The Girl Who Came Home: A Novel of the Titanic

  I smiled, relieved to no longer have it banging against my shins, which were black and blue by now from heaving it across half of Ireland. The steward had a kind face, and I noticed the crew member badge on his arm. Number 23, whatever that meant.

  Our cabins are quite fine. Ours is number 115. There are four beds; two bunk beds. Me and Peggy have the two top bunks, and Aunt Kathleen and Katie have the two bottom ones. They all have proper mattresses and are as comfortable as any bed I have ever slept in. There is a hand wash basin in the cabin itself with two White Star Line hand towels hanging from silver hooks on either side. There is even a bar of White Star Line soap for us to use! When we were settled, the steward, Harry is his name, showed us where the life jackets were kept and took us up to see one of the sixteen lifeboats. Pat said the lifeboat was almost as big as the tender we had just left and how could anyone imagine that a ship could be built that was big enough to hold sixteen of them? Pat is like a child walking around this ship; he has the poor steward’s ear half bent off by asking so many questions about it!

  We set sail at 1:30 P.M. according to Ellen’s gleaming gold watch, which she takes out to tell the time at every possible opportunity. The thrust of the engines sent a shudder through my bones and a steady vibration through the wooden benches we were sitting on in the general room. Realizing we were setting sail, everyone rushed back out to the deck, eager to watch, to remember the moment when we departed Ireland’s shores.

  We stood for a long while at the white railings at the stern of the ship, silently watching the swell of the ocean, each crashing wave taking us farther away from everyone we loved and everything we knew.

  The man with the uilleann pipes stood next to me for a good while, but neither of us spoke. “She’s a mighty fine land,” he said eventually, “you should be very proud to have known her, wherever life might take you.”

  I turned to him. “Yes,” I said. “Yes, I am. Very proud indeed.” I remember feeling for the precious packet of letters in my coat pocket, still bound by their packaging and string. Grasping them and my rosary beads, I said a silent prayer.

  Titanic followed the coastline of Ireland for the rest of the afternoon, past the Old Head of Kinsale and on, following the cliffs and the mountains. We returned to our cabins now and again, coming back up to the deck occasionally to check whether land was still in sight. The sun was just beginning to dip in the sky as Titanic passed the final lighthouse. Aunt Kathleen told me it is known as “Ireland’s Teardrop” on account of it being the last sight of Ireland for those emigrating to America. I told her I thought that was a terrible, sad name. It is the right name, all the same, because I could not stop the tears then as Titanic turned to head out across the ocean, and the last part of Ireland faded into the sea mist and was obscured from view.

  PART TWO

  Marconigram message sent from Miss Dorothy Gibson, Carpathia, to Julie [Jules E. Brutalom] on April 18, 1912

  CHAPTER 9

  Cass County, Illinois

  April 21, 1982

  In the dimly lit dusty attic in her great-grandmother’s house, Grace rummaged among cardboard boxes and plastic bags, moving things to one side only to discover yet more boxes hidden behind the first layer. Nothing was labeled; there was no sense of organization. In fact, there was a distinct sense of disorganization. She leaned back on her heels, sighed, and placed her hands on her hips, glancing from one end of the attic to the other. It stretched across the length of the house and was littered with unwanted junk accumulated over the course of a lifetime.

  She’d already been looking for over an hour, and still the small black case she was searching for would not reveal itself. This is impossible, she thought, jumping at the sensation of a cobweb brushing against her arm. Maybe, after all these years, this case doesn’t want to be found.

  Since the night of her birthday party, Grace had been unable to think about anything other than Maggie and Titanic. Since Maggie had opened up to her about the events of that night, Grace found it incredible that her great-grandmother had sailed on that iconic ship and had survived such an awful tragedy. So many people—historians, writers, documentary makers—had wondered what life must have been like on board and what it was like to have experienced the terror that occurred four days into the voyage.

  Grace remembered doing a school project about the disaster when she was nine years old. She remembered the faces of the strange, ghostly-looking people in the black-and-white photographs of old newspaper articles. She remembered the childish pictures she had drawn of the disaster: a big black ship with one of the funnels broken and a small hole in one side. She wasn’t good at drawing people, so there weren’t any in her picture. Perhaps that had been when her mother had mentioned to her that her great-nana was on Titanic. She recalled how she had been so insistent that Grace must never ask Maggie about it. Nobody had spoken of it since.

