Isvik Page 2
Only the sales staff, the younger ones in particular, seemed able to shift jobs with relative ease. I discovered this about a month after Pett, Poldice was shut down. Julian Thwaite, an ebullient extrovert from the Yorkshire Dales, who had been our sales manager and lived quite near us at Weasenham St Peter, suggested we all meet for a drink in the centre of King’s Lynn, ‘to exchange experiences, information, contacts and aspirations’. It was a nice idea, done out of the goodness of his heart, for he himself had apparently had no difficulty in switching from wood preservatives and special paints to lubricating oils. Almost fifty, out of a total workforce of seventy-nine, turned up at the Mayden’s Head in the Tuesday Market Place, and of those only fourteen had found new jobs. It was the workers at the factory and the specialised staff at the old Pett, Poldice office that were, experiencing the greatest difficulty in adjusting.
Within a week of being declared redundant I began toying with two possibilities, both of which excited me and had been in my mind for some time. The first was to sell my boat, borrow enough cash to get me a big 35–40 foot motor-sailer and set up as a charter skipper. The other was to set up my own wood preservative consultancy. Both these possibilities were exciting enough to have me lie awake at night planning, and as often as not fantasising. It was that evening at the Mayden’s Head, talking to those other poor devils who had lost their jobs and hadn’t got another, that finally decided me.
I started looking at the charter skipper possibilities first, for the very simple reason that it had always been something of a dream of mine and I knew my way about the sailing world of East Anglia, the people to ask. But I soon discovered that the cost of borrowing the money to buy the boat meant that at least two months of my chartering would disappear in interest payments before I even started meeting all the other costs: maintenance, equipment replacement, stores, expenses, etc.
It just wasn’t on, not unless I could finance it myself. And so I set myself up as a self-employed wood consultant, and instead of writing to possible employers, I started offering my services to companies and institutions I had been in touch with during the five years I had been at Pett, Poldice.
One of those institutions was the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. We had once done some rather specialised work for them on a newly discovered figurehead. I got a nice letter back from the Deputy Director, but no offer of work. He saw no prospect of requiring the services of anybody outside of the Museum staff in the foreseeable future.
It was what I had expected, so I was a little surprised, about six weeks later, to receive a further note from him to say that, though he couldn’t promise anything, he thought it might be worth my while if I could arrange to be in Greenwich the following Wednesday when he had a meeting fixed with somebody who needed advice on the preservation of ships’ timbers. Not really my province, the note added, but the ship itself is of great interest to the Museum, and the circumstances are intriguing. I thought of you in particular because of your sailing experience. You will see why if you can attend the meeting which will be on board the Cutty Sark at 11.00.
It was a curious letter, and though I could ill afford the time, and indeed the expense, of going up to London, Victor Wellington was too important a figure in the world I was now trying to establish myself in for me to ignore his invitation.
That Wednesday morning I took the early inter-city express, which got me into the bedlam of reconstruction that was Liverpool Street station shortly after nine. The sun was making bright bars through clouds of dust and picking out the network of new iron columns and girders towering above the boarded alleys that channelled the rush-hour traffic through big machines grabbing at the foundations of old buildings. Outside, by contrast, the City seemed bright and clean. I had plenty of time so I stopped for a sandwich and a cup of coffee at a small café by the Monument, then walked on to Tower Pier and caught a boat down to Greenwich.
Twenty minutes later we were turning into the tide in Greenwich Reach, crabbing across the river to snuggle up to the pier. Beyond the pier buildings, the masts and yards of the Cutty Sark stood high against a blue sky, varnish and paintwork gleaming in the clean bright slant of the sun’s light. To the left, as I stepped ashore, I could see the green of grass between the pale grey stone of Wren’s riverside masterpiece. I glanced at my watch. It was not yet ten-thirty.
The Cutty Sark stood bows-on to the river, her great bowsprit jabbing the air midway between Francis Chichester’s Gypsy Moth IV and the pier entrance. I walked over to her and stood for a moment leaning on the iron railings, looking down into the empty dock that had been specially constructed for her. Stone steps led down on either side so that visitors could look up at the sharp-cut line of her bows and the figurehead with its outstretched arm and flying hair. There was a walkway all around the inside of the dock to a similar set of steps at the stern. A gangway and ladder on the starb’d side led up to the quarterdeck, but the main entrance to the interior of the vessel was to port, almost amidships between the first and second of her three masts. It looked something like a drawbridge, as though it had been lowered from the tumblehome of the ship’s hull to lie flat on the stone edge of the dock.
I still had twenty minutes to wait and I strolled across to Gypsy Moth. Looking at the slender racing lines of that Illingworth thoroughbred, I marvelled that a man in his mid-sixties, keeping cancer at bay on a vegetarian diet, could have sailed her single-handed, not just round the world, but round the Horn. By comparison with the Cutty Sark she looked tiny, of course, but standing there, close by the wind-vane steering, gazing up at the main mast standing against the sky, she looked one hell of a handful for an elderly man all alone.
