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The unsinkable Molly Brown. Dear God, we’re on the Titanic !

We make our way towards the door. My legs feel as if they belong to someone else, which, I suppose technically, they do!

I’m in 1912, over one hundred years from where my body sits in the Aldershoff Hotel in the present.

I shake my head, trying to keep my thoughts on Constance, and the room I’m in now that gently vibrates from the rumble of the engine room far below.

Cavill is making his way to the door as well.

We are bound to collide. I see him crossing the room and I can’t take my eyes off him.

He’s still tall and handsome, but more mature.

Yes, his flaxen hair has darkened and is greying at the temples, his face is thinner, his skin weathered; time has robbed it of its bloom, but not of its charm.

He’s not the young man I knew, but an older, more seasoned version.

What is Cavill Pengower doing on the Titanic ?

I wonder, then, whether I haven’t slid at all but am suffering a horrendous nightmare.

Cavill reaches the door first and stands aside to let us pass. He smiles politely and those achingly familiar eyes rest upon my face with not even a glimmer of recognition. ‘After you, ladies,’ he says, bowing. Then a look of concern softens his expression. ‘Are you all right, Miss Fleet?’

I cannot answer. My throat is as rough and dry as bark.

‘Miss Fleet is not cut out to be a sailor, Mr Pengower,’ says Mrs Brown with a chuckle, ushering me past. I gaze up at him, searching his face for a sign, for a flinch, for the smallest hint of perception, but there is nothing of the soul connection I believed there to be – I hoped there would be.

There is only civility and respect given to a woman whose acquaintance he has made, perhaps only recently.

Do you not know me? I cry out in my mind.

My temples pound with the force of keeping those words contained in my head.

Our conversation from a different lifetime floats into my mind. It’s like a vaporous cloud I want to hold on to but can’t. I question now whether it ever happened.

‘Will we recognise each other when we no longer have our physical bodies? Will we recognise each other when we are made of light?’

And his reply. ‘Of course, I will recognise your soul. I’d recognise your soul if it was a ray of light among a thousand rays.’

But he has not recognised it. He has not recognised it at all.

Mrs Brown escorts me past the grand wooden staircase, which looks remarkably similar to the replica in James Cameron’s famous film.

It’s the same with its magnificent glass dome, wood-panelled walls and clock.

They must have copied it to the smallest detail.

Now I know why the room looked so familiar.

As Mrs Brown leads me across the marble floor and on through a door and down a carpeted corridor, I realise with mounting panic that this ship is going to hit an iceberg in two days’ time – I believe the tragedy happened on the fourth day of the journey across the Atlantic and we have already been at sea for two.

It’s going to hit the iceberg and sink.

And I am on it.

We reach a white-panelled door and I fumble in the silk bag I’m carrying for the key.

I imagine it must be in there and I’m right.

Mrs Brown takes charge and puts the key in the lock, but she needn’t have bothered.

The door is not locked and opens easily.

A maid in a black dress and white apron is turning down the big canopy bed nestled into the embrace of the wall.

She looks up from her work and a shadow of apprehension darkens her face.

‘Ma’am, is everything all right?’ she asks.

Like Henry Higgins, I place her accent in the East End of London.

‘Miss Fleet has taken a turn, Ruby,’ Mrs Brown informs her, and I wonder how she knows the name of the maid and the whereabouts of my cabin.

‘She’s like The Princess and the Pea , feeling the motion of the water on a boat this size,’ she continues in her strident, humorous tone.

‘Really, to me it feels as solid as my home in Denver.’ She laughs.

‘I’m sure you’ll feel better in the morning, my dear.

You just need a good night’s sleep. Perhaps a thimble of rum. ’

I turn to Mrs Brown. I want to tell her that the ship is going to sink and that she’s going to be heroic, manning an oar and urging the crew in the lifeboat to go back and rescue those in the water.

But I cannot – and what would be the point?

She wouldn’t believe me. Everyone believed the Titanic to be unsinkable.

I wonder what becomes of Constance Fleet, this woman whose body I’ve slid into?

Does she survive? And what of Cavill? I realise with a shudder that I’ve never considered the possibility of dying while in a slide.

