Titanic Ashes, page 6
“You know me, my dear, ” he replies, attempting a reassuring smile. “I’m happy where I am these days, pottering about and whatnot. As long as your mother is with me and my children can visit.”
“And will there be good hunting this autumn?” she asks with a fake Irish accent and a touch of mischief in her eye. It’s a relief, this return to her usual teasing form. Both Evelyn and Margaret rib him, making out that since retiring he is trying on the new persona of an Irish country squire.
“Let’s see what the local gamekeeper can rustle up!”
It’s not entirely without foundation. Ismay does hunt occasionally in Connemara and likes it more than he would have believed possible. There’s something reassuring about carrying a gun, its weight in his hands, solid, reliable. He likes the fact that hunting requires him to walk long distances, take the fresh air, and really notice the breeze and the trees and the curves of the landscape. Most of all he likes the ritual—the cleaning of the barrel, the rod, the polishing of the butt, the endless talks with staff, and the visitors who care little about his past.
The question almost rescues him, nearly puts him in tune again with the swinging rhythm of the band. But just as his spirits rise and his vision begins to scan the restaurant, he catches her eye again: Mrs. Grimsden lifting the drink to her lips. She seems farther from him now, though he knows it is physically impossible, an illusion brought about by the shielding plant. Her stare carries not so much indignation as before but rather reveals the colder side of anger.
He’s reminded of something he’d almost forgotten, so buried as it was in the many accusations labelled against him—the “cheap brittle steel” of the Titanic hull plating, his mad pursuit of profit at the expense of safety, the criminal reduction in lifeboat allocation, the panic he was supposed to have displayed as the boats were lowered. Though Mrs. Grimsden herself never testified at the inquest, she was very friendly indeed with a lady who did. She also had, he recalled, been part of the same conversations on board from which the witness drew her assumptions. He had read the transcript of her testimony so many times he had it memorized.
No, the witness kept repeating. She did not actually hear Mr. Ismay say they were trying for a speed record, but it was the general impression he seemed to give, that they intended to speed through the ice.
He’d said no such thing, of course, but the transcript irked him. It was a thorn of injustice, a flagrant untruth on top of so much else he had to consider. The transcript made it clear that the phrase “general impression” drew the questions like spilt honey will draw a cluster of wasps. The chairman circled the evidence over and over as though it were vital, though he was likely just trying to get to a single fact. It was reported on with such thoroughness, such persistence, that the public must have been given little choice but to believe this was the nub of the matter, Ismay’s insistence on speed. “A general impression” ended up having more credence than a proven fact.
Who were all these strange creatures who spun details from inference and invention? The trouble is, and always was, that Ismay could never really understand it—the motivation from the individual’s point of view. He could understand why collectively they all needed someone to blame. There was symmetry to the idea. Like gathering frost crystals that form recognizable patterns on a window pane, a system of enquiry was bound to yield something specific, to hone into a single point of blame. Why not him? He was, after all, ultimately in charge of the whole operation, and an unimaginable disaster had occurred under his leadership.
There was even a strange kind of comfort in it. The accusations kept pace with the frantic pulse of his thoughts. He questioned his faith in the Siemens-Martin formula for steel plating. Was it cost and only cost that had made him a convert? At the Belfast dockside, foremen and engineers alike referred to the plating as “battleship strength.” Was this merely because Ismay was present? Did they suppose this was the answer he wanted to hear?
In the months after the disaster Ismay would rattle feverishly through drawers at four in the morning, finding, reading, and re-reading the letters, searching for hidden meaning, for opportunities to confirm he was the culprit. He read through Thomas Andrews’ memos and letters about the number of lifeboats. Before the disaster Andrews’ query had sounded half-hearted to him, like a man who merely wished to be reassured it was all right to reduce the number of lifeboats when he, too, preferred the idea of unencumbered deck space. Ismay felt at the time he was merely helping to snip away some red tape. Now, with the Titanic gone, it all seemed more open-ended. Andrews was asking for leadership, and what did he give?
