Montmartre, France.
March 1912
A long, tanned leg poked from beneath a burgundy well mended blanket and the other seemed to have tangled itself around his own, causing it to lose feeling. Jack Dawson opened one cautious eye and then the other as the brightness of the foreign room engulfed him. He wanted to groan aloud, but it would have woken the beauty beside him. Settling for a wince instead, his hair fell into his hazy eyes as finally the fog lifted and allowed his vision to become clear. He was naked—well, he was covered with some of the blanket. The woman beside him was nameless, either he had never asked or she had never told him. A sly smile perked the ends of his lips but he soon soothed them away, neglecting his morning glory before sighing as softly as he could. The girl was even lovelier in the daylight; her soft skin bathed in the sunlight and her slender body which he had found pleasure with just mere hours before. He didn't know what hour it was, but it had been early morning when they had arrived here at the—well, he assumed it was her home but upon closer inspection it appeared to simple be a room. Decorated in all hues of red—harsh and cosy all in one. It could possibly be a boarding house of some sort, but still, he hadn't slept in a bed as soft for quite some time.
Pulling his leg from beneath her, she softly exhaled and shifted about before falling into a deep slumber again. There would be no waking her.
Jack's clothes were discarded at various points across the well-worn wooden floor. Bending to retrieve them one by one, he dressed as he went, dodging the woman's clothes as he went, leaning on a chair as he pulled his socks on and tiptoeing across to the door where his trousers were-
''Phew.''
He had removed them just as they had entered the room, or so it seemed. The parts of the night were hazy, filled with a crazy lust he had been unable to fulfil since arriving in Paris. This was number four, no six—all beautiful, all nameless and each left him feeling as lonely as the last. The bitter sting of it attacked now and again, reminding him of the fact he was alone in the world, even surrounded by gorgeous art, stunning women and the glorious city which he had endlessly dreamt of in recent years. His portfolio lay at his feet, sketches scattered about the place. Quickly, he bent to retrieve them and scooped them to rest inside the battered leather folder. Upon standing, a sharp pain gathered what felt like in his actual skull, his left hand went to it, to gain relief. Argh, there was the reminder to drink some water, eat the leftover bread and cheese from yesterday and to not drink cheap red wine for a long time. Turning to leave, he caught glimpse of himself within a cracked mirror; he looked—tired. His back was hunched, his face tanned from another day working outdoors and his eyes which were sunken and red.
He left; not looking back. What need was there? The next adventure loomed somewhere ahead.
There was no place within his life for permanent fixtures. He was scattered out for the winds to take him but there was never time to leave room for such a thing as love. He hadn't left room for anything other than the work which he had submerged himself into; his art. It left him not a single second to think of himself, or any needs aside from bathing, eating, sleeping and attending barbers when the time called for a trim and a shave. These were the things which he had needed in order to continue his work, his life and so anything else had been discarded.
Paris had not quite welcomed him the way he imagined it would, though. The entire place was saturated with dottism, cubism and realism. Nothing with true heart in it. At times, his work felt worthless. Empty. Meaningless. To anyone else but him. A beer and a beautiful woman were distracting for an hour or two, then he would be wondering the endless narrow cobbled streets with Fabrizio, exploring and learning the Italian language, whilst he taught English in return. His bed would be wherever he found to lay his head; that could be a concrete stone, his bag or a rotting table in the corner of a pub.
Fabrizio was a lost soul just like Jack. Having left Italy some months before to look for adventure, he had found work and a love of money. He worked to live and every cent went towards an ultimate goal; to travel to America, the one place which Jack had yet to return to since leaving five years before.
"Was she ah—" Fabrizio gestured to Jack whilst snapping to find the correct word in English.
"Lovely." Jack blushed, ruffling his friends black hair as he exhaled his cigarette and glanced about. "Where we headed today?"
Fabrizio shot Jack a look of half understanding whilst he still tried to dissect the fast paced way of Jack's American tongue to his own native. His brown eyes were filled with such naivety which was eager for an adventure.
"Where we go?" Fabrizio confirmed and Jack nodded.
"Si, dove andiamo."
"Ah, you comprendere?"
"Yes," Jack smiled, his good natured smile caused Fabrizio to curse in Italian before they continued to enjoy a cigarette beneath a warm, Spring sunshine. Across the way, a couple of children played with a ball, their parents watching nearby upon a grassy verge. The parents were mid-late thirties and their children varying in age from a baby to adolescence. Jack watched their interaction. The way which they play fought. Their laughter and energy which pierced the air. He grew lost in someone else's moment and without even knowing it, the cigarette which he had been smoking was discarded to the wind and his charcoal was within his hands and working away, scratching at the paper until a picture emerged: it wasn't grand. Wasn't worth hanging in the Louvre but it was real, drawn from life by a man barely out of his adolescence and filled with such passion about his craft that it filled him day and night. How he had survived on little sleep, cheap beer and the production of hundreds of drawings which never seemed to amount to much. Once the drawing was done, it sat within a portfolio filled with countless others. Faces he had never seen more than once, faces he would see again and no doubt, some of the most beautiful he had ever seen. The Parisian women were happy to pose for him, and indulge his appreciation for the female body in all of its glory and beauty. From soft curves of flesh, to slender and toned limbs. The passionate and the shy. The hands to the feet. Jack had sketched them all and found endless loveliness in them. Their unabashed approach to life and their sexuality made Jack appreciate their company even more but never had he been emotionally attached. Never had he had a love affair with them: the trust between an artist and his subject should never be broken. Barriers should never be reached across. Not those kind anyway.
