Spirit of the Titanic (12 page)

The baby was crying after me now. Glancing quickly at her husband, Isobel muttered something about being back in a second and took a few steps in my direction, keeping a watchful eye on her daughter. Delighted to be getting her way at long last, Sarah pretended to jump up and down, waving her arms in triumph. I darted up to her at full speed, stuck my tongue out and flew off again, stopping in front of the door to the stairway.

When she had passed the other passengers, the bewildered mother held her baby out in front of her, allowing herself to be led by Sarah's reactions. With every step she took, I waved my arms in wider and wider circles, continuously beckoning Sarah to join me.

“Who is it you see, sweetheart?”

But Sarah couldn't say. She could only gurgle delightedly for a reply. Meanwhile, her father looked around him, only realizing then that half his family were heading in the opposite direction.

“Isobel? Where are you going?”

Taking a few steps more, Isobel stood before me, unknowingly. I beamed at Sarah and again she stretched toward me. This time when her mother followed her child's pointed fingers she saw in front of her a small door that pushed open, at her slight touch, to reveal a stairwell.

“Jim! Jim! Come quickly.”

* * *

If I thought the family was saved, and my work was done, I was mistaken. Something I hadn't considered was this: no one from third class knew their way around the ship. And why should they? Once on board they had to remain in third-class territory. They had their own lounge/general room, their own dining room, and their own bathroom. Therefore, the ignorance of Sarah's family and the others who were following them, regarding the geography of
Titanic
, meant that their progress to the lifeboats was slow. There were many corridors that led to nowhere in particular and many doors to be opened, that provided no help at all.

There were more delays when the small group, which had followed Jim's family, began to realize how sparse their rooms were in comparison to the other classes.

“Would you look at this?” A woman stopped suddenly to contemplate properly the second-class library room. “Ooh, isn't this grand?”

Some of the others crowded in behind her to admire the furniture, especially the massive bookcase at the end of the room. Wait until they saw first class.

Where I could, I beckoned Sarah to keep following me. This worked well in the beginning, though her parents didn't mention to the others that they were merely following the baby's coos. Joseph kept a firm grip on his father's hand. He also kept an anxious eye on the family's suitcase, no doubt thinking about the stolen cutlery for his mother.

The children in the family behind Sarah's grew restless and asked questions that were ignored: “Where are we going, Mama? Are we in America yet?”

I could only guess at how the minutes were ticking by. No one owned a watch. At one stage we met a large group of girls and boys who looked rather forlorn. They were heading in the direction that we had just come from. Jim eagerly approached them.

“Excuse me, but could you tell us the way to the lifeboats?”

They looked blankly from one to the other, a few of them shrugging their shoulders matter-of-factly.

The father of the other family, a large man with a red face and a dirty suit, took offence to this and shouted at them, “Here now! Just tell us what we want to know. There's no need to be stuck up about it.”

Again the passengers were met with blank stares, apart from one of the boys, a tall, thin youth whose trousers were a little short for him. He opened his mouth and struggled, so it seemed, with his tongue, to squeeze out three small words that meant an awful lot. “Please. No Eeenglish.”

The red-faced man was relieved to find that he and his new friends weren't the victims of snobbery. “Well, why didn't you say so? That's alright then.”

As both groups turned to head off in opposite directions, Jim seemed unhappy to let them go.

“Wait! Where are you going? We have to go up on deck. Captain's orders.”

It was no use. Apart from Please/No/English, there wasn't another word to be had between them. The tall boy only smiled politely and nodded his head. Isobel called her husband.

“Come on, Jim. They don't understand. Perhaps they are following their own orders.”

I recognized their uniform immediately. They were the waiting staff from the very posh À La Carte Restaurant in first class. A mixture of French and Italian, they had been brought aboard
Titanic
, to work, by the flamboyant Luigi Gatti. I had heard him, many times, over the last couple of days, boast about his two top-class restaurants in London: Gatti's Adelphi and Gatti's Strand.