I thought of my own boat then, the beauty of the June morning making me long to have her back, to be sailing out of Blakeney, north down the gut, seabirds white in the sunshine, and out by the point seals basking on the shingle, their heads popping up to look at me out of limpid brown eyes … And here I was in London, the boat sold and myself urgently in need of work.
I glanced at my watch again as I walked back to the Cutty Sark. Sixteen minutes to eleven. I would have liked to go on board to refresh my memory of the ship’s layout, but somehow I felt it would be wrong to be more than fifteen minutes early. If Victor Wellington heard I was on the ship, he would almost certainly send for me. It would give an impression of over-eagerness. Pride, of course: I didn’t want him to know how desperate I was for some sort of a contract from the National Maritime, however small. If only I could get that, then I felt other business would follow.
The sun was already striking warm off the stone surround of the dock as I wandered down the starb’d side, the Gypsy Moth pub shining gold on brown beyond the ship’s stern, its sign painted with Chichester’s yacht on one side, his plane on the other, and there was a youth standing alone on the concrete viewing platform. His back was against the railings, a slim, lounging figure in light blue cotton trousers and a loose-fitting gold blouson with a brown sweater tied round his neck. He had a camera slung from his shoulder, but somehow he looked more like a student than a tourist.
I noticed him because he wasn’t looking at the Cutty Sark. He was standing very still, staring intently at the Church Street approach where one of those little Citroëns was trying to squeeze in between a delivery truck parked outside the Gypsy Moth and the row of five chain-secured crush barriers separating the roadway from the brick and concrete surround of the dock.
A young woman got out of the car after she had parked it, her black hair cut very short, almost a crew cut, so that it was like black paint gleaming in the sun, the bright silk of a scarf tied loosely around her neck – and something in her manner, the way she stood there looking up at the Cutty Sark, her head thrown back, her body tensed … It was as though the tea clipper had a special significance for her.
By then I had reached the stern of the Cutty Sark. I walked past the student, then stopped, leaning my back against the railings, watching as she reached into the car, pul
ling out an old leather briefcase and extracting a loose-leaf folder, which she rested on the bonnet. She stood there for a moment, turning the pages. The student shifted his position. He was short and dark, a gold ring catching the sun as he unslung his camera, opening it and checking the setting. Like his clothes, the camera was an expensive one.
There were plenty of tourists about, but they all seemed to be at the bows of the ship or gathered around the entrance amidships, so that at the moment when she locked her car and started walking towards us the student and I were the only people standing at the stern of the Cutty Sark.
She moved slowly, stuffing the folder back into the bulging briefcase. Her manner seemed abstracted, as though her mind was far away and she saw nothing of the beauty of the morning or of the tea clipper’s masts towering against the blue sky. She was of medium height, not beautiful, but striking because of the firm jut of her jaw and the curve of her nose. It was a strong face, her cheekbones sharply etched in the morning light, the forehead broad, and the eyes, which caught mine for a moment as she approached, were brightly intelligent under straight black brows.
She was then only a few yards away and the student had his camera to his eye. I heard the click of it as he took a picture of her. She must have heard it, too, for she checked, a momentary hesitation, her eyes widening in a sudden shock of recognition. But there was something more than recognition, something that seemed to leave her face frozen, as though with horror, and behind the horror there was a sort of strange excitement.
It was a fleeting expression, but even so my recollection of it remains very vivid. She recovered herself almost immediately and walked on, passing quite close to me. Again our eyes met, and I thought she hesitated, as though about to speak to me. But then she was moving away, looking down at the heavy watch on her wrist, which was of the kind that divers wear. She was stockier than I had first realised, quite a powerful-looking young woman with a swing to her hips and strong calf muscles below the dark blue skirt. At the entrance to the ship she had to wait for a group of school children, her head thrown back to gaze up now at the Cutty Sark’s masts. Then, just before she disappeared into the hull, she half paused, her head turned briefly in my direction. But whether she was looking at me or at the student I couldn’t be sure.
He had his camera slung over his shoulder again and had turned as though to follow her. But then he hesitated, realising I think that it would be too obvious. I was standing right in his path, and now that I could see his face, I understood something of what had perhaps affected her so strongly. It was a very beautiful face. That was my overriding impression. A bronzed face under a sleek black head of hair that beneath the beauty of its regular features was touched with cruelty.
It was only a few seconds that we stood facing each other, but it seemed longer. I nearly spoke to him, but then I thought perhaps he didn’t speak English. He looked so very foreign, the eyes dark and hostile. Instead, I turned away, walking quickly the length of the dock. I would give it another five minutes before going on board. As I reached the bows the student was crossing the entrance gangway. He glanced quickly in my direction, then disappeared into the hull, and my mind went back then to the meeting ahead, wondering again what would come of it. That note from Wellington, the reference to a ship that was of great interest to the National Maritime, and that bit about the circumstances being intriguing. What circumstances?
As I passed under the bowsprit and the maiden with the outstretched hand and flying hair, a car came through the barrier and parked against the Naval College railings. Three men got out of it, all of them dressed in dark suits, and one of them was Victor Wellington. They were talking earnestly amongst themselves as they made their way quickly across to the ship and up the gangway to the quarterdeck. They stood there for a while, looking for’ard at the rigging, still talking with a degree of concentration that suggested perhaps they weren’t looking at the ship or at anything in particular, but were entirely engrossed in the subject of their conversation.
