Through the process of unravelling Maggie’s past life, Grace thought more and more about the shoebox under her own bed. It contained the letters Jimmy had written to her after her father died. They were unopened.
For two years, she had tried to ignore the nagging urge to crawl under the bed, take the rubber-band off the shoebox and tear open the envelopes on the dozen or so letters to see what it was that Jimmy had wanted to say to her. She had also tried to ignore the nagging urge to call him. It wasn’t that she didn’t love him anymore. She did. Completely. She had never stopped loving him. And that was the problem.
Having lost her father, the man she adored with all her heart, it seemed impossible to Grace that she could ever let herself love anyone as much again, the pain was too much to bear when they went away from your life. So she’d stopped herself from loving Jimmy; stopped herself from rushing to the phone to hear the sound of his voice and stopped herself from tearing open the envelopes which were addressed to her in his distinctive handwriting. She’d been stopping herself from doing all this for two years and she was exhausted.
Ever since Maggie had taken her to one side at her twenty-first birthday party and told her about her experiences on Titanic, Grace had started to feel differently about her own life. With every new revelation about Maggie’s life in Ireland and through the words she had written in her journal, Grace felt an increasing sense of purpose, of focus and renewal.
She sat on her bed now, the dusty shoebox in her hands, and imagined how Maggie must have felt sitting in that cart, being taken further and further away from her home and the man she loved; how she must have felt sitting on the narrow bunk bed of the cabin she’d shared with her aunt and her two friends, clutching the packet of letters from Séamus and carefully unwrapping them one day at a time as she sailed further away from him.
As far as Grace could tell from Maggie’s journal, she had only read four of the letters. The contents of the other ten were never known as they were lost on the night of the sinking. Maggie had said that she would have liked to know what was in the rest of those letters, even though she realised that it really didn’t matter now. I have a chance to know Grace thought to herself. I have a chance to find out.
Her hands shaking, she removed the rubber band from the box, sending a shower of dust into the air. She lifted the lid and looked at the neatly stacked pile of letters. She flicked through the envelopes. There were fourteen. Fourteen, she thought to herself the same number of letters that Séamus had written to Maggie A shiver passed down her spine.
The postmarks were dated from January 1980 to June 1980. After that, there were no more. After that, Jimmy had got the message loud and clear that Grace was not going to respond; did not want to know how he felt or what he had to say. After that, Jimmy had given up – on her and on their relationship. And although that stark fact saddened her more than anything else, she couldn’t blame him.
As the spring rain fell soft and steady outside her window, Grace remembered something her father had said to her once. ‘Never leave yourself open to regret Grace. We can only make a decision when we know the choices we are faced with. If we shy away, turn our backs and hide, we will simply never know. And that is when you end up old and wondering and regretting. Live a life of hope. Don’t live a life of regret.’
Those words swam around her mind now and she knew that he was right. Whatever had made Maggie break her silence after all these years had been for a reason, and if even part of that reason had been for Grace to realise that she had so much to be grateful for in her own life, had so much to live for, she knew now that she had to act on that reason. Her hands carefully opened the first envelope. She took a deep breath and began to read.
By nightfall, Grace had placed four typed pages of A4 paper into a manila envelope. The title at the top said simply ‘The Girl Who Came Home’. She addressed the envelope: Private and Confidential, F.A.O Professor Andrews, School of Journalism, University of Illinois, Chicago, Illinois. Within the packet, she also placed a smaller envelope, marked c/o Professor Andrews. F.A.O Jimmy Shepard, third year student of Journalism. Private and Confidential. Please deliver if possible or return to sender. Inside the envelope was a single piece of paper with the handwritten words: I am so, so sorry. Please can I buy you a coffee?’ G.
A week later, Professor Andrews sat back in his chair, placed the typed pages onto his desk and put his hands behind his head.