All the decisions seemed right at the time, as Julia kept telling him, trying to control her impatience and desperation. But in point of fact, of course, they were wrong. This was the problem. Who, ultimately, could disagree with that simple analysis? And who could sharry the blame if not the person who had made those decisions?
If anyone could have found a way to squeeze wisdom from it all it would have been his father. Yet there was a conundrum; the notion of a disaster of Titanic’s scale while his father lived and presided as chair was simply unthinkable. Catastrophe—real catastrophe involving heart-rending tears and desperation—could not exist in the same space as someone as indomitable as Thomas Ismay. Ismay caught this belief in the censorious shake of the head of some of the older directors in the meetings Ismay chaired after the Titanic. If the Oceanic had struck an iceberg, his imagination had them thinking, Thomas would have kept the ship afloat by sheer strength of character. No doubt their judgment of him was all wrapped up with the accusations of cowardice, but loss was their concern, financial loss and the stability of the company. His willing death would have made no difference to that.
Ultimately it hardly mattered why he was blamed. As a child he had been struck by an image of St. Sebastian in a Religious Studies school book. Tied to a stake, face contorted with pain, a dozen fiery arrows stuck out of him. It served a purpose for the world, this ritual slaughter, he knew now. Ismay daily faced the arrows from outside and from within. Without them, without the scorching heat of distraction, he would have gone insane.
Still, while he is inured to the arrows, Mrs. Grimsden and her type mystify him. The individual’s role in creating blame is distasteful somehow, like a leer before the scaffold, the pull of the condemned’s feet to hasten strangulation.
For the second time tonight he doesn’t take his eyes from her, and for the second time tonight her stare seems to grow in indignation. And then something happens which is both new and unexpected, an emotion rising on the heels of his memory of Mrs. Grimsden’s friend and her “general impression.” The feeling gathers strength and sensation—the taste of April 15, the ice whiskers in the air, the hubbub, the growing panic and confusion upon the deck, and the odd, elongated silence after a flare hissed into the crystal black sky.
Ismay laughs.
It’s merely the physical response to absurdity, unfiltered by logic or intellect. The silly, pointless lie from Mrs. Grimsden’s friend, the stare he’s confronting now from the lady herself seem akin to scavengers picking over a battlefield. One bends to remove the gun from a severed hand as cannon smoke drifts and curls. Another tugs upon an ammunition belt, trying to loosen the strap. What’s a hostile stare to fifteen hundred lives lost? The impulse in the diaphragm which caused his laugh returns, but this time the emotion scatters in many directions, and he can feel the nudge of tears and the sting of rage as well.
He’s not surprised that Mrs. Grimsden’s eyes now burn more sharply than before, and he even sees some colour in her pale cheek. But still, he can’t take his stare away, and subtly his body begins to move as though in obedience to some unconscious desire, his back shifting to make his view of her less awkward, his elbow hooking over the back of his chair. Into Mrs. Grimsden’s eyes have come real horror now, and if he is not mistaken, some sparks of fear. If he retains his position, he suspects, she will look away soon enough.
He can feel Evelyn’s concern trying to distract him, but he’s taken control, at least for the moment. Mrs. Grimsden and her plain accusing stare have brought him back to the night where his old life ended and a new one—of scorching dreams and sleepless worries—began. He wonders at his own survival once more, feels the alternative, the icy waters slooping inside his cuffs, rushing up his trouser legs, filling his lungs and belly. How long would death have taken that night? he wonders. Five minutes, perhaps ten. Yet here he is, thirteen years later, still on board the listing deck of the Titanic, making his way through the barging crowds to the officers in charge, trying to find order, trying to scrape up hope and reassurance from the chaos. He settles on a moment. He’s helping the crew at a lifeboat station, slowly turning a handle of the winch that lowers a lifeboat boat which is only slightly more that half full. His cold-numbed fingers against the metal seem hardly his own. The reality skims through his mind that all of it—the lifeboat swaying from the ropes as it’s lowered into the abyss, the winches, davits, the planking under his feet, the great funnels billowing steam, the very handle he turns—are part of his plan. The very same pink fingers he sees belong to the hands which inherited from his father the empire of the White Star Line. He and only he, he realizes, can be the architect of whatever disaster he is about to witness.
