1966. On board the SS Himalaya
Janet leant over the railing on one of the lower decks seldom used by the other passengers and stared at the sea. Emerald waves whipped up against the sturdy white hull of the ship. Two black frigatebirds were hunting low over the water, keeping up with the ship’s bow waves. Their long forked tails and pointy wings reminded Janet of the origami figures her father used to make for them when they were small. He’d used thin red cardboard. Or sometimes orange. He’d stopped when Philip was around ten. Must have thought that they were all too grown up for paper toys by then. Angus called the frigatebirds Flying Ws. She’d laughed when he’d told her that, and she’d told Philip and Ed and they’d laughed too.
The wind picked up and thin grey clouds started to clamber over the horizon. Janet shivered. She was still in her bathing suit, just the towel tied around her waist. Her feet were bare. She must have left the new yellow flip flops by the pool. Had she forgotten them, or had she kicked them aside because they were from Angus, and now tainted? She wasn’t sure. It was two, maybe three hours since Philip had told her about Angus and the other girl. He’d spoiled everything, the little shit.
She hated having brothers. Poking around in other people’s business. Spying on Angus. Spying on her. God, the pair of them must have seen them kissing. Her and Angus. A surge of heat swept up her chest and into her neck and cheeks. She squeezed the metal barrier harder, leant further over it until her long hair tumbled across her face and down towards the ocean. How long would it take her to climb over the railing, to fall, to sink under, to disappear in a shimmering stream of bubbles, to be eaten by the fishes, swallowed by a whale? How long before anyone noticed that she’d vanished, vaporised, somewhere around the invisible marker of the equator?
She stayed bent over the railings with her hair kinking and tangling in the wind until the colour of the sea was dark olive and the sun had slipped down behind the horizon. Then, suddenly cold, she turned away from the ocean, pulled the towel up around her shoulders, and sat down on the deck, leaning up against the hard metal wall of the crew’s mess. She didn’t know what to do. Didn’t have anyone to ask. To confide in. Bessie, her best friend back in Scotland, would have told her to dump him. To stand square on, holding his eyes, and call him out for being a two-timer. But Bessie wasn’t with her. And without Bessie, Janet lacked courage. Self-respect. Bessie had once said Janet was a walk-over and Bessie was probably right.
Perhaps she could pretend that she didn’t know. Try harder to keep him loyal, committed. To not need other girls. Maybe it was her fault. She was too frigid, inexperienced, a daddy’s girl that winced when the probing hands went too low. Janet put a hand over her right breast. Touched the soft cotton of her swimsuit with tentative fingers. Moved the fingers to the other breast. It wouldn’t be so bad really. To let his fingers probe deeper. To bite down harder on the lemony sweetness of his tongue. To let him take her hand and push it down there between his legs. Other girls did that. Why shouldn’t she?
Janet shut her eyes and sighed. Bessie’s finger was wagging at her. Angus’s lips were firm on the back of her neck. She was caught between them. Two birds of paradise squabbling over a rotting fruit.
‘There you are, I’ve been looking all over.’ Janet started. ‘You must be freezing, darling. Come on in and get yourself dressed.’ Janet’s mother reached down, took her daughter’s hand and pulled her up. ‘Dinner’s at eight,’ she said, putting her arm around Janet. ‘It’s our turn at the Captain’s table so we mustn’t be late.’
SANDERLINGS 