The Time Spell

by Judi Curtin

  If something didn’t happen soon, I wasn’t going to have much of a future to plan.

  ‘I’m just going to chillax and see what happens.’

  She laughed. ‘You use the strangest words sometimes.’

  I smiled. ‘That’s what Mikey said.’

  ‘Who’s Mikey?’

  ‘Mikey was my very good friend,’ I said.

  ‘And where is he now?’

  ‘I very much hope that he’s at home in Ballyboher, where he lives with his granny.’

  ‘And why wouldn’t he be there?’

  I sighed. ‘It’s a bit complicated.’

  It was true. Everything in 1912 seemed to be complicated. There’s a lot to be said for staying in the time and place where you belong.

  Why couldn’t I be at home, where my biggest problem was trying to decide what top to wear or what flavour ice cream to buy?

  ‘I hope you’ll still be my friend when we get to America,’ said Mary. ‘Please say you will.’

  I wanted to answer. But what could I possibly have said?

  It’s complicated?

  After lunch, Mary took my arm.

  ‘Come with me,’ she said. ‘There are some people I’d like you to meet.’

  Usually I like meeting new people, but right then the only people I was interested in were ones who were good at making lifeboats.

  But still, I followed Mary down a corridor to a cabin. It was like the one I’d shared with her and her family, but this was even smaller, with just one set of bunk beds. Sitting on the lower bunk were a man, a woman and a little girl of about four years old. All three were thin and pale.

  ‘They’re very poor,’ said Mary. ‘And I think they are sick.’

  I was wondering if it was rude to say this in front of them, when she continued. ‘They don’t speak English.’

  ‘Er … so why exactly are we here?’

  ‘I met them yesterday,’ said Mary. ‘Before I met you. And I brought the little girl, Magda, for a walk. The fresh air is good for her, and it gave the parents a chance to get some rest. If they still look sick when we get to America, they won’t be allowed to stay.’

  Mary reached out her arms and the little girl scrambled into them. She hugged Magda, and the girl hugged back, without smiling.

  Mary held up one finger to the parents. ‘One hour,’ she said. ‘I’ll be back in one hour.’

  The parents smiled gratefully, and we left, closing the door behind us.

  ‘Let’s go up on deck,’ said Mary. ‘The sea air will bring roses to Magda’s cheeks.’

  I got some more blankets and we found a spot on deck. For ages, Mary played with Magda. She sang to her, recited rhymes and tickled her, but Magda never once smiled. She just stared solemnly at Mary with her huge brown eyes.

  Mary’s patience seemed endless. It was nice watching how gentle she was with Magda, but after a while I started to worry about Saturn.

  ‘I need to go check on my parents,’ I said. ‘See you in the dining room later?’

  Mary nodded and I set off for First Class once again.

  I fed Saturn and then lay beside him in the lifeboat.

  ‘Take me home,’ I said.

  Saturn blinked.

  ‘Take me home, please.’

  Another blink.

  ‘Pretty please?’

  One more blink.

  ‘Please, Saturn. Just tell me what to do and I’ll do it,’ I wailed. ‘I know you know how to bring me back. Is there a magic word? Is it Abracadabra? Rumpelstiltskin? Muggle-wuggle? Open Sesame? Home Sesame? Sesame Street?’

  Saturn licked my face once. Then he curled up and went to sleep.

  ‘You’re totally useless,’ I said to the sleeping bundle of white fur. ‘If you don’t do something soon, you’re going to find yourself having the biggest sleep of your life. And don’t come crying to me when that happens because it will already be much too late.’

  I climbed down and walked aimlessly along the decks, trying to work out what to do next.

  If Saturn wasn’t going to bring me home, my only hope was to stop the ship from sinking. And how was I supposed to do that?

  I’d already tried telling a sailor and the captain, and neither of them had believed me. If I kept on talking about the ship sinking, the people in charge might decide that I was a dangerous troublemaker. They might lock me up below decks, like they did to Leonardo DiCaprio in the film.

  And if the ship started to go down, I sooo didn’t want to be in the basement, chained to a pipe.

