his heritage. There was so much about the country she still loved and respected. But the Titanic experience had changed her view of life for ever, as it must have done for
so many of the survivors who had been left to come to terms with what they had seen and heard.
She’d even heard whispers of some of the society women divorcing their husbands for the very fact of them getting on the lifeboats in the first place. This was when, after the in-quiry everyone realized how few of the steerage women and children had survived. There were rumours that Bruce Ismay, the White Star Line chairman who jumped ship into the lifeboat, had had a breakdown.
Even after all these years the sight of the tall red funnel looming above her and the smell of salt water and steam, the hanging lifeboats on the great liner, made her shake with fear. But this time she was facing east and heading for Liverpool, and Roddy was by her side as they had walked up the gangway, Celeste trying not to look down or remember . . .
There was no luxurious First Class cabin this time, just a modest room, little more than a cubbyhole compared to her accommodation on the Titanic. The ship was roomy enough, basic, battered from being used as a troopship but now refurbished. But the smell of fresh paint brought back memories and she felt sick.
Roddy was darting all over the place, exploring the decks and corridors, playing hide and seek with some of the other boys on board. She didn’t want to let him out of her sight, but he was too quick and she realized she was in danger of nagging him into defiance. So she followed behind him discreetly, just in case. She’d not brought him all this way just to see him lost overboard. He was playing tag with a group of other boys and as usual not looking where he was going when he tripped over a cable and knocked down a man in a long tweed coat and trilby who’d been heading in his direction, limping with a stick. They concertinaed into each other, both collapsing in a heap and Roddy cried out with pain. The man in the trilby staggered, dazed, before scrambling to Roddy’s aid.
‘Hey, old chap, are you OK?’
She saw Roddy looking up, trying not to cry and grasping his ankle. ‘It hurts.’ ‘Let me look at it,’ the man continued, pointing to the ankle. Celeste was at Roddy’s side in a second, seeing the man about to reach for his stick for
balance, looking shaken himself. ‘I’m his mother. Roderick, you weren’t looking where you were going . I’m so sorry.’ She turned to face a young man with a grey face, who smiled and raised his hat with a smile.
‘Another case of wrong place, wrong time, young man,’ he replied. ‘Let’s have a look at that ankle.’
‘Are you a doctor?’ Celeste asked as the man bent to unloosen the boot. ‘No, ma’am, but I did a fair bit of patching-up in the war,’ he replied, not looking at her,
more intent on examining Roddy’s swollen foot. ‘Can you wiggle your toes?’ Roddy nodded, whimpering. ‘But it still hurts.’
‘It doesn’t look broken to me, but we’ll have to let the ship’s doctor see it just to be sure. You looked as though you were having fun,’ he added, then turned to Celeste with a smile. ‘Shall we carry him between us?’ He was gesturing to his stick. ‘Bit of a nuisance but it keeps this ship from listing port side.’
Celeste had to smile as she helped him to his feet. ‘The war?’ She looked at his stick. ‘The war,’ he shrugged. ‘Battered and bowed but still afloat . Archie McAdam, late of
His Majesty’s Royal Navy. And this young man?’ ‘This is my son, Roderick Wood. Stay put and I’ll find another deckhand to lift him,’
Celeste offered, looking round only to find they were alone now. Together they helped Roddy to his feet and he limped down the stairs to get his ankle strapped up.
‘Thank you, Mr McAdam.’ Celeste appraised the man with care. He was English, broad shouldered, with a weatherbeaten naval face with a beard. His hair was silvered at the sides. Celeste was homeward bound and in no hurry to dash away, but when Roddy appeared strapped up and he offered to take them to tea, she shook her head. ‘It’s Roderick who should be taking you to tea,’ she protested.
‘No, I insist. It will be good to give the stick a rest and you can both tell me what you two are doing on this old rust bucket. On vacation?’
‘I’m going to see my grandpa. I’ve never seen him before and Mom says—’ Roddy said but Celeste was quick to step in.
‘I’m sure Mr McAdam doesn’t want to know all our history,’ she laughed, seeing how eagerly the man was observing them. Roddy mustn’t get too familiar with strangers.
