Authors: Janette Jenkins
‘Thank you.’
‘It wasn’t meant as a compliment,’ she said. ‘If you’re so fit and well, what are you doing here?’
‘He’s on leave,’ said Beatrice.
‘Why?’ said Madge.
‘My commanding officer sent me home,’ said Jonathan. ‘A small break.’
‘Oh, a small break?’ said Ada. ‘We used to have one of those at Easter. We’d go and see my brother Vernon in Chester.’
He closed his eyes. ‘I’ve been working on a very difficult campaign,’ he said quietly. ‘I worked hard. They sent me home. I’ll be working twice as hard when I get back to the front.’
‘And my Tom won’t?’ said Lizzie as her chin began to quiver. ‘Doesn’t he work hard enough?’
‘Of course he does.’
‘I just want to see him. Our children are missing their dad. When will it be Tom’s turn?’
‘That I can’t say,’ said Jonathan.
‘But what would you do?’ said Beatrice suddenly finding her voice. ‘What would you do if you were out on the battlefield and you were going to be sent home for a while? Would you say, hey, no thanks, I’d rather stay here than go back to my loved ones?’
‘Beatrice …’
‘Of course we wouldn’t, but we just want to know when we’ll see them again,’ said Lizzie. ‘Is that so much to ask? Don’t they get a turn?’
‘Honest answer? Not always. They’ve had breaks of course. They’ve spent days away from the battlefield and they’ve been given time to rest and recuperate.’
‘They have?’ said Lizzie.
‘Of course. We don’t expect a man to carry on non-stop without a respite.’
‘What do they do on these breaks?’ asked Madge.
‘Chat, play cards, rest up.’
‘My Tom never said anything about that,’ said Lizzie, picturing him in his shirtsleeves, a handkerchief on his head, sprawled out on a beach, like Morecambe, only warmer. ‘You mean they get a little holiday?’
‘I suppose you could put it like that.’
‘Some holiday,’ said Ada. ‘I bet they’d rather come home.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Of course. I’m sure that they would.’
‘Like you,’ said Madge.
‘But he’s different,’ said Ada. ‘He’s a sergeant. He isn’t a nothing, like our men.’
‘Your men aren’t nothing,’ he paled. ‘Your men are everything.’
‘So why are they treated like muck?’
Jonathan sat down. His head was swimming. He could see Tom scrambling underneath the wire, Jim with a spade, digging graves in the mud, Frank, wandering, smiling, singing nonsense French and being overly brave because he just didn’t care any more, because perhaps all the world was dying?
‘Your husbands are treated well, and they are all well respected,’ he said, draining his sherry. ‘I admire them.’
‘I admire your motor car,’ said Ada. ‘But your motor car is a thing. It isn’t a human being, and the way you talk about Jim and the rest of them, it’s like they’re objects, and they’re there to be used like the rounds of ammunition in your guns.’
‘You’re talking like you don’t even know them,’ said Madge. ‘I thought they were your friends. Your old pals. Isn’t that what you called them once upon a time? Not good friends perhaps, but friends all the same. Didn’t you invite them here now and then? Didn’t you all get tipsy, laughing and joking and smoking fine cigars? Or were you doing your duty?’
‘Of course not, and I’m sorry if I’ve offended you,’ he said, rubbing his forehead. ‘I’m extremely tired just now.’
‘Then isn’t it lucky you have a nice warm fire, a bed upstairs, and a wife to go in it?’ said Ada. ‘Sweet dreams, Sergeant Crane. Come on,’ she said to the others. ‘We’ll be going. We’ll let Sergeant Crane get his beauty sleep.’
As the door closed he threw his sherry glass against the wall. The splinters looked like ice shivering on the sideboard.
‘I’ll be leaving in the morning. It isn’t right. It never felt right.’
‘I know.’ She closed her eyes.
He sat down, hunching up his shoulders tight. ‘You don’t know. How could you? No one knows anything,’ he said. ‘No one knows anything about the bloody awful mess we’re in.’
‘You could tell me?’
‘I can’t,’ he said, with his head down. ‘I just don’t know the words to describe it.’
Ten minutes later he was smiling again. He’d washed his face and he’d given himself a good talking-to in the small bathroom mirror.
‘Play some more of your music, darling,’ he said, opening another bottle of wine. ‘Go on. I don’t know what got into me. And what about
dessert?
We didn’t even start our dessert. What is it?’
