Ship of Brides by Jojo Moyes Read Free Book Online Page B

accompanying the remark with a rather vulgar nudge.
    In other times, Avice would not have spent five minutes with this peculiar mixture of girls – some of whom seemed to have landed straight off some outback station with red dust on their shoes – or, indeed, have wasted so many hours enduring interminable lectures from middle-aged spinsters who had seized upon the war as a way to enliven what had probably been dismal lives. But she had been in Sydney for almost ten days now, with her father’s friend, Mr Burton, the only person she knew there, and the Wives’ Club had become her only point of social contact. (She still wasn’t sure how to explain Mr Burton’s behaviour to her father. She had had to tell the man no less than four times that she was a married woman, and she wasn’t entirely sure that as far as he was concerned that made any difference.)
    There were twelve other young women at today’s gathering; few had spent more than a week at a time with their husbands, and more than half had not seen them for the best part of a year. The shipment home of troops was a priority; the ‘wallflower wives’, as they had become known, were not. Some had filed their papers over a year previously and heard little since. At least one, tiring of her dreary lodgings, had given up and gone home. The rest stayed on, fuelled by blind hope, desperation, love or, in most cases, a varying mix of all three.
    Avice was the newest member. Listening to their tales of the families with whom they were billeted, she had silently thanked her parents for the opulence of her hotel accommodation. It would all have been so much less exciting if she had been forced to stay with some grumpy old couple. As it was, it became rather less exciting by the day.
    ‘If that Mrs Tidworth says to me one more time, “Oh dear, hasn’t he sent for you yet?” I swear I’ll swing for her.’
    ‘She loves it, the old bitch. She did the same to Mary Knight when she stayed there. I reckon she actually wants you to get the telegram saying, “Don’t come.”’
    ‘It’s the you’ll-be-sorrys I can’t stand.’
    ‘Not much longer, eh?’
    ‘When’s the next one due in?’
    ‘Around three weeks, according to my orders,’ said the dark-eyed girl. Avice thought she might have said her name was Jean, but she was hopeless with names and had forgotten them all immediately she’d been introduced. ‘She’d better be as nice as the Queen Mary . She even had a hair salon with heated dryers. I’m desperate to get my hair done properly before I see Stan again.’
    ‘She was a wonderful woman, Queen Mary,’ said Mrs Proffit, from the end of the table. ‘Such a lady.’
    ‘You’ve got your orders?’ A freckled girl on the other side of the table was frowning at Jean.
    ‘Last week.’
    ‘But you’re low priority. You said you didn’t even put in your papers until a month ago.’
    There was a brief silence. Around the table, several girls exchanged glances, then fixed their eyes on their embroidery. Mrs Proffit looked up; she had apparently picked up on the subtle cooling in the atmosphere. ‘Anyone need more thread?’ she asked, peering over her spectacles.
    ‘Yes, well, sometimes you just get lucky,’ said Jean, and excused herself from the table.
    ‘How come she gets on?’ said the freckled girl, turning to the women on each side of her. ‘I’ve been waiting nearly fifteen months, and she’s getting on the next boat out. How can that be right?’ Her voice had sharpened with the injustice of it. Avice made a mental note not to mention her own orders.
    ‘She’s carrying, isn’t she?’ muttered another girl.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Jean. She’s in the family way. You know what? The Americans won’t let you over once you’re past four months.’
    ‘Who’s doing the penguin?’ said Mrs Proffit. ‘You’ll need to keep that black thread for whoever’s doing the penguin.’
    ‘Hang on,’ said a redhead threading a needle. ‘Her Stan