The Ship Of Dreams

It was a wonder of the modern age – and Alfred King thought it would take him to a new life…

Ionly took the job to see Jessie. We were always close as kids. Truth be told she was more like a mother to me than a sister, especially after Ma married Frederick when Dad died. I’d missed her something terrible since she’d moved to America with our Aunt Joyce. More opportunity over there, she’d said when she’d told me, as the tears had rolled down my face like a big baby. And she was right, if her letters were true, which you can never be sure of when someone is describing their life.

Besides, there was never enough room at home, all of us squeezed and sharing, so sometimes I felt like there weren’t even enough room for my thoughts and I’d surely go mad. It’s why I started working at the newspapers. Not that I had anything to do with the words, but just being close to the stories made me feel happy. It made me feel like there were other possibilities out there, like maybe you could create something for yourself, if you just tried hard enough.

We’d only been in Southampton for a year when I saw the advert for the job.

I’d often walk down by the docks and watch the people boarding huge ships, which looked like little islands rising out of the murky sea. I drank with a couple of lads who worked there and rumour was the biggest, best ship ever to exist was being built in Belfast, due to sail from Southampton. They told me that it was going to be even bigger than Olympic, grander than Buckingham Palace and engineered in a way which made it unsinkable. And then the newspaper I delivered started talking about it and so I was able to believe in it.

I always had a read over the paper as I took them to the shops and the day I saw the job I’d unusually turned to the back first, so it was literally the first thing I saw: First class lift attendant wanted for White Star Liners, start April, monthly wages £3 15s, first crossing on Titanic, Southampton to New York.

My heart felt like some massive geezer had kicked me in the chest, so it both hurt and galloped at the same time. Not only could I get on to the biggest, best ship in the world, I could also see Jessie at the other end.

All the staff loaded on the night before, which meant my first sighting of Titanic was in a dusky half-light. It was easily the biggest thing I’d ever seen, rising up from the dock almost like an apparition, so I got a shiver right down my spine. The hull was massive, like a huge fat belly curving upwards, topped by funnels the size of a giant’s leg and snaking wires which looked like they were clawing at the sky.

It made me think bizarrely of Ma, who I hadn’t looked in the eye when I’d left. But I felt bad, leaving her with Frederick and the little boys, who always seemed to want too much of her.

“Just make sure you come back, Alfie,” she’d whispered, “Don’t you go liking it too much over there.” I think we both knew I wouldn’t be coming back.

I’m part of the Victualing Crew, which basically means any of us who helps the passengers. That’s stewards, shoe shiners, kitchen staff, store keepers, clerks and the four lift attendants, including me. Three of us work the First Class lifts by the Grand Staircase and another, Reg, works the Second Class lift. We’ve all been put in to dorms on D deck, which remind me of home – rows and rows of metal bunks that give you only a few feet of personal space – but all the lads who’ve done it before say it’s nicer accommodation than on Olympic.

Then I saw the girl yesterday and after that nothing else seemed relevant, really. It was the second day of our voyage, which made me wonder what

I’d been doing with myself on the first. She stepped in to the lift with two older people, who I clocked for her old dears, and my heart felt a little like it had when I saw the advert for this job. It’s why I’m writing all this down now, so I can sear every last detail on my mind in case I don’t get to speak to her. Although that thought makes me feel a bit weak and like I have smoke in my brain. Besides, it’s only Saturday today, and we’re not docking till Wednesday morning, Tuesday evening at the earliest, which means I have four whole days.

So much can happen in four days.

The father is one of those impatient men who seems to be annoyed at everything and the mother held her nose in the air like I smelt. But the girl was like a dream. Her skin is so pale you can’t imagine she’s ever seen the sun and her hair a bright red, so she looked like she was on fire. She glanced at me, her green eyes flicking down as soon as she caught my stare, her cheeks flaming to match her hair. She swallowed hard, a pulse beating in the hollow of her throat, and clasped her gloved hands together in front of her skirt.

