Titanic Ashes, page 4
She had tried to fill in these details of her imagined worlds, but knew something failed her. Her daydreams always carried the dust and tedium of her own present life. Her heroines were too much like school teachers, exuding the coarse fluff of tweed, speaking too sternly, because she could imagine no other kind of women— except for her mother, and in those days Mother was a distant, regal figure in her daydreams, too potent to be engaged in the action, but watching from the clouds. The heroes moved and talked with the mannerisms of factory managers, again because she could visualize no other kind of successful man. She tried to paint her sword-brandishing knights with the sheen of glamour, but always a dangling watch chain, a bulging waistcoat, or thinning hair would impose itself upon the picture. She knew herself to be a poor dreamer, and her details always killed the magic. But the Ismay girls had brought her so much closer to the formless vision of paradise that dwelt within her. Their house in Mossley Hill—she already knew they had several, one in Ireland, one in London—was a place of high, curved banisters, muted colours, darkness and wood polish. The train set they brought her up to see was older and clunkier than the ones she had seen before, the tracks wooden and aromatic, and although they were so much older than she was, they approached it all with simple joy, and no sense of ownership or jealousy or any indication they believed it beneath them to play with a train set. They treated her as if she were one of them, and with their soft, pleasant manners, long, slender limbs, hair that shone even in the dimmest light, and scent of unmistakably feminine soap, she longed to be their sister.
She watched Evelyn as she adjusted and retied her bow, gathering strands which glowed like water through her fingers. Miranda sensed somehow the subject of hair was like a secret door giving passage into another world, their world, and that if she asked in the right way at the right time, this world would open up to her, at least for the afternoon. When she did pluck up the courage, spilled just a few dry syllables while fingering the wood of a chair leg, it all came so easily she wondered how she could have been nervous about it. Margaret and Evelyn had her sitting in front of the nursery window, brushing her own hair, tying her own yellow and blue bows in a similar style to their own, giggling and arguing in a way that was somehow polite, the way that adults argued, using each other’s names—Margaret and Evelyn—nicely, carefully, as though they rather liked the words. There, feeling the gentle pull of the brush, seeing her strands of hair fall against the sunlight, intense through the window, she felt she was entering into a magical universe.
The only thing worse to her than coming face to face with Mr. Ismay again would be coming across him in the company of one or more of those pretty daughters who had once been so nice to her. She wonders now whether it was precisely because they had been so pleasant to her that she acted as she did. Such things are written about so often these days; one has only to pick up a newspaper to hear some secondhand account from an Austrian psychotherapist who believes people are compelled to act in a way directly contrary to their own best interests and desires. Were the minds of women and men always so tangled? she wonders. Or is this a recent thing brought about by too many jolts, like a poison floating in the ether after an explosion? As she tries to make sense of the idea, she remembers another afternoon, weeks after the Titanic, a restful hotel suite in New York, overlooking the great rolling park. She hears again the rustle of newspaper pages on carpet, an unendurable sound to her normally, but today, on her knees, scissors in hand, she is forcing herself to endure it. She has been cutting out words from a slightly yellowed copy of The Denver Post, dated 19 April 1912. Mr. Johnston brought it with him when he arrived the day before yesterday with parcels of new clothes for her and her mother, and he read it aloud. The article, he told her, was written by his boss, and although it mentions no names at all, Mother later assured Miranda, through hushed lips, that it was about Margaret and Evelyn’s father. It talks of the nobility and self-sacrifice of the brave men who looked after women and children and then stood calmly upon the deck of the Titanic as they went down to glory. “Who, ” the article ends by asking, “would not rather die than live a coward?” Miranda understands, but only just, that this must be the part about Mr. Ismay.
The article itself has now been reduced to meaningless phrases like “500 feet in the air, ” “that the, ” “might be, ” “lapse of years, ” “would not rather, ” while the words which carry emotion and promise drama— “graves, ” “disaster, ” “desolate, ” “children, ” “glorious, ” “kissed, ” “doomed, ” “hero, ” “coward, ” and she thought for good measure, as the lettering was so large and in bold, the author’s name, Mr. Johnston’s boss, “WILLIAM, ” “RANDOLPH, ” and “HEARST”—are all either scattered on the carpet or glued onto a flat, square piece of cardboard she cut from a gift package.
