Bathwater

The water in the bath barely covered her body. If you could call it a bath. It was an old big square tin; it was like nothing she had seen before. It was half rusty around the edges and so rough that when she had climbed in she had nearly cut her leg open. She had spent almost an hour filling it with boiling hot water and now she had been sat for so long the water was almost cold. She sat deadly still feeling her fingers go crinkly and her skin wrinkle beneath the water.

She had waited almost a week for a bath. Something which was once a luxury was now like gold to find. When she had gotten in her body felt numb from the cold and heat. Her aching bones felt as though they had shrivelled and died inside of her. She could barely move even now. Her head was a constant trail of thoughts and questions continuously running through her mind for the last week and yet she still received no answers.

A constant dripping noise from a leak in the ceiling was slowly filling a bucket and she wondered how long it had been leaking for. The noise breaking her thought cycle. She watched through misty eyes. The walls were an off-brown, she hoped they were once a less dull and depressing colour. The paint peeled and chipped onto the floor, a wet dog smell which had introduced itself as soon as she had entered the room filled her nostrils and churned her stomach, but she would need to get used to such things.

Her wet hair fell around her shoulders, tickling her skin. It was greasy and dusty and stuck to her head almost like a helmet as the once vibrant curls were straight and straw like. She had one discoloured bar of soap to wash herself with which she was almost trying to not use but she had to not knowing when she would have a bath again. There was a faint scent to it, not a very nice one something cheap like she had never smelled before. She had bathed in lavender and rose water at her home in Philadelphia, the water had been filled with bubbles and luxuries. She recalled the Lotions and potions which were gifted to her to smother her body in to keep her skin soft and supple even though she was only seventeen. Her hair would be rubbed and dried with Egyptian cotton towels. Now she had a ratty towel barely big enough to dry her body.

She moved and she felt the ache kill her more. Her body felt years older than it was. She felt battered and damaged almost as though she had worked her entire life. She leant forward and felt her back ache from leaning against the tin. She reached for the soap and rubbed it down her arm, feeling it tingle. She didn't know what was in it-nor did she want to. The stench tickled her nose and she found herself turning away. At least she was clean of something. She could barely move in the bath, the restrictions still a part of her life. When she sat up straight her coccyx hurt all the way down to the bottom of her back.

The bath she had at home and on Titanic had been plumbed in, with warm running water and she had even owned her own private bathroom. The small things which weren't major at the time were now something she had thought of. She had been told there was no hot water, which she would have to boil her own. She hadn't known how much work it would be and now after her five or six girls would share the water. Luckily she had been the first one to fill it.

She had been in the bath for over an hour, she didn't know how she knew that as she didn't have a clock to keep track of the tine. Her thoughts trailed through her head, she was in a constant trance and had been for the last week. She hadn't realised just how much her life had changed. She had survived the sinking of the Titanic.

So far she had found space and somewhere safe to sleep each night but no job, not that she had the skills to find any sort of employment. She would have to lie she knew that must, if she was asks if she had experience she would say 'yes' to anything.

She had lived off charity houses up to now and wound up at a boarding house on the outskirts of town. A lonely girl looking for a wash and a sandwich and they had allowed her inside. She didn't know where she was or who she was.

Tears came to her eyes again, she didn't know how to live this way, and she was barely surviving. She had lost weight since her arrival in New York. The one dress she had on her back had been rags when she had took it off. The once beautiful and expensive dress which hung in a shop window in Paris with a hefty price tag was not distinguishable from the rags of the urchins who roamed the streets. She had been given one dress, one coat and one pair of comfortable shoes. The clothes which she would wash every two days as best she could whether that is in the river or in the sink where she had washed. The garment was much too large for her thanks to losing so much weight short amount time.

She rubbed soap on her face and watched as mud fell away, flakes of skin and dignity fell into the water floating around like debris. She squeezed her eyes closed and tears fell down hotter than the water which she was laying in. she wanted to say his name and to see his face in the steam. She had done nothing but dream of him, or nightmares. Every living day without him was a nightmare. She didn't know how she had survived up to now. He had promised it would be a better way to live and yet nothing was better without him here.

She looked at her body, she felt detached from it as though it wasn't hers and her head was older than she was. She was battered, bruised, old and lonely, nowhere to turn with no friends.

Is it like this all the time? Had it been like it for him?

She was scared and running from the person that she was. Trying to become a person she thought she was. Trying to turn into butterfly but not quite getting wings to grow. She didn't know if they'd ever grow.

She felt her chest burn and the lump in throat, tears came down once more. She continued to scrub her body as though she had never had a wash before. Not knowing the next time would be. She tried clearing away all of the dirt and shame, to wash away the bad memories and everything which had occurred in the last week. She collapsed in tears. She thought she had been strong, that she could wash away everything and there would be nothing left to fear. That when she woke up she would become the butterfly he so badly believed she was and wanted her to become.

She had survived the sinking of titanic but could she survive life-alone?

She screwed hair into a bun tightly and ran soap through it; she made a lather as best she could and threw her head into the water and tried to scrub it violently as tears fell down her face blinding her.

Water splashed everywhere but she didn't care. It took her several minutes to get her breathe back. She looked down at the water and it was black. All the dirt which had fell away. Then she felt relief that she had washed it all away,. The water would be emptied and go down a drain along with the tears she had cried in the last hour. She wondered if they would be the last tears she would ever cry. She didn't know how she had the strength to get out bath. The water had gone cold but she didn't shiver nor did she feel cold anymore. She didn't feel so scared. The strength she had been trying to find for the last week seemed to appear when she had rid herself of dirt and scrubbed away all of the old her. It felt as though she had revealed the new her that she was shining like an old penny which had been cleaned.

She stood in the bath, her wet and naked body dripping as she stepped onto the bare wooden floor and wrapped the small towel around her body. She looked into the bath.

Taking a deep breath she felt the weight had lifted off her shoulder. The bathwater was all what was left of Rose Dewitt Bukater. She was now Rose Dawson.