2. Ship of Brides by Jojo Moyes

Author:Jojo Moyes [Moyes, Jojo]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
ISBN: 9780340830109
Amazon: 0340830107
Publisher: Hodder Hb
Published: 2005-07-14T23:00:00+00:00

13

My brother brought back an English bride. Before they landed, she was lauded up to the skies as being beautiful, accomplished, helpful and brilliant . . .; but instead of that we found an ugly, brown-necked, red-complexioned, lazy hussy who had not a good word to say about anyone or anything in this country . . . Speaking personally it was a sorry day for me when an imported minx landed in our family.

Letter to Melbourne’s Truth newspaper, 1919

Twenty-two days

Dear Mum,

This is a hard letter to write. I guess I’ve put off writing it for as long as I could. But you probably know without me having to explain what it is I want to tell you I have done, and how I’ve carried it round ever since. I’m not proud of myself, Mum. I gave myself all sorts of reasons to convince myself I was doing the right thing. But I’m not sure who I thought I was protecting – you or myself . . .

My dearest love,

It’s very strange trying to compose this letter, knowing that in all likelihood by the time you get it we will already be in each other’s arms. But this voyage is starting to stretch, and I feel increasingly desperate, stuck out here in the middle of the ocean, to maintain some kind of contact. To at least talk to you, even though you might not be able to listen. I suppose some of these brides are more self-sufficient than I am, able to cope with endless days of absent time. But to me, every minute I spend without you is far too long, and infinitely worthless . . .

Sometimes the unspoken conversations taking place on the Victoria became clamorous. Now, half-way through the voyage, the weight of these one-sided exchanges hung heavy in the air as brides reread and composed correspondence, trying to express their longing, confiding their fears to their families or chiding their men for lack of emotion. In Cabin 3G two brides sat side by side on their bunks, each buried in thought as they committed their own pens to the tissue-thin Navy-issue writing-paper.

Occasionally, through the partially open door, the sound of passing footsteps was accompanied by a burst of laughter or a murmured conversation, punctuated by discreet exclamations of surprise. The heat of the previous days had broken a little with the arrival of a short storm in the early hours of that morning, and the inhabitants of the brides’ cabins had become active again: many were out enjoying the fresher air. None of which was heard apparently by the remaining occupants of Cabin 3G, both of whom were lost in a one-sided conversation with persons far from the confines of the Victoria.

. . . darling, in the circumstances it feels rather silly to be writing these words. So perhaps I shall use them simply to say how much I adore you, and how glad I am that this baby is ours. That we will bring him or her up together, and not separated, as we have been, by endless stretches of water.

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