the New World, though indeed I didn’t, having only learnt of it from my aunt. She said I’d been put in the care of an Irish girl who reported I ate enough for three and was never sick. It was not meanness, I was assured, that had governed the decision to transport me so cheaply across the Atlantic, rather that it was felt more exalted accommodation, bearing in mind the circumstances of my early years, would have caused almost as much embarrassment to myself as to others. Sissy, of course, says it was because my aunt did not want people to know of our connection, but then, as she has never been abandoned, Sissy can afford to be critical.

The figure in the shawl turned and, circling the dancers, came to the metal gate barring the way to the second class area. She stood leaning against it, peering upwards, and with the light full on her face I recognised who she was. I was astonished. It was hardly likely that anyone travelling first or second class would choose to visit the lower decks and it was strictly against the rules for steerage passengers to move upwards, and yet I had seen her twice in first class, once in the company of Scurra when we left Southampton and again when she had appeared on the Grand Staircase and called out to him.

Presently a fellow with a handkerchief knotted about his throat approached. He spoke to the woman but she shrugged her shoulders dismissively and fixed her gaze on the heavens. Save for the mast lights sailing against the darkness the sky was empty of stars.

Puzzled, I strolled back the way I had come and reaching the gymnasium doors stood for some minutes leaning over the rail. The ship was lit up from bow to stern, the reflections leaping in silver streamers across the black waters below. I could feel the coldness of the rail striking through the cloth of my jacket, and as I shifted my arm an image of the corridor at Princes Gate flashed into my head; I clearly saw my elbow bobbing upward to wipe away that square of dust on the wall. My heart leapt in my breast and I found it difficult to breathe. It was only a matter of time, I reasoned, before Jack or one of the servants noticed the empty space.

It wasn’t being found out that bothered me – my uncle was three-quarters buccaneer himself – more that my aunt had dinned into me that wrong-doing is invariably punished, and though my adult self regarded this as mere superstition the child in me quaked. I exaggerate, of course. There was definitely something pleasurable in my moment of fear. I decided I would write to my uncle, confessing what I had done. I might even offer to pay for the painting – my allowance was generous enough.

When I passed through the gymnasium there were some fellows fooling about on the apparatus. The instructor, poor chap, was trying to close up for the night. I nearly stopped to assist him – the revellers were distinctly the worse for drink – but decided against it. I suspected I might well be in the same condition in the nights that followed.

I rang for the steward on reaching my stateroom. I wanted a hot drink. He came in at once, carrying the day suit I had worn when boarding. He said it had been sponged and pressed. The contents of the pockets were on the dressing table if I cared to check.

‘Is there a Jew called Rosenfelder on this deck?’ I asked.

‘Not on this one, sir. He’s on B deck. He’s the gentleman I mentioned who was to have travelled second class and took over a cancellation.’

‘And what of a man called Scurra?’

‘That name I don’t recollect, sir. Possibly he’s travelling under an assumed name. You’d be surprised how many of them do that.’

‘Like Mr and Mrs Morgan,’ I suggested, and he knew immediately who I meant. He had served them for years on the Atlantic run and found his Lordship a very affable man. He didn’t lean much towards her Ladyship, whom he found strident. ‘Of course, she’s an American,’ he said, ‘and they’re never backward in coming forward.’ He had met her sort before, when he was young and employed as a ballroom dancer at the Savoy. In those days two dances were included in the price of the tea, for the benefit of the unaccompanied ladies. Though he wasn’t one to blow his own trumpet he had been a great favourite with those leaving the glades of youth.

‘One in particular,’ he boasted, ‘took a fancy to me. She used to collect me in her carriage and we’d spank along to the Park and take a wee drop of gin under the trees. Mind, I never took advantage . . . I left that to her.’

Her Ladyship’s sister went under the name of Elinor Glyn. She wrote novels, of the steamy sort so he’d heard, and was, or had been, the mistress of Lord Curzon. I didn’t rebuke him for gossiping, thinking he might be useful later.

Giving him his tip I suddenly remembered the seaman who had taken Melchett and myself down to the engine rooms. Putting a half-crown piece in an envelope, I addressed it to Riley. I told the steward to make sure the right man received it. ‘He’s no bigger than a boy,’ I said. ‘And he talks like a foreigner with a cold.’

