Remembering the Titanic (12 page)

E
LIZABETH DELAYED WRITING TO
Vassar. All around her in the city, young women were working in office buildings, piloting airplanes, driving automobiles, becoming involved in politics, doing things women had never before done. Once she wrote the letter declining admission, declining the scholarship, her chance of ever having an exciting, interesting life like those other young women would disappear forever.

But if her mother was ill….

“How do you know she’s not faking?” Max asked when Elizabeth telephoned him from the hospital.

“Max!”

“Well, I’m sorry, but you have to see how coincidental it is that a perfectly healthy woman collapsed the moment you told her you were going away to college. What better way to keep you from going than to fake an illness?” Max’s voice softened. “She had to know you would never leave if she was sick. You’re not that kind of daughter.”

“The doctor
said
she was sick. It’s not as if Nola herself had said it.”

“No, I guess not.” Max didn’t sound convinced. “You’re still going to Vassar, though, aren’t you? You can hire a nurse for Nola if you think she needs one.”

“A nurse? A stranger? Oh, Max, if you could have seen her….” Elizabeth’s breath caught in her throat, recalling the sight of her mother on her knees on the stone path. “I honestly thought she was dying. I thought I had killed her. I never should have broken the news to her in that way. Without any preparation. I should have waited for a better time, or dropped little hints that I had applied. Given her some warning.”

“You didn’t know about her heart.”

“Well, I know now.”

Following an uncomfortable pause, Max said, “You’re not going to go to Vassar. I can hear it in your voice.”

From where she stood in the wide, white-walled hallway, Elizabeth had a clear view of her mother’s bed. With the curtain pulled partially aside, she could see that Nola’s eyes were closed, her face in peaceful repose. “Well … not just now. I can’t. How can I? Dr. Cooper said Nola could lead an almost-normal life as long as she doesn’t become upset or agitated. We both know my leaving would agitate her. Look how upset she got when I told her I’d been accepted. Telling her I was actually
going
, especially now that I know she’s ill, would be the undoing of her. I might just as well push her off a cliff.”

“So, you’re not going,” he repeated. He didn’t add, I always knew you wouldn’t. But Elizabeth heard it, anyway.

“She’s
sick
, Max. She’s the only parent I have left. Try to understand.”

Though it must have taken effort on his part, he became then the Max she had fallen in love with on the
Titanic
. “I do understand, Elizabeth. And I know you have to do what you think is right. Maybe … maybe you can go later, when she’s better. Or you could take some classes at CCNY. Your mother wouldn’t mind that, would she, since you wouldn’t be leaving the city?”

Elizabeth felt a rush of warmth for him. He was being so sweet. He wanted her to go to Vassar, he’d always made that clear. And yet here he was, understanding how torn she was feeling, and not pushing her to selfishly abandon her mother … who didn’t even approve of Max.

Katie’s singing career blossomed over the summer months. She sang at parties, lavish weddings, fund-raisers, any celebration that called for entertainment, always in the finest homes, on the grandest estates. The enterprising Flo had raised her fee several times. Each time, Katie feared no one would be willing to pay what she thought of as an astonishing amount of money and her career would end. But that didn’t happen. She opened a bank account, began paying Malachy and Lottie a generous rent for her small room, and bought three new gowns of her own choosing. She was careful to keep them simple in design, mindful that Flo had been right about that.

When she wasn’t singing or rehearsing, she spent time with Bridget. She and John often took the child to the Brooklyn Pier on a hot Saturday afternoon where, although Bridget was too small to swim in the deep water, she took pleasure in watching the young boys in swim trunks boldly diving in. She would count on her fingers when three or four jumped in at the same time, fearful that they wouldn’t all surface. But they always did.

Katie saw less and less of Paddy. When she did see him, he seemed irritable and depressed, and once or twice, she was certain she smelled liquor on his breath. Sensing that the writing of his book for Edmund wasn’t going well, she offered to help.

“And when would you be doin’ that, pray tell?” he asked. They were walking in Manhattan on a sunny, sultry Saturday afternoon, each armed with a wrapper containing a hot, aromatic sweet potato they’d bought from a street vendor. “Seems to me you’ve no time now for anything but singin’ at those fancy affairs of yours.”

