I re-entered shipboard life slowly. The level of giddiness on board increased the closer we got to San Francisco. Outfits were hastily mended, washing pegged from the ropes and railings of the boat, where it flapped in the breeze. The little commissary sold out of leg paint, lipstick and hairpins. I existed outside this level of thrill; all I wished for now was to finish the voyage quickly, to get there. I noticed more and more women ducking around corners, behind lifeboats with sailors. Of course there were whispers. Jane had a sailor who would call by the room sometimes and they went ‘walking’.

Min would start up as soon as the door shut behind them. ‘I have half a mind to tell her husband myself if he’s waiting for her in San Francisco.’

Brynn would respond: ‘Tell him what? Let her walk, Min. She’s not doing any harm.’

Min would snort then head off to practise piano in the lounge. She was playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata for the talent show that had been organised to make the last days pass more quickly. Brynn was juggling—a trick her older brothers had taught her—and Jane was dancing with a group of girls she often sat with at mealtimes. Their table had the most raucous laughter, and I sometimes wished I could sit with them, though I knew I wouldn’t fit in. It felt like years since I had laughed. I had seen them practising and knew the dance would be a hit with the sailors—they wore shorts and brassiere tops, swaying their hips to Glenn Miller’s ‘In the Mood’. Barbara and I were not doing anything. She said nobody wanted to see her looking like she’d swallowed a watermelon. Crying was my only talent lately, and no one wanted to see that either.

It’s a strange phenomenon I’ve observed throughout my life that once your negative thoughts about yourself begin, they can easily spiral out of control. Mum not wanting me to come home for the funeral became no one ever wanting me, and I began a list in my head of foolish things I had said and done to make people not love me. I forgot the ambivalence I had felt about Roy at first and only remembered how I had dragged him away from the reception and made a sour face when he wanted to share a taxi with his friends, how he had fallen asleep on our wedding night. The truth was we’d had so little time together that it was easy to overthink each of our encounters and attempt to pinpoint a time when his love for me had begun to diminish.