by Anne Bennett
‘What’s wrong with his stomach?’
‘Oh I don’t know,’ Mary said. ‘Indigestion most likely. It only seemed to start when you started bringing the food from Maitland’s. His stomach’s not used to good food, too rich for him.’ And then she added as she saw Angela’s brow creased in concern, ‘But don’t worry yourself, Angela. If that is what’s upsetting him he’ll get used to it in the end.’
FIVE
Mary thought life had finally reached a more or less even keel. She had no idea what the future held, but just for the moment things were going along nicely. True, like their elder brothers, Sean and Gerry could find no permanent jobs, but that wasn’t so important now that Angela was bringing in ten shillings a week and a big bag of groceries. Barry, now two thirds of his way through his apprenticeship, had had a raise and he was able to also tip up ten shillings a week and Matt earned three pounds and kept little back for himself. It meant if Sean and Gerry had earned anything it was a bonus and if they hadn’t managed that, it didn’t matter.
Barry knew that wasn’t how his brothers viewed things because he had discussed it with them. They felt failures and they viewed the lives of their brothers in America with unbridled envy. ‘I don’t think I’m asking a lot,’ Sean said. ‘I want a job of work that pays enough for me to live independently, pay rent and bills with enough over to buy some much-needed clothes, or have my leaky boots mended, or go out for an evening and have a few beers. Now I call that living a life.’
‘Well you can’t do that here,’ Gerry said. ‘Just at the moment a person needs to go to America to live at all.’
‘Well why don’t you go then?’ Barry asked.
‘Basically because of you, mate,’ Gerry said.
‘Why me?’
‘Because we’re dropping you in the mire.’
‘How?’
‘Well we can’t all swan off and leave Mammy and Daddy on their own.’
‘They won’t be on their own,’ Barry said. ‘I have no yen to go to America and how will you not going to America help any of us?’
Both boys had to admit it would make little difference, but Gerry still felt bad about leaving Barry to shoulder all the responsibility of their ageing parents on his own, but Sean said, ‘At least Angela loves our mammy as much as we do, so there will be no problem when you wed.’
‘What d’you mean when we wed?’
‘Well you will wed won’t you?’ Gerry said. ‘Everyone knows that you are crazy about her. Plain as the nose on your face.’
‘Yes but Angela is little more than a child. She’s not even sixteen until the spring and I don’t know if she feels the same about me.’
Sean laughed. ‘Course she does. The love-light’s shining in her eyes every time she looks at you. Think Mammy’s aware of it and I reckon nothing would please her more because she loves Angela like the daughter she never had.’
What Sean said was true. Angela had no memory of her earlier life with her birth parents but the memories that were rock solid for her were of Mary cuddling her tight and tucking her into bed at night with a kiss. Angela knew she was truly loved by the whole family and especially Mary and Matt, and she loved them in return. Barry knew she loved him too and always had, but she was so young. It might be a childish love she had for him and not yet the love of a woman for a man, a love that would last a lifetime and stand strong and true against all that life might throw at them. He couldn’t ask such a young person to make a commitment like that, it wouldn’t be fair. He decided to stick to his original plan and wait until she was eighteen and he was through his apprenticeship before admitting how he felt about her and hoping she felt the same. So Barry never spoke to Angela but the boys wrote to Finbarr and Colm and said they wanted to try their hand in America.
The elder boys were delighted their younger brothers wanted to join them and they recommended that they travel in ships on the White Star line for there was more comfort for the third-class or steerage passengers.
Finbarr wrote further:
If I were you I’d take the train to Southampton and sail on the Titanic. I’ve been reading up about it and it’s the largest passenger ship in the world. It’s been made in Belfast and it has its maiden voyage on 12th April, a grand time to cross the Atlantic. There are electric lights, you sleep four to a room, three meals a day is all included and served in one of two dining saloons and there is running water in the shared bathrooms. And best of all it’s unsinkable. Just say the word and I’ll book you two places now if I can because lots might want a place for her maiden voyage. Our journey across was comfortable enough but it didn’t have the facilities like the Titanic. I wish Colm and I had been able to travel on it, but we’ll be here to meet you on the dockside.
