The Girl Who Came Home - a Titanic Novel (29 page)

After reading that, she’d written to Jimmy’s old home address and sent a note for his attention via Professor Andrews along with the manuscript for her article. She’d left her phone number but having not heard anything had assumed he had given up after all this time and had moved on with his life. This small note which she held in her hand now, told her otherwise.

Recognising the number he’d added to the bottom of the note as a Chicago number, she wondered whether she should call straightaway.
Life is fragile
she heard Maggie saying
We never know what’s waiting around the corner.

Her mind was made up. She ran downstairs, stopping for a moment to check her appearance in the hall mirror. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparkled. She looked like the girl who used to stare back at her from the mirror; a girl whose lust for life and whose vibrancy oozed through her every pore. The girl looking back was a girl she hadn’t seen for a long time.

She adjusted her hair and dialled the number quickly before she could change her mind. The phone rang and rang at the other end. Her heart raced, her mouth as dry as sandpaper. ‘Pick up, pick up, pick up,’ she muttered under her breath.

‘
Hello.’

Her heart did a somersault at the sound of his voice. She had to fight back the tears as she responded. ‘Jimmy, she whispered, her voice shaking. ‘It’s me. It’s Grace.’

CHAPTER
30 - New York, 18
^th
April 1912

Catherine Kenny handed her yellow ticket to the inspectors at the top of West Street. Satisfied that she was a relative awaiting the arrival of the Carpathia which was expected at around midnight that evening, she was permitted access to the fenced off area and made her way to join the hundreds of others already gathered at the docks.

The flags in New York harbour, which were all lowered to half-mast, flapped and snapped in the wind which gusted over the exposed harbour, rattling the flag poles, blowing out the ladies’ skirts and lifting umbrellas from rain-soaked hands. It was just gone three o’clock in the afternoon but the darkening sky cast a hue of nightfall over the entire city.

Catherine knew she had several hours to wait before the expected arrival of the rescue ship, but she didn’t care. She didn’t feel the wind or the pouring rain. She didn’t worry about catching a chill. ‘I’d rather stand in a blizzard than spend any more time alone in this blessed house,’” she’d told her neighbour who had called in earlier that day to enquire as to whether there was any further news of Katie. ‘I’m walking in and out of the guest room like a caged tiger,’ she’d explained. ‘I’ve spent weeks preparing for my sister’s arrival and now I don’t know whether the bed will ever be slept in. I stand and stare at those pillows and wonder whether they’ll always remain as smoothed and plumped as I have made them with all my fussing and ironing. I would give anything to have Katie’s beautiful head to rest upon them and mess them all up again.’

She hadn’t been to work that day or for the several days since news of the Titanic disaster arrived, her heart was so full of despair it was hard to summon up the energy to wash and dress on a morning, let alone travel across the city and wash Mrs Walker-Brown’s endless floors.

As it transpired, one of the other employees at the Walker-Brown residence had called to Catherine’s door to pass on a message from Mrs Walker-Brown that Catherine’s services wouldn’t be required for the time being. Mrs Walker-Brown had apparently taken to her bed with grief for her daughter who, despite being listed as one of the survivors, appeared to be returning on the rescue ship without her fiancée. Mrs Walker-Brown was unable to bear the thought of her daughter having suffered such horror and could not imagine what terrible conditions she was travelling in on the rescue ship. She was distraught to learn that Robert had, most probably, perished when the ship went down and was inconsolable, refusing to eat and not wishing to see anyone until her daughter was safely returned to the family home.

According to the young kitchen maid who visited Catherine, Vivienne Walker-Brown’s pet dog Edmund was also listed among the survivors. She assumed the officials had considered ‘Edmund Walker-Brown’ to be the lady’s son, and not just a dog.

Catherine had seethed with anger when she heard this, unable to comprehend how a dog could be permitted to survive when so many had lost their lives.