  I walked for ages and ages. On one of the decks, I saw Ernestine. She was sitting on a bench, talking to someone. I tiptoed closer and saw that she was alone and talking to her dolls, who were all lined up in a row beside her. She was pointing to each one in turn.

  ‘You’re beautiful, you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful,’ she said as she made her way along the row of dolls. Then she came to the last doll. ‘You’re not beautiful, Esmerelda, and I don’t love you any more,’ she said. ‘You’re too ugly.’

  I smiled to myself. As far as I could see, all the dolls were a bit ugly, with their stiff hair, their staring eyes and their bright red cheeks.

  Just then, a door opened. I ducked behind a pillar as Ernestine’s mother leaned out through the doorway.

  ‘Come along, Ernestine,’ she said. ‘Time to come inside.’

  ‘Coming,’ replied Ernestine. She picked up each doll, kissed it and laid it carefully in her basket. Then she got to the last doll. ‘Not you, ugly-face Esmerelda. I don’t want you any more,’ she said.

  Then she flounced off, leaving one doll behind her on the bench. As soon as the coast was clear, I walked over to the bench. The abandoned doll was lying face down on the seat. I picked it up and looked at it. Now that I could see her properly, I noticed that she was kind of cute, with twinkly eyes and a cheeky smile. On her forehead, there was a long, fine crack, probably the reason Ernestine had rejected her.

  ‘Hm,’ I said to myself, tucking the doll under my arm. ‘You might not be perfect, but I think I know someone who will find it in her heart to love you. I’ll have to think of a new name for you, though. You’re getting a new life, so you need a new name.’

  I found Mary in her cabin. She followed me into the corridor.

  ‘Look,’ I said, holding up the doll.

  Mary touched the doll’s stiff curly hair and felt her hard fingers. ‘She’s beautiful,’ she sighed. ‘Where did you get her?’

  I hesitated. ‘My granny gave her to me a long time ago,’ I said in the end. ‘But I’ve just decided that I’m too big for dolls.’

  Mary’s eyes widened, and I realized that for all her serious, grown-up ways, she didn’t think that she was too big for dolls.

  ‘So I thought Magda might –’

  She interrupted me. ‘You’d let Magda play with her?’

  ‘Well, I thought I’d let her … you know … keep her.’

  Tears actually came to Mary’s eyes. ‘That’s the kindest thing I’ve ever heard of,’ she said, as she led the way, almost running, to Magda’s cabin.

  Magda was sitting on her bed when we opened the door to the cabin. I held the doll towards her. Magda’s eyes opened wide, but otherwise she didn’t move.

  ‘Here,’ I said. ‘This is for you.’

  Still she didn’t move. Her mother shook her head as if in protest, but Mary smiled at her. ‘It’s all right,’ she said.

  Magda’s mother nodded. I rocked the doll for a second then placed it gently in Magda’s arms. Magda copied my action, rocking the doll carefully, like it was a real baby.

  ‘Tell her its name,’ said Mary.

  I thought quickly. ‘Tilly,’ I said. ‘Her name is Tilly.’

  Then I pointed at the doll’s chest and said slowly, ‘Tilly.’

  ‘Ti-lly,’ said Magda. Then a huge smile spread across
her face.

  I would have smiled too, if I hadn’t been so busy trying to hold back my tears.

  It’s funny how time flies when you’re on a ship that you know is speeding towards an iceberg that is very likely going to be the death of you.

  I slept in Mary’s cabin again, and soon it was Saturday morning.

  After breakfast, Mary and I went to sit on our favourite place on deck. She unfastened her hair and let it fly in the wind. I stopped her when she started to pin it up again.

  ‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Let me plait it for you. I always plait Tilly’s for her.’

  ‘Your doll?’

  I shook my head. ‘No, not my doll. I have a friend called Tilly too.’

  Suddenly I remembered something. I pulled up the sleeve of my dress and held out my charm bracelet, turning the charms so that Mary could see the tiny photographs inside.

