To Sail Beyond The Sunset: The Life and Loves of Maureen Johnson

Chapter 16 - The Frantic Forties

In the summer of 1940 Brian and I were living in Chicago at 6105 Woodlawn, an address just south of the Midway. It was a large apartment building, eighty units, owned by the Howard Foundation through a dummy. We occupied what was called ‘the Penthouse' - the west end of the top floor, a living room and balcony, a kitchen, four bedrooms, two baths.

We needed the extra bedrooms, especially in July during the Democratic National Convention. For two weeks we had from twelve to fifteen people sleeping in an apartment intended for a maximum of eight. I do not recommend this. The apartment did not have air-conditioning, it was an exceptionally hot summer, and Lake Michigan a few hundred yards away turned our flat into a Turkish bath. At home I would have coped with it by walking around in my skin. But I could not do so in the presence of strangers. One of the real benefits of Boondock is that skin is just skin - means nothing.

I had not been in Chicago, other than to change trains, since 1893. Brian had frequently visited Chicago without me, as this flat was often used for Howard Foundation board meetings, the Foundation having moved its registered address from Toledo to Winnipeg in 1929. As Justin explained to me, ‘Maureen, while we don't advertise what we're doing, we won't be breaking any laws about private ownership of gold; we are simply planning for whatever develops. The Foundation is now restructured under Canadian law, and its registered secretary is a Canadian lawyer, who is in fact a Howard client himself and a Foundation trustee. I never touch gold, even with gloves on.'

(Brian expressed it otherwise. ‘No intelligent man has any respect for an unjust law. Nor does he feel guilt over breaking it. He simply follows the Eleventh Commandment.')

This time Brian was not in Chicago for a board meeting; he was there to watch the Chicago commodities market and to deal in it, because of the war in Europe - while I was in Chicago because I wanted to be. Much as I enjoyed being a brood mare, after forty years of it and seventeen babies, I relished seeing something other than wet nappies.

There was indeed much to see. The parkway a hundred yards north of us, stretching from Washington Park to Jackson Park and called the Midway Plaisance, was in fact a midway the last time I had seen it, with everything from Little Egypt's belly dance to pink cotton candy. Now it was a beautiful grassy park, with the matchless Fountain of Time by Lorado Taft at the west end and the lovely 57^th Street beach at the east end. The main campus of the University of Chicago, great grey Gothic buildings, dominated its north side. The University had been founded the year before I had come here as a girl, but none of these buildings had been built by then - as near as I could recall several major exhibition halls had occupied the ground now constituting the campus. I could not be certain, as nothing looked the same.

The elevated trains were much more widespread and now they were powered by electricity instead of steam. On the surface there were no longer horse cars or even cable cars; electric trolley cars had replaced them. No more horses anywhere - autos bumper to bumper, a dubious improvement.

The Field Museum, three miles to the north and on the Lake, had been founded after my long visit in ‘93; its Malvina Hoffman exhibit, ‘The Races of Man', was in itself worth a trip to the Windy City. Near it was the Adler Planetarium, the first one I ever visited. I loved the shows at the planetarium; they let me daydream of travelling among the stars like Theodore - but I did not dream that I would ever really do so. That hope was buried, along with my heart, somewhere in France.

Chicago in ‘93 had kept eleven-year-old Maureen Johnson round-eyed; Chicago in 1940 kept Maureen Smith, now officially forty-one years old, still more round-eyed, there were so many new wonders to see.

One change I did not like; in 1893 if I happened to be out after dark, Father did not worry and neither did I. In 1940 I was careful never to be caught out after dark, other than on Brian's arm.

Just before the 1940 Democratic convention the Phoney War ended and France fell. At Dunkirk on 6 June the British evacuated what was left of their army which was followed by one of the greatest speeches in all histories: ‘- we shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight them in the streets, we shall never surrender -‘

Father telephoned Brian, told him that he was signing up with the AFS. ‘Brian, this rime even the Home Guard says I'm too old. But these folks are signing up medics the Army won't accept. They want them for support service in war zones and they'll take anybody who can saw off a leg - meaning me. If this is the only way I can fight the Huns, then this is what I'll do -1 owe that to Ted Bronson. Understand me, sir?'

‘I quite understand.'

‘How soon can you put somebody else here to watch the youngsters?'

