Chapter 48

Chapter 48

Emma

Dog Roses

There is a crowd gathering at the entrance to the V exclusively designed dishes from Wedgewood for the Orient Line; and huge gold panels depicting godlike athletes from the French ship, the Normandie . Company competed against company and country against country, each aspiring to the pinnacle of taste and modernity. Black-and-white footage shows movie stars posing on deck and a replica ‘Grand Staircase' illustrates how passengers sought new and more extravagant backdrops for their haute couture. When competition was fierce, a company might choose a particular claim to champion: the Cunard Line was all about being the fastest, while the White Star Line wanted its ships, the Olympic , the Titanic and the Britannic , to be the most luxurious ocean liners in the world.

Emma is so anxious not to keep Alistair waiting that she almost misses the final exhibit: a large plinth on which is projected the rocking, undulating water of a grey ocean. In the centre of the display, is a panel of pale, sand-coloured wood– it looks like it is floating there. It is intricately carved with musical instruments, ribbons and flowers.

She stands transfixed. This is a panel from the Titanic . This carved panel, which she can almost reach out and touch, was part of the first-class lounge. Frank Senior and Frank Junior had probably walked past it carrying armfuls of plants.

She studies the carving, trying to take in every detail. The flowers look like wild dog roses. Did another flower lover– a florist of sorts– ever look at the these and try to decide if they were roses?

Putting aside the strange connection she feels with The Nurse, she feels a parallel pull to the idea of an unofficial florist being on board. She has established there were flowers– a ship full of them– and Clem supports her view that someone must have been providing a floristry service.

Emma studies the carved petals of the dog rose. She feels as if she is in touching distance of this fellow flower lover. She wonders, not for the first time, why it matters to her so much, and why she still keeps thinking of this flower lover as ‘her'. Maybe as a florist herself (she decides she likes this title), she doesn't want the Titanic 's (unofficial) florist to be overlooked and forgotten by history?

You want to save her.

Emma doesn't know what to do with this final thought, so instead she looks around her for a historian called Alistair.

He really does have a beak of a nose. He also has an angular, attractive face and a very good haircut. She spots him first by his bright orange jumper. He wears a bag slung across his chest and everything about him– his face, his clothes, his shoes– are a lot younger looking than Emma was expecting. He doesn't look much above twenty-five. Somehow, she thought a historian with an interest in the Titanic would be an ageing professor.

She introduces herself, and he shakes her outstretched hand, suggesting as he does, that they go to the members' room where they can get a coffee. As they walk, he explains that he is a maritime historian with an interest in the social impact of shipping and shipbuilding, particularly around the First World War era. As he speaks about his fascination with the Titanic , Emma recognises the same deep-seated passion that fires many of the scientists she has worked with. She breathes out.

They sit down at a table, ‘All I've gathered so far is you've been looking into the florist on the Titanic .' He leans towards her, smiling, ‘So tell me more…'