That Fatal Night Page 6

  She might have been estimable but I did not like her. She tried to act as though she were my mother or my teacher but all she was supposed to do was accompany me to England and back again. She was fussy and finicky and she would not admit when she was wrong. She treated Beryl, our stewardess on the ship, like she (Miss Pugh) was Lady Astor or some other rich and famous person and Beryl was a servant, but all the time Beryl knew much more than she did, about the ship and many other things, as well as being much NICER. Miss Pugh made a funny noise with her teeth and she smelled like liniment.

  For the whole voyage Miss Pugh seemed to want to correct me. She corrected the way I tied my hair ribbons because they were not tidy enough. She corrected the words I used. When I said that the curly backs of the chairs in the dining room were “baroque” she said I was being overly fanciful. She corrected my table manners. I know you are not supposed to talk with your mouth full, but adults ignore this rule all the time. If you obey this rule and chew and swallow before you say anything, then the conversation has moved on and you never get a chance to say anything at all. If I questioned her she said I was “argumentative.”

  The worst thing was that she was so boring. She never wanted to talk about anything interesting. For example, is grass green at night in the dark? Or is it green only when light is on it, making it green? And does that mean that grass might not be green at all? Grandfather would have loved to talk about this. But when I asked Miss Pugh she just said, “That’s a big question for a little girl.”

  What can you say to that, except be quiet and grind your teeth and not be argumentative.

  I did not like Miss Pugh.

  But I did not want her to die.

  It was my fault.

  I’m the only person alive who knows what happened.

  I know that I have to finish the story because finishing it is like straightening the bed or ironing the napkins perfectly. I can’t not do it. I know that I can always tear out these pages or I can throw away the whole thing so that nobody will ever find it.

  But I don’t have the heart to write any more plays. Tomorrow I will begin again about the Titanic.

  June 12

  I am in the garden. Asquith is hiding in the rhubarb to ambush Borden. Borden is a very patient dog.

  Waterloo Station. I had resolved to be pleasant and polite with Miss Pugh. I had taken Mrs. Bland’s words to heart and I promised myself that I would not lose my temper. As Grandfather and I walked toward the ticket office I floated up into the highest part of the station, with the pigeons, looked down and said, “Who is that very well-behaved child?” My good intentions lasted less than ten minutes.

  They lasted while Grandfather said goodbye and while I cried a wee bit and while he made a silly joke about bullfighting in Nova Scotia. They lasted until Grandfather produced a bag of sweets from his pocket “for the train” and Miss Pugh sniffed and said they were “unsuitable for 7:30 a.m.”

  In all my time in Lewisham I never heard anybody say “unsuitable.” I heard “wicked” and “vulgar” and “outrageous.” I heard “horror” and “misery” (mostly to do with housework). I even heard “damned” (even though I don’t think I was supposed to; I was under the table and they had forgotten me). But I never heard “unsuitable.” “Unsuitable” is a word used by people who sniff.

  So Grandfather left and I was sad — which can sometimes be almost a good feeling — and sullen, which never is. The pigeons looked down and said to each other, “Who is that willful and unpleasant child?”

  No bad feeling could last on the train. Miss Pugh read her book and sniffed and I ate my sweets and looked out the window and memorized the stations. Surbiton, Woking, Basingstoke, Winchester, Eastleigh. Barley sugar, humbugs, pear drops, jelly babies, licorice allsorts (with extra pink bullseyes).

  Mother has just come to tell me that Aunt Hazel has dropped by and I’m to come inside and be sociable.

  June 12 (later)

  I’m interrupting my story for one piece of big news: Aunt Hazel and Uncle Leslie have ordered a motor car! It is called the Tudhope Torpedo.

  All right, back to the ship.

  When Miss Pugh and I got to Southampton we went right on board the ship, up the gangway, like crossing the drawbridge to a castle. The second-class entrance was on C deck at the aft end. (That’s ship’s talk for back.) So many people got on at the same time that we were like a river. I noticed some men with musical instruments in cases and I heard a woman say that they were the ship’s orchestra.

