Titanic Ashes (10 page)

“We’re trying to keep it clear, sir; we’ll have it in a
moment.”

A single oar paddle keeps the lifeboat rim several
inches clear.

“All right. Hold it steady a second.”

Wilde and Murdoch both turn and look expectantly at
Ismay.

The decision, Ismay realizes, is made. It’s just a ques
tion of making his limbs obey. Spider-like, they do, as he
clambers quietly aboard. Carter’s hand comes under his
arm. Someone else shifts to the side.

“Lower away, ” comes the order.

“
MILES AWAY AGAIN
,
FATHER
?”

“Yes, miles away.”

It’s a radical change, that he should admit it, and so
effortlessly. Evelyn smiles, and a kind of comfort settles
over them. The acceptance of it all—that he is the “villain”
who stepped onto the lifeboat, that she is the furious
young woman who has caused their near ejection from
the restaurant—seems like a balm. What else can touch
them now, after all? Even the frantic energy with which
the surly young waiter hands the dessert menu first to
Evelyn, then to Ismay, can’t quite dispel it. The man
stands, hands behind his back, to the rear of Ismay’s chair.

“Take your time, Evelyn dear, ” Ismay says.

As his eyes skim the offerings, everything from French
cuisine desserts—crème brûlée, meringues, crêpe suzette
to English staples such as roly-poly pudding and spotted
dick—he feels the letters merge before his eyes like a
swarm of flies, scatter and reform into a different kind of
list, a series of possible actions—
go to the Grimsden table,
confront them yourself; confront Mr. Grimsden, my obvious
counterpart, make him either apologize or pay for the insolence of his wife, the accepted chivalrous thing to do; sit
down with them without an invitation, act as though they
are your friends and gently begin to lace pleasantries with
challenges and insinuations
.

Each idea makes his heart pick up speed and his blood
gather urgency. The thing he was most afraid of, that his
children would be drawn into a battle to defend his
honour, really has occurred. The ship is sinking, and there
is no face left to lose.

“
WHAT IS THE MATTER
, Agnes?” Father asks with
some impatience. His frown looks like anger but Miranda
knows it is worry. Like a marionette with too few strings,
he only has one ‘unhappy’ expression, a deepening of
furrows on his forehead and a sharpening of the eyes.

Mother hauls her gaze from Miranda. “Nothing, my
dear, ” she says, and Miranda notices a slight tremor in her
earrings. “It’s just strange the things people find to be
ashamed of, isn’t it?”

Father and Graham look even more puzzled than
before, and Miranda, for the first time, sees properly the
essential weakness in Mother’s extroversion. When she is
in command, as she is most of the time, everything goes
smoothly. She dominates the conversation, dictates
changes in subject, and decides who should be in the
spotlight and—when mood decides—who should
squirm.

But when she loses control, as she has now, she can’t
stop talking, and her words lay her open and exposed.

“What do you mean, Mother?” asks Miranda.

Even if cruelty, the certain knowledge that her mother
can’t answer without tying herself in knots, lurks behind
the question, Miranda is also prompted by the anxiety she
sees in the face before her. She still half means to rescue
her mother, to prevent the spilling of something worse
than cryptic comments, something related to her own
sleeping guilt.

Mother throws her a glance and Miranda wonders
whether she sees pleading or defiance. “I mean, ” Mother
says, with hardly a pause, “that here we are, years after
that terrible event, years after men of privilege and rank
saved themselves while honest humble folk perished,
women, men, and children hoping for a life in the new
world. And somehow, ” she looks up at Graham for a
moment, lips tightening, fingers holding the stem of her
glass, “I’m the one who’s causing the trouble.”

This is too much, Miranda thinks, a secondhand opinion grasped at because, in the miasma of Mother’s brain,
it happens to float into view. But switching personalities
has always been one of Mother’s chief tactics; if nothing
else, it keeps the enemy confused. Miranda’s face burns
with anger at the slipperiness of her mother, who, she is
certain, will never lose an argument.

“I had no idea, Mother, ” she says, “no idea at all that
your arguments against Mr. Ismay were socialist in
nature.” Miranda sees Graham wince, knows he thinks she
has gone too far, but rather like Mother herself, she doesn’t quite know how to stop. “I believe you’ll find you have
much in common with Mr. H. G. Wells on the subject, and
Mr. George Bernard Shaw. But it’s quite a revelation that
you feel that way.”

“Miranda, ” Graham chides under his breath, but loud
enough for Mother to hear. Miranda feels her confidence
drain and a new heat prickling under her skin. However
reticent Graham has been, she’s had the belief, always,
that he was on her side. This declaration proves this is not
the case. And the effect of it on Mother is obvious. She
seems calmer straightaway, and the imperious air begins
to return.

