S.O.S. Titanic (7 page)

Stupid to go.

When the idea came he sat up, his heart pounding.
Of course.

Quickly he pulled on the fisherman's sweater over his pajama top. What was it Grandpop had said about the fishes eating your face off?
Don't think about that.
His long, coarse trousers, the penknife safely in the right-hand pocket. The whistie warm against his chest. His cap and boots. He slid Grandpop's other glove safely under the pillow. He'd lost the one for the right hand; he would take no chances on losing the other.

Carefully, quietly, he opened the cabin door.

Watley was in the corridor. The night lights gleamed on his polished hair, threw shadows around his sharp little nose. He was natty in his black trousers and white jacket with a bright red flower in the buttonhole. Cradled in his arms was a shoe box, or a box that shape and size. It was the color of a faded leaf, traced with a faint gold design.

"Are you going visiting again tonight, Mr. O'Neill?" he asked.

"No. Just first-class walking."

Watley nodded. "Be careful anyway, sir. The night is dark and we're far from shore."

Barry edged a little away. Watley was being the turbaned fortune-teller again, his lips unmoving. The card coming out of the slot said,
Tou will cross a body of deep water where danger awaits.

Barry wet his lips, managed a small laugh. "Well, I'm not in a rowboat, so I'll try not to worry. What have you got in the box? It looks old ... interesting."

Watley didn't glance down. "It is both old and interesting. Perhaps I will show you what's inside, Mr. O'Neill, but not tonight.

"No, not tonight."

Barry walked quickly away, resisting the urge to look back and see if Watley was still watching. The cabin steward gave him the creeps. Bad enough that he had to go now and face one of the Flynns, or three of the Flynns, without worrying about Watley.

He took the elevator down to the promenade deck level and waited just inside the swinging exit doors. The great ship surrounded him with warmth and comfort. Music still drifted faindy from the reception room. The band had switched now from operetta to ragtime. Some of the young set would be dancing—Mrs. Cherry Hat, for one. It was the kind of music that made Barry's feet tap. But not tonight.

Someone would come along soon, someone he could walk with, and be safe with, and inconspicuous. The crystal chandelier in the & la carte restaurant tinkled a soft silver bell of an accompaniment,
ting, ting, ting.

A lady in a long dark blue evening cape and a man in black de and tails passed him in a drift of perfume. The woman arched her thin eyebrows and said something to the gentleman. Barry guessed it would be something like, "What's that uncouth-looking character doing up here in first class? Should we report him?"

He waited uneasily. Already the elegant cherub clock said ten minutes past ten. If she had come, would she have waited? Jonnie and Frank would wait forever if they were there.

A young couple warmly dressed for the night air came up the staircase and pushed out onto the deck. Barry let them go. He'd promised himself a group of three, at least.

Then he saw two men and a woman coming up the grand staircase. They were bundled into heavy coats and mufflers. One of the men wore knickers and walking boots. The woman had on one of those leather caps like flyers' helmets, with flaps that came down over her ears. Barry moved quickly. He pushed open the door, stepped out, and held it for them. Cold bit at him through the oiled wool of his sweater, through the thick tweed of his trousers.

"Bracing night," one of the men said to Barry, and the woman smiled. "A good walk before retiring brings a good night's rest."

"Yes," Barry said. "My grandfather and I used to walk every night when I was home. But he isn't here with me." The words came out more forlorn than he'd intended, and no wonder. The night walks with Grandpop down the Mullinmore Road were too close and too well remembered.

"Walk with us, why don't you?" The woman had the kindest voice. "I'm Mrs. Goldstein. This is my husband, and this is my brother, Arthur." Arthur was the one in the red scarf.

"I'm Barry O'Neill. I'd like to walk with you very much. Thanks."

The deck was empty except for them and the young couple way ahead. Too cold for most passengers to walk. Certainly too cold to stand around and admire the sweep of the night ocean and the star-filled sky. The deck lights shone yellow, bathing everything in their shivering light. If Pegeen was here he'd see her. If Jonnie and Frank were here ... well, he'd see them, too. He eased the whistle so die loop of it hung outside the neck of his sweater. He doubted if they'd come at him anyway, not with the Goldsteins and Arthur, all three of them, striding out strong and healthy.