A petty officer yells across the deck and a cluster of seamen follow his command; he feels the vibrations of their footfalls. Sweet tobacco from a group of gentlemen close to the lounge entrance wafts over him. He catches something of their murmured conversation about Royal Ascot.
Time is suddenly a dreadful thing. He knows it is the sole diminishing barrier between himself crouching at the winch handle overhearing details of horseracing and himself being a central part of a catastrophe so appalling its details are beyond imagination.
The question creeps into his mind for the first time: how much of it dare he witness? He thinks of the ocean, icy enough here in the Labrador current to play host to bergs and growlers, and he thinks of the labyrinth of cabins and corridors already under water below and likely deserted and quiet. The lure is powerful enough to make his hand push too hard.
“Steady there, ” warns the officer overlooking the lifeboat’s descent. Ismay nods and slows down. The faintest sound follows, more pat than splash. Half a turn more and the lifeboat is freed.
“Father, ” says Evelyn.
The band ceases, the final high note hanging in the silence. The leader, violin and bow in hand, nods to a scattering of applause. Ismay turns to his daughter, catches her expression, both worried and chiding, and feels a protective layer has been peeled away between them, a taboo breached. He knows it’s no use pretending otherwise.
chapter eight
EVELYN ENCOUNTERS THAT SMILE , the one he uses with Mother—vague, dithery, sinking into a kind of generalized appeasement. But there’s a change in him, too. It was a shock a moment ago to watch him turning to meet the stare of Agnes Grimsden—not necessarily an unwelcome one. It suggests that either he is becoming forgetful and has failed to spot an enemy, or that a fire long doused might be smoldering afresh. He was once a man of authority, and a deeply embedded rock of well-being dwelt under the foundation of their home. Even his fussiness of manner carried an aura, a sense of being associated with work and important matters. When the Ismays went to church and heard about the Almighty from the pulpit, this was the aura Evelyn envisioned, and the picture that went with it was of a carefully waxed moustache, oiled hair, the scent of decision, and the gentleness that would come across such an entity at home after an hour or so with a pipe and playing with the dog.
When he returned Mrs. Grimsden’s stare and gave what seemed to be an unforced, disparaging laugh, this almost forgotten father had returned. Evelyn searches his eyes now for some clue to his thoughts.
“Father, ” she repeats, “are you all right?”
He tilts his head and gives her an affectionate look, lifting his glass.
“Why shouldn’t I be all right, my dear?”
Again a tactic used with Mother, and a challenge of a kind. They both know perfectly well why he should be out of sorts. But the cause has never been named and he is banking that their mutual silence will continue. It’s a reasonable assumption. Thirteen years of secrecy is like an airtight cell with thick metal walls; the idea of opening it now seems frightening, like scattering a thousand tiny demons into the world.
Not for the first time Evelyn considers that if the memory of the Titanic looms over her, and Tom, and Margaret, and Mother, and possibly even George, filling ordinary sounds and objects—a shriek of laughter, the tinkling of wine glasses—with images of catastrophe, how much closer must that terrible event seem to Father? Keeping everything unsaid, even if they all believed it was for Father’s good, suddenly seems like a terrible disservice to him. And it all makes so little sense.
Generals who from the safety of distance have knowingly given commands that kill many thousands have then stood proudly with medals pinned to their chests. Yet Father, who hurt no one deliberately, is lambasted publicly, whispered about, stared at, and treated like a pariah. Her anger at them all—the Grimsdens and everyone like them—gives way a little to a sudden rush of admiration for her father, for the fact that he can still sit in a London hotel restaurant, eating, drinking and listening to music; and that when he catches the eye of his accuser, he will stare back and laugh.
