Women and Children First (4 page)

Reg lay awake mulling over what he’d seen on the boat deck. Of course, he knew that rich men had affairs. He’d sometimes see them sneaking shoeless out of the wrong cabins when he passed in the early morning on his way to the dining saloon. From the girls’ point of view, he could understand if they were short of money and a wealthy older man bought them jewels and fashionable gowns; that probably happened the world over. He knew from gossiping with the other lads in the mess that Mr Guggenheim had his mistress on board with him, a young French singer called Madame Aubart. They’d taken separate suites, but everyone understood that hers wasn’t occupied because she stayed with him. His wife was back home in New York. Perhaps she knew about the mistress and turned a blind eye? These things happened.

Was that the case with Mr Grayling and the girl? He had a large fortune made in South American mining. Did he buy her expensive gifts in return for her favours? Somehow it didn’t fit with the scene Reg had witnessed. The girl had an air about her as if she had grown up with wealth. Why would she need Mr Grayling’s money if her family had plenty of its own? She could obviously afford to dispense with a fur coat that had cost goodness knows how much … Reg couldn’t imagine what it might be worth but he knew it would be more than he earned in a year.

If it weren’t about money, why would a stunning girl like her be having an affair with a man who must be more than twice her age? Reg guessed she wasn’t any older than himself, and he was twenty-one. It certainly couldn’t have been physical attraction because Mr Grayling wasn’t a looker. He was a round-faced gent with sleek greying hair and a waxed moustache, who gave the impression of a sea-lion when first you met him. His figure was sea-lionish as well. It disturbed Reg to visualise his ample belly pressed against the girl’s slender frame. If truth be told, it made him feel a bit sick.

It wasn’t just the physical side that disturbed him, but also his loyalty to Mrs Grayling. She had been friendly to Reg from the first day of her Mediterranean cruise the previous year, complimenting him on his proficiency at silver service, praising the food, the views and the décor of the dining saloon. One afternoon she had eaten lunch alone because her friend felt poorly, and afterwards, while Reg was clearing the plates, they got into conversation.

‘Where’s home for you, Reg?’ she asked.

‘Southampton, ma’am.’

‘Do you live with your family? Or your wife?’

‘I live with my mum and three younger brothers. I’ve got a girlfriend, Florence, but we’re not married.’ He wasn’t usually one for opening up to anyone about his personal affairs but Mrs Grayling was so amiable he found himself confiding in her.

‘Do tell me how you met Florence,’ she urged. ‘I love hearing about the beginnings of relationships.’

Reg paused in his work and leant on the back of a chair. ‘It was just over a year ago,’ he told her. ‘I was down at the docks one afternoon because there was a German ship moored – the
Prinz Friedrich Wilhelm
– and I’d never seen her before. Florence happened to be there with her friend Lizzie and we got talking about the ships.’

In his head he relived the scene. He had overheard the girls wondering where the
Prinz Wilhelm
came from so he called over to tell them. ‘She sails out of Bremen, and comes here first, then to Cherbourg and on to New York.’

‘Is it a passenger or a cargo ship?’ Florence asked, moving closer, and Reg explained that the transatlantic routes made most of their money ferrying emigrants to the States, but that they also took mailbags and a few tons of cargo. He told them he worked for White Star Line on their transatlantic steamers and was just back from a voyage on the
Olympic
.

‘Is that a fast one?’ Florence asked. The friend, Lizzie, was prettier but she seemed much shyer. All the questions were coming from Florence, so he found himself focusing his answers on her. They were easy questions, ones he could respond to knowledgeably.

‘Did you ask her for a date?’ Mrs Grayling asked, interrupting his reverie.

‘I invited them both for a cup of tea in the Seaview Café, then as soon as the words were out of my mouth I remembered I wouldn’t have enough money to pay if they both wanted cake.’ He grinned. ‘Fortunately, they just asked for tea.’

‘What did you like about her?’

Reg considered. ‘She was easy to talk to,’ he said. ‘She works in a stately home and we compared notes about how some upper-class folk can be a bit unreasonable. Not you, of course,’ he added quickly. ‘I told her about a lady I served on the
Olympic
who made a big fuss because we didn’t have strawberries in December, as if we should have altered the course of the sun to change their growing season just for her.’ Mrs Grayling laughed. ‘And then Florence told me she got so shy sometimes when serving drinks at the big parties where she worked that her hands would shake, and the posh folks would glower at her as if she had the plague. And I looked at her and felt I understood her somehow. Do you know what I mean? I thought we might be the same.’

