The Girl Who Came Home - a Titanic Novel

by Hazel Gaynor

  She asked Jimmy to take her to the lake first.

  It was exactly as she remembered it, as if she was looking at a snapshot taken seventy years ago. Nothing had changed from the morning when she and her thirteen fellow travellers had departed – it was as if time had stood still, as if these fields, mountains and lakes had been waiting for her to return.

  Jimmy and Grace waited in the car as Maggie picked her way steadily through the long grass, brushing the jinny joes from her skirt, using her stick for balance where the ground undulated beneath her. She stood at the edge of the lake, lost in a lifetime. Breathing in the fresh, clean air, filling her lungs with the goodness and life contained within it. She watched the water, as the breeze sent a flurry of ripples skidding across its surface. Snippets of past conversations skipped through her mind; Peggy and Katie laughing about life in America, Séamus asking her to dance, her aunt telling her in clipped, purposeful tones that she was bringing her to a better life in America. She felt her own hesitancy and sense of dread as she’d climbed up into the trap; she sensed his presence, felt him standing next to her, his arm slung casually, protectively around her shoulders.

  After a while, Grace and Jimmy joined her and they sat for a time by the lakeside on the coats which Jimmy had brought out of the car, listening to Maggie’s memories, the young couple entirely entranced by the silence and beauty of the place.

  ‘For seventeen years I called these hills and fields home,’ Maggie told them, wistfully. ‘For seventy more I’ve called somewhere else home, but this is where I belong. Now, I am truly home.’

  A single cloud drifted momentarily across the sun, casting a shadow over the ground. As it passed, Maggie closed her eyes, enjoying the sensation of warmth flooding her body. She felt in her coat pocket for the small bundle of letters held together with a frayed piece of string and smiled.

  ‘Are you ready to go into the village?’ Grace asked, helping Maggie to her feet.

  ‘As ready as I’ll ever be,’ she replied, smiling.

  Grace noticed her wipe a tear from her cheek – she looked vulnerable. She could almost see the seventeen-year-old girl she had been when she’d last set eyes on this place.

  Jimmy parked the car and they strolled together then up the village main street, the locals going about their business, laughing and chatting outside the post office and the butchers, unaware of the significance of the old lady walking amongst them.

  The parish church of St. Patrick’s looked just as it had all those years ago with its high, arched windows and soaring spire. The cool, hushed interior was a welcome relief from the bustle and noise outside and Maggie stepped forward to light a candle at the high altar. Jimmy and Grace waited towards the back of the church, giving her some privacy in her thoughts and prayers.

  ‘Hey Grace, look at this,’ Jimmy whispered, pulling her towards an engraving on a stone slab set into the wall by the door. The two of them stood and stared, amazed by what they saw.

  Dedicated to the memory of all those who left this parish on 10th April 1912 to sail on the Titanic’s maiden voyage to a new world and who perished when she sank in the Atlantic ocean on 15th April 1912. We will never forget them. And to the only known survivors Maggie Murphy and Peggy Madden. We welcome you home. Always.

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ Grace whispered. ‘They remembered them. They remembered them all. This is what she always wondered. Whether they were known and remembered. She’ll be so pleased.’

  When Maggie finished praying, they took her to the inscription. She stood silently reading all the names of those she had travelled with and loved, reaching out to feel the lettering etched into the cold slab of stone, running her fingers across each name as if she were running her hand across the cheek of the person it belonged to.

  Kathleen Murphy, 44 years

  Ellen Joyce, 33 years,

  Katie Kenny, 24 years

  Patrick Brogan, 22 years

  Maura Brennan, 35 years

  Jack Brennan, 37 years

  Eileen Brennan, 32 years

  Michael Kelly, 17 years

  Mary Brogan, 29 years

  Bridget Moloney, 23 years

  Maria Cusack, 22 years

  Margaret Daly, 26 years

  The Priest, who had been watching their interest in the plaque for some time, wandered over to tell them something of its history. He explained that for several years the loss of life on Titanic from the area was not talked about, but that over the years, descendants of the travellers had felt it right and proper to acknowledge the event and remember those who lost their lives every year on April 15th. He pointed then in the direction of a grassed area to the right of the church where he informed them stood a bell which was rung once every minute, for fourteen minutes, on 15th April at 2.20am to mark the moment when Titanic sank.