‘Unbelievable!’ he said aloud, a smile spreading across his narrow face. ‘Absolutely unbelievable.’ He was excited, rummaging around the clutter of his top drawer looking for a phone number, muttering to himself. ‘I knew you had it in you Miss Butler! I knew it, I knew it! Oh, welcome back. Welcome back indeed!’
Finding the business card he was looking for he stood up with the folded sheets of neatly typed A4 paper in his hand and dialled the number from the business card into the grey telephone which sat on the corner of his desk. After a few rings, it was answered.
‘Bill, how are you? Peter Andrews here.’ He paused to wait for the man’s response, chuckling intermittently as they exchanged pleasantries and banter. ‘I’ve something here that I think you might like,’ he continued. ‘An ex-student of mine has finally got around to writing a feature article for a slot you offered to her two years ago.’ Again, he waited for his colleague’s response. ‘Yes, that’s the one. Grace Butler. Yes, that’s right, her father died very suddenly. Well, it turns out Miss Butler is the great-granddaughter of a Titanic survivor!’
At this he paused himself, pre-empting the reaction he knew he was going to get. He could sense the excitement at the other end of the phone; knew that Bill O’Shea would realise he was onto a scoop.
‘I know, I know,’ he continued, ‘and it’s one heck of a story – written beautifully as well. I’ll get Dorothy to make a few copies and send it over to you.’
Replacing the receiver, he picked up the smaller envelope which had come with the typed pages. F.A.O: Jimmy Shepard, third year student of Journalism. Private and Confidential. Please deliver if possible or return to sender.
He smiled and walked out of his office to his secretary, asking her to make three copies of the article and have them couriered over to Bill O’Shea at The Tribune straightaway and to deliver the envelope in person to a Mr Shepard who was a final year student in Lincoln Halls. He instructed her to say that it was an important message from Professor Andrews.
Although very tempted, he considered it best not to make the call to Grace at home – not yet. He was a wise man, preferring to wait for the responses from the two men he had just forwarded the documents onto. His sense was that Bill O’Shea’s would be more than favourable, as for the Shepard boy, he had no idea, but hoped that Grace got the response she was hoping for.
The following day, Professor Peter Andrews was called by his colleague Bill O’Shea to inform him that the article submitted by Grace Butler, ‘The Girl Who Came Home’ would be published in two weeks’ time and as he didn’t have any contact details for Ms Butler, perhaps he could be so kind as to let her know and ask her to call the office with a brief by-line. They suspected that once the story went out, there would be a quite a bit of interest in Grace Butler and her great-grandmother.
Professor Andrews also received a visit from Jimmy Shepard, who thanked him for forwarding the envelope and assured him that he would attend to the matter immediately.
CHAPTER 26 - R.M.S Titanic, 15th April 1912
It was the stars she saw first as she clambered up on deck. The millions and millions of twinkling stars, illuminating the sky like the magical lands of her childhood imagination; the very same stars she used to look at in Ballysheen, captivated by their beauty and unfathomable distance.
The vast, empty space of the sky above her now seemed to make this ship, which she had gasped at in wonder and awe just a few days ago, feel suddenly very small and extremely fragile. At that moment, as the cacophony of noise and confusion on the deck engulfed her, sh
e longed, more than anything in her entire life, to be back in her humble, stone cottage warming her fingers over the glow of the embers from the fire as Séamus sat by her side.
She looked around, turning her head wildly from side to side, standing on her tiptoes, peering over the heads of the masses of people swarming all around her. Where was Aunt Kathleen? She had to be here, had to be somewhere. ‘Kathleen!’ she screamed, shouting as loudly as she could. ‘Aunt Kathleen! It’s me! Maggie. I’m over here. Kathleen! Where are you?’
She’d never felt so far away from home, so utterly lost and terrified, in all her seventeen years of life.
‘Maggie, Maggie, over here.’ But it was Harry’s voice, not Kathleen’s, which brought her back into the moment. ‘We have to go up again,’ he shouted, trying to make himself heard about the noise of the panicked passengers and the continual hiss of steam from the funnels high above them. ‘There’s a few boats left on the upper deck.’