Now, as she walked along the wharf, oblivious to the steadily falling rain, she wandered past the yellow taxicabs and limousines which cast their lights onto the rain-soaked pavement, reflecting the sights of the dock buildings and freight cranes at her feet. She could barely register the absurdity of the situation which would permit some survivors to walk off the Carpathia into immediate luxury while others would undoubtedly arrive without a cent or a pair of shoes to their name.

Alongside Pier Fifty Four, the Cunard pier, the lines of ambulances waiting to ferry the shaken and injured survivors to hospital reinforced the severity of the situation and the scale of the tragedy. It struck Catherine for the first time, that even arriving safely in New York would be, by far, the end of the ordeal for these poor people, many of whom would still be far from their final destination.

As she walked, she caught fragments of conversation which shocked and scared her all over again.

‘
Not enough lifeboats by far they’re reporting. There wasn’t a chance for half of the passengers. It’s a disgrace. Probably saving room for some more mahogany panelling for the First Class Staterooms.’

‘
It’s my fiancée I’m waiting for. We’re to be married next month. I didn’t see his name on the list, but I had a dream that he survived. He has to have survived.’

‘
Mammy and Da and mi four little brothers were sailing. Only Mammy survived,’ a young girl sobbed. ‘It was their first time coming over. We was all planning a life here together.’

It was unbearable to hear.

She walked past large groups of Salvation Army and Sheltering Society volunteers, dressed in their uniforms, ready to act and provide assistance wherever possible, serving hot coffee and sandwiches to the waiting relatives and to the dozens of dock workers who had arrived of their own will, keen to help in whatever way they could.

A dozen or so, black-robed Sisters Of Charity stood in quiet prayer, awaiting the rescue ship’s arrival alongside representatives from the Pennsylvania Railroad who were ready to provide assistance and tickets to those trying to travel onwards to Philadelphia or points west of there. It was a rescue and humanitarian operation the scale of which Catherine had never seen before and it moved her immensely.

‘
You’re doing a wonderful job,’ she remarked to a Salvation Army volunteer who offered her a cup of hot coffee. ‘It is much appreciated.’

‘
You’re welcome Miss,’ the young volunteer replied. ‘It’s all so terribly sad, we’re just glad to be able to help in some way, no matter how small. There’s thousands and thousands gathered in Battery Park y’know. Just waiting to see those poor folks safely home.’

Catherine walked on as the storm clouds gathered ominously overhead and the first cracks of lightening lit up the sky.

The atmosphere among the waiting crowds was one of numbed sobriety and tension; anxiety and grief lining the faces of those she passed, dark shadows and red-rimmed eyes bearing witness to the suffering these people had already endured as, like her, they had scoured and scoured the lists of survivors only to discover that the names they were looking for were not present.

Observing the steadily growing mass of people and waiting volunteers now gathering along the wharf did nothing to calm Catherine’s fears or reassure her troubled mind. Would Katie be on the Carpathia or would her worst fears be realised when all the survivors had disembarked?

She’d telephoned the White Star Offices every day since news of the disaster broke.

‘
What have you heard?’ she asked when her call was answered.

‘
Nothing new Miss,’ came the sombre reply from the anonymous voice at the other end of the line.

Catherine very quickly realised that ‘Nothing new’ meant that the first reports of survivors hadn’t changed and that the names of many of the travellers from Ballysheen, which had been reported as lost, were accurate and had not changed. So far, only the seventeen-year-old girl Maggie Murphy was known to have survived the ordeal. But although Catherine had not found the name Katie Kenny on any of the issued survivor lists, her heart would not allow her to give up hope. She had seen a Kate Kennedy listed and a Katherine Denny and had prayed every day that one of those was her sister, the name having been misprinted or mistakenly taken down in all the confusion.

