The Lost Sister by Kathleen McGurl (i can read book club .TXT) 📕

road that led across the New Forest and through the village of Lyndhurst. The two women chatted non-stop. Harriet updated Sheila on the latest news of Jerome, her forthcoming house move and her blood test. ‘It all means I’ve not had the chance to do any more of that genealogy research,’ she added. ‘I was going to try to find out what happened to Gran’s sisters. I know one died young but Gran never said how, or at least not that I can remember. And Gran never even mentioned Ruby, as far as I recall.’ She sighed. ‘You know sometimes you wish you could go back in time and simply ask someone about it? If I could see Gran again I’d pay so much more attention to her old stories. Her sister saved her life once, I remember her saying, but how, where, when I have no idea. I’m even wondering which sister it was, now that I know she had two. She just used to say “my sister”.’

Sheila nodded. ‘The problem is, when you’re young and your life is ahead of you, you just want to look forward, not backward. So you don’t really listen to the old people’s stories. And then when you’re old yourself and your life’s mostly behind you, that’s when you want to know about the past. But by then your parents and grandparents are gone, and their memories with them.’

‘It’s so sad. But there’s no answer to it.’

‘Yes there is. Do the research – we are the first older generation to have the internet at our fingertips. We must make the most of it. And then write it all up. We should write our own memoirs too, so that when our grandchildren get to our age and are interested in the past at last, they’ve got access to our stories, told the way we want to tell them.’

Harriet considered. ‘Nice idea. Though I’m not sure anyone would be interested in my life story.’

‘Your grand-kids will – Jerome, and those two little girls who don’t even know you. In fifty years’ time. They’ll be interested, trust me on this!’

‘Hmm. Maybe I will, then. Never really considered myself to be much of a writer, though.’

Sheila laughed. ‘Me neither, but I am writing my memoirs anyway.’

Soon they arrived at the exhibition, bought their tickets, had a quick cup of tea in the café to refresh themselves after the journey and began following the story of the Titanic from her earliest days in the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast where she’d been built alongside the Olympic, through to the discovery of her wreckage at the bottom of the north Atlantic. Harriet loved seeing the photos of the part-built ships side by side, and the numerous photos of the luxurious interiors of both ships. There was a display board about a third ship of the same class – the Britannic.

‘Look,’ she called to Sheila, ‘there was a third sister ship, too.’

‘I hadn’t known that,’ Sheila said. ‘Just like your grandmother then, keeping quiet about a third sister. Says here it was used as a hospital ship during the first world war.’

‘Interesting. And only the Olympic continued sailing till the mid-Thirties. One thing I do remember Gran saying is that she retired from life at sea when the Olympic did, not wanting to work on any other ship. She hadn’t worked on many voyages after my mother was born anyway – just a few when money was short and they’d leave Mum with Granddad’s parents. Granddad got a job on land after the Olympic was decommissioned too.’

They moved on, peering at display cases of items retrieved from the Titanic’s wreck – crockery and cutlery, hairbrushes and vanity cases, glasswear and silverwear, shoes and gloves. A card printed with the menu for dinner on the 14th of April, 1912. A gold pocket watch, inscribed with the name of the owner – a man from first class who had perished. A doll. A set of keys. A life jacket.

Harriet shuddered at that last exhibit. ‘I wonder if someone was wearing that when the ship went down. It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it, so many people in the water, unable to get onto the lifeboats.’

‘Those scenes in the film Titanic are harrowing, aren’t they?’

Harriet nodded. ‘Yes. They certainly are.’ She’d seen it many years ago, and the shots of people in the water, calling out for help as they clutched onto deckchairs or pieces of wreckage, had stayed with her ever since.

Sheila had moved on to a couple of display boards with lists of names. ‘Look. There’s a list here of all the survivors, and another of those who were lost. It says here the lists are not one hundred per cent accurate, as no one’s quite sure how many people were on board.’ Sheila tutted. ‘Imagine that. These days at least the passenger lists would be complete. The list of survivors is very much shorter than the victims. So sad.’

Harriet went to stand beside Sheila in front of the lists, paying silent respect to those who’d died. She scanned down through the names – the boards also stated whether the person was a passenger and if so which class, or crew. ‘So many dead. A child, here, aged just 6. Same age as Jerome.’

Sheila peered at the board. ‘Third class. I don’t suppose many first-class children perished.’

‘No. There’s definitely more third class here than first or second. If the Titanic film is anything to go by, they prioritised first and second class over third.’

‘I think it varied, depending on which officer was in charge of loading up the lifeboats,’ Sheila said. ‘I have a book at home somewhere about it. But of course there is still so much confusion over what happened, especially surrounding whether or not the—’

‘Oh my God,’ Harriet said, interrupting her friend. ‘Look.’

She was pointing at the list of those lost. The list was alphabetically arranged, and there, under H, was the name Ruby Higgins.

‘That’s your grandmother’s sister,