Angel of Brooklyn (38 page)

‘To what?’

‘Everything.’

‘I should have known,’ she said.

‘Known what?’

‘You look like a Harvard man.’

‘I do? And what does a Harvard man look like?’

‘He looks rich and full of the sun,’ she told him. ‘Sort of glowing from the inside.’

He pulled a face. ‘I’ve never liked Harvard, and I like it less now.’

‘So what are all these other things that are playing on your mind?’ They’d reached her door. The numbers had sand sitting in their curves. The paint was flaking.

‘Too many things to tell you.’

‘Really?’ She opened the door. ‘You want to come up?’

He hesitated. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I will.’

The room was warm. The open drapes had let in a blanket of sun. She opened a window and they could hear the clopping horse being led away to work.

‘I like your room.’

‘It’s small.’

‘It’s like you.’

‘Coffee?’

‘If I have more coffee then I’ll never sleep again.’

She looked at him. He was tall and wide-shouldered. His clothes said jaunty American, jaunty rich American. She suddenly felt poor.

‘Won’t somebody be wondering?’ she asked.

‘Where I am? No.’

‘Your girlfriend?’

‘Marianne will still be flat out. She sleeps until noon.’

‘So what do you want from me?’ It was a line she’d picked from a magazine. It sounded awful. She turned towards him. She could feel a nerve twitching in her neck.

‘What do I want from you?’ He sounded puzzled. ‘Nothing. Anything. I don’t know, I mean I like you, but I’m supposed to be in love.’

‘I like you too,’ she told him. ‘I’ve never been in love.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘It’s true. I’ve never even had a beau.’

‘Are you kidding me?’ He touched her hand.

‘Absolutely not.’

He looked her in the eye. ‘Is it hard? Taking your clothes off in front of total strangers?’

‘I don’t take them off in front of them. I would never do that. Removing your clothes is far too personal. It says something.’

He began to unbutton his shirt until she could see a long deep V of honey-coloured skin. ‘Like this?’

‘Yes. But you’re in love.’

‘I know I am,’ he said.

It was a long, strange summer, the summer Conrad Hatcher (the Third) broke her heart, though she told herself that he didn’t mean anything at all, he was one of those experiences in life that you had to get through. She was now officially bad. She’d slept with him fifteen times. She wasn’t married. Conrad had a girlfriend, and though they weren’t yet engaged, she still saw herself as an adulterer.

‘So, you are in love with him?’ said Marnie.

‘Not at all. I like him. Liking him is more than enough.’

‘So why did you leave the dance hall when you saw him arrive with his party? Why didn’t you just go up to him and say a quick hello?’

‘He was with his girl.’

‘But if you aren’t in love with him then what does it matter? Hell, last season I went out with a guy from downtown. He was married. I liked him. He made me laugh and he set my heart racing, but I wasn’t in love. And I had no shame. Hell, I’d go out with him and his wife and the rest of their pals, and we’d have a high old time of it.’

‘I don’t like seeing him with her. I feel guilty.’

‘You mean jealous?’

She shrugged.

‘He likes you?’

‘More than likes.’

‘So why doesn’t he leave her?’

‘It’s the money. The life.’

‘What do you mean, it’s the money? You mean you aren’t rich enough?’

Beatrice sighed. ‘Oh, it’s fine to fall in love with the Angel of Brooklyn; let’s face it, he isn’t the first and he won’t be the last, but he knows it’s just a fantasy. I’m not the sort of girl you can slot into your real life. He has a house overlooking Long Island Sound. They have yachts. Maids. What would Papa say?’

‘Then he’s a beast.’

‘He’s a nice beast.’

‘You’re in love with him.’

‘I know I am.’

‘Then there’s only one thing for it. You mustn’t see him again.’

‘But he goes back in two weeks.’

‘Look, honey, two weeks is a whole relationship for some people. Celina swaps her girlfriends every weekend. Say goodbye now. The sooner the heart breaks, the sooner it will heal.’

‘Do I have to?’

‘It’s the only way to do it. Heck, he deserves it, that’s what you have to keep telling yourself. You need to toughen up.’

‘But I’ll miss him.’

‘He was never yours to miss.’

She waited three days. She slept with him again.

‘You were talking in your sleep,’ he said.

