The Titan Drowns: Time Travel Romance by Nhys Glover (highly recommended books .txt) 📕

she noticed. And later, for supper at eight o’clock, there was something called a cabin biscuit with gruel and cheese. Her only experience with gruel was from Oliver Twist where he asked for more. It was a form of porridge, she thought. Why would they be having porridge for supper?

It was unlikely that she would be finding out this evening, as she was sure she would not want any more food tonight. However, the children might, as they were always ‘bottomless pits.’

That term reminded her once again of Marco. He had been so funny when he tried to use the colloquialism. She could imagine him eating everything left over in the restaurant tonight. The food up there would be a lot different to what they were eating down here, but she didn’t expect it would taste all that much better. For her, the fresh bread with butter and the cold beef left over from dinner she expected was tasty enough. Although it did feel strange eating real meat. Back home, no one ate meat anymore, but the vegetarian alternatives didn’t taste all that different to what she ate now.

By the time she had her coffee and tapioca pudding, she was comfortably full and so were the children. The younger ones were becoming grumpy with tiredness and mothers around the room were folding little bodies against their breasts and crooning to them softly.

She looked across at Eilish, who was sitting beside the woman she had been with on the deck. She held a sleeping child in her arms while the mother fed another toddler his pudding. She seemed to be a relaxed and happy part of that group.

Once dinner was over, Pia walked back to the Ahlberg cabin on F Deck to help Danira put the younger children to bed. It was just after seven o'clock and she knew that they were arriving in Cherbourg soon to pick up more passengers and mail.

After she had sung Tiggy to sleep, she left Danira with four-year-old Harald and five-year-old Sigrid and went back to her own cabin. From the sounds coming from the ship itself, she could tell they were now lowering gangways and fresh cargo was being stowed. The engines were silent, and the steady vibration she had become accustomed to throughout the afternoon was missing.

She lay down on her bunk and closed her eyes, thinking only to rest them for a while. Much later, the light went on and the others came quietly into the cabin. Pia shifted restlessly on her bunk, but did not wake. And it was not until early morning that she again woke up.

It was dark inside the cabin but her internal clock told her it was nearly dawn. She climbed to her feet, distressed to realise that she had fallen asleep fully clothed, for she was sure she must now look crumpled and bedraggled. She grabbed her fresh underwear, brush, soap and towel and made her way down to the one bath set aside for the ladies of third class. No one was around except for a few stewards preparing for the day, so it felt quite luxurious to have the bath to herself for a half an hour.

By the time she was dressed and tidy, she was ready for the new day. After dropping off her things in her room, she went up on deck. The sky was lightening, but the sun was not yet up. She stood above the propellers staring out to the east, her hair blowing gently in the breeze. The air was fresh, but not as cold as she expected, and the smell of the sea reminded her of home, both the home she vaguely remembered as a child in Norway and New Atlantis more recently. She realised with a start why New Atlantis had felt like home when she first arrived there even though she had been living inland for nearly 200 years. Once the sea was in your veins it never left, no matter how long you were away from it.

Breathing it in, she smiled as the sun began to slip slowly up over the watery horizon, golden and bright.

‘It is beautiful, sí?’

Startled by the male voice with its noticeable Italian accent, Pia jerked back away from the sound.

‘Sorry, sorry, Petra I did not mean to frighten you.’ It was Marco, and he looked tired but peaceful as he stood at the railing next to her.

‘How was your first day?’ she asked, turning back to the rising sun.

‘Very busy, which is good. We make good money. But I did not sleep well in my bunk last night. Too many snoring men around me.’

She smiled at the image and found herself looking back at him. He was smiling that beautiful smile at her. ‘I fell asleep in my clothes at the same time as the children went to bed. I did not even hear the others come in.’

He ran his eyes over her body and she felt her heart give a little pleasurable skitter. ‘You do not seem too worse for wear. Not too creased. Do I have that word right… creased?’

‘Yes, creased or crinkled. I am glad. I did my best to brush out the worst of my night after my bath. But I was not sure it would pass muster.’

‘Pass muster? What is that?’ he asked, leaning his elbows on the railing next to her and turning his head so he could look at her more closely.

‘Inspection. Pass inspection, like in the army. It is just a saying.’

‘Ah, yes, the English and their sayings. Or is it a Swedish saying?’

She shook her head and laughed lightly. ‘No, English. I did not expect to see you again. I thought you were not allowed to mix with us.’

He turned around and leaned his back on the railing, elbows bent, head back, looking up at the pale sky where stars still twinkled. ‘I did not expect to see you again either, but I am glad I did. We are allowed to spend our off-time in the general areas for third class, but we will be put in irons if we go into a passenger’s cabin.’

