Titanic ashes, p.1
Titanic Ashes, page 1
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Butler, Paul, 1964-
Titanic ashes / Paul Butler.
Issued also in electronic format.
ISBN 978-1-926881-52-2 ISBN EPUB 978-1-926881-53-9 ISBN KINDLE 978-1-926881-64-5
1. Titanic (Steamship)--Fiction. I. Title.
PS8553. U735T582012 C813'.6 C2011-906524-X
© 2012 by Paul Butler
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For my parents,
Anne Frances and John Frederick
chapter one
EVEN THROUGH THE STAR -SHAPED gap in the foliage, Mr. Ismay’s face is unmistakable. Dark eyes glisten like those of a man freshly wounded; his brow furrows; his mouth hides behind a grey moustache. Miranda peers through the leafy opening, feeling protected for the moment, the way an audience member feels shielded by the relative darkness of the stalls and the sense of invisibility. But this is a restaurant, she reminds herself, not a theatre. He could turn to her any time, and no doubt will, if she doesn’t tear her own gaze away.
Her mother has been talking about curtains, how the modern vogue for sheer makes her think she is entering a harem. This is rich, Miranda thinks. Clinging to the late Victorian fashions of her girlhood, Mother insists on mauve and indigo drapes in her own home, surely the signature hues of ill-repute.
It is, in any case, a ruse. Mother is merely trying to probe into Miranda’s plans, but she’s trying too hard, using a barrage of noise when a simple question might yield more information. Mother wants to know where Graham and she will buy and how she intends to decorate her first marital home.
Married life is Miranda’s escape, and Graham is under strict orders to keep mum. She wants to preserve at least the pretence that everything will be quite different, unsullied by parental influence. But Graham is a chivalrous man and his expression becomes more desperate each time he is compelled to give an evasive answer.
It was the clink of ice within a water jug that made Miranda turn to an adjacent table a few moments ago. Her gaze moved into the middle distance, and then beyond, where an image claimed her attention. Through the star-shaped gap, cigar smoke parted like the haze one sees around the subject of an old portrait photograph. He had paused, soup spoon halfway toward his mouth, listening to someone with an interest that seemed not quite sincere. He nodded, crinkled his eyes and gave an upward twitch of his moustache—as though reacting to a funny story—then took his food and chewed.
Miranda suspected it was him straightaway. She knew from experience that only when one is most desperate to be mistaken, only then does one’s first instinct turn out to be spot on. The floor tipped beneath her. She held the cool stem of her champagne flute and felt perspiration from her fingertips mingle with condensation from the glass.
Before she saw him she was wishing her mother would shut up. Now she is glad for the incessant stream of words. It means no one will notice the change in her. Poor Graham nods inexhaustibly and even tries the occasional interjection, only to agree of course. Father is off somewhere else, cutting grimly with his knife as though searching for his cutlet’s most profitable seam.
“You are so lucky, you two, ” Mother continues, “beginning your young lives in London.” She gazes regretfully at her husband who, deserting his meat for the moment, begins to forage through his cabbage. “For our first several years of married life we were stuck in the provinces. And you will be ensconced here from the very start!” A sparkle in the eyes now, a promise to her soon-to-be son-in-law about the wonders that await him; the irritation is enough to make Miranda forget her panic.
“Mother, Graham has lived and worked in London for more than five years. London isn’t adventure to him, or to me. It’s just life.” She keeps her voice low. The last thing she wants is to draw attention to her table.
“Life changes when one marries, Miranda dear. The world opens up.”
The phrase sends a new terror through her, and she wishes she hadn’t spoken. Reminiscences of transatlantic voyages are now only two or three exchanges away. A quick glance through the palm shows Mr. Ismay’s face more clearly than before. All he has to do is turn his head and she, and possibly her whole table, will be easily visible to him.
“And will you be travelling to America with your new bride, Graham dear?”
The subject opens even sooner than she thought. The table seems to rock gently.
Graham coughs. This is the first real question, the first at any rate to be followed by a pause long enough for answering, but unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately— Graham has chosen this moment to take a bite of his wood pigeon. He chews quickly and brings his napkin to his lips.
Miranda steals another glance through the leaves. Mr. Ismay’s face is out of sight for the moment, the dome of his balding head bobbing toward the table.
