Women and Children First (17 page)

Annie stood on deck watching until the last lifeboat had been unloaded. She knew there was no longer any hope of finding Finbarr but she didn’t know what else to do. Sleep would be an impossibility. So would eating and drinking. She should tend her three remaining children but she was paralysed by the shocking acuteness of her loss. Her son was there one minute, gone the next, and he was never coming back. How would that ever make sense?

The
Carpathia
’s engines started and the ship sailed in a big circle around the area where the
Titanic
had disappeared. Annie’s eyes never once left the water. If she could find his body and take it back to Seamus, that would be something. They could have a proper funeral with all the holy rites and she could begin the process of mourning.

She heard some sailors down below were keeping a lookout for bodies, but there was nothing to be found. Where had they all gone? There was barely any wreckage in the water. There must be a current pulling everything away. Could some survivors have clambered onto the nearby icebergs? She squinted at them, but there was no sign of bodies, either dead or alive.

The kindly American couple came back. ‘They are holding a religious service in the saloon,’ the woman told her, taking her hand and patting it gently. ‘I thought you might want to be there.’

Annie nodded her thanks. That was something she could do. She followed them indoors to a spacious room where a crowd had already congregated. There was standing room only as the
Carpathia
’s chaplain stood in front of them with a prayer book in his hands.

‘This is a service of respect for those who were lost, and gratitude for those who were saved,’ he began, but his words were soon drowned out by sobbing. Baby Ciaran wakened and began to cry, Roisin and Patrick were crying, and as Annie looked around, she saw that even grown men had tears streaming down their cheeks. She envied them. She couldn’t seem to cry herself.

She strained to hear the chaplain’s words above the weeping but could find no comfort in them.
Why had it been God’s will that Finbarr died? What good did it do anyone?
As they bent their heads to pray, she pictured Finbarr’s grin, his unruly hair, his blue eyes and his skinny ten-year-old frame and she tried to visualise him being welcomed into God’s kingdom, but she couldn’t see it, couldn’t feel it in her heart. He was too young. He had his whole life ahead of him.

Afterwards, the American woman, who seemed to have taken a special interest in Annie’s family, led them to a dining room where the tables were set for breakfast. She helped Patrick and Roisin to order food, got a steward to fill a bottle with warm milk for Ciaran and put a plate with some toast and jam in front of Annie.

‘You’re being so kind and I haven’t even asked your name,’ Annie said, ignoring the toast.

‘Mildred. Mildred Clarke. My husband is Jack.’

Annie introduced herself and her three children.

‘And Finbarr is the one you’ve lost?’

Annie nodded, grateful that she had used the word ‘lost’ rather than ‘dead’ or ‘drowned’, grateful that she had used the present tense.

‘What kind of a boy is Finbarr?’

‘Oh … he’s curious, headstrong. A bright boy, with an answer for everything. He could talk the hind legs off a donkey, that one.’ It felt good to speak about him. She was glad Mildred had asked. It made her feel as though he was somehow still around.

While they sat talking, Reg limped into the room. His complexion was no longer quite so sickeningly pale, but he had dark circles under his eyes and one side of his face kept twitching with tiredness. He hesitated and looked as though he was about to turn on his heel when he saw Annie, but she held out her hand to him.
It wasn’t his fault Finbarr had died, not really. It was unfair to blame him. He was only a boy himself.

‘Have you eaten? Would you like some food?’ she asked.

‘I can’t eat,’ he said, his voice a husky whisper.

‘No, me neither.’ She hesitated. ‘Do you feel able to tell me what happened? There’s no rush. Just when you can manage.’

Reg nodded, his eyes cast down. ‘Now is fine.’

They moved to an unoccupied table, leaving the children sitting with Mildred, and Reg began to talk, in a voice that was shaking with emotion. He described finding Finbarr trapped behind the gate between F and E Deck and about how they made their way upstairs only to be separated as they leapt into the ocean.

‘Was he scared?’ Annie asked. She wanted every last detail.

‘He was scared when I found him but just before the jump, he seemed fine. He trusted me. He was sure I was going to save him.’ Reg’s hands were trembling and he couldn’t meet her eye.

‘Did he ask where I was?’

‘Yes. He was worried that you would be cross with him, but I said you weren’t. I said you just wanted him back safe and sound.’

‘What were his last words?’ she asked, trying to visualise the scene. She needed to picture it.

Reg couldn’t remember exactly. ‘We talked about running to the railing and when we were going to jump, and he said he understood and then, just before we jumped, he smiled at me. He seemed fine.’

Annie placed her hand on his. ‘He thought you were quite the hero after that day you took them to the galley. I’m so glad he had you for comfort, and that he wasn’t alone at the end.’ She tried to smile.

Reg was distraught. ‘I wish I could have found him in the water. I don’t know what happened. He just didn’t seem to surface from the jump. I looked for as long as I could but he didn’t appear.’

‘Didn’t he tell you?’ Annie asked. ‘Finbarr couldn’t swim.’

At that, Reg broke down and wept into his hands, and the sound was awful.

It’s because we’re not used to hearing men cry
, Annie thought.
The act of crying seems more suited to higher-pitched female voices
. She rubbed his shaking shoulders, feeling protective towards him.

‘I didn’t know,’ he sobbed. ‘He didn’t say.’