Miranda’s experiment is to cut out and randomly select words from the article, creating, she hopes, a new and revelatory meaning upon the cardboard surface. All of this is done by touch; her eyes are closed. Already she has it in her head that she might emerge from the experiment with a coded message, one of comfort perhaps, which might be sent to the Ismay girls. Even her mother, who is definitely in agreement with the article’s author, has expressed regret at the suffering some of the press coverage might have caused the girls and their mother.
When Miranda opens her eyes, she sees a hodgepodge of words, some, from the headline and from the writer’s name, large and blocky; some, from subheadings, like little brothers to the blocky ones; and some, from text too insignificant, by comparison to the bolder script, to notice. This seems unfair, as it was these— “coward, ” “monuments, ” “self-sacrificing”—that made her pulse race with the promise of some kind of answer, some revelation for which she is searching. It’s a disappointment, and now, hearing murmurs of her mother and Mr. Johnston from the living room of the suite, her heart picks up with a little fear.
Mother has not specifically told her she should not cut up the gift box from Mr. Johnston’s extra little present to her mother—the rose set in glass—but she can be oddly sentimental about such things, especially with Mr. Johnston. A strange and rarified air seems to hang around her when the two of them are together, and Miranda is frightened of the change. Mother’s eyes seem both intently focused on Mr. Johnston yet far away from everything, as though she’s a woman in a painting dreaming of some distant mountain range. She has taken to speaking differently too, enunciating more carefully and rising to a sing-song pitch. There is more fuss about her clothes and jewelry, or Miranda is noticing it more; she applies lipstick more carefully and more often, and Miranda hears the clicking of pearls and the ruffling sound of the whitish dress she’s recently purchased for herself with its many fairy-like folds. This all suggests that everything, even cardboard boxes and newspapers, may have become precious and important, dipped as they must have been in this enthralling dream that seems to have descended upon her world. Miranda imagines the horrified expressions on both of their faces if Mother and Mr. Johnston were to come into the nursery now and see the mess she has made with Mr. Johnston’s newspaper and with the gift box.
Frantically she begins to gather it all together, unused paper hissing against the carpet as she tries to scoop all the scraps into the remains of the box, along with her own pasted sections upon the cardboard square. The word “coward” stares at her, white glue seeping from under its bottom right corner. Although the letters loom at her as an accusation, the word carries her thoughts like an arrow far away, across the ocean, skimming past Mr. Ismay—the writer’s intended target—merely ruffling his hair a little as it flies, then sinking quite unexpectedly into the fond old chest of her father as she sees him in her imagination, slumped forward at his study desk, dozing. It unsettles her, and she immediately tries to remember him in attitudes of authority, seeing how his employees approach him, with soft treads and deference, nodding at his words and colouring slightly as they speak. He’s a powerful man, a brave man, she tells herself, yet visions of her mother like a great, mocking butterfly—a cabbage white in that rustling dress of hers—interfere. She hears the laughter of Mother and Mr. Johnston from the suite’s living room.
AS THE GENERAL LAUGHTER at the poor bird’s departure dies into titters, Miranda begins to rummage in her head for topics that will keep her mother from the inevitable. She knows it’s useless even to try, that when it comes to words her own arsenal would be like a pistol opposing an army of tanks.
She latches on to the sight of the waiters returning to their posts, the tray dangling from the gloved hand. The silver catches the chandelier lights in a way that’s quite painful. “I don’t know what the waiters were hoping to do, ” she says hastily and mainly to Graham. “They looked more afraid than the poor bird.”
As soon as the words leave her lips, she realizes the danger. She has left an opening for her mother.
“Some men are afraid of everything, ” Mother says in a voice designed to carry far beyond the table.
