They were inside the building now and from a large double door in front of them could be heard the joyous noises of the scouts at play. There was something repulsive to Ronny about that door. Its cheap wood, cheaply varnished and marred with a thousand scratches, spoke of the monotony of groups, of clubs, of the same sex gathered together with enforced gaiety and enforced rules.
Ronny, who was advancing with Stevens’ hand across his shoulder suddenly gulped, ducked, and ran out of the building as quickly as a fox. His voice floated back to the astonished scout master:
“Be back in two hours—sir.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Star Harbour’s gift shop, run by Lucy Philmore, was a hodgepodge of the useful and ornamental. One could get almost anything one wanted here: chinaware, toys, cards, lamps, even dresses. Lucy was more like a hostess than a shopkeeper as she presided with a cheerful, pleasant manner.
When June came in that afternoon, Lucy greeted her kindly. She inquired after her health and the health of her grandmother and asked how June had liked the various presents sent up from the gift shop during her illness. It was Lucy who had chosen them for friends of the Greys. June thanked her and said she had enjoyed them all. In doing so and remembering the gifts, a flavour of her sickness returned to her. For an instant she recalled how it had felt to be lying there in bed.
“Do you know,” she said, “I can hardly picture being sick anymore. It’s as though it was someone else.”
“Yes, things change when you are growing up,” agreed Lucy sympathetically. “You are really a young lady now.”
‘I wonder if I feel like one?’ thought June as she smiled politely at Lucy. That was the trouble about not seeing other girls for such ages.
“I hear you are being tutored too,” said Lucy. “By Mr. Stevens. That must be very nice for you.”
“Nice!” June was intrigued at this way of putting it.
“Well, Mr. Stevens is such an intelligent and cultivated person,” explained Lucy. “You must have wonderful discussions about your studies.” Her voice now sounded wistful. She would have given a lot to be in June’s shoes.
“Do you know him well?” asked June, who was always surprised when people knew each other.
Lucy’s cheeks grew a little pink. “Not very,” she replied. “That is, until lately. But we are neighbours.” Envy was a bad emotion she knew, yet she could not help envying June a little. Oh to have all in front of one again, to await sincerely the changes to come, changes other than the gradual settling of middle age. Even the secret hope inside her own breast was, thought Lucy, a feeble flame. The least wind would blow it out. She looked over June’s head at the rainy street and gave one of those deep breaths that are not quite sighs.
“Mr. Stevens doesn’t get along with me very well,” said June, “or I don’t get along with him.”
June herself was now gazing at the door. She was depressed by Miss Philmore’s empty cordiality. It emphasized a gulf she had lately begun to notice, an untraversable space between human beings. “Oh,” she exclaimed suddenly, “there’s Ronny!” Without a word more she hurried out of the shop.
Ronny was walking along purposefully, his rope-soled shoes leaving straight prints behind him on the wet sidewalk. His hands thrust into the pockets of his shorts made them tighter than ever around his sinewy thighs.
“Ronny!” cried June, catching up with him. “Why aren’t you at the scout meeting?”
“I decided not to go,” said Ronny, putting down his head to avoid her eye.
“What did James Stevens say?”
Ronny did not answer her. Instead he asked: “Do you know where I’m going now?” He did not wait but answered himself: “I’m going to the docks.” He glanced at her doubtfully. “I suppose you could come,” he said, “but it’s not really for girls, not even grown-up girls.”
“How do you know?” asked June, smiling down at his dark, wet, unruly head which came up to her shoulder.
“I just know,” he replied shrugging. “I sometimes just know things that nobody told me.” He slowed down a bit and turned towards her eagerly. “That’s why,” he said, making an effort to explain, “I often wonder—I mean about knights and all and Gambol and Shalimar. I couldn’t be making it all up, could I?”
The rain was falling hard now and had gradually lost its warmth but Ronny was oblivious to it. The drops lay for a moment unbroken on his upturned face and then ran down his cheeks and neck. They gave his skin a luster and tangled the hair across his brow. He moved his body impatiently. The real meaning had not come. It was still inside him. He tried it from another angle. “If I were a knight I couldn’t grow up,” he said, “could I? Not when you really think about it, but if I were to be a sailor, for instance, I could.”
“Yes,” said June, “although of course there’s no comparison. A knight is more glorious.”
“That’s just what you would say,” Ronny took her hand. “No one else but you. James Stevens would call it unhealthy, wouldn’t he?” Ronny was silent a moment and then exclaimed: “Shalimar is more glorious than all the scouts. I know he is. I know, I know.”
They were both soaked to the skin by now as they walked down the sloping street which led to the harbour. Here the aspect of the town changed. There were warehouses, in between which were rows of broken down little shacks like teeth in a beggar’s mouth. These were the slums of Star Harbour and inhabited mostly by Negroes. Dark faces looked out at them from the darker doorways and sometimes a snatch of strangely rhythmed song came to their ears.
Once an old woman staggered drunkenly in their path. Her face was so wrinkled and discoloured that it was impossible to tell her race. She stopped as they approached and with a grimace at Ronny pulled open the ragged, torn top of her blouse. One of her breasts leapt out at them like an animal; perfectly formed, pointed and white as milk. Her eyes leered into Ronny’s, and in their wake her laughter was as harsh as weeping.
Ahead the dock stretched out over the water. Here fishing boats were being unloaded by men in thigh-length boots, while other men were shoveling oystershells into a truck from a huge, gleaming pile. Even in the rain a constant, important activity went on. It was the open gate to all the world. June and Ronny, standing side by side on the dock, felt a free salt breath enter their lungs and quicken their blood. The vast, unnamed possibilities of life made them smile. They were not afraid of destiny. Destiny was this rain-swept sea, these boats coming and going, and the far-off, nostalgic horizon.
There was a hiss. June felt a blow across her arm and shoulder, while at the same time an angry voice cried: “Look out there!” She had been struck by a painter thrown up to the dock from a boat, and she sprang back, more embarrassed than smarting.
“Don’t you damn kids know enough to get out of the rain?” It was the same voice speaking, a voice with a faintly mid-European accent, which, despite the words, was soft with good humour. A swarthy man of middle age appeared over the side of the dock, his feet still on the ladder. He had an ugly, thick-featured face on which protruded several moles and he held his head far over on his right shoulder. His hands, grasping the top rung of the ladder, were crisscrossed by white scars and the fingers were as thick as sausages.
“Did she get you?” he asked June, who was rubbing her shoulder.
“Just a little,” said June, but she was trembling.
“Standing around in this weather!” said the man. “No wonder you’ve got the chill.”
“It’s just her old fever,” said Ronny, speaking for the first time. At his pure, high soprano the man looked at him as though cocking his head humourously. But of course it was tilted that way permanently.
“I don’t know where you came from,” he said, “but right now you’re going with me. I’m Eddie, see?” There was something about Eddie despite his hideousness that made him disarming, even childlike, although June was of an age to find personal beauty very important. Now he led the way and they followed meekly. Behind them came a thin little man who shuffled rather than walked. It was to him the rope had been thrown. Skirting the water’s edge with its hotel, its dance hall and its bars, they arrived at a grimy food shop called Snacks.
“Hey Ma,” called Eddie, “you got customers!”
Ma, who was somewhere in back, came out, a thin, flat-chested woman with a nonchalant manner and curl papers in her hair.
“Give us four coffees,” said Eddie.
They sat down in a grimy booth, the little man and Eddie on one side, June and Ronny on the other.
