Page 211 - Michael Frost-Voyages to Maturity-23531.indd
P. 211
On Canberra’s bridge with Winsome and Christine
I descended the gangway to await the taxi, and it duly arrived. What arrived,
however, was totally unexpected. Out of the car stepped one of the most beautiful
girls that I had ever seen! I had thought the fringe an unfortunate choice of hair-
style, but it was apparent that she had that afternoon spent some hours in the care
of a master hairdresser; she was now a lovely sort of slightly gingery blonde with
what could be described as a ‘pixie’ hair-style, she had a lovely face, and eyes that
themselves could turn heads. Further, she was wearing a flowing but simple long
black dress, quite demure with bare shoulders, and wore it with great elegance. I
have described her as ungainly; now she was as gainly a girl as I have ever seen.
I brought her aboard and could sense the stares that I was getting, for most
of the officers had selected as partners either passengers recently on the ship,
or female (or male, in the case of the FAPs and others) officers. In a city like
Sydney I certainly was not alone in having a guest from ashore, but I might as well
have been (how could a homunculus like Frost find such perfection? – actually
that was me asking myself the question). We had a great evening, and she gladly
210