Ship of Brides Read Free Page B

Sanjay.
    She could tell that Sanjay’s natural disinclination to venture further was tempered by his need to be seen as a fellow-adventurer, a protector, even. ‘Jennifer dear—’ she said, wanting to spare his embarrassment.
    ‘Five minutes.’ Jennifer jumped up, almost bouncing with impatience. Then she was half-way across the road.
    ‘I’d better go with her,’ said Sanjay, a hint of resignation in his voice. ‘I’ll get her to stay where you can see her.’
    ‘Young people,’ said Mr Vaghela, chewing meditatively. ‘There is no telling them.’
    A huge truck trundled past, the back filled with twisted pieces of metal to which six or seven men clung precariously.
    After it had passed, she could just make out Jennifer in conversation with the man on the gate. The girl smiled, ran her hand through her blonde hair. Then she reached into her bag and handed him a bottle of cola. As Sanjay caught up with her, the gate opened. And then they were gone, reappearing several seconds later as tiny figures on the beach.
    It was almost twenty minutes before either she or Mr Vaghela could bear to say what they both thought: that the young people were now not just out of sight but way over time. And that they would have to go and look for them.
    Revived by her tea, she struggled to suppress her irritation that her granddaughter had again behaved in such a selfish, reckless manner. Yet she knew that her response was due partly to fear that something would happen to the girl while she was in her charge. That she, helpless and old, in this strange, otherworldly place, would be responsible in circumstances she could not hope to control.
    ‘She won’t wear a watch, you know.’
    ‘I think we should go and bring them back,’ said Mr Vaghela. ‘They have obviously forgotten the time.’
    She let him pull back her chair and took his arm gratefully. His shirt had the soft papery feel of linen washed many, many times.
    He pulled out the black umbrella that he had used on several occasions and opened it, holding it so that she could walk in the shade. She stayed close to him, conscious of the stares of the thin men behind, of those who passed by on whining buses.
    They halted at the gate, and Mr Vaghela said something to the security guard, pointing through at the shipyard beyond. His tone was aggressive, belligerent, as if the man had committed some crime in allowing the young people to go through.
    The guard said something apparently conciliatory in reply, then shepherded them in.
    The ships were not intact, as she had first believed, but prehistoric, rusting hulks. Tiny men swarmed over them like ants, apparently oblivious to the shriek of rent metal, the high-pitched squeal of steel cutters. They held welding torches, hammers, spanners, the beating chimes of their destruction echoing disconsolately in the open space.
    Those hulls still in deeper water were strung with ropes from which dangled impossibly frail platforms on which metal moved to the shore. Closer to the water, she lifted her hand to her face, conscious of the pervasive stench of raw sewage, and something chemical she could not identify. Several yards away a series of bonfires sent toxic plumes of thick smoke into the clear air.
    ‘Please be careful where you walk,’ said Mr Vaghela, gesturing towards the discoloured sand. ‘I do not think this is a good place.’ He glanced back, apparently wondering whether the old woman should remain at the tea-house.
    But she did not want to sit and face those young men alone. ‘I shall hold on to you, Mr Vaghela, if you don’t mind.’
    ‘I think this would be recommended,’ he said, squinting into the distance.
    Around them, on the sand, stood chaotic piles of rusting girders, what looked like oversized turbines, and crumpled steel sheets. Huge barnacle-encrusted chains snaked around everything or were piled in seaweedy coils, like giant sleeping serpents, dwarfing the workers around them.
    Jennifer was nowhere to be