  As soon as we were aboard, Miss Pugh started to fuss. That is the difference between us. I thought almost everything was fun and she thought almost everything was fuss. Luggage, for example. The stewards have quite a time getting the luggage to the cabins. It is all in a great heap and they have to find everybody’s things. Later on, when I got to know Beryl, she told me that sometimes the luggage tags fall off and then it is all chaos. People wander about, asking questions, getting lost, talking to their friends as though they are on a crowded street in London. Through all this the stewards have to move the luggage without knocking anybody on the head or dropping a steamer trunk on their foot. It is like watching a farmer and his dogs round up cows. Who would not enjoy watching it? The answer is Miss Pugh. She just fussed and worried about our own luggage. Where was it? When would we get it? What if it were lost?

  All the time she was totally ignoring the really important things — like should we take the red-carpeted stairs or the electric lift and did you see that woman who had a squeaky little dog that looks exactly like her?

  Finding our cabin was confusing. We were on D deck. Miss Pugh took the stairs and I took the lift. Miss Pugh thought we might lose each other. I rather hoped we would. The numbers on the rooms didn’t really make sense so everybody was asking questions of the stewards. “I can find D-70 but where is D-71?” It was like a maze. Some of the adults were quite cross but every child I saw was enjoying the muddle.

  When we got to our cabin there was no luggage there, which sent Miss Pugh into a tizzy. But in a few minutes a steward named Jack brought everything. Then a stewardess appeared to help us sort ourselves out. She was a young woman and very pretty. She introduced herself as Miss Beryl Cope but said that we should call her Beryl. Of course I had no way of knowing what an important person she would be.

  The cabin was like a playhouse, everything fitted and tidy. Miss Pugh said that we should unpack and settle in, but I could hear lots of commotion outside the cabin and I was longing to see what was what.

  In the middle of one of Miss Pugh’s fusses, Beryl said that it would all be much easier if I were not underfoot. At first I was cross and thought Beryl was one of those people who think all children are a bother and who say things like “underfoot” as though we are pets. My temper started to feel bigger than the cabin, but then Beryl said that the best way to get one’s bearings was to go around the ship and explore because, after all, it was impossible to get lost. Miss Pugh’s head was in a valise at this moment and Beryl winked at me. So Miss Pugh said, “Off you go then,” and I knew Beryl was a friend.

  “Go and look at first class,” said Beryl. “Last chance.”

  The way things work on a ship is that everything goes by class — first, second and third. Each class has its own dining room and lounge and cabins. And usually everybody stays in their class, but that first morning people were here, there and everywhere, bustling about. Nobody paid any attention to me. If you want to be invisible, find a bustling crowd.

  As I stuck my head in the fancy rooms I realized what all the Titanic fuss was about. It was the fanciest place anyone could think of, like the wonderful house that Aladdin orders up or the ivory palace in the Bible. Who would think to bring whole palm trees inside and plant them in pots or to have ivy growing up the walls? Who would think to paint a room light green and pink? (I would like my bedroom to be light green and pink but I don’t think Mother would let me have it.)

  Going with the tide of people, I ende
d up at the grand staircase. In the illustrated papers they always show a photograph of this staircase, but what the pictures don’t show is how shiny everything was. The light came in from a huge glass dome and sparkled off the polished wood and the gold decorations on the railings and the angel holding a torch. The pictures also miss out the smells — furniture polish and flowers.

  Next to the stairway was the elevator, so I took it down to E deck. Even it was fancy, with wood panelling and clever doors. The lift operator was handsome and shy and he looked as young as a schoolboy. Later on I found out his name was Fred. From E deck I found stairs (well, I called them stairs then) to go up and down. It was all a great hubbub and nobody paid any heed to me. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular so everything I found was a discovery.

