Dead and Alive Read online

  But down on the mole I could see no sign of the Trevedra. “Shifted ’er berth, I expect,” said Boyd. And I must say I wasn’t worried. You’re always liable to shift your berth in a big port. He might have had to move to take on his cargo.

  I went to the Port Authorities office and enquired for the present berth of the Trevedra. The clerk glanced at his chart of shipping. “Not there,” he said. “Perhaps it’s sailed.”

  “It couldn’t have done,” I told him.

  He glanced down the list of names in his book of sailings. “Here you are,” he said. “Sailed 03.30 last night. Destination—London.”

  A sudden hollow feeling hit me in the stomach. “But that’s impossible,” I said. “My name is Cunningham. I’m part owner. She can’t have sailed. She must be standing off in the Bay.”

  The clerk wiped a globule of sweat off the end of what would once have been described as a Patrician nose, and looked up at his wall chart again. “No,” he said, “it’s not standing off. You can see for yourself. There are the names of all the ships that are standing off to-night.”

  “Probably Mr. McCrae left a note for me then,” I suggested.

  He looked round at his message rack. The pigeon-hole under C was empty. To his annoyance I had him look at the address of every envelope in the whole rack. But not one was addressed to me.

  There was nothing for it then but to go back to the mole and see if any of the stevedores or the crews of other ships moored alongside could tell us anything.

  But somehow I knew it was useless. When I told Boyd, he shook his head and said, “It ain’t like Mr. McCrae. He’s been too long a soldier to leave an RV without notifying the rest where the stragglers’ post is going to be.”

  All we could find out from men working on the mole and from neighbouring ships was that the Trevedra had pulled out in the early hours of the morning. I actually interviewed a man who had been on watch on the ship that had pulled in to the vacant berth and his timing of the Trevedra’s departure confirmed that given me by the clerk at the Port Authorities office.

  I tried to ignore the feeling of suspicion that crept into my mind. I couldn’t believe that Stuart was crooked. If he had really sailed for England he must have had good reason. But if he had, he was sure to have left a message for me somewhere—at the bank, for instance.

  Having reached that conclusion I felt a sense of relief. “How much money have you got?” I asked Boyd.

  “Just over two thousand lire,” he said.

  And I had a gold wrist-watch. The bank would be closed now, but I could pop the watch and that would pay the driver. I paid him the full amount I got for the watch. It was safer to overpay him. Then we went to a quiet tenement hotel behind the waterfront where they didn’t worry about the fact that we had no baggage.

  We fed that night at a little trattoria full of tobacco smoke and the sour smell of stale vino. Over the meal I told Monique what I knew of her mother. She listened in silence, her big grey eyes fixed on me. When I had finished, she said, “I shall have to work. Will they take me on a farm? I am good with animals. They like me.”

  “Farmin’ ain’t the sort o’ work for the likes of you,” Boyd cut in.

  She laughed. It was a pleasant musical laugh and it made me feel strangely happy, for it was so light-hearted and gay. “Why not?” she asked. “I’ve been a farm girl for over two years now. What other work is it that I can do?”

  What she said was true. There was nothing else she could do. And it was my responsibility that she was leaving the world she knew and going to a strange country that she had only visited twice on holidays. My acceptance of that responsibility produced in me a feeling of tenderness for her—that and the strong wine we were drinking which was Lacrimo Crisli from the slopes of Vesuvius. “There’s no need to worry,” I said. “For instance, you might get a job as interpreter. The French tourist traffic is increasing. Every one in Europe wants to come to England to see the ruins of London. Promise me you won’t worry about a job. We’ll see you through.”

  She smiled. I think she knew I was getting a little drunk. “I promise,” she said. “And thank you.”

  I must have been feeling very tired for my mood changed suddenly to one of despondency. “Anyway, before we worry about getting you a job, we’ve got to get to England,” I said. And then I explained to her about the Trevedra and how we didn’t know what had happened.

