Unspeakable (9 page)

I DIDN'T SEE MUCH OF JIM
after Dr. Grant gave his burn the all-clear. I don't know what I expected, really. That he would come with gifts, knocking on my cabin door like Timothy Hughes?

Most nights, we'd hear Timothy clear his throat, the soft rap of his knuckles. “It's for you, Meg,” Kate would chide as Gwen and I laughed at Meg's feigned surprise, the pinking of her freckled cheeks. She'd open the door to find him, arms laden with the books he'd deliver to passengers. Yet, no matter how many runs he had to make each day, somehow his route always brought him by our door at the end of it. He'd hold out the latest
Woman's Weekly
paper, not a word out of him. Mind you, he didn't have to speak. His face said it all. Smitten, he was, since they met on our first voyage. And Meg, too, as she thanked him with her slight smile, face rose red. She'd always give the papers to Gwen or Kate, shrug, and say she was too busy to read. But eventually I realized the truth
of it. She'd broken down when I asked her alone in our cabin, and Meg didn't cry easily.

“I can't tell him I can't read! What would he think?” She blew her nose. “He's a library steward, for godsakes. He adores books.”

“No,” I assured her. “He adores you.”

Her eyes brimmed with hopefulness. “You think so, Miss Ellen? You really do?”

“I can teach you to read, Meg. If you want me to.” It felt good to finally be able to offer her something in return. “It's the least I can do after all your help.”

She waved me away.

“You're smart, Meg. You'll pick it up in no time. Before you know it, you'll be writing as well—‘My darling Timothy.'” I clasped my hands and brought them to my heart, like a film star. “‘How I love your ginger hair, the way it parts right down the middle like an open book, the way your cowlick juts out like a bookmark. Just the sight of you makes me want to rip off your dust jacket and run my fingers down your spine.'”

“Miss Ellen!” she scolded, and hit me with her pillow.

I laughed. She was so easy to tease. “In all seriousness, Meg. I'll help you. But only on one condition.”

“Anything, Miss Ellen. I'll do anything.”

I smiled. “You have to call me Ellie.”

She did learn to call me Ellie, and to read and write. Though she never did write that letter. And with a tip from me, Timothy started bringing her
Tatler
magazines, full of gossip and photos. It was easier for them. Simpler, I suppose. They were simpler. But right from the start, Jim and I were so—complicated.

No, I didn't expect him to come knocking at my door. What would he bring me anyway—a shovelful of coal? Yet, I never could get his face from my mind. Never stopped hoping that I'd see him again.

Each night at the end of my shift, while the girls caught up on the day's gossip and news, I'd slip on my woollen coat and, keeping an eye out for Gaade on his night rounds, sneak down the hall and outside to the right, to the spot on the rail. The only place that was mine. I'd gone there the first night out of desperation. Maybe even to jump, had I the nerve. But every night since, just being there was enough to calm me. I'd breathe in that cold night air, breathe in the broad sky of speckled stars, breathe in the limitless horizon and start to believe there was more to life than what I'd been doing all that long day. There, in the cold dark as the wind whipped the strands of my unravelling braid from my face, I could finally breathe.

And it was there that I saw him again.

He stood in the shadows not four feet from me, a dark shadow himself but for the red tip of his cigarette that moved to his mouth, glowed bright for an instant before arcing down to rest where he leaned on the rail. I'd never noticed him here before. And yet, he seemed like part of the landscape.

He took another drag. In its red glow I saw his soot-covered face, his iceberg eyes watching me. We held each other's gaze, neither of us moving or speaking. Unsure of what to do next. I turned and faced the water, trying to pretend I'd known he was there all along.

“Are you even allowed to be up here?” I asked, knowing he wasn't.

“Are you?” His deep voice was calm, almost teasing.

“Well, I won't tell if you won't.” I leaned on the wood rail and took a deep breath.

“Deal.” He flicked his cigarette over the railing into the dark sea. “There's still a problem, however. You appear to be leaning on
my
rail.”

“Yours, is it?” I looked at him sideways, unsure if he was joking or not. “Has it got your name on it, then?”

Without a word, he came closer and took my hand in his. His fingers like weathered steel, hard, coarse, yet surprisingly warm. A tingle of electricity passed between us and he paused. I wondered if he felt it too. He rubbed my fingertips along the rail's edge near where he stood, and I felt small gouges in the wood's smooth finish. Letters carved into it: J.I.M.

I smiled. “You've got me there. Looks like you've been here a few times.” Had he been here all those nights I'd thought myself alone? Was he watching me then?

He clicked open his penknife. The blade glinted in the dim moonlight, and he pulled an apple from his pocket, slicing a piece and eating it off the back of the knife.

“Gaade would lay an egg if he saw me out here after curfew.” I glanced over at him. “Especially with a knife-wielding scrapper from the Black Gang.”

“In your nightdress …” Jim added between bites.

“I have a coat on, thank you very much!” The blush rushed to my cheeks. Thankfully, it was too dark to see it or my nightdress hanging below my coat. It truly was madness, me being here. At this hour. With this lad. In this state. And yet, it felt anything but.

“It's just—I've no place to call my own. You know?” I leaned onto the railing. “Sometimes, I feel like I might explode if I don't get away. Like I need more air. It's always:
Get me this and bring me that. And wash this and iron that
—”

“And shovel coal. And shovel coal. And shovel coal.”

