It was then I lost all control and panic took hold of me. I stood up and screamed, keening and wringing my hands like the old women at funerals in Donegal. The divil squeezed my chest until I could no longer breathe. I heard the banshee, the spirit of death, calling my name. I had no choice, it was time. I climbed up on the seat and waited for God or the devil to take me. A young woman, wearing a mauve shawl, threw her arms around me, trying to haul me back down into the boat. But as we struggled, a rogue wave washed over us, breaking her hold on me, and I fell into the freezing water. As I floated there, looking up at the stars, a violent pain in the back of my head blinded me and the world turned black.
DELIA
The lifeboat shunted unsteadily, scraping the side of the ship as the seamen loosened the ropes. It rocked from side to side until we landed with a thud in the oil-black, freezing water. The women in the boat screamed and wailed. A lady next to me holding two infants fainted, her head lolling on my shoulder. I wedged my satchel between my knees and took the wailing children into my arms. Their little bodies were warm against mine and I soothed them as best I could while they looked up at me with dark, luminous eyes. But as the seamen began rowing, the freezing air cut through us like a knife and I began to shiver along with the babies. I thought of Nora. I fervently hoped she had made it into a lifeboat. Even if she had, she must be terrified. I bowed my head and said a prayer for her. Eventually the babies stopped crying and I handed them back to their mother who had recovered from her faint.
I was suddenly aware of a sound so terrifying that I had to cover my ears. At first, I thought it was a fierce gale like those that roared across Donegal in the winter. But this was different. I put my hands down and looked around me. The other passengers had stopped screaming and sat in mute fear. It was as if we were surrounded by a wall of sound. It was then I realized this was no gale, but the sound of wailing from the poor souls still left on the ship.
We were a good distance away when the ship split in two. Slowly, the stern began to sink, and we watched as if hypnotized. Within minutes the stern had disappeared beneath the waves and the prow of the ship was thrust upward into the sky like a contorted cathedral spire. We watched in horror as it slipped plumb straight into the sea, leaving no trace that the great ship had ever existed.
Suddenly, through the wailing, I imagined I heard a piercing scream. It sounded like a banshee – the spirit of death in Ireland – and I knew in my heart it belonged to Nora. There was no rational reason that I should have known that, but my premonitions were never rational. All the familiar sensations came over me, and I knew, deep in my bones, that Nora was about to drown. I had to save her. I shot up from my seat, ignoring the protests of the passengers and crew, and peered out through the murky light in the direction the cry came from. Eventually, I made out the outline of a lifeboat floating nearby. A girl with long dark hair was standing up on a seat while a woman tried to pull her back down. I heard the screams again as the girl tried to wrestle free before she fell. I squeezed my eyes shut in terror. When I opened them, she was floating face-up in the freezing water. If it had just been a vision, I didn’t know, but I trembled with the possibility it might have been real.
‘Row over there,’ I screamed at the crewman in charge, pointing in the direction of Nora’s lifeboat. ‘Now!’ I shouted. ‘We have to save her.’
He hesitated, while a chorus of protest arose from the passengers. ‘Please,’ I begged. ‘She’s my sister, I have to save her.’
At last he gave the signal to the seamen to start rowing. He stepped up on the prow of the boat, waving his lantern as we moved slowly through the black water. The faint sound of whistles echoed in the gathering mist. I looked down at the whistle attached to my life vest and realized the sound was coming from passengers floating in the sea. Maybe one of them was coming from Nora.
‘Nora!’ I cried out. ‘Nora!’
The crewman looked at me. ‘She won’t last long in these waters, miss,’ he said.
A violent headache struck me, and I felt dizzy. Despite the cold, I felt as if I was burning up. ‘Please . . .’ I begged again. ‘Please.’
‘Blow your whistles,’ the crewman called into the distance, ‘so we can find you.’
