Going Ashore Read Online Free PDF Page A

to the touch.
    “Aren’t we going out?” Emma said. “Aren’t we going to have anything for lunch?” Her legs ached from sitting still.
    “You could have something here,” Mrs. Ellenger said, vague.
    The waiter brought Emma a sandwich and a glass of milk. Mrs. Ellenger continued to look at
Vogue
. Sometimes passengers from their ship went by. They waved gaily, as if Tangier were the last place they had ever expected to see a familiar face. The Munns passed, walking in step. Emma thumped on the window, but neither of the ladies turned. Something about their solidarity, their sureness of purpose, made her feel lonely and left behind. Soon they would have seen Tangier, while she and her mother might very well sit here until it was time to go back to the ship. She remembered Eddy and wondered what he was doing.
    Mrs. Ellenger had come to the end of her reading material. She seemed suddenly to find her drink distasteful. She leaned on her hand, fretful and depressed, as she often was at that hour of the day. She was sorry she had come on the cruise and said so again. The warm ports were cold. She wasn’t getting the right things to eat. She was getting so old and ugly that the bartender, having nothing better in view, and thinking she would be glad of anything, had tried to pick her up. What was she doing here, anyway? Her life …
    “I wish we could have gone with Eddy,” Emma said, with a sigh.
    “Why, Emma,” Mrs. Ellenger said. Her emotions jolted from a familiar track, it took her a moment or so to decide how she felt about this interruption. She thought it over, and became annoyed. “You mean you’d have more fun with that Chink than with me? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
    “It isn’t that exactly. I only meant, we
could
have gone with him. He’s been here before. Or the Munns, or this other friend of mine, Mr. Cowan. Only, he didn’t come ashore today, Mr. Cowan. You shouldn’t say ‘Chink.’ You should say ‘Chinese person,’ Mr. Cowan told me. Otherwise it offends. You should never offend. You should never say ‘Irishman.’ You should say ‘Irish person.’ You should never say ‘Jew.’ You should say –”
    “Some cruise!” said Mrs. Ellenger, who had been listening to this with an expression of astounded shock, as if Emma had been repeating blasphemy. “All I can say is some cruise. Some selected passengers! What else did he tell you? What does he want with a little girl like you, anyway? Did he ever ask you into his stateroom – anything like that?”
    “Oh, goodness, no!” Emma said impatiently; so many of her mother’s remarks were beside the point. She knew all about not going anywhere with men, not accepting presents, all that kind of thing. “His stateroom’s too small even for him. It isn’t the one he paid for. He tells the purser all the time, but it doesn’t make any difference. That’s why he stays in the bar all day.”
    Indeed, for most of the cruise, Emma’s friend had sat in the bar writing a long journal, which he sent home, in installments, for the edification of his analyst. His analyst, Mr. Cowan had told Emma, was to blame for the fact that he had taken the cruise. In revenge, he passed his days writing down all the things at fault with the passengers and the service, hoping to make the analyst sad and guilty. Emma began to explain her own version of this to Mrs. Ellenger, but her mother was no longer listening. She stared straight before her in the brooding, injured way Emma dreaded. Her gaze seemed turned inward, rather than to the street, as if she were concentrating on some terrible grievance and struggling to bring it to words.
    “You think I’m not a good mother,” she said, still not looking at Emma, or, really, at anything. “That’s why you hang around these other people. It’s not fair. I’m good to you. Well, am I?”
    “Yes,” said Emma. She glanced about nervously, wondering if anyone could hear.
    “Do you ever need