They walked in silence, their footsteps silent, too, on the damp wooden planks of the deck. There was only the swish, swish of the sea below as the
Titanic
sliced through it, only the wind shearing the funnels, keening like a banshee.

So strange to think of the ship gliding on top of all that deep, dark water, moving in the glow of its own lights, spreading the wings of its own white foam. What did the fish think? Forty-five thousand tons of metal and wood, propellers the size of windmills, a rudder as big as a tree. How did this thing get into their ocean? If you flew above, though, looking down, she'd be no bigger in this immense ocean than a walnut shell in a wide lake.

The young couple had rounded the bow, and there was no one in sight. No one. Had Pegeen been here and gone? Or was it all a trick from the beginning?

Mr. Goldstein pointed up. "See the whiskers around the lights?" he asked.

Barry looked and saw little sparks of color dancing in the air above them.

"Those are splinters of ice caught in the deck lights," Mr. Goldstein said.

"Like bugs around porch lamps at home," Mrs. Goldstein said. "Shiver, shiver." She shook herself under her heavy coat, and the ear flaps on her cap jiggled like a dog's ears, but she was smiling, all white teeth and healthy, cold-whipped cheeks. "Wonderful, isn't it?"

They were nearing the bow themselves now, turning in the shelter of the wide glass panels that shielded them from the wind. The wireless aerials above swung and clicked against the tall mast, and way, way up, the White Star flag whipped and cracked against the brilliant sky.

When they rounded the turn to port side, the wind of the ship's making caught them again and they stopped to get their breath. Mrs. Goldstein wiped her eyes. "Oh, my. That will put a shine on your feathers."

And that was when Barry saw two figures at the rail and one standing back farther along the deck. They were here! All three of them! He'd known it all along.

And then he recognized the couple by the railing. He'd seen them last night, the woman in the pale fur coat; tonight, again, she turned her head away from them as they passed. But tonight she didn't turn it away fast enough, and Barry saw it was Mrs. Adair. He saw the crown of braided fawn-colored hair, the gleam of the pearls at her neck, the pearls that Scollins had admired earlier. Could the man possibly be Peter, little Jocelyn's father? The one Mrs. Adair had whacked on the head? But he was supposed to have been left behind, and these two had been kissing. Barry sensed it even if he hadn't seen it. Was this someone else?

No time to think about it now, though, because there was a girl in a long, dark coat standing farther along the deck. She stood well back, as if hoping for shadows, but there were no shadows to hide among. No one was with her. There was a door, though, the port twin of the one they'd come through earlier on the starboard side. Two fellows could hurl themselves through that and be on him in a minute.

Barry didn't even glance at her as they passed, though he knew it was Pegeen. Knew, too, that she saw him. She took a small step forward, then back.

When he and the Goldsteins were opposite the door he said, "Thanks for letting me walk with you. I think I've had enough now, and I'll go in."

"Really? Too bad. We're planning on another turn around." Mrs. Goldstein put a gloved hand on his shoulder. "Come walk with us any night. We're in Cabin Two B. Come see us anytime if you're lonely for your grandfather. We miss our two grandsons already. In fact, we're planning another trip to visit them."

Barry nodded. They were so nice. "Lucky grandchildren," he said. He glanced nervously at the swinging doors. If only he could ask the Goldsteins to come inside with him ... But how could he do that?

"Good-night, then," they called, moving on.

"Good-night."

He had his whistle between his lips even as they turned; had the door open, the little penknife in his hand. There was no one there. The ship, serene and warm and quiet, hummed around him. He could hear the music, but fainter now....

He circled back, wide, toward Pegeen Flynn, keeping a distance between himself and the railing, looking up, sideways, every way. She was the only one here.

She wore the long, dark coat and the boots he'd seen her in on the dock, but a black shawl hid her hair and shoulders, blowing a little where she didn't hold it.

"I was certain sure the message didn't get to you," she said.

"It did." Barry had trouble keeping his glance on her. The swinging door was in his line of sight if he stood sideways.