He remembered that was the moment when he noticed Florence had a few tiny freckles on the bridge of her nose, and thought he might like to have a chance to count them. She saw him looking and smiled back and it was a nice feeling. She was well turned out, in a blue coat with loads of tiny buttons up the front, and she wore a little hat that had a fabric flower pinned on the hatband. She held her teacup nicely, like a lady, even though her accent was similar to his own. He liked everything about her.

‘So what happened next?’ Mrs Grayling was lapping up the story, completely absorbed. All the other stewards had left the saloon and they were on their own in the vast room.

‘I asked if we could meet again on her next day off, and said I’d bring my friend John. You know – the Geordie lad I work with?’

‘I know exactly who you mean – the steward with the red hair. I’ve seen you chatting to him.’

‘Yes, that’s him. Lizzie didn’t really hit it off with John, though. I don’t think he was enough of a looker for her.’

They’d paired off into couples and walked up to the public gardens, and Reg felt nervous at first. He wasn’t experienced at making conversation with girls and couldn’t think what to talk about apart from ships, but Florence made it easy. She chattered away, full of stories about her huge, chaotic family with umpteen siblings and cousins, and about all the staff politics at the stately home where she worked, then she asked a few questions about him. When Reg told her his dad had left home when he was eight, she squeezed his arm in sympathy, and he thought that was nice. Not too much of a reaction and not too little; just right.

Before she stepped onto the tram that evening, Reg took her hand and raised it to his lips, and she giggled, obviously pleased. She kept waving at him for as long as the tram was still in sight.

‘So you’ve been stepping out for more than a year now?’ Mrs Grayling asked. ‘Isn’t it difficult to see each other with you being away at sea so much?’

‘My trips are about two or three weeks each, then I’ve got at least a week off in between, sometimes more, and we’ll meet up on her days off. It works out all right.’

If she could get the afternoon off, Florence would be waiting at the quayside when his ship docked. It made him feel all warm inside when he saw her tiny figure standing there waving up at him. No one had ever cared about him like that before: not his dad, not his mum, and his brothers were all young and self-obsessed. Florence was smart and insightful and he liked talking to her, liked walking arm in arm with her, liked giving her a cuddle. He’d had dinner with her family, she’d met his mum, and now a year on there was a sense that everyone was just waiting for an announcement. Wedding bells, a baby within a year, a little terraced house near the docks and her bringing up the kids while he was away at sea earning the cash.

‘Do you love her? My goodness, listen to me,’ Mrs Grayling laughed. ‘I’m being so nosy. Please tell me to mind my own business if you don’t want to answer.’

‘No, it’s fine.’ For some reason, Reg didn’t mind the directness of her questioning, although he never talked to anyone else in this way. ‘I do love her, but I just don’t know if I’m ready for marriage and I think that’s what she wants. Her friend Lizzie got engaged recently and I could tell by the way Florence looked at me when she told me about it that she would like me to propose. Other people keep dropping hints or asking outright when I’m going to make an honest woman of her. It’s what you do round our way.’

‘Why don’t you feel ready?’

Reg considered. ‘I suppose I worry about the money. I want to have enough put aside to get us a decent place to live, and before I have kids I want to be confident that I’ll be able to put food on the table for them. Working on ships, you only get a contract for each voyage and you can never be sure you’ll ever be hired again. That worries me.’

There was more. Reg dreamed of bettering himself and being able to afford some of the luxuries his wealthy passengers enjoyed. Just one or two, nothing excessive.

‘I want to get my own car one day,’ he’d told Florence. ‘Have you ever seen a picture of a Lozier? They’re pure elegance on wheels. A bargain at only seven and a half thousand pounds!’

‘You admire the rich more than I do,’ Florence mused. ‘You’re more impressed by them.’

He suspected it was true. Not the ones who’d simply inherited their wealth but he admired the self-made millionaires from America, the ones who had started their own car dealerships and hotels and property empires. He wished he could make enough money to have a better life, but there was nothing he could do besides wait on table. And so they carried on as they were.