  Maggie didn’t tell him who she was, preferring to remain as he imagined her to be, nothing more significant than a passing American tourist.

  They walked then, through the village. Much had changed; the shops were new, the road was tarmacked and the cars and diesel farm machinery hummed past them, blowing out their choking exhaust fumes. Yet many things were reassuringly unchanged; the pub, the stone bridge, the old school building – albeit now converted into somebody’s home. What struck Maggie most was that there were only two blossom trees standing; park benches and flower beds now in the place where the other trees once stood.

  ‘But there used to be fourteen,’ she exclaimed. ‘Why ever would they have chopped them all down? They were so beautiful in the springtime.’ She walked to one of the two trees still standing, the blossom finished for the season, the vivid green foliage casting a pleasant shade on the pavement underneath. ‘I’d just like to take a moment,’ she announced, touching the bark of the trunk of one of the trees with her hand, circling it and glancing up through the dappled shade to the branches above. She sighed. And then she noticed an inscription, carved into the wood. MM SD Saying nothing to Grace or Jimmy, she smiled as she recognised her and Séamus’s initials. ‘You romantic old fool,’ she chuckled under her breath.

  She agreed to let Jimmy take a photo, as he’d promised to do for their entire trip, to capture the memories for her so that she need never forget or wonder again.

  They strolled then up towards the edge of the town, to where the fields began, Maggie walking purposefully towards a derelict stone cottage, almost hidden from view entirely by the mass of long grass and weeds which grew rampant around it, wrapped around the crumbling stones and creeping and twisting through the empty window frames. Jimmy and Grace held back.

  ‘This was my home,’ she told them as she pushed open a rickety wooden gate which groaned and creaked under the strain as it pushed against the thick, long grass which snaked around it. ‘This is where I lived.’

  She stood at what remained of the kitchen window and imagined herself back there on that calm, spring morning as she’d watched Peggy throw the blossom petals onto Maura Brennan’s head, giggling and laughing with excitement about the journey ahead of them. She remembered Maura’s swollen, pregnant stomach and closed her eyes against the memory of her standing on the deck of Titanic, one hand grasping her husband Jack’s, the other placed protectively over her stomach. What a happy life they would have led had things worked out differently.

  She could almost feel her aunt Kathleen among the broken rubble and gnarled branches; stiff, forthright, practical, confident Aunt Kathleen, standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips as she’d watched Maggie go off to tell the others the carts were ready. She saw her face, the hint of a smile playing across her lips, so much to look forward to, so much to show her niece when they arrived in America. The image faded as a cloud passed overhead, momentarily blocking out the sun and casting the three of them and the house into a cold shadow.

  ‘We never knew what happened to her that night you know.’ Maggie spoke softly as she pottered around among the remnants of her home. ‘She made sure we were all aware of
the danger and knew what we must do - and then we lost her. Gone, without a trace. All sorts of dark thoughts filled my mind as I watched that ship lurch and groan as she broke apart – maybe she was trapped somewhere, maybe she was one of those desperate voices I could hear screaming in the waters around me.’

  ‘Don’t Maggie,’ Grace said, placing her arm gently around Maggie’s frail shoulders. ‘Don’t think that. She was a very good woman. She’ll be at peace now.’

  ‘You’d never believe a lovely little home used to stand here would you,’ she said. ‘But it did and I can see it now if I shut my eyes, every last brick and stone. The kettle hanging over the fire, the smell of oatcakes baking, the warmth from the fire. Ah, it was a grand home. I was very sorry to leave it.’

