Saying Goodbye
There was moonlight shining through the dusty windows; the water could be heard lapping roughly on the sides of the boat. People were bustling up and down corridors, in and out of cabins, searching for lost children and items of clothing. The oil lamps where swinging with the rocking vessel, threatening to spill onto an unfortunate passenger or crew member, whilst women tried to steady themselves in front of old mirrors in order to tie hats securely and apply make-up delicately. On the upper decks porters rushed about carrying ladies bags and stepping curtly out of the way when gentlemen came by. The sent of lavender hung in the air and paintings by Monet and Turner fidgeted on the walls.
The plush furniture and lavish settings were a sharp contrast to where Polly-Anna sat.
There were no embroidered dresses or leather suitcases down here. The people wore drab, travel worn clothes and their baggage was light. Irish mothers called after their countless children, who in turn were far more interested in staring into the stormy night through murky portholes, trying to see the shore where they were docking. Young men with a variety of accents sat in cramped cabins looking at maps or tickets, all hoping for the luck they were promised in the new world, and somewhere not that far away a baby was wailing, trying to out-do the howling wind.
And in the midst of it all sat Polly-Anna, quiet and still within the chaos, her ticket was held firmly in her hand. Lost in her own thoughts she barely noticed when a crewmember called out telling them they had five minutes or so before docking. Standing with the rest, Polly held tightly onto the small bag containing everything she owned, and made her way along to where they would disembark. From somewhere within the great ship a dull and creaking thud rang throughout the decks, rocking people to the left and indicating that the boat had met the port.
Once outside the air was refreshingly clean but the strong wind pulled quite violently at Polly-Anna’s hair and rain dashed at her face and clothes, drenching her skirt and making it drag heavily on her legs. Crossing the gangway the girl tried hard not to look down at the turbulent water below. Even though the boat was anchored the storm was still raging making it hard to keep a steady footing on the slippery wooden planks. Following those in front of her, Polly-Anna found herself out of the rain and in what seemed to be a grand hall where lines of people snaked around, eventually leading to a number of desks.
Everyone appeared to be content to wait whilst they inched slowly forward, but Polly-Anna was becoming increasingly anxious. Not for the first time in her life she felt like the only person in the room who didn’t know what was going on, or what would happen next. Maybe this was where they wrote their names down, “registered” as Jimmy called it. He had told her about Ellis Island and how important it was, but Polly wasn’t sure if this was it. Some how she’d imagined a ceremony or something to make her feel welcome, but all she felt now was nausea.
Thinking about home made Polly feel like curling up into a ball and sobbing till there were no more tears left in her. Clutching her cramping stomach the girl edged forward with the rest of the people in line. The lights flickered off and on again; the storm was getting worse. Rain came lashing down on the window pains and wind banged the doors constantly, stirring the dust on the floor making Polly cough dryly.
Watching nowhere in particular Polly’s eyes fell on a lady the other side of the hall. Her dress was a wonderful peacock blue and her hat was trimmed with silver lace. Beside her stood a young man, his arms protectively around her shoulders, his smart black hat resting on their luggage that stood upright near a cage containing a yellow canary. Polly-Anna thought it was ever so romantic, imagining they had travelled miles and miles so they could start a new life together here in America.
The line moved a few paces once more bringing Polly directly in line with the desk ahead of her. There was still quite a while to wait before getting to the front, and she was still unsure of what would happen when she got there, but at least she could now see the events taking place up ahead.
Not wanting to dwell on the immediate future, Polly allowed herself to be distracted by the people around her once more. In front of her a little boy was holding tightly onto a threadbare blanket in one hand and his mother’s skirt in the other. Even with his blanket he looked terribly cold, and Polly was glad for the small comfort of her gloves. The boy was picked up a moment later by his father so he could rest on his shoulder, the mother looked at him gratefully. The little child changed the angle of his head to face Polly, so that he could put two of his fingers comfortably into his mouth. He smiled at her through his fingers then closed his tired eyes. Polly smiled back, her tension easing slightly. She remembered she had a blanket once, though hers was pink not cream, and she had sucked her thumb when she held it. It was probably tucked under her bed back in Devon with her other childhood memories, gathering dust with no further use.
A clock sounded from somewhere in the distance; Polly counted eleven chimes before it fell silent. The little boy had fallen asleep in his father’s arms, the blanket still firmly held in his hand. Resting her bag on the floor Polly took her old gloves off and held them in one hand, using the other to ease her soaking hair off her face. Using the heavy black material of her skirt in an attempt to dry her hand she picked up her bag and moved forward again keeping a slight distance between her and the family in front.