‘But what could you have done if you did know? It wouldn’t have changed anything. He’s in God’s hands now.’ If she said it often enough, maybe the time would come when she was able to believe it. ‘We’re all in God’s hands.’

Juliette found that she couldn’t stop crying. It was humiliating how readily the tears flowed. A
Carpathia
passenger came over to her in the lounge and asked ‘Have you lost your husband, dear?’ and Juliette had to explain that she wasn’t married and that she hadn’t lost anyone.
Control yourself
, she urged.
Pull yourself together.
But the tiniest thing would set her off again, especially the sight of others’ grief.

The Howsons came to sit with her and her mother, and Juliette noticed that the hostility towards each other that she had witnessed at the final dinner on the
Titanic
was long forgotten. They held hands now, grateful not to be widowed, and full of news about those who had survived and those who hadn’t.

‘Colonel Astor is lost and Madeleine is quite inconsolable. Utterly beside herself. She’s pregnant, you know. And did you meet Eloise Smith, the senator’s daughter? She’s in the same situation: pregnant and her husband drowned. It’s tragic for the little ones who’ll never know their fathers.’

Juliette thought with distaste that Vera Howson appeared almost to be enjoying her role as emissary of the bad news.

‘They say that fewer than one in three survived,’ Bert Howson chipped in. ‘There simply weren’t enough lifeboats. It’s a disgrace. I hope White Star Line will be forced out of business.’

Juliette’s mother joined in. ‘What are they going to do about compensating us all? I’ve lost some priceless family jewellery. If only the steward had said to bring it with us onto the lifeboats, it could have been saved. I’m very cross about that.’

‘There will have to be compensation,’ Bert agreed.

Juliette felt sick listening to them as they reduced the whole disaster to a financial transaction. She stood up abruptly, announcing that she was going out on deck for some fresh air, and walked off swiftly before her mother could decide to come with her.

Out on deck, she stood gazing across the water. They were speeding back towards New York now, and would be arriving on Thursday, only a day later than scheduled. For them, life could carry on as before, yet she felt that she would never be the same again. She felt as though she had been a naïve child before. She’d never understood the nature of the world, never understood that someone could be alive at one moment and dead the next, with no warning. Of course, she had known it intellectually; she read the newspapers. But she had never before felt the sheer fragility of existence. She had never before had a young man die in her arms.

‘Are you all right?’ a man’s voice asked, and she looked up to see a fellow passenger. She recognised him as the man with the sandy hair who had smiled at her as they left the first-class dining saloon after that last dinner.

‘I haven’t lost a loved one, if that’s what you mean. But no, I’m not all right.’ Tears filled her eyes yet again. ‘I can’t seem to stop crying, and then I feel guilty because I have no right to cry when the ship is full of people who have lost those to whom they were closest in the world. How about you? Did your wife survive? Your family?’

‘I’m not married and I was travelling alone. Now, now, you mustn’t feel guilty for crying. You are in shock – we all are. It will take some time before anything feels normal again.’ He had a warm voice, and an American accent, but not a broad one. He sounded cultured.

Tears rolled down Juliette’s cheeks and she opened her handbag to search for her handkerchief.

‘Normally I would be able to offer you my own handkerchief but I’m afraid these are not my clothes. I was given them by a nice woman who underestimated my size somewhat.’ He opened the jacket to show Juliette how the waistcoat buttons were straining across his chest, and she smiled through her tears.

‘What happened to your own clothes?’

‘Wet from my swim. They’ll be dry in the morning, I’m assured.’

Juliette gasped. ‘You were in the water and survived? Please tell me what happened – if you don’t mind, that is.’

He explained that he had waited until the
Titanic
was very low in the water, fixed his eyes on one particular lifeboat that was only half-full, then dived in and swum to it. ‘They had no choice but to haul me on board.’

‘And you are fine? You feel no ill effects?’

‘I’m fine now. I wouldn’t want to repeat it though.’

Juliette told him about the man she had looked after, who had a pulse and was mumbling when he was hauled onto their lifeboat, and her shock when a sailor from the
Carpathia
pronounced him dead. ‘I feel such a fraud,’ she admitted. ‘I told Officer Lowe that I knew about first aid, and then the only patient I was charged with caring for died.’

‘It sounds as though he’d been in the water too long. Nothing you could have done would have made any difference. But it must have been very traumatic for you. No wonder you are still in shock.’

Juliette’s eyes welled up again and she dabbed at them.

‘My name is Robert Graham,’ he introduced himself. ‘And you, I know, are Lady Juliette Mason-Parker. I noticed you in the dining saloon and someone at our dinner table told me your name. Are you travelling with your mother? Do you have no male escort?’

Juliette shook her head. ‘My father is back home in England.’

‘In that case, I would be honoured if you would allow me to be of assistance to you and your mother on the ship. If there is any service I can perform, please let me know.’

He had an open, friendly face, Juliette decided, and the offer seemed completely genuine. ‘Thank you so much. We might well take you up on that. In fact, perhaps you could advise me how we can send a Marconi-gram to my father to tell him we are alive? I expect the news of the sinking will reach England and I don’t want him to worry.’

‘I’ll see to it straight away. I’ve already sent one to my mother and sisters. The Marconi operators aren’t charging a fee, for compassionate reasons. Would you care to come with me and choose the wording yourself?’

He offered his arm, and Juliette took it. As they walked to the Marconi office, she could feel the reassuring warmth of his arm through the fabric of his jacket.