‘But I do, and it’s time for afternoon tea,’ McAdam insisted. ‘I’m starving, aren’t you? You know, I was just looking around thinking as we set sail that everyone on this ship is on a journey bound for the familiar or unfamiliar, and all the passengers have a story to tell. Then wham, I’m on the floor and the stories begin. So when I’ve found a table for three, ordered teacakes, fancies, whatever you like, young man, I shall tell you why I’m here. I bet you didn’t think I’m travelling over the Atlantic just to go back to school?’
‘Grown-ups don’t go to school. Do they?’ Roddy was curious. ‘We call it university but it’s still a school.’
‘I’ve got to go to a new school in England. My other school was in Washington.’ ‘Well, there you go, you have a story to tell already. Come on then, us two old crocks
will mount the stairs together.’
Roddy put his hand in Mr McAdam’s and climbed, leaving Celeste staring up after them. ‘Everyone’s got a story, indeed. Well, Mr McAdam, you’re not going to hear mine,’ she muttered, following in their wake, not sure if she was intrigued or afraid of such a sudden encounter with this Englishman who was charming her son like the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Roddy was confined to quarters later to rest his swollen foot. He would have been bored, but Mr McAdam called, bringing him some peppermints, a game of draughts and some Boy’s Own Papers with pictures of ships in them. He even loaned Roddy a reading book
he’d bought for his nephew.
Somehow they kept meeting in the dining room, and when the band played Celeste reluctantly allowed herself to be persuaded to have one dance, but Mr McAdam, who struggled with his stiff leg, was glad to sit down again. He’d been visiting friends in New York for his vacation and had taken the opportunity to see a special surgeon to see if he could get his legs straightened out. He said he was keen on tennis, rugby and cricket, and collected cigarette cards and stamps from his journeys. He even promised to teach Roddy to play chess. He was easy to talk to and good with her bored young son. He had a deep throaty laugh that made people turn round and smile. Celeste was on guard, though, sitting up very straight and giving little away, so that he never got beyond calling her Mrs Wood all the time.
She could sense Roddy was dying to tell him all about their own adventures, about run-ning away to sea, but she kept giving him icy stares, reminding him about their secret and how no one must ever know their business.
‘You worked in Washington? It’s a great city. Were you a teacher?’ She shook her head but Roddy butted in, ‘Yes you were. We had classes in our house.
They were so boring.’
‘Roddy, it’s rude to interrupt . . .’ She explained about the Women’s Party and their suc-cessful Votes for Women campaign.
‘We still haven’t got the full vote in England yet, but it’s coming. I think it’s a disgrace that half the human race don’t get a say in national matters. My wife used to say—’ he broke off, then smiled. ‘If men had the babies there’d soon be a change.’
‘So you’re going back to see your wife and children?’ she asked, relieved at this news. ‘I wish I were, but they were caught in a Zeppelin raid over London: wrong place wrong
time.’ He suddenly went quiet.
‘I’m sorry,’ was all she could muster.
‘And you two? Your husband works in England?’ He looked up. Roddy was waiting to see how she would reply.
‘I have no husband now,’ she said. ‘Roddy’s my man of the hous
e, aren’t you? We’re going back to my home town to start again, aren’t we?’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Lichfield . . . Grandpa lives in the cathedral,’ Roddy jumped in. ‘Roddy, we don’t tell strangers our business.’
She saw Mr McAdam blush and felt mean to be so secretive. He wasn’t a stranger now, just a rather pleasant young man going back to an empty house.
‘You can write to us,’ Roddy piped up, smiling. ‘You can write to us from your new school, can’t he?’ he added, biting on his sticky bun, grinning with mischief.
‘Of course, if Mr McAdam so chooses, but I expect he’ll be very busy.’ He smiled at Roddy and winked. ‘I think I might find time to put pen to paper now and
again to give you my school report.’
Celeste couldn’t sleep that last night aboard Saxonia , and for once it wasn’t for fear of an iceberg or Grover’s henchman: it was all Archie McAdam’s fault. Why did Roddy have to bump into him? She steered clear of drawing unwanted attentions but Roddy’s little ac-cident brought this stranger into her path. He should have been discouraged, shaken off and dismissed.