Another cigarette dangled from his lips, as now his line of sight was clear of life, aside from the landscapes but Jack was no Monet. He would never be one to use a watercolour or a canvas. Jack was restless again, his fingers itching to draw and his eyes eager to drink in.
"Come on, let's go." Hitching his bag across his shoulder, Fabrizio jumped to his feet to join Jack on what would be their next adventure.
They would walk for hours. Take shelter beneath bridges and hitch a ride from strangers if they needed to. Their travels took them to Giverny where purely by mistake did Jack gaze upon the famous lilac flowers and beautiful brick work of Monet's home. Through a small hole in a fence, he had come across the man himself at work on some masterpiece until he and Fabrizio were chased away by a French speaking lady brandishing a gun.
Afterwards they would lay in the field, laughing until their stomachs hurt and their cigarettes were low in the stash.
Some days they ate two meals, sometimes it was two or three days without. The beauty of life on the road though was that there was another who were kind enough to share with them, the unfortunate ones. A crust of bread. A slice of ham or cheese and a sip of beer and a cigarette. Sometimes Jack would bargain a meal in exchange for work. Sometimes he made barely a cent and others the equivalent of a full dollar in the warmer months.
The nights were spent in a bar or a Garret, drinking what they could before dawn and before Fabrizio fell asleep and then that was when loneliness enveloped him like an unwelcome embrace from his enermy. Spending nights in the bed of nameless women were a good distraction but only for a couple of hours. They never wanted more and he never asked for it and even it they did, he was a man who would never know how to give love to them.
Jack loved his friends, loved his parents, or what he recalled of them and he loved to draw, beyond that, it felt impossible to ever think of falling in love and so, in typical artists fashion, late into the night, Jack would lay and study the stars and consider the meaning of life. Of this great hand of fate he had been dealt five years ago when his parents deaths had enabled him a freedom he could never have achieved it they had lived. Of how he had been granted some sort of luck despite his lack of fortunes.
His father would study the stars, sneaking him as a boy from his warm bed outside in the freezing cold to watch the stars as it would fade into the sunrise. Perhaps his slightly eccentric father was the reason for his own love of life, of adventure and of the beautiful way in which nature surrounds them. Jack Dawson senior had grown up on the same farm that Jack had, lived the same life Jack would have, but his father had one wish and that was to see the sea but he died in the same town that he had been born in just forty years before. What had been the meaning of his life? Or his mothers? June Dawson was a petite woman who had nearly died giving birth to Jack, who had been a large baby. She had wanted more than a house full of children and she never had another after Jack. Loving and doting to the very end of her life, Jack couldn't have asked for a better mother or safer pair of arms to take salvation in.
It was the next day, on a windy and quiet morning that a newspaper headline had caught Jack's attention as he sat waiting for any custom in a park. It was almost as though fate dealt him another crazy hand and soon, the paper went flying from a man's grasp and straight towards Jack in a strange windy whirlwind. There was a picture of the Titanic. A ship so grand in scale that even royalty were sailing on it. The damned thing had dominated the headlines for about a year as far as he recalled but it was only the sure fire date which had sparked the same flare of desire within him to travel as it had five years before when he left Eau Claire after scrambling aboard a steamer as a stowaway. Perhaps this would be the answer to the restlessness which Paris had started to gift him with.
10th April, Southampton, England. The Titanic will set sail on her maiden voyage bound for New York City.
''That's it!'' Jack shoved the newspaper back within the hands of a middle aged Parision man, and stumbled to his feet, kicking at Fabrizio's sleeping form beside him as he did. ''Come, on, we have to go.''
''What? Estaba durmiendo, estaba durmiendo.'' Fzbrizio pulled at his coat, opening one sleepy eye to see Jack ready and bounding to leave. ''I sleep.''
''Sleep then. I am about to head to America!''
Jack waited for the words to sink into his sleepy friends head before he was on his feet, questioning and speaking of his destiny as they walked with determination.
Getting to England in time would be difficult. Stowing away would be the most risky way aboard but there was a feeling within Jack that this was the way that he was meant to go. It was as though the meaning of his life and what lay ahead seemed to unfold. Make sense. Somehow.