I held my breath as we rowed closer to the floating bodies. As we approached, the whistling stopped, replaced by anguished cries. Dear God, I thought, some of them are still alive. One poor soul managed to clutch the side of the boat with gnarled fingers. A seaman leaned over to haul him in as the women in the boat screamed and shrank away. One terrified woman tried to prise the grasping fingers loose. I watched in horror as the poor wretch finally lost his grip and slid back into the sea. The whistle sounds had faded now, as had the wall of sound. The boat I had imagined was Nora’s had disappeared, and I knew in my heart she was gone.
The crewman made the sign of the cross and bowed his head.
‘May God have mercy on their souls,’ he whispered.
After the Titanic sank, we sat for what seemed like eternity in the lifeboat waiting for rescue. In an eerie way the silence was almost as deafening as the wailing had been. No one moved. The crewmen assured us that another ship would arrive soon to pick us up. I wondered if they were reassuring themselves as much as us. We waited, huddled together to stay warm, the smell of fear surrounding us. I think few us believed such a ship would ever come. I remember looking up at the empty space where the Titanic had been and wondered if it had all been a dream. How could such a colossal vessel have completely disappeared? Had it been a ghost ship like the ones I had read about in stories of long ago? As I remembered the ghostly tales I had grown up listening to beside Irish firesides, I closed my eyes and began to weep. I wished fervently that I was back in my warm bed in the cottage attic, surrounded by my books.
I drifted into a state somewhere between sleep and wakefulness. I prayed the eternity of waiting would end, if not by rescue, then by death. It was then that sudden shouts startled me, and I looked up. In the distance I saw lights. Was it a mirage or the rescue ship the crew had promised? I prayed to God it was. As it came closer, I knew my prayers had been answered. I learned later that the ship, the Carpathia, had arrived within two hours of the Titanic sinking – at four in the morning. The horizon was tinged with a faint orange halo as dawn started to break over us. If we’d had the strength, I suppose we would have cheered but, as it was, we sat mute and shivering.
I only vaguely remember how I arrived on the deck of the Carpathia. I had a burning sensation as I clung to the rungs of a rope ladder with a rope curled around my waist. I felt the rough pressure of the seaman’s hands as he pushed me upwards, and the sharp pain in my knees as I fell on the rough, splintered wooden deck. One thing I do remember clearly was my fight to hold on to my satchel, even though the seaman shouted at me to let it go. Instead, I cradled it to my chest, my arms tight around it. I was never so determined about anything before. The satchel contained all that was left of my and Nora’s old life. Without it I would always be a stranger – even to myself. I now believe that I would have risked drowning rather than let go of it.
I must have passed out after the rescue. When I awoke, I didn’t know where I was, but I fought off the panic that threatened to engulf me. I looked down at myself and saw I was wrapped in a blanket. I looked from side to side and saw other passengers – some sleeping, some wailing, some stunned into silence – some huddled together, others lying in lines across the deck as if in a dormitory. A young seaman was passing among us offering mugs of hot tea. I took a mug, grasping it with shaking hands, and gulped down the hot, sweet liquid. It did little to calm my shivering limbs. In a sudden panic, I looked around for my satchel – I had clung to it throughout the disaster and I couldn’t lose it now. When I felt it beside me, I picked it up and stroked it like a child. Inside this bag was my identity, my proof of who I was and where I had come from. But it was not just the papers themselves that I treasured, it was the memories they held, the comfort of knowing I ha
d a past.
By the second day, thanks to the constant rounds of hot tea and soup brought by the crew and passengers, and the wool blanket I was wrapped in, warmth began to seep back into my body, and I was able to stand up and walk about. The fog cleared from my brain and I was bombarded with images of Nora. What if I’d been wrong? What if she was on the ship somewhere? I began running around the deck examining the face of every woman. Below deck, knocking on cabin doors, I shoved Nora’s identity photo at them. ‘Please tell me if you’ve seen her,’ I begged. ‘Her name is Nora Sweeney.’ No one had.
A ship’s officer came to me with a logbook. He was collecting the names of all rescued passengers, he said. I almost tore the logbook out of his hands.
‘Have you my sister’s name down?’ I said. ‘Nora Sweeney?’