  I think it must have been like this for the great explorers. Of course they were looking for things, like Columbus looking for India (Was he looking for India? I might have got that muddled) or like Captain Scott looking for the South Pole, but everything they found was new, so everything was a discovery. I don’t think there is much left to discover now that Mr. Amundsen has found the South Pole.

  I got a look into the bathing pool. It didn’t have any water in it yet. I think it must have been odd to swim in water while sailing on water. Of course I didn’t get a chance to find out because it was only for first-class passengers.

  But I almost got to use the gymnasium! It was up on the boat deck and when I poked my head in, there were people using all the different machines. The exercise instructor, dressed all in white and looking very strong and healthy, was going from one to the other. There was a rowing machine and two stationary bicycles and, funniest of all, an electric camel and an electric horse. They didn’t really look like a camel or a horse but like complicated machines with seats, and they just seemed to jiggle the riders up and down and make them laugh. Then two photographers came in and the instructor asked who wanted to have their picture taken.

  Everybody laughed and I thought, “Why not me?” But just as I was getting my courage together, a man and a woman who were on the bicycles volunteered. After the photographers had gone, the instructor said that they were from a London illustrated paper and that the photographs would likely be published.

  Then I did wish I had volunteered. Imagine if Grandfather had opened up his paper and seen me on an electric camel!

  My writing hand is tired. So many words and the ship has not even left. One morning on the Titanic was like a week anywhere else.

  June 13

  I wish I had a typewriter. They have one at Father’s bank. Once you master it you can make the words come out quickly, and best of all, they are very neat.

  After I didn’t have my photograph taken, the tide of people moved toward the decks as all the visitors went ashore and the time came for the ship to pull away from the dock. Everyone was laughing and talking to strangers, the way people do when they’re at a fair or starting on a holiday. There was a man standing near me who was one of those people who like to tell you things. Perhaps he was a schoolteacher or a minister or some other Mr. Chatty. At any rate he was giving lessons to anyone who would listen.

  The tugboats seemed so small, dancing around the huge ship, drifting black smoke around them.

  Mr. Chatty named all the tugs. Hercules and Neptune and Ajax and other big hero names, which nobody ever names their sons nowadays. Except now I remember there was one called Albert. I don’t know how he got in there.

  You could smell burning coal in the air. The steam whistle blew three great blasts and everyone cheered. The people on the ship threw flowers and the people on shore waved their scarves and handkerchiefs.

  Mr. Chatty kept on sharing information.

  “There go the mooring lines. We’re off!”

  “They’ll tow us to the turning circle.”

  “Hear that jangle? That means ‘Ahead slow.’”

  “Feel that? That’s the propellers starting.”

  We started to go forward. At first you could hardly feel it and then we started to move and then go faster. Then Mr. Chatty said, “Look there. Look at the New York. Something’s amiss there.”

  He did not mean the city. There was another big ship there and the back of it was swerving around toward us. Then there was a shudder and the Titanic stopped going forward, paused and began to go backward. We moved right past the back (I mean stern) of the other ship. Then there was a delay in which Mr. Chatty kept on, but I had had my fill of lessons and wanted to do more exploring.

  I have moved out to the garden because Mother says it is too nice a day to be inside. Borden has gone into hiding and Asquith is pretending to hunt birds. Back to the Titanic.

  I did not hear anyone else mention the New York and how they nearly hit us. It wasn’t until later, after the disaster, that people started to say that it was an omen.

  People say something was an omen when they want to show off, when they want to say that they knew something was going to happen. I remember Grandfather saying that fortune tellers are nonsense because the reason the future is the future is because it hasn’t happened yet.

  Irene always says that things are omens. Once a bird pooped on her in the schoolyard and she said that she knew it was going to happen, that when she woke up she had a “feeling.” I asked her if she had told her feeling to the bird so he could aim at her head and she just tossed her head and did not reply. Of course I did not really expect her to reply because the question was rhetorical. Mother says that I should not ask rhetorical questions because they make me look forward and saucy. However I like them.