I watched them walk off down the promenade as my other passengers got on, the salty wind whipping my hair around my head. The sun was shining, as it’s been doing all voyage, and the sea glinted in front of them as they inched down the wooden walkway.

My first sighting of Titanic was in at dusk, rising up from the dock, it was the biggest thing I’d ever seen

Ilike being asked to go up to Boat Deck as it means I get a glimpse of the view and every time I wonder what it would be like to casually stroll along it as the people I carry do, their hands behind their backs if they’re men, or stuffed in mufflers if women.

My afternoon went off in the usual way. Some people are nice and some are nasty. It doesn’t matter how rich or poor you are and anyone who tells you otherwise is a fool. Money doesn’t make you happy or polite, but then again it doesn’t make you miserable or rude. I’ve dealt with lots of different people in my

life and I reckon people is people and you’re just the person you were always going to be, irrespective of circumstance. Which means I’d obviously take the wealth, as you might as well.

It was coming up to six o’clock when the bell rang on Boat Deck. I was hungry by then and I pressed the relevant buttons with impatience. The doors opened and there she was. The girl from before, now wrapped up in more layers and on her own. She nodded to me as she stepped inside but I don’t think she recognised me from earlier. There was a far away look in her eye as she leant against the back of the lift, wrapping her stole tighter around her shoulders. No one else was waiting outside, so I shut the doors quickly, my fingers trembling slightly. “Where to, Miss?”

“B deck, please.”

B deck was only three floors below and it only took about a minute and a half between floors, so that was four and a half minutes I had to say something that she’d remember. But my mind felt like it had been dipped in the sea, all my thoughts swimming aimlessly.

I’m not a believer in fate. I’m not superstitious as a rule, although some of the things you hear on board a ship can turn you. But I refuse to believe that a higher power wasn’t at work when the lift shuddered slightly as it approached A deck, and then stopped completely.

“Oh,” she said, turning her gaze on me. She was American, which I hadn’t realised before.

“Don’t worry, Miss,” I said. “We’ve been told this could happen. Sometimes the mechanism can get a little stuck because of the undulations of the sea. But they’ll know about it immediately and send someone to fix it.”

“Oh, but the sea is completely calm,” she said.

I nodded. “Honestly, there’s nothing to worry about.”

We waited, time marching around us like a circling cat. She smelt of roses, which wafted towards me.

“What’s your name?” She asked after a few minutes.

“Alfred King. And yours?”

“Grace.”

“Are you enjoying your trip?” I kicked myself for such a boring question.

Her mouth was like the line of the horizon. “No, not really.”

“But it’s the finest ship ever built.”

She looked up as if she could see through the lift. “Is it? I barely noticed.”

I felt a bit cheated then that I’d got Grace so wrong. She was just another of the spoilt American brats I’d been shuttling up and down for days.

“What I wouldn’t give for a turn around the deck,” I said, a bit more harshly than I’d meant to sound.

Grace’s face sort of crumbled then, her mouth turning down at the corners and a single tear trickled down her cheek. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s not the ship. You’re right, she’s beautiful. Rather, it’s the reason for the trip that’s made me sad.”

My face flushed. “I didn’t mean anything by that, Miss. And I’m sorry something bad’s happened.”

She looked up at me then. “I think my life might be over.”

“What on earth do you mean?” I wondered if she might be ill, even though she couldn’t be any older than my nineteen years.

“My parents and I have been visiting my fiancé,” she said and something hard dropped through my stomach. “Pappa wanted to see him in England before he agreed to the match. And, even though Gerald is the most boring, terrible man I’ve ever met. And, even though his house is falling down and he hasn’t paid his servants for months, Pappa seems happy enough to give me to him.”

“But why?” I think my mouth was hanging open at this point.

“Because he is a Lord and I will be a Lady and that is all Mamma has ever wanted for me.”

“But what do you want?” I asked before I considered if that might be rude.

She looked straight at me. “Do you know, I think you might be the first person who’s ever asked me that.”

The lift jerked to life and began moving again.

Grace leant in to me. “Do you really want to see the deck, Alfred King?” “Yes,” I squeaked.