“You're mocking me,” I said, realizing his work in the boiler room was infinitely worse.

He shook his head. “No. I know exactly what you mean.”

“And we don't even get a break to eat. Do you know how horrible it is to be always on the run, grabbing your meal where you stand in the back corner of the galley? Three minutes to gobble it down before some bloody passenger wants another bloody pot of tea.”

He let me rant.

“For once, I'd like to sit and enjoy my food. You know? Like a human being and not a plow horse strapping on the feed bag in her stall.”

Jim drew the blade along the apple, cutting another thick slice. Then he stopped and looked up at the wide sky. “Sometimes, it feels like the only time I can breathe, really breathe, is when I'm up here.”

I wondered if I should leave. I'm sure the last thing he wanted was to stand here listening to a stewardess's tantrum, whining about having to make tea, while his long days were so much more gruelling and dangerous. I'd never seen the boiler rooms, but I'd heard about them. About how the men there nearly worked themselves to death. No wonder they drank and fought as hard as they worked. It was a tough life.

We stood in silence for a few minutes. I didn't want to leave. He didn't ask me to.

“How is your burn?” I finally asked.

He rolled up his sleeve and extended his arm to show me. In the dim light, it seemed healed and I gently touched the skin. It felt taut and smooth.

“It's healing well,” I said.

He made a fist and flexed his hand. “I'll live.”

“I hope so.” I took my hand away and slipped it back into my pocket, but stayed beside him. “Otherwise, that was a waste of good ointment.”

He laughed then. It seemed to surprise him as much as me, as if he had forgotten the sound. His smile transformed him, softening his face into dimples, melting his stare. It relaxed his shoulders, his fists, his whole demeanour. It made him glow like an ember. Warm and compelling.

“You should smile more often,” I said, surprised at my boldness, but I was only speaking the truth.

Jim's face dropped and he turned from me to whip the rest of his apple into the sea.

Did I say something wrong?

We stood in silence for a few moments.

“Yeah, well, I've never had a lot to smile about,” he muttered.

He glanced down at me, his last words drowned out by the blast of the ship's horn. But I read them on his lips as they tugged a smile and pinned it in with his dimple.

“Until now.”

Chapter Eleven

AS I WENT ABOUT
the next day's duties, Jim filled my thoughts. I began to wonder if maybe I'd just imagined those words. But I hadn't imagined that half-smile. A white crescent in the dark. A sliver of something that was so much more, but hidden in shadow. I couldn't tell you what it was about him that intrigued me so. Sure, he was broad chested and thick armed. Tall. Strong. Even handsome, yes, under all that soot and scowl. But it wasn't even all that. It was him. Jim Farrow drew me like the tide. Slowly. Mysteriously. Powerfully.

“What has got into you, girl?” Matron Jones chided as I stood in the galley absentmindedly holding a laden breakfast tray. “That's to go to the Smiths in 345. The tea will be cold if you don't get a move on.”

I murmured an apology and set off down the long passageway to deliver the tray. And then another. And another. I made the beds and took the laundry to be cleaned. I scrubbed the sinks while the Shultz family took their morning stroll on the promenade. I pictured it, the Shultzes or some
other wealthy couple standing there, their long dress coats and scarves blowing in the wind, their gloved hands gripping Jim's rail, and smiled to myself.

They think it's theirs
.

But hadn't I done the same? Hadn't I barged in and rambled on about needing my own space? Telling him to smile more.

I paused, scrub brush in hand. Maybe he didn't want me there, intruding. That hadn't occurred to me before—and now I couldn't stop dwelling on it.

Maybe that was why he was so quiet. He must think me a right idiot
.

I opened the porthole and took a deep breath of sea air as the ship cut through open waters at top speed of twenty knots. For me, the day just seemed to drag on. And any knots were those tightening in my stomach.

A dozen cabins to clean. A dozen families that needed serving, dressing for dinners, cups of warm milk, or hot water bottles in their freshly turned-down beds, and then my last check-in to lock up their portholes, and finally my duties were done. But the day was not my own, not yet. Kate, Gwen, Meg, and I got ready for bed. It took some shuffling in our tiny room, but we had it down to a well-timed routine, each of us slipping out of our uniforms and into our long white nightdresses. Then hanging and brushing our kit for the next day. And soon enough, we were shelved in our bunks, like books in Timothy's library: Gwen reading us the news from the latest
Tatler
; Kate tying rags in tired curls; Meg opening the door to let Emmy in for a saucer of milk and a belly rub; and me, counting the minutes until they were all asleep. With lights out, the gossip
and gabbing soon ebbed in the darkness as their wakefulness wound down. But not mine. For my mind kept turning to Jim.

Is he there now? Should I go?

When their breathing settled slow and steady, I slipped out of bed and into my coat and shoes. Opening the door a crack, I peered down the dimly lit hallway. The night steward might be on his rounds, but he'd usually passed this hall by now. Seeing no sign of him, I slipped through our door, clicking it gently behind me.

I made my way to the deck, to where I'd seen him last, but he wasn't there. Not even in the shadows. It surprised me how disappointed I was to find the rail empty. I ran my fingers over it searching for his name. J.I.M. E.

E?

I stroked the grooves, straining to feel what I couldn't see. I hadn't noticed the
E
last night. To the right of it continued more etching. L.L.I.E.