“We thought closer to home at first, ” says Graham. “Honeymoon in Paris, that kind of thing.”
“Oh yes, I know about that, but afterwards? This is the age of speed. America is the new Europe, you know, Graham dear. In a year or two of married life you’ll be simply yearning for adventure.”
Mother takes a rather sly look at Father, who reaches for a tumbler of water. She won’t leave the subject alone now. The one escape for Miranda is to excuse herself for a few minutes, but this might be dangerous. Mr. Ismay might remain unaware of her all evening if she stays in her seat, but any movement might catch his eye. And, curious or not, his eyes would then likely follow her back to the table. Even if he doesn’t recognize Miranda, he would surely remember her parents.
“Of course adventure is in my blood. My father was a shipbuilder in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and there was always romance in our family. I’ve tried my best to pass it on.” Miranda hears a note of regret as Mother looks at her wistfully. “We spent a glorious summer in New York when Miranda was just ten years old. Do you remember, dear?”
“Yes, Mother. I remember.” She weighs the words carefully. If her mother were in a mood to notice she might pick up on the undercurrent of warning, but Miranda knows this is too hopeful. Mother is immune to any such sirens.
In real terms, her mother should have more reason to avoid the subject of the “glorious summer in New York” than she, but it never seems to work out that way. While immune to the emotion herself, Agnes Grimsden marshals the threat of embarrassment with psychological insight and ruthless efficiency. She knows Miranda is more afraid of the subject than she, and there’s nothing Miranda can do to change this fact.
“And there was that dreadful, tragic event from which we all had to recover first, ” Mother says. “Well, I’m sure Miranda must have told you, though I know she doesn’t like to talk about it.”
Miranda wonders what she must look like. Part of her skin is overtaken with a shivery coolness, part is blushing. She imagines a patchwork of white and red, and shrinks into herself, certain her reptilian appearance will draw attention from everyone in the restaurant, including the man beyond the palm.
She meets Graham’s gaze for the first time in ten minutes, and only furtively. His grey eyes waver with a mixture of sympathy and muted curiosity. She has told him about the Titanic, of course, and alluded to doing somet
What she saw, experienced, and how she reacted in delayed panic, is locked away tight and will likely remain so. Sensitive, respectful Graham knows not to delve or prod. Mother, however, is not like Graham. Even if she accepted the notion of a taboo, she would go blustering through it.
“No, ” says Graham quietly, his eyes moving from Miranda to Mother. “She doesn’t like to talk about it.”
“Such an experience, so many lives lost!”
“Indeed.” Graham coughs as though nudging toward a change in subject.
“Miranda’s father wasn’t travelling with us, ” says Mother, as if her husband weren’t present at the table. “Thank goodness, because John is noble and selfless. He would have insisted on remaining behind on the ship, and we would have been left destitute.”
Father coughs, his frown tightening as he takes another sip of water.
“If you’ll forgive me, Mother.” Miranda is unable to contain herself. “The logic of that statement somewhat eludes me. A selfless act surely doesn’t leave a man’s family destitute.”
“Honour, my dear, ” Mother says, raising her glass in a dark parody of a toast. “An old concept, I admit, but an important one nonetheless.” There is harshness in her expression now.
Perhaps she and Graham have gone too far in stonewalling about their intended home, its location and décor. People like Mother, who dominate conversations, are like that sometimes. They take a long time to feel offence, even to notice the lack of response, but once they have taken umbrage, it’s too late; by that time they’ve given too much of themselves, and they feel foolish and shunned. Was it mean of her to say nothing to Mother about the curtains, not to ask her advice about something inconsequential? Was it meaner still to draw genial Graham into being her proxy, to insist he brush her off too?
“Well, ” Miranda says, her face burning. “Thank goodness Father was never put in the position of deciding what he must do.”
Father grunts and takes another sip of water, leaning back in his chair and looking from one face to another. Miranda wonders how they have managed to arrive at this point in the conversation. All she has wanted to do since glimpsing the face through the palms is to keep the talk away from the subject of travel by sea in general, transatlantic liners in particular, and, in minute particular, the Titanic and the disaster of 1912. And here they are, not only discussing the Titanic but the very heart of Miranda’s current anxiety: notions of valour and cowardice as they pertain to gentlemen going down with the ship or stepping into lifeboats.
