The corners of his lips curled upwards but it was a mirthless smile not so much a grin as a grimace, at any moment he was bound to pounce. “Be so good as to tell me,” he says. “What brought on this collapse.”
“I am not a doctor, sir.”
“Come come, Bessy,” he says. “You must have some thoughts on the subject. I suspect you do.”
“Me sir? No thoughts at all, sir, there isn’t a thought in my head. Hand on heart, sir.” (At that precise moment my hands were submerged in a bowl of cold water.)
Master James leaned down to stir the fire. Then he replaced the poker on its hook and watched it swing to and fro for a moment. “Of course,” he says, very casual. “I don’t suppose all this has anything to do with
ghosts.
”
Now there was a pounce, if ever I heard one. I assumed my most innocent face.
“Ghosts, sir?”
“It would be inconceivable,” he says (gesturing with his hands as though making a speech), “that ghosts or Phantoms or spirits or whatever you want to call them were involved in this collapse. You would take issue with anyone who suggested as much.”
Here he paused and I realised he was expecting some kind of response. But at that moment missus moaned and shifted, causing the cloths on her head to slip off. I discarded them and took fresh ones from the bowl then spent some time arranging these across her brow. When I glanced up again master James was staring at me expectantly.
“What was the question sir?”
He sighed and fixed me with his beady eye. “For the past few weeks my wife has been getting agitated. She seems to believe that the house is haunted. Now today we see her collapsed in a fit of nerves. And you are telling me that in your opinion her collapse and all this nonsense in her head about ghosts are in no way connected.”
“I suppose I am, sir.”
“You have no idea what happened to make my wife collapse.”
“No, sir.”
“In that case, I take it you were not with her at the time.”
“I wasn’t, sir.”
“Tell the truth, Bessy, and shame the Devil.”
Flip the scutting Devil, it was
me
felt ashamed! Cornered as I was into giving out a whole clatter of lies, just when I was after turning over a new leaf! For my own sake, I was beyond caring, I had my confession wrote down for missus. But I didn’t want to get
her
into trouble with her husband and I knew he would be furious if I tellt him we’d been hunting for a ghost in the attic.
“Sir,” I says, “I don’t know what more you want me to say.”
For a moment his eyes glittered in the firelight as he continued to study me. Then he appeared to let the subject drop. He sniffed and pinched the end of his nose, rubbed it ferociously, then took out his snoot cloot and trumpeted into it several times.
“Very well,” says he, when he’d tucked away his trumpet. “However, it would interest me to know whether there have been any other similar occurrences of late. Any other dizzy spells, for instance.”
“No sir. None at all.”
“I take it you believe your mistress to be in good health.”
“I do sir. ”Well, I did, sir, until today.“
Fair enough,“ he says. ”Chops.“
I beg your pardon?“
“You wanted to know what I would like to eat. I was expressing my Preference.”
Oh
chops!“
I says. ”I thought for a minute there you were calling me a name.“
I don’t think he heard me, he was staring at his wife with a glum expression on his face. He seemed both mournful and a little irritated. After a moment, he turned and walked out the room, without another word.
Missus fought her fever all through that evening and on into the night. Once only her condition got worse and I near sent for the doctor but it seemed that application of the cool cloths brought her temperature down and made her less restless. Master James poked his neb round the door once again before he went to bed but when he seen that his wife was still insensible he crept away. Midnight came and went. The new year! But there was no celebration for us. About one o’clock, a gale blew up and swirled around the house. It rattled the windows and gusted in the chimney, sending smoke billowing out into the room. Soot fairies floated down onto me and missus, I had to wipe them off her lovely face. So beautiful she was! But nothing seemed to wake her, she slept on through it all like a baby.
I tellt myself I’d make her some broth in the morning if she was well enough to drink it. Lucky it wasn’t my mother looking after her. Bridget would never have thought of making broth and she didn’t cook if she could help it. And Joe Dimpsey was no better, he always had the same piece of advice for anyone with an ailment. A pint of whisky and a good bang, you’ll be right as rain,“ he used to say.
