As the ship drew away from the wharf I stood on deck alone, feeling the breeze press my skirt around my knees, and the strange pang of homesickness for a place I had only known for a day, wishing we could have stayed longer. I had never been terrified and amazed by so much, and I tried to figure out whether it was fear of arrival that made me want to slow the journey, or the journey itself. Before this, the furthest I had been was the distance between the South Coast and Sydney—some six or seven hours.

For the first time our arrival in America became something real. And then I would have to get to know Roy all over again. We had become so tender in our letters to one another, but I couldn’t forget my hesitation before we married, the fear that I’d rushed into something I’d regret. So yes, there were days when I just wanted to stop time, and I would lie on a deckchair in the sun, watching the gulls overhead, listening to the rumble of the engine from far below.

A day after leaving Suva the main Red Cross representative, Miss Farr, knocked on our door.

‘The captain wants to see you,’ she said to me.

Startled, I replied that I would be right out. Brynn and Jane were sprawled on their bunks and Barbara was in the bathroom, probably vomiting into the toilet beneath the showerhead. I quickly pinned back the loose strands of my hair and reapplied lipstick in front of the little mirror above the sink.

‘What’s happened?’ Brynn asked, tossing her magazine to the floor.

‘No idea. The captain wants to see me.’ My hand was shaking and I had to wipe the lipstick off and start again. I wondered if something had happened at home.

‘It’s probably nothing. Do you want me to come?’ Brynn stood and brushed biscuit crumbs from her skirt.

‘I’ll be fine. Can I borrow your cardigan though? The pale blue one?’

Brynn fetched it for me, and I slipped it on.

Miss Farr was waiting when I shut the cabin door behind me.

‘This way.’ She spoke as though she were snipping the words with scissors.

Her dress billowed behind her and her neat, white tri-cornered cap bobbed ahead of me up the steps. Miss Farr was older than all of us, probably in her late forties, and there were deep lines beside her mouth that looked as though they were etched by disappointment. I hadn’t once seen her smile. She normally dealt with the girls who were particularly homesick or had what we called ‘women’s problems’—those girls whose monthlies had stopped or who had something else going on down below.