I could hear both sides, so I took the phone. ‘Father, Brian can't come home now but I can. Although I may be able to put Betty Lou there in my place even quicker. Either way, you can go ahead with your plans. But, Father, listen to me. You take care of yourself! Do you hear me?'

‘I'll be careful, daughter.'

‘Please do so, please! I'm proud of you, sir. And Theodore is proud of you, too. I know.'

‘I shall try hard to make both you and Ted proud of me, Maureen.'

I said goodbye quickly and hung up before my voice broke. Briney was looking thoughtful. ‘I'll Nave to get busy right away and correct my age with the Army. Or they might start saying that I am too old.'

‘Briney! Surely you don't expect to convince the Army that you are your Howard age? ‘they have years and years of records on you.'

‘Oh, I wouldn't try to sell the Adjutant-General my Howard age. Although I don't think I look any older than the forty-six it says on my driver's licence. I mean that I want to correct the little white lie I told in 1898, when I was actually fourteen but swore that I was twenty-one so that they would let me enlist.'

‘Fourteen indeed! You were a senior at Rolla.'

‘I was precocious, just like our children. Yes, dearest, I was a senior at Rolla in ‘98. But there is nobody left in the War Department who knows that. And nobody is likely to tell them. Maureen, a reserve colonel fifty-six years old is a lot more likely to be ordered to duty than one who is sixty-three. About one hundred per cent more likely.'

I'm using a Time agent's field recorder keyed to my voice and concealed in a body cavity. No, no, not concealed in the tunnel of love; that would not do, as Time agents aren't nuns and are not expected to be. I mean an artificial cavity about where my gall bladder used to be. This gadget is supposed to be good for a thousand hours and I hope it is working properly because, if these spooks scrag me - better make that when they scrag me - I hope that Pixel can lead somebody to my corpse and thereby let the Time Corps retrieve the record. I want the Circle to understand what I was trying to do. I should have done it openly, I suppose, but Lazarus would have grabbed it away from me. I have perfect hindsight - not so good in the other direction.

Brian did manage to ‘correct' his War Department age, simply because his general wanted him. But he did not manage to get himself ordered to a combat command. Instead combat came to him - he was holding down a desk at the Presidio and we were living in an old mansion on Nob Hill when the Japanese pulled their sneak attack on San Francisco, 7 December 1941.

It is an odd feeling to look up into the sky, see planes overhead, feel their engines deep in your bones, see their bellies give birth to bombs, and know that it is too late to run, too late to hide, and that you have no control whatever over where those bombs will hit - on you or on houses a block away. The feeling was not terror; it was more a sense of déja vu, as if I had been there a thousand times before. I don't care to feel it again but I know why warriors (real ones, not wimps in uniform) always seek combat assignments, not desk jobs. It is in the presence of death that one lives most intensely. ‘Better one crowded hour of life -‘

I have read that in time line three this sneak attack was made on Hawaii, not San Francisco, and that Californian Japanese were thereafter moved back from the coast. If so, they were extremely lucky, for that spared them the blood bath that took place in time line two, where more than 6o.ooo Japanese-Americans were lynched or shot or (in some cases) burned alive between Sunday and Tuesday, 7-9 December 1941. Did this affect what we did to Tokyo and Kobe later? I wonder.

Wars that start with sneak attacks are certain to be merciless; all the histories prove it.

As one result of those lynch mobs, President Barkley placed California under martial law. In April 1942 this was eased off and only the twenty-mile strip inland from the mean hightide line was militarised, but the zone was extended up the coast to Canada. In San Francisco this caused no special inconvenience - it was much like living on a military reservation and a marked improvement over San Francisco's usual civic corruption... but after dark on the coast itself there was always a danger that some sixteen-year-old boy in a National Guard uniform, armed with a World War One Springfield, might get nervous and trigger happy.

Or so I heard; I never risked it. The beach from Canada to Mexico was a combat zone; anyone on it after dark was risking sudden death and many found it.

I had my youngest with me, Donald, four, and Priscilla, two. My school-age children - Alice, Doris, Patrick, and Susan - were in Kansas City with Betty Lou. I had thought of Arthur Roy as being school age (born 1924), but his cousin Nelson swore him into the Marine Corps the day after the bombing of San Francisco, along with his elder brother Richard (born 1914); they went to Pendleton together. Nelson was on limited duty, having left a foot in Belleau Wood in 1918. Justin was on the War Production Board, based in Washington but travelling rather steadily; he stayed with us on Nob Hill several times.