He scanned the pages and shook his head. ‘I’ll come back when I’ve finished my search,’ he said gently. ‘I still have to check the state rooms, but it’s most unlikely there are any survivors there.’
When he returned, I could tell by his face that he had not found Nora. ‘There are over seven hundred names,’ he said, indicating the logbook. ‘I’m sorry, but her name is not here.’
‘Were there any other rescue ships?’
‘We were the first ship on the scene. I understand the SS Californian arrived long after us; I doubt there were any survivors left to rescue by then.’
Later, when I had no more tears to shed, I found a deserted corner of the deck and leaned over the railing, looking out to sea. A shadow covered the moon, as if in mourning. I thought back over my life growing up with Nora. We had never been close, and I had resented her much of the time, but there were also times when I realized she never set out to deliberately hurt me. Who could blame her for adopting Ma’s attitude towards me? After all, she was Ma’s favourite, and it was in her best interests to agree with her. I doubted now that she had even given me much thought. She was too busy enjoying herself. And then another memory came to me. I recalled the way Nora sometimes looked intently at Da as if willing him to acknowledge her. I realized that if Ma had hurt me by her rejection, then Nora had felt a similar rejection from Da. In that moment I let go of every jealous thought I had ever harboured towards my sister.
‘Goodbye, Nora,’ I whispered. ‘May you rest in peace.’
NEW YORK
1912
DELIA
On Thursday, 18th April, when the Carpathia finally arrived at Pier 54 at the New York docks, it was nine in the evening and the rain lashed down in buckets. I could see very little in the dusk except for a large archway. As we sailed beneath it, I had the impression I was approaching the altar in the chapel in Kilcross. I shook my head to clear it. After we tied up at the dock, I waited with the other passengers for instruction. At last, first- and second-class passengers were instructed to disembark, but third class were told to stay behind. I backed away from the ship’s railing just as an officer, the one who had carried the logbook, came up and took my arm.
‘Tell them you’re from second class,’ he said, ‘otherwise you’ll be here all night. The immigration officers will want to question the third-class passengers more thoroughly than the rest.’
‘But my papers say—’ I began, but he cut me off. ‘Pretend you have no papers,’ he said, smiling. ‘Tell them they went down with the ship.’
He gave me a slight shove and I climbed unsteadily down the gangplank, clutching my satchel. We must have looked like a procession of ghosts. At the customs checkpoint, an officer stopped me.
‘Name?’
‘Delia Sweeney,’ I said, ‘from Kilcross, County Donegal.’ I waited nervously as he consulted the manifest, and then blurted out, ‘I sailed in second class, but I’ve lost my papers.’
He looked at me for a moment and then whispered, ‘It’s all right, love, go on ahead.’
He knew I was lying. He would have seen from the manifest that I was travelling third class. I thanked God that he had taken pity on me.
Thousands of people were waiting on the dock for the Carpathia to arrive. As I stepped down from the gangplank, I felt my legs go weak and I had to stop and steady myself. I made the sign of the cross and thanked God that I was back on solid land. As I moved on into the midst of the crowd, a wall of noise enveloped me – wailing, screaming, shouting. Those who could, squeezed in together in an enclosed waiting area, sheltering from the rain. From the level of noise, I could tell there were as many or more people waiting outside, all desperate for news of their loved ones. Many carried signs bearing the names of passengers in big letters.
As I pushed my way through the throng, I was surrounded by people calling out to me. Had I seen this one or that one? Some of their faces shone with anticipation, while others had the desperate look of someone still hoping for a miracle. Newspaper men demanded I tell them everything I remembered, while other bystanders shoved papers in my face for me to sign as a souvenir. I pushed forward, trying to ignore them.
Outside, the rain poured down, soaking the black streets and creating halos around the lamplights. I was wearing a pair of flimsy shoes a passenger had given me, along with a thin coat. Within minutes I was soaked to the skin. I tried to look around, but my vision was blurred. Besides the noise, I was assaulted by smells. I was used to the odour of fish back in Donegal, but here it was overpowering. The stench mixed with the aromas of strange foods cooking in steel carts. One cart was filled with roasting nuts, another with what looked like small, pale sausages. A vendor called out to me, ‘Peanuts, miss. Hot roasted peanuts!’ The other pointed to the sausages. ‘Hot dogs!’ he called. ‘Get your hot dogs here.’ Their accents were as foreign to me as were the smells which began to turn my stomach. By rights, I should have been hungry. I had managed only tea and broth on the Carpathia, but at the minute food was the farthest thing from my mind.