Sean and Gerry were terribly excited to be given the chance to travel on such a magnificent ship and they read up all they could about it. Mary was absolutely astounded that her two other sons wanted to go to America too. ‘You’ll be next I suppose,’ she snapped at Barry.
Barry knew she wasn’t cross but frightened and he said gently but firmly, ‘Not me, Mammy. I’ve no yen to go travelling.’
‘What if they lay you off when you finish your apprenticeship?’
‘Shall we cross that bridge when we come to it?’ Barry said. ‘But even then I promise I am going nowhere.’
Mary let out a sigh of relief, but she didn’t want Sean or Gerry to go either, but what could they do? The slump seemed deeper than ever in Britain. There was a slump in America too but Finbarr and Colm seemed immune to it and they had guaranteed they could get their brothers jobs as soon as they came over. Matt could see the lads’ point of view though he too would miss the two of them sorely. Mary could see it, though wished she didn’t have to, and Angela felt a deep sadness that two more brothers were going to live an ocean away from her.
The boys did their best to reassure their mother. They showed her a picture of the ship and told her about all it had on board and everything, but as Mary said to them, there was always the chance they might fall ill or something. A few years ago the people in Ireland were leaving in droves for America and so many perished in the ships they began calling them coffin ships.
‘I know,’ Barry said. ‘Things are much improved now. I mean Fin and Colm gave a good account of their journey and the Titanic is supposed to be the best of its kind.’
They were travelling down to Southampton on Tuesday 9th April, which was Angela’s sixteenth birthday. Fin and Colm had paid for their train fare to Southampton and booked them into a lodging house near the docks and they would board the Titanic from there the following morning. ‘Get a good night’s sleep,’ Finn advised, but Sean and Gerry were far too excited to sleep. This was the start of the greatest adventure of their lives and they didn’t want to waste the whole night sleeping, and spent most of the night talking of the journey which they were looking forward to and of arriving in America where their lives would really begin.
On Monday 15th April a very excited woman arrived in the shop with news that the unsinkable Titanic had gone down in the Atlantic Ocean, sunk when it hit an iceberg. Apparently the news had appeared on an American newsreel and her aunt in America had sent a telegram to her as her son had been due to sail on the Titanic. But he had been taken ill and had to cancel.
The blood had drained from Angela’s face and eventually the woman noticed. ‘God, Angela, you’ve gone ever such a funny colour.’ Then she clapped her hands over her mouth and said, ‘Oh me and my big mouth, blurting it out like that. Your brothers were on it weren’t they? I remember talking about it when my Tom was due to go too.’
George had heard every word too and he said consolingly to Angela, ‘There will be lifeboats to get the people off, don’t worry. A big new boat like that will have enough to cope with any eventuality. And the ship might not even be fully sunk, people might still be on it.’ Then he turned to the woman and said, ‘Did it say anything else about those rescued, the survivors?’
&n
bsp; The woman shook her head. ‘Don’t know if there’s any more to tell yet, not that you can get it chapter and verse in a telegram.’
‘No, course not,’ George said and he turned to Angela and said, ‘You should go home. What this woman has heard others can hear. You should be with your mother and send for Barry and his father. You need to be together.’
Angela went round for Barry before going home, for if Mary had heard any inkling she might need their support. When she told Stan what she had heard that morning he was upset himself and fully agreed Barry and Matt needed to be at home and when they were sent for she told them both what she had heard that morning. Matt gave a sharp intake of breath and his face drained of colour, but he said only, ‘This will hit your mother hard, Barry.’
It would hit Barry hard if anything bad had happened to them. They were his big brothers and he loved them. And yet he said to his father, ‘We know nothing concrete yet, Daddy. We must hold on to that.’
‘You’re right, Barry,’ Stan said as they left. ‘Sometimes these snippets of news are anything but helpful. Come and tell me as soon as you know anything definite. I was very fond of those young men.’
