Women and Children First: Bravery, love and fate: the untold story of the doomed Titanic. Gill Paul
crash of breaking crockery. It echoed round the Jacobean carved ceiling then died away to an expectant silence.
Instantly Reg spun into action, crouching down and picking up the jagged pieces in his hands. John appeared by his side with a dustpan and brush and between them they had the floor spotless again in less than a minute. But the chief steward, old Latimer, was watching and as Reg scurried past, he said in a cold voice, ‘Wait behind after service.’
Reg was glad to see that the Howsons had left when he emerged from the galley. Mr Grayling had gone as well, but Mrs Grayling sat alone at their table, so he approached to ask if he could fetch anything for her.
‘I saw what happened with those plates,’ she told him. ‘It wasn’t your fault. Will you get into trouble?’
‘Please don’t worry on my behalf, ma’am.’
‘I could explain to the chief steward what I saw, if that would help.’
‘Thank you,’ Reg said. ‘But I simply lost my balance. I’m sorry if the noise disturbed you.’
She looked at him with her kind eyes. ‘They’ll make you pay for the breakages out of your salary, won’t they? I know how these liners operate. And I’m sure this porcelain is expensive. Please will you at least let me give you the money?’
‘We’re not supposed to accept money from passengers, but thank you very much for the offer.’ For a moment, he felt like crying under her maternal gaze. She was much nicer than his own mum, who’d never had any time for him. She couldn’t wait to send him out to work so he could contribute to the household coffers, which seemed to be his only value to her.
‘Nonsense. Plenty of the other staff members accept tips, and you will accept one from me. I insist. I will slip it to you quietly, when no one else is looking, some time before we reach New York, but for now I don’t want to hear any more about it.’ She stood up to bring an end to the conversation. ‘I’ll see you at dinner.’
‘Thank you, ma’am.’ Reg pulled back her chair for her, wrestling with a powerful wave of embarrassment mixed with gratitude.
He would accept the money, he decided, after Old Latimer told him that the three porcelain plates he had broken cost two and six each. Reg’s wages were only two shillings and four-pence per day, so that breakage would cost him more than three days’ wages – in other words half of what he would make on that crossing.
‘Worse than that,’ he told John later, ‘it’s going on my report. I explained what happened but he wasn’t having it. It’s one law for them and another for us and I’m fed up to the back teeth with it.’
‘It’s just the way it is. No point fighting the system.’ John never got into trouble, never got caught on the rare occasions when he did transgress the rules.
‘It’s all right for you with your squeaky clean record. I’m trying to better myself and all I get are setbacks.’
‘It’ll be fine so long as you keep your nose clean from now on. They won’t do anything about one misdemeanour. Anyway, I wish I had your problems with all the lasses fancying me.’ John grinned at him. ‘You’ve always got lasses chasing after you. Remember those ones at the fairground last week? It must be your dark, brooding looks.’
‘What a load of rot!’ Reg punched his arm. It was true that two girls had latched onto them at the fair and wouldn’t leave them alone even after he mentioned he was stepping out with someone. They hadn’t been interested in John, just him. That kind of attention was discomfiting. He hated it.
‘Did you see your lass at lunch?’ John continued. ‘The one from the boat deck?’
‘She never turned up. She must take her meals elsewhere.’ Reg had forgotten about her till John brought it up but suddenly he recalled the vision of the silvery-white dress silhouetted against the dark ocean, and the fur coat flapping as it fell through the air.
‘Way you described her, I think you’ve got the hots for her,’ John teased. ‘You like the lasses with a bit of class.’
‘I wouldn’t touch her with a bargepole,’ Reg exclaimed. ‘I don’t like girls who mess around with other women’s husbands.’
‘I’m sure she’ll be heartbroken to hear it.’ John imitated a lady sobbing into her sleeve.
Reg laughed, but he meant it. He felt contempt for women who did that. He bet they never thought of all the people their affairs affected, and the repercussions it could have. They were selfish creatures, only in it for what they could get.
Back home in Southampton, when Reg was a young boy, he used to lie crushed up in bed with his three younger brothers, hearing sounds from the next room of his dad groaning and the bedsprings creaking and then a woman uttering little sighs. Reg knew that his mum was at work – she worked nights at a laundry – and his dad was in there with someone else. He was too young to know exactly what sex was, but old enough to know that shouldn’t be happening. ‘Keep yer mouth shut or I’ll clip yer ear for ye,’ his dad snapped in response to Reg’s reproachful stare over breakfast.
He wanted to tell his mum what he’d seen, because he was young enough that he still felt he ought to tell her everything, but he didn’t because she always looked so sad. When she was at home she often sat at the kitchen table and wept and Reg didn’t want to be the one to make her any sadder. Then his dad left home when he was eight and he heard his mum saying it was all because of ‘that floozy’. She took longer shifts at the laundry and drank gin and got sadder, and it was up to Reg to look after his younger brothers, scraping together haphazard meals and forcing them to wash every now and again.
Reg went to sea when he was fourteen. It’s what you did when you came from the Northam district of Southampton. All his mates were doing the same. Some became firemen or trimmers, electricians or greasers, but Reg always wanted to be out front meeting the wealthy passengers, so he trained as a saloon steward and worked his way up from third class to first. He had to learn silver service, and be able to explain all the dishes on the menu, and most of all he had to become adept at gliding in beside the diners without them feeling as though he were in their space. He must never touch or lean over them. His exhalations of air should not brush their cheeks. He should be in and out before they even noticed he was there. It was an art, and he reckoned he was pretty good at it.
He started out working on Mediterranean cruise ships, and when they were given shore leave in Gibraltar or Genoa, Nice or Naples, the other lads would go to a local knocking shop, but Reg never joined them. He and John discovered a mutual love of swimming, so whenever there was time they’d go for a good splash-around in the clear blue-green waters. If it was too cold, or it wasn’t a good spot for swimming, Reg would go for a long walk, getting his bearings in the town and watching the people who lived there. He liked imagining what their lives were like: what they ate for dinner, what they did in their spare time, whether they loved their families.
‘He’s an odd fellow,’ the lads said about him, but he didn’t care. He didn’t even care when they hinted he might be homosexual. Let them say what they liked, he’d decided to wait until he fell in love before having sexual relations. He wanted it to be nice, not sordid. He wanted to find someone he loved and stay with that person for the rest of his life. When he worked in steerage on transatlantic ships, there were women who’d offer themselves to him in the corridors: earthy-smelling, dark women with huge soft bosoms and missing teeth. One had lifted her skirt and pressed his hand against her mound.
‘Get me a souvenir from first class, love? An ashtray, or a cup and saucer? I’ll make it worth your while.’
He grabbed his hand back. ‘Sorry, ma’am. We’re not allowed.’
The other lads did it, though. He’d come upon them in storerooms, trousers round their knees, panting as they thrust into some fleshy creature who was pinned against the wall. It disgusted Reg. He didn’t like to mix with those sorts.
When he met Florence, he knew straight away she was different. She didn’t