Before she came to England and married, Mother said she had acted upon the stage in Halifax, and in times of emotional stress she still has the uncanny ability to throw her voice without yelling. It’s quite impossible to ignore her, and Miranda knows that the quizzical silence from Father and Graham will stretch time and focus attention from all around upon the speaker. Mother bends the laws of physics. It doesn’t matter that, in a technical sense, the silence runs forwards, rather than backwards, in time. The words will hang in the air, leaving their imprint. In the hush around it, Miranda can’t imagine how the Ismays will fail to hear.
chapter five
EVELYN FEELS IT SWEEP through her in short, strong pulses: the imperative of it, the knowledge that she must now act. Her head becomes muffled—in a separate world entirely from the glass by her hand, the food on her plate, the lights overhead, and the ornate mirrors—yet keenly alert. Every sound, every laugh and murmur of conversation, every clink of silver and china merges into a single urgent battle-drum rhythm.
It’s no longer whether she’ll challenge the Grimsdens— she knows she must—but rather how she’ll choose her moment. And this is delicate. There is no doubt that Father has heard the comment; she can see it in the flicker of his eyes, the sudden stoop in his shoulders as he goes back to cutting his meat; it’s not the hunched look of apology or guilt, but rather a stoical, bullish posture of one who is used to bearing great weight without complaining. Despite this, because he has already suffered so much, her duty now is to answer the Grimsden woman without involving him. And it has to be possible. She has to move from her table eventually, and Evelyn can make her own excuses to follow into the foyer before her father can catch up.
This much she can plan. But then what? Various scenes play out in rapid succession. She sees herself tugging at the woman’s stole with one hand and slapping her across the face with the other—a richly rewarding moment no doubt, but one that would look utterly insane to those who would inevitably bear witness to the act. She remembers also from childhood that a blow that seems clean-cut and decisive upon conception, can become an ugly tangle of limbs when the idea moves into reality. Isabelle Dryden once said Evelyn’s friend Jessica, then nine years old, was a “trollop.” After checking in the library dictionary for the meaning of the word, Evelyn, who liked to be methodical and organized, mapped out her moves as though arranging a duel: first she would call out the girl’s name and tell her why she was being punished, then she would pause, allowing Isabelle to defend herself, then she would strike with her right hand across Isabelle’s left cheek. She went through it so many times; she managed to convince herself this was how it would unfold. But Isabelle did defend herself, and somewhat better than Evelyn had anticipated, beating her to the first blow. The two descended into a heap of kicks and pinches and got themselves into trouble when they reappeared in class with mud on their clothes. She imagines now the equivalent between herself and Mrs. Grimsden, the broken buttons, the disarranged hair, the scattered pearls, and knows this kind of revenge belongs decisively to the worlds either of childhood or low comedy.
But Mrs. Grimsden, unlike Isabelle, would be a sitting target. And the opportunity might come. Her own father might excuse himself, freeing Evelyn to cross the restaurant floor to the Grimsdens. Words, she knows, would be quite beyond her. This is the problem with anger and injustice. It robs one entirely of the ability to construct thoughts into logical argument. It turns one into a savage. Even the modest accusation she managed against Isabelle Dryden seems beyond her now. The only act she can imagine at the end of the ten- or twelve-pace walk to the Grimsden table is the sudden picking up of a glass and the throwing of the contents over Mrs. Grimsden’s head. Even then her fury might make her aim unreliable.
She can envision the reaction, and in great detail: she can see the surprised look on Agnes Grimsden’s face as Evelyn appears before her. She can hear the gasp of outrage and shock as the liquid sinks into her hair and dribbles down her cheeks onto the table. She can imagine Mrs. Grimsden calling to her husband, the stunned silence that would overtake the room, the mute panic of the waiters, Mr. Grimsden standing in horror, perhaps throwing his serviette onto the table but being utterly lost as to how to respond as the assailant is, after all, a woman.