The girl in the peacock dress was walking stiffly with her partner off into another room, accompanied by a number of other smartly dressed people. Maybe it was quicker if you had money thought Polly, who by this time was finding the discomfort in her feet almost unbearable. She almost longed to be back on the cramped boat with its bad food and irritable staff.
An orderly with greying hair came and stood nearby; Polly had noticed him walking around earlier on. He began to address the crowd but whether or not he was speaking English she couldn’t tell. The words were twangy and seemed to get swallowed in his mouth before they reached her ears. It was like when Polly and her brothers and sisters had gone to visit their cousins in London; father had had to explain nearly everything they said. The experience though meant Polly was able to catch a little of what the man was saying in his strange accent, and she made reasonable sense of his instructions. When they got to the desk they were to answer a number of questions about themselves before proceeding to another room. That didn’t sound too hard.
Shortly after he had finished talking the line moved onwards once more. When they stopped Polly laid her bag on the floor again, this time to find something from amongst all her precious things. After a moment or two’s searching the girl pulled out a couple of old photos and held them carefully in her gloves. One wasn’t a photo at all in fact, it was a small portrait of her grandma, Elizabeth, given to her by her mother. Being the baby of the family Polly tended to have clothes and toys that had once belonged to three, maybe four other people, but this old thing she didn’t mind. Grandma had travelled from Ireland to go and live in England, many, many years ago, and Mother said Polly was just like her. Looking at the old picture gave her a warm feeling of pride and confidence.
The second photograph was of her family taken about five years ago. They were all dressed in their Sunday clothes for church sitting in the front room. From oldest to youngest there was mother and father, Martha, Jimmy, Silvia, Katy-Beth and Mathew Jr, the twins, and then finally Polly-Anna. The girls all had ribbons in their Auburn curls and the boys stood smartly next to their father. She could only have been twelve years old then Polly realised, before putting both pictures back in her bag. She wished she was twelve again, then mother could have put her warm arms around her and sang to her like she always did. Polly wanted so desperately to make them all proud of her; she was going to send money with her letters every week so mother wouldn’t have to work so hard. Maybe she could find a nice upper-class family to work for, someone like the girl in the peacock dress perhaps. Jimmy had told her all those kinds of families wanted domestic servants, and most paid good wages too.
The family in front were talking to the man at the desk now, or more the father was talking with his son still draped over his shoulder. It would be Polly’s turn next; what kind of questions were they likely to ask? Polly had never been that clever at school, certainly not like Silvia who had been the top of every class; she hoped she could tell the man what he wanted to know.
When it was her turn though, she needn’t have worried. All the gentleman required was information about her and her family background, things like her date-of-birth and her mother’s maiden name. She found his accent clearer to understand than the other man too. Once he had written all this down in his dusty old book he told Polly to go on into another room where her baggage would be checked. An attendant pointed her in the direction of a pair of double doors where a number of people were walking through.
Polly followed them into a rather large corridor with oil lamps burning steadily on the ceiling; the smell reminded her of her grandmother’s house where there was always lamps and a warm fire burning in the grate. Once, as a special treat they had been allowed to toast bread on the fire before spreading it with some of Grandmother’s home-made butter. Father had always said that the thing he missed the most from home was sitting by the fireplace; Polly however had always been terribly afraid of the immense flames, worried they would gobble here up if she wasn’t careful, though of course she had never admitted this to anyone. Polly hadn’t been able to see her grandmother very much in recent years as her and Granddaddy lived very far away. Though thinking about it, ‘very far away’ didn’t really seem such a distance now that she was in America.
The noise of the rain was much fainter here; Polly was sure it was still lashing down out side but there was no longer the persistent drumming on the window pains and doors. There was however an even stronger draft than before and Polly shivered under her damp clothes; dust flew through the air like a permanent vapour determined to make her eyes sore and chest cough.
When they got there, the next room looked much like the old one except for that it was quite a bit smaller. Polly-Anna only had to wait a short time for someone to look at her things as there were a great many more attendants here. A young man checked her money was all correct and looked over her photographs and the little clothing she had. When he was content he gave the bag back to her and smiled kindly before telling her where to go next. Polly was quite sure she flushed pink with embarrassment when he did this, as she had never really spoken to men of her own age and she didn’t know what to say. Choosing just to smile back at him, she took her bag and said a quiet thank you before moving on.