“And now, here I am, running the best restaurant on board the best ship in the world. Not bad for an ignorant country boy, no?”

He also made sure that his
Titanic
customers knew about his love and generosity for his huge, extended family.

“Tell me, do you see my likeness in the waiters and waitresses? Yes? Well, it's no trick of your imagination. I have torn ten of my cousins from their mothers' embraces to come over to England and earn a good living in my name. Luigi Gatti is not one to forget where he came from.”

But where was he now?

Actually, I did know where he was. I had seen him up on deck, chatting to some men from first class as they watched the lifeboats being launched. With his top hat and heavy coat, I almost didn't spot him. He would love to hear, I'm sure, that he blended in perfectly with the wealthy businessmen around him.

Meanwhile his staff and cousins had obviously been left to fend for themselves. They were in a sort of limbo, being neither passengers nor crew. They didn't work for the White Star Line company, like the plumbers, electricians, stewards, seamen, and so on. They worked for Luigi. He paid their wages and so they answered only to him. Because of the language barrier, they had made no other friends on the ship. Therefore, in Luigi's absence, there was nobody to advise them or even just look out for them. I had a terrible feeling that they didn't entirely understand what was going on and had decided to go down to their quarters to await further instruction. There was nothing I could do for them, but at least they had each other. Whatever happened they wouldn't be alone.

Over the last three years, I had come to the conclusion that loneliness was probably the worst thing in the world. After Da's death, I looked up “lonely” in the dictionary. The definition read, “said of a person: sad because they have no companions or friends; solitary and without companionship.” Thanks to the dictionary I could diagnose my condition as if I were a doctor.

Aside from that awful scene in my bedroom, when my mother told me she couldn't bear to see me, there was hardly a sentence spoken in the house for months on end. It is only now that I understand that she was grieving and missing Da so much that there was no room in her head for anything else. At the time I was only thinking about my own feelings and my own grief.

I wasn't allowed to touch any of his stuff. I mean, he didn't have much, but I did want something of his for myself. Watching Luigi check his hat to see it was on straight, taking the time to run his fingers around its rim, reminded me of my father's pride in his own cap, that was nowhere as grand as Luigi's but, I'm quite sure, was just as important to him.

One afternoon when I came home from school, Ma was fast asleep in bed. She didn't seem to sleep at night; I would hear her moving around the house at all hours, so she usually had to lie down in the middle of the day. I only appreciate now that she might have found the nights too quiet, too dark, and too empty. Anyway, on this day, I decided to creep into her room to take Da's tatty, old tweed cap. In my earliest memories of him that cap was always perched on his head, no matter the weather. It had worn thin over the years and the last Christmas that we were all together Ma made good her threat to get him a new one. When he opened her gift, he threw back his head and laughed, telling her it was perfect — no, better than perfect. He removed his old one and wore the shiny, new replacement for the rest of the day, not even taking it off for dinner. Ma blushed in pleasure at his obvious delight.

Certainly she wasn't to know that when he brought me out walking after this, he would take his old cap out of his pocket, once we were a mile or so from the house, and put it on, swearing me to secrecy. The new one was then carefully folded and put away until our return journey.

“It's a lovely present alright, but I just prefer this old thing. We've been through a lot together.”

I managed to find it in the mess of the clothes on the floor, even though the curtains were closed and I could hardly see where to put my feet. Back in my room I slipped the cap under my pillow and, that night, I could actually smell him in my dreams. That was the only time I had the cap in my possession. When I got home from school the following day, it was gone. I berated myself for not keeping it with me, but it just didn't feel right to take it out of the house without her permission. So, I didn't.