‘Marriage is a tricky thing,’ Mrs Grayling told him. ‘It’s hard work and sometimes it feels as though you are the only one trying.’ Suddenly she looked very downcast. Her grey-blue eyes had depths of sadness in them. ‘But it sounds as though you had better be careful not to let that girl slip away. Aren’t you worried she’ll meet someone else while you’re at sea?’

Reg thought about it for a moment then shook his head. ‘She wouldn’t ever mess me around. She’s an honest, straightforward girl, and that’s what I like.’

‘You should hang onto her then. Take my advice.’

A year after that exchange, Reg was overjoyed when he looked at the
Titanic
’s first-class passenger list and spotted Mrs Grayling’s name. He asked the chief steward, Mr Latimer, if he could wait on her table and as soon as she walked in to dinner on the first evening and saw him holding her chair for her, she exclaimed, ‘Reg! How wonderful you’re here. Tell me, how is the lovely Florence?’

He was touched to the core that such a grand lady would remember anything about his life. ‘She’s fine, thank you, ma’am,’ he said.

‘And are you married yet?’

‘Not yet,’ he grinned.

‘But still together?’ Reg nodded. ‘That’s good. I’m delighted to see you again.’

Then two nights after that reunion, Reg saw Mrs Grayling’s husband with the young woman on the boat deck and he felt simply awful about it. The knowledge weighed heavily on him. It was as if being witness to her husband’s infidelity had somehow made him culpable himself. Should he tell Mrs Grayling? Or do something about it himself? But what?

Next morning at breakfast, Reg couldn’t meet Mrs Grayling’s eye, scared that something in his countenance might give away what he had seen on the boat deck. The situation was compounded when he overheard Mr Grayling being irascible with his wife. He seemed a bad-tempered sort, forever complaining about something: his food wasn’t hot enough, or the next table were making too much noise. That was forgivable, Reg supposed, but speaking discourteously to such a sweet-natured person was not.

‘Will you try out the gymnasium today, George?’ she asked. ‘You could have a Turkish bath afterwards. It’s supposed to have glorious mosaics.’

‘Have you taken leave of your senses? When have you ever known me go to a gymnasium or a Turkish bath?’ Mr Grayling’s tone was impatient, and as Reg arranged the cutlery for their chosen dishes, he couldn’t help noticing the hurt look on Mrs Grayling’s face. He remembered her commenting that marriage was hard work and watching her with Mr Grayling, Reg could imagine why she might feel that way.

‘I plan to stroll along the promenade this morning, then perhaps I shall write some postcards in the reading room,’ she told her husband. ‘How about you, dear?’

‘I haven’t made up my mind yet but when I do, I’ll be sure to inform you.’

His tone was heavy with sarcasm and Reg flinched. Mr Grayling seemed to be in a particularly foul mood, which was rum considering that, from what Reg had seen, he was having his cake and eating it. What right did he have to be bad-tempered, when he had both a charming wife and a willowy, goddess-like mistress?

He wasn’t the only grumpy one that morning. At one of Reg’s tables there was a young Canadian couple, Mr and Mrs Howson, and the wife was a silly, giggling girl who kept making eyes at Reg right under her husband’s nose. It was a game to her. Maybe she was trying to show hubbie that she was attractive to other men, but it put Reg in a very awkward situation. He tried to be strictly formal and avoid any eye contact, but Mrs Howson insisted on clutching his arm and asking inane questions.

‘What’s the difference between a herring and a haddock, Reg? I only like fish that don’t have any bones.’ She clutched his arm and peered up at him with doe eyes.

He felt like telling her that jellyfish were the only fish without bones and they didn’t have any on the menu. He also wanted to ask her to let go of his arm, but he did neither. ‘The herring have tiny bones throughout so you might be better with the haddock, ma’am.’

‘You always look after me so well,’ she purred, and her husband snorted. It was embarrassing, and Reg moved away from their table as quickly as he could.

As he worked, he kept an eye on the saloon door watching for the girl from the boat deck to arrive. He was curious to find out whether she was travelling with a husband or, if she was unmarried, who was chaperoning her. They certainly weren’t doing a very good job. Women like her would never travel alone. It simply wasn’t done.

