Chapter 57

Chapter 57

Violet

Golden Tulips

Her friend, the bar steward, is unloading the glasses in preparation for their maiden voyage. He has asked her to tell him what she thinks of their new ship, the Titanic . He is waiting for her to answer.

How can she say that it makes her feel drunk, like the time he made her take a second brandy against the cold? Then she had tried to get into her cabin but the handle seemed to have been moved to the wrong side of the door and she was left foolishly rubbing her hands all over the metal painted surface to find it.

It is the same all over the Titanic . It is a ship so like the Olympic that it is almost a familiar old friend. She knows its virtues and its idiosyncrasies– but things have been moved, details changed. She expects to find a certain something around a corner only to discover it has vanished. And then she bangs her knee against a table that shouldn't be there.

Her friend is still waiting patiently, rubbing the crystal glasses with a white cloth so new it looks like stiff card in his hands.

She remembers a trick she has learnt from her brothers, boys so full of questions they rarely have time to answer what is asked of them.

‘I would be interested to hear what you think of her?' she says.

She diverts him as easily as the boys distract the priest when they ask him a question about the scriptures. He picks up another Champagne glass to polish while he considers the question.

‘I told my wife that we are making history. It will be something to tell the lad that his dad was on the maiden voyage of the Titanic .'

Her friend and his wife have just had their first child, and the experience is so fresh he still looks at everything through the eyes of a new father. The ice buckets are large enough ‘to bathe a baby in', and the linen of the napkins ‘fine enough for a christening gown'.

‘So you prefer her to the Olympic ?'

‘I'm not saying the Olympic wasn't a grand ship, but this, well, this is…' He pauses as he searches for the words. ‘… This is majestic.'

He's right: the smart new robes of the Titanic are fine enough for a Queen. The ship may still feel like an impersonator, but she is a mimic in a splendid new cloak. Staircases sweep with gleaming banisters; etched glass partitions sparkle and shine; and the tiles of the Turkish baths shimmer in shades of turquoise and green, like jewels from under the sea.

But she thinks it is the fabrics within the ship that impress her most: the golden and red tulips woven into the first-class chairs, the softness of the wool carpets. And she has never seen lacework like the covers on the beds in the staterooms– lace so delicate it could be made from, well … from babies' hair.

She smiles at the thought and promises her friend she will come back and see him when she next has the chance. She still has half her cabins to prepare before the passengers arrive, and time is sailing on.