When I returned to school, after the funeral, I could only cope with books. I felt too exhausted to deal with people. Books made the perfect friends; they didn't shout at me or want to fight me. They didn't need me to behave in a certain way or ask stupid questions. They just let me be myself, whether I felt sad, angry, or nothing at all. The boys in my class didn't know what to do with me now that Da was dead. It was like I had grown a third arm or a second head. Most of them refused to meet my gaze but had no problem staring at me in class. A couple of them, the nosy ones, tried to rudely interrogate me about how he died, but I just brushed by them, ignoring them completely. I was surprised at how easy it was and began to ignore just about everyone else, including my teachers and the neighbours who wanted to know where my mother was. In this way I felt I was allowing myself to sleep during the day, just like Ma. But then I woke up, many months later, and found that I was being ignored in turn. I was so quiet, so dull that not even the school bullies could be bothered to taunt me. Just like the dictionary said, I had no friends and no companions.

“I
'm scared, Dada, I want to go home.” Sarah's big brother, Joseph, had tired of the adventure and I didn't blame him. “Can we just go back to Ireland? Please?”

Both his parents were much too anxious now to offer him any real comfort. There was a definite slant in the ship's setting and everything, from the pictures on the walls to the chairs, that they passed, here and there, seemed slightly crooked as a result. Isobel muttered to her husband that she was sure she could hear the ocean lapping against the walls. She struggled to control her nervousness. “Hush, Joseph, we're nearly there.”

The journey to the lifeboats was taking much longer than anyone expected. Sarah had long tired of our game and looked as fed up as her brother. Her father's face was almost grey in colour, his lips practically invisible, so tightly were they pressed together. He kept up a steady pace, appearing unhampered by the heavy suitcase in his left hand and his sulky son who was dragging on his right hand, in a vain attempt to slow his father down.

At one stage his wife asked him quietly whether he shouldn't know his way about the ship, since he was worked on it at Harland & Wolff.

“Hush, don't let the others hear that. I only know her from the outside; sure we were never let near her after we built her.”

There was a scream from the mother of the family behind them. “What's that? Can anyone hear that? It's water, isn't it? I can hear water. Oh my God!”

Everyone looked about them uneasily, while her red-faced husband barked at her to quiet herself. “Of course you can hear water. Aren't we in the middle of the blooming ocean?”

“No, No! That's not what I meant. I mean …” Here, her voice grew loud and shrill as she began to pound her fists on her husband's chest. “Don't you hear the waves? They're everywhere, all around us.”

One of their children began to cry and the man felt obliged to grab his wife's arms and shake her. “Get a hold of yourself, woman!”

With that, he slapped her once across the face, silencing her immediately. She stared at him, dazed, as if he had just woken her from a deep sleep and she hadn't the slightest idea where she was. Her three children gathered about her. The husband seized the smallest one and pushed him into her arms.

“Here you go, missus, this will help you focus. It's up to you to keep him safe. Understand?”

She embraced the bewildered toddler tightly and nodded briefly.

Finally the little convoy reached the first-class deck and unintentionally allowed themselves to relax for the first time since leaving their own floor.

“I can hear music!” exclaimed Isobel.

“Me too! Me too!” sang the children, including Joseph.

As I had expected, the vastness of the first-class smoking room cowed them into reverence. Jim actually whistled. “Phew, I've never seen the likes of it before.”

He put down the suitcase and proceeded to fold and stretch out his arm in quick succession. Joseph gave him a puzzled look, making his father smile absent-mindedly.

“My arm is numb. I can't feel a thing so I'm just getting the old blood flowing again.”

“Well,” boomed the large man cheerfully, “at least we know we're not the only ones here. For a moment, back there, I was worried that we were all alone.”

Even I was surprised at the huge crowd that thronged around the room. The same pristine group of gentlemen were still at their table, playing cards and drinking their drinks that were still being served to them by the elderly waiter. Here and there, other men were seated, all dressed in their very best. Some sat quietly together in pairs, while others were alone, staring into space, some even trying to read. It was a scene of utter calm, nicely complemented by the uplifting music that wafted in from the band outside. For the third-class passengers, however, it was a bit confusing.

“Perhaps there has been some exaggeration,” suggested Isobel, trying to make sense of it all. “Or maybe they fixed whatever was wrong?”