  When Maggie had told her the entire, incredible story, had explained her unbearable sadness and her inability to accept what had happened, Grace had begun to understand why she’d wanted to completely eradicate something so traumatic from her life.

  “Why would God have spared me,” Maggie had said, “an insignificant young girl from Ireland, when so many others drowned?”

  If it was never spoken about, she’d explained, perhaps she would be able to distance herself from Titanic and simply see it—as thousands of people all over the world did—as an event that was fascinating in its telling and tragic in its reality. Maybe then she would be able to forget that she was on board; that she was one of the many hundreds of people involved.

  “Are you sure it’s a black case I’m looking for?” Grace shouted down the small hole in the attic floor that she had clambered through earlier that morning. “I can’t seem to find it anywhere.” As much as she wanted to find the case, it was getting hot and claustrophobic in the attic and Grace was thirsty.

  She could hear Maggie pottering about in the kitchen underneath, teaspoons clattering on teacups, the cookie tin being opened. She imagined Maggie placing one of her paper doilies carefully onto a china plate, arranging the biscuits (which she insisted on calling them out of loyalty to her Irish roots) in a perfect overlapping circle. It was a “thing” of Maggie’s, her “biscuit” display, an almost unreasonable amount of attention being paid to a seemingly trivial activity. But Maggie took pride in many things in life, and providing her guests with a nice pot of tea and a plate of uniformly arranged biscuits on a china plate was one of them.

  “Yes, dear,” she shouted back up, the projection of her voice causing her to cough slightly. “A small black case. About the size of a pillow. It’s probably near the back. Underneath a load of your great-grandfather’s old junk.”

  You don’t say.

  Just as she was about to give up and go down the stepladder for a tea break, Grace caught the slightest glimpse of a solid black corner jutting out between two fallen boxes. She clambered over to it, the ache in her stooped back and the pain in her knees suddenly forgotten. Her heart raced as she pushed the heavy boxes to one side and, grabbing the edge, pulled the small black case out onto the bare boards. It was about the size of a pillow.

  The hairs stood up on the back of her neck. She could hear the blood rushing through her ears, her heart hammering in her chest. Yes, she thought, yes. This is it! She swept her fingers across the top of the case, sending a shower of dust motes whirling into the air around her, blurring her vision temporarily and making her cough.

  As the dust settled, she saw what she had been searching for. A luggage label bearing the name Maggie Murphy and the address North Ashland Avenue, Chicago.

  “I have it, Maggie!” she called, coughing again in the dust. “I’ve found it!” Her voice was shrill with excitement. Her great-grandmother didn’t respond. “I’m coming down; you can pour the tea.”

  Maggie placed the case carefully on her lap. She sat for a moment, closing her eyes, lost in the distant memories of her life. The small cl
ock on the mantelpiece struck eleven, a bird sang from the old blackberry bush in the garden, a fly buzzed annoyingly in the hallway, and dust danced in the shaft of sunlight streaming in through the window. Nothing else moved for those few quiet moments. Grace hardly dared breathe.

  “I shouldn’t have it, really,” Maggie said softly, rubbing her hand across the top of the case. “It’s ridiculous now when I think about it, the ship sinking and me and Peggy going back for her hat. We didn’t realize how bad it was, though, you see, Grace; we didn’t think she would go down. It was only when we got back to the cabin that I took my coat and suitcase. I don’t even remember holding this little case. But I must have. All that time, it must have been in my hand.” She sat silently again then, as she prepared herself to face her past.

  “Do you remember what’s in it, Maggie?” Grace asked.

  Her great-grandmother looked at her, a softness, a sadness in her eyes. “I do, Grace. I do. Even after all these years.”

  Grace watched quietly as Maggie fiddled with the rusted fastenings, her frail hands shaking more than usual, the latches grating and groaning but refusing to open. Those few moments felt like hours to Grace; the small black case like a barrier, a dam against which a deluge of memories had strained for decades and that now threatened to engulf her great-grandmother as soon as it released its secrets and revealed its history.