First class was full of beautiful women. Some had looks that owed a substantial debt to artifice, but others were natural stunners. Even at breakfast, they wore fancy gowns in expensive velvets and silks with lace trimmings, and they all had hats with feathers and bows pinned to their heads. Every lady in first class wore a hat for breakfast and lunch and some kind of headdress for dinner. It was a regular fashion parade. Florence would have enjoyed looking at the clothes, he thought. She liked nice clothes. He’d gone with her a few times to browse through the rails in Tyrrell & Green’s department store, although she could seldom afford to buy more than a new pair of gloves or a length of lace to trim a petticoat.

Breakfast service ended at 10.30 and there had been no sign of the girl from the boat deck. Maybe she was having a lie-in, or perhaps she had chosen to dine at one of the ship’s cafés or the à la carte restaurant. He cleared the last plates from his tables and set them for luncheon, then caught his friend John’s eye and motioned with two fingers to his lips that he would meet him down in the mess for a fag. John nodded, but he had a table who were being slow to finish their meal, so Reg went on ahead.

He stopped in at the dorm to pick up his fags and wrinkled his nose at the vegetable smell of farts and feet and armpits; the twenty-seven men who slept there wouldn’t have a bath till they reached New York so it was sure to get worse each day. There were only two baths for the eight-hundred-plus crew members, and a separate one for the officers. Reg opened a couple of portholes and jammed them ajar with iron shoots from the store cupboard. That should help. Then he took the fags and matches and made his way to the stewards’ mess, where he sat down and waited for John to arrive so they could light up at the same time.

Reg wasn’t a big smoker. Some stewards were always nipping off for a fag and getting antsy when they were forced to go too long without one, but for Reg it was just a punctuation mark in the day, a chance to put his feet up and socialise. He collected the cigarette cards for his little brothers, and they’d never forgive him if he gave up, but generally he could take it or leave it.

‘You’ll never guess what I saw last night!’ Reg told John after they’d both exhaled the first drag. ‘One of my passengers, Mr Grayling, fooling around on the boat deck with a girl less than half his age while his wife is in their suite just a couple of decks below.’

John was unsurprised. ‘Goes on all the time with these people. They have different rules to you and me. It’s not just the men either. The women do it as well.’

‘Get away with you.’ Reg frowned.

‘Colonel Astor’s first wife had an affair and the whole of New York knew about it. They say his daughter isn’t really his. Now he’s got divorced and married again and they’re all pointing the finger and saying he shouldn’t have remarried, but if you ask me his wife was the one that started it.’

Reg had heard something of the kind before but hadn’t paid much attention. ‘They sit in your section, don’t they? What do you think of the new wife?’

John wrinkled his nose and gave it some thought. ‘Bit of a mousy thing. She’ll let him be the boss, though. She won’t be running off with fancy men, not like the last one.’

‘She’s only young. Eighteen, I heard, and he’s nearly fifty. I don’t know why a girl would want to do that.’

John rolled his eyes comically. ‘Hundred million dollars in the bank? I’d marry him for that!’

‘I don’t think you’re his type somehow.’ John would never win any beauty contests, but he was the nicest chap you could ever hope to meet.

They’d become friends on Reg’s first voyage after some of the other lads played a practical joke on him. He’d been working flat out from five in the morning and got to the dorm at eleven that night so faint with exhaustion that he was hoping to fall straight into his bunk. But as he walked in the door, he heard stifled laughter and sensed something was up. Sure enough, there was a huge metal object jammed into the space between his bunk and the one above: a dessert trolley from the dining room. It was about five feet long, two feet wide and felt as though it weighed a ton.

‘You bastards!’ Reg swore and the room erupted into laughter. He grabbed the trolley’s handle and tried to yank it out but it was jammed in tightly and hard to manoeuvre. ‘Bloody hell, I don’t believe it.’

‘Here you go, man. I’ll give you a hand.’ John skipped round the other side of the bunk to push from behind, while Reg pulled, and soon they had the dessert trolley back on the floor again.

‘Thanks, mate,’ Reg nodded, and from then on they were pals. They covered for each other on the ship and watched each other’s backs when their shipmates were fooling around. It was like having a brother on board.

Reg had hoped John would have some advice for him regarding Mr Grayling’s infidelity, and in particular if there was anything he should do about it. ‘You should have seen this girl who was with him on the boat deck,’ he reiterated. ‘She was the bee’s knees. I’ll point her out at luncheon. It didn’t make sense somehow.’

It was only afterwards he realised he’d forgotten to tell John about the fur coat, in some ways the strangest part of the scene he had witnessed. He made a mental note to mention it later.