Chapter 5
Chapter 5
Emma
Clove Carnations
From her phone screen she can see it is 2.49 a.m. For a while she lies listening: no dawn chorus, no passing cars– instead, a ringing silence so high-pitched she suspects only she and dogs can hear it. She wonders if it is her guilt that has woken her. She should have gone in to the talk to support Les. It wasn’t much to ask. The last thing she had done before going to bed was to bake a cake to take in for Betty and Les by way of an apology. But as she forgot to add the sugar, this gesture ended up in the bin.
She stretches out her hand to the empty side of the bed and feels the coolness of cotton under her fingertips. How many quilts hide a sheet that is crumpled on one side and yet is pristine and smooth on the other? Months on. For some people, years on. Still, your side of the bed. Still, their side of the bed.
Emma shuffles up until she is sitting, pillows stuffed behind her back. She knows she is not going to get back to sleep tonight. She reaches for her laptop which is down by the side of the bed and starts searching for something to watch on catch-up TV. As she browses the BBC’s Science and Nature section, one title leaps out at her: Disappearing Titanic: Revealing how the ocean is eroding the shipwreck of the Titanic.
Well, at least she might have something to talk to Les about.
Forty minutes later, Emma watches as a floral wreath is flung out into the Atlantic to commemorate the sinking of the Titanic . The story of the erosion of the shipwreck had been poignant; the ocean slowly reclaiming the huge bulk that was once a ship. The metal hull, the captain’s bath, the glossy blue-green tiles of the steam room– all slowly fading way. Possessions that had laid scattered on the ocean floor– shoes, hairbrushes, opera glasses, violins– had either been recovered or left to sink into their sandy grave.
As she watches the wreath of lilies tip lopsidedly beneath the grey waves, a new thought comes to her: what about the flowers on the Titanic ? Who arranged those? Surely there must have been flowers: smart table centres for the restaurants; carnation buttonholes for evening jackets; and corsages for crepe and silk gowns.
As the credits roll over footage of a disintegrating marble fireplace, Emma imagines the mantelpiece with a crystal vase of ruby roses on it, cut-glass sparkling in light reflected from banks of mirrors. In the labyrinth below deck she pictures plump stewards in white uniforms rushing to deliver bouquets to first-class cabins.
Somewhere on the Titanic , someone must have arranged these flowers.
She leans back on her pillows and closes her laptop. She shuts her eyes, hovering between waking and drowsing.
The documentary said that it was April when the Titanic set sail from Southampton; the dawn must have been cold and dank as the final preparations were made. Did the florist arrive at the docks at first light as the flowers were being delivered onto the wharf? Did she dodge between wagons as she searched for the nurserymen’s cart? Perhaps she had lingered in the shadow of a heavily laden dray as she watched cases of Cognac and Champagne being winched into the hold? Did she count the wooden boxes of flowers being unloaded for the ship? Perhaps she picked out a rose, checking it for bruising, and was unable to resist lifting it to her face to smell.
Emma stirs and reopens her laptop. She starts searching online for information about the crew of the Titanic . A myriad of sites immediately pop up, many listing those who had worked on board. She can’t give Les and Betty a cake, but maybe she can find out this bit of information, something of interest to show she is not a rude and thoughtless woman– an offering from their trainee florist to lay alongside her apology.
By 5.25 a.m. Emma has searched the entire crew of the Titanic but cannot find a florist, and with frustration creeps in a feeling of unease. She rubs her forefinger over the rough patch of skin on the top of her right thumb. Surely there must have been one? They had everyone else on board. The staff is recorded in painstaking detail: plate stewards, linen stewards– every type of steward– including racquet, Turkish bath and glory hole. There are electricians, ice-men, coffee-men, lamp trimmers, plumbers, greasers, stokers, firemen, confectioners and Viennese pastry chefs. Everything the ‘largest ship in the world’ could possibly need: from gym instructors to clothes pressers, printers, barbers, window cleaners, interpreters, even buglers.
But still, however hard she looks, there is no mention of a florist.
In her hours of browsing and note making, she has discovered much more about those on board– and their fates. As she expected, the women fared a lot better than the men (‘women and children first’, after all); three quarters of the female passengers survived compared to a fifth of the men. She alsoknew there would be a disparity in the survival ratesbetween classes– like millions, she had gone to see Kate and Leo in Titanic – but she is still horrified to read that sixty children drowned, almost all of them third-class passengers. It seems children didn’t always come first.
However, she cannot kid herself; after hours of searching, she is no closer to finding a florist, and who’s to say she didn’t drown among the flowers? Emma wants to feel hopeful for her but she is no longer a woman who believes in happy endings. Besides, she knows the odds are stacked against her. One of the first notes she made is: Crew, 908. Survived, 212.
By 6.45 a.m., Emma is following an inconclusive message board about floral buttonholes, that may, or may not, have been given to first-class male passengers each evening. She clicks off the page and dismisses the doubters. Everything she has read so far claims that the White Star Line spared no expense for their passengers– surely they would have provided buttonholes. She imagines carnations– rich, clove carnations, burgundy petals pressed against the black silk of a lapel, their peppery fragrance mixing with the smell of cigar smoke.
Illuminated by the watery glow from her laptop, she tries to pin down how she is feeling. Tired? Certainly. Frustrated? Yes. But also intrigued. She has missed the feeling of piqued interest that punctuated her scientific research.
Emma stares into space as she rubs her fingers once more over the top of her right thumb, caressing a patch of skin made rough by stripping dozens of thorns off the stems of roses. Now it is a very different sort of question that has wheedled its way into her brain. And the question is, was there a florist on the Titanic ?