Maggie stood in a daze, unable to comprehend what she was seeing. All around her, people were running from one side of the ship to the other, some carrying deck chairs, others clutching onto rubber-rings which they’d found in the gift shop – everyone desperately searching for something which they might be able to hold onto in the water – something which might mean the difference between life and death.
Masses of bodies crowded around the boats which were the next to be lowered. Men were being held back, prevented from getting in, while women and children clambered in reluctantly, almost as frightened about the prospect of drifting endlessly through the freezing black night as they were about staying on the sinking ship. She watched with heart-wrenching helplessness as several women climbed back out of their lifeboats, unable, in the final moment, to leave without their husbands, fathers and brothers. She had never witnessed such a terrifying sight in all her life and stood frozen in fear.
Men called to women as they encouraged them to take to the lifeboats without them. ‘Be brave; no matter what happens, be brave and keep your hands in your pockets, it is very cold weather,’ she heard one man say to a woman who Maggie presumed was his wife. Another woman was lifted, kicking and screaming into a boat. ‘Go Lottie!” a man called after her. ‘For God's sake, be brave and go!’
She watched in horror as another woman, who clearly refused to leave her husband, lifted her young daughter and baby into a boat, entrusting them to the care of their nurse before collapsing onto her knees on the deck, clinging to her husband’s ankles as the boat was lowered over the side. She could barely move as she watched these scenes of unimaginable grief unfolding in front of her, in every direction she looked, each scene more distressing and unbearable than the last.
Out on the water there were already several lifeboats rowing away from the ship, the tiny dots of white from the lifejackets worn by the occupants reflecting back off the lights from the ship which still lit up the water all around them. Other boats were being slowly lowered down the side of the ship, the crewmen shouting instructions to each other to make sure the boats were lowered evenly while the women inside screamed and sobbed. She saw one woman clamber out just as the boat was being lowered over the edge, running back to a man on the deck who embraced her.
‘There are no more boats on this deck,’ Harry shouted. ‘Follow me.’
He took the group towards another ladder then, which led up to the boat deck, the highest point on the ship. This ladder was already teeming with bodies; people of all ages and class trying desperately to get up to the remaining boats as they felt the forward compartments of the ship sink further and further under the water. Large, burly men pushed past Maggie in an attempt to secure their own escape or to help women and children who were with them get a foothold on the ladder. A Priest stood reciting prayers as a group huddled together at his feet, their heads bowed.
It was a desperate, frantic moment which frightened Maggie to her core. She knew that Harry, Maura and Jack Brennan, Eileen Brennan and young Michael Kelly were ahead of her. Behind her were Peggy, Katie and the rest of the girls with Pat insisting he follow the last of them up. Struggling with all her might against the surge of bodies behind her, she eventually got a foothold on the ladder and started to climb.
‘Oh Jesus, my hat.’
She knew immediately it was Peggy’s voice and craning her neck around, saw her friend scrabbling about on the deck for her hat which had been knocked off her head. In the confusion, others climbed up ahead of her, forcing Katie and the others back.
‘Peggy,’ Maggie cried. ‘Peggy, leave it. We have to go. Katie….’
Pushed along by the momentum of the crowd behind her, Maggie had no choice but to keep climbing, emerging onto the boat deck, terrified, shivering uncontrollably with the cold and separated from everyone from her group other than the few who stood with her.
The emergency rockets being fired into the sky sent a bright red light across the ship which was now audibly creaking and groaning under the strain of the water flooding the lower compartments.
Maura Brennan stared wildly around at the unfamiliar faces emerging from the ladder behind them. ‘Maggie, where are the others? They were right behind us.’
‘They got pushed back. I don’t know. I don’t know where they are.’ Maggie’s fear developed into gasping tears then, the enormity of what was happening suddenly hitting her. ‘I don’t know where they are, and I don’t know where Aunt Kathleen is either.’
