The Lonely Voyage by Max Hennessy

Author:Max Hennessy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canelo
Published: 2021-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

V

From the moment that Minnie took me home I was a dead duck. I never left her alone in the days that followed. Sailors are simple people really, and I was no match for her slick sophistication, and for wits that had been sharpened by contact with men every day of her life. She had me trussed and hog-tied in twenty-four hours. Within two days there was room for no one but her in my brain.

Neglecting Dig, I began to hang around the Steam Packet, waiting for a chance to see her, smoking too many cigarettes, drinking too much ale and getting too little fresh air. I’d been admitted freely into the untidy back kitchen to do my drinking and Minnie would come with her glass of gin and talk to me while the rest of the Steam Packet struggled along with only an elderly barman to keep them company. It was there, even, with a cat pawing at one leg, that I had my suppers, prepared by Minnie’s own hands.

She was a clever woman, crafty even, and I never knew what she was thinking, or what was going on behind those veiled eyes of hers. She wasn’t in love with me. I knew that. She liked Pat Fee’s type best, the sort who could buy her things, but she seemed to snatch at my company just then as if I was the only eligible chap in the town. I suppose, if the truth were known, the reason for her mateyness was that Pat Fee’s interests were elsewhere just then. Several times in the past he’d had his eye on the Steam Packet, but he’d made the mistake of taking his embraces to other quarters just at the time Minnie’s Ma had gone to hospital. When I came home they were passing through one of the not infrequent periods when they weren’t on speaking terms.

As for me, I was being a fool, I knew, but I couldn’t do anything to stop it. There was something about Minnie that took the spine out of my resolution. She was a lusty animal who needed a man’s arms round her and his lips on hers. She returned my embraces with gusto and enjoyment, and with twice the enthusiasm because she needed me to keep the licence. The Steam Packet was as much to Minnie as her life. It had been the source of income to her family for two or three generations, and I expect she couldn’t imagine herself living anywhere else.

Kate Fee might have saved me from my own foolishness, but there was a coolness between us that Minnie didn’t help to disperse. Had Kate only known it, I needed her tenderness and serenity after the tumult of life at sea. I needed her gentleness after the rough vulgarity of forecastle conversation that was centred around women, booze and ships – in that order. There’d been other girls in other ports but they’d been merely milestones in a sailor’s life, and in

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.