The White Voyage Read Free Page B

lady’s cases to the other cabin. She is like you, your daughter. A beauty.’ She fished in her shopping bag. ‘Can she have chocolate?’
    ‘Thank you – but not before supper.’
    ‘Then she will eat it after supper, or tomorrow, maybe.’
    Annabel climbed down and came for the chocolate. Mrs Simanyi embraced her.
    ‘A beauty,’ she repeated. ‘Take an apple also. Eat the apple after the chocolate. That makes your teeth strong and white, eh?’
    She went with Mary and Annabel to the No. 4 cabin, and looked round it appraisingly.
    ‘It is as good as the other, you think?’ she asked.
    ‘Yes,’ Mary said. ‘Just as good.’
    ‘I am glad. You travel also to Copenhagen?’
    Mary shook her head. ‘No. Only as far as Amsterdam.’
    ‘You take a trip – just you and the little one?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And your husband stays behind in Ireland?’
    Mary said: ‘I’m a widow.’
    ‘I am sorry.’
    The two women looked at one another, the older offering, the younger warily refusing.
    ‘You want to be alone now,’ said Mrs Simanyi.
----
    The horses were brought up for loading about half past six. They were in lines of ten, loosely roped together, each attended by a groom. Mouritzen stood by the open forward hatch and watched them being slung over, two at a time, in the horse-box. One or two whinnied in anxiety as the box was lifted by the crane, but for the most part they were docile enough. The dock labourers, down in the hold, led them out and secured them in the wooden stalls which ran along either side.
    Mary and the child had come on deck to watch. Mouritzen walked along and stood beside them.
    ‘Good evening,’ he said. ‘The horses are almost the end. Then we sail.’
    Another row of ten moved forward from the darkness into the glow of lights.
    ‘Where are the horses going?’ she asked. ‘To Copenhagen?’
    Mouritzen shook his head, grinning. ‘In Denmark, we do not eat horse.’
    ‘Eat?’
    She bit her lip and looked quickly at Annabel, who had turned from watching the scene in the hold to stare at Mouritzen.
    He said softly: ‘I am sorry.’ In a normal voice, he went on: ‘It is a saying. I mean, we do not use horses to work in the fields. We have tractors instead.’
    She said gratefully: ‘Where will these horses be sent to work?’
    ‘Some will leave us at Dieppe, the rest at Amsterdam. You are not a country woman?’
    ‘No. Why do you say that?’
    ‘They are not young, these horses. Ten years old and more. We think all Irish people have a deep knowledge of horses.’
    ‘I’ve always lived in Dublin.’
    ‘And now you go far away – to Amsterdam?’
    ‘Yes.’
    He waited for her to say something more, but she remained silent. He asked:
    ‘Is it your first visit?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I hope you will like it there.’
    She made no comment. Annabel asked:
    ‘Do people eat horses?’
    Mouritzen looked at Mary. She said after a moment:
    ‘In some countries they do.’
    ‘Will these horses be eaten?’
    ‘No. Not these.’
    The next load went to the No. 2 hatch, and Annabel went along there to look. Mary moved to follow her.
    Mouritzen said: ‘She is quite safe. You do not wish her to know – about the horses?’
    ‘Why should she?’
    ‘There is death in the world. It cannot be hidden.’
    ‘She will have time enough to find out.’
    ‘So you lie to her? Is that better?’
    She looked at him, unsure whether to be angry or not. She had it in mind to tell him that she had not asked for his advice and that he had no right to offer it unasked. But in the seriousness of his face she read his innocence of any wish to give offence.
    She said, smiling slightly: ‘You aren’t married, are you? Or if you are, you have no children.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because you don’t understand that children are not the same as adults.’
    ‘So it is a good thing to lie to them?’
    ‘In Denmark,’ she asked him, ‘do you have Santa Claus?’
    He nodded. ‘Saint Nicholas. That is different, I