“In acting as he did, ” she says determinedly, “in getting
into a lifeboat before women and children, Ismay
conceded the very ground upon which our society is
founded. He threw it all to the Bolsheviks, to Mr. Wells
and Mr. Shaw. He showed that the system of leadership
and nobility we all adhere to is a lie.”

Mother’s point is made with such quiet conviction and
to such impressive silence that it takes a moment for
Miranda to notice the glaring contradiction.

“So
is
it a lie, Mother?”

“No! Of course not! He made it seem so.”

“I see, ” says Miranda, half-defeated. She can’t argue
with them all now Graham has shown his hand. Graham
merely wants peace, clearly, and will back the speaker
whose victory will dampen the conflict. He’s astute
enough to know that this could only be his prospective
mother-in-law. Father has returned from concern to his
habitual detachment. His brown eyes gaze upon his wife
in a vague, relieved kind of way.

Miranda looks at Graham, willing direct eye contact,
hoping for the chance to give him some hint as to the
depth of his blunder. But he looks altogether too comfortable, even gives a little grin as he takes a sip of wine and
glances from prospective father-in-law, to prospective
mother-in-law, to Miranda—as if to convey that such
disagreements among family members are rather jolly
really, part of the rough and tumble, and that he looks
forward to more of it. Meanwhile the feeling of having
been betrayed simmers under Miranda’s skin; already,
words like ‘traitor’ and ‘coward’ form on her tongue. She
knows herself well enough to understand this feeling,
stifled, will only grow as the seconds and minutes tick
away. Graham’s ‘
Miranda
!’ though nothing but a small tug
at the time, a slight tremor through the course of her
argument with Mother, will echo louder and louder until,
alone together in Graham’s flat after the meal, she will be
spitting fury at him.

She feels a sweaty discomfort under her engagement
ring. Hands under the table, she loosens the band, twists
it off, then, lifting the purse strap from the chair behind
her, makes sure that Graham, to her right, catches sight of
her opening the purse and dropping the ring inside.

“Too tight?” asks Graham mildly.

“Pretty uncomfortable tonight, yes.”

“We’ll have to see about it.”

“Yes, ” she says curtly and tries to catch his eye again,
but Mother, who has been off on a brief reverie of her
own, captures his attention first.

“We’ve lost sight of what was important once, ” she
says, her voice tragic and theatrical, her eyes seemingly
deeper set than usual. “The concepts that held our world
together have fallen away.”

“Honour and chivalry and all that?” says Graham.
Suddenly he seems like a young pack animal, all quivering whiskers and wagging tail, trying to gain acceptance.

“And decency, yes. Dying words, I’m afraid.”

She sees Father check his watch and she feels impatient for the evening to end, feels impatient to get to
Graham. Her anger frees her to take a glance beyond the
palm, where she has noticed some activity. Her distaste for
Mother and her disgust with Graham make her feel like
switching clans, moving over once more to the enemy of
her enemy. Mr. Ismay, happier and more relaxed than he
has looked all evening, holds up a menu and talks to a
rather morose waiter, the same one who seems to have
been shadowing their table since the incident. She’s been
aware of the waiter’s uniform, a blur of black and white in
the corner of her eye. For a while he stood statue-like in a
spot close to the Ismay table, and then she noticed him
leave and come back with menus, rooting himself once
more. At first she believed the Ismays were going to be
asked to leave. It doesn’t seem that way now, although the
waiter’s moustache twitches uncomfortably while he takes
the order.

She turns to see her mother’s steadfast gaze. It burns
her a little, this mini confrontation across the table, and
Miranda realizes that if Graham has been disloyal to her,
then no doubt in her mother’s mind, Miranda has been
disloyal to Mother with her
I did things I was ashamed of,
yes
, and its unspoken codicil, albeit one only Mother
would understand. But perhaps in the world of the
Grimsdens this was enough. Alluding to a past misconduct
in a public setting, with the implied threat it
could
be
made public, was as bad as an outright betrayal. All this
she has learned from the woman who stares across at her.
The thought causes an unbearable, suffocating feeling to
swell up inside her, together with the fear that she’ll never
be free because all these tactics, and codes, and
subterfuges are
inside
her. And the battle, the constant
stress of it, uses up all her energy. She could have spent
her strength tonight on apologizing properly to the
Ismays, on trying to put things as right as she could. But
that would have been too straightforward, too open and
too easy. Instead she’s wasted her time and efforts on
doing battle with her mother.