Katie recognized envy when she heard it. The good nuns had warned her to steer clear of it. Had they not warned Paddy as well? Not that she blamed him. The tables had turned now. Her dreams were in full flower, while Paddy’s were dying on the vine. He struggled so. She had no idea what was getting in his way. She knew only that something was. She wondered if Edmund knew what it was. Or Belle, who was still tutoring Paddy.

Swallowing the last of her sweet potato, Katie tossed the wrapper in a trash can and said, “I’d find time for you, Paddy. Do you not know that? Always, I would find time. If you want.”

He shook his head. Reaching out to pat the tangled mane of a sway-backed, emaciated horse waiting at the curb for its master to return to the knife-sharpening cart it pulled, he said, “Even now you should be home vocalizin’, rehearsin’ for your engagement tonight. You said so yourself when I called for you at Malachy’s.”

Such a big mouth she had! She hadn’t thought to hurt his feelings when she’d remarked that she should be practicing. But just as Paddy pulled up in front of the rooming-house in a taxicab, Flo had telephoned to remind Katie about her engagement in Larchmont that evening. “Don’t you be gadding all over the city getting yourself all worn out,” she had warned when Katie said Paddy was taking her into Manhattan. “And get back early enough to warm up those pipes so you’ll be in good voice. Going to be some very wealthy, influential people there tonight. You’ll be getting some work lined up for the holiday season, is my guess.”

The warning about practicing had been so fresh in her mind when Katie ran down the steps and joined Paddy in the taxicab, she’d mentioned the conversation to him. She shouldn’t have. It must have sounded to him as if he should think himself fortunate indeed to be in the company of so successful an entertainer.

Which wouldn’t be so paining to him, if he was doing as well at his writing.

Not six months ago it was the other way around, Katie thought as she stopped to look in the window of a music equipment store. A beautiful grand piano was on display. Katie was saving up for a piano of her own, though she had no plans to buy anything as fine as the one in the window. A used one would not be so pricey, and would do nicely once it had been properly tuned. Right now, she had to go across the street to Agnes Murphy’s to use the piano in the front parlor for her rehearsing. Katie didn’t play, but Agnes seemed delighted with the chance to play again.

Agnes’s piano was an old relic and could have used the fine hand of a tuner. Katie wanted her own instrument. And she knew if she ever did return to Ireland, she could take the piano, in spite of its size, right along with her. There had been several of them on the
Titanic
. Hadn’t she played the one in the third-class common room her own self, while people sang and danced and had a grand time? If steerage had had one piano, second- and third-class decks had probably had more than one. So she wouldn’t have to leave a new piano behind should she decide to make the trip home.

John had volunteered to accompany her on the piano if she bought one for their own roominghouse. He missed playing, he said, as he’d done at school and in the church hall back home. But he didn’t want to spend the money on a piano as he was, he told her, also saving for a ticket home. Saving up his vacation time at the bank, too. Perhaps, he had suggested one night, talking about Ireland, he and Katie might make the trip together?

She had avoided answering him directly by saying, “Oh, sure and you’ll be ready to go long before me. It’ll be a while before I can work up me courage to climb aboard a ship again. If I ever can do that. And besides,” she had added loyally, “I’d best be waitin’ until Paddy’s ready to come along with me. Not that I’m sure he ever
will
be.” John had made no further comment, but her aunt Lottie had said that night while the two women were drying the dinner dishes, “That boy’s sweet on you, any fool could see it. He’s a fine Irish lad and he’s got himself a good job. You could do worse.”

Shocked, Katie had said, “I thought you was fond of Paddy. Are you turnin’ on him, then?”

Lottie shook her head. “He’s a bright lad, but he ain’t got a job, Katie, and no prospects for one as far as I can see. And he’d never settle for you supportin’ the both of you, though it seems now like you could. Is he never goin’ to write his book?”

Katie had had no answer for that.

“Do you think you’ll be buyin’ one of them pianos with your singin’ money?” Paddy asked as they moved away from the display window.