  “Are you absolutely sure you want to do this?” Grace asked tentatively, afraid that opening the case might have a bigger impact on their lives than either of them had anticipated.

  Maggie looked at her. “No, I’m not sure at all. But we’re here now, aren’t we? And I don’t know about you, but I’m certainly not going to put this case back up in that stuffy old attic without seeing what’s inside.”

  Finally the fastenings clicked open. Gently, Maggie lifted the lid, emitting a tiny, barely audible gasp as her eyes settled on the contents.

  It was a moment Grace would never forget, watching this dignified old lady whom she loved so much, as she stared into a small case she’d last seen when only a girl. A lifetime of memories flooded Maggie’s lined face; a lifetime of forgetting was washed away. It was a moment of silent reflection; a moment laced with poignancy.

  Maggie lifted her head, resting it against the back of the chair, a sense of release washing over her, the dreadful burden of carrying this tragedy with her for all these years seeming to lift from her small shoulders.

  Grace sat quietly in the chair opposite, rubbing her fingers over the rough, plum-colored upholstery, digging her nails into the edges of the intricate pattern, just as she had done since she could first remember coming to this house as a small child. She almost felt uncomfortable now, as if she were intruding on a very private moment. As she watched Maggie, the magnitude of her story hit Grace fully for the first time. She had been on Titanic. She had watched that great ship sink into an icy sea. She had heard the screams and terror of a thousand voices and had lost everything except for the contents of that small, insignificant case and the clothes on her back. It struck Grace that this was no longer about a story to reignite her journalism career; this was real life, and she was watching it happen in front of her very eyes.

  From the case, Maggie began to lift out the items, caressing and studying each one as if it were the most precious of treasures. A simple steel hair comb, a handled mirror, an emerald-colored brooch, a pair of black cotton gloves, a Bible, a set of rosary beads and a bottle of holy water, a green third-class health inspection certificate, a menu card, a small book, and a bundle of what looked like newspaper clippings. Memories flashed across Maggie’s mind, each item provoking a remembered conversation, a place, or a person.

  Maggie held her Titanic boarding ticket for a good while, rubbing gently at the fragile paper with her fingers. She closed her eyes and was immediately transported back to the clattering hooves of the horses as they rode into the streets of Castlebar. She remembered walking into Mr. Durcan’s office on Main Street to collect their tickets. She recalled Tom Durcan as a stout, middle-aged man with a whiskery mustache and small, shifty eyes. He’d smiled at her and winked as he handed the tickets to her aunt. “She’s a beauty,” he’d whispered to her. “Forty ton of potatoes on board, they say, and no less than forty thousand eggs. Ye certainly won’t be starvin’, that’s for sure.”

  Her eyes had widened at the sheer thought of that many eggs, and she’d said something about looking forward to being among the first to sail on the ship before her aunt had bustled her out of the office saying if they stood around chattering all morning, Titanic would sail without them and then they wouldn’t be eating a one of those eggs, let alone forty thousand. She remembered herself and Peggy admiring their tickets with the impressive picture of Titanic on the front; remembered how her heart had sunk to know that she was looking at the ticket that would take her away from Séamus. Peggy had been excited to note that their tickets were sequential, hers being 330923 and Maggie’s 330924. How inconsequential that ticket number had turned out to be.

  “Not much really, is it, to start a new life,” Maggie said now, turning the items over in her hands. “Not much at all. Of course, the rest of my things were in my aunt’s larger case, and we know where that is now. We kept the trunks under the bunk beds, but I kept my personal possessions in here, you know, for safekeeping. I kept this case at the bottom of my bed with my coat. There were some letters that I kept in my coat pocket. It’s a shame I didn’t keep them in here, I suppose.”

  Grace moved over to her and knelt at Maggie’s side, placing a hand on hers. “Do you mind if I look?”

  “Of course not. It’s of no use to me now, is it?”

  Grace studied everything carefully, asking Maggie about the story behind each item and unwrapping the bundle of newspaper clippings. It was an archivist’s dream.