‘Not really?’ She turned fully to face him, concerned by such a severe punishment.

He laughed, his white teeth bright in the morning light. She loved the sound of his laugh, so deep and yet so light. ‘I am joking. No irons, just the loss of our jobs and pay, which in some ways is worse than irons. So, I do not expect to see anyone breaking that rule.’

‘Well, I suppose they cannot stop you mingling if you are allowed up here with us. What did you have for dinner last night?’

He looked a bit surprised by her change of topic but he answered her readily enough. ‘A bowl of soup, left over pommes dauphinoise, that is potatoes in a cheese sauce, half a duck, a few truffles and a crème brûlée. What did you have?’

‘A meat and pickle sandwich and tapioca pudding.’

‘Hmm, I think I would have preferred yours.’

‘Me, too, although I like crème brûlée.’

He looked startled again. ‘You have had such a dessert in Sweden?’

Pia realised her mistake instantly, but for the life of her, she couldn’t think of a reply, so she just shrugged and changed the subject. ‘French food is everywhere, I suppose. Do you cook?’

‘No, no. I have tried, but I tend to be too impatient and end up with half cooked food or burnt offerings. I stick to serving patrons. I am good at that side of it. What do you do for work?’

‘I… look after children,’ she said, keeping as close to the truth as possible. ‘I am a nurse too.’

‘A nurse? A medical nurse?’ His eyes lit up.

‘Yes, for many years, and then I decided to work with children.’

‘Many years? You cannot have worked for many years; you are little more than a child yourself.’

Again, Pia realised her mistake. She was not suited to this work. It was easier Retrieving children where there was less contact with adults and fewer mistakes she could make.

‘I… I am older than I look. What about you? Have you always been a waiter?’

He let her change the subject, although there was a curious light in his eyes. ‘I fell into restaurant work when I left home at fourteen. It is easy to get work in that field wherever I go.’

‘Ah, yes, the rolling stone that is now rolling to the Wild West.’

He laughed a little at himself and shrugged. ‘Yes. I might become a cowboy and rustle cattle.’

‘You are going to steal cattle?’ She gasped, drawing back.

‘Steal? No. Gather them together and move them along.’

‘Muster. You are going to muster cattle.’

‘I thought that was an inspection by the army.’

‘It is. It is another meaning for the word. A muster is a gathering, whether of men or animals. In the army it is when men are gathered that the inspection takes place.’

‘English is one of the hardest languages to learn I have found. There is no pattern to it.’

She smiled and nodded.

At that moment, a young man came up onto the Poop Deck and made his way over to them speaking rapid Italian to Marco.

‘Ah, Paulo,’ Marco replied in English so that Pia could understand. ‘I could not sleep, so I decided to start my day up here in lovely company. Petra, may I introduce you to my assistant, Paulo. Paulo, this is Petra from Sweden who is going to join family in New York.’

The boy, not more than sixteen or seventeen, smiled and bowed to her. Her heart lurched sadly, as she thought of this youth dying in a few days too. He was young enough to Target, surely.

‘How old are you, Paulo?’ she asked, suddenly determined to try to rescue him.

‘I just turn seventeen.’ Paulo struggled with English.

‘So young to be travelling across the world alone,’ she said.

Paulo shrugged eloquently and then turned to go. ‘We are wanted in kitchen soon, Marco. Do not be long.’

‘Okay Papa, I will be along,’ Marco said, shooing the boy away. Then he turned back to Pia. ‘He is my assistant but he is already giving the orders. But he is a good garzone.’

‘He seems nice. I… I had better go in. I have enjoyed seeing you again. Do not eat too much.’

As she strode back along the deck to the ladder, she could feel Marco’s eyes on her. It felt exciting and a little forbidden to attract the attention of someone like Marco. But then, Marco would probably flirt with anything in a skirt. He had that easy way about him and women would fall at his feet. He probably didn’t see her as any more than a possible conquest, her obvious innocence a challenge.

No, it did her no good to let her feelings grow toward the young Italian. He was not for her. No one was for her. And in a few days he would be dead. Her chest hurt at the thought.

 

 

Chapter Fifteen

 

Marco

 

Thursday, 11 April 1912, TITANIC

 

Marco watched Petra hurry away into the early-morning sunlight like the devil himself was on her tail. And maybe that was how she saw him. It was apparent that she was nervous around him, uncertain how to take him and not willing to let down her guard and trust the stranger that he was. He wondered what had made her so skittish. Was she like that with all men, or was it just him she thought so little of?

It frustrated him. Where all his life women had fallen into his lap unwanted, the one time he did want someone she didn’t