Women and Children First (8 page)

After breakfast on Sunday morning, Annie McGeown went with her children and her new friends from Mayo to the church service led by Captain Smith up in the first-class dining saloon. She wore her best green frock, her only hat and a beige wool jacket, and she combed the boys’ hair over to the side the way she had seen on the boys up in first class.

It was only one deck up from their cabin, on D Deck, but there was no mistaking it was another world. Her feet sank into the plush carpet. She could see her reflection in the dark wood panels. Everything gleamed with polish and it smelled more expensive than their third-class dining room, in a way that you couldn’t quite put your finger on. But Annie wasn’t one for yearning after what she didn’t have. She was excited to be there among the first-class ladies in their jewels and towering hats with peacock feathers. She was curious to see Captain Smith, and when he came in she was impressed by his smart uniform and air of authority. He had kind eyes, she decided, and a gentle voice. She clutched the baby – fortunately asleep – and squeezed her daughter’s hand tightly.

The captain read at length from a prayer book Annie didn’t recognise, and the boys soon began to fidget. She had to swipe Patrick on the back of the head when his whispers grew too loud. Annie wasn’t listening to the service herself, though, too busy gawping at the grand clothes, the fine fabric of the gents’ suits, the fancy plasterwork on the ceiling, the elegant curve of the legs of the chairs. The tables were covered in spotless white damask cloths and the sunlight streaming in through the big picture windows sparkled on the chandeliers up above. Annie felt overwhelmingly privileged to be there.

When the captain finished speaking, a quintet began to play and the congregation of some three or four hundred all sang along to the hymns. There were nervous glances when it was announced they were to sing the one entitled ‘For those in peril on the sea’ but Annie felt it had a nice tune to it. As she sang, she thought about fishermen way out on the ocean in their tiny craft trying to earn an honest living. That’s who it was about.

And then it was over and people were filing out towards their cabins to freshen up before luncheon.

Finbarr tugged at her sleeve. ‘Ma, is he really the captain of the whole ship?’ he asked. When she said he was indeed, Finbarr continued, ‘Can I go and talk to him?’

‘He’s busy right now, my love, but what would you go and say?’

Finbarr blushed. ‘I want to ask him if I can work on this ship one day. I think it’s the best place I’ve ever been.’

Annie smiled. ‘I expect he would tell you to finish your schooling first and be a good boy and you would be in with a chance.’

She dawdled as they walked out through the first-class reception room towards the stairs down to E Deck. She wanted to feel that carpet under her feet for just as long as she could. There were huge bouquets of spring flowers on side tables and their scent floated through the air. How come they looked so fresh when the ship had already been at sea for four days? Was it the lilies-of-the-valley that had such a sweet smell?

Her new friends Eileen and Kathleen and Mary were chatting nineteen to the dozen about the grand ladies they had seen.

‘Did you notice the diamond bracelet on yon lady in the lilac? It looked so heavy it must strain her arm.’

‘I should have such problems!’

‘It was the size of the hats that got me. Who would have thought you could balance so much on your head without getting a headache?’

Annie was only half-listening. She looked at the rich reds and greens of the embroidered upholstery and wished she had shades like these for her own work. Embroidery threads could be expensive and she’d only brought four basic colours with her. She imagined herself sinking into an armchair by one of the big picture windows with their vast views of the ocean and summoning a steward to bring her a glass of stout as an aperitif before dinner.

The baby wakened and smiled sleepily up at her, and she kissed his perfect plush cheek and breathed in his milky smell.

As passengers began arriving for breakfast on Sunday morning, Reg rehearsed in his head some ways in which he could thank Mrs Grayling for her generosity. She had hinted that she didn’t want her husband to know about the gift, so it was tricky to decide how to phrase it without giving the game away. He decided that he would simply say ‘Thank you very much for your kindness yesterday, ma’am’, and if Mr Grayling demanded an explanation, he would say that she’d been very supportive after the accident in which he dropped the plates. That should cover it.

