Swimming to Ithaca Read Online Free PDF

were piling out. They could hear Linda’s laughter, and even Philip was shouting something in excitement. Graham caught sight of them and waved.
    ‘At least they’ve had a good time. Are you sure about taking Phil back to Gilda’s?’
    ‘Of course I’m sure. It’s not out of the way.’
    Surprisingly Paula took his hand and squeezed it. ‘It’s us now, isn’t it, Tommo?’
    ‘What do you mean, “us”?’
    ‘In the firing line. And in thirty years’ time it’ll be them.’ She laughed. ‘That’s what history teaches us.’
    *
Dear Thomas,
    I was most awfully sad to hear of your mother’s death. It was kind of you to write and let me know. I am very sorry that Bill and I were unable to be at the funeral but a longstanding and important appointment in London meant that we couldn’t make it. Although we exchanged Christmas cards, I had not seen Deirdre for many years, but I recall our days in Cyprus with great happiness – they were wonderful times, although often tinged with sadness. My best wishes to both you and your sister, whom I remember with particular fondness on the voyage out.
    Yours ever,
    Jennifer Powell

Two
    They embarked at Southampton Docks. Gulls laughed and jeered at the scene. There were families gathered on the quayside and soldiers drawn up in ranks, and a regimental band played ‘A Life on the Ocean Wave’. The troopship gleamed white against the dockyard buildings and the grey water.
    ‘When do we see Daddy?’ Paula asked.
    ‘Soon.’
    ‘Tomorrow?’
    ‘A few days. Twelve days, they say.’
    ‘Twelve days is for ever.’
    Dee’s parents had come down to see them off. There was a restrained parting, the pecking of cheeks, the assurance of mutual care and concern, the impatience of Paula to be off. ‘You look after your mummy now,’ said Dee’s father to his granddaughter, and Paula, who seemed happy to play the games of adults, agreed that she would.
    Soldiers humped kitbags on to their shoulders and filed up the gangways, turning and waving to the crowd. ‘A Life on the Ocean Wave’ changed to ‘Will Ye No Come Back Again?’. Women wept.
    ‘Why are they crying?’ asked Paula, who had never before seen adults in tears.
    ‘They’re crying because their husbands are going away. Like when Daddy went away.’
    ‘But you didn’t cry.’
    ‘I tried not to. But I was very sad.’
    ‘And now you’re not sad. Because we’re going to see him.’
    ‘That’s right.’
    Officers and their families boarded by a different entry port from the men: different gangway, different cabins, different decks, different worlds. Dee and Paula climbed up to where a sailor and a white-coated steward stood at the port. They might have been entering a hotel: inside it was all wooden panelling and mirrors and brass fittings, and a desk with uniformed receptionists. Only the plan on the wall – the various decks, the muster stations marked in green, the restricted areas in red – betrayed the fact that this was, in fact, a ship. That and the plaque that showed the vessel in bas-relief sailing into a bronze sunset. Apparently, she had once been the
Königin Luise
of Bremen, launched in 1925 as part of the Norddeutsche Lloyd passenger fleet. But now she was the
Empire Bude
, and British voices were raised loudly beneath her ornate plaster ceilings, the voices of the victors.
    The purser was magnificent in navy blue and gold braid. He checked their names against a list, and presented Dee with the keys of the cabin as though she had won some kind of trophy. ‘Welcome aboard, Mrs Denham,’ he said. A steward led them along the deck and up a companionway, down a narrow corridor, past rows of doors almost like cells in a prison.
    ‘Here we are, ma’am.’ He opened a door with more of a flourish than the cabin deserved. It was narrow and claustrophobic, little bigger than a sleeper compartment in a railway carriage. A window looked out on to the promenade deck and the davits and underside of a