Friends Indeed

by Rose Doyle

  She knew that he was. She was remembering my disappearances from the house in Haddington Road.

  'He's a soldier, Mama, and my plan is to join him at the Curragh camp in Kildare. I'll go there tomorrow.'

  My father gave a low, agonised groan. 'You've been misconducting yourself with a soldier of the British Army.' He put his head in his hands. 'You've betrayed your country as well as your family. The decent thing would be for you to kill yourself.'

  'Stop it Cristy and stop it you too Martha in the name of Mary the Mother of God,' my mother said, 'have a bit of Christian charity what Sarah did was wrong but she's not the devil himself,’ she shook her head, 'she's our child Cristy the only one we have now let her stay the night.'

  My father left the table and dragged his useless leg behind him to the bedroom. 'Get her out of here,' he said, 'I want her gone within the hour. I don't care a toss where she goes.'

  I knew where I would go. I pulled a valise from under my bed. 'I'll leave,' I said, 'but I'll take what's mine with me.'

  The valise was not big but I didn't have a lot to pack. I made sure to take the Paris shawl. My grandmother watched in black silence and I wondered if she would ever forgive me. My mother's silence was different and, when I was ready, she walked down the stairs with me. It was cold and there was no one about. Our feet echoed hollow through the house. She put her arms about me in the hallway.

  'You're my own child,' she said.

  'Mama . . .'

  'Shush now don't cry.' Her eyes were dry. Mine were full of tears. 'When are you due?'

  'In May, I think. Around the middle of the month.'

  She held me against her and I felt her heart beneath the bones of her ribcage. She stroked my hair. 'I saved your Christening shawl I'll get it to you where will you be?'

  I told her and she let me go and made the sign of the Cross. 'Have you no place else?' she said. 'You'll be ruined entirely once you go there there'll be no coming back, ever.'

  'I know that. But I'll only stay there a few weeks, just until I've enough money to get to one of the towns near the Curragh. I'll rent a room and Jimmy will come to me at once when he knows.'

  'Jimmy.'

  'Jimmy Vance is his name.'

  'It's a nice name,' my mother said, 'it has a fine ring to it.'

  Beezy Ryan herself answered the door to my knocking on the North King Street kip house. She took one look at me and opened it wider.

  'So they drove you to me in the end, did they?'

  When I stepped past her, into the hallway, she stood with her hands on her hips, studying me. Even in the gloom I knew she could see where the cold had frozen the tear tracks on my face.

  'You look bad,' she said, 'and I suppose, since you're here with a valise in your hand, that you want a room?'

  'I'm not asking for charity. I want the work you promised me as well.'

  'You're lucky I didn't take on anyone else. I'd a feeling you'd be needing a place.'

  In the weeks that followed I worked for my keep, and a small wage, in Beezy Ryan's kip house. I was driven by a need to be busy. Whenever I sat still my situation threatened to crush me so it was better, at first, to keep going all the time. In the mornings, while Beezy and her girls lay in their beds, I scrubbed and polished and cleaned. The place soon lost its foul, rank air and took on the genteel odours of Castile soap and lime. Beezy nagged me to take things easy, saying I would 'make the place too much like a church' and be the cause of the landlord putting up the rent. I ignored her.

  I felt well and carried my baby low down. This was said to be a sure sign it was a boy but I knew in my heart, still, that I was carrying a girl.

  She moved inside me on my very first night in the kip house. I put my hands over my belly and sat and talked to her about Jimmy Vance.

  Beezy had given me the room at the back, off the kitchen, so that I wasn't bothered too much by the sounds of business in the night. Beezy's girls weren't that pleased to see me at first but I put work into being pleasant to them. I didn't want trouble and they were the sort would fight with their toes. Their lives had been hard and it was the only way they knew how to be.

  To please them I got powder blue and cleaned the looking glasses until they shone like new. I made an orange flower paste for their hands and showed them, as my mother had shown me, how to whiten their teeth with a mixture of the juice of a lemon, burnt alum and common salt. I perfumed their underthings with a powder of cloves and cedar wood. I made perfumed bags for their drawers.

  For Bernie Cole, who had the marks of smallpox on her face, I made a cold cream with sweet almonds and balm and rose water. To this I added powder of saffron, the ingredient needed to prevent the scars. It was too late to do much about Bernie's marks but it sweetened her temper towards me.

  'You're right to go after the father and to keep your child,' Bernie said, 'but stay away from the Magdalens and the nuns. They'll take your baby. They took mine. A boy, he was. If I'd my time over again I'd not let them do it.'

  'Easy to say that now,' Lizzie Early gave her snorting laugh, 'with your belly full of good food and a roof over your head.'

  Bernie sighed. 'My baby had red hair,' she said, 'they took him from me after only two hours. I never saw him since.'