I didn’t think I’d be recommending
that
particular cure to missus.
At one point, I lay down next to her on the coverlet and cradled her in my arms. I meant no disrespect by it, I only wanted to comfort her. At least she had somebody to look after her. Even if it were only me— a bad girl that was trying to turn over a new leaf. I kept making excuses for myself about being wicked. Normally I am not one to dwell on things but once again I could not help getting long-lippit about the way I was brought up. “If only” this and ‘If only“ that. If only my mother had not been what she was &c. As I lay there next to missus I was reminded of the old days when Bridget and me often used to pig together in the same bed in Dublin. That is, before Joe arrived. After that I was on a tick on the floor. That very same tick I had sat upon while my mother painted my face for the first time. And I remembered that once she had finished with my face she painted her own, then led me out of our room and down stairs. Out in the street, she paused to examine her reflection in a windowpane and then she smiled down at me.
“Who am I?” she says.
No, she had not took leave of her senses. This was something she often asked me and I was well-schooled in the required response.
“You’re my big sister,” I says.
“Exactly right,” says Bridget.
This was a little vanity of hers. She did not like people to think she had a child so I always had to say we were sisters and that is how we were known wherever we went.
She took me to a wide and busy street and stood me under a lamppost beside a row of cabmen, several of whom were asleep sat on the doorsteps of their vehicles.
“Smile, dear,” my mother says. “And keep smiling.”
Two of her cronies were there in all their finery, Kate and Eliza Rosa, they stood under another lamppost waiting for somebody (or so I thought). My mother went and spoke to them and all 3 turned and looked at me. Eliza Rosa looked distressed at the sight of me for some reason but Kate called over very cheerful, “If anything starts to droop love, come and find me I’ll loan you some starch!”
I did not understand this comment or why it made her laugh so raucously, but decided it was most likely something particular to the umbrella trade. Neither Eliza Rosa nor my mother appeared to agree with Kate’s advice for Eliza gave her a shove and my mother scowled at her and came back to stand with me.
When a gentleman in evening clothes approached us, I supposed he was the owner of the umbrella shop. He looked to be the jolly sort that would run such a place. His cheeks was pink the ends of his moustachios waxed. He wore a rose in his buttonhole and a brightly coloured scarf. My mother walked with him, a little way up the street. I couldn’t hear what they were talking about but there was no doubt that I was the subject under discussion for they both flicked glances in my direction and once or twice when the gent wasn’t looking my mother flashed her eyes at me and bared her teeth like a wild jackanapes which at first I thought strange until I realised she was reminding me to smile.
The man gave her something and then she came over and knelt down to look me in the face. “Listen here to me,” she says. “I want you to go along with this gentleman and do as you’re bid and be polite and correct. And if you do it all right and mind your manners then me and Joe will let you come with us. D’you hear me?”
How could I fail to, she was right slap in front of me?
I went with the man, like she had tellt me. We walked away from the busy streets. Any time he happened to glance sideways at me, I made sure to smile. Presently (I’ll always remember this), he cleared his throat and says, in quite a scolding fashion, “Were it the case that you were an inhabitant of the continent of Africa, you would in all probability be married by now to a dark brown native with a bone in his nose.”
Not having been much in society and not quite knowing how best to respond politely to this remark, I decided to say nothing. A full minute passed in contemplation. Eventually the gentleman says, “I see you would like that.”
“What, sir? Excuse me?”
“You would
like
to be married to a native with a bone in his nose.”
I shook my head. “Oh no sir, I—I don’t think I would like it at all.”
“Then why are you smiling so?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
This amused him greatly for he barked with laughter, but then fell suddenly silent and frowned at me. “Perhaps you are a simpleton,” he says shortly. He began to peer at me more closely as we walked on, examining my face for signs of idiocy.