Woodrow I did not see even once until the war was over. I received a Christmas card from him in December 1941, postmarked Pensacola, Florida: ‘Dear Mom and Pop, I'm hiding out from the Nips and teaching Boy Scouts how to fly upside down. Heather and the kids are stashed for the duration at Avalon Beach, PO Box 6320, so I sleep home most nights. Merry Christmas and have a nice war. Woodrow.'

The next we heard from Woodrow was a card from the Royal Hawaiian at Waikiki: ‘The service here is not quite up to peacetime standards but it is better than that at Lahaina. Despite any rumours to the contrary the sharks in Lahaina Roads are not vegetarian. Hoping you are the same. W.W.'

That was our first intimation that Woodrow had been in the Battle of Lahaina Roads. Whether he was in the Saratoga when she was sunk, or whether he ditched from the air, I do not know. But his card implies that he was in the water at some point. I asked him about this after the War. He looked puzzled and said, ‘Mom, where did you get that notion? I spent the war in Washington, DC, drinking Scotch with my opposite number in the British Aircraft Commission. His Scotch, it was - he had worked out a scam to fly it in from Bermuda.'

Woodrow was not always strictly truthful.

Let me see... Theodore Ira, my World War One baby, went to active duty with Kansas City's 110^th Combat Engineers and spent most of the war in Noumea, building airstrips and docks and such. Nancy's husband and Eleanor's son, Jonathan, had stayed in the Reserve but not in the Guard; he was a column commander in Patton's Panzers when they drove the Russians out of Czechoslovakia. Nancy helped organise the WAAC and finished the war senior to her husband, to the vast amusement of all of us - even Jonathan. George started out in the 35^th Division HQ but wound up in the OSS, so I don't know what he did. In March 1944 Brian Junior made the landing at Marseilles, caught a piece of shrapnel in his left thigh, and wound up back in Salisbury in England, an executive officer in the training command.

My letters to Father were returned to me in 1942, along with a formal letter of regret from the national headquarters of the AFS.

Richard's wife, Marian, stayed in nearby San Juan Capistrano while Richard was at Camp Pendleton. When he shipped out, I invited her to move in with us, with her children - four, and one that was born shortly after she arrived. We could make room for them and it was actually easier for us mo women to take care of seven children than it had been for each of us to cope with our own unassisted. We worked things out so that one of us could assist at Letterman Army Hospital every afternoon, going to the Presidio by bus (no gasoline ration expended) and coming back with Brian. I was fond ‘of Marian; she was as dear to me as my own daughters.

So it came about that she was with us when she received that telegram: Richard had earned the Navy Cross on Iwo Jima - posthumously.

A little over five months later we destroyed Tokyo and Kobe. Then Emperor Akihito and his ministers shocked us all by ritually disembowelling themselves, first the ministers, then the Emperor, after the Emperor announced to them that his mind had been quieted by President Barkley's promise to spare Kyoto. It was especially shocking in that Emperor Akihito was just a boy, not yet twelve, younger than my son Patrick Henry.

We will never understand the Japanese. But the long war was over.

I am forced to wonder what would have happened if the Emperor's father, Emperor Hirohito, had not died in the ‘Star Festival' air strike on 7 July? He was reputed to be so westernised. The other pertinent histories, time lines three and six, give no firm answers. Hirohito seems to have been the captive of his ministers, reigning but not ruling.

Once Japan surrendered Brian asked for early separation, but was sent to Texas - Amarillo, then Dallas - to assist in contract terminations - the only time, I think, that he regretted having passed his bar examinations back in 1938.

But moving away from San Francisco at that time was a good idea - a change of background to a place where we knew no one - because on arrival in Texas Marian became ‘Maureen J. Smith' and I dyed my hair and became her widowed mother, Marian Hardy. None too soon; she was already showing - four months later she gave birth to Richard Brian. We kept it straight with the Foundation, of course, and registered Marian's new baby correctly: Marian Justin Hardy + Brian Smith, Senior.

What happened next is difficult for me to talk about, because there are three points of view and mine is only one of them. I am certain that the other two are each as fair-minded as I am, if not more so. ‘More so' I think I must concede, as Father had warned me, more than half a century earlier, that I was an amoral wretch who could reason only pragmatically, not morally.

