Les’s reaction reminds Emma of someone pretending to throw a ball for a St Bernard. His confusion is complete. Eventually, Betty takes pity on him and turns her attention to Emma. ‘So you’re interested in who supplied the flowers for theTitanic?’
‘Yes, and more than that– I think there must have been a florist on board. If you think about it, all the public rooms would have needed decorating and flowers would have been ordered for some of the cabins. Someone with skill must have arranged them.’ Emma can hear her voice coming out squeaky in her anxiety to persuade Betty.
‘Are there records you can look up?’ Betty asks.
Emma relaxes. She has said it out loud and no one has laughed at her. ‘You would be amazed at the information that’s available. All the crew are listed– but no mention of The Florist. I can’t find her name anywhere. It’s a real mystery.’ She can’t help herself, she is back to imagining a very specific person, The Florist. Betty nods and Emma takes this as encouragement and goes on. ‘I found a quote from someone, saying that theTitanicwas “a ship full of flowers”. It was April, so there would have been lots of spring flowers to choose from. Other greenhouse varieties, too, like roses. Oh, and there were flower storage areas, so presumably she needed more flowers for things like corsages, buttonholes and bouquets during the voyage. I just think The Florist must have been on board, somewhere.’
‘You’ve given this a lot of thought,’ Betty says, pushing her glasses up.
Emma doesn’t say that she has thought of little else for weeks.
‘You keep saying “she”. Maybe it was a man?’ Les ponders.
Emma ignores this altogether; in her mind it is always The Florist. Female.
Like her?
She hurries on. ‘It began when I couldn’t sleep, and I ended up watching a programme about theTitanic. It was the night I should have… Well, I’m sorry, Les, sorry I didn’t, I couldn’t… Anyway, I kept thinking about the flowers and the clove carnations and the smell of them and the cigar smoke, and what had happened to The Florist.’ Emma is aware she is gabbling– free wheeling– brakes off. ‘I think flowers matter in some way. We fill houses– and ships with them; we use them to send messages; we grow them; we even eat them. Once you see that, you start to see flowers everywhere.’ Emma glances at the roses, lilies and delphiniums lined up on the shelves of the Cabin. ‘When we marry, we carry flowers; when we die…’ Emma has hit a pothole. She tries to say something more, but the words stick in her mouth.
‘Love, has this anything to do with your … um … your loss?’ Betty asks, gently.
Panic forces the word out. ‘No!’ Emma says, emphatically. But there has been a miniscule pause, a tiny disconnect– a flaw in her perfectly reasoned case.Isit to do with her loss? Emma hardly knows.
‘So,’ Betty says slowly, sidestepping the obvious crack in the pavement, ‘what can we do to help?’
Emma feels confused. ‘I don’t know really. I guess it’s just good to tell someone about it. Say it out loud.’ She doesn’t add, ‘I have no one else to talk to’. Instead, she offers Betty one truth, ‘I think I’ve become a bit obsessed.’
Betty leans over and pats her arm, then starts gathering up the coffee mugs. ‘Well, it’s nice to hear you talking for once. You just let us know what we can do to help.’
Emma is surprised by her own shock– and she then wonders why. She knows she has been struggling to hold it together, to engage in even short conversations. As she watches Les walk tothe door, she starts to wonder if she began the game of trading clichés or whether it was the other way around.
Les turns before leaving, clearly still troubled. He blows out a breath, making his beard tremble. ‘So is this book going to be about theTitanicor about flowers?’
Emma may not be sure where this idea of a book came from but there is one thing she is certain of, ‘It’s about finding The Florist on theTitanic.’
And saving her.Emma does not say this last part out loud. She isn’t even sure what it means. The thought just slips through the door at the last moment and makes itself at home in her mind.
Chapter 16
Violet
Plumbago
She watches her mother from the corner of her eye, follows her movements from under half-closed lids. If she can keep her in sight, she will keep hold of her. The reality of her mother moving around the house– folding, carrying, pulling, shifting, muttering– reassures her. She clings on to the sound of her, the feel of her steps vibrating through the wooden floor.
She has her own share of the work– more than her share. After all, she is the eldest, and at sixteen almost a woman. ‘Something of a señorita,’ her father had joked.
Now there are no jokes, just the serious business of packing up a house.
‘Roll them– don’t fold them– you will get more in.’
‘Call your brothers, they need to be ready when the cart comes.’
The days of playing are over– and she must roll and fold and pack alongside her mother. Whenever possible, she tries to work near her. It is all part of keeping hold of her, making sure she doesn’t leave them.
She doesn’t worry about losing her four brothers, even though they can scatter like marbles over stone and be as difficult to locate. Eventually she knows they will roll back.
Nor does she have to worry about her sister. She is a new addition to their family, one who arrived just as their father fell ill. A light in the darkness. She toddles around at a surprising speed on the tips of her toes. Her sister follows her around the small house, just as she follows her mother.