My billfold, matches, the keys to Princes Gate and the snapshot foisted on me by the dying man lay on the dressing table. I stuffed them back into the pocket of the jacket and began my letter.
My dear Uncle, I am bringing back with me the small painting of my mother, dated 1888, which hung on the first floor corridor at Princes Gate. I did not have time to tell Jack what
—.

I had got no further when my cocoa arrived. Laying the letter aside I prepared for bed. It was a relief to switch off the light because the girl on the wall now seemed to be watching me.

TWO

 

Thursday, 11th April

At seven o’clock the next morning I had the salt water baths to myself and had swum eight lengths in less than five minutes without pausing for rest. On my ninth turn, a corpulent figure emerged from the cubicles and padded towards the side. I was put off my stroke; it was none other than Rosenfelder, dressed in a costume of green and brown stripes, his calves white and shapely as a girl’s. He sat for some minutes on the edge of the pool struggling to thrust his curls into a rubber cap before flopping walrus-fashion into the water. Though disconcerted I was damned if I was going to quit on his account and continued to plough back and forth, until, having blindly thrashed into my path, his arm flailed downwards and struck me on the shoulder.

We both trod water and faced each other, he spluttering apologies, myself gasping for breath from lack of fitness. I was about to respond impatiently when his bathing cap, which was already absurdly balanced like some deflating balloon on the very top of his head, suddenly rose in the air and plopped down between us. The sight was so comical I bellowed with laughter. He stared at me a second, eyes popping, and then he too began to squeal. We both clung to one another for support and were not much better composed when we climbed out, for the floor was slippery from our splashings and we were forced to walk on mincing tip-toe to avoid falling, which set us off again, our guffaws bouncing back at us from the tiled walls as we pranced to the changing boxes. We continued to behave in this cockamamie fashion while dressing, he giving vent to falsetto giggles, myself letting out staccato hoots as I towelled myself dry.

He suggested we breakfasted together, which was fine by me. I found him amusing. By the time I had tucked into my eggs, bacon and kidneys and he into his kedgeree, we were the best of friends.

After the politenesses had been rushed through, the weather, the size of the ship, the excellence of the food, he was eager to talk about himself. At some point in his unstoppable narrative Thomas Andrews and four of his design team entered the restaurant. They each carried drawing pads and Andrews had a pencil stuck behind his ear. He didn’t notice me.

Rosenfelder’s story was commonplace enough for one of his race and class. He had left Germany as a boy and come to England to be apprenticed to a tailor, an elderly cousin on his father’s side. They had lived first in Liverpool and then Manchester.

‘They were not good times,’ he confided. ‘My cousin was a hard man . . . life had made him so. Blows in the shop, blows in the home . . . never enough to eat, bugs crawling out of the skirting boards and always the rain coming down.’

‘I can imagine,’ I said. And I could. I rubbed my arm to relieve an itch.

‘Bit by bit the business began to prosper. My cousin had the customers and I had the skill at cutting. We make money. Then, when my cousin popped his clogs . . . you understand the expression?’ – I nodded – ‘he left me five sewing machines, a quantity of cloth and a year’s rent on the premises of the top floor of a warehouse in Hood Street beside the canal. Modest, you understand, but the roof didn’t leak.’

‘It’s a river,’ I interrupted. ‘The Irwell.’

‘I’d been frugal,’ he continued, ‘and in another year I’d saved enough to take a lease on a shop in a better part of town. Twelve months later, after a courtship of fifteen years, I marry the daughter of a Russian pastry cook employed in the Midland Hotel. She’s a good woman, thrifty, a regular
baleboosteh
. When we have our first child she loses her teeth. Now, when she moves her mouth to speak to me, which is fortunately not often, I am regretfully reminded of a goldfish.’ He had bought her dentures, of course, the best that money could buy, but she refused to wear them.

Lest I should think the tailoring business lacked poetry he dazzled me with a recitation of fabrics – bombazine, brocade, calico, dimity, duck, flannelette, fustian, muslin, sateen, velveteen. He was going to America to see Mr Macy and show him an extraordinary dress which would, God willing, go on display in the windows of that famous store and eventually make him his fortune. ‘I will be,’ he declared, ‘no longer a bespoke tailor but a couturier.’