Free Titanic Ashes by Paul Butler Page B

fresh indignation. She turns
slowly, glimpses Miranda’s face bobbing toward her plate,
Mr. Grimsden’s shoulder, and through a clearing in the
foliage, Agnes Grimsden, who has, telepathically, it seems,
shifted her own gaze now to her. The look on her face is
neither furtive nor unfriendly, but relaxed enough for
direct eye contact to suggest communication. For a
moment, Evelyn wonders whether she might have it all
wrong; perhaps when Mrs. Grimsden had said, “Some
men are afraid of everything, ” she really had been talking
about the waiters, and now sees her blunder and is trying
to offer some apology and recompense.
    As though to confirm this, Mrs. Grimsden tilts her
head, raises her eyebrows, and gives a sad, shoulder-heaving sigh, all the while holding Evelyn’s gaze. So practiced
is Evelyn in the art of pleasing, she begins to find the
muscles of her face forming into a smile and the tendonsof her neck readying themselves for a nod. But then she
remembers Miranda’s admission, “There’s nothing that
can be done with Mother, ” and the absolute nature of the
confirmation that came with it. The power to decipher
contradictory messages—the friendly look at her, the
insult aimed at her father—comes to Evelyn with a wave
of anger. The smile is one of pity; she’s showing Evelyn
sympathy at having a coward for a father.
    She tears her eyes away and counts to three as she
looks down at the puckered skin of her pheasant. Picking
up her knife and fork again, she glances at Father, who
meets her eye straight away and gives a kindly shrug. But
it’s no longer enough for either of them, she thinks, not
any more.
    She wonders if it’s too much to hope for that Mrs.
Grimsden might need to go to the ladies’ cloakroom,
whether the attendants there might witness a second
drama, one with more lurid details, more escalating
conflict, than the first.
    Her heart begins to hammer as she realizes such a
chance is unlikely. Something truly extreme, and public, is
required. She finds it curious suddenly that old-fashioned
notions of dignity have remained synonymous with
courage. She could remain dignified; it wouldn’t be hard.
She could avoid the glances of the Grimsdens all evening,
sit up straight, sip her wine and talk to Father about all
manner of things. But there would be not one ounce ofcourage in it. Courage is an ugly, red-faced drunkard.
Courage leaks spittle and blood. It yells in fury, and causes
others to gasp in horror. She remembers witnessing a real
argument outside a public house in Liverpool. Two men
yelled at each other, their fists clenched, faces deep red,
blue veins running down their necks. They seemed
scarcely human in their passion, all elbows and boots,
angular contraptions designed for conflict. Bobbies waded
in before it came to blows, and the crowd, a mix of local
gentry and students, who, like Evelyn and her mother, had
come from the nearby concert hall, all seemed to give a
collective gasp of disapproval.
    “Disgraceful display!” she heard a man say.
    “Shocking, ” added someone from another party.
    And while Evelyn recognized these were the right
things to say, she also realized they were lies, that many
of the onlookers were silently captivated, almost admiring, not at the ugliness of it, or the danger, but at the
forgetfulness of self, at the sense that these two men were
brimming with emotions that were so much bigger than
the crowd, so much greater than caution and embarrassment. Evelyn felt a kind of awe bordering on envy. It
almost came down to a simple formula, that he who is
naked is somehow ennobled, while she who is protected
by layer after layer of refinement and manners is diminished, even in a moral sense. Especially in a moral sense.
Stillness is noble in a flower, not in a human being. To becourageous, to be good, one has to become one’s emotions,
and emotions are seldom dignified.
    When she starts to speak, it takes her by surprise.
“You’re going to have to forgive