The Morning Gift

Pilly bit her lip. Huw and Sam exchanged worried glances. Ruth had had to go out before, but never so early.

Then Verena, too, put up her hand.

This wasn’t just inconvenient; this had the making of a minor crisis. No candidate could leave the room unattended – on the other hand at least one invigilator had to be present at all times. Up on the rostrum, the grey-haired man frowned and pressed a bell beneath his desk. A secretary from the Examination Office appeared in the doorway and was directed to the desk where Verena, still writing with her right hand, continued to hold her left arm aloft.

‘I wish to be excused,’ said Verena.

The secretary nodded. Verena rose – and the incredulous gaze of all the Thameside candidates followed her to the door. It was hard to believe that Verena even had bodily functions.

The gold hand of the great clock jerked forward . . . three minutes . . . four . . .

Then Verena returned. She looked pleased and well, and immediately took up her pen again. Of Ruth Berger there was no sign.

It’ll be all right, thought Pilly frantically. Ruth had had to go out in the Physiology exam too, and in the Parasitology practical . . . but never for as long as this. Never for twenty minutes . . . for half an hour . . . for forty minutes . . . Ruth was clever but no one could miss so much of an exam and still pass.

The woman with the bun had returned long ago; she was conferring with the grey-haired man, they were looking at Ruth’s empty desk.

Three-quarters of an hour . . . an hour . . .

And then it was over and still she had not come.

28

She was the most famous ship on the Atlantic route: the Mauretania, still Queen of the Ocean with her luxurious salons, her cinema, her glamorous shops. Film stars travelled on her and Arab princes and business tycoons. Even now a woman in a fantastic fur coat was coming up the gangway, pursued by photographers for whom she turned and produced a dazzling smile. Heini too had been photographed as he left on the boat train; his life, since the competition, had been completely transformed. Even half the prize money had enabled him to leave Belsize Park and move into a small hotel. He could have travelled First Class too, but Fleury was bringing Ruth over and that meant travelling Tourist. Having made that sacrifice made Heini feel benign – and actually even the Tourist accommodation was luxurious enough. Leaning on the rail watching for Ruth, who should have been here by now, Heini let his eye travel over the bustle of the docks – cranes loading mysterious packages, vans bringing last-minute cargo – and drank in the smell of tar and rope and seaweed. The Mauretania might be a kind of floating grand hotel, but she was still a ship, and a dockside the world over catches at the heart strings with its promise of adventure.

It was all beginning, his new life, the life he knew from childhood was really his. America and fame! And he would share it with Ruth, young as he was. There would be many women who would want him – Heini, without conceit, knew that – but a musician needs roots and a wife. Horowitz’s playing had taken on a new depth when he married Toscanini’s daughter; Rubinstein’s wife protected him from all disturbance. Ruth would do that for him, he knew.

Only where was Ruth? He looked at his watch, for the first time a little anxious. He had respected her wish to make her own way to the docks – in fact he had been rather patient with all Ruth’s moods and foibles in the month since the end of her exams. The results weren’t out yet, but he sympathized with her disappointment. Having gastric flu during the finals was rotten luck and having missed almost the whole of the last paper was a real blow to a girl as ambitious as Ruth. The most she could hope for now was an aegrotat and that wasn’t worth much, but he didn’t see that it mattered greatly now that her life was linked with his.

Only an hour before they sailed. Some of the relatives and friends who’d come on board were leaving. Perhaps he’d given Ruth too much freedom? She’d insisted on making her own arrangements for her visa and he’d given way over that too, but he hoped in general that she wasn’t going to be obstinate.

A poor family, obviously immigrants from the East – the men in black wide-brimmed hats, the women in shawls, pushing children, made their way up the gangway to the steerage – bound for some sweatshop in Brooklyn perhaps. Two old women belonging to them waited on the quayside, waving and keening: steerage passengers were not allowed to bring relatives on board to see them off. There’d have been plenty of weeping and wailing in Belsize Park as they said goodbye to Ruth; he was glad he’d missed all that. He’d have to be a bit careful about Ruth’s determination to bring her family over. He’d promised to do it and he would do it, but there were expenses to take care of first: a decent apartment, a Steinway, insuring his hands . . .