I had not tried to keep my husband out of my daughter-inlaw's bed. Neither Briney nor I had ever tried to own each other; we both approved of sex for fun and we had established our rules for civilised adultery many years earlier. I was a bit surprised that Marian had apparently made no effort to keep from getting pregnant by Brian... but only in that she did not consult me ahead of time. (If she consulted Briney, he never mentioned it. But men do have this tendency to spray sperm around like a fire-hose while letting the females decide whether or not to make practical use of the juice.)

Nevertheless I was not angry, just mildly surprised. And I do recognise the normal biological reflex under which the first thing a freshly bereft widow does, if she can manage it, is to spread her legs and sob bitterly and use her womb to replace the dear departed. It is a survival mechanism, one not limited to wars but more prevalent in wartime, as statistical analysis demonstrates.

(I hear that there are men who watch the newspapers for funerals, then attend those of married men in order to meet new widows. This is shooting fish down a well and probably, merits castration. On the other hand, those widows might not thank us.)

So we moved to Dallas and everything was satisfactory for a while. Brian was simply a man with two wives, a situation not unknown among Howards - just pull the shades against the neighbours, like some Mormons.

A short time after the birth of Marian's new baby Brian came to me with something on his mind, something he had trouble articulating.

I finally said, ‘Look, dearest, I am not a mind reader. Whatever it is, just spill it.'

‘Marian wants a divorce.'

‘Huh? Briney, I'm confused. If she's not happy with us, all she needs to do is to move out; it doesn't take a divorce. In fact I don't see how she could get one. But I'm terribly sorry to hear it. I thought we had gone to considerable trouble to make things happy for her. And for Richard Brian and her other children. Do you want me to talk to her? Try to find out what the trouble is?'

‘Uh - Damn it, I didn't make myself clear. She wants you to get a divorce so that she can marry me.'

My jaw dropped, then I laughed. ‘Goodness, Briney, what in the world makes her think I would ever do that? I don't want to divorce you; you're the nicest husband a gal ever had. I don't mind sharing you - but, darling, I don't want to get rid of you. I'll tell her so. Where is she? I'll take her to bed and tell her so as sweetly as possible.' I reached up, took his shoulders and kissed him.

Then I continued to hold his shoulders and look up at him. ‘Hey, wait a minute. You want a divorce. Don't you?'

Briney didn't say anything; he just looked embarrassed.

I sighed. ‘Poor Briney. Us frails do make your life complicated, don't we? We follow you around, climb into your lap, breathe in your ear. Even your daughters seduce you, like - what was his name? Old Testament. And even your daughters-in-law. Stop looking glum, dear man; I don't have a ring in your nose, and never have had.'

‘You'll do it?' He looked relieved.

‘Me? Do what?'

‘Divorce me.'

‘No. Of course not'

‘But you said -‘

‘I said that I didn't have a ring in your nose. If you want to divorce me, I won't fight it. But I'm not the one who wants a divorce. If you like, you can simply do it to me Muslim sty1e. Tell me "I divorce you" three times, and I'll go pack my clothes:

Perhaps I should not have been stubborn about it but I do not see that I owed it to either of them to go through the fiddle-faddle - the trauma - of finding a lawyer and digging up witnesses and appearing in court. I would co-operate... but let them do the work.

Brian gave in once he saw that I meant it. Marian was vexed with me, stopped smiling, and avoided talking with me. Finally I stopped her when she was about to leave the living-room as I came in.

‘Marian!'

She stopped. ‘Yes, Mother?'

‘I want you to stop pretending to be aggrieved. I want to see you smile and hear you laugh, the way you used to. You have asked me to rum my husband over to you and I have agreed to co-operate. But you must co-operate, too. You are acting like a spoiled child. In fact, you are a spoiled child.'

‘Why, how utterly unfair!'

‘Girls, girls!'

I turned and looked at Brian. ‘I am not a girl. I am your wife of forty-seven years. While I am here, I will be treated with respect and with warmth. I don't expect gratitude from Marian; my father taught me years ago never to expect gratitude because there is no such thing. But Marian can simulate gratitude out of politeness. Or she can move out. At once. Right this minute. If you mo expect me not to fight this divorce, you can both show me some appreciation.'

I went to my room, got into bed, cried a little, then fell into a troubled sleep.

