Was this what it was like for Philip on board ship? Did he feel the same swell of the heart, the same expansion of the lungs? No wonder teaching at Corsham has seemed dull and unsatisfying. No wonder he hates the constriction of a tie and the stuffy culture at court.

Slowly, the rest of the household grope their way onto the deck as their stomachs settle and their legs steady. Elizabeth spends a whole day just sitting in a deckchair looking at the sea and marvelling at the sparkling swell and surge of the ocean. She misses Philip but she is not sorry to be here, overwhelmed by the power of it. Never has she felt so insignificant and yet so at ease. Never has she seen a horizon so vast. She is transformed by it.

Elizabeth hasn’t expected this chance to let go of everything. Responsibility has evaporated in the sparkling air. Isolated on board Vanguard, she lets herself forget the bitter winter being endured by people at home. She forgets the frustrations of Greek politics and her father’s intransigence. She doesn’t forget Philip, of course, but the missing him is less raw on the ship. There is something about being out there on the ocean, knowing that there is nothing she can do, nothing she can say that will make any difference to anything until they get to the end of the voyage.

It’s a kind of freedom.

Her parents, her sister, a household of ten travelling with them. And the officers and crew. There is nobody staring, nobody waving, nobody calling out intrusive questions. To her surprise, Elizabeth realises that Margaret is right: they can enjoy these three weeks at sea.

And she does. She and Margaret play tag and other silly deck games with the younger officers. They play deck quoits and badminton and take part in shooting contests. When they cross the equator, they enjoy the ceremony of crossing the line. Elizabeth writes to Philip about the crew dressed in wigs and skirts, about dunking other novices who have never crossed the equator before. She and Margaret are disappointed by the tameness of their own initiation, she tells Philip in the letter she writes to him that night.

The others were dunked in the pool and tormented in various ways but all we had to endure was having our faces dabbed with huge powder puffs. I feel sure that if you had been there we would have been made to sit on the greased pole and beat each other with pillows until we fell into the pool at the very least.

Chapter 31

South Africa, February 1947

Vanguard steams into Table Bay early on a fresh February morning. On deck, Elizabeth and Margaret shade their eyes against the early morning sun. They can see Cape Town and, beyond, the famous Table Mountain, its flat top draped in a cloth of dense white mist.

Although she is sorry to leave the carefree voyage behind, Elizabeth is wide-eyed at the colour and abundance in South Africa. January in London was bitter, tired, and grey. In Cape Town the sky is blue, the light is crystalline. The shop windows are full. The market stalls are piled high with fruit and vegetables: after the years of rationing, Elizabeth finds herself gaping at the redness of the tomatoes, the yellowness of the bananas, the bobbly green avocadoes. She is presented with a fresh peach and when she bites into the blush-coloured flesh, the sweetness explodes in her mouth and she smiles as she wipes the juice dribbling down her chin. It is nothing like the tinned peaches she has had before. It is the most delicious thing she has ever eaten, she decides.