Читать книгу Women and Children First: Bravery, love and fate: the untold story of the doomed Titanic - Gill Paul, Gill Paul - Страница 23

Annie McGeown was lying in her bunk unable to get to sleep when the ship struck the iceberg. She’d been imagining the new home they would have in New York. It was hard to form a picture of it in her head, because all Seamus had told her was that it had three rooms – three! – and a yard out the back where the childrun could play. It was an apartment, a word that had been new to her until a few weeks ago. They would be on the ground floor and there were neighbours living upstairs, and more again above that. Annie wasn’t sure if they’d have to share a kitchen but she hoped not. She’d like her own kitchen, where other wives couldn’t pinch her flour and salt or leave burnt pans steeping in the sink. The lavvie would be out in the yard and everyone in the building would take turns. She hoped they were clean people; there was nothing worse than clearing up the mess others left behind.

She thought about how she would decorate the apartment and turn it into a real home. She’d find fabric to make pretty window curtains, she’d embroider some pictures for the walls, and she’d pick wild flowers and put them in jars, just like those huge bouquets of flowers she’d seen up in the first-class lounge. She was a good housekeeper. She’d learned all the old tricks from her mother, like using vinegar and newspaper for the windows and wiping down walls with a solution of washing soda to discourage mould. She’d maybe plant some vegetables in the yard, if she could just find a few seedlings to start off with. Oh, but she had so many plans for their new life …

Annie felt the ship turn sharply just before the collision. The movement almost made her roll on top of the baby. Then there was a jolt, and a noise that seemed to her like the sound of the big cogwheels grinding the corn at Dunemark Watermill. That was her first thought: why do they have a watermill at sea? She got up and crept to the porthole but outside all was black.

The engine noise stopped abruptly and now the only sounds were her children snuffling and sighing in their sleep. Something’s broken in the engine, she thought. They’ll have to fix it. I hope it won’t make us late arriving in New York. I don’t want Seamus to be hanging around. He was taking the day off work to meet them, and she wanted them to have as much time together as they possibly could.

In the corridor outside, she heard voices. People were emerging from their cabins to discuss the reason for the unscheduled stop. Annie stood with her ear to the door to listen, not wanting to go out in her nightclothes, but then she heard voices she recognised as belonging to her friends from Mayo. She pulled her coat over the top of her nightdress and quietly eased the door open.

‘You all right, love?’ Kathleen asked. ‘Did it wake you?’

‘What happened?’ Annie looked from one to the other and they shrugged, but a man further along the corridor had more answers.

‘We hit an iceberg. There’s a small hole in the front of the prow but they’ve closed the watertight doors so the water won’t flood in.’

‘Mother of God,’ Annie exclaimed, clutching her hand to her mouth. ‘Are you sure? Who told you that?’ She peered at the speaker, who was wearing an overcoat and cap, his face indistinguishable in the dim lighting.

‘I’ve come from downstairs. There’s an inch of water on G Deck and the staff are hauling the postbags up the steps so they don’t get wet. But they told me the damage is contained now. They’ll mop the floors and we can all go back to sleep.’

‘Holy Jesus,’ Kathleen gasped, crossing herself. ‘You think we’re going to go back to sleep while the ship’s taking on water?’

The man sounded impatient. ‘It’s not taking on water any more. That’s the beauty of the design. They’ve closed off that area and we’re right as rain. That’s why she’s unsinkable.’

‘I don’t know, I still don’t like it,’ Kathleen murmured. ‘I’m going to find a steward.’

Annie felt her guts twisting. She tried to focus on the positive things the man had said, but in her head all she could think was that they were in the middle of a vast, freezing ocean, there was a hole in the ship and she was alone with four children to look after. What would Seamus do if he was there? He’d probably go and find a crew member to ask about it. Well, that’s what Kathleen was doing. She couldn’t go because she had to mind the children. There was nothing she could do except wait.

‘Are you all right, love?’ Eileen asked, taking her arm. ‘You look all shook up.’

‘I wish Seamus, my husband, was here. He’d know what to do.’

‘You’re with us, now. Our men will look out for you. I’ll be sure to tell them to.’

‘You won’t go anywhere without me? I’d never find my way around this place. It’s the most I can do getting to the dining room for meals then finding my way back to the cabin again.’ Annie tried to speak lightly, but her voice caught in her throat.

Eileen put an arm round her shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze. ‘I promise we won’t go anywhere without you. Let’s wait and see what Kathleen says when she gets back. She’s bossy enough she’ll be sure to get some answers out of the crew.’

It wasn’t long before Kathleen reappeared. ‘Storm in a teacup,’ she called with a grin. ‘The steward says we should all go back to bed. If anything more happens, they’ll come and let us know. We probably won’t be moving on till morning, he says. Oh, and that hissing noise you can hear is just the engines letting off steam. They have to do that when the ship stops.’

Annie listened and now she could hear the hissing. She’d half thought it was inside her head.

‘You go and have a lie-down,’ Eileen patted her shoulder. ‘Most likely the next time we see you will be at breakfast, but if anything happens before then we’ll knock on your door.’

Annie thanked the two of them and watched as they walked off down the corridor, then she turned the handle and let herself back into the cabin. The children were in the depths of sleep, their breathing barely detectable. She remembered that when Finbarr and Patrick were younger she sometimes panicked and woke them in the night just to be sure they were still alive. You never did that with the third and fourth.

She smoothed a curly lock back from the forehead of little Roisin, her precious daughter, and noticed the thumb resting on the pillow where it had slipped out of her mouth. She’d promised she would stop sucking her thumb when they got to America, but Annie didn’t believe it for a moment. She didn’t even know she was doing it half the time, and three was very young after all.

Finbarr started dreaming. She could tell from a change in his breathing, some little sighing noises, a slight restlessness. Maybe he was dreaming of working on a big ship like this. Annie didn’t plan to encourage it. She didn’t ever want him to leave her side. If he got married, she supposed he and his wife could rent the apartment upstairs but she didn’t want him going any further than that.

Finbarr was special because he was her first-born, but he was also the one with the most spirit. He reminded her of herself at that age, always asking questions, wanting to understand how everything worked and why the sky was blue and the grass was green. He was braver than her, though. She had always been obedient and didn’t like to make a fuss, but Finbarr would never put up with perceived injustice. He often got himself into bother at school by questioning the teachers’ decisions. He thought for himself, and they didn’t like that.

Finbarr was the main reason they were moving. From the day he started school, he had been bright beyond his years and Annie could tell there wasn’t enough the teachers back home could teach him. Who knows, but with some clever American teachers he might become an office worker? She wanted that for him, that he earned his living with his brains rather than his muscles, like his dad. She wanted him to go out to work in a suit and tie and carrying a case of important papers. It wasn’t that Seamus wasn’t clever. He could have gone far if anyone had ever persuaded him to stay on at school and take his exams, but that hadn’t been an option because his dad had needed help on the farm. They would do better by Finbarr in America – the land of opportunity, everyone called it.

Oh God, she just had to get them there first. She’d been anxious before when all was plain sailing, and now it seemed the ship had taken on water. Even if it was just a small hole, it meant they were a fraction less safe than they had been yesterday.

She pulled her rosary beads from a little embroidered bag in her handbag, and knelt down on the floor.

‘Our Father, which art in heaven,’ she began, fingering the first bead. If she did the whole rosary before going back to bed, then surely no harm would come to them?

‘Hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done …’