  “What puzzles me,” I continued, turning to Boyd, “is how he got a crew together in such a short time. He couldn’t have sailed her himself. He would have had to sign on a skipper.”

  Boyd shrugged his shoulders. “It ain’t difficult in a big port like this. Though why ’e didn’t wait fer us I can’t think.”

  “I should have wired him from Rome,” I said. “But he didn’t suggest there was any urgency.” We had finished our meal now and as Boyd paid the bill, I said, “Anyway, don’t let’s worry about it. I’ll get some money from the bank in the morning and there’ll be a letter from him explaining everything. Then we either follow on the next boat or have a pleasant holiday on Capri waiting for the Trevedra to come out again.”

  “What about Miss Monique’s papers?” Boyd asked as we went to the door.

  “I’ll fix that with the British Consul when I see him in the morning about a new passport,” I told him. “It shouldn’t be all that difficult.”

  Outside it was very dark and the streets showed wet in flashes of forked lightning that periodically split the clouds, outlining the mass of the Castello San Elmo towering high above the city. What I had taken to be the sound of traffic, blurred against the hum of conversation in the trattoria, had been the distant roll of thunder. The streets were empty. But it was not raining.

  I took the girl’s arm as we turned down the street towards our dingy hotel. She started at my touch and stopped, her arm withdrawn from mine as though I had hurt her. The lightning forked and I saw her in its photographic flash rigid against the stone of the houses that flanked the street, her eyes wide and startled. Then it was black again and I heard her voice close to me saying, “Please—it is very foolish of me. I am sorry.” And I remembered all that she had been through and how she had taken her hand from mine as we sat on the pebble-strewn bottom of the stream.

  But instead of showing her that I understood, I said, “You’re a strange girl, Monique.”

  Then it began to rain big summer drops from the heavy sky and we ran for it through the dark streets to the hotel.

  Next morning, the rent in my trousers mended and wearing Boyd’s jacket which fitted me a little tightly, I presented myself at the Banco di Napoli. I explained that my cheque book had been stolen. The cashier gave me an old-fashioned look and asked me for a specimen signature with a sly grin that was a bit wide of the mark in the circumstances. I also asked him for a letter that I was sure my partner had left for me.

  In a few minutes he returned with a new book. “I am afraid there is no letter for you from Signor McCrae,” he said. “Here is your new cheque book. I have arranged for no cheques on the old book to be cashed.” Gold teeth flashed in his sallow face and the lenses of thick-rimmed spectacles were blind circles of white as they caught the light from the glass roof. “Our clients often lose their books in Napoli. It is a bad city. Often the girls are working for a forger. It is necessary for us to be very careful. Were you thinking of drawing at all, Signor Cunningham?” I had opened the new book and was on the point of writing out a cheque for twenty thousand.

  He had to repeat the question for my mind was struggling to grasp the fact that Stuart had left me no message. “Are you sure my partner did not leave a note for me?” I asked.

  “Quite sure,” he said. “They are always left with Signor Borgioli, one of our assistant managers. If you like I will ask the cashiers?”

  I nodded and he went along the counter. I watched him as he spoke to each of the cashiers in turn. One by one they glanced curiously at me and shook their heads.

  Then
suddenly he was back again with a little man who had false teeth that did not fit and a little pointed beard. “This is Signor Mercedes. He saw Signor McCrae the day before yesterday.”

  The little man nodded vigorously. “Si, si—he was a tall man with a beard, yes? He came in the morning and drew out all the cash in your account except for a nominal thousand lire.”

  “He drew out all the cash in our account?” I repeated I couldn’t believe it.

  “Except for the nominal thousand. He said he had to pay for a cargo, but would be banking with us again on the return trip.”

  “That was why I was asking whether you wished to draw, signore,” put in the first cashier. “It would be very difficult—impossible. The manager would not agree—that is except for the thousand lire. You have only had an account with us for a few days.”

  “And he left no note—no message?” I asked again.

  They both shook their heads.

  There was nothing I could do. I thanked them and went out into the sunlit roar of the Via Roma.

