‘I just need one long twig,’ she says, picking up her secateurs. ‘My customer and her sister were always fighting– either that or they didn’t speak for months. She told me it was usually over something stupid. Sometimes she forgot what. And then– well, then it was too late.’ Emma uses the twine to add an olive branch to her spray of pale pink scabious and cream larkspur.
Betty pats her shoulder again, and Emma thinks this time it might be with approval. Betty has an older sister who has ‘grown very grand and now thinks she’s a cut above’. This makes her think of her own mother. She called her on the way to work this morning to see if she could shed any light on relatives from around 1912 who might have some connection with theTitanic. Her mother was clear in her dismissal of the idea: ‘Irish?Titanic? The Nurse? What are you on about, Emma?’
Les comes into the Cabin carrying a tray of lavender plants, letting in a stream of watery sunshine. The rain has abated, and the sun is doing its best to break through the clouds. He is shortly followed by Tamas, whose large arms are wrapped around bundles of golden rod, white veronica and long-stemmed cornflowers.
‘You have heard?’ Tamas says, depositing the flowers on the bench. ‘You have heard?’ he repeats looking at Emma and nodding his head furiously. ‘I, Tamas, have found your Bealing’s, like I said I would.’ He then frowns and looks uncharacteristically anxious. ‘I say this, but we are not there yet. You must meet this woman who I have found for you. She is the key to the puzzle– I am sure of this.’ He hands Emma a piece of paper with a name and an address in Lincolnshire on it. ‘She is expecting you to call and then to go and see her to talk. Her son says she is not a woman who does Zooming.’ Suddenly he throws his arms wide, narrowly missing Betty. His confidence has returned. ‘It is like a quest. We are the Four Amigos. I play these games on my computer at home. I am a warrior looking for treasure. I make Berta into a dragon or sometimes a troll or a pig. This Idoto make her laugh.’ Emma can’t help noticing that Tamas is looking anxious again, and she wonders how funny Berta finds being a pig.
Betty is looking bemused, but Les smiles encouragingly at Tamas. ‘You’ve done a great job, Tamas. I am sure Emma is very pleased.’
And she realises she hasn’t thanked Tamas. Hasn’t, as yet, said anything. So much for her thinking in Spanish. That’s all very well, but she does actually have to open her mouth and speak.
‘Tamas,’ she begins.
But his attention has been caught by something outside of the window and he is off again. ‘Look at that dog– that Dachshund. It is like a sausage. It is so small and fat, I could put it into bread and eat it.’ With this he bangs out of the door, and Emma can see him striding towards the small dog. She presumes he is going to pat it. She just hopes he doesn’t step on it. Or eat it.
‘Well!’ Betty says, watching him go.
‘Well,’ echoes Les, then he too heads for the door. ‘Best get on. No rest for the wicked.’
‘That’s great news about Bealing’s,’ Betty says, before turning to collect her secateurs. ‘You all right here, love? I’ve stuff I need to do in the polytunnel.’
And with that, she also disappears and Emma is left alone.
She may not have immediately thanked Tamas, but as she watches him through the window making a fuss of the miniature dog, sheisgrateful. In fact, she feels she has quite a lot to thank theTitanicfor.
It first started after days of watching Betty chatting to customers. Betty would greet them and then somehow introduce all manner of subjects: the shoes they were wearing; a new film she’d heard about; an old song she loved. Before they knew it, people would tell Betty about their childhood, their families, and how they’d always wanted to play lead guitar in a band. It seemed there was nothing people weren’t prepared to share with her. Emma hadn’t wanted to replicate this– she still felt the need to keep a distance– but she had wanted to take a small step towards having a conversation, making a connection. And so she had begun to mention having seen a programme about theTitanicto customers. And it had worked. It seemed everyone had something to say about theTitanic.
Tamas is back– and it seems he is no exception. ‘I have been thinking and reading about theTitanic. It was a remarkable and big ship: two-hundred and sixty-nine metres long, twenty-eight metres broad, with a height of fifty-three metres from the keel to the top of the funnels…’
Since introducing the subject into conversation, Emma has begun to recognise differentTitanictypes. Some, like Tamas, are Numbers Nerds, with an astonishing range of facts and figures at their fingertips. Others, like Les, are Detectives, fascinated by uncovering therealreason behind the sinking (so far: a fire in the hold; poor grade steel; shoddy rivets). She has talked to Romantics (oh, the dresses; the Turkish baths; the only way to travel to New York), the Sympathisers (can you imagine what it was like…), the Conspiracy Theorists (it didn’t sink; was never actually finished), the Morally Outraged (stokers abandoned; company cover-up), and the Unbelievers (Titanic? That’s just a film, isn’t it?). She’s not quite sure where she fits in all of this. Maybe there should be a category of Recently Obsessed?
Back home in her cottage, she has also discovered there is an online community ofTitanicdevotees. Among the people she has encountered, there are two who she would like to get to know better. One is a woman in London who is curating a forthcoming V&A exhibition about life on board ocean liners– Emma has already put the date of the opening in her diary. She worried at first about going where there would likely be crowds, but when she framed it in her mind as a ‘research trip’, she found the prospect far less scary.
The other person she has connected with is a retired perfumier living in Paris, well known for creating a famous range of floral fragrances. His area of interest is the phials of perfume carried on theTitanicthat were found intact on the ocean floor. They have only had a brief exchange, but Emma is keen to know more about the perfume, and she wonders if, like her, he would be interested in finding out more about the flowers on board.
She has tried to keep her research focused on the flowers and The Florist on theTitanic, but every now and then Emma has found herself pulling up The Nurse’s photograph on her phone. She keeps staring at her face, trying to make sense of the feeling she had the first time she laid eyes on her.
Meanwhile, Tamas is still in full flow. ‘… and sixty-six thousand tons of water it moves ouf of the way…’
To try to stem the flow Emma throws in, ‘Romania?’
He bites. ‘No! You must try again!’
‘Bulgaria?’
He shakes his head, and before she can make her next suggestion, he points out of the window. ‘There he goes, that sausage dog. We have a dog such as that one.’
Emma knows she looks surprised.
‘Yes, I see you think I would have a big dog. A wolf, as big as a horse.’
She smiles. ‘Well, yes, Tamas, I suppose I would.’
‘Ah, well, you are right. Mitsy is not our dog. It is the dog of our daughter, Greta.’
‘Do you look after Mitsy for her, then?’
‘I am supposing you would say we are adopting her dog. Greta, our daughter, she died.’ Tamas slaps his arms around his body as if he is suddenly cold, and his eyes brim with tears.