  After leaving her to say a prayer among the stones and weeds, Grace and Jimmy walked with her then to other homes which Maggie wanted to visit. Most of them stood now as her own home did, a blanket of weeds covering everything, obscuring the memories of what used to be and yet, in what appeared as just piles of rubble and weeds to others, Maggie saw memories; saw familiar faces in every crumbled stone, saw smoke rising from the fallen chimneys, heard conversations through the broken doors; laughter and chiding parents through the open windows. Although they were all lost to the ocean, something about the people who had lived in these broken homes endured.

  For all the passing of time and the changes in how people lived, there was a sense of history retained by the people of this town. She had seen it with her very eyes on the engraved stone slab in the church and at the remembrance bell. It comforted her to know that she, her aunt and all the others were not forgotten, not ignored, but were remembered and commemorated for the life they had led here and for the courage and fortitude they had shown in daring to leave it all behind in search of something better.

  As the light of the afternoon sun began to fade, there was just one place left which Maggie wished to visit. It was a long walk so she asked Jimmy if they could return to the car. From their parking spot at the church, she navigated from memory, down a side road which led in a slight incline towards the foot of the mountain. Half-way along the road, she asked Jimmy to stop.

  ‘I won’t be long,’ she said, getting slowly out of the car and walking through the gate which blocked the entrance to the field. She looked about her from right to left and waited for a moment before returning to the car, closing the gate behind her.

  ‘Were you hoping to see something else Maggie?’” Grace asked tentatively.

  ‘I was dear, yes. This is where Séamus used to live with his father. It would seem that the house has disappeared without a trace. There’s no sign of it, no trace at all. Well, never mind,’ she continued. ‘It cannot be undone now.’

  Returning to the lake to eat the few provisions they had bought in the local shops, Maggie decided to stay in the car, letting the cool, early evening breeze drift in through the open window while Grace and Jimmy stretched out easily on the coats spread on the grass. Maggie momentarily envied their youth and the ease at which they could manoeuvre their bodies from a sitting to a lying to a standing position. Things you take for granted when you’re in the flush of youth, she supposed, biting into the freshly baked soda bread, savouring every mouthful.

  She watched silently as the young couple strolled happily down to the lakeside, scouring the ground for the perfect skimming stone, laughing and joking as their various attempts succeeded or failed. It reminded Maggie very much of herself and Séamus and the many, many happy times they had spent at this very spot, doing exactly the same. From the back, Grace could almost be Maggie, except Grace’s hair tumbled around her shoulders in a way that Maggie’s never had. She laughed at this memory of her obsession with her hair. And as for Jimmy, he could easily be mistaken for Séamus; the same broad shoulders, stocky build and tousled, fair hair. How easily those two people could be us, lost in time, she thought.

  As she watched her great granddaughter now with a man she clearly adored, she was proud of the choices and decisions she had taken in her life; was proud of her family and proud to be able to call this place home.

  As dusk fell, they drove out of Ballysheen towards the guest house they’d arranged to stay in nearby. They were silent in the car, each taking in everything they had seen that day. Grace was so moved watching Maggie walking around the broken ruins of her homes, and the homes of those she had known so well and had been touched by the way the parish remembered the Titanic victims. These were her relatives too. This was the land her ancestors had worked in their struggle for survival. She felt grounded by it, by being able to stand amid the bricks and stones where they had once baked their daily bread. And yet she was still a little unsure whether it had been the right thing to do bringing Maggie back here, and was a little worried about Maggie’s reactions and her silence since they’d left.

  ‘So, how do you feel having seen it all again Maggie?’ she asked, leaning forward from the back seat so Maggie could hear her over the sound of the car engine.

  Maggie considered the question for a moment. ‘I’ve been thinking that myself dear and do you know something, I’m glad. I’m glad I came back to see for myself and yes it’s a little sad to see the homes all fallen about themselves, but what could I expect really after seventy years? It didn’t matter somehow. I could still feel the spirit of the place and just by touching those fallen stones, I feel that I’ve reached out to everyone I knew; that I’ve touched them again somehow. It’s as if they never left – as if they’re still there among all the weeds and the rubble. How do I feel? Peaceful, I think. Yes, peaceful.’