Half an hour later, or an hour, or longer, I was wakened by a tap on my door. ‘Yes?'

‘It's Marian, Mama. May I come in?'

‘Certainly; darling!'

She came in, closed the door behind her; looked at me, her chin quivering and tears starting. I sat up, put out my arms.

‘Come to me, dear.'

That ended any trouble with Marian. But not quite with Brian. The following weekend he pointed out that the sine gua non of an uncontested divorce was a property settlement agreed to by both parties. He had fetched home a fat briefcase.

‘I have the essential papers here. Shall we look them over?'

‘All right' (No use putting off a trip to the dentist.)

Brian put the briefcase down on the dining-table. ‘We can spread them out here.' He sat down.

I sat down on his left; Marian sat down opposite me. I said, ‘No, Marian, I want to go over these in private. So you are excused, dear. And do please keep the children out.'

She looked blank and started to stand up. Brian reached out and stopped her. ‘Maureen, Marian is an interested party. Equally interested.'

‘No, she's not. I'm sorry.'

‘How do you figure?'

‘What you have there, what is represented by those papers, is our community property, yours and mine, what you and I have accumulated in the course of our marriage. None of it is Marian's and I don't care to go over it in the presence of a third party. At a later time, when she divorces you, she'll be present at the divvy-up and I will not be. Today, Brian, it is between you and me, no one else.'

‘What do you mean? - when she divorces me.'

‘Correction: if she divorces you.' (She did. In 1966.) ‘Brian, did you fetch home an adding machine? Oh, all I really require is a sharp pencil:

Marian caught Brian's eye, left the room and closed the door behind her.

He said, ‘Maureen, why do you always have to be so rough on her?'

‘Behave yourself, Briney. You should not have attempted to have her present for this and you know it. Now... do you want to do this politely? Or shall we wait until I can call in a lawyer?'

‘I see no reason why it can't be done politely. And even less reason why a lawyer should look at my private business.'

‘And still less reason why your fiancée should look at mine.

Briney, stop behaving like Woodie at age six. How did you plan on whacking this up?'

‘Well, first we must plan on the marriage allotments for the kids. Seven, that is. And Marian's five. Six, now.'

(Each time we had rung the cash register - received a baby bounty from the Ira Howard Foundation - Brian had started a bookkeeping account for that child, letting that amount enhance on his books at six per cent compounded quarterly, then had passed on the enhanced amount to that child as a wedding present - about three times the original baby bounty. In the meantime Brian had the use of the money as working capital for eighteen or more years... and, believe me, Brian could always make working capital pay more than six per cent, especially after 1918 when he had Theodore's predictions to guide him. Just one word - ‘Xerox' or ‘Polaroid' - could mean a fortune, known ahead of time.)

‘Woops! Not out of this pile, Briney. Richard received his marriage allotment from us when he married Marian. Her children by Richard are our grandchildren. What about our other grandchildren? I haven't counted lately but I think we have fifty-two. Are you planning to subsidise ail fifty-two out of what we own today?'

‘The situation is different'

‘It certainly is. Brian, you are trying to favour five of our grandchildren at the expense of all our other grandchildren and all our remaining unmarried children. I won't permit it'

‘I'll be the judge of that.'

No, you will not. It will be a real judge, in a real court. Or you will treat all our children equally and not attempt to favour five grandchildren while ignoring forty-seven others.'

‘Maureen, you've never behaved this way in the past.'

‘In the past you never broke up our partnership. But now that you have done so, that break up will be on terms that strike both of us as equitable... or you can tell it to the judge. Brian, you can't cast me off like an old shoe and then expect me to continue to accept your rulings as docilely as I have done all these years. I say again: quit behaving like Woodie as a child. Now... stipulating that we have agreed, or will agree, on what is earmarked for marriage allowances, how do you want to divide up the rest of it?'

‘Eh? Three equal portions. Of course.'

‘You're giving me two portions? That's generous of you, but more than I had expected.'

‘No, no! A share for you, a share for me, a share for Marian. Even all the way around.'

‘Where is the fourth share? The one for my husband.'

‘You're getting married again?'

‘No immediate plans. I may.'

‘Then we'l1 cross that bridge when we come to it'

‘Briney, Briney! Your needle is stuck in a groove. Can't you get it through your head that you cannot force me to accept your fiancée as co-owner of the property you and I have accumulated together? Half of it is mine. Fair is fair.'

