Chapter six
The man.
1946-1947
As I come up on deck, I'm shocked to see the man who had taken me to the pictures, standing there. I try to look away, but he has already spoken to me.
“How are you now?” he asks. “Alright,” I answer.
“I thought you had been sick,” he remarks.
I've walked away by this time but his words are reverberating in my ears. What does he mean, he thought I'd been sick? Maybe what he did will make me sick. Dad had said something about the baby being born silly if I played with myself. Maybe I will go silly. Does everyone who looks at me know what happened? All of these doubts are going over in my mind. I go back down to the cabin.
We are traveling first class but they also have a third class for 12 passengers. They're in two adjoining cabins down below. The cabins have no doors between them and have six bunks in each. This was the gunners' quarters during the war. The passengers have to get their own food from the galley and make their own beds.
Third class is a lot cheaper and Dad wants to get away from his religious cabin mates, so he does a swap with two people from the third class. For me it is a good move, as it takes me away from THE MAN and I never see him again. Phew.
I now live in close company with eleven other passengers. That is until one gets appendicitis and spends the rest of the voyage in the sickbay. Another man is a priest, who spends most of his time looking after him and has his meals with him in the sickbay. The rest of us eat our meals in one of the two cabins. Then there is the professor who speaks with an upper-class accent and is learning Maori from a book. He teaches me to play a two pack solo card game called Nile.
Then there's Neil who is my age and is traveling alone. We become mates while on board ship. Last, there is the Spiv, who will do anything for money. He cures a roommate of seasickness, for $2, by getting him to drink salt water. He even sells his long leg trousers. Dad buys them for me, as my only pair of shorts have worn out. This is my first pair of longs and the last time I wear shorts.
The Spiv plays Crown and An