Free Sea Fury (1971) by James Pattinson Page B

then. Go on, tell me. Money in the bank? An estate to retire to?”
    “I’m not talking about retirement.”
    “Then what are you talking about?”
    She faced him now, not flinching. “About you getting a job, Syd.”
    He made a gesture of impatience. “I knew we’d get round to that. I knew that was coming. I thought we’d settled that once and for all.”
    “I wish you’d change your mind.”
    “Then you can go on wishing.” He was angry and his voice had grown harsh. “And you’ll be wasting your time because that’s one wish that’s never coming true. Never.”
    She did not attempt to plead with him. She just gave a sigh. He saw the way her shoulders drooped and was sorry for having lashed at her with his tongue. When he spoke again it was in a gentler tone. It was almost as though it were he who was pleading.
    “Don’t you see how it is, honey? Don’t you see what you’re asking? You’re telling me to throw away all I’ve worked for. Everything. My whole life.” He moved to her and began to stroke her hair, her neck. “You do see, don’t you? You see why I can’t do it?”
    “Yes,” she said, “I see.”
    She could have told him that there was no need to throwit all away; it had already gone. But she did not tell him that. She only wished he could accept the fact for himself.
    “We’ll manage,” he said. “We’ll manage, honey.”
     
    Moira Lycett was alone in the cabin when she heard the knock on the door. She was writing in her diary. She was one of those people who are habitual compilers of diaries; but she never kept them for long. As soon as a volume was full she threw it away; she had no desire to read any of it again and she was far too realistic to believe that what she had written would ever be of any value. In a way she supposed she wrote for therapeutic reasons, to get things out of her system. If she had had a bosom friend she might have confided in her; but she had never had a friend of that sort, not at least since her school-days , so instead she gave her confidences to the diary, which at any rate had the virtue of being thoroughly discreet.
    The knock on the door sounded discreet too; just loud enough to be heard, not loud enough to be aggressive. She supposed it was the steward, and she called to him to come in without troubling to glance up from her writing.
    She heard the door open and close. A voice that was certainly not the steward’s said, “Hope I’m not disturbing you, Mrs. Lycett.”
    She looked up and saw that it was Perkins, the engineer, the man who had seen her wearing that ridiculous polythene cap after the fiasco of the bathroom. It was the memory of that encounter that caused her to colour slightly with anger when she saw who the visitor was.
    “What do you want?”
    Perkins smiled. It was probable that he too was remembering the earlier encounter, remembering it perhaps with more relish than Moira Lycett was.
    “I’ve come about the fan.”
    She saw then that he was carrying a tool-box in his hand. With the other he rubbed his cheek, as though massaging it, gazing all the while at the woman with his bright, beady eyes that put her in mind of some small species of rodent, a rat perhaps.
    “It’s not working, I hear.”
    “I suppose my husband told you.”
    “Not directly. The message was passed on, as you might say. I’m the electrician in this ship.”
    “Then you’d better get on with the job. It’s stifling in here.”
    “It’s all a question of what you get used to. It’s worse in my cabin. Nearer the engine-room, see.”
    “I’m not interested in your cabin.”
    “No? Pity. If you were, I’d be only too pleased to show you round. No etchings, mind; but you can’t have everything, can you?”
    “I think you’d better get on with what you came for and then leave,” Moira Lycett said tartly.
    She turned her back on him and began to write again in her diary. The insinuation in his words angered her. She would have got up and left