I had been told the housekeeper from the house where I was to work would meet me at the dock. She would have seen my name on the manifest and would be waiting for me. Nora was to have been met by Mr O’Hanlon’s housekeeper. I decided to look for her first. Even though she surely knew by now that Nora’s name was not on the survivor list, she, like the other people here, might still be hoping the information was wrong. I knew by now it was not wrong and thought the kindest thing to do was to let her hear it from me.
I picked my way through the bustling crowd, paying close attention to the signs. As I neared the fringes of it, I saw a small, thin woman with a hard face holding up a sign bearing my name. I halted. My stomach tightened, and I swallowed hard. I peered at the sign again, hoping I had been mistaken, and then at the woman’s disagreeable expression.
‘Would you be Delia Sweeney?’ she rasped.
I took an instant dislike to her. She conjured up images of Ma. I backed away. I wasn’t ready for this yet.
‘The third-class passengers are still on the boat,’ I said. I turned and hurried on, sick at the thought I would have to return to her once I had located Mr O’Hanlon’s housekeeper.
The crowd was finally beginning to thin out, and I was just starting to turn back when I saw a large-bosomed woman, her shoulders slouched with fatigue. As she turned to walk away, I glimpsed the sign she carried with Nora’s name on it. I squared my shoulders and walked towards her, preparing to give her the sad news.
As I walked, time began to slow and the sounds around me became muffled. I was oblivious to the rain pouring down my face and flooding my shoes. As I drew close, the woman’s eyes settled on me and I smiled at her. She smiled back and dropping the sign held out her arms. I walked straight into them and let her wrap me in her embrace. I looked up at her and opened my mouth to speak.
‘I am Nora Sweeney.’
I was so shocked at the words that came out of my mouth that I was almost paralysed. I stood stiffly as the woman let go of me and clasped her hands together.
‘’Tis a miracle,’ she said in a thick Irish brogue. ‘Wait till I tell Mr O’Hanlon. ’Twas himself insisted I
come here to meet the rescue ship even though ye were not listed as a survivor. He was sure the reports were wrong!’ She paused and beamed down at me. ‘And look at ye,’ she said, ‘like a wee angel. God has blessed ye, saving ye from a watery grave. He must have great plans for ye, darlin’, great plans indeed!’
She grabbed me by the hand and bustled off, pulling me behind her. ‘’Tis not far to Mr O’Hanlon’s house. And then we’ll put ye to bed with a hot whiskey and ye can have a grand sleep and be right as rain in the morning.’
She prattled on as she walked, clearly not expecting me to answer. It was just as well because I could not have forced any words out of my mouth. It was as if I had been struck mute as soon as I told the lie.
A large black car was waiting for us. I’d never been in a car before and I peered at it in wonder before climbing in and sinking down in a soft leather seat.
‘Where’s her luggage, Mrs Donahue?’
She looked at the driver, then at me. Then she slapped her forehead with a big hand. ‘Ah sure, of course, the child has no luggage. She would have lost everything when the boat sank to the bottom of the sea.’ She pointed at my battered and scarred satchel, ‘Except for this wee bag,’ she said. ‘’Tis a miracle you managed to hold on to it. It must be very important.’
She clambered in beside me, looking at me with a satisfied smile, and patted my hand. I closed my eyes, wanting desperately to hold on to this dream. For I believed it was a dream, and that I would wake up and find myself back in my cabin on the Titanic in no danger at all.
After a while I opened my eyes and looked out of the car window hoping to get my first glimpse of New York. But I could see nothing but sheets of rain, blurred lamplights, and hulking, dark shadows. I closed my eyes again.
The Titanic Sisters Page 5