Away to flip!“ I cried, then remembered I was supposed to be polite. ”Sir, excuse me, I’m not simple. I’m quick to pick things up. And I’ll do exactly what I’m told.“
“I’m glad to hear it,” he says. At least you have stopped grinning like a loon.“
Indeed I had, for I suddenly felt like crying. All this strange talk or brown men and loonies. I wished my mother would come and get me and we could go home. But then I remembered that she and Joe were going to Scratchland and I had to go with this man and do as I was bid, else I would be left behind to eat scraps and sleep on the grocers step.
After some time of walking, the man led me down an alley at the side of a theatre. I had never been to the theatre before. Once or twice, I had heard some of my mothers cronies talk about a time they had snuck in by a back door and got a look at the stage, upon which the inimitable John Drew himself happened to be performing. I think perhaps I imagined that this gentleman also knew some secret way in and was taking me to see the end of the play before we went on to work. And so, I went with him quite willingly.
About
1/2
way down the alley, he drew me into a gloomy alcove. There was indeed an entrance there, but the door was barred and locked with a heavy chain. Upon discovering this, I felt a moment’s disappointment that we might not get to see the show after all, but this was quickly replaced by panic as the gentleman bent down and put his tongue in my ear. I struggled to escape his grasp but there was nowhere I could go as he was backing me into the corner. I was dimly aware of certain things happening, his hat falling to the ground and rolling away, some urgent un-fastenings in the region of his trouser, a sensation of lifting as he hoisted me against the wall. I did not know much in those days but I had seen enough to realise what was about to occur, and I wasn’t certain whether I liked it or not. Surely, I thought, this was not what my mother had in mind.
“Excuse me, sir,” I says. “But what about the umbrellas?”
The alcove was dark and I couldn’t really see his face, but he hesitated. “Umbrellas?” he says, not unkindly. “What d’you mean?” Sir, is this what I am
meant
to do?“
He stroked my head and sighed. “Yes, dear. And you are doing it very well. Just keep still and—let me—” He made some minor adjustment to my undergarments. “That’s better. Are you all right?”
I nodded, hoping that he could not see that my eyes had filled with ears. It was quite clear to me what was going to happen.
“Now then,” he says. “All being well and as advertised, this should cause you a small amount of discomfort.”
When it came to it, I could not bear the thought of his dirty great jack anywhere near me and so I imagined in its place nothing more sinister than an umbrella (indeed it might as well have been an umbrella for the pain it caused me), a gentlemans umbrella, silky and unfurled, just like the one I might have made at the shop, had we ever gone there and had the shop even existed, which—it was finally beginning to dawn on me—had never been the case.
I was a virgin on five more occasions that week, each time with a different man and by Saturday we had enough to pay our passage to Scratchland. To begin with my mother claimed that Joe would be travelling with us on the same boat. And then, as the date of our departure drew near she said he had gone on ahead and we was to meet up with him in Glasgow. When pressed to be more specific about when and where, the best my mother could come up with was, “Never you mind.”
I think it was at around this point that I began to suspect that her story about the emotional reconciliation down at the docks might not be true. But I kept my trap shut and tried not to dwell on it, I could never have put it into words back then but I suppose the implications was too painful even to consider.
After Dublin, Glasgow seemed to me to be huge, noisy and full of mad people. Within the first minute of disembarkation I seen a grown woman on her hands and knees barking like a dog, a man who played a fiddle that was made of a horses skull strung with strings, and a boy who twirled a mackerel around his head until its glossy guts flew out like streamers. Hanging above us all as we swarmed along the dock was a terrible sky lit up with fire and black smoke that looked to be from the very Jaws of Hell but in fact came from Dixons iron works across the river. And was the bold Joe Dimpsey, spoony man, awaiting us on the quay, all smiles and hearty welcomes? Was he buckie.
My mother took a room off Stockwell Street near the ropeworks and spent the first few days looking for Joe. She went to every race track, every wobble, every den and dance hall, and when that didn’t root him out she put a notice in the
Herald,
offering a reward for information about his whereabouts. But no news came.
After about a week, when the money ran out, she put me to work. She was in semi-retirement, she says. She had wore herself out for years putting food on the table for me and clothes on my back. Now I was broke in, it was my turn to fetch the coin on a daily basis, and she would join me only whenever she felt like it.