If your parents are lost to you then so are mine.
I reckon I will need every penny in order to buy your freedom so I offer the groom a good look at my breasts, and while he fumbles with his buckles and buttons I swing up onto the fastest-looking horse that is still saddled. A bay with a white blaze.
Then I turn her east and gallop for Sheerness. The Amity puts on its last human cargo there, on the Isle of Sheppey. There is a chance I can get you off, that I can talk whoever round – a slender chance, but I know I have to take it.
I hear shouting as the horse and I turn onto the road for Kent.
She is a good, kind horse. I pat her neck, lean forward and whisper magic words into her ear to urge her onward, and dutifully she flattens out into a gallop.
Since you are gone I tell the horse my final lesson, one I learned too late:
My love. All lies were true, all bets are off. I swear, I promise, I will follow you across the world and somehow make you love me all again. If not – I am certain of this – I shall die.
Record the nut-brown maid,
Which, when her love came her to prove,
To her to make his moan,
Would not depart; for in her heart
She loved but him alone.
THE UNICORN
BY
JAMES DAWSON
‘ . . . those who suffer from this disability carry a great weight of shame all their lives.’
Roy Jenkins, Home Secretary 1967
Now I am an old man. A very old man, one who both feels and looks his age: a hunched, shrunken gnome with white hair and skin like liver-spotted tissue paper. When I walk, I walk with a stick and I’m developing a mortal fear of icy pavements.
Oh, I see these colourful boys gallivanting outside the bars on Old Compton Street but they don’t see me at all. With nothing solid left to offer, I move among them like a ghost. They wouldn’t believe that I was quite the catch in my day, and even if they did, what good to them is a photograph? The Portsmouth girls used to compare me to Olivier, something about the dimple in my chin, although I never saw it myself.
There is one photograph, though, in which I almost take my own breath away. My first picture in uniform. In my head, this is how I look now, how I’ve always looked. Black and white, of course – it was 1950 – and so, so proud to be in that cap. Positively beaming. A black ribbon runs around the rim – HMS Unicorn – the vessel that was to be my home for two years.
We call it the Forgotten War. Over five thousand of our boys were killed, captured or maimed in Korea and, to my shame, I too only dimly recall the fighting. For me, when I think about that time, I think about a face; I think about a smile.
We met in the galley shortly after my transfer from the Warrior in the November of ’51. The air was tacky with fried-egg-gammon grease and cigarette smoke. The change of vessel had unsettled all of us – new comers upsetting the status quo. At sea, like a spot on your tongue, the smallest things seem enormous. Ships may look vast, but they’re all just tin cans and we sardines.
Some fellas were rowdy, laughing and gambling, while others brooded over their jam roly poly. We were docked off Singapore, thousands of miles from the war, so we may as well have been on a cruise. A holiday during which we were to refit and repair the Unicorn before she returned to her duties.
The Aussies were the brashest, and one of them, a freckled hulk called Bronson, caught my eye as I went to retire. He was shirtless, wearing only his woollen britches. ‘Oi, where you going, Fauntleroy?’ My youth and Received Pronunciation had betrayed my schooling early into the voyage.
‘I don’t know. Back to the mess.’ Truth was, I wanted to be on deck. I needed the sunset that night as much as I needed the air. However far from home I was, it brought me comfort to know I shared the same sun with Mummy and my brothers.
‘Play with us a while!’ Bronson demanded, slapping a paw on the table, jumping the cards. ‘How much do you want to bet on an arm wrestle?’
I stifled a sigh. ‘I wouldn’t want to take that bet, Bronson.’ I kept my voice unfailingly polite.
‘What if I use my left arm to give you a shot?’
‘I doubt it’d make a difference.’
‘I doubt it’d make a difference,’ he mocked my voice. ‘Aw come on, you great Nancy. Don’t tell me you didn’t hold hands with boys at your boarding school.’
I did a great deal more than hold hands, but said nothing as I took my position opposite Bronson. I offered my right hand.
Bronson laughed, ‘Here we go! Come on, fellas, how long do you think it’ll take? Place your bets!’
‘Are you sure you want to do this, Bronson?’