‘Canned peaches,’ she said, sliding the record from its thick cardboard sleeve.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’ve been dreaming of peaches for days.’
The women huddled together. They were looking back at the light shining in the Cranes’ bedroom window, Ada remembering how she’d once climbed onto Jonathan’s shoulders, and how she’d felt tall and full of the sky, and they were joined up like a giant, until he was laughing so much that his knees gave way, and as soon as she’d slipped to the ground he’d gone running back to wherever he’d been before, brushing down his shoulders, and Ada already forgotten.
‘It’s only just getting dark,’ said Madge, looking up at the sky. ‘But you can see the moon and stars already.’
‘It’s getting dark all right,’ said Ada, ‘but I don’t mind walking in the dark.’
They wanted to stay outside, to look at the water, and the deepening indigo sky. Why go back now when Lizzie’s mother had the children? At home their small summer fires would be dying, their rooms empty, and their single supper plates were already washed and stacked beside the sink.
‘It might be over by next week,’ said Lizzie. They were sitting on the wall, linking arms. ‘Next week we might be celebrating.’
‘You’ll give yourself an ulcer if you keep on thinking like that,’ said Madge, absent-mindedly rubbing her stomach. ‘All that hoping for nothing.’
‘But it has to end sooner or later,’ said Lizzie. ‘Doesn’t it?’
Ada took a long look over her shoulder. ‘Some people don’t even know that it’s started.’
‘I think you’re wrong about Sergeant Crane,’ said Lizzie.
‘No I’m not,’ she said.
A breeze began to whip across the water, making thin grey waves. An owl swooped from the trees. Silent. White. Then suddenly the moon disappeared as they pulled their elbows closer, pressing themselves together, until it felt like they were breaking.
BE GOOD OR BEGONE
Brooklyn, New York
16 July 1911
THE BROOKLYN AIR
was thick and heavy, and she felt all the weight of it as she pushed her way towards Renton Street, the address on a piece of paper screwed up tight in the warm sweaty crush of her hand; she’d already asked twice for directions, but the first time the man spoke no English, and the other, a woman fanning her face with a chop suey house menu, shrugged her shoulders and shuffled into a tiny piece of shade.
She walked a little further. Her small heavy case was biting into her palm, and her feet were cramped and pinched inside her boots.
‘Excuse me,’ she said to a man washing down a window. ‘I wonder if you could help me? I’m looking for Renton Street.’
He turned round and wiped his forehead with the window rag. ‘It’s full of grime but it’s cool,’ he explained, ‘and I’d rather be filthy and cool than dying of the heat. You looking for Renton Street you say?’
‘That’s right.’
‘What do you want over there?’
‘A hotel,’ she said. ‘The Galilee Hotel. Do you know it?’
‘I don’t know no hotel, but I do know Renton Street,’ he told her, wringing out the rag and dipping it into the pail of murky water by his feet. ‘This place is full of pickpockets, so keep your eyes open and all your wits about you. Next block up, take a right.’
‘Thanks.’
‘It’s the Russians,’ he said, turning back towards the window, ‘the Russian gypsies are full of tricks, and they can con you, and you think you’re being entertained whilst they’re emptying out your pockets. You’ve got to admire them,’ he grinned. ‘Those gypsies are dripping in style.’
She shifted a little. There was nothing in her pockets to pick, apart
from
a torn white handkerchief that was none too clean, and a gum wrapper.
‘You watch how you go now.’
She walked a little further past a row of brownstones and a man sleeping rough on a pallet. The back of her neck prickled with the heat, the sky pressed down, and all she could think of was an icy glass of water and a bed.
Renton Street looked empty. The houses on either side were thin and shambolic. A shop selling sliced Italian sausage had thick iron bars on the door.
The Galilee Hotel was at the end of the block. It was a tall narrow building, the fancy masonry, the flowers and diamonds were broken at the edges, and the paint was cracked and blistering on the sills. A sign in the window (cardboard, handwritten) said,
Be Good or Begone
. Beatrice tried to smooth out the creases that had been sitting in her clothes since yesterday and nervously pulled on the bell.
A woman appeared, and in the haze, and with the pale blue wash of her dress, she might have been floating over the doormat.
‘I’m Beatrice Lyle, from Illinois. My brother arranged everything. Elijah Lyle. Did you get my letter?’
‘Yes,’ the woman said, opening the door a little wider. ‘You’re the preacher’s sister, I have been expecting you all day. I made a simple light lunch, just in case you should appear on time, but as you didn’t, the lunch will now be supper.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be,’ she said, ushering her inside. ‘The good Lord provides and nothing goes to waste.’