She pointed to the whistle. "What's this?" Then answered herself, "Och, sure, Jonnie and Frank have had a lot of these blown in their faces."

"And they'll have one blown again, and worse, if they come near me," Barry said.

"They'll not be coming near you," Pegeen said. "They're happy enough with themselves for what they already did to you." Her finger, cold as an icicle, touched the stitches in his face and the hurt skin around them.

He jerked his head away. "What they want is to throw me in the ocean."

"They'd never. They're braggarts, the both of them, but they're not bad. Whatever they did in Mullinmore, they had good reason."

"What reason?" Barry asked. He wanted to add "to be thieves," but she was their sister so he didn't say that. Instead he said, "If we're going to keep talking we should go inside before we freeze."

"No. I room with Mary Kelly way below, at the back. She wanted to come with me, for we don't trust you no more than you trust us. I told her I had to come by myself, because what was done to you was done by my brothers. Here." From under the shawl she took the glove. "You were late getting to me. Mary will be fretting already."

The glove was warm from being under the shawl and close to her body. Barry held it in both hands. "Thanks."

"I saw old Mr. O'Neill give the pair of them to you as the ship was leaving," she said. The wind lifted the tail of her shawl, blew it against him, dropped it again. This dose, he could see the shower of freckles across her cheekbones. He saw the tears. "My ma gave me ... this." Her hand touched a silver brooch at her neck. "It has a bit of her hair inside. I wouldn't want to lose it ever in my life." Her voice choked. "Never mind. You'd have no interest in what my ma gave me. I have to go."

"I would have interest. I'm missing Mullinmore and everything. I don't want to leave either." Why was he saying these things to her? Only because she was from home. Only because she'd given him back the glove..."I've never seen you about the town." Cold froze his face, made him pull his elbows against himself, made him hold himself tight and small so there'd be no gap for its bite to come through.

"I've been away, living with my aunt Maggie. There's too many of us at home, that's why—" She stopped and he saw the small shrug of her shoulders that said again,
What do you care?

"I have to go," she repeated, and turned.

He caught at the shawl. "Is your cabin all right?" What a dopey question. She'd know it was just to keep her here an extra minute that he'd asked.

He saw her pleased little smile. She knew.

"It's nice enough, but it's awful small. Mary and I gave our life jackets to Jonnie and Frank to store for us. They take up too much room."

"How did you get to this deck anyway?"

Her smile widened. "Jonnie and Frank were telling the others the way if they wanted to come. There's an alley down on E Deck. The sailors call it Scodand Road. It runs the length of the ship." This time her smile mocked him. "There's a locked gate that's not that hard to go up over." She tugged at the shawl and freed it from his grip. "Now you know. You know how to get down to us if you have a mind for it."

He watched her turn and go. He watched her till the swinging doors closed behind her.

Sometimes Barry dreamed about his mother and father. That night he dreamed they were standing by the railing of the
Titanic,
kissing, and when he came along they pulled apart.

"Mother! Father!" Barry called out in his dream voice, running toward them on dream-light feet. But his mother turned her back and looked out to sea, and his father said, "It's only your mother and father. You wouldn't be interested."

When he wakened it was still dark. The only sound was the throb of the ship's engines. The beat seemed louder, faster, but maybe he thought so because of the night and the quiet. Scollins turned and murmured sleepily in the other bed.

Barry had Grandpop's gloves, both of them, under his pillow, and he put them on now. The right one seemed still to be warm with the warmth of Pegeen Flynn, but that he was certainly imagining. The warmth had to have come from his own bed.

He wished Pegeen had lived in Mullinmore instead of with her auntie, whoever that was. He and she might have been friends. But probably not. The likes of the O'Neills were not friendly with the likes of the Flynns. He thought of the little un-painted Flynn house in Dead Lane, next to the chapel graveyard. How many rooms did it have? Two, maybe, and a kitchen. How many children were there? Seven or eight, at least. But, but ... He thought of the way Pegeen's brothers and sisters had clung to her, the wailing heartbreak in Mrs. Flynn's voice when she'd seen her sons and daughter go. She loved them. They loved each other.