If I don’t manage to get off the ship in time and return to the future, what will happen?

Will I remain in a limbo state between life and death?

Will I be lost in time? Are Cavill and I destined to die together?

His gravestone at St Sidwell stated that he died in 1943, but what if I’ve altered destiny by triggering once again the law of attraction and bringing him to me.

I’ve changed the date of his death once before. What’s to stop me doing it again?

Mrs Brown leaves, closing the door softly behind her.

Ruby is a young woman with a pretty, round face, pebble-grey eyes and a pointed chin.

Her shiny brown hair is swept off her forehead and tied in a bun.

She looks at me with kindness. ‘Let me help you out of your dress,’ she says and comes towards me with the confidence of a person who is doing a job she knows well.

I realise she must be Constance’s personal maid, and has been, perhaps, for some time.

I catch myself in the standing mirror and examine the body I’ve slipped into.

It’s not beautiful like Hermione Swift – it’s sturdier and not as tall, but Constance is appealing none the less.

I imagine she’s in her forties, but it’s hard to tell for people age differently in these times.

Her hair is soft brown and greying. She wears it up, as is the fashion, curled and pinned, with a crimped fringe falling over a low brow.

Her eyes are hazel, deep-set with dark lashes.

They’re intelligent, bold, unafraid – even with me staring out of them I can tell that she’s formidable.

Her nose is strong and straight, and her lips neither full nor thin but somewhere in between.

She’s a woman who smiles a lot for she has laughter lines around her mouth and eyes, and a sharp jawline and chin that denote determination.

Yes, she has a determined chin. I don’t imagine she’s the kind of woman who allows people to push her around.

As Ruby unbuttons my dress and unties the laces on the back of my corset, I take a moment to reflect.

The problem is that I don’t know what sort of woman I am.

At least with Hermione Swift I could be anyone I wanted to be, because I arrived at St Sidwell Manor as a governess whom no one had previously met.

But this is a different story. Constance is known.

Besides her name, Miss Fleet, which suggests she’s not married, I have no information about her at all.

Is she quiet, or is she brassy and bold like Mrs Brown?

I feel an overwhelming sense of helplessness – I’ve got myself into this, but I don’t know how I’m meant to behave.

I pull myself together. I’ve done this before on previous slides.

I can do it again. I just need to focus and think laterally.

‘Thank you, Ruby,’ I say. ‘I’m sure I’ll feel better in the morning. I’m not used to being at sea.’

She laughs. ‘It’s probably the excitement, ma’am. This is the biggest boat the world has ever seen and we’re on it. It’s quite something, isn’t it?’

‘It certainly is,’ I reply. I wonder whether Ruby survives. Or does she, with the other fifteen hundred people, die a horrible death. Does Constance?

One thing I know for sure is that Lester survives the Titanic disaster. But at what cost? Something terrible must happen over the next two days to keep him trapped in the Aldershoff a century later. Is that what I’m here to discover?

Ruby opens a drawer and takes out a leather-bound book and hands it to me. ‘Are you too sick to write your journal tonight?’ she asks.

I stare at it in astonishment. It’s tied with ribbon and thick with pages.

Pages that might contain information I need to know about Constance’s life, her thoughts, her dreams and desires.

It’s exactly what I need in order to navigate my way through this bewildering drama.

What luck! Of course, it was very common for people to keep diaries in those days – I’ve read a few myself and they’re wonderfully detailed and vivid.

But I’m thankful to Constance for having one.

I take it eagerly, my heart swelling with gratitude.

‘I will write it.’ I sit at the dressing table so that she can take the pins out of my hair and brush it.

The cover of the diary depicts forget-me-nots and daisies.

I stare at them, hope building in my chest. This might not only contain information about Constance Fleet, but about Lester Ravenglass too.

Nothing happens by chance. There’s a reason why I’m here, on this ship, at this time.

I have to trust the higher power. I’m on the Titanic because I need to be here to carry out my purpose, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.

Before the maid leaves the room, I ask, ‘Ruby, if you didn’t know me, how would you describe me? What sort of woman am I?’

She frowns, her face full of doubt. Then she grins and the doubt is dispelled. ‘Is this a game, ma’am?’