When Mr Grayling arrived and walked over to the table, he was alone. Reg hurried to pull out his chair.

‘Would you like to wait for Mrs Grayling before ordering, sir?’ Reg asked.

‘My wife’s unwell. She won’t be taking breakfast today.’

Reg immediately felt concerned. ‘I’m sorry to hear that. Shall I ask the ship’s doctor to call on her?’

Mr Grayling dismissed this with a shake of his head. ‘It’s just a touch of seasickness, or perhaps she ate something that disagreed with her. She’ll sleep it off in no time. Now I think I’ll have the lamb collops this morning.’

‘Very good, sir.’ As he walked away to place the order, Reg thought cynically that Mrs Grayling’s illness would be very convenient for Mr Grayling and his young mistress. Most fortuitous for them, but less so for him. It didn’t feel the same in the dining saloon without her kindly face.

Reg was tired and after breakfast service finished, he nipped back to the dorm for a nap. John and some of the others had gone to the church service but Reg had never been religious. It was all hocus-pocus to him, a great big fairy story designed by the ancients to try and make us behave ourselves. He couldn’t bring himself to believe in a giant bearded figure in the sky who decided when you lived, when you died, who was born rich and who destitute. There was no logic to it.

Reg reckoned he’d be wakened in time to have a bite to eat before lunch service, because the lads’d be making such a racket when they got back from the sermon he’d never sleep through it. He was wrong, though, because John thumped his shoulder when there were just five minutes left to rush upstairs to work.

‘I thought you needed your beauty sleep,’ he explained.

‘But I’m bloody starving,’ Reg complained. ‘I need my grub even more than I need my kip.’

‘Sorry, man; thought you’d eaten earlier.’

When he reached the dining saloon, with all the smells of soup and gravy and roast meat wafting through from the galley, Reg’s stomach began to gurgle and he had to press it hard with his fist.

‘Your jacket’s creased,’ Old Latimer chided, and Reg pulled it down firmly by the hem, smoothing it flat with his hands.

The occupants of his tables arrived all at once, and he had a flurry of trying to greet them and take their orders without anyone waiting for too long. Mr Grayling was once again unaccompanied and in answer to Reg’s enquiry, he said he was sure that his wife would be better in time for dinner that evening. Everyone placed complicated orders, for starters, soups, mains, side dishes and puddings, as if church had made them ravenous. Having already thanked God for their food, they felt free to eat it without guilt. He carried plate after heaped plate of piping hot meals to tables, and hunger gnawed at his belly, as if the acidic digestive juices were trying to digest his own insides. He comforted himself by imagining all the helpings of food he would devour down in the mess at three that afternoon. He would heap the food as high on his plate as it would go without collapsing over the sides.

One o’clock came and went, then one-thirty, and then two. By two-fifteen, Reg only had a couple of tables left, and one of them was on desserts. He cleared the main course plates from the other, deftly stacking them with the fullest on top, and as he did so he noticed an untouched piece of filet mignon in gravy. The lady concerned had toyed with her mashed potato but the steak was still a perfect oval, just as he’d brought it out from the galley. Reg had never tasted filet mignon but he’d heard the meat was so tender it would melt in your mouth without chewing. His belly gurgled like a rusty old water tank.

He pushed the swing door into the pantry and headed towards the washing-up area, his eyes darting round the room. It was crowded but everyone was busy with their own tasks: finishing the individual decorations on desserts, scrubbing the cooking pots, covering leftovers and taking them into the store. Reg balanced his plates on the edge of the table, had one more swift look round the room then lifted the filet mignon and took a bite. It was sumptuous; everything he’d heard and more. The texture was like velvet, the flavour rich and meaty. He swallowed, and then he couldn’t resist one more bite. It was the fatal flaw, he thought later; the greed that means a burglar returns for one last piece of silver and is caught red-handed. His mouth was full and the filet mignon was still in his hand as Latimer strode into the pantry and came straight over.