There was something disturbing about the past few days in the company of this widower, sailor, scholar and educated man of her own class. He was the sort of man Papa would wel-come at the door, but as Archie had said: ‘Wrong place, wrong time.’ Why couldn’t she just be honest with him, tell her story, such as it was. That would soon put him off. But Roddy thought him a hero, and couldn’t get enough of his sea dog stories, which she sensed were tailored and censored so as not to upset the sensitivities of a young boy. He was a man’s man with the limp to prove it, and she was keeping him firmly at arm’s length. He made them laugh and it was so refreshing to hear the fun in his voice instead of the fear Grover had instilled in her with his.
Ought she to let him write to them from Oxford? It wasn’t that far from Lichfield on the train. Was she keeping the door open until such times . ? She had to admit an attraction to his bright eyes and deep voice. If only she were free. All the lies she’d built around their life to protect them over the years were like a hard shell, one she couldn’t risk cracking.
Better to say nothing, to seem remote and disinterested, than to give false hope. She longed to tell him why she was so nervous, that any jolt in the ship’s engine sent her straight back to that night on the Titanic. Then there was the business of making Roddy carry his yachting vest, pointing out where every lifeboat was situated and the route up onto deck in case of an emergency. What did he make of all her fussing?
They’d had the smoothest of voyages so far, uneventful but not boring, not now she’d met Archie McAdam. Something in his no-nonsense honesty and humour attracted her to him. It was a good job they would be docking in Liverpool tomorrow.
These five days had changed her life in so many ways, with the disruption of her care-fully constructed peace of mind. She thought of the night she’d met Grover in London: those intense candlelight suppers, the corsage of flowers, her silk dress, the scents of the dining room, their rush to be married and away. She’d not been a good judge back then. This man was charming but he might be a charlatan, a sailor with a girl in every port, but she sensed his heart was of a different mettle. He showed such genuine interest in them. She could see him delight in Roddy’s enthusiasms, his polite deference when she refused to relax and open up to him. It must be hurtful not to have her relax in his arms when she was dancing, her awkwardness and stiffness deliberate and off-putting. He must be puzzled, sensing her discomfort, thinking her disinterested in him, perhaps, because he looked older than his years and had a limp. What was holding her back?
Many things: fear of getting it wrong, fear of getting involved when she wasn’t free, fear of jumping into some onboard romance. How could she ever trust another man after her past experience?
Though she had trusted him with one thing. They’d walked on deck when Roddy was settled for the night and she talked a little about going home, about having no means of sup-port now, and she had confessed her nervousness at returning after so many years abroad. She admitted her father needed her and her brother was unwell.
‘This war has broken so many lives,’ Archie agreed, looking out to sea. ‘None of us can be the same because of it. Thank God young Roddy will never have to face such grimness, Mrs Wood . . .’
She heard the sadness in his words and relented. ‘Please call me . . . my name is . . .’ They were almost in England now. Time to shed the disguise. ‘People call me Celeste,’ she said. ‘Celestine Forester.’
He turned and smiled, reaching out to shake her hand formally. ‘Thank you, Celeste. What a beautiful name for a lovely young woman. Would you mind if I wrote to you both sometime?’
She withdrew from his grasp, afraid of the feelings building between them even in this simple act. ‘If you think it would help.’ She paused, knowing she should reveal something else to show her trust but the words dried up in her throat. Then he said something ex-traordinary as he held her eyes with such intensity.
‘I hope, in good time, you will tell me what or whoever in the past has given you such fear. Forgive me for being impertinent, but I sense your reserve and it goes against your nature. Don’t worry,’ he smiled. ‘I have no intentions of prying. Wrong place, wrong time yet again, I fear . . .’
‘Let’s leave it at that then,’ she interrupted, pulling away from the magnetic force draw-ing them closer. ‘Good night, Archie. Mr McAdam . . .’
‘Good night but not goodbye, Celeste.’ He backed away leaving her alone to fathom out his meaning amongst the moonlight and the stars.