  ‘I’m so sorry that Séamus’ home wasn’t there,’ Grace added. ‘I know you’d have liked to see it.’

  ‘Yes, it is a shame, but after all this time no surprise I suppose. The farmer who owns that land now wasn’t to know that an old lady would come back one day looking for the home of a man who used to live there so many years ago.’

  ‘I think I would have liked Séamus,’ Grace mused as she looked out of the window at the passing countryside. ‘He sounds like such a lovely man. I’d like to have met him.’

  Maggie smiled to herself as she watched a rabbit darting back into its burrow, startled by the noise of the car. ‘Well dear, as it happens, you did. You did meet him.’

  ‘What?!’ Grace and Jimmy both reacted together.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Grace continued, as Jimmy slowed the car and pulled into a nearby gateway. ‘I never met him! How could I have met him when he lived in Ireland all his life?!’

  Maggie turned in her seat to face Grace. ‘He was your great-grandfather Grace. The man who used to tease you with his mixed up words and smoke his pipe and tell you all those tall tales. That was Séamus Doyle – James Doyle, as you knew him, the English version of his name.’

  Grace’s mind was reeling. ‘Séamus was James? Great-granddad James? But……’ she burst into laughter. ‘I can’t believe it. So, you married Séamus? The Séamus. The Séamus who you loved and who wrote those letters. After everything you’d both been through, you married him?!’

  Now Maggie was laughing. ‘Yes love. I married him! There was a big mix up after my telegram was delivered incomplete and the poor lamb thought I didn’t want to see him ever again, but luckily, after he’d learnt of my survival, he got hold of my aunt’s address in Chicago and wrote to me. I’ll never forget the day that letter arrived. It was the first contact I’d had from home since the terrible disaster and he said such kind things about hoping I would live a long and happy life and that with his Da dead, he was selling his land and going to work in the English cotton mills. Of course then that confused me, as my message had said for him to come to America as soon as he could. Oh, it was a dreadful time – of course, you kids would be able to sort it all out now with a quick phone call or one of them fancy fax machines or computers, but we didn’t have anything like that back then and had to wait for letters to cross the ocean on steam ships and chug down train tracks a
nd trundle across dusty tracks in a horse and cart. Well, eventually we sorted it all out and after he’d sold his father’s bit of land he had enough money for a passage to America and he arrived in Chicago one day at Union station and as soon as he saw me he sank to his knees and wept and asked me to marry him and I wept and said yes! He never mentioned that he’d already proposed to me in his lost letters. To his dying day, he wouldn’t tell me what he’d written in those letters. He said it didn’t matter now.’

  ‘Wow! So Séamus Doyle was my great-grandfather! But why did he change his name to James?’

  ‘Well, he got so fed up of having to spell his name out for everyone. You see, these silly Americans didn’t know how to pronounce Séamus properly – ‘Sea-mus’ they used to say! Oh, how I used to giggle at him. So one day he announced that he was going to change his name to James, the English version of Séamus and that’s how he was known for the rest of his life: James Doyle.’

  ‘That’s amazing! Oh, I’m so thrilled Maggie. I’m so happy it was him - that I knew him. And you loved each other so much and, oh, it’s just wonderful Maggie. I can’t believe I didn’t make the connection.’

  ‘Well, why would you I suppose - I always got so upset thinking about him since he died, I didn’t really like to talk of him too much. And then all this started happening and that kind man found his letters and I guess I was so wrapped up in all the memories that I forgot you never knew. I kind of assumed you knew it was the same man – it’s so long since I’ve spoken about our live before Titanic – when I was Maggie Murphy and he was Séamus Doyle. We were different people for so many years afterwards, it’s almost like those two teenage kids were lost somewhere along the way.’

  They chatted for a while about the man who Grace had known and how fate had conspired to keep Maggie and Séamus apart but that they had found a way back to each other after all.