‘What are you doing, Parton?’

If he tried to swallow the chunk of meat whole he would choke, but he couldn’t be seen to be chewing it, so Reg tried to slip it under his tongue and speak normally. ‘Nothing, thir,’ the words came out, then he started coughing and had to spit the meat into his hand. It hadn’t melted in his mouth after all.

‘Any guests passing by could have glanced in the door and seen you guzzling their leftovers like a wretched dog. This will go on your report, Parton. I thought you would have been more careful after yesterday but it seems you don’t care about your position here.’

Reg hung his head and whispered, ‘I do care, sir. I’m sorry.’

‘Get back out to your tables.’ Latimer marched off, enjoying his status in officialdom.

Reg was sunk into gloom. He was booked to wait first class on the
Titanic
’s return voyage to Southampton, but after that he would almost certainly be relegated to second or third class. They expected impeccable standards in first, with no room for imperfection or slovenliness.

‘Bad luck, man,’ John said once they were standing in the dinner queue in the mess. ‘We all do it from time to time, but it’s rotten that you should be caught straight after that eejit woman got you into trouble yesterday. You’ll just have to work twice as hard and impress them so much they realise they can’t manage without you.’

‘Do you ever get the feeling that you just want to turn back the clock by thirty seconds? That’s what came into my head. Thirty seconds, and I’d have had the plates scraped and stacked by the sink and I’d be on my way back out to my tables.’ He sighed. ‘I dunno, John, I think I’ve just about had enough of this life. I can’t see me going on like this, year in, year out. But if I’m going to leave, it would be better to do it with a clean record. I should have resigned before this trip. I should never have come on the
Titanic
.’

John was shocked. ‘You’ve got a great career here. Everyone wants our jobs. Why not talk to the glory hole steward and explain what happened when you dropped the plates? He could maybe talk to Latimer and sort things out for you.’

The ‘glory hole’ steward was the one who looked after the stewards in each dorm – the term being ironic, of course.

‘I thought I might have a word with the Tiger.’ The Tiger was the name given to the captain’s personal dining steward, the role Reg had filled on a previous voyage with Captain Smith.

‘Good idea. I’m sure you’ll straighten it out one way or another before we get to New York.’

Reg tucked into his beef stew, and almost immediately had to remove a piece of gristle from his mouth. Despite long slow cooking, this beef needed vigorous gnawing before you could swallow it, unlike that divine morsel of filet mignon. He’d talk to the Tiger, that’s what he would do. If he mentioned it to Captain Smith, Reg was sure things would be all right. The captain liked him. They’d been, if not friends, at least friendly companions on that last trip.

‘Hey, Reg,’ a steward called from another table. It was the Italian one who worked in Gatti’s à la carte restaurant. ‘I didn’t find your dream girl yet but I’m still looking for her.’

‘Who’s your dream girl, Reg? Do we know her? Is it Fat Ethel from the pantry?’ There was general laughter at the table behind theirs, which Reg ignored.

It did make him wonder where the girl was eating her meals, though. Why would you come on a ship that was famed for its luxurious amenities and then not avail yourself of them? She was a mystery passenger all right. Could she even be a stowaway? All these big ships had some. No one could ever tell exactly how many were on board, and it would be easier to stow away in first class than in any other because no one would expect it. Friends of passengers were allowed to come aboard at Southampton to have a look around, and the ship’s whistles warned them when the gangplank was about to be drawn up. What if some just stayed behind and found an empty cabin to sleep in? Would anyone even notice?

He considered this option as he ate, but it seemed unlikely that a girl whose appearance oozed wealth and position would risk the disgrace of being caught not paying her fare. Much more likely that she was eating in one of the other restaurants while he was busy at work. The ship was a labyrinthine floating city. It would certainly be possible to miss someone.

