That Fatal Night Page 5

  O: Reciprocating engines …

  Grandmother: Did I mention to you that the King would be coming to tea tomorrow? I’m wondering if Mrs. H. could be persuaded to make a walnut cake?

  Millie: I don’t think he would like it. I read in the Times that all his teeth have fallen out.

  GF: Seventeen–inch–diameter brass bell …

  And so it went on. They did not let up until Grandmother started to laugh so hard she began to choke, at which point Grandfather stopped spouting facts and gave her a wallop on the back.

  June 3

  They are still writing about the Titanic in the newspaper. Since coming home from England I read the newspaper. Well, parts of the newspaper. Not the bits about the price of rubber.

  Before I got on the Titanic I didn’t think about it very much. I dreaded seasickness. I dreaded Miss Pugh and her annoying habits. I didn’t want to come home and leave everyone at Mill House, so I just didn’t think ahead. But one morning near the beginning of April, Grandfather was very excited, reading bits from the newspaper about the sea trials of the Titanic. This is when they brought the ship from Belfast, where it was made, to Southampton, where I would get aboard. I didn’t pay too much attention. It was mostly about speed, which for some funny reason they measure in “knots” on ships. When I think of knots I just think of shoelaces and marionette strings in a muddle. But now when I think of that morning, sitting over breakfast, Grandfather reading to us from behind his paper as we ate our porridge, I remember two things. One is that when they put the ship into reverse it still took half a mile to stop. That’s from my school to the Citadel. If it takes that long to stop, I don’t understand why ships don’t hit icebergs all the time. The other thing I remember is that when they tested the wireless they were able to talk to people in some port three thousand miles away. I wish we had a wireless like that so I could talk to Grandfather and Grandmother right now. I would also like to talk to Brownie but I don’t suppose he would like to wear headphones.

  June 4

  In school last year we learned how the early explorers of Canada carried pemmican with them, food that lasted a long time and can keep you alive. I feel as though remembering Mill House is like pemmican. I’m saving it, but every so often I can take a small bite. Here is a bite.

  One day Grandfather asked me to take a letter to the post office in town. I could go by the road or by the fields. I wanted to go by the fields because there were new lambs, but how would I find my way? So Grandfather drew me a map. I crossed several fields and there were new lambs who came up and were curious, curious, curious and then turned suddenly shy and ran away. I followed the map and collected wool from the fences, and crossed stiles and pretended that I was going to find the entrance to a magic land and I did not notice that I had crossed into a field with a cow, but it wasn’t exactly a cow. It was a bull. This was a field that I had to cross diagonally and I was right in the middle when I noticed the bull and he noticed me. He started to walk toward me, very slowly but with determination. I quickly took stock. Was I wearing anything red? Thank goodness I was not because everybody knows that the colour red enrages bulls. So I MADE myself walk calmly and at a steady pace toward the corner of the field where the gate was. But then I saw it, the red stamp on the letter I was carrying, stamp-side out. I quickly stuffed the letter into my jumper and start to run. I could not turn around but I was sure that I heard the bull thundering after me. Cow fields are very lumpy and I tripped and fell but I got up again like a bouncing ball and made it safely to the gate. The bull looked fierce and disappointed.

  I was pretty dirty when I got back home (after mailing the letter, which was only a bit crushed), but Grandfather and Grandmother don’t mind about things like dirt. When I told my story they both said that I was heroic and brave. But then Grandfather told me that the thing about bulls and red is a myth (not like the myth of Hercules, but just something not true) and that likely the reason the bull came after me was because I started to run. Even though I knew that, I didn’t go across that field again. I have not run that fast since I got home.

  June 5

  This is a bigger bite of pemmican.

  Miss Caughey came to tea this afternoon and made me cry. She was not mean. She was exactly the opposite. She brought me a bag of books. She told Mother that I should be reading for pleasure while I am not at school because this will help me in my studies when I return.

  As soon as I looked at the books I began to cry because one of them was The Railway Children, one of the lost things.

  Miss Caughey was very kind and gave me her own hankie to cry into because I had forgotten to put one in my pocket. She told me that E. Nesbit was one of her favourite authors and then I said something that flabbergasted her. Her mouth actually fell open. I told her that I met E. Nesbit — that I went to her house. She wanted to know every little thing about my visit and she let her tea go stone cold in her cup, listening.

  Grandmother and Grandfather did a lot of paying visits and they always took me along. On one particular day Grandfather would not tell me where we were going. He was bouncy with a secret and kept saying things like, “Prepare to be amazed.”

  We went on the train and then in a pony trap and came to a big, three-storey house. It had so much ivy on it that it looked as though it was made of ivy, with just doors and windows cut out. A woman came out to greet us saying, “Here she is! The Canadian.” Grandfather introduced her as Mrs. Bland.

  She did not match her name at all. She wore an embroidered dress that had no waist and there was a kind of long coat over that, also embroidered, and she had lots of silver bangles on her arms. Her hair was brown and curly and bits of it were falling down. She was smoking a cigarette. She was stout but she moved as though she was going to start skipping any minute. Whatever the opposite word to bland is, that is what she was like.

