But still, however hard she looks, there is no mention of a florist.
In her hours of browsing and note making, she has discovered much more about those on board– and their fates. As she expected, the women fared a lot better than the men (‘women and children first’, after all); three quarters of the female passengers survived compared to a fifth of the men. She alsoknew there would be a disparity in the survival ratesbetween classes– like millions, she had gone to see Kate and Leo inTitanic– but she is still horrified to read that sixty children drowned, almost all of them third-class passengers. It seems children didn’t always come first.
However, she cannot kid herself; after hours of searching, she is no closer to finding a florist, and who’s to say she didn’t drown among the flowers? Emma wants to feel hopeful for her but she is no longer a woman who believes in happy endings. Besides, she knows the odds are stacked against her. One of the first notes she made is:Crew, 908. Survived, 212.
By 6.45 a.m., Emma is following an inconclusive message board about floral buttonholes, that may, or may not, have been given to first-class male passengers each evening. She clicks off the page and dismisses the doubters. Everything she has read so far claims that the White Star Line spared no expense for their passengers– surely they would have provided buttonholes. She imagines carnations– rich, clove carnations, burgundy petals pressed against the black silk of a lapel, their peppery fragrance mixing with the smell of cigar smoke.
Illuminated by the watery glow from her laptop, she tries to pin down how she is feeling. Tired? Certainly. Frustrated? Yes. But also intrigued. She has missed the feeling of piqued interest that punctuated her scientific research.
Emma stares into space as she rubs her fingers once more over the top of her right thumb, caressing a patch of skin made rough by stripping dozens of thorns off the stems of roses. Now it is a very different sort of question that has wheedled its way into her brain. And the question is,wasthere a florist on theTitanic?
Chapter 6
Violet
Sage Flowers
What would you like to be when you grow up?
She didn’t know that there was such a question. It certainly isn’t a thing she has ever been asked. But recently she overheard this query directed at a boy who lives on a different street to them, a street that is edged with paving stones that get washed each morning.
The borrowed question occupies her as she rushes through her chores. She does not think she would like to be a sheep farmer like her father. Or is he still a farmer now that the flock is so sparse the sheep are like flecks scattered on the grasslands? She peruses the occupations of the women she has met. She is a girl, and girls become servants, mothers, dressmakers, nuns. She knows she doesn’t want to be a nun. She doesn’t know exactly why she feels this with such certainty, but the thought is as solid beneath her feet as the smart paving stones she is not allowed to walk on.
Her mother, who can normally answer most questions, only laughs at her and tells her she will be a good-for-nothing if she spends her days with her head in the clouds. So instead (when the chores are done) she lies in the garden and talks to her doll, whose bed is on a bank of earth under the sage bush. She has made her a blanket from sacking and leaves from the bush. When the purple flowers come, she scatters those on her too.
Her doll tells her she can be a princess with a large garden full of the most beautiful flowers and that she too will be able to sleep in a bed made of petals.
This is good to imagine, but she thinks that it is not something she will tell her mother.
Chapter 7
Emma
Crushed Clematis
‘Are you all right, love? Les and I were worried when you didn’t turn up last night.’ Betty and Les are waiting for her in the Flower Cabin, Les peering at her over his wife’s head–a double-decker of concerned faces.
Emma was hoping to sneak into work unnoticed. Mind befuddled by lack of sleep, she cannot seem to articulate her apology or explain her attempts at research; the harshness of the morning light illuminating their inadequacies. Just behind the door, she catches a flash of a high-viz jacket.
Tamas’s large face peers at her from around the back of the door. ‘Les says you promised to come to his talk– I am sure it was very good. You must have been ill. This is what I was saying to Betty.’
‘Decided on an early night, I expect,’ Betty suggests. ‘Perhaps you weren’t feeling quite the thing.’
‘Always better to be safe than sorry when it comes to your health,’ Les adds, nodding, his beard brushing the top of Betty’s curls.
‘Yes, sleep is often the best medicine,’ Betty says, and Emma wonders if they are back to swapping clichés, or is Betty throwing her a lifeline? She tries to read the look on Betty’s face– concern, but is there sympathy, too?
‘You do not look ill.’ Tamas comes out from behind the door and stands with his head on one side. ‘You look healthy and strong. Like my cow.’
She feels like a cow, a prize exhibit, framed by the door, for all to stare at. They are all waiting for her to speak. What can she say? That she was frightened of being in a room full of strangers? That this fear of people is getting worse? That she had hoped, here, among the flowers, she might be safe, be able to make new connections, but now she thinks she may have made a mistake? That she feels useless and ashamed?
Still they wait. And still, she has no words.
She hears Tamas take a deep breath– a precursor to speech. She knowsanythingis better than being hit by another of his sledgehammer comments, so she says, quickly, ‘I just couldn’t face it.’
Which of course is true, but she tries to hide the pain of this truth by making herself sound jolly– like it is all a bit of a joke. She means to add an apology, but she’s stopped dead by Betty’s startled blinking. And worse than this, Les looks hurt.
It is Les who reaches across the gap between them. ‘Never mind. Next time, eh?’
