CARPE DIEM
Chapter Seven
My headache became intolerable
some time after midday, so I retired to the shadowed parts of quieter decks,
took off my glasses, closed my eyes, bowed my head, and covered my face with my
hands for some time. I thought of simple, frivolous things, the sound of water
falling lightly over stones, the smell of red spruce needles, the feel of yarn
twisted around my fingers, anything to distract me from the idea that maybe
somewhere deep within my head, some small, demonic creature was taking a hammer
and chisel to everything surrounding him. Time helped, the pain passed as it
always does, but I remained, head in hands, sitting on a deck chair out of the
sun for quite some time, until I heard small, hurried footsteps come to a
sudden stop in front of me and a small voice say, "Whatcha doin’?"
"Dying," I muttered. My
response was muffled by my hands. The little voice laughed, and I heard the
sound of a purring cat nearby.
"You’re crazy, lady. You
ain’t dyin’, you’re just sittin’." It was a boy’s voice, I decided. Slowly,
I dragged my hands away from my face, opened my eyes, eyelids dropping once,
twice, three times against the change in light. A little boy, not more than six
or seven, stood in front of me, holding a yellow and white colored tabby cat in
his arms. He wore the clothes of a working man’s child, a fisherman’s cap too
big for him, falling into his eyes. His face was dirty but his hands were
clean. He had brown eyes, dark and chocolate-colored. Very like Thomas’s eyes,
I found myself thinking, could have been his son. Oh, God, stop that now…
"Can you hold Jimmy,
lady?" The little boy held out the cat, struggling a little since the cat
was almost half the boy’s size.
"May I…" I corrected,
taking the cat named Jimmy from the little boy’s outstretched arms. He didn’t
acknowledge my grammatical suggestion, ran off as soon as the cat had passed
into my hands without another word. Jimmy was a lazy sort of animal, settling
on my lap almost immediately and closing his green eyes serenely. I stroked the
cat’s yellow and white coat, my hands responding to the low vibrations of his
purring.
Dusk had settled upon the
horizon, the sky dressed in brilliant shades of orange and violet. I could hear
muted laughter from further down the deck, the sound of champagne glasses and
silverware against china carried from the outdoor veranda. The bandmaster was
playing a slow waltz. I would have preferred Debussy, or something like I’d
heard the other day, on the second class deck, but the sound was pleasant
enough and everyone loves a waltz, so I couldn’t fault his choice.
Taking the cat up into my arms, I
rose from the deck chair and wandered down toward the open air veranda.
Wandered slowly, since my balance was unsteady. Each step caused a throbbing in
my head, but the throbbing was low and distant relative to what I’d felt the
last few hours, and fading. What’s more, I suddenly felt overwhelmed with
solitude…so much so that I would have borne far worse than this. I needed to be
in company.
Cigarette smoke hovered near the
veranda in filthy clouds around the electric lights. I leaned back against the
railing, facing the tables. Two older men played cards near me. One had a black
walnut cane propped up against his knees, the other had a habit of snapping his
fingers to cover the tremors of his left hand. They played cribbage. I could
tell from the nuances of their exchanges.
"Fifteen-two and a pair is
four," muttered the one with the cane, unhappy with his score. He had a
full mustache and twisted the ends with his fingers.
"That’s it? Are you
sure?" asked his companion. The one with the cane said nothing, smoldered
silently. His companion lifted his gaze from the half-sheet of paper, torn from
an engineer’s notebook, lines running both down and over, on which they kept
score. He regarded the other man evenly and stated with conviction, "I
suppose you would be."
I lifted the cat in my arms and
lowered my head to hide the smile stealing over my features. A waiter came near
me, a young man, serious and eager to please. He inquired after my health
generally and then asked if I wanted anything. I noted the sharp whiteness of
his uniform, the delicate gold emblem, flag and star, of the White Star Line
emblazoned on the shirt pocket. I shook my head.
"No, thank you," I
answered simply. The set seriousness in his tone and manner amused me, so much
so that I almost answered facetiously, almost told the young waiter that I
wanted the world and everything in it or that I wanted the sun, moon, and stars
in the French style, served with pomegranates and a fashionable red wine.
Perhaps he would have laughed, but I doubt it. He was intent on his work,
friendly but hardly in the mood for frivolous things like irony.
He moved away toward a couple at
the other end of the veranda. The woman was talking gaily, intently, cigarette
held loosely between her fingers. The man answered her with nods and grunts
from behind the newspaper he was attempting to read. He was ignoring her, and
she was refusing to acknowledge such a thing. I admired her fortitude in continuing,
wondered if, in the end, she would triumph and once again be able to command
his attention at will, by a lingering look or well-placed gesture, as she had
so many years before. Hmm…
Well, perhaps she never had his
attention anyway, and this was just the way of things. I was letting my
thoughts drift towards nonsense, trying to push them back vainly. What was the
nature of love, anyway? Did it always cool after time, after the fire that
consumed you and dragged you along in its whirlwind subsided? Should we expect
anything more? Want anything more? It would be tiring, after all, to live so
passionately, to be ever chained to another, come what may. Much better to be
unaffected, calmly slip into denial or apathy, whichever suited a person best.
"You’ve found a
friend?" A voice spoke from my left side, low and Irish. I had not heard
anyone approach, so deep in my thoughts was I, and I visibly jumped at his
words.
"Dear God!" I
exclaimed, catching my breath. "Thomas Andrews, wherever did you come
from?" He was momentarily concerned by my blanched features, asking if I
was all right. I said I was, but that he should consider announcing his
presence in a more concrete fashion before speaking in the future.
"Well, I certainly didn’t
mean to frighten you, Mary Catherine." He smiled now, amused. He reached
his hand out and stroked the yellow and white coat of the cat whose name had
escaped me some moments ago. "Where’d this fellow come from?"
"An abrasive little boy
handed him off to me," I answered, lifting the cat in my arms again,
towards Thomas Andrews this time. I turned my head slightly, looking down the
deck and commenting, "He’s running around here somewhere."
Thomas Andrews ran his hand over
the cat’s ears and down the neck silently. The cat responded to his touch,
purring. I watched his face intently.
"I heard you played tour
guide today," I commented absently. He nodded, though his eyes remained
diverted, attention caught by the tabby cat. I continued, mildly irritated by
his less than attentive response, "Did you appease their curiosities, or
did you let them guess answers from your enigmatic silences?" He smiled at
the cat, then raised his eyes to mine, scolding my impatience with a teasing
half-frown.
"Do you have a minute?"
he asked softly. "I have something for you…"