  ‘That’s Tilly and me,’ I said, feeling sad as I gazed at Tilly’s grinning face. I remembered how we’d laughed that day and tried for ages to take pictures that we both liked.

  Mary gasped. ‘Photographs! I’ve never had my photograph taken.’

  I thought of all the photos of Tilly and me that I have on my computer.

  I thought of the wall behind my bed, where I’ve stuck hundreds of photographs.

  I thought of my world, which was so different to the one where Mary lived.

  ‘Tilly is pretty,’ said Mary, interrupting my thoughts.

  I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

  Mary settled back against my knees and I started to plait her hair.

  ‘Tell me all about her,’ she said.

  ‘She …’ I stopped.

  I missed Tilly so much, I didn’t know that I could talk about her, but Mary was waiting.

  ‘She what?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘She …’ I stopped again. ‘It’s too hard,’ I whispered.

  Mary misunderstood. How could she possibly imagine why I found it so hard to describe Tilly?

  ‘It can be hard to describe someone who is close to you,’ she said. ‘Just tell me what she likes and I’ll know what kind of a person she is.’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Tilly likes all kinds of stuff. She likes swimming. She likes climbing. She likes ice cream. She’s the best person for telling jokes that I’ve ever known. She likes TV. She –’

  ‘What’s TV?’

  Oops. Still, what did it matter now?

  But how do you explain TV? How would you think that you would ever find yourself in a place where you had to explain TV?

  I finished plaiting Mary’s hair, and she turned to face me, waiting.

  ‘Well,’ I began. ‘TV is short for television. We have it in Dublin, but I gather it hasn’t arrived in County Cork yet?’

  Mary shook her head. ‘I’ve never heard of it. Tell me what it is.’

  ‘It’s like a box. Or it used to be like a box, but now it’s mostly flat, like a picture.’

  ‘And what kind of a picture is it?’

  ‘It can be anything. Think of anything in the whole wide world, and it could be on TV.’

  ‘Like a baby, or a doll or a hat or an apple?’

  I smiled. ‘Yes, it could be any one of those, or even all of them at the same time. But the important thing is that it moves.’

  ‘The box moves?’

  ‘No, the box stays in the same place, but the picture moves. It’s like …’ I had a sudden flash of inspiration. ‘It’s like the movies.’

  ‘What are movies?’

  I sighed.

  Weren’t movies invented yet? Or were they invented, but news hadn’t got as far as the village where Mary used to live?

  ‘OK, forget about movies. Just try to imagine a picture that moves, and it tells a story, or sometimes it’s a group of people in a house and you can watch them doing stuff, like having their breakfast and washing their teeth.’

  ‘Like looking in someone’s window?’

  I nodded. ‘Kind of.’

  ‘But isn’t that rude?’

  I nodded. ‘I suppose it is rude, really. But it’s very popular where I come from.’

  Mary looked bored.

  It was funny. Back home, I spend as much time as possible in front of the TV, but now I couldn’t even explain it properly.

  ‘Forget about TV,’ said Mary. ‘It doesn’t sound so good. I don’t think it would ever be popular in Cork. Tell me a story instead. Do you know any good stories?’

  I grinned. ‘I know heaps of great stories. Did I tell you the one about the boy wizard with the scar on his forehead?’

  Mary shook her head. ‘I’ve never heard that one.’

  I took a deep breath and began. ‘There was once a boy called Harry Potter …’

  When I’d finished my tale, Mary sighed.

  ‘That was a wonderful story. Did you make it up yourself?’

  ‘Er, not exactly. It’s very –’

  Mary laughed as she finished my sentence. ‘I know, I know – it’s very popular where you come from.’

  Then she jumped up. ‘Let’s go inside,’ she said. ‘There’s someone I’d like you to meet. Her name is Aggie.’

  Aggie was sitting on her own in the big dining hall. She looked about twenty years old and, like all the other Third-Class passengers, she was wearing neat but shabby clothes.

  We sat beside her and Mary introduced us.

  ‘How are you today, Aggie?’ Mary asked.