‘Mate, I’m gonna snap your arm!’
‘How much are you willing to bet?’
‘Fifty dollars says I win.’
‘Very well,’ I said.
‘Easiest cash I ever made.’ Bronson offered his right hand and I took it, taking care to tuck my thumb under, rather than over, my fingers.
Poor Bronson. He wasn’t to know my years at Highgate School had been entirely misspent and I was no stranger to an arm wrestle. Why else would I be here instead of at Oxford with my classmates? Off the pitch, my school career had been a resounding failure.
It’s a common misconception that an arm wrestle is about brute strength. On the contrary, it’s about skill. Our arms formed a peak in the centre of the table, Bronson’s biceps twice the size of mine. I put my weight onto my forward foot and pressed my hip to the table’s edge.
‘Keep it clean, fellas,’ said one of Bronson’s Aussie friends. ‘On three . . .’
I subtly flexed my wrist up, forcing Bronson’s wrist to bend. He didn’t seem to notice.
‘One . . . two . . . GO!’
Predictably, Bronson tried to force my arm towards the table. Instead, I drew his towards me and left, into the corner of the table. This is known as the Top Roll, and he didn’t see it coming. Straightening his arm gave him less leverage and me the drop. Throwing my body weight into it, I pinned his arm to the table.
I didn’t gloat. No one likes a sore winner. The room erupted with laughter and applause. I’ll say this for Bronson, he wasn’t looking to start a fight. He knew he’d been beaten fairly although his freckled face turned beetroot. His comrades mocked him with hoots and backslaps, but, to his credit, he took it.
That was when I saw a hand appear to my right, palm up – waiting for payment.
Bronson reached into his pocket and withdrew crumpled notes.
I turned and looked into the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. I’d sailed the Atlantic, the Med, the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, but I’d never seen blue like that. The stranger, who must have joined the ship in Japan, smiled a cockeyed smile and handed me the money. ‘I owe you a drink, mate! You just won me twenty-five bob.’
I shook hands with Bronson and left him at the mercy of his friends. ‘Why did you bet on me?’
‘Truth be told, mate, I felt sorry for yer.’ His voice was undiluted Estuary but I liked it; it reminded me so strongly of London, of home. ‘Why did you say he’d beat you?’
I shrugged. ‘He’s a proud man. He needed it more. Maybe I should have let him win.’
The newcomer looked confounded but held out his hand. ‘I’m Frankie, mate. Frankie Cain.’
I shook his hand, his fingers Swarfega raw and calloused. ‘I’m Reg. Reg Hastings.’
Checking no one was looking, Frankie pulled me into the chapel. A fat, slumping candle flickered from a gold stand in the corner so he left off the main light. ‘What are we doing in here?’ I asked. I’d been raised a good Christian boy, but even I only visited the chapel when I remembered it was a Sunday.
‘Holy Communion, my friend.’ From under the altar, Frankie pulled out a small suitcase. He flipped it open and I saw it was filled with booze and cigarettes. Good booze too – single malt whisky. ‘’Ere.’ He handed me the bottle. ‘Bottom’s up, or whatever it is gents like you say.’
<
br /> I took a seat on the first pew. ‘I’m from London, just the same as you are.’ The whisky almost knocked my head off. It was strong stuff. Far more potent than the watered-down rum ration.
‘Ha ha! I don’t think your London’s quite the same as my London, Reg.’ He sat next to me and took a slug of the whisky. ‘I like it in here. I dunno about you, but when I signed up I thought about life on the open sea, not twenty-four blokes sharing a bedroom. It’s nice to have a bit of space to yourself.’
‘I’ve lived in dormitories for as long as I can remember. Doesn’t make a lot of difference. We’re lucky they got rid of the hammocks.’
He took another swig. ‘Maybe if we get drunk enough, Pennefather will put us in the cells! Private room!’
‘I don’t think I’d be able to sleep without the noise of other men snoring!’
He chuckled. ‘You public school boys then . . . are the rumours true?’
I turned to him with a sly smile. This was dangerous and I didn’t want to show my hand too soon. ‘I vowed to take it to the grave . . .’
