The Undertow Read Free Page B

local red wine, which is cheap. Spiteri’s delighted with their order, and off on his way to get it, still talking, commending the menu. William finds himself smiling: this is not the Prince’s Head, with his dad and his workmates playing dominoes and smoking and watching him through their pipe smoke. No-one knows him here.
    There are, as he’s already well aware there always are in harbourside bars, whores. They sit at the counter, in satin wraps, their legs showing right up to the calf, the bulge of flesh like a soft unfamiliar fruit. One woman turns and catches William’s eye, and he smiles instinctively in reply to her smile. He hadn’t meant to look, but he finds himself caught, until she drops her gaze and turns away. She’s pretty, in a rough sort of way. Ragged curls, bitten dirty nails. Skin like milky tea.
    Not like Amelia.
    He drinks. The wine is both harsh and sweet. The first mouthful makes him shudder. Sully proposes Paveley’s health; they tip back their little tumblers and empty them down their throats. Paveley is nineteen; he had his birthday while they were at sea. It makes William feel old. He is twenty-four next birthday. He is going to be a father. His job at Price’s is waiting for him, when the war is over.
    The bar fills quickly, becomes dark with men and noisy. He’ll have just one more. Then he’ll go and find her a postcard. Something pretty. You can’t say very much on the back of one postcard. You can’t be expected to.
    Sully tilts the bottle towards William’s glass. William nods. He watches the liquid tumble in, watches the dark level of it rise.
    Mrs. Spiteri emerges from the kitchen. She carries a plate of warm pastries, glistening with oil. Mrs. Spiteri’s face is round as an apple, shiny and damp. She sets the plate down and smiles at the men as they eat, enjoying their enjoyment, and when she catches William’s eye she nods to him, asking his approval. He smiles back, nods,
It’s good
. And it is—the filling is a kind of pease pudding, spicy, peppery—and she smiles broader, and nods again, more vigorously, saying something in Maltese, and when she nods her body shakes—unsupported breasts, soft belly, no corsets on—and William drags his thoughts away from her soft giving flesh, the clear satisfaction she seems to find in others’ pleasure.
    The lads are talking, but their conversation is trailing, loose-knit: they are distracted by the women at the bar, who glance round every so often to catch an eye. Then the pretty one turns round in her seat, and recrosses her legs, and her wrap slips away to show a smooth knee and a glimpse of thigh, and Sully’s on his feet, heading over to her, drink left unfinished on the table.
    William watches. He shouldn’t. Sully lays his hand on the whore’s hip, on the silky wrap. She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t stiffen. She just turns to him, then leans in towards him, serious, big eyes looking up at Sully’s face. He talks, confident, sure of what he’s doing. She gives him a smile, but the smile doesn’t reach her eyes. She slips down from the stool and takes his hand; she leads him over to the stairs.
    William watches them until they move out of his line of sight. He downs his drink. He thinks he can hear them. Hear their tread cross the landing above, hear their talk, their creaking through the upstairs room. It’s not really possible, not with the noise of the bar. He wishes he could be like Sully. Just for a bit. Just for the next half hour or so. Then forget what he had done.
    Paveley downs his drink, gets to his feet. He brushes his hands off on the seat of his trousers, grins to the company, and heads over to the women. The one in the mauve wrap turns towards him, and when he stands talking to her she touches his chest, laying her hand flat there as she talks to him, looking right up into his face, like she knows him. Everywhere they go, the whores can always speak English.
    The two of them go upstairs. William pours