  “Oh, my goodness, Maggie, this is amazing. These are actual newspapers from the time. Look, the New York Herald, April sixteenth, 1912.” Grace read the headline. THE TITANIC SINKS WITH 1800 ON BOARD. ONLY 675, MOSTLY WOMEN AND CHILDREN, SAVED.

  They sat for a while then, poring over the fragile, yellowed newspapers.

  “It was the nurses at St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York,” Maggie explained. “They’d kept all the newspapers to follow the story. Of course, the papers got it all wrong at first, you know, reporting that Titanic was sailing back to Belfast for repairs. Look.” She pointed to another headline, reading it out loud: “ ‘Titanic’s passengers all rescued.’ And look at this one from the Washington Times: ‘Liner Titanic kept afloat by water-tight compartments. Being towed into Halifax, N.S.’ They didn’t know we were all drowning, you see.” She paused for a moment as they studied some more of the incredible newspaper headlines. “And look, here I am being quoted by the reporters who came to talk to us in the hospital.”

  Grace studied the page where her great-grandmother’s words were quoted. “Wow, Maggie. This is amazing!”

  “One of the nurses gave most of these to me when I left the hospital,” Maggie continued. “She said I might want to keep them. She said that Titanic would still be talked about in a hundred years’ time. I thought she was joking.”

  She paused then as she handed a small black notebook to Grace. “I used to fancy myself a bit of a writer too, you know.”

  “What is it?” Grace asked, turning the book over in her hands and flicking through the pages.

  “It’s my journal. I started to write it the night we got to Queenstown. A friend gave me the idea. I thought I might like to show it to my aunt Mary when we arrived in Chicago; thought I might sit with my children one day and tell them all about the fantastic ship I had sailed to America on. I was writing an entry when we hit the iceberg. You can even see the shudder in my handwriting. Look.”

  Maggie pointed to a page about halfway through the book: there’ll be quite a party planned for our arrival at the docks in New York I should think. The other three are already fast asleep. I should probably turn out th
e light soon and get some slee—

  There was indeed a definite jerk in the handwriting. The rest of the page was blank.

  “Maggie, this is incredible. I just can’t take it all in. How do you feel seeing all these things again now?”

  Maggie sat and thought for a moment.

  “D’you know something? I thought I would feel sadness. But I don’t. I think I finished with all my sadness a long time ago. Now? Now, I guess I feel comforted by seeing these things. It’s just a shame about the letters. I’d have liked to see them again.”

  Grace stood up then to stretch her legs and walked over to the window. She liked to watch the birds that always flocked to the feeders and nesting boxes dotted around Maggie’s garden. “What were the letters, by the way?”

  “Ah, now that’s a different matter altogether. That does make me feel a little sad.”

  “Why? What were they?”

  Maggie laughed to herself. “They were from my boyfriend. I left him in Ireland. He wasn’t so good with his words, but he gave me a packet of letters the morning I left our village. I remember him saying it would mean I didn’t have to wait on any deliveries, that I could read a letter from him whenever I wanted to. He told me he’d written fourteen letters, one for each month we’d courted. I’d only read four of them. I thought I should wait until I reached America to read the rest, thinking that I might read one a month, as if he’d actually just sent it to me. That way I could be reminded of him whenever I was missing him the most.” She paused then, remembering him: his gentle manner, his soft eyes, his beautiful red hair. “We used to meet under a cherry blossom tree after market on a Wednesday morning. It was a nice arrangement.” She smiled to herself.

  “So what happened to the letters?”

  “I lost them. They were in my coat pocket, you see, and I have no idea what happened to it. I had it on when I got into the lifeboat and it was gone when I left the hospital. I vaguely remember giving it to a child, to try to keep her warm, and that a well-to-do lady who was on the lifeboat with me gave me her overcoat because I was shivering so much with the cold. She was a Ziegfeld star—a singer, I think—Vera or Violet or something; I can’t remember her name now. Anyway, it was all so confusing, you know, trying to track people down, trying to find out if they had survived or gone down with the ship. I’m sure nobody paid much attention to a simple black coat. I’ve often wondered what those other letters said. It would be nice to know.”