‘I was? What did I say?’

‘Lots of things. I couldn’t make them out. Something about cake. Danish sultana cake and muffins. And then you told me to be careful.’

She let him take her to the Old Russian tea rooms where they danced to the orchestra and she wore a string of pearls that Mr Cooper had lent her. ‘Just don’t tell Violet Murphy.’

He cried when she eventually told him; blubbing into his hands, he told her that he hated what he was and everything about himself.

‘I wish I could leave Marianne and walk out of my own life,’ he told her. ‘I love you.’

‘No, you don’t,’ she said.

That night she became more daring in her wings. She felt reckless, and dirty. When a raw-faced youth appeared, shuffling through the curtains, pimpled and unsure of himself, she touched her breast for him. She could see his face redden. She licked her lips. Then she opened her legs a little wider. His jaw dropped. He put his hand to his throat. Then he smiled.

SECRETS

WHEN THE REVEREND
Peter McNally read out Jim’s name from the roll of honour, there was a wail from the back of the church. Ada had dyed her best clothes black the day she’d received the official letter and all hope had gone. The dye had stained her hands; it had left inky coins on her elbows and shadows on her yard flags. She was wearing her aunt’s jet brooch and she’d lost so much weight it looked like she was drowning in all that dark material. Beatrice didn’t turn to look. She kept her head down as she listened to the now depleted choir. Most of the boys’ voices had broken, some had been called up, and the rest were at home because they didn’t like church any more; it was a cold depressing place even in the sunshine. The reverend often snapped at them. Arriving late, pushing on his dog collar, he’d sometimes have to hold on to the lectern just to keep from slipping down the step. Some said it was because he’d lost his nephew at the Somme, others had seen a depleted bottle of gin in the vestment wardrobe, though they hadn’t said anything, imagining what it must be like, sitting with mothers who were crying over sons they’d never see again, children the image of their fathers asking questions about God, because where did He fit into all of this? Hadn’t they been in church every week since they could remember? All those prayers and the hours spent in Sunday school crayoning pictures of Moses. Didn’t He owe them something?

‘I’m so very, very sorry,’ said Beatrice on her way out, because what else could she do? The women were standing huddled, arms clasped tightly around Ada, their own clothes while not exactly black were the darkest they could find in their wardrobes, their faces moist with heat. Only the children were running around as usual.

‘I told you it wouldn’t last,’ she said.

‘Yes,’ said Beatrice, ‘and I’m sorry you were right.’

She walked home with Lionel, who’d only come to the church as a mark of respect for Ada, because he now favoured the spiritualists, and spent every Thursday and Sunday evening sitting in their small red-bricked hall waiting for a medium to bring the other world a little closer.

‘It’s all scientific,’ he explained as they made their way down the lane. ‘It isn’t mumbo-jumbo. The reason why people are so sceptical is because table turning has always been open to such trickery. Magicians can use their skills to make things appear, for things to knock and float, and so on. People like magicians because they like being entertained, knowing nothing’s as it seems, so when the trickery is revealed, they lift up their hands and applaud, and then they say, “I told you so.”’

‘Do you still believe in heaven?’ she asked.

‘I believe in another world,’ he told her. ‘Yes, I believe it is easy to get there, it is like walking through a curtain.’

‘And God?’

‘And God is just there in His glory presiding over it all. With spiritualism, we simply cut out the middleman; we have no need for a priest, because we can hear it for ourselves.’

‘But the medium? Surely that’s your middleman?’

‘The medium is the vessel and what we see or hear is not open to interpretation, it merely is.’ Lionel clasped his hands behind his back and looked down at his shoes, the laces in his left boot had frayed and were trailing over the stones. ‘Would you like to come in for some tea?’

Lionel’s cottage was neat and full of things. While the kettle boiled and Lionel opened the caddy, Beatrice stared at all the books and ornaments, the jug depicting the entrance to the Liverpool and Manchester railway, a tourist map of North-East Yorkshire, coronation buttons, cycle routes, guides to ornithology.

‘I am something of a hoarder,’ he admitted. ‘My father was the same.’

She joined him at the table. There was tea and a plate of cream crackers. The cloth was snow white, and she tried to imagine Lionel on washday with his posser and packets of starch. How did he manage it?