  It was hot and that horrible doubt of Stuart was back in my mind. There was only one other place in Naples he could have left a message for me. Guidici’s office above the Galleria Umberto.

  I turned left down the Via Roma. It was in the Galleria that I first realised how desperate our position was. The sun streamed through the glassless roof and the heat of it struck up from the tiled paving. But it looked cool under the gaudy umbrellas of the pavement cafés where the usual prostitutes sat sipping iced drinks, waiting to pick up a man or for their pimps to bring a client to them. I felt the need of a drink badly.

  It was then that I realised that I hadn’t any money. I couldn’t have a drink. I couldn’t even eat. All we had in the world was the remains of Boyd’s two thousand.

  I went up the dark stairs to Guidici’s office with a foreboding that there would be no message for me. And I was right.

  The secretary shook her dark mop of hair at me and her eyes fastened like black buttons on the roughly patched rent in my trousers. I insisted upon seeing Guidici himself. But there was no message. “Signor McCrae has not been here at all since he came with you about the cargo,” he said.

  There was nowhere else I could go.

  I went back to the hotel and explained the situation to Boyd and Monique. We sat in committee in my room. We called for our bill and found that it left us with just four hundred and twenty-six lire. And Boyd had a cheap wrist-watch. That was all we had between ourselves and starvation.

  The prospect was not good.

  “I just don’t believe a bloke like McCrae would walk out on ’is pals,” said Boyd. “Hit ain’t in the nature of the man. Stands ter reason like that if a bloke’s bin an orficer in the Army as long as ’e was, ’e don’t walk out on ’is pals. Dugan wouldn’t neither. Jack’s as straight as they come.”

  That’s what I thought. But the fact remained that two days ago, whilst we were at Pericele, Stuart had drawn out all our capital and sailed with the Trevedra, leaving no message. “Clearly,” I said, “since we’ve no choice, we must work on the assumption that he’s left us flat. We need money. And we want to get back to England.”

  “Reckon it won’t be difficult for us to work our passage back,” Boyd said.

  I glanced quickly at the girl. Her grey eyes met mine and I knew that she had understood. Also I knew that she wasn’t afraid. I suppose she was now accustomed to expecting the worst—poverty and uncertainty had been her life for so long.

  I said, “There’s nothing to stop you working your passage back, Boyd. But I’m not moving from Naples unless I can take Monique back with me.”

  “Strewf, guvner, you don’t think I was suggesting going without her, do you? But I reckoned wiv her knowledge of lingos she might get a job as a stewardess.”

  We must have talked it over for nearly an hour. “The upshot of the whole thing is,” I said finally, “that we must find a cheap place to live and some means of getting hold of some money. Clearly the three of us can’t go down to the docks this afternoon and expect to be offered jobs at once in a ship sailing to England.”

  And this was where Monique suddenly spoke for the first time.

  “There is a little place at the top of a house in the Vico Tiratoio where I lived for a time with my aunt. It’s not a very nice place. It’s a—sort of pensione. But the Signora was kind to me and I am sure she would let us have rooms for a time without wanting immediate payment. She often helps people. Sometimes they repay her. Many strange people come there. And there is a Scotch man in the next house—perhaps he is still there. He would help. He is an artist, but not very good. He makes papers for people. And he knows le monde des apaches. Many people come to see him for his papers.”

  We both stared at her in astonishment.

  It was difficult to remember that this kid from a mountain farm had lived for three months in one of the worst quarters of the city.

  There was nothing else to be done. We paid our bill and followed Monique. After a quarter of an hour’s walking I found myself standing outside the trattoria in the narrow street above the Via Roma where I had stood only a few days ago, wondering about Monique and the strange life she must have led there.

  We climbed the dark narrow stairway which the drunk had climbed, our footsteps sounding loud on the hollow wooden stairs.