“Can you meet me at midnight?

Outside the lift doors at the top?”

The doors opened and there were lots of people waiting on the other side. Grace looked at me and I nodded, not sure if I was dreaming.

Ididn’t expect her to be there at midnight, but I went anyway. And there she was, cocooned in coats and a large hat. The air was bitter because we’re getting close to the ice fields, but when she took my hand and led me down the deserted deck I felt warmed right through. We peered in to lighted rooms, that glittered and glowed, every piece of furniture fit for a king, all the wood carved and all the glass sparkling. But she led me on, near to the front of the boat, so I could see the moon in front of the ship, leading us forward with her silvery trail.

We sat in two deckchairs and I tipped my head back to look in to the dark sky, splattered with a million shining stars that looks like a sea of diamonds.

“I’ve been thinking about what you asked me earlier,” Grace said. “And what I want is to be happy.”

My first instinct was to laugh because people like Grace tend not to appreciate all the things that can stop you being happy, even when you should be. But then I thought that was all I really wanted as well. “And you don’t think you’ll be happy with your fiancé?”

She snorted. “He’s forty-two and has a round belly and goes all red when he drinks too much claret, which I think is all the time. And he says he loves me, but he’s often looking elsewhere when he says that, and really we all know what he actually loves is Daddy’s money.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I think I might run away, when I get back home,” she said. “Gerald is coming over for the wedding in a month and then I’m going back to England with him, but if that happens I think I might die.”

I turned my head to her and her skin was almost glowing in the moonlight, her eyes sparkling like the stars. My chest was full and my heart felt like a fish behind my ribs. I thought of my cramped room at home, and Frederick’s loud voice and my mother’s sad eyes and the job delivering newspapers. “I could run away with you.”

She laughed. “I barely know you, Alfred King.”

“No,” I replied. “But sometimes I’m not sure that matters. Sometimes we have to do the thing that makes most sense to us.” I remembered something one of the lads had told me the night before, if a ship sinks. “Sometimes, it’s every man for himself.”

She leaned forward then and kissed me, her lips so soft. My whole body rocked so I wondered if we’d gone over a wave, but all was still calm.

“Would you really?” She asked, her eyes as wide as the world.

“Yes,” I said and it seemed totally possible. “I don’t want to go home. I could come and find you in New York and we could set off together.”

She grabbed at my hand. “And it won’t matter if we don’t have money or a place to stay. We’ll work along the way and we’ll have each other.”

Her enthusiasm was nearly enough for me to forget what a hungry belly feels like. I thought of nights under wooden rooves with her and my whole body stirred awake. I kissed her again and this time the world seemed warm and kind and there for the taking. It was like, if I’d died right then, I’d have died happy.

And, if I really believed in stories, then surely I could give myself my own a happy ending?

“I have to get back now,” she said.

“But meet me in the same place, same time tomorrow night. We can plan it all.”

So now all I have to do is get through today, Sunday. Which will be easy because if Grace is in my mind, time will fly and I won’t feel hungry and my feet won’t hurt and nothing that anyone says will get me down. I’ve been awake since dawn writing this down and I will fold the paper and put it in my pocket. One day I will give these words to our children and I will tell them, see – anything is possible.

Midnight can’t come soon enough.

Although this story is imagined, nine teen-year-old Alfred King was one of the four lift operators on Titanic, which struck an iceberg at 11:45 pm on Sunday 14 th April. It sunk two and a half hours later at 2:20 am. Of the 885 crew on board only 212 survived. None of the lift operators were among the survivors.

One day I will give these words to my children and I will tell them, see – anything is possible

The Titanic is sailing towards the United States and two passengers lives collide when pregnant Lily meets widower Lawrence. Lily is an American heiress trapped in an unhappy marriage, but can Lawrence find it in himself to do what his wife would have wanted and step in to help Lily even when it will put them both in danger? Full of fascinating characters, this book is a rich and immersive read.

Hidden Depths by Araminta Hall.

Orion. HB. £16.99.