Despite issuing lists of survivor names, there’d been an otherwise frustrating silence from the Carpathia over the last few days; the anticipated details of the events which had unfolded on Titanic had not been forthcoming and rumours among the press were rife that the surviving Marconi radio operator, Harold Bride, had been told to keep quiet until the Carpathia docked, at which point his story would be sold for a large sum of money. Looking around at the harrowing scenes of grief and despair, Catherine found it impossible to imagine that anyone could hope to prosper from this unimaginable tragedy.

As the hours passed, Catherine and the thousands of other anxious and distressed relatives and friends of the survivors who were known to be aboard the Carpathia or who, like Catherine, prayed that there had been a mistake and that their loved ones would emerge from the liner, huddled against the strong breeze and lashing rain and watched the gathering darkness of nightfall.

‘
It is as if the entire city is stricken with grief’
Catherine read in the newspaper she had picked up at the stand, keen to follow the latest reports.
‘Rich and poor are united under one great wave of sorrow and sympathy. God has indeed spoken.
’

Turning her rosary beads over and over in her hands, Catherine sat under the large letter ‘K’ she had been assigned to wait under, corresponding to the surname of the survivor she was so hoping to greet and said a silent prayer, closing her eyes against the rain and the harsh reality of the situation being played out in front of her.

Time passed slowly.

It was just before nine o’clock when a unified shiver seemed to cross among the waiting crowd as the first sightings of the Carpathia steaming down the Hudson River were relayed from the tug boats which had gone out to meet her. Everyone stood up then, desperate to see the ship itself, as if until that moment, this could all be imagined. Men, women and children stood on tiptoes, craning their necks, peering into the gloom as if watching a theatre show; waiting for that moment when the magician delivers the prestige.

The unmistakeable single funnel of a steam liner then emerged from the murky mist. Just a few lights were visible from the upper cabins and the lights on the masthead. Other than this small degree of light, all was darkness around the great mass of the ship.

Catherine watched the ship move, as if in slow motion, taking an endless amount of time to manoeuvre towards the White Star Line Pier Fifty Nine where she rested to unload the lifeboats belonging to Titanic. It was a sombre moment, the S.S. Titanic ensign on the white lifeboats the first sighting for all gathered there of the much lauded ship, a simple, humble calling card of the greatest ocean liner ever to sail the seas.

For many, the suspense and grief from the last few days was too great, and they collapsed into great convulsions of crying at the sight of the rescue liner. For Catherine, it was a moment she wished she could in some ways suspend in time; not sure whether she finally wanted to learn the fate of her sister, to learn whether the face she was waiting so desperately to see would come walking ashore or whether she had lain at the bottom of the ocean for the last four days and would never, ever be seen again.

An eerie hush fell over the waiting crowds then as the huge steamer approached the Cunard Pier, just the quiet, muffled tears of the women audible above the wind and splashes of rain on umbrellas and the corrugated iron containers on the wharf side.

The dozens of doctors and nurses, the volunteers from the Women's Relief Committee and all the officials from the city, government and White Star Line walked purposefully now among the crowds, the tension and stress evident on their faces as they prepared themselves to carry out their duties.

Later in her life, Catherine would find herself saying that the scenes she witnessed as the survivors were gradually brought ashore were too terrible to define. What her eyes and ears tried to comprehend during those moments was indescribable. Not in the furthest, darkest reaches of her imagination could she ever have believed such outpourings of grief and emotions were possible in a public place. For every poignant reunion, it would seem that there was also a heart-breaking moment of finality at the realisation that relatives or friends had not walked off the liner.

Husbands clutched wives who had returned without their children, children clung to grandparents; their parents lost at sea, sisters greeted sisters and wept for their lost brothers, brothers greeted sisters and cried for their lost mothers and fathers. Not one person didn’t shed a tear for themself or for someone else.

As Catherine waited, she watched these scenes play; involved and yet strangely detached. It was through tear-filled eyes that she observed a finely dressed young lady emerge from the gangplank, a small dog under her arm and barely a hair out of place on her head. She would not have recognised her as Vivienne Walker-Brown had she not heard the shriek across the crowd.