They walked home almost in silence, each busy with their own thoughts, but all were relieved to find Mary knew nothing, and they were able to tell her gently and hold her as she wept.
A telegram arrived the followed day from Finbarr. He didn’t know if the news of the sinking of the Titanic after hitting a massive iceberg had reached British shores so he explained that first and explained another ship called Carpathian had picked up survivors and was estimated to be arriving in New York on 18th April. The news gave everyone renewed hope. The men returned to tell Stan, who relayed the news to the workforce. Angela went to tell George, and neighbours hearing of the sinking of that gigantic vessel with two of the McClusky sons on it came to say how sorry they were, and they too went home cheered that survivors had been picked up by another ship.
They existed in a kind of limbo for a couple of days. Norah Docherty, knowing the same fate could have happened to her son, was great company for Mary in keeping her spirits up and Mick took Matt to The Swan for a pint. In fact, Matt, the very moderate drinker, had far more than one pint since many of the men wanted to buy him one – their way of showing sympathy – and it ended up with Mary and Angela helping the very drunk Matt up the stairs to bed. As they lowered him on to the bed, Angela said, ‘Are you going to undress him?’
‘I am not,’ Mary said emphatically. ‘I’m not even trying to move his hulk around to get him more comfortable. I’ll just remove his shoes, that’s all, and I’ll tell you, I’d not have his head in the morning for a pension, and yet I can envy him because for the last few hours he has been able to stop worrying about those lads.’
‘They’ll be all right,’ Angela said. ‘They probably had a fright and might have got a bit wet, but they are big strapping lads and know how to look after themselves.’
‘Of course they do and you are right,’ Mary said and Angela so hoped she was right as she followed Mary down the stairs.
On 18th April just before eight in the evening, Finbarr and Colm had stood just outside the harbour in New York and watched the Carpathian sail in. And once the Carpathian had docked, the two young men surged through with the rest to check the list of survivors to see if their younger brothers had been among the lucky ones. A sailor from the rescue ship, seeing their anxious scrutiny of the lists pinned up, asked who they were searching for, and when they told him he said that few men had got off. ‘I heard as how there weren’t even enough lifeboats for everyone.’
‘Not enough lifeboats?’ Finbarr repeated almost in disbelief.
‘Well wasn’t it supposed to be unsinkable?’
Finbarr nodded. ‘That’s what they claimed wasn’t it, Colm?’
‘Yes,’ said Colm in agreement. ‘I mean, that was one reason we encouraged them to travel on the Titanic.’
‘Well it hit a gigantic iceberg, see. Most of an iceberg is below the water, you only see a bit of it, and whatever way it happened, it hit the iceberg and started to sink. I heard this from the sailors we pulled onto our ship,’ the Carpathian sailor said. ‘One of them said when the iceberg was spotted there wasn’t time to turn such a large ship to avoid it. He said if they hadn’t tried to avoid it and had hit it head on it probably would have been all right but, as it was, it crashed into the side and the iceberg ripped straight through it and it started to fill with water.’
‘What were you doing picking up sailors when more passengers could have been in the lifeboats?’ Finn asked.
‘They were the sailors chosen to row the lifeboats,’ the Carpathian sailor said. ‘If they hadn’t rowed away from the ship as quick as possible when it sank it would have pulled the lifeboats down with it. Then we’d have had no survivors at all to rescue. There were a few other men as well. Travelling first class, some were let on the boats straight away, but then the crew found out how dire the situation was and after that it was women and children only that were loaded into the lifeboats.’
‘And the rest of the men?’ Finbarr asked, though he knew the answer.
‘They went down with the ship,’ the sailor said bluntly. And then, looking at the clothes Finbarr and Colm had on, which marked them as working men, the sailor went on, ‘Would your brothers be travelling steerage?’
‘They were,’ Finbarr said. ‘What of it?’