Joseph's attention was focused on a solitary, empty glass that was sitting squarely in the middle of a nearby table. I think he was considering whether it was small enough to fit in his pocket. Meanwhile the red-faced man, followed by his family, had wandered off in the direction of the bar. Jim called out to him, “Where are you going?”

“You go on ahead. I just want a wee taste after all that walking, just something to wet the lips. All he can do is say no.”

Jim stared after him, his face bunched up in disgust. Before he could say what he truly thought, however, he was distracted by the family's suitcase that he had placed beside him on the well-polished floor. It slid gently forward, all by itself. Next he heard his son's disappointed “Oh no!” followed by the sound of breaking glass.

“It fell off the table, Dada.”

He didn't need a third reminder as to why he had led his little family all the way to first class.

“Everyone button up. It's going to be pretty cold outside.”

Joseph was mystified and asked, “Can we stay here? This is really nice.”

His father picked up the fallen suitcase and shot his wife a look filled with fear that he couldn't allow himself to voice. “No, son, I'm afraid not. It's time to go.”

The ornate clock on the wall showed that it was 1:45 a.m.

They made their way outside, becoming part of the massive crowd that continued to thrive, much to my relief. I hadn't quite known what to expect as this stage. The most notable aspect of this vast multitude was that it was mostly made up of men. I was also uncomfortably aware of the gaping absence of other third-class passengers. The majority of them must still be below deck, perhaps still waiting in line for the gates to be unlocked. There wasn't anything I could do for them, however, because apart from the fact that I knew I couldn't help everyone, I was horrified to discover that there was only one lifeboat left.

Somebody, either a crew member or a passenger and obviously an animal lover, had released the dogs from their kennels below deck. There were maybe ten or more; it was hard to count them as they instantly separated at the sight of so many people, charging around trying to locate their owners. At the sound of their excited barking, people looked up in surprise, having either completely forgotten or else never realizing that there were pets on board
Titanic
. They provided a welcome distraction for the children, who had become scared by the tormented faces of the grown-ups around them.

I spotted Officer Lightoller, near the last lifeboat, doing something very peculiar, considering the temperature — he was removing his coat and rubbing his sweating forehead.

One of his shipmates couldn't help giggling. “Oy, Lights, are you warm?”

He was the only one removing clothes; everyone else was trying to get some warmth into their bones. Winking at his cheeky assistant, Lightoller took the opportunity to look around him, something he hadn't done since he was sent to look after the first lifeboat. Perhaps because there was no time for distractions or any kind of falseness I was finding it much easier, as the minutes ticked by, to hear people's thoughts.

What a sight!

He peered out into the darkness, just about able to make out the ghostly white rowing boats that were ferrying the luckier passengers away into the night. Overhead millions of stars twinkled merrily in the sky.

How can all this be happening on such a perfect night?

Just then he spotted someone he knew.

“Hemmings? What you are doing here? I thought I packed you off ages ago, on lifeboat 6?”

The man waved at him cheerily. “Ach, there's plenty of time yet.”

Was there? This opinion seemed to be a common one throughout the staff and crew. The bellboys were over in the corner, smoking away and enjoying the chance to relax, without being bothered by snotty passengers or grumpy supervisors.

Lightoller shook his head in wonder.

Do they think they're on holidays? Then again, what else are they supposed to do? I wish I could bloomin' join them.

First Officer Murdoch was calling out for any more women and children. Jim was ushering the family toward the boat. There was still a trickle of female passengers being sent through the crowds of waiting men who hadn't given up hope of getting a seat on the few boats that were left. Nearby, a young woman stood hand in hand with her smiling husband and baby daughter. None of them moved from the spot, despite Murdoch's calls. The wife grinned at Lightoller when he caught her eye.

“Shouldn't you and your little girl be on your way?”

“Not on your life. We're in this together and that's the way we'll go out, if needs be.”

The three of them kept a firm grip on one another and, nodding cheerfully at the officer, moved away, looking for all the world as if they were simply enjoying an evening stroll before bedtime. Lightoller felt a surge of pride in their strength and stood watching them until he was interrupted by a man, another husband and father.