  And so we found rooms—little cubicle affairs, flimsily partitioned with stained matchboarding and clearly designed for one purpose only. The Signora, a big raddled motherly Neapolitan, welcomed Monique like a long lost child and seemed surprised when we insisted on a separate room for her. I did not like the idea of living in such a place. But we were little better than beggars and could hardly assume the right to be choosers. The Signora did not look impressed at our promises of ultimate payment—she smiled indulgently, her eyes on Monique with what I thought to be a covetous gleam.

  Boyd and I shared a double bed in one cubicle and Monique had the next cubicle to herself. I understood now why she had never even considered trying to get to Naples. If she had come to this house, the Signora would have looked after her for a time. But kindly disposed though she might be to the strange cases that found their way to the top of those wooden stairs, sooner or later she would have insisted on her working for a living. And I could well imagine what hell that would have been to a fastidious girl who did not like being touched.

  The trattoria down below had an upstairs room for regular clients that was reached by a door at the top of the first flight of stairs. Here you could get food as cheap as anywhere in Naples. The three of us lunched there in the stuffy fly-ridden half-light provided by a grimy window. We lunched well off pasta asciutta and red wine for the price of a few lire each.

  After lunch I left Monique in Boyd’s care and went to the office of the British Consul. With some difficulty I obtained admission to the Consul himself. He eyed me without enthusiasm and did not offer me a seat. If you want a sympathetic Consul, avoid big ports. He listened to my story attentively, but without surprise. When I had finished, he said, “There’ll be a little delay, but I can fix you up with a temporary passport. The girl is going to be more difficult. I can get her an Italian passport, but if her guardian notifies the police there may be trouble. Anyway, how do you propose to get her to England if you have no money?”

  He was very off-hand about the whole thing. I could see that he did not believe my story in full. He thought I was entangled with the girl. He was willing to get me a passport, but not anxious to have anything to do with her.

  It was useless to protest. I told him not to worry about the girl, but to go ahead with obtaining a temporary passport for myself. I asked him whether there was any British organisation in Naples through which I could obtain a loan. His reply was, “I am afraid not. But you can work your passage back. I’ll give you a note to one of the shipping lines.” And he scribbled a line or two on a sheet of paper, slipped it into an envelope and handed it to me.

  From th
e Consul’s office I went to see the Naval Liaison Officer. I told him the story and his reaction was the same as the Consul’s. “I can probably arrange for you both to work your passage home. But to do anything for the girl is quite out of the question.” There were several other naval officers there, but none that I knew. I was too embarrassed even to raise the question of a loan.

  Though the sun was now dipping behind the heights of the Vomero, the streets were still stiflingly hot as I made my way up into the city. I felt dispirited and exhausted by the time I reached the Vico Tiratoio. We were in a bad fix and I didn’t see how the devil I was going to get the girl back to England. And I was definitely not going to leave her alone here in Naples.

  The sweat rolled off me as I climbed the dark stairs, and I began to swear obscenely and childishly at Stuart.

  Boyd and Monique were not in the pensione. I went down to the trattoria, thinking they might have decided to eat. But they were not there either.

  I began to walk through the deepening shadows of the narrow streets. I had a sense of frustration. I was nearly thirty. And it irked me that at that age I could be stranded in a foreign city with literally no one to turn to. It made me realise what a hell of a gap the war had torn in our lives.

  My sense of loneliness made the throng of life in the drab back-streets more vivid. The film of dirt on the hairy legs of the girl who shuffled ahead of me in wooden-soled sandals, the urgent shrill cries of the ageless women behind the street stands, the beggars, the boys who wandered barefooted through the streets pimping for their sisters who were still in their teens, the tawdry make-up of a woman standing hopefully beneath the tinsel-decorated lamp-lit shrine of the Madonna at the street corner, the poverty and the dirt, and the sour smell of streets that had no proper sanitation—it was all imprinted on my mind as the background to which I was doomed until I could fix a passage for the three of us.

  And when we reached England, the prospect would not be very much brighter unless we could get hold of Stuart. Neither Boyd nor I had a job. I had no money—no one to whom I could turn for money. And Monique’s mother could hardly support herself, let alone her daughter.