After he’d finished his heaped bowl of stew, Reg turned down John’s offer of a game of rummy and went to walk it off. First he headed up to the à la carte restaurant on B Deck, just on the off chance the girl might socialise in there. It could be her kind of place, he guessed: an elite social club as well as a restaurant, where the décor was even swankier than on the rest of the ship. There were festoons and swags and polished walnut, under an elaborate chandelier that was secured in position so that if the ship swayed, it wouldn’t move around and cause alarm. Their chief steward, a man Reg didn’t know, hovered by the door to prevent undesirables getting so much as a toe over the threshold.

‘Message for Miss …’ Reg mumbled an invented name as he peered past. ‘Can I just check to see if she’s here?’

He glanced round the room, but his colleague had been right. It was an older crowd in there, the dowager duchess types who donned their jewels and furs for breakfast and didn’t take them off all day. There was no sign of the boat deck girl.

He walked through the adjoining Café Parisien, which was lively today. Some young folks were playing a game that appeared to involve balancing cocktail cherries on their noses, and drinks had been spilled on the tables as each clamoured to have a go. Reg raised his eyebrows in greeting at the steward who was standing by, waiting to get access to mop up.

Next he walked along the port side cabins on B Deck and his feet slowed outside the door to the Graylings’ stateroom. He knew from the passenger list that they were in B78. He listened hard but there was no sound from within. Should he knock and ask if he could fetch anything for Mrs Grayling? But that was the bedroom steward’s job and he wasn’t sure who their bedroom steward was. Crew on a ship like this could get bad-tempered if you tried to do their job for them. Every role was clearly defined and even a simple thing such as Reg taking that tray up to the bridge the other evening could have upset Fred, the steward whose job it was, if he had ever found out. You could never have the assistant vegetable cook touching a dessert, or a steward pouring wine, and there would be hell to pay if a scullion put something away in the pantry. Stupid when you thought about it, when you were all there to serve the passengers. Eight hundred and eighty-five crew serving thirteen hundred guests: Reg calculated that was almost seven-tenths of a steward per passenger. Did the Ritz Hotel in London have such a high ratio?

He stood outside B78 for a few minutes but there was no sound from within so he walked on. When he reached the end of B Deck, he walked back along the other side, then descended a staircase to C. Ahead of him, he saw an English girl from one of his tables in the dining saloon rushing towards him with her hand over her mouth. Suddenly she gave a cry and bent double. Reg hurried over and saw that she was retching. A pool of lumpy yellow vomit was on the carpet at her feet and some had splashed the front of her gown. She looked up at him and they caught eyes before a fresh convulsion seized her gut.

‘Here. Please use this towel, ma’am,’ he said, handing her the one folded over his arm.

She grabbed it and held it to her mouth, her eyes signalling thanks.

‘May I walk you to your cabin?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘It’s C43. But what about…?’ She motioned towards the mess on the carpet.

‘I’ll have someone see to that, ma’am.’

She took his arm and leaned against him, holding the towel to her mouth as they walked down the passageway and round the corner to her cabin.

‘Shall I ask a doctor to call on you?’ Reg asked. ‘He could give you something to settle your stomach.’

‘No, really,’ she insisted. ‘It’s just that the food is richer than I’m used to. I probably made a pig of myself at luncheon. I’ll be fine now. I can’t thank you enough.’ She peered at him properly. ‘I know you from the dining saloon, don’t I? What’s your name?’

‘It’s Reg Parton, ma’am. Reginald, my mum calls me.’

‘I would shake your hand, Reg, but I’ve probably got sick on it. My name’s Juliette Mason-Parker. I expect I’ll see you later at dinner. Goodbye for now.’

After seeing her safely inside her cabin, Reg hurried back along the corridor but when he reached the spot, someone had already cleaned up the pool of sick, leaving a barely discernible damp patch on the carpet and a slightly sweet odour in the air.