  At first I was shy because she was one of those people who look right at you, but then she took me inside to the drawing-room and showed me something that she had made. It was called “The Magic City” and it was a whole world of miniature buildings laid out on a big table. Temples and pools and cathedrals and towers and arches and other buildings that I don’t even know the names of. I did not know what to say until I noticed the dominoes. They were decorating one of the city walls.

  As soon as I started to really look I saw chessmen and boxes, books, candlesticks, brass bowls, ashtrays, biscuit tins, ivory figures and a tea-kettle lid. It was magic and funny and it made me long for two things. It made me long to shrink to miniature and explore the city on my own two feet. And it made me long to make a magic city of my own. I told Mrs. Bland, who is the kind of person you tell things to, and she said that of course I must do both things, make my own miniature city and imagine myself small.

  By the time we had explored every street and lane, every tall tower and city square, I had forgotten to be shy.

  At lunch there were other people but they were all grown-ups and I couldn’t sort them out. Grandfather and Mrs. Bland had a big but jolly argument about Shakespeare and bacon.

  When I told Miss Caughey about the bacon she burst into laughter and I asked what was funny and she said she would tell me later but first she wanted to hear the rest of my story.

  After lunch Mrs. Bland and I went outside, even though it was showery. The garden was like a big room with walls of trees and shrubbery. Brownie raced around and around and we found a ball to play with. There were crocuses and snowdrops and Mrs. Bland told me a story from when she was a little girl. She was all dressed up to go visiting and her mother told her to go outside and stay tidy. But she had older brothers and when they saw her they thought she looked so beautiful, like a flower, that they decided to plant her. So they dug a hole and did just that, planted her in the ground. It was not good for her nice clean dress and of course her mother was furious. I told Mrs. Bland that I had an older brother as well and I knew what it was like to be treated like a toy. We agreed that it was silly to send chil
dren outside and then expect them to stay clean.

  Then Mrs. Bland showed me the moat. I didn’t know houses had moats, only castles. There was a raft tied up, a raft that seemed to be made of fence pickets. Mrs. Bland told me that she made it and she would have invited me for a ride except that the raft was “unreliable.”

  The rain let up and we sat by the side of the moat and Mrs. Bland told me how she had lost her temper with some man who had told her that the raft was not properly built. “I have a terrible time with my temper,” she said. “Have had, my whole life.” Then she asked me if I had that trouble and I said that I didn’t and she said that I was very lucky in my disposition because a quick temper was a great trial.

  (Of course I was wrong about myself because this was before I slapped Irene Rudge and before Miss Pugh and that night on the Titanic, but I’m not going to write about that.)

  This was a very odd conversation to be having with a grown-up that you’ve just met. Mrs. Bland went on to tell me that the solution she had finally come to was that she couldn’t help losing her temper, but right after, she would ask herself, “Am I really still angry or am I just enjoying being in a temper?” and mostly she had to admit she was enjoying it, so then she would stop and apologize.

  I remember thinking that I didn’t know any mothers in Halifax that I could imagine having such a conversation with, or any mother who would build a raft out of fence pickets, or any kind of raft at all. Or a Magic City.

  But these were private thoughts so I didn’t tell Miss Caughey, but skipped along to the part of the story where Mrs. Bland gave me The Railway Children and when she signed it for me was the first time I realized that Mrs. Bland and E. Nesbit were one and the same person. She drew a little clover leaf in the book. Later I saw that the clover leaf was really the letters EB, which is for Edith Bland, which is her real, non-book-writing name.

  When we got home to Mill House I read that book all in one go, even reading through dinner, which Grandmother doesn’t mind. By the time I got to the last chapter I just could not keep my eyes reading so Grandmother read it aloud. We all cried. Even Grandfather, although he pretended not.

  I read the book one more time when I was in England. I cried again even though I knew what was going to happen. I don’t know why happy endings can make you cry just as much as sad endings.

  Mother said that Mrs. Bland sounded rather bohemian and were her books suitable and Miss Caughey said that her books were excellently written and most suitable and that next time she came she would bring one called Five Children and It.

  I’ve already started The Railway Children again. I’m at the end of chapter one, which is when they think that the noises in their new house are rats.

  I have the whole of “The Jumblies” by heart now and when I recited it to Miss Caughey she applauded and said I was a champion elocutionist. On her way out the door she asked if I was writing about my time on the Titanic and I said that I didn’t know how to start. She said I should start small and she gave me one question to answer.

  June 6

  I forgot to explain about Shakespeare and the bacon. It is Bacon, not bacon. Miss Caughey says that some people think that Shakespeare didn’t write his own plays but left it to somebody named Mr. Bacon. Imagine being named Mr. Bacon. It is like being named Mr. Pork Chop or Miss Mutton.

  I am thinking about Miss Caughey’s question.

