I’ve been thinking on Séamus while I’m sitting here. I just remembered a day when we sat on the shore of the lake and threw stones together. He got one to bounce twelve times, the most he’d ever managed, he said. I wonder what he’s doing now as I sit here? I wonder if he’ll remember me this time next week, next month, next year? Our lives are going to be so different now, but I hope I don’t get too interested in fancy skirts and hats while I’m in America, as all the girls seem to do. I don’t think Séamus has much of a care for girls who fuss about skirts and hats and the like. I’d not like to go home and be all prissy and snobby about a life working in the fields. Travelling can do that to people, make them all talk of new and foreign things and makes them forget where they come from in the first place. I hope I never forget Ballysheen.
I’m going back inside now. It’s really getting cold and my fingers can barely hold the pen.
11.00pm
Well, we are just back to the cabin from the best night of dancing and singing for Katie’s birthday. Lord, it was mighty craic altogether. I almost thought my sides were going to burst with the laughing. Some of them are still there, still singing and making music.
Katie was in fine voice, singing her favourite songs, getting half the steerage passengers up on their feet and stomping out the beat. Even Ellen Joyce stopped talking about her wedding for a few hours and joined in with the singing, and Maura Brennan surprised us all by standing on a table and giving us a rendition of ‘Moonlight in Mayo’ - and her being with a baby an’ all! I thought Aunt Kathleen was almost going to die with the shame of us all.
I walked out onto the deck for a few minutes to cool down from the heat and sweat of so many bodies dancing. It’s such a cold night tonight so I didn’t stay out for long. It’s a night to make your eyes stream with the chill, but there isn’t a hint of a breeze. You’d almost be fooled into thinking the boat has stopped, the air is so still. The sea is so calm it almost looks like we’re afloat on a piece of blackened glass. Other than for the millions of lights from the boat which light up the sea for a mile around, you’d hardly know we were here at all. She must be quite a sight to see from a distance.
I sat and watched the stars for a while - they seem to be out in their thousands tonight. It reminded me of the night of the Brennans’ wedding – the night Séamus first asked me to dance. It was exactly the same, moonless sky I gazed at that night. I felt for the letters in my pocket as I thought about him and in the other pocket I found blossom petals of all things! I’d forgotten that I’d picked them up on the morning we left Ballysheen. They’re withered and brown at the edges now and sorry looking - I almost wish I hadn’t put my hand in my pocket; hadn’t remembered them.
We passed Harry as we returned to our cabins. He was retiring for the night himself, having already set the tables out ready for breakfast tomorrow morning. Lord, I cannot even think about food my belly is still so full from all I’ve eaten today.
Of course Pat had to stop and check the ship’s log outside the dining room one last time. He told us it said, ‘Calm sea, 22 knots. Icebergs ahead.’ ‘Pretty much the same as for the last three days then,’ Peggy said, and we all fell about the place laughing!
I hope Katie has enjoyed her birthday - she must be sad to not be celebrating with her ma and da and brothers and sisters as usual. They’ll be thinking of her and missing her, especially today no doubt - and her sister Catherine who is waiting for her to arrive in New York. How excited she must be to see her sister she hasn’t set eyes on in three years! What with so many waiting to catch the first glimpse of their loved ones, there’ll be quite a party planned for our arrival at the docks in New York I should think.
The other three are already fast asleep. I should probably turn out the light soon and get some slee.……
The sudden jolt and the continuous shudder that followed rocked Maggie’s bed. She sat bolt upright, wondering what on earth it was. The strange noise, as if a piece of calico was being torn, was followed by a sound which she could only liken to that of one of the steam trains they had travelled on from Castlebar. She looked around the cabin. Her Aunt Kathleen was sound asleep in the bed below her and Peggy and Katie were also both fast asleep – the shaking and noises not having woken them.
After a few minutes, the shaking stopped and so did the noise. All the noise. Maggie sat in complete silence, her light flickering off for a few seconds before coming back on again. She realised that the familiar background drone of the engines had stopped.