“You would have insisted upon staying aboard the doomed liner, would you not have, John?” her mother asks.
Father lets his fingers dip absentmindedly into his waistcoat pocket as though checking for a watch. “Indubitably, ” he says with a slight sniff and quick glance around at the company.
Not many people understand Father’s sense of humour, but Miranda does. Buried beneath the gruff exterior is a subtle and many-layered malice that lends the simplest of gestures, the most straightforward-seeming of statements, a contrary meaning. Mother is satisfied and gives Miranda a cool nod of victory. But Miranda knows Father’s one-word answer refers not to honour but merely to the fact he would have preferred to be free of his wife then and there, even if death were the only option of escape. Mother’s extroversion saves her from this knowledge. She simply isn’t able to hide an emotion once it surfaces, and can’t fathom people who can.
But while Father can obscure true meanings from his wife, Miranda sees little chance of hiding anything. She wanted to protect herself from any conversation of transatlantic liners, and failed. She wanted to keep off the subject of the Titanic, and failed. Already Mother has peeled the subject down to the sore points of lifeboats and honour. Only one creaking gate remains unbreached: J. Bruce Ismay, White Star Line Chairman, and Director of the International Mercantile Marine Company, one-time acquaintance of Miranda’s parents—and the man sitting beyond the palm.
“In any case, Miranda dear, you were not always so disparaging to the traditional virtues of courage and chivalry, ” Mother says, luxuriating in the moment, like the soft breeze that touches the palm’s heart-shaped leaves and sets them quivering.
“Nor am I now, Mother.” Miranda’s reply, firm and final, seems to take the wind out of her mother’s sails. Her expression drops, and her eyes cease to smile; she takes a glance at her husband and then at Graham, as though suddenly worried she has been caught misbehaving.
“Oh look, ” says Graham, “the band is back.”
With some relief, Miranda cranes her neck half circle toward the dais, which is partially shrouded on both sides by rather extravagant greenery, so that when the musicians take up their instruments it looks as if they have just stepped out from a jungle into a clearing to find the means of entertainment miraculously awaiting them. They take position and briefly strike some notes to make sure they are still in tune. The violinist nods to the bass player. The cellist readies his bow before the strings, and with a sweet high yap the quartet swings into a ragtime number. A collective gasp of pleasure breathes through the diners, and insulated by waves of sound and a single focus for their attention, Miranda breathes more easily. Mother, apparently forgetting the unpleasant undercurrents of the conversation, taps her fingers gaily and her smile takes in everyone at the table, including Miranda.
chapter two
EVELYN LOOKS ACROSS AT Father, at his troubled moustache and chalky skin. The joke she attempted was one of Basil’s. Had it worked, had Father’s eyes not been glassy and preoccupied, had his head not bobbed mechanically back toward his dinner, she would have told him the source. She wants to talk about Basil, feels the subject ought to bring him back to himself. He should be glad. His daughter is stepping out with a man who, like his own younger self, is a shipping agent; who, also like himself, will be the likely inheritor of chairmanships and directorships. He couldn’t wish for greater proof of her pride in him, could he?
Evelyn’s mother tries so hard to reassure him of her feelings and her respect. But there is so little she can do to prove this that would be in any way dynamic enough to capture his attention. She can’t remarry Father without divorcing him first. But his daughters can make it quite clear they think their mother chose well if they make similar choices themselves. In marrying Basil Sanderson, Evelyn will quite literally be bringing the White Star Line back into the family.
But it might be just as well to leave the subject for tonight. Basil—Shipping—Father—Titanic. It’s all too close. She saw the Grimsdens a few minutes ago. Ever since, she has felt breathless and unsteady. It’s as though she is leading poor Father along a high wire, a silent crowd beneath watching for the one slip that will bring them hurtling to disaster. If she mentioned Basil, Father would think not of his own career, but of one terrible night. He would think of Basil not as a shipping agent, or director, or son of his own colleague and friend, but as a war hero. He might focus on that term hero, and its opposite, a painful word, used over and over to describe himself. Tonight, it seems, all words are laying traps.
“That must be one of Basil’s, ” says Father unexpectedly, just as Evelyn thought he had drifted off. There is a vague, tired smile on his face. He seems like a man who has floated from the earth and is trying to find his way back through layers of haze and mist.
“Yes, Father.”