  Aggie didn’t answer. Instead her grey eyes filled with tears. ‘I think I’ll go and lie down in my cabin for a while,’ she said. And then she hurried off, pressing a lace-trimmed hanky to her overflowing eyes.

  ‘What on earth was that about?’ I asked.

  Mary sighed. ‘Aggie’s grandmother didn’t want her to go to America and they had a big fight before Aggie left. They parted on bad terms. Aggie said things that she’s sorry for now.’

  ‘That’s sad,’ I agreed.

  ‘I suggested that Aggie should write a letter apologizing to her grandmother as soon as she gets to New York.’

  ‘Sounds like a good plan to me.’

  Mary nodded. ‘But Aggie said her grandmother is very old and sick. And the post from America to Ireland takes ages. Aggie’s afraid her grandmother won’t live long enough to get the letter.’

  Hello? Have you seen the name on this ship? There’s a danger that no one around here is going to live very long.

  ‘Wow, that’s really, really sad,’ I said.

  ‘It breaks my heart that we can’t do anything to help her,’ said Mary.

  I gave a small smile. ‘I’m not too sure about that,’ I said. ‘Let me just think for a minute.’

  A while later, Mary led the way to Aggie’s cabin.

  A tear-stained Aggie opened the door, and waved us inside.

  We went into the cabin and I sat on the bed next to Aggie’s big brown suitcase. While Aggie was clearing a space for Mary to sit, I examined the suitcase. There were two large luggage labels on the side – one with an address in New York, and the other with an address in Cork. I peeled the second label from the suitcase and slipped it into my pocket. I didn’t know where Aggie was going to end up, but the suitcase’s only destination was the bottom of the sea, and it didn’t need any address label to get there.

  ‘Mary has told me the whole story,’ I said.

  ‘And Lauren’s going to help you,’ said Mary. Aggie tried to smile. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘But there’s nothing you can do. My grandmother is going to die without knowing how sorry I am for what I said to her. No one can change that.’

  ‘Lauren can,’ said Mary with great confidence.

  ‘How?’

  Mary hesitated. ‘She hasn’t told me exactly how. I trust her though, and I think you should too.’

  Now they both turned towards me expectantly.
r />   ‘What would you like to say to your grandmother, Aggie?’ I asked.

  Aggie wrung her hands together as if she were washing them with invisible soap.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered.

  ‘Er … you need to help me out here, Aggie,’ I said. ‘Just think for a minute. Imagine if your grandmother were right here in this cabin, right now, what would you say to her?’

  ‘Em … how did you get here?’

  I tried to hide my smile.

  ‘OK, so maybe that wasn’t the best approach. Forget that stuff. Tell me what you’d like to say to your granny … you know … about the way you parted?’

  Aggie wrung her hands again.

  ‘I’d … I’d say … I’m sorry, Granny … and I didn’t mean to say all those bad things … and I love you and –’

  ‘OK. That’s probably enough. We’ll be back later. Don’t you worry about a thing.’

  We closed the door on a speechless Aggie, and Mary followed me as I raced through the corridors.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.

  ‘Be patient,’ I said. ‘And then you’ll see.’

  At last we got to the linen cupboard. I opened the door.

  ‘Coming?’ I asked.

  Mary hesitated. ‘I … I will if you want.’

  The look of absolute terror on her face betrayed what she really felt.

  ‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘I can do this on my own. You go and check on Magda or Aggie or Baba or someone.’

  She gave a sudden smile. ‘I could go and check on your parents, if you like.’

  ‘No,’ I said quickly.

  Mary looked hurt.

  ‘No, thanks,’ I said more gently. ‘It’s nice of you to offer, but I know they want to rest. Now, I’d better go and I’ll see you back in the dining hall in a little while.’

  Then I closed the cupboard door and set off on my journey.

  I was getting to know my way around by now, so even with a quick detour to feed Saturn, I was quickly at my destination.

  I smoothed my hair and straightened my dress, and then knocked sharply on the door.

  It was opened by a kind-looking man in a smart uniform.

  ‘What can I do for you, young lady?’ he asked.