Every Man for Himself by Beryl Bainbridge Read Free Book Online Page A

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