the war. The thing is to give him plenty of treats, something to look forward to each day. I could take my gramophone in and play him some tunes.”
“Oh, Tor, you are kind.”
“I’m not very kind actually,” said Tor, “but we’ll be in Bombay in a blink of an eye, so surely between us all we can keep him amused, then it’s his parents’ hard cheese.”
Rose appeared, pink from a game of deck quoits.
“What’s going on here?” she said. “A drinking den? Can anyone join?”
Tor sat her down and put her in the picture, ending up with “So I’m sure the poor child doesn’t need flinging in the brig or whatever they call it.”
“Don’t feel you have to say yes,” said Viva, noting Rose’s slight hesitation. “I would understand.”
“Well, I would like to talk to Frank first,” Rose said.
“Oh, of course.” Tor smiled. “We’ve all got to talk to Dr. Frank.”
“And aren’t you forgetting something, darling?” Rose looked at Tor.
“What?”
“Those noises you heard him making.”
“What noises?” said Viva.
“Do them,” said Rose to Tor.
Tor started to groan theatrically. “‘Oh my God! Ow! Oh God!’ I thought someone was killing him. I should have gone to help him.”
“It was probably best to leave him alone.”
“Why?” both of them said in unison.
“Well.” Viva looked at the carpet. “Those are the sounds boys make when they’re…well…you know…masturbating.”
“What?” Rose looked bewildered.
“Well, you know, they touch their thing and it makes them feel excited, happy.”
All three of them went pink.
“What?” Rose still looked confused. “What are you talking about?”
“Well, to put it another way, it’s how a man’s body goes when he is about to make love or a baby.”
“Oh my gosh.” Rose swallowed. “But he’s so young. Are you sure?”
“No, of course I’m not sure, but that might be what it was. I’m pretty sure he didn’t need your help.”
They looked at her, shocked and impressed.
“And is that all you’re going to say about it?” said Tor. “Come on, Viva, for once in your life spill the beans. You know so much more than we do.”
“Later maybe, not now.”
“Will you promise to come back later and tell us the rest? We haven’t had a bishi for days.” Tor’s face was on fire. “And I do think there comes a time when one has to know everything.”
Poor Rose still looked so bewildered that Viva made a reluctant decision.
“I’m not an expert,” she said. “I’ve only had one lover, I’ll tell you about him later.”
“The love bits as well as the story,” said Tor.
“Maybe,” Viva said distantly, although she never wanted to think of him again.
Chapter Eighteen
Indian Ocean, 500 miles from Bombay
Although Rose had decided to avoid the boy next door as much as possible, she had started to feel a strange and unhappy kinship with him. Viva had told her that he hadn’t seen his parents for ten years, that his terror was growing as they drew closer to India. She said he now slept with his head muffled under thick blankets.
She understood. Yesterday when she’d used the term “fiancé” to describe Jack to one of the mems, the word had stuck in her mouth like a pair of badly fitting false teeth. And this morning when she’d woken up, she’d actually been sucking her thumb, something she hadn’t done for years. She’d picked up the photo of a uniformed Jack dressed up to the nines in his brass buttons and swords and wearing a strange proud smirk, almost willing her heart to swell with something at the sight of it, but what she’d really felt was an almost giddying sense of loss. In two days’ time they’d be there, her goose would be cooked and one door would close for her on her childhood and a sort of freedom, and another would open on a world as foreign to her as the moon.
This thought brought a gnats’ swarm of other fears into her brain. Would Jack even recognize her after their six months apart? And assuming he did recognize her, would he be disappointed? The setting for that first kiss at the Savile Club—the moonlight, the staircase, the gamboling cherubs above—could not have been much more perfect, but now was now, and so much depended on where you met a person and how you were feeling that day. When she stepped off the ship, every flaw highlighted by a merciless sun, would he look at her and think, Huge mistake? Or would she look at him and know in an instant I got it wrong—he’s