They were there about a minute, an incongruous little gathering in their dark suits, then they moved to the after end of the coachroofing and disappeared down a companionway. I rounded the stern of the ship and headed for the entrance. There is a ticket desk on the left as you go in and when I told the CPO on duty my business, he directed me to a little cuddy of an office on the far side, where one of the Cutty Sark’s captains was seated at the table drinking a mug of tea.
‘Mr Kettil?’ He glanced at a typewritten note on the table in front of him, then got to his feet and shook my hand. ‘The meeting is in the after cabin. Do you know the way?’
I shook my head. ‘I’ve been here once before, but I don’t remember the layout.’
‘I’ll show you then.’ He gulped down the rest of his tea. ‘The others have arrived, all except one.’ He then led the way to the deck above, up the ladder to the quarterdeck and aft till we were just above the wheel position. Brass treads led down into a dark-panelled interior. The beautifully appointed dining saloon ran athwartships, taking up the whole after part of the officers’ living accommodation.
As soon as I had ducked my head through the doorway I remembered it, the superb quality of the woodwork. The panelling was of bird’s-eye maple and teak, all of it a dark rich reddish colour. So was the refectory-type table that ran athwart the saloon, plain planked seats like pews either side with backs that folded up for easy stowing, and aft of the table a magnificent dresser with a mirror back and barometer set into it as a centre piece. There was a skylight over the table with a big oil lamp gleaming brassily below it, and just behind the for’ard pew was a little coal grate set in what looked like a copy of a cast-iron Adam fireplace.
There were four men seated at the table: Victor Wellington, the two who had boarded the ship with him, also a somewhat gaunt individual, and at the far end was the young woman I had been so conscious of as she walked from her car to the ship. She looked up from her loose-leaf notebook as I entered, and again I was aware of her eyes and the look of appraisal; also something else, something indefinable, a sort of recognition, not quite animal, but certainly sexual.
The ship’s duty captain had taken his leave and Victor Wellington was introducing me, first to a very slim, live-featured man, an admiral, who was Chairman of the National Maritime Museum, then to the young woman who was sitting next to him – ‘Mrs Sunderby’.
She smiled at me, a quick lighting up of her features. ‘Iris Sunderby.’ She pronounced it ‘Eeris’. The eyes were very blue in the electric light beamed down from the big brass lamp above her head. ‘I’m the cause of all these kind gentlemen giving up so much of their time.’ She smiled at me, but very briefly, her English careful now and her eyes on the door.
The other two men were the Chairman of the Maritime Trust and, next to him, the almost legendary figure who had saved the Cutty Sark and then gone on to form the World Ship Trust. Victor Wellington waved me to a seat opposite Mrs Sunderby, and as I manoeuvred my body into the position indicated, I was remembering why her name was familiar. I hesitated, then leaned across the table. ‘Sorry to ask you this, but are you still married? I mean, is your husband alive?’
Her eyes clouded, the lips tightening. ‘No. My husband’s dead. Why?’
‘He was a glaciologist, was he?’
‘How did you know that?’
Hesitantly I began telling her about the strange conversation I had had some weeks back with a station commander who had served in the Falklands, and all the time I felt the need to tread delicately, not sure if she knew about her husband’s psychological state, his fear of the ice. I was skating round this when the discussion about presentation of a World Ship Trust International Heritage Award was interrupted by the arrival of the man we were all apparently waiting for.
His name was Iain Ward and everybody at the table rose, no easy feat I found, the polished plank edge of the pew catching me behind my knees. I think it was innate good manners rather than respect for weal
th, though the fact that he had suddenly found himself presented with a cheque for over a million probably made some difference. It was the Chairman of the National Maritime Museum who said with a friendly smile, ‘Good of you to come all this way, Mr Ward.’ He held out his hand, introducing himself with no mention of a title.
It was as they shook hands that I realised the man’s bulging right sleeve ended in a black-gloved hand. He had paused in the entrance, his head slightly bowed as though in anticipation of contact with the deck beams. He was about my own age, tall and heavily built with long sideburns and a slightly diffident smile. ‘Sorry if Ah’m late.’ He had a very strong Scots accent.
Iris Sunderby stepped out from the restriction of the pew opposite and moved towards him. ‘Do come in. I’m so glad you could make it.’ And the Museum Chairman, still with that charming smile of his, said, ‘You’re not late at all. We were early. We had other business to discuss.’
She introduced him to the rest of us and he went round the table, shaking everybody very formally with his left hand. Clearly his gloved hand was artificial, but what the bulge in the sleeve was I could not quite figure out. When she had finally ushered him into the vacant place beside her, she handed everybody a typewritten sheet of paper, a memorandum setting out very briefly the reason for this meeting. Iain Ward glanced at it momentarily, then lifted his head to gaze round the table. He was seated right opposite me, his big frame squeezed into a loud check sports jacket, his shirt open at the neck to reveal a heavy gold chain round a thick bull of a neck. There was also a gold signet ring on one of the fingers of his left hand.