Billie's Kiss Read Online Free Page A

her feet. She stood with her mouth open, trying to hear. Her ears were ringing.
    He had spread his hands, his arms, too disgusted to touch, and was looking down at the front of his coat. Billie watched the wind part his pale hair, like water pouring into water. He looked up at her as she went to him. She lurched against him, unsettled by her numb clumsiness and the motion of the ship. Billie pulled her shawl from her head to mop at his coat. The ends of her hair rushed in front of her and got into the mess but she kept on mopping, folding, finding a clean spot on the shawl to soak up more filth. She could see how the fluid left smears, like the snail trails on the brick steps of the cottage at Crickhowell. She couldn’t speak, knew she’d only stammer if she tried.
    He stopped her, brought his arms up slowly between them, so that her hands were moved aside. But he wasn’t trying to master her hands; he put his own gloved ones together and used his clean sleeves to push her hair up and back, so that his arms were crossed behind her neck, and her hair was out of her face. He moved slowly, apparently concerned not tofrighten or offend her, and with the effect of someone lifting something heavy, or capturing something lively – her hair.
    â€˜I’m so sorry!’ Billie said. She was more miserable than embarrassed. She was tired of her own stupidity, tired of being conscious enough to suffer shame for it but unable to correct herself. Then she dropped the shawl and ducked out of his arms. She scrambled away from him, got up, and struck her head on one of the short craning turrets that ventilated the engine room. Her eyes filled, and she glanced back at a blurred block of darkness that was all those coats. Those men. She fled to the far side of the steamer and pressed her back against the wheelhouse wall.
    From this retreat, as she collected herself, Billie watched the pilot come alongside, both ships backing their engines. A boat was put down from the pilot’s vessel, and a line thrown from the deck of the Gustav Edda. The Gustav Edda ’s captain waited for the pilot, and another man, to climb the rope and wood ladder that two seamen had rolled over the side. They stood talking at the rail.
    Eight bells were sounded.
    The fair-haired man in the astrakhan appeared, followed by his servant. Billie flattened herself against a closed door. But he wasn’t interested in her. He wanted to know what the problem was. He was, apparently, one of those people who wouldn’t acknowledge any problem unforeseen by him as an actuality. ‘What seems to be the problem?’ he said. It was another expression whose usage Billie had always found intriguing – the possibilities of concession provided by ‘seems to be’, as opposed to the inconvenience of ‘is’.
    The pilot asked the captain for the cargo manifest. He glanced at the tarpaulin-shrouded shape firmly roped to the stern deck. The captain explained that it was Lord Hallowhulme’s new automobile. He’d find its seats and doors in the hold – where they had been put in order to preserve their leather from the elements. The pilot said he was moreinterested in how the coal was stowed. He told the captain that the Wash was particularly wicked today. The captain said all the cargo was fast, but let the pilot and his man go down to look for themselves.
    The person Billie had drenched in Edith’s bile lost interest in all this and went back into the sheltered place between the wheelhouse and galley. The pilot eventually reappeared. He was followed by his man, who was, Billie saw, oddly engaged – the man was tucking in the tail of his shirt, as if he’d had some cause to unbutton and unbelt his trousers while below. Billie was intrigued. The pilot seemed satisfied. Then he saw Billie, and she believed he asked the captain who she was.
    â€˜Miss Wilhelmina Paxton,’ Billie heard the captain say, ‘who is