“I might.” Katie, happy to be in the noisy, busy city as long as Paddy was at her side, linked an arm through his. She was wearing one of her new dresses, a simple frock of white dotted swiss with pale yellow ribbon threaded through the hobble and the cuffs and neckline. The skirt was so tight, it was fair strangling her legs, and she had to take smaller steps than she was used to, as if her ankles had been chained together. “But I’m also savin’ up for a trip home if I can work up the nerve to climb aboard a ship again. So I mean to be choosy about how much I spend on a piano.”

Even as she spoke, the memory of that awful night came back. She felt the cold. She heard the screams, and she trembled.

Paddy shook his head again. He needed a haircut. Katie wondered why Edmund didn’t see to it. Didn’t Paddy have to look his best when he met all those important people? Maybe it was fine for writers to look like they didn’t think about such ordinary things as haircuts. Or … was Paddy not meeting with important people these days? Had Edmund given up on him? “Don’t know what you’d be goin’ back home for,” he said. “Ain’t nothin’ there, nothin’ at all.”

Katie stopped walking. Since their arms were still linked, Paddy had to stop, too. “My
family
is there, Paddy! Don’t you be callin’ them nothin’.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean that.” They began walking again. The streets were crowded with Saturday shoppers, street vendors hawked their wares, and young and middle-aged suffragettes hurried from shop to shop armed with petitions or bearing placards urging the vote for women. Several of them glared at Katie in passing as if they resented the fact that she wasn’t helping. “Maybe,” Paddy added, “I’m just worried that you wouldn’t come back. I know how you yearn for Ireland and Ballyford. Was you to travel all the way back there, how do I know you wouldn’t decide to stay?”

“You could come with me.” She smiled up at him. “And talk me out of staying if I’d a mind to. Wouldn’t you like to see your ma and da, your granda again, Paddy? Just for a bit?”

Paddy’s eyes darkened. “So they could all stand there lookin’ at me and wishin’ I was Brian? No, thanks.”

Katie gasped, stopping abruptly again. “Patrick Kelleher, what a terrible thing to say! They would never wish that!”

“Sure, and I believe they would.” His voice was firm, certain.

“You was always the apple of your ma’s eyes, Paddy, and that’s the truth of it. She’ll be pinin’ for Bri, like all of us, but ’tis your passin’ that would have broke her heart beyond mendin’. She must miss you somethin’ fierce. Your da and granda, too. A visit would make them all feel better. Would you just think on it? I mean to go some day. “I would be much more pleasant was you to come along with me. And me ma and da would have more peace of heart was I to board a ship with you by my side, and not alone.” She was tempted to tell him of John’s offer to accompany her. Could be jealousy would do what her pleading would not. But Paddy seemed so disheartened these days, she didn’t want to add to his pain, whatever it was.

He laughed bitterly. “Peace of heart? Because of me? ’Twas was me brother they trusted you with, Katie, not me.”

Even though Katie recognized the truth of that, she hated hearing Paddy being so hard on himself. ’Twasn’t like him at all. His old arrogance had oft times been maddening, but she’d grown used to it. ’Twas who he was, she’d thought, and loved him just the same.

It had to be the difficulties with his book that was getting him down. Maybe Belle wasn’t being as much help as Edmund had thought she would. Katie still didn’t understand why Paddy let Belle help, but not her. Was Belle Tyree so much smarter than Katie Hanrahan? Being a college student, could be she was.

But I
know
Paddy better, Katie argued silently. I could press him to work on his book better than Belle. If I’d been working with him all this time, I’d wager he’d be near done with it by now. And if he was, his spirits would be that much cheerier. He wouldn’t be looking for all the world like his best friend had died….

The minute she thought it, she was sorry. And glad she hadn’t spoken the words aloud.

Because Paddy’s best friend
had
died. His older brother.

Could that be what was keeping him from doing the writing? Being heartsick with the loss of Brian? But if that was it, why did he never say so? He never talked about it. Wouldn’t that be best, to relieve himself of it, say what he was feeling, even it was a hurting thing to do?

“Come and hear me sing tonight,” she said impulsively. He’d come only once before, to a dinner party at an elegant home on Riverside Drive. But he’d left early, during intermission, saying he had had an “idea” and needed to get it down on paper before it slipped his mind. “Anyways,” he’d said, “with all these other fine people fawnin’ all over you, I’d just be in the way.”