Titanic

MILLIONAIRE SUITE

By contrast, the so-called "Millionaire Suite" is in the Empire style, and comprises two bedrooms, a bath, WC, wardrobe room, and a large sitting room. In addition there is a private 50 foot promenade deck outside. A room service waiter pours champagne into a tulip glass of orange juice and hands the Bucks Fizz to Rose. She is looking through her new paintings. There is a Monet of water lilies, a Degas of dancers, and a few abstract works. They are all unknown paintings... lost work.

Cal is out on the covered deck, which has potted trees and vines on trellises, talking through the doorway to Rose in the sitting room. "Those mud puddles were certainly a waste of money."

Rose looks at a cubist portrait "You're wrong. They're fascinating. Like in a dream... there's truth without logic. What's his name again... ?" She reads off the canvas. "Picasso."

Cal enters the sitting room with a scoff, "He'll never amount to a thing, trust me. At least they were cheap." A porter wheels Cal's private safe into the room on a hand truck. "Put that in the wardrobe."

Rose enters the bedroom with the large Degas of the dancers. She sets it on the dresser, near the canopy bed. Trudy, her handmaiden is already in there, hanging up some of Rose's clothes.

"It smells so brand new. Like they built it all just for us. I mean... just to think that tonight, when I crawl between the sheets, Iill be the first--" Cal appears in the doorway of the bedroom. "And when I crawl between the sheets tonight, I'll still be the first." Trudy blushes at the innuendo, "S'cuse me, Miss."

She edges around Cal and makes a quick exit. Cal comes up behind Rose and puts his hands on her shoulders. An act of possession, not intimacy. "The first and only. Forever." Rose's expression shows how bleak a prospect this is for her, now.

Titanic stands silhouetted against a purple post-sunset sky. She is lit up like a floating palace, and her thousand portholes reflect in the calm harbor waters. The 150 foot tender Nomadic lies-to alongside, looking like a rowboat. The lights of a Cherbourg harbor complete the postcard image.

Entering the first class reception room from the tender are a number of prominent passengers. A broad-shouldered woman in an enormous feathered hat comes up the gangway, carrying a suitcase in each hand, a spindly porter running to catch up with her to take the bags. "Well, I wasn't about to wait all day for you, sonny. Take 'em the rest of the way if you think you can manage."

"At Cherbourg a woman came aboard named Margaret Brown, but we all called her Molly. History would call her the Unsinkable Molly Brown. Her husband had struck gold someplace out west, and she was what mother called "new money"." Old Rose says.

Molly Brown is a tough talking straight shooter who dresses in the finery of her genteel peers but will never be one of them.

The ship glows with the warm creamy light of late afternoon. Jack and Emma stand right at the bow gripping the curving railing so familiar from images of the wreck. Jack leans over, looking down fifty feet to where the prow cuts the surface like a knife, sending up two glassy sheets of water. While Emma stares up at the sky soaking in the colors and breathing in the fresh air.

On the bridge, Captain Smith turns from the binnacle to First Officer William Murdoch.

"Take her to sea, Mister Murdoch. Let's stretch her legs."

On the catwalk Thomas Andrews, the shipbuilder, watches carefully as the engineers and greasers scramble to adjust valves. Towering above them are the twin reciprocating engines, four stories tall, their ten-foot-long connecting rods surging up and down with the turning of the massive crankshafts. The engines thunder like the footfalls of marching giants.

In the boiler rooms the strockers chant a song as they hurl coal into the roaring furnaces. The "black gang" are covered with sweat and coal dust, their muscles working like part of the machinery as they toil in the hellish glow.

Underwater the enormous bronze screws chop through the water, hurling the steamer forward and churning up a vortex of foam that lingers for miles behind the juggernaut ship. Smoke pours from the funnels as-- The riven water flares higher at the bow as the ship's speed builds.

At the bow, Jack and Emma lean far over, looking down.

In the glassy bow-wave two dolphins appear, under the water, running fast just in front of the steel blade of the prow. They do it for the sheer joy and exultation of motion. Jack watches the dolphins and grins as Emma imitates the sound the make. They breach, jumping clear of the water and then dive back, crisscrossing in front of the bow, dancing ahead of the juggernaut.

Fabrizio walks from behind them and walks next to Emma staring into the sun sparkles.

"I can see the Statue of Liberty already." He grins at Emma as she shakes her head. "Very small... of course."

Back at the restaurant. "She is the largest moving object ever made by the hand of man in all history..." J. Bruce Ismay, Managing Director of White Star Line. ".. and our master shipbuilder, Mr. Andrews here, designed her from the keel plates up."

He indicates a handsome 39 year old Irish gentleman to his right, Thomas Andrews, of Harland and Wolff Shipbuilders.

The next day the rich assemble for lunch, Ismay is seated with Cal, Rose, Ruth, Molly Brown and Thomas Andrews in the Palm Court, a beautiful sunny spot enclosed by high arched windows. "Well, I may have knocked her together, but the idea was Mr. Ismay's. He envisioned a steamer so grand in scale, and so luxurious in its appointments, that its supremacy would never be challenged. And here she is..." His eyes darting around from the amount of attention he is receiving, "...willed into solid reality."

"Why're ships always bein' called "she"? Is it because men think half the women around have big sterns and should be weighed in tonnage?" Molly jokes and the table laughs "Just another example of the men settin' the rules their way."

The waiter arrives to take orders. Rose lights a cigarette. Ruth scowls "You know I don't like that, Rose." Cal sighs, "She knows." Cal takes the cigarette from her and stubs it out. He turns the waiter, "We'll both have the lamb. Rare, with a little mint sauce." The waiter leaves and he turns to Rose, "You like lamb, don't you sweetpea?"

Molly is watching the dynamic between Rose, Cal and Ruth."So, you gonna cut her meat for her too there, Cal?" She mocks before turning to Ismay, "Hey, who came up with the name Titanic? You, Bruce?" "Yes, actually. I wanted to convey sheer size. And size means stability, luxury... and safety--" "Do you know of Dr. Freud? His ideas about the male preoccupation with size might be of particular interest to you, Mr. Ismay." Rose interrupts . Andrews chokes on his breadstick, suppressing laughter.

Ruth's face turns red with anger, "My God, Rose, what's gotten into--" Rose stands up "Excuse me." She says before stalking away. Ruth takes a sip of win mortified, "I do apologize." Molly smiles, "She's a pistol, Cal. You sure you can handle her?"

Cal tenses but feignes unconcern, "Well, I may have to start minding what she reads from now on."