‘It’s an awful time,’ he said. ‘It’s a time when we often don’t know what to say for the best, though of course I gave my condolences to Ada, knowing as I spoke that words mean very little and it’s such a terrible thing.’

‘Yes, and then I feel guilty for thinking, thank God it wasn’t Jonathan.’

He smiled. ‘It’s human nature. You’ve nothing to feel guilty about.’

They stirred their tea, the spoons clinking loudly against the pale yellow cups. Lionel looked at her, and then looked away again. He looked older than she remembered as the daylight dug into his tired puckered skin; it made his hair translucent.

‘You knew Jonathan’s mother and father?’ said Beatrice.

‘Yes, I knew his father very well.’

‘Tell me about him. Please? I’ve heard he was a gentleman. Jonathan always speaks fondly of him, and I know he must have had a very difficult time, losing his wife so young, and then bringing his son up alone.’

‘It certainly wasn’t easy,’ said Lionel. ‘I was his friend, and he could always turn to me, though what did I know about boys? Of course, I remembered my own childhood, my brother, my cousins and our friends, but that was all so far away. He missed Eliza. He felt nothing without her. Hiding his misery from Jonathan he’d throw himself into his work.’ Lionel went to the window and looked towards the lacy clouds. The sky was trembling. What did it matter now anyway? ‘He met a woman called Margaret Milton,’ he began. ‘She lived in Manchester. He met her at a supper party the year after Eliza died. They formed a remarkable friendship. He kept a picture of her hidden in his wallet, and from what I could see she was a charming-looking woman and not at all hard-faced, or indeed coquettish.’

‘So why didn’t he marry her? Widowers remarry all the time. It’s perfectly acceptable and I’m sure Jonathan would have been more than glad of a stepmother.’

‘Margaret Milton was already married,’ he said. ‘I suppose you’re very shocked?’

She shook her head. ‘Not at all. These things happen.’

‘Her husband was a brute. He often left her high and dry. She had a big house with extensive grounds, but she had to live off meagre rations, due to lack of funds. In the winter she froze and Martin would find her huddled under rugs wearing her hat and layers of clothes. Her husband was a partner in a pharmaceutical company and he travelled through the Continent with his pamphlets and his potions, picking up things as he went along, including debts and several mistresses. Margaret was miserable, but he wouldn’t divorce her. He said he simply didn’t believe in it. It’s true, she could have dragged him through the courts but she had two small children to think about, a boy and a girl, and her family thought highly of her husband, and she
didn
’t want to shame them. Martin was in turmoil. When Jonathan was in bed we’d sit by the fireside and he’d unburden himself. I believe he was deeply in love with the woman.’

‘Did he ever tell Jonathan?’

‘No.’

‘So what happened? Did they have a lifelong affair?’

Lionel shook his head. ‘Martin loved her, but he hated himself for what he saw was his weakness. He felt that it was wrong to have relations with another man’s wife, whatever the circumstances. There were lies. Secrets. In the end, he had to give her up, for his own sake, though she begged him not to. There were letters and pleadings. She said that as far as she was concerned she didn’t have a husband, but of course she was married, and Mr Milton with his changing morals, his hold on his wife and all those hollow promises was always there, lurking like a sinister shadow in the background, and so Martin had to end it.’

‘That’s a very sad story,’ said Beatrice. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Several years later she died of tuberculosis in a clinic in Austria. She was little more than forty, yet it was a comfort to Martin that she was in the right place. It showed that someone had cared for her.’

‘I’m glad you told me.’

‘He was a good man. You won’t say anything? To Jonathan, I mean.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘not a word.’

‘I keep thinking about Tom,’ said Lizzie. ‘I was worrying before, but now that Jim’s gone, it’s a thousand times worse.’

‘We need more distractions,’ said Beatrice.

‘Like what?’

‘Picture shows? The varieties? I felt better when I was working with the pigs because it sure is hard to think of anything when you’re being butted by a sow.’

Lizzie smiled. They were sitting in her parlour. Harry and Martha were staying with their cousins, and she’d invited Beatrice over.

‘At times like this I wish I lived in town,’ said Lizzie. ‘My mam and dad still live in town and all they have to do is walk out of their front door and they’re looking at the picture house.’