  June 7

  Letters from Mill House today. Millie did well in her school examinations. Owen did not mention his. They are going to stay with some cousins in the Lake District for the summer holiday. I am jealous, not of Owen and Millie, but of the cousins, who will have them to play with. Mrs. Hawkins says that the perennial border that I helped weed (“You are a champion weeder, unlike some loll-about children I could name.”) is looking glorious. Grandfather stepped in a rabbit hole and turned his ankle. Grandmother went up to London to be on a committee.

  June 8

  All right. Miss Caughey’s question was: How was your cabin on board the Titanic different from your room at home?

  The first thing that was different is that at home everything is a mixture of very old (like my bed, which belonged to Granny Mackenzie), a bit old (like my bedside rug that Mother hooked when she was just a girl), and some new (like my new clothes), but on the ship everything was new. The carpet was new, the beds were new, the walls were new, the sheets were new, the wash basin was new. It smelled new, like paint and polish. It was funny to think that I was the first person to ever sleep in the bed, just as I was the first person in the dining room to eat from the china and the first person on deck to run my hands along a bit of railing. I can’t imagine another place you could be where every single part was new, except maybe in the world on the day after Creation, but then Adam and Eve didn’t have beds and wash basins to appreciate. Or even clothes until they sewed those fig leaves together to make aprons.

  Second thing is that the walls in my room here have wallpaper and the walls in the cabin were shiny white. Wallpaper is more interesting, especially if you are home in bed sick. I have travelled miles in my mind around the ivy on my wallpaper.

  The third different thing was the washstand. The basin was in a dark wood cabinet and it folded up toward the wall. When you washed you pulled it down toward you and pressed a button and water came from somewhere behind the mirror. When you were done, the water drained away to a hidden bucket.

  Of course the stewardess brought hot water in a jug when we needed it, but we could pull down the basin whenever we liked. I liked the gush of water when I filled the basin and the gurgle when it drained out, but Miss Pugh told me I was washing my hands far too often.

  The fourth thing is that the bed had a curtain. I had the upper berth and I could pull the curtain across and be in a small room of my own, with my own electric reading light. Mother told me that when I was small I always liked to hide in small spaces, like under the bed, or under the table, or under bushes in the garden.

  I would like a bed with a curtain all the time. I like to be able to reach out and touch all the edges of the darkness at night. I don’t like it when the darkness stretches out and you can’t see where it ends.

  June 9

  Last night I had the melting dream. It is always the same. At least the melting is always the same. I am in a crowd of people. I reach up and take somebody’s hand and it is cold and then I look into the faces and they are all staring and then the faces begin to melt. When I write this down it does not seem so frightening, but when I am in the dream it is so terrifying that all I can do is haul myself out of it and wake up.

  In the middle of the night the Jumblies lines I recite to myself are, “O Timballoo! How happy we are when we live in a sieve and a crockery jar.” I say them over and over again until I fall back asleep.

  This morning, thinking about the trip to London with Grandfather, thinking about what to say in this journal, I have remembered something which might explain where the dream came from.

  To get to the dock in Southampton we had to take a special train from Waterloo Station in London at 7:30 in the morning, so Grandfather and I went up to London the day before. Grandmother had to stay home for a meeting about poverty. She said that Grandfather should take me to the British Museum, which would be very educational.

  When we arrived in London, however, Grandfather asked if I would mind very much if we didn’t go to the British Museum but to another museum called Madame Tussaud’s. He said that he had always wanted to visit it but that Grandmother never wanted to see it because she said it was vulgar. Of course I didn’t know anything about either museum so I said fine. It turned out that Madame Tussaud’s was a wax museum, which is a building where they have statues, made out of wax, of famous people. It was amazing. Everything about the statues looked alive — the colours, their clothes, their hair. You just think that at any moment they are going to start walking and talking. We saw Queen Elizabeth and Benjamin Franklin and Marie Antoinette. There was a room call
ed the Chamber of Horrors and Grandfather thought he should not take me in, but I wanted to go. It was all about murders and criminals. It was that kind of scary that you let yourself be scared, like listening to a ghost story. Some grown-ups might say that Grandfather should not have taken me to the Chamber of Horrors, but the dream is not about the guillotine or Jack the Ripper. It is just about faces, staring eyes.

  June 10

  It is very hard to make my bed properly since Mother put on the summer blanket, which does not have any stripes. I have to wake up earlier to have time to do it before breakfast.

  Today we are going to Larsens’ to shop for new shoes for me. My feet are already bigger than Mother’s. I wonder when they will stop growing. I wonder when I will stop growing taller. Is there a moment when you know that you are your proper size for life? Charles had a friend who grew two inches taller after he was twenty years old! He had to replace all his suits.

  All right. London.

  When Grandfather and I got to Waterloo Station there was a great hubbub of people and luggage. We had arranged to meet Miss Pugh at the ticket office and she was there, waiting for us.

  June 11

  I had to stop writing yesterday because of Miss Pugh. I have already torn out two pages, but this time I am going to write it and leave it.

  I did not like Miss Pugh. That’s the plain truth.

  Everyone said how convenient it was that Miss Pugh was going to England to visit her aged father and could accompany me on my journey. Nobody cared that I knew her only as somebody who worked in Father’s bank. “Our estimable Miss Pugh,” Father called her.