His lips curled at the edges, but he questioned me no further. He told me how he’d been docked at Iwakuni in Japan and had stayed on when we swapped crews. I asked his age and, although he looked older than me, he too was eighteen. ‘I wasn’t given much of a choice, to be honest. It was either the navy or the army or work for me granddad as a fishmonger and I never did like fish.’
‘Me either,’ I laughed. ‘I’m much the same. My father died in action during the war. Service is rather the done thing in my family.’
Frankie smiled at me. ‘Blood like yours, you’ll be running the place in no time.’
‘I hope not. Not really my scene.’ By this stage I was more than a little merry.
‘And what is?’
I shrugged. ‘You know what I’d really like? A grocer’s. A nice little grocer’s somewhere in West London with fruit and veg in crates on the pavement. Hastings’ Groceries.’
‘Hastings & Sons?’ He fixed me with his gaze and it felt like I was sinking in quicksand. Willingly. Now he was prying.
I shivered. ‘I very much doubt it.’ My throat was tight, unbearably so. The chapel was a poky room, but the walls seemed to shrink in around us. Shoulder to shoulder on the pew, I could smell him, I could smell Frankie’s scent – soap – Pears soap.
He laughed and the bubble popped. ‘Well, as long as you don’t sell fish!’
When the candle had burned down and the whisky was finished, Frankie had to escort me back to the bunks. I could scarcely put one foot in front of the other. I was off-duty, but if I was to be found like that I would have been in bother.
He hooked my arm around his neck and wrapped his own arm behind my waist. His arms were strong, muscular and so much hairier than mine. ‘Come on, Reg, you can do it. Not far to go.’
‘Sshhh!’ I insisted, making far more noise than him. ‘We’ll be in the cells!’
He chuckled. ‘Maybe we should go to the cells . . . what do you think?’
I stopped and steadied myself against the pipes. I couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not. My heart was beating too fast – each beat echoed in my skull. His face was fuzzy, swimming in and out of focus. Almost of its own accord, my right hand reached for his left cheek. I missed, though, and he laughed. ‘Come on, Reg, you need your bed.’
To be quite honest, I remember nothing more of that first night other than the splitting headache I awoke to.
When Mummy passed in ’87, I found the letters I’d sent her during my time on the Unicorn and they were smothered with Frankie. I regaled her with stories of the time we had to shovel snow from the deck; of playing songs from the Sound Room; of him teaching me poker and me teaching him craps; of more secret moments in the chapel late at night.
There is so much love between the scrawled lines, it’s a wonder Mummy didn’t know. Maybe she did.
As far as I could tell, he felt the same as me. He’d always find a way to touch me. If someone was looking, he’d throw an arm over my shoulder and slouch into me, the way men do. If no one was looking, he’d hold my hand or massage my neck. Oh, we fooled around, of course we did – we’d been at sea for over a year. Alone in the chapel or in the Sound Reproduction Room . . . while we played songs over the radio, hands would inevitably wander.
We never kissed though. Not until the night in Sasebo.
Refit complete, the Unicorn returned to duties: ferrying crew from Japan and Singapore to the front line in North Korea. While we were in dock, we were able to set foot on land, and even if Sasebo wasn’t quite as exciting or beautiful as Singapore, it was still sweet relief to be off the ship for a few hours.
It was an ugly town, made uglier by the naval presence – rusted grey docks welded onto a once serene bay surrounded by green-topped mountains. Of course, this was only a few years after the bomb was dropped on nearby Nagasaki, and I swear you could still feel a terrible silence in the air. No one spoke of it.
There was a naval club, and it was OK – although mixing that many crews, American, Australian and Royal Navy, always ended in fisticuffs. Instead, like many crewmen, Frankie and I headed into the village. The streets were ramshackle, washing lines hanging between the flat-top buildings in narrow alleys. Paper signs hung from shops and restaurants although we could read none of them.
Back then it was all so alien. You have to understand this was before Chinatown in Soho, although Frankie swore there were places in Limehouse where you could eat dog and find opium readily. I was wide-eyed, gawping at squid and octopi hanging in windows; buckets of fish heads on the street, dead eyes staring up at me. We meandered, getting ourselves lost just because we could.
