The Ticket

Minnie stumbled nervously, fumbling in her cloth purse, desperately trying to locate it.

“It’s here…..I know it is,” she apologized, delving deeper and peering into the darkness of the tapestry bag.

The man behind the desk grunted impatiently, looking past Minnie and down the long line of people, queuing restlessly, behind her.

She hadn’t wanted to emigrate; it was all James’ idea.

“Canada is the place to be, Min,” he had enthused. “I can’t believe I’ve landed such a topping position. Head of English in Vancouver’s most prestigious school? What more could we want?”

‘To stay in England,’ Minnie had thought to herself, ‘to be near Mama. Every girl needs her mother at this time.’

Filled with optimism, James had sailed to Canada ahead of Minnie and keenly awaited her arrival.

The man behind the desk tapped his thin fingers thunderously against the polished wood and cleared his throat ready to speak, when another official looking man marched up to Minnie.

“Would you step this way please, Madam?” he asked, guiding Minnie’s arm and escorting her into his office.

Minnie just stood there looking lost, anxious and bemused.

“I……I……do……have……a……ticket,” she stammered, trying, yet

again, to extricate it.

“I am quite sure you do, otherwise you most certainly wouldn’t have stood, waiting for hours to board, in that infernal queue!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Er…..there’s a problem…...with your condition,” said the man, casting his eye, very briefly, down Minnie’s very rounded front.

Minnie had hardly dared tell James. It’s not that they hadn’t wanted children but a baby, within ten months of being married, was not something they had planned. However, James embraced this new circumstance with all the gusto and excitement that Minnie had come to expect of him.

“We just don’t have the facilities onboard, it’s as simple as that,” said the man. “If something went wrong, there would be nowhere to take you and no-one to take care of you. You are…..er…..too…..er….. heavy with…..er…..child; consequently, we are refusing your right of passage.”

Minnie stood silently. What was there to say? She would not be joining James in Canada: as the man said, it was ‘as simple as that’. Amidst the mixture of emotions, however; the relief of not having to cross the massive Ocean alone and the joy of returning back to Mama, Minnie detected a disappointment lurking. Did the thought of a new, exciting life beckon? No matter: her pregnant state had forced the issue and so, after the man had directed Minnie to the Telegraph Office, she had hastily sent James a brief message and then found herself in a Hackney Carriage, searching for some cheap lodgings in Southampton, to sit and wait.

James couldn’t believe it when he opened his newspaper! How could this be? Suddenly, all of his hopes and dreams, his plans for his beloved Minnie and their child, his delight in this newfound life in Canada, went surging from him. He sobbed and groaned piteously.

The next day the dreaded telegram arrived. James put it on the mantelpiece and left it unopened.

A colleague arrived to visit his newly-made friend. Poor, hapless James had not eaten, shaved nor changed his clothes for three days.

“James, you look awful, you smell and why on earth haven’t you opened your telegram?”

“Huh, and why……to read of my wife’s and baby’s cruel demise?”

His friend opened the telegram and chortled, thrusting the small piece of white paper under James’ nose.

“You Priceless Twerp!”

James read the words, ‘Refused passage on Titanic STOP Waiting in Southampton STOP Hurry little money STOP Minnie STOP’.

James returned to England and taught in a little country school. Josephine Rachel, their daughter, my mother, was born in early August 1912……

…..and the Ticket?

It is still a treasured item in my family, to this very day.

THE END