She led Beatrice into what appeared to be the parlour. It was a plain room, with four hard-backed chairs and a table. A bunch of white flowers (unidentifiable) were wilting in a pickle jar.
‘Questions first,’ the woman said, producing a notepad from her pocket. ‘Glass of water later.’
Beatrice nodded, and unstuck her lips.
‘My name is Miss Flood, I am the proprietress, I am not the owner. The Galilee Hotel is owned by the Methodist Mission of America. You are still a Methodist, I take it, as stated in your letter?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Then you’ll understand and believe in our rules, as well as abide by them?’
‘Yes.’
Miss Flood laughed a little. ‘You don’t know what these rules are,’ she said, covering her mouth with her fingers. ‘I’d hold my tongue and look at them before agreeing to anything, if I were you.’
She handed Beatrice a slip of paper. The rules went over the page. Beatrice read the first three, No Alcohol. No Tobacco Products. No Callers. The rest of the rules appeared in a blur, as her eyes skimmed over the words, Noise and No, No, No.
‘You agree to all these rules?’ she asked. ‘You believe in them?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then sign your full name here. Your room is on the third floor. You’ll find a jug of water to refresh you, though I doubt that it’s still cold. You are lucky,’ she went on. ‘You were supposed to be sharing with a Miss Brownlow, but Miss Brownlow has now left us.’
‘She has?’
‘Yes. She is now somewhere in Sheepshead Bay, doing nothing at all that is good for her.’
On the way to her room Beatrice passed dusty hollow squares where pictures had once hung, candlesticks surrounded by mounds of tallow drippings, and a large oilcloth banner that proclaimed,
Put Down That Glass & Go
.
‘Here we are,’ said Miss Flood. ‘Room 9.’
The room was larger than Beatrice had been expecting. There were two iron beds – one stripped – a chair and a plain set of drawers. The window looked onto the street, and the buildings opposite, with all their shutters and pulled down blinds, seemed to have little life inside them.
‘Mealtimes are printed on your guest sheet,’ she said, pointing to a large piece of paper sitting on the lopsided bureau. ‘Everything else is explained. If you require me in between times, my room is Room 1. Please knock.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Thank the Lord,’ she said, without the slightest hint of irony.
Beatrice collapsed onto the bed. Every bone and muscle ached. She untied her boots. The water in the jug was warm and tasted dusty, but it ran down her throat and uncaked her tongue. She closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep, because surely she was ready for it?
Her eyelids were heavy, but her head was too busy. She was in New York. The place people wrote about in those monthly magazines,
where
buildings sat tall, side by side, shining in the light like arms full of jewellery. Where were those buildings? The houses on Renton Street, Brooklyn, were taller than most of the houses in Normal, but they were dull-faced and crumbling, and as for the windows, many of them were cracked and broken, patched up with brown paper card, and all of them scorched with the dust. She yawned. Perhaps those other, shiny buildings were just around the corner. When she felt rested, she would go out and she would look for them.
She woke to the sound of someone hammering on her door. She had a crick in her neck and her arm felt numb from where she’d been sleeping on it. For a few seconds she was in her room in Normal, with the birds just outside, peeping around her door with the eyes that saw nothing.
The hammering again. Rubbing the back of her neck, she went to see who it was. An oldish-looking man with flat grey hair and a threadbare suit shifted from foot to foot. His shoes were the smartest thing about him. They were all buffed up and shiny, and she couldn’t take her eyes off them, until she remembered that she hadn’t even washed her face or changed out of her clothes, and she must look such a mess.
‘I’ve been sent to get you,’ he said.
She looked up from his feet, surprised. ‘You have?’
‘It’s time for dinner,’ he told her. ‘Six thirty p.m. sharp.’
‘It’s that late?’
‘It is.’ He held out his hand. ‘Elliot Price.’ He bowed from the waist. ‘The redeemed Elliot Price.’
She tried to do something with her hair. She could feel it slipping over her forehead and falling over her collar. ‘The redeemed?’ she smiled, adjusting her hair clips and following him out onto the landing.
‘That’s right. I was an actor on the vaudeville circuit, serious roles you understand; I was never much of a hoofer, even in my early days, though goodness knows, I tried. I played all the heavy dramatic scenes, they were my specialty, and I made something of a name for myself. Do you ever go to vaudeville?’