  She never would see her son. Bernie Cole would be dead within six months, from pneumonia, just like Mary Ann.

  My busyness served its purpose. After two weeks of agitated cleaning and scrubbing and wooing of Beezy's girls I became tired and calmed down. By then I was accepted in the house too.

  By all but the beautiful Mary Adams.

  Her face, with its eyes of pure, cornflower blue and perfect, snowy skin, was a source of wonder to me. But she was one of the strangest women I'd ever encountered. She followed me everywhere with those eyes.

  She never left me alone for a minute with Beezy.

  'Pay no heed to her,' Beezy advised.

  But this was easier said than done and I told her so.

  'She's not the full shilling but she's coming around,' Beezy said. 'Believe me, she's a lot better than she was, poor creature.' She shrugged. 'The men like her.'

  The men liked Mary Adams because she was beautiful and didn't like them. Her coldness made them wild for her. She was the only girl some of them came to see.

  'Why're you here?' she said to me one day.

  I'd been in the house less than a week at the time and was agitatedly rubbing grease marks out of the kitchen table with turpentine.

  'I'm with child,' I said, 'I needed a roof over my head and I need to make some money to go to its father.'

  'I had a child once. It died. It died in my belly when its father beat me. He was my father too.'

  'When was that?' I was shocked.

  'Three years ago. I married a man soon after but he beat me too and I went on the streets. Beezy found me. I'd be dead but for her. She's my saviour. She's like the Mother of God to me.'

  'Beezy's a good woman,' I agreed.

  'I suppose you think that your belly growing in front of you makes you better than the rest of us?' She stood very close to me. She smelled of lavender and her eyes were round and unblinking. 'You're the kind goes rutting with a man to make him marry you. That's the payment you were after and it makes you no less a whore than the rest of us.

  None of the bitterness of the words showed on her face, or on the pale, fine skin. She looked perfectly serene. Except for the fixed eyes.

  'I don't think that at all, Mary,' I moved back, 'we're all dealt a hand in life and must play it the best we can.'

  'Aren't you the wise one,' she was sneering, 'but just you remember it's my deal to have Beezy and I'm the one looking after her. Don't go thinking she's yours or that you can take her from me.'

  'I'll be gone in a month, or less,' I said, 'and until then I'll be busy earning my keep.' I put sudsy water over the turpentine and began to scrub. She stood for a while watching me and then she left.

  I told Beezy what she'd said later.
<
br />   'I warned you about her already,' she reminded me, 'just humour her and she'll be all right. She's harmless.'

  I wasn't so sure about the harmless bit.

  There were no men allowed in the kip house before noon. The rest of the time, and into the small hours, there was a

  clamour. The brouhaha didn't bother me too much; it had never been quiet in Henrietta Street anyway.

  Beezy had strict rules but the demon drink made it hard to keep them always. She didn't allow in bands of men, two together was the most and no more than four in the house at any one time. Men couldn't stay the night, they had to transact business with Beezy before going with a girl and Beezy turned away any man she didn't like the look of.

  To deal with trouble she couldn't handle herself she had two men from the street, great brutes of fellows she paid well. They came the minute she called.

  I hated when uniformed soldiers came to the house, holding my breath until I checked the face above each jacket. It was never Jimmy Vance's. I never really thought it would be.

  Though I'd heard nothing from him, not even at Christmastime, I still couldn't believe he'd rejected me. I blamed the army for keeping him away and knew that when I saw him again everything would be as it had been.

  But for the most part I kept out of the way of the men, few of whom cared for the sight of a pregnant woman in a whorehouse. It reminded them of the wives they'd left at home in a similar condition.

  I kept out of the streets too and went out only when I had to. One of the places I went was to the dispensary to see Allie. She was busy and happy enough.

  ‘I’ll get you money to go to the Curragh,' she said, 'when the time comes.'

  I told her I was earning my own money but was grateful anyway.

  I went to the pro-Cathedral to meet my mother too. She was there every day, wearing out her knees praying for me.

  'Everyone in the street knows where you are,' she said, 'the child is one thing but going there has ruined you completely I hope your man will be there for you.'

  'He will. I'll be going to him soon.'

  'I wish you were at home with us shame and all your father misses you.'

  'What you mean is that he was sober for a few hours and filled with remorse.'

  'You did a terrible thing going to Beezy Ryan's.' My mother frowned at a statue of the Virgin as if expecting it to agree with her. 'It's not too late still to go to a Magdalen.'

  'You know I won't do that,' I said, 'I won't work in their laundry and let them take my baby from me.'

  'I pray that things will go well for you,' my mother said.

  But God had never listened to my mother's prayers and he didn't this time either. I was the one opened the door to catastrophe when it came knocking in North King Street.

  'Good day to you,' the man said and stepped inside quickly. All the grand types did that. They didn't want to be seen on the doorstep of a kip house. 'Get Beezy for me.'