“Excuse me, sir, but I've been told you are letting down another lifeboat.”

Lightoller eyed Jim, as if expecting trouble. “Well, yes, but I'm afraid I can't let you on it. It's women and children only.”

“Yes, I know that, but you'll take my wife and children?”

“How many?”

“Just two, sir, and the baby will sit on her mother's knee.”

“Very well. Bring them over here immediately. I can't hold seats; there are still plenty other passengers.”

Jim grabbed the officer's hand in thanks before calling back, “Isobel, this man is going to put you into his boat.”

Gathering his men about him, Lightoller made preparations to set about launching the last boat. He had no time to give this family, only shooting the father a warning look as the stricken wife stood fast, clutching the baby in her arms, at her feet a pale-faced young boy. Turning his back on them, the officer shouted out for any more women and children to come forward.

Hardly believing that this moment had finally arrived, I went back to being an observer once more. Isobel opened her mouth to say goodness knows what, while her husband crouched down to talk to his son. “Joe, you look after Mam and Sarah. I need you to take my place, just for tonight anyway. Alright, lad?”

Joseph looked from one parent to another, slightly unsure of what was being asked of him. However, he knew the right answer to his father's question.

“Yes, Dada. Can you not come with us? The suitcase is too heavy for me to carry.”

“No, son, I can't go yet. You heard the officer: women and children are going first and then the men will follow later. I'll keep the case with me.”

This made sense to the boy. “Alright, Dada.”

Father kissed son on the cheek and stood up abruptly. His baby daughter reached for him but, instead of taking her like he usually did, he leaned in and tickled her on the nose. Oblivious to her father's tears, Sarah giggled delightedly. She loved when he played with her like this. His wife hardly blinked, not wanting to lose sight of him for even a second. Jim reached into his jacket for his wallet, which contained a small amount of money, all the money they had, and handed it to her.

“Here, hide it in Sarah's blankets.”

He looked full into her eyes and moved in close, whispering to her, “I'll find you if it all works out. If not, go home to your parents. I'll be there, waiting for you. Whatever happens I'll always be with you and the children. I promise.”

With that he hugged her and the baby briefly and fiercely, stopping then to take Joseph's hand and lead them back to the officer. Isobel cried silently as she was helped into the lifeboat. Jim took one precious moment to raise his son to him and inhale his scent and murmured, “Don't forget me, will you, child?”

Joseph looked horrified at the very idea. “But you're my da!”

“Of course, I am. Sorry, Joe, I'm just being silly.”

The already lonely husband, and father, stepped back to the suitcase — it was all that he had left of his life and theirs — and clasped it to his chest, a poor substitute for the warm bodies of his family.

I felt overwhelmed by his sadness and wrenched in two, half of me wanting to remain by Jim's side, the other half wanting to get as far away as possible from the desolate scene. Joseph was lucky in his ignorance; a child should never have to deal with the likes of this.

Isobel took a seat, a wild look upon her tear-stained face. She wrapped an arm around Joseph, holding on to him and his sister for dear life. Others made their way into the boat after them, frequently blocking the sight of her from her husband, who stood at the railings, struggling to hide both his immense sadness and his own fear. But then it occurred to him, as the heads of strangers bobbed up and down, allowing him to see only his wife's shoulder or Joseph's elbow, that he had done a most wonderful thing — he had saved his wife, son, and daughter. Hundreds more, he knew, were still below deck, but Isobel, Joseph, and Sarah were now being lowered down the side of the ship. This just about made up for the fact that it was his dream of reaching America that had put them into this position in the first place.

This new-found realization brought an overwhelming sense of gratitude and true happiness. He watched the boat reach the water after a considerably shorter journey than experienced by the earlier lifeboats. In other words,
Titanic
was setting more and more into the sea. Determined to inspire the same feeling of confidence in Isobel, so that it might sustain her through whatever lay ahead, he leaned over the side of the wounded ship and roared a hearty farewell, “See you soon, my dears!” In the darkness, he could just about make out the little arm of his son waving back at him.