‘Nothing,’ the sailor said. ‘That is, nothing good. It’s just that these sailors told us that few steerage passengers, carried in the bowels of the ship, made it to the lifeboats anyway, not even the women and children. One told me some hadn’t even got to the deck when the ship sank without trace.’
‘People wouldn’t have been picked up by other ships, would they?’ Colm cried, desperate to find some glimmer of hope. ‘Like if they were clinging to some wreckage or something like that to keep afloat?’
The sailor shook his head. ‘Sorry, mate. First off, there were no other ships in the area. Ours was the only one who answered the distress call, so probably any other ships were too far away to be of any use. And secondly, even if someone had managed to hang on to wreckage, how long do you think they’d last in water cold enough to have huge icebergs floating in it? One minute? Maybe two, but no more than that before they froze to death.’
Colm staggered at the news. They bought papers on their way home and read the reports of the collision that sank a ship claimed to be unsinkable on her maiden voyage. It was news that shocked the world, and their brothers had died, and the way they died was horrendous, and Finbarr in particular felt as guilty as Hell for urging Sean and Gerry to follow them.
When they returned to their lodgings they decided to say nothing to their mother and father about the things the sailor from the rescue ship told them. ‘It would serve no purpose and only upset them further,’ Finn said. ‘Anyway, it’s not the thing to put in a telegram, and that’s what we must send first thing tomorrow and we can write them a fuller letter later.’
Colm agreed, ‘Aye and it will be hard enough to cope with the loss of two sons and enough to be going on with.’
And so the bare telegram just said that neither Sean nor Gerry were among the survivors on the Carpathian. They had been waiting for the telegram and yet Angela’s fingers shook as she took it from the telegraph boy. ‘Any message?’ the boy asked.
Angela shook her head. ‘No message.’
She shut the door and turned and gave the telegram to Barry, for she couldn’t bring herself to open it. Barry took it from her and read the few bald words out to them all as his own voice was breaking with emotion, and tears sprang from his eyes as he felt the aching loss of his brothers. Angela did too, but she pushed aside her heartache to deal with Matt and Mary who were in pieces.
She knew that until the arrival of the telegram Matt and Mary would have hoped it wasn’t as bad as they feared. They had encouraged this. They had all hoped themselves because it’s wh
at people did. But now all hope was snuffed out, Sean and Gerry were gone and she would never see them again, and if she felt the pain of that loss so keenly, she could only imagine what it was doing to Matt and Mary, and the anguish etched in both their faces tore at her heart.
Even after the telegram Barry and Angela couldn’t understand the scale of this tragedy and in the papers Barry had brought in they had both read about the proverbial unsinkable liner, on its maiden voyage, that had indeed sunk and sunk so quickly when it struck an iceberg that though 705 had managed to get into lifeboats and so were saved, 1,517 perished. Most of the fatalities, the papers claimed, were steerage or third-class passengers and any that were rescued were women and children. The lack of enough lifeboats for all the passengers was also discussed, and the fact that a lot of the lifeboats were not full when they pulled away from the ship, for the Titanic sank quicker than anyone thought it would.
The newspapers made grim reading and Angela hid the papers away in the cellar with the kindling for the fire, intending to burn them when she got the chance, for she and Barry both thought dealing with the death of their sons was quite enough to be going on with, without constantly reading about such a disaster. But that was hard to do without Matt or Mary catching sight of the headlines and so on, because they seldom left the sitting room.
Coming into the room the evening following the arrival of the telegram, Mary had sobbed afresh as Angela helped get her ready for bed. Angela said, ‘I understand Mammy’s distress really because I suppose the telegram snuffed out the last glimmer of hope that she kept burning in her heart. I know it did for me, for I loved them just as if they had been my true brothers.’
‘Yes,’ said Barry with a sigh. ‘I know you did and they knew it too. And I know the casualty figures are shocking, but knowing that two of those left to die are your own flesh and blood is hard to take. But that is what happened, and they are dead and gone, so that neither of us will see them again. But that’s how it is and we must deal with it.’