She recalls the talk after the disaster, of a man being
shot dead by an officer because he tried to clamber aboard
a lifeboat, of older boys being hauled up from under the
skirts of women and back onto the deck. She didn’t witness
any of this, but it was a huge ship and she has no reason to
doubt that it happened. And sometimes it’s as if, by magic,
she and her mother have been caught ever since in that
same repeating loop of behaviour. They, like the officers on
board the
Titanic
, have spent their time and efforts preventing progress. Officers fired pistols, raved, and yelled to keep
the ‘wrong’ people off the lifeboats—some of which left the
ship less than half full; Mother and Miranda scheme and
strategize against each other, defending their ground from
intrusion, when specific goals are left unattained.

Mother looks away at last, stifling a little yawn that
might be put on, and peruses diners at other tables.
Following her gaze to a table where an elderly lady fans
herself, Miranda feels a lightning rod of memory, a restless
crowd, the constant moth-like movement of fans, summer
in New York under the high ceiling in New York’s Natural
History Museum.

Shoe heels echo along the hard floor and Miranda
scampers to keep up with Mother, always a fast walker.
Mother receives Miranda’s hand and they slow down and
turn together to view the next exhibit.

“Doesn’t it put everything into perspective, Miranda,
being here?”

Mother smiles at Miranda, squeezes her hand, and
both of them look up at the shiny, dark reconstructed
skeleton of a woolly mammoth. This is the day after the
argument about the letter to Father, a day with just the
two of them, an apology of sorts, and a warm buzz of
euphoria lives in Miranda’s chest.

“Yes, Mummy.”

“To think of the cold and inhospitable climates, the
savagery and the selfishness from which we have come.”

She squeezes her mother’s hand in response. She loves
to hear Mother talk, though she seldom understands.
There’s sparkle and poetry in her voice, a kind of romance
and a kind of belief.

“And think about the way it was on that terrible night
on the Atlantic. Think beyond the cowardice of people like
Mr. Ismay, to the heroic captain going down with his ship,
the naval architect Mr. Andrews and the many officers and
passengers who set their own safety aside.”

Miranda stares through the great shadowy holes in the
mammoth’s skull within which an oversized brain once
pulsed with thoughts. Her hand twitches inside her
mother’s as she struggles to understand the connection
between the great fossil before her and the behaviour of
people on board the
Titanic
but, nonetheless, she gratefully follows her mother’s words.

“Selflessness and sacrifice are true measures of nobility. But it takes many centuries of lessons learned and
battles fought. You will learn this too, especially when you
have a child of your own. Sacrifice is not always about
physical danger. Father had to sacrifice us this summer. He
couldn’t get away from work. I have to sacrifice, too.” She
pauses and Miranda feels a weight in the silence, something about to descend. “We are his ambassadors here in
America. Mr. Johnston is a delightful man and a friend of
the family. He also has relatives who can help your father
with his business, and so discretion is very important to us
all. Do you know what discretion is, Miranda?”

“Keeping silent, ” Miranda says.

“Not speaking harm, ” Mother corrects her gently. She
crouches down and takes both of Miranda’s hands. “Life is
a complicated thing, Miranda.” Mother’s sweet breath,
lipstick mingling with perfume, captivates Miranda; it’s the
scent of adulthood, a distant promised land. “My father
was not as successful as yours, even though he worked
hard, terribly hard, all his life. He studied and toiled but it
wasn’t enough for him. He learned that it can’t all be done
in a single lifetime. It takes much longer than that, and it
can’t be done without help. Your father works terribly hard
too. He’s taken risks that have turned out well for him, but
it’s a worry for him and a strain. Men like your father need
help, but they don’t know how to ask for it. That’s my job,
Miranda. One day it will be your job too.”

Miranda nods, a fresh kind of excitement in her belly.
She’s always been in awe of her mother, who commands
respect and devotion wherever she goes. Even though she
hates Mr. Johnston always being at the hotel, she is still
warmed and reassured by the sheer power of her mother,
the way she exuded certainty and safety even upon the
freezing lifeboat, the way she drew people to her as soon
as they arrived in New York, made their lack of clothes
and belongings seem like a game as they juggled gifts, and
credit, and money cabled from Father.

Mother holds the magic of the future in her palm.
Miranda has been admitted early into this world of confidence and daring, sees marvelous light and rather terrifying dangers. Her mother thinks she is almost ready for
these, and the idea is exhilarating.

NOW
,
JUST MOMENTS AFTER
her accusing look,
Mother seems old. Disillusionment haunts her eyes as she
scans the tables. Miranda can almost see the weight of the
years coming down on her, loosening her skin, draining
her lips of colour and life. She feels a sudden urge to apologize but knows this is as much of a trap as the desire to
argue; it would be another subversion of any genuine
goal. And there is nothing specific for which she can legitimately apologize, except perhaps making Mother, rather
than herself, into a target for Evelyn Ismay.