She would brave it all, she feels, even if it meant arrest and trial, and is quite certain of her mettle in this respect. It seems an incongruity, rather than a contradiction, that she has been unable even to look in the direction of the Grimsdens since hearing the comment. If she were to catch sight of those small eyes, she thinks, the thin, still rather handsome face of Agnes Grimsden, one of two things would happen. She would either look away suddenly—that most involuntary and fatal of gestures would be unforgivable on its own account, and would sap the courage and determination that had been building— or the meeting of eyes would precipitate swift and urgent action, whether it was the right moment or not.
The battle-drum rhythm turns into an ache of fear. She’s afraid of disgracing herself in public by going too far, but more afraid of dishonouring her father by not going far enough.
Quite suddenly, a movement beyond the palm catches her eye. She does look up now, and urgently, as the two men at the Grimsden table and one of the women are standing. What if they are leaving? A jolt goes through her, not so violently that Father would notice, but it’s enough to bring the battle rhythm back to her chest. Now she sees the woman, Miranda, is merely excusing herself. Mr. Grimsden and the young man resume their seats.
She watches Miranda Grimsden moving uneasily down the aisle between the tables, head hanging, one shoulder higher than the other as she grips her purse, like someone with spinal problems, or perhaps someone trying to be invisible—a shy butterfly just emerged from its cocoon, too aware that the silken green of her dress is drawing many eyes. It’s an imperfect opportunity. Miranda is a secondary target at best, Evelyn thinks, as she lays her knife and fork gently across her plate. But for the time being it’s all she has.
“Excuse me, Father, ” she says with a smile as she rises. Her father returns her smile, seems reassured by her softness at first, but she catches a look of anxiety just before she turns.
As she follows, Evelyn sees patches of Miranda through the bustle of waiters and sidecars. She notices her head is less drooping, her shoulders less uneven, and now knows for sure it was her father and herself that made her feel cowed. The attendant opens the outer door to the bathroom and Miranda goes through with a distracted-looking nod. The door closes again and Evelyn hesitates, wondering what exactly she will say when she comes face to face with Miranda Grimsden. She’s close enough now for the attendant, a ginger-haired girl dressed in black with a white apron, to register confusion about whether she means to enter. It’s to satisfy the girl, rather than any other consideration, that Evelyn presses on. Once through the squeaking outer door, she finds the space is darker and silent. An older lady attendant stands within the little vestibule, waiting to open the inner door to the bathroom. A shiver rises up Evelyn’s neck as this second attendant reaches for the handle. The door makes no noise opening and Evelyn comes into a blue-marbled space. Electric lights create a steady wash of bright reflections. White, gold-tapped sinks arch like swans’ necks in a line, and a tuneful blop, blop of water echoes throughout the space.
At the far wall two attendants stand very still with towels draped over their forearms. Miranda is at the farthest sink, her purse nestling next to the tap. She stares into the mirror, unscrewing her lipstick, but Evelyn can tell her attention is elsewhere; her hands seem fidgety and nervous, her bare arms rigid and blotchy even under the blue light. The fact that she does not look around, makes no motion at all about her shoulders to do so, confirms that Miranda Grimsden knows who has followed her.
This is virgin water for Evelyn. She has no sense of the protocols and procedures required, but finds herself marching straight ahead past the first, second, third sink, to the one directly adjacent to Miranda. She catches a confused blink from one of the forward-staring attendants, and knows the atmosphere she has brought with her is far from casual. It must be very obvious the two customers are not from the same party, but that between them lies a history. Evelyn lays her own purse next to the tap and unclips its clasp. Staring at herself in the mirror, she’s surprised at how little agitation she sees; the eyes in the glass meet hers steadily, her hair is not disarranged and the movement of her fingers as she takes out her mascara betrays no visible tremors. She feels, rather than sees, a tip of Miranda’s head in her direction like that of a tortoise peeking over the ridge of its shell to assess some danger. Only when she applies the first licks to her lashes does Evelyn realize she has been holding her breath. Now the air oozes out of her like the wind from a creaking bellows, and she puts the mascara brush down, suspecting nerves might spill over at last.