Grabbing her arm, Harry pulled Maggie and the others he had managed to bring up the ladder towards a lifeboat. ‘It’s women and children first,’ he told them. ‘The men will follow.’
Maura Brennan grasped Harry’s arm. ‘What in God’s name d’ye mean? Can we not all go together?’
‘Officer’s orders Miss. Women and children first.’
A terrible silence fell over the group then. Maggie looked at all their faces.
An Officer, manning the boat started shouting at them urgently. ‘Everyone in, Miss, come on, everyone in. There’s room for a few more.’
Seeing that Maura was pregnant he ushered her towards the boat, pushing Eileen and Maggie with her. A surge of passengers behind them caused them all them to be pushed forward, their legs crushed momentarily against the hard edge of the lifeboat. Some men tried to clamber aboard. A gunshot rang out. Maggie turned to see the Officer waving his gun in the air.
‘Get back men. Get back and wait your turn.’
Amid all the confusion, Maura Brennan stood perfectly still, a determined composure and certainty about her. ‘I’ll not go.’ Maggie stared at Maura who stood at the edge of the boat. ‘I’ll not go without Jack. I will never go without Jack.’
Standing next to her, Eileen started to sob desperate tears. ‘I’ll not go either, Jack. I’ll not leave my brother standing here. I’ll not leave you to drown.’
As the women hesitated, their seats were gladly taken by others.
The Officer pushed Maggie forward. ‘Miss, one seat left, I would take it now if I were you before it’s too late.’
Maggie hesitated, looking wildly from one face to the other, at young Michael Kelly’s face streaked with tears. ‘Let the boy in,’ she said to the Officer, pushing the Kelly boy forward. ‘Let him go in this boat. He has a Mammy at home.’
‘Women and children first Miss. He can go in the next boat.’
‘But, I can’t go alone,’ she cried, clutching at Maura’s thin coat. ‘I can’t leave you all here. And what about the baby?’ she added, suddenly very conscious of the life growing within Maura’s belly.
‘We’ll take the next boat Maggie. When all the women and children are on, they’ll let the men go and we will all go together. Peggy and Katie and the others will have made their way up by then and we’ll all come together. If I know your aunt Kathleen, she’ll have been helping others get onto the boats and will be on one herself by now, probably rowing the blessed thing herself if I know her at all.’
Harry moved forward. ‘Maggie, you have to get in
. They’re starting to lower the boat.’ He stared earnestly into her tear-filled eyes. ‘Remember who’s waiting for you back home?’ he added, reminded of the message she’d been so keen to send.
Maggie relented then, unable to fight anymore; no energy left in her body to protest. She allowed Harry to lift her gently into the boat.
‘You - Steward 23.’ Harry turned to the Officer who was addressing him. ‘Man this lifeboat and when you get on the water row away from the ship as quickly as you can. Do you understand?’
‘Yes Sir, I understand. You’ll bring the others in the next boat, will you?’
Harry looked into the Officer’s eyes where he saw fear the like of which he had never seen before and hoped he would never see again for as long as he lived.
‘This is the last boat,’ the Officer replied, lowering his voice. ‘There are no more.’
Climbing into the boat Harry heard the orders for the lifeboat to be lowered over the side and closed his eyes to the tragedy unfolding on the decks above them.
Maggie’s heart felt as if it had truly broken in two as she stared up at the faces of Maura, Jack, Eileen and Michael as they stood, calmly watching her, all four of them holding hands as they stood against the railings, Maura clutching her rosary. There was simply nothing anyone could say. She watched them, isolated among the chaos and despair, before their faces finally disappeared from view.
As the lifeboat jerked and jolted as it was lowered roughly down into the black ocean, something came over her. Something strong stirred within her; an incredible will to survive, to live a long and happy life.
‘I will not die here,’ she whispered to herself, her teeth chattering with the cold which had penetrated every inch of her body. ‘Not here. Not now. I’m coming home Séamus,’ she repeated over and over again. ‘I’m coming home.’