  Our first meal was lunch. On the way to England I didn’t eat a single meal in the dining room so I did not know that you ate at the same table with the same people every time. They were like your family for the crossing.

  The six people at our table were an English lady who was going to Oregon to marry a man who had a fruit farm, a clergyman and his wife, and a Scottish family who were moving to Seattle to start a hotel. The Scottish girl and her mother had very stylish clothes and I thought the girl, who was fifteen, might be a friend, but she and her mother turned out to be rather superior. They made sure we knew that they were more used to travelling in first class. They did say that second class on the Titanic was much like first class on other ships, but they said it as though they were being kind to us by sitting at our table.

  At first I was afraid of the clergyman because he had fearsome eyebrows that stuck out of his forehead like a badger. (Do I mean a badger? Do badgers have eyebrows? Badger-coloured, anyway.) But then he started to tell a story about a man who ran over somebody’s chicken and as he was telling the story he was fiddling with his napkin. Then, at the final line of the story, he gave the napkin a sharp twist and pull and it turned into a shape just like a plucked chicken ready for the oven. Everybody laughed, except his wife, who groaned and said, “Oh, Cyril,” but in a kind way, and Miss Pugh, who looked as though she had a pain. The next day he showed me how to do it.

  The chicken trick was also good because it made me notice a girl of about my age who was sitting at the next table. She had observed the chicken and she had a great loud laugh. Her mother shushed her and I knew right away that I liked her and that her mother was always shushing her and that we must try to get together.

  Miss Pugh only wanted to talk about the famous people in first class and thank goodness the Scottish mother and daughter were also interested in this tedious topic so that they could go on and on about the Astors and the Guggenheims and Lady this and the Countess of that. When they got to a long discussion of how a woman in first class was travelling with fourteen trunks, the clergyman’s eyebrows started to twitch.

  After lunch Miss Pugh wanted to have a nap so Beryl said she would show me the promenade and library on C deck. Then she had to go and answer some bells. Beryl was always answering bells. On the way up the stairs she told me the proper names for parts of the ship. Staircases between decks are called “companionwa
ys” and the corridor outside our rooms is an “alleyway.” The walls of the alleyways are called “bulkheads.” Beryl said that if I want to be a real sailor I should call them by their proper names. After that, whenever I heard Miss Pugh say “the wall of the corridor” I felt quite superior.

  When I got to the library I was happy to see that the loud-laughing girl from lunch was there and we started to talk right away. I found out that her name was Marjorie and that she was eleven. She was travelling with her parents and they were going to join her grandfather in California.

  She said right away that we must plan to sneak into somewhere that we are not allowed to go.

  I did not want to get into trouble, but something about Marjorie meant you could not say no to her ideas. “Like first class?” I asked. Miss Pugh had made much of the fact that we were not allowed to go into first class and, oh, if she could only see it.

  But Marjorie said that first class was all about hats and china and staircases and it would be better to try to sneak into the engine room or the kennels. Somehow she knew that there were kennels on the boat deck for all the bigger dogs. Then I asked her if she had seen the woman who looked just like her dog and she had and she laughed her loud laugh and the people quietly reading or writing postcards looked at us in a shushing sort of way and I knew that Marjorie was going to be the kind of friend who might get me into trouble but that it would be worth it.

  Around sunset we arrived in Cherbourg in France to board more passengers. They came out to the ship in smaller boats with all their luggage. Marjorie and I invented a game of picking out one embarking passenger group and waving furiously to them as though we knew them. It was comical to see them looking friendly and confused.

  In between all the things that happened that first day I thought about seasickness. I kept waiting for that dreadful feeling that starts somewhere behind your nose and ends up in every part of you, including the tips of your toes. But it never happened. Miss Pugh had told Beryl I was prone to seasickness and Beryl said I was to spend as much time on deck as possible and look at the far horizon, but that a smooth crossing was predicted and anyway, I looked like a girl who had her sea legs.