Follow the flowers?
What does that even mean?
Emma looks down at her close-spaced handwriting. What is she doing? Writing an imaginary conversation with a man who died a decade ago?
She tears off the page, screws it up and drops it on the chair beside her. The journey to the bin, like most things in her life, seems just too much of an effort.
Chapter 4
Violet
Blanket Flowers
Argentina, 1893
She is six years old.
Her father is on the hill waving, his old brown hat making circles in the sky. She starts to run towards him, scattering the small group of sheep in front of her. One animal stumbles and as it falls forward onto its knees she is worried she may have hurt it. Each year there are fewer and fewer in the flock, and she knows her father cannot afford to lose even one animal. She pauses, hovering on the ball of her foot, fear pinning her balance. The sheep scrambles to its feet and is off running with the others– and so is she, her heart pounding with relief. As she gets closer to her father, she anxiously searches his face in case he has seen the animal stumble and is ready to scold her.
But he smiles at her and sweeps his hat in an enormous arc, gesturing for her to look down over the brow of the hill.
‘The blanket flowers are back. Have you ever seen the like?’
The land opens up in front of her, a collage of green grass and grey dust with a splash of blue far off in the distance, like a sweep of bright paint. To her right, down the slope, it looks as if someone has spilt a jar of yellow buttons: tiny dots mark the scattering of flower heads. Even though the nuns have taught her her numbers and have told her parents she is a quick learner, she cannot begin to imagine counting all those flowers.
She reaches up for her father’s hand. It is large and calloused and engulfs hers easily. He squeezes her small fingers momentarily and then he is off, striding down the slope, sweeping a path through the yellow buttons, his mind back on his flock. She knows he has forgotten her and he is searching the horizon for stragglers.
Sometimes, she wishes she too was a sheep.
Chapter 5
Emma
Clove Carnations
From her phone screen she can see it is 2.49 a.m. For a while she lies listening: no dawn chorus, no passing cars– instead, a ringing silence so high-pitched she suspects only she and dogs can hear it. She wonders if it is her guilt that has woken her. She should have gone in to the talk to support Les. It wasn’t much to ask. The last thing she had done before going to bed was to bake a cake to take in for Betty and Les by way of an apology. But as she forgot to add the sugar, this gesture ended up in the bin.
She stretches out her hand to the empty side of the bed and feels the coolness of cotton under her fingertips. How many quilts hide a sheet that is crumpled on one side and yet is pristine and smooth on the other? Months on. For some people, years on. Still, your side of the bed. Still, their side of the bed.
Emma shuffles up until she is sitting, pillows stuffed behind her back. She knows she is not going to get back to sleep tonight. She reaches for her laptop which is down by the side of the bed and starts searching for something to watch on catch-up TV. As she browses the BBC’s Science and Nature section, one title leaps out at her:Disappearing Titanic: Revealing how the ocean is eroding the shipwreck of the Titanic.
Well, at least she might have something to talk to Les about.
Forty minutes later, Emma watches as a floral wreath is flung out into the Atlantic to commemorate the sinking of theTitanic. The story of the erosion of the shipwreck had been poignant; the ocean slowly reclaiming the huge bulk that was once a ship. The metal hull, the captain’s bath, the glossy blue-green tiles of the steam room– all slowly fading way. Possessions that had laid scattered on the ocean floor– shoes, hairbrushes, opera glasses, violins– had either been recovered or left to sink into their sandy grave.
As she watches the wreath of lilies tip lopsidedly beneath the grey waves, a new thought comes to her: what about the flowers on theTitanic? Who arranged those? Surely there must have been flowers: smart table centres for the restaurants; carnation buttonholes for evening jackets; and corsages for crepe and silk gowns.
As the credits roll over footage of a disintegrating marble fireplace, Emma imagines the mantelpiece with a crystal vase of ruby roses on it, cut-glass sparkling in light reflected from banks of mirrors. In the labyrinth below deck she pictures plump stewards in white uniforms rushing to deliver bouquets to first-class cabins.
Somewhere on theTitanic, someone must have arranged these flowers.
She leans back on her pillows and closes her laptop. She shuts her eyes, hovering between waking and drowsing.
The documentary said that it was April when theTitanicset sail from Southampton; the dawn must have been cold and dank as the final preparations were made. Did the florist arrive at the docks at first light as the flowers were being delivered onto the wharf? Did she dodge between wagons as she searched for the nurserymen’s cart? Perhaps she had lingered in the shadow of a heavily laden dray as she watched cases of Cognac and Champagne being winched into the hold? Did she count the wooden boxes of flowers being unloaded for the ship? Perhaps she picked out a rose, checking it for bruising, and was unable to resist lifting it to her face to smell.
Emma stirs and reopens her laptop. She starts searching online for information about the crew of theTitanic. A myriad of sites immediately pop up, many listing those who had worked on board. She can’t give Les and Betty a cake, but maybe she can find out this bit of information, something of interest to show she is not a rude and thoughtless woman– an offering fromtheir trainee florist to lay alongside her apology.
By 5.25 a.m. Emma has searched the entire crew of theTitanicbut cannot find a florist, and with frustration creeps in a feeling of unease. She rubs her forefinger over the rough patch of skin on the top of her right thumb. Surely there must have been one? They had everyone else on board. The staff is recorded in painstaking detail: plate stewards, linen stewards– every type of steward– including racquet, Turkish bath and glory hole. There are electricians, ice-men, coffee-men, lamp trimmers, plumbers, greasers, stokers, firemen, confectioners and Viennese pastry chefs. Everything the ‘largest ship in the world’ could possibly need: from gym instructors to clothes pressers, printers, barbers, window cleaners, interpreters, even buglers.