‘Damn it, Mo, you cooked and kept house. I am the one who got out there and struggled to build up a fortune. Not you.'

‘Where did the capital come from, Briney?'

‘Huh?'

‘Have you forgotten? How did we ring the cash register? For that matter how did it come about that you knew ahead of time the date of Black Tuesday? Did I have something to do with it? Briney, I'm not going to argue it because you don't want to be fair about it. You keep trying to hand over to your new love some of my half of what you and I accumulated together. Let's take it into court and let a judge decide. We can do it here, a community property state, or in California, another community property state, or in Missouri where you can count on it that a judge would give me more than half. In the mean time I will ask for temporary alimony -‘

‘Alimony!'

‘ - and child support for six children while the court determines what my share, plus alimony, plus child support, adds up to.'

Brian looked astounded. ‘You intend to strip me bare? Just because I knocked up Marian?'

‘Certainly not, Brian. I don't even want alimony. What I do want... and expect... and insist on - or we go to court over it is this: after an equitable arrangement for support of the children and for their marriage allowances, based on what we have done for our married children in the past and based on what you are now sending to Betty Lou for our children in Kansas City... once the kids are taken care of, I want exactly half, right down the middle. Otherwise we let a judge settle it.'

Brian looked grim. ‘Very well':

‘Good. Make up two lists, two halves, and then we can draw up a formal property settlement, one we can file with the court. Where do you intend to divorce me? Here?'

‘If you have no objection. Easiest.'

‘All right.'

It took Brian all that weekend to make the two property lists. On Monday night fie showed them to me.

‘Here they are. Here is a summary list of my half, and here is yours.'

I looked at them and could sec at once that the totals matched... and I suppressed a need to whistle at the totals. I had not guessed even to the nearest million how wealthy we were.

‘Brian, why is this list mine and that list yours?'

‘I've kept on my list the properties I want to handle. On your list are things that don't require my expertise, such as commercial bonds and municipals. It doesn't matter; it's an even split.'

‘Since it is even, let's just swap them. I'll take everything on your list, you take the half you listed for me.'

‘Look, I explained to you why I -‘

‘Then, if there are properties on my list that you really want, you can buy them from me. At a mutually agreeable price.'

‘Mo, do you think I am trying to cheat you?'

‘Yes, dear, you have been trying to cheat me from the moment this matter of a divorce and property settlement came up.' I smiled at him. ‘But I shan't let you; you would regret it later. Now take those two lists and rearrange them: Make the division so meticulously fair that you really do not care which list I take, which list I leave to you. Or, if you prefer it, I will make the division and you can take your choice. But you are not going to put all of the goodies into one list and then claim that the list with the goodies is yours. So - Do I make the lists and you choose? Or do you make them and I choose?'

It took him a week to do it, and the poor man almost died of frustration. But at last fie produced new lists.

I looked at them. ‘This suits you, Briney? You now have our community property divided so perfectly that you really don't care which list I choose?'

He smiled wryly. ‘Let's say that I will wince and shudder and bleed equally either way.'

‘Poor Briney. You remind me of the donkey and the two piles of hay. There are ample liquid assets in each list; you can buy from me anything dear to your heart.' I reached for one list while watching his eyes - then picked up the other list. ‘Here's my half. Let's start in on the paper work.'

Brian squawked again when fie wanted to buy from me some of the items of my list and I agreed to sell but insisted on dickering over the prices. But my memory serves me well, and I had made a point of remembering and looking up the name D. D. Harriman after I heard Theodore mention it on that sad, glad, mad Sunday he went away and never came back. At the time we divided our property I knew exactly which companies Mr Harriman controlled, whether they were listed on the NYSE or not.

So I sold Brian what he wanted, but not at nominal book value. At replacement value, plus a reasonable profit I'm not totally ignorant about business. But Brian had never left enough cash in my hands for me to treat it as capital. However, for years I had found it entertaining to speculate on paper. The game made reading the Wall Street journal quite entertaining.

Brian divorced me in the middle of 1946 and I went back to Kansas City. He did not hold a grudge and neither did I and neither did Marian. Briney had not truly been a bad boy; he had simply fought as hard for Marian as he had once fought for me... and I had done the same, once 1 realised that I was on my own and that my beloved husband was no longer my champion.

No point in holding grudges. Once the ship lifts, all bills are paid.