We found a quiet restaurant, and Frankie managed to order for us using some sort of hand semaphore. He ate the raw fish, but I’m afraid I couldn’t stomach it. I did have a stab at using chopsticks, though, with limited success. I was developing quite a taste for sake and by the time we left the restaurant, my feet felt decidedly airy. Arms around each other’s shoulders – because it looked like nothing more than camaraderie – we began the trek back to the Unicorn. Suddenly Frankie stopped and I nearly fell. ‘You know what we need to do?’
‘What?’ I couldn’t stop smiling.
‘We haven’t got our tattoos yet.’ I realized he’d brought us to a stop outside a tattoo parlour – the window full of swallows and pin-up girls and broken hearts.
‘Oh no! Not on your life!’
‘Reg, you’re in the navy! You have to! It’s tradition!’
He was right, of course: it was the done thing to commemorate your service at sea. I suppose I saw it as something temporary that I hadn’t intended to do for long. ‘I won’t be in the navy for ever.’
He shook his head. ‘You will, Reg! You won’t always be at sea, but you’ll always be a sailor.’
I could see that this was an argument I wasn’t going to win. I also relished the idea of us going through this ordeal together. ‘Very well. But just something small and out of sight.’
Frankie grinned and pushed his way into the parlour. The shop was sticky with condensation and smelled strongly of Dettol and sweat. Behind a dirty counter stood a Japanese girl who couldn’t be much older than me, her belly heavily swollen, fit to pop.
‘Two tattoos?’ Frankie said.
‘Who is it, Kizumi?’ an American voice boomed, and a bald giant lumbered out from behind a bamboo curtain. I knew at once he must be ex-navy. Kizumi was lucky: most wouldn’t have done the right thing by her.
‘Hello,’ Frankie slurred a little. ‘We come to get our anchors.’ Well, what else would we get?
‘Both of you?’
‘Yessir.’
‘Come through.’ My stomach clenched like a fist as we followed him into the back of the shop. ‘You first, take your shirt off, son.’
The tattooist jabbed a sausage finger at me and I did as I was told. Feeling utterly naked, I saw Frankie’s eyes look me over. I was embarrasse
d about my body, not realizing back then that it would never be so perfect as at that moment. I took to the seat and gripped the arm rest. Frankie sat alongside me and squeezed my hand. ‘It’ll be all right.’ I believed him.
It hurt, but Bruce, the tattooist, was mercifully efficient. Within mere minutes, there was a perfect anchor on my left arm with HMS UNICORN underneath. ‘Your turn,’ he said to Frankie.
‘Reg, I want you to do mine.’
‘What?’
‘That way I’ll remember you for ever.’
‘Isn’t the tattoo enough?’ I laughed.
‘No. I want you to do it.’
‘Frank, it’ll look a right old mess if I do it.’
‘I don’t care.’
Bruno shrugged. ‘It’s your money, you can do what you want.’
I caved and took Bruno’s seat. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I am.’
I took the gun, a chunky, clunky metal thing like a fountain pen strapped to a pistol, and dipped the nib in the same ink used on me. ‘Frank, I’m not sure I can do this.’
‘You can. It doesn’t matter what it looks like, anyway, just that you did it.’
I started small – a practice mark. As I took the needle to his skin, Frankie tensed, the muscle in his bicep swelling under my touch. He inhaled sharply and I stopped. ‘Keep going,’ he said. ‘Just do it.’
I continued, trying as hard as I could to draw in straight lines. The ink bubbled and spurted over his skin, beads of blood mixing in. He closed his eyes and I hated that I was hurting him. But I’d started so I had to finish. I couldn’t leave him scarred but unfinished.
It took minutes, but felt like hours. His was little more than a stick drawing, lines crudely making a shape that looked more like a fish-hook than an anchor. Still, Frankie seemed pleased enough. ‘Mate, I love it.’
I examined my own, my arm looking foreign, more manly somehow. ‘Come on, it’s getting late.’
We paid Bruce and started back for the Unicorn. Frankie acquired a bottle of rum en route which I wasn’t convinced was a champion idea. Once more keeping each other upright, we wove through the narrow streets towards port.