Evelyn puts down her knife and fork, hands trembling from pride mingled with fresh indignation. She turns slowly, glimpses Miranda’s face bobbing toward her plate, Mr. Grimsden’s shoulder, and through a clearing in the foliage, Agnes Grimsden, who has, telepathically, it seems, shifted her own gaze now to her. The look on her face is neither furtive nor unfriendly, but relaxed enough for direct eye contact to suggest communication. For a moment, Evelyn wonders whether she might have it all wrong; perhaps when Mrs. Grimsden had said, “Some men are afraid of everything, ” she really had been talking about the waiters, and now sees her blunder and is trying to offer some apology and recompense.
As though to confirm this, Mrs. Grimsden tilts her head, raises her eyebrows, and gives a sad, shoulder-heaving sigh, all the while holding Evelyn’s gaze. So practiced is Evelyn in the art of pleasing, she begins to find the muscles of her face forming into a smile and the tendons of her neck readying themselves for a nod. But then she remembers Miranda’s admission, “There’s nothing that can be done with Mother, ” and the absolute nature of the confirmation that came with it. The power to decipher contradictory messages—the friendly look at her, the insult aimed at her father—comes to Evelyn with a wave of anger. The smile is one of pity; she’s showing Evelyn sympathy at having a coward for a father.
She tears her eyes away and counts to three as she looks down at the puckered skin of her pheasant. Picking up her knife and fork again, she glances at Father, who meets her eye straight away and gives a kindly shrug. But it’s no longer enough for either of them, she thinks, not any more.
She wonders if it’s too much to hope for that Mrs. Grimsden might need to go to the ladies’ cloakroom, whether the attendants there might witness a second drama, one with more lurid details, more escalating conflict, than the first.
Her heart begins to hammer as she realizes such a chance is unlikely. Something truly extreme, and public, is required. She finds it curious suddenly that old-fashioned notions of dignity have remained synonymous with courage. She could remain dignified; it wouldn’t be hard. She could avoid the glances of the Grimsdens all evening, sit up straight, sip her wine and talk to Father about all manner of things. But there would be not one ounce of courage in it. Courage is an ugly, red-faced drunkard. Courage leaks spittle and blood. It yells in fury, and causes others to gasp in horror. She remembers witnessing a real argument outside a public house in Liverpool. Two men yelled at each other, their fists clenched, faces deep red, blue veins running down their necks. They seemed scarcely human in their passion, all elbows and boots, angular contraptions designed for conflict. Bobbies waded in before it came to blows, and the crowd, a mix of local gentry and students, who, like Evelyn and her mother, had come from the nearby concert hall, all seemed to give a collective gasp of disapproval.
“Disgraceful display!” she heard a man say.
“Shocking, ” added someone from another party.
And while Evelyn recognized these were the right things to say, she also realized they were lies, that many of the onlookers were silently captivated, almost admiring, not at the ugliness of it, or the danger, but at the forgetfulness of self, at the sense that these two men were brimming with emotions that were so much bigger than the crowd, so much greater than caution and embarrassment. Evelyn felt a kind of awe bordering on envy. It almost came down to a simple formula, that he who is naked is somehow ennobled, while she who is protected by layer after layer of refinement and manners is diminished, even in a moral sense. Especially in a moral sense. Stillness is noble in a flower, not in a human being. To be courageous, to be good, one has to become one’s emotions, and emotions are seldom dignified.
When she starts to speak, it takes her by surprise. “You’re going to have to forgive me, Father.” Her lips burn as though her breath is fire. “I’m going to do something.”
She looks up and sees him frown, not comprehending, or pretending not to comprehend. Then his pupils contract. “No, ” he says. There’s nothing pleading or fearful in the word. It comes out rather like an order, and again reminds her of the father he once was, kind but in charge.
“It’s not just about you anymore, ” she says. “It’s about all of us.”