She was seen for a third time by an attendant; this one though wanted to check that she wasn’t sick and asked her a few questions, some on illnesses she hadn’t even heard of, so all she could do was tell him that. The answers she did know he seemed quite happy with, and when he was finished he asked if Polly would kindly sit on his stool whilst he checked for lice. Feeling quite sick at the idea of having lice in her hair Polly rose from the chair as soon as the man was through, picked up her bag and followed the rest of the travellers out of the hall and into the open air.
She found herself in what looked like a train station; the rain could be heard full blown again and the wind howled. Just as before she felt refreshed by the night air but startled by the ferocity of the storm. The last attendant had said that here she would board another boat that ferried them across to the mainland, but looking at the amount of people around her Polly was going to have to wait a long time before she could get on any boat. Luckily though they were standing under-cover so hopefully they wouldn’t get any wetter than they were already. Polly for one was staring to think she would never be dry.
Glancing to her right she could see the image of a clock tower; probably the one that had been chiming all evening, though looking at it’s hands Polly saw it was now well past midnight and would soon be getting on to early morning. Beyond the tower were more buildings; ones similar to where Polly had spent the last few hours and others that looked different; tea-rooms and shops perhaps? To her left Polly could see only water. She heard the waves crashing and rising up to meet the falling rain, the salt-air made her face tingle and once or twice, when the water hit particularly hard against the edge of the dock, she felt the spray fly over the railing to where she was standing; it seemed determined that her clothes were not going to dry no matter how hard she tried.
Occasionally the low moan of a ship’s foghorn could be heard from across the water, but their boat didn’t come. Many children had given up standing with their parents and were now sitting on the floor or perched on their luggage. Polly longed to do the same as her feet were aching but her pride kept her from doing so; none of the other adults around her were indulging in this behaviour so neither would she.
The clock it seemed was moving twice as slow as it should have been, as every time Polly looked at its face it had barely changed at all. Minutes snailed by and Polly started to think the boat would never come. Just as it was getting so that no more could fit on the platform a horn sounded in the distance, and this time it really was their boat. Some people cheered when the vessel came into dock, but all Polly could think about was sitting down.
Slowly they were herded onto the ship by crewmen who looked as though they never got enough sleep. Polly was lucky enough to find a seat by the window, so not only was she dry but able to see where they were headed. After everyone they could manage was on board and secure the boat clanked around for a little while longer before finally pushing off towards the city.
The ship rocked worse than before, and Polly found it hard to keep steady in her seat. As they mover closer and closer to their destination the image through the window became clearer. What began as blurry dark masses were now starting to take form as something so huge that Poly couldn’t even begin to imagine what they were, surely they would be docking soon? But they kept on ploughing through the waters, and Polly expected to hit into the big dark something any moment now, but they didn’t. A young man was talking to a girl nearby, she couldn’t have been much older than Polly. He was telling her that these forms were actually buildings called “sky-scrapers.”
“Do they really touch the sky?” she asked him eagerly, but he just laughed and told her “almost.”
The boat docked quite easily when they reached the other side, especially considering the awful weather that battered the ship and its contents. Once more Polly had to be careful that she didn’t slip down the wooden gang plank or loose her footing and fall into the freezing water below. The was no cover on this dock from the rain and consequently they were met by a sea of shiny black umbrellas. Father had had an old brown umbrella he used when going out to the chicken shed when it rained, but here, every one seemed to have one to hid under.
Even so, people still managed to see those they recognised, and many of Polly’s fellow passengers were met by someone they knew. There were many others though who were just like Polly and knew no-one here. For the first time since she had arrived in America though, the thought didn’t really seem to bother her. Polly knew what she had to do as Jimmy and Martha had told her a hundred times; she had to save her money so she could afford and to find a reasonable hotel to stay at until she found work. This meant she couldn’t buy an umbrella which was a great shame as now she was completely soaked again.
Pushing through the crowd Polly made her way in what she hoped was the right direction, and ended up at the edge of an extremely busy road. The sight of so many ‘automobiles’ was both new and quite terrifying to the young girl, but Polly decided the best idea would be to stay on this side of the road anyway.
So choosing to go left instead of right for apparent reason Polly took a deep breath, held her bag over her arm securely, and started walking down the street, anxious to know what might happen tomorrow.