On the last Saturday of August fifty excited children poured out of the station at Colwyn Bay in North Wales carrying bats and balls, bags of bathing suits, and waving their straw hats in the sunshine. May thought they looked like a flurry of white butterflies scattering over the beach with excitement. She was so tired from all her sewing, from not sleeping, from wor-rying if she should come here at all. But she wanted to keep an eye on Ella, just in case she blurted out any more tall tales.
‘I want no more nonsense about Captain Scott or any telling fibs,’ she had warned her. ‘Your father was Joseph Smith, a carpenter from Edgeworth.’
‘Like Joseph of Nazareth,’ Ella said.
‘There you go again. Don’t be smart with me, listen to what I’m saying.’ ‘You won’t wear your black crow dress, will you? You promised,’ Ella added. ‘My friend
Hazel’s mum has a new dress. Wear your new skirt.’ It was a shock to think a girl as young as Ella noticed and compared one woman to anoth-
er. May had met Mrs Perrings at the school gate several times. Hazel was Ella’s best friend at school. They seemed sensible sorts.
Dolly Perrings knitted for the duration of the train journey, chatting about this and that, and her new-found friend, George, a soldier from Whittington Barracks, who was always smartly turned out with clean fingernails and a moustache. Mrs Perrings was wearing a bright pink and white summer dress, her hair bobbed and feathered around her face. No won-der Ella thought May was a plain Jane of a mother.
Those words had hurt deeper than the child could ever know. She thought of jackdaws, black like crows. They stole bright things, and what was she if not a thief? Perhaps she deserved that name. She felt so wound up, like a coiled spring inside, tired, listless, as if perched on the edge of a steep cliff. One puff of wind and she’d be over the side. The confidence she’d been feeling since that episode with Florrie had vanished into tiredness. Everything was such an effort, even on this bright summer’s day. When she smelled the sea-weed, the salty breeze, she gagged, feeling sick. The sea. How had she been persuaded to come to the seaside of all places? This was madness.
She hung back from the other helpers. ‘Come on, Mrs Smith . . . May. Let’s see if we can get some tea and a walk on the promenade, take the air while Miss Parry and the teachers take the girls on their nature walk. It’s still lesson time for them but not f
or us.’
May felt as if her feet weren’t attached to her body. She drifted along with the flow and they found a little tearoom, but she could only taste warm water in her mouth. She felt faint at the sight of the rolling sea.
‘What a lovely view,’ said Mrs Perrings. ‘We can watch the tide coming in from here. It’s like a silver lake out there, so smooth and silky . just look . like a mill pond.’ She chattered on, oblivious to the fact that May sat with her back to the water.
‘The sea has another face, a cruel face,’ she suddenly muttered. ‘It can lull you into a false safety and spew you out in its roaring waters.’
‘Ah yes, I’m sorry, dear, Hazel told me that your husband died at sea. It’s a terrible thing to be widowed so young. When I got the telegram that Philip had been killed in Gallipoli, well, I don’t know how I’d have managed without the little one for comfort. Hazel is my little helper and Ella looks the same to me. At least we have a bit of our husbands to remind us.’
May looked at the woman as if she’d never seen her before, got up and went off down towards where the children were walking in a crocodile, pausing to pick shells and stamp footprints in the sand.
The sea might rise up and drown them all, its waves crashing over their heads, and she heard again the cries of the dying in the water, those agonizing cries to God and to their mothers for rescue. Help me! She put her hands to her ears to drown out those terrible voices, the thrashing of frozen limbs, the lapping of the oars on the water rowing away from all who needed help.
Then she saw some of the girls paddling, their skirts rolled up into their knickers, and far out a man swimming, his head bobbing on the surface of the water just as Joe’s had done. He was too far out for safety. The man was drowning like Joe, and in her mind she was there again trying to catch him up.
‘Turn back, turn back! Look, we must help him!’ she yelled. ‘He’s drowning!’ She felt her limbs thrashing after Joe, their precious bundle floating away. She screamed, ‘Bring him back, the sea will have him . Bring them on board. Ellen . Joe . Wait for me! Come back!’
Fleming, Leah - The Captain's Daughter Page 20
