Colm Tóibín - Brooklyn

The room was tiny, with a bunk bed, no window, not even an air hole, and a door into a minuscule bathroom that also, as she had been told, served the room on the other side. A notice said that passengers should unlock the other door when the bathroom was not in use, thus facilitating access for passengers in the adjoining room.

Eilis put one of her suitcases on the rack provided, placing the other against the wall. She wondered if she should change her clothes or what she should do between now and the evening meal that would be served to third-class passengers once the boat had set sail. Rose had packed two books for her, but she saw that the light was too weak for her to read. She lay down on the bed and put her hands behind her head, glad that the first part of the journey was over and there was still a week left without anything to do before she arrived. If only the rest of it could be as easy as this!

One thing that Jack had said remained with her because it was unlike him to be so vehement about anything. His saying that at the beginning he would have done anything to go home was strange. He had said nothing about this in his letters. It struck her that he might have told no one, not even his brothers, how he felt, and she thought how lonely that might have been for him. Maybe, she thought, all three of her brothers went through the same things and helped each other, sensing the feeling of homesickness when it arose in one of the others. If it happened to her, she realized, she would be alone, so she hoped that she would be ready for whatever was going to happen to her, however she was going to feel, when she arrived in Brooklyn.

Suddenly, the door opened and a woman came in, pulling a large trunk behind her. She ignored Eilis, who stood up immediately and asked her if she needed help. The woman dragged the trunk into the tiny berth and tried to close the door behind her but there was not enough space.

"This is hell," she said in an English accent as she now attempted to stand the trunk on its side. Having succeeded, she stood in the space between the bunk beds and the wall beside Eilis. There was barely room for the two of them. Eilis saw that the upturned trunk was almost blocking the door.

"You're on the top bunk. Number one means bottom bunk and that's on my ticket," the woman said. "So move. My name is Georgina."

Eilis did not check her own ticket but instead introduced herself.

"This is the smallest room," Georgina said, "you couldn't keep a cat in here, let alone swing one."

Eilis had to stop herself from laughing, and she wished Rose were close by so she could tell her that she was on the verge of asking Georgina if she were going all the way to New York or if she planned to get off somewhere on the journey.

"I need a fag but they won't let us smoke down here," Georgina said.

Eilis began to climb up the little ladder to the top bunk.

"Never again," Georgina said. "Never again."

Eilis could not resist. "Never again such a big trunk or never again going to America?"

"Never again in third class. Never again the trunk. Never again going home to Liverpool. Just never again. Does that answer your question?"

"But you like the bottom bunk?" Eilis asked.

"Yes, I do. Now, you're Irish so come and have a cigarette with me."

"I'm sorry. I don't smoke."

"Just my luck. No bad habits."

Georgina slowly made her way out of the room by edging around the trunk.

Later, when the engine of the ship, which seemed remarkably close to their berth, began to fire up and a large hooting whistle started to blow at regular intervals, Georgina returned to the room to fetch her coat and, having brushed her hair in the bathroom, invited Eilis to come on deck with her and see the lights of Liverpool as they departed.

"We could meet someone we like," she said, "who could invite us to the first-class lounge."

Eilis found her coat and scarf and followed her, inching with difficulty past the trunk. She could not understand how Georgina had managed to get it down the stairs. It was only when they were standing on deck in the dwindling evening light that she was able to get a good look at the woman with whom she was sharing the berth. Georgina, she thought, was anything between thirty and forty, although she could have been more. Her hair was a bright blond, and her hairstyle was like a film star's. She moved with confidence, and when she lit a cigarette and pulled on it, the way she pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes and released the smoke from her nose made her seem immensely poised and glamorous.

"Look at them," she said, pointing to a group of people standing on the other side of a barrier, who were also watching the city as it grew smaller. "They're the first-class passengers. They get the best view. But I know a way around. Come on with me."

"I'm all right here," Eilis said. "There'll be no view in a minute anyway."

Georgina turned and looked at her and shrugged. "Suit yourself. But, by the look of it and from what I've heard, it's going to be one of those nights, one of the worst. The steward who carried my trunk down said it was going to be one of those nights."

It grew dark quickly and windy on deck. Eilis found the third-class dining room and sat alone as a single waiter set the tables around her, eventually noticing her and bringing her first, without even showing her a menu, a bowl of oxtail soup, followed by what she thought was boiled mutton in gravy with potatoes and peas. As she ate she looked around but saw no sign of Georgina and was surprised at the number of empty tables. She wondered if most of the cabins were first class and second class, and if third class was just the small number of people she saw now in the dining room, or had seen on deck. She thought this was unlikely, and asked herself where the rest of them were, or how they were going to eat.

By the time the waiter brought her jelly and custard, there was no one else in the dining room. She thought that Georgina, since there was no other restaurant in third class, must have slipped into first or second but she did not think it could be easily done. There was nothing for her to do, in any case, since there was no third-class lounge or bar, but to go back to her cabin and settle down for the night. She was tired and she hoped now that she might sleep.

In the cabin, when she went to brush her teeth and wash her face before going to bed, she discovered that the people on the other side had locked the door; she believed that they must be using the bathroom and stood waiting for them to finish and then unlock the door. She listened but heard no sound, except the engine, which she thought loud enough to muffle any bathroom noise. After a while she went into the corridor and spent time outside the door of the adjoining room but could hear nothing. She wondered if the people in there had gone to sleep and waited in the corridor hoping that Georgina would come. Georgina, she thought, would know what to do, as would Rose or her mother, or indeed Miss Kelly, whose face came into her mind for one brief moment. But she had no idea what to do.

When some time had gone by, she knocked gently on the door and, on receiving no reply, banged harder with her knuckles in case they could not hear her. Still there was no reply. Since the liner was full, and since there was no one in the dining room, which was by now surely closed, she presumed that all the passengers were in their cabins; some of them could even have been asleep. In her agitation and worry, she suddenly realized that not only did she need to brush her teeth and wash her face, but she needed to empty her bladder and her bowels as well, and do so quickly, almost urgently. She went into her own cabin again and tried the door of the bathroom, but it was still locked.

She went back into the corridor and made her way towards the dining room, her need more and more urgent, but she could find no bathroom. She went up the two flights of stairs towards the deck but found that the door had been locked. She walked down a number of corridors, checking at the end of each one for a bathroom or a toilet, but there was nothing except the sound of the engines and the beginning of a movement as the liner lunged forward, which made it necessary for her to hold the rails carefully as she went back down the stairs so she could keep her balance.