Grace poured more tea into both their cups. Neither of them noticed the breeze which filled the room as other customers came in. They both sipped their tea for a while and finished their slices of cake.
‘And which great-great-grandchildren might these be anyway?’ Grace asked, smiling and hoping to lighten the mood a little. ‘You and Nana and Mom might have all had kids before you were barely in your twenties, but I’m certainly not planning on having any babies until I’m at least forty!’
‘Exactly,’ Maggie replied. ‘And there’s not much chance of me being around for that, is there? So, I figured I would tell you now while I still have my senses straight and you wouldn’t be whisking me off to that institution in Fairfield thinking I’d turned crazy in my old age.’ She winked at Grace and reached for her other hand. ‘As my Aunt Kathleen used to say, ‘time is a great story teller’. I guess she was right.’
They paused in their conversation for a moment as the waitress came over to check that everything was OK for them. It seemed to Grace to be a strange conversation to be having, sitting here in this small, inconspicuous little café. What would the people around them think if they knew Maggie’s background?
‘Grace, the Titanic had a very big impact on my life, but I sometimes think that even if it hadn’t sunk, the fact that I was leaving my home and so many people I loved, would have changed me forever anyway. As it turned out, I got lucky. I got off that boat and carried on with my life. I married a wonderful man and we spent many, very happy years together. We had three wonderful kids, plenty of grand kids and even a couple of great-grandkids. I really can’t complain now, can I?’
Grace absent-mindedly prodded at the few remaining crumbs of cake on her plate. ‘You’ve certainly lived a very happy life Maggie, haven’t you? Despite Titanic.’
‘Not exactly.’ Maggie looked at Grace, her hands shaking slightly, as they always did, as she brought her teacup to her mouth. ‘I’ve lived a very happy life because of Titanic. Life is fragile Grace – it is no more than a petal of cherry blossom; thriving and in full bloom one minute and blown to the ground by a sudden gust of wind the next. We shouldn’t take our life for granted and we should do whatever we can to make ourselves happy.’ She paused then for a moment, remembering something privately, a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth. ‘Are you happy Grace? Really?’
Grace refilled their teacups, using the opportunity to think a little before responding. She loved the way Maggie was always able to tell how she was feeling – she’d missed this from her father and was glad to have Maggie there to take his place. ‘I guess not. Not really. But,’ she continued, squeezing the old woman’s almost diaphanous hand, ‘I will be. I will be happy. Your whole Titanic revelation, and especially the way you wrote in your journal about your love for Séamus, has really made me think over the last couple of weeks. I want to feel love like that Maggie – and I did once. With Jimmy. So, I’ve decided to try and get in touch with him again. God only knows whether he’ll want to hear from me. I doubt it, given how badly I treated him. But I guess I can only try. And,’ she continued, feeling that she needed to say all these things now before she changed her mind, ‘I’m going to send the article I’ve written about your Titanic story to my old tutor, Professor Andrews. I want to see whether he thinks it might be good enough to approach that editor at the Tribune again. I don’t really rate my chances, but, well…’
‘I guess you can only try,’ Maggie interjected.
‘Yeah.’ Grace smiled. ‘Exactly.’
Maggie said nothing for a while, finishing every last mouthful of her pie and draining the last drop of tea. ‘Well, I’m very glad to hear that Grace. It might seem right now that you’ll never be able to get your life back on track after everything you’ve gone through, but it will happen. Lord knows it took me plenty of years to feel like I’d really gotten off that ship – I sometimes feel I’m still on it, even now. As my own Mammy used to say, God rest her soul, ‘on an unknown path, every foot is slow’. Take your time Grace. Take one step at a time.’
Grace stood up and walked around the small, circular table. She threw her arms around this dear old lady, who was always so wise and so certain, hugging her frail body gently. ‘Thank you Maggie. Thank you – for everything. For confiding your story in me and for making me realise that it’s never too late.’