Titanic Ashes by Paul Butler

her purse, her
head down, her eyelids flickering.
    “I thought you would, ” she says.
    It takes a moment to register that this is not an apology—everything about it, the tone, and posture says that
it is—and another moment to realize that she prefers this
to the conventional ‘sorry.’ There’s anticipation as well as
regret in I thought you would . It disarms Evelyn for a
moment, and deflates her too. It is absurd to havefollowed Miranda Grimsden in here, the act of a nursery
battle that takes upon itself an argument between parents,
while the parents themselves remain oblivious and aloof.
But there is a purpose. In the barren ground of this meaningless, aborted conflict her arguments are forming with
perfect clarity and order. She is counting the fallacies that
became accepted truth: her father did help with the
lifeboats until his help was no longer needed or required;
he took nobody’s space as the lifeboat was already being
lowered; he asserted no pressure upon the captain to
increase his speed—this was the most oft repeated and
groundless of the accusations; her father had over and
over again warned against early arrivals as an inconvenience to passengers and merchants alike, who must then
scramble for either an extra night’s accommodations or a
warehouse for goods at the last moment.
    And Evelyn can tie these falsehoods together with the
ribbon of an overarching truth, the reason for her father’s
misrepresentation. Once a man slips into the role of a
scapegoat, grief, infamy, and distortion will conspire to
weave every strand of evil intent from his supposed
actions. There is simply too much stray, unhappy energy
for it to be otherwise. It all has to find a home somewhere
and J. Bruce Ismay was the home.
    All of these arguments could now easily be unburdened as she and Miranda Grimsden stand before the
mirrors, clicking and unclicking their purses andcompacts, raising and lowering lipsticks and mascara
brushes with the music of dripping water around them.
The sparse but telling communication between them thus
far has convinced Evelyn that the Grimsden girl would
merely listen and acquiesce. But what would be the point?
The enemy is elsewhere, carelessly and confidently sitting
in the dining room, saying what she pleases to
whomever’s ears can be reached.
    Sensing the Grimsden girl shift—a slow, bovine movement from her shoulders as she picks up her purse—
Evelyn burns with fresh shame and annoyance. Her imagined eloquence, she knows, has merely been lured
forward by the timidity of her supposed opponent. If she
confronted the woman, Miranda’s mother, who has had
the boldness to gather all the vindictiveness levelled at
Father into that single sentence, she would be reduced to
grunts and blows.
    Evelyn turns, following the circle Miranda makes
around her, a noiseless inner growl her only comfort. The
attendant skips ahead to open the door. But just as it
seems Miranda will make a faceless retreat and disappear,
she stops, turns fully toward Evelyn for the first time, forearm protectively across her belly, hand fidgety upon the
opposite elbow.
    “I’m sorry about it, really, ” she says, apparently sincere
in a glib and sulky way. “But there’s nothing to be done
with Mother.” Then she colours as though realizing something, looks away and then back again. “Sorry about the
letter too. I wasn’t really in my right mind, I suppose. You
can tell your father that.” She does turn finally now, stooping as she makes her way through the door which the
attendant has kept open for her. The attendant, a dark-haired woman of about thirty, closes the door and remains
where she is, towel still over her forearm. Her eyes flicker,
avoiding Evelyn’s gaze.

chapter six
    THE LIGHTNESS AROUND HER shoulders, as
Miranda makes her way back to her seat, feels like euphoria, the heady, exhausted kind experienced at a funeral
when the departed has been ill and bed-ridden for many
years. But there’s an