  He wore a top hat and carried a cane. It was darkening outside and he smelled of brandy. A carriage rolled away from the kerb as I closed the door.

  'She's busy,' I said.

  Beezy didn't jump for any man. She kept every one of them waiting. It was one rule she never broke.

  'You can sit in the…'

  He threw his hat on to the chaise and spoke to my belly. 'Tell her William Fleming is here.'

  When I hesitated he looked up, into my eyes. His were like bits of gravel. He was a good-looking man otherwise.

  'You'll have to wait,' I said.

  'I'll find the whore myself,' he pushed me aside, 'Beezy!' His shout went through the house. I stepped in front of him and he made a fist of his hand and raised it to me. 'It would be better for the bastard you're carrying if you stood out of my way.' His voice was soft. 'I'm an impatient man.'

  He was a violent one too, and pitiless. I was very afraid for Beezy. 'Even so you'll have to wait,' I didn't move, 'like everyone else.'

  He caught my arm and threw me against the wall. 'I warned you,' he said, 'I'm an impatient man.'

  'So impatience is what you're calling your bad temper these days?' Beezy came slowly down the stairs. 'Your impatience, William Fleming, will be your downfall. I told you not to come back here. Now I'm telling you to get out.'

  Her hair was like a briary bush about her head. In the murky gaslight she looked taller and more forbidding than I'd ever seen her. I stayed where I was as she reached the hall floor and stood between me and William Fleming.

  'Get back upstairs and into your room, Beezy,' he ordered her, his voice thick, 'I want to see you in your room.'

  'Do you now?' Beezy was mocking, 'I'll see you in hell first, William Fleming. You've laid hands on one of my girls and for that there's no forgiveness, and no going back. If she's hurt in any way I'll have the skin off your back.'

  'Don't threaten me, Beezy.' He whirled his cane and held it in front of him in his two hands. 'You're a whore and she's a whore. You'll do what I say and be glad to get your money.'

  There was brutality as well as fury in him. In Beezy there was only fury. And she was sober.

  'Get out, William.' Her cold-blooded tone was frightening. She was easily as tall as he was and she kept her eyes on his face.

  'We're going to your room, Beezy,' he ran the cane between his fingers, 'so get yourself up those stairs and on to your back.'

  'Why would I do that?' Beezy taunted, 'so as you can try again to prove yourself a man, is it?' She slipped her hands into her pockets and spoke very quietly. 'Take yourself elsewhere, William Fleming, with your sobs and your impatience and your withered excuse for manhood. I've done serving you.'

  He was beside himself and she must have known it. She was too unafraid for her own good.

  'We will go upstairs, whore.' He advanced a step and I could smell the hot sweat pouring from him. 'You will do for me what whores do.'

  'I will do nothing for you, ever again. And you will not come here again and nor will you ever again lay a hand on one of the girls in my care.' She pulled her hand from the long pocket of her skirt. There was a bottle in it. I stopped a scream in my throat.

  'Get out of my house,' Beezy raised the bottle and William Fleming's eyes widened, and cooled, all at once.

  She might have got away with it, might have seen the back of him, if she'd resisted a final taunt. 'Take yourself and your useless cock out of here . . .'

  I knew violence because I'd seen it, often, in the streets and in the pubs. I knew how quickly it could flare. Knew how the difference between life and deathly injuries could be a matter of seconds.

  And still I was taken unawares by the speed of events that night.

  I didn't see it go up but I saw William Fleming's cane come down and across Beezy's face. I screamed as she raised the bottle and lunged at him, pressing myself against the wall and holding my belly to protect the baby inside. I prayed in a way I'd often heard my mother pray, quick, desperate pleadings with God to do something to help.

  Glass broke and the man gave a sharp, short yell and drew away from Beezy with a howled curse. He still held the stick in one hand but the other he held against the side of his face. Blood poured from between his fingers.

  'You've cut me,' he said.

  'Go now, William.' Beezy, as she spoke, relaxed a little. That was her second mistake.

  William Fleming pitched forward, seized the bottle from her raised hand and drove it into the side of her face. Her scream was high and desolate and, as he drew back with the bottle in his hand, she fell to her knees.

  I started to go to her but William Fleming, his face twisted like a bulldog's, moved between her and me and held the bottle to my face. 'Leave her,' he said, 'leave her to bleed, leave her to suffer.' He jabbed Beezy with his foot. 'You won't belittle me again, whore, nor any other man either.' He gave a half laugh. 'You'll pray for it, Beezy, from now on, beg for a man to even look at you.'

  It was as he bent over her that I heard the sound on the stairs. By turning,
just a little, I was able to see Mary Adams coming down and, behind her on the landing, the shadowy shapes of the other girls and whatever men had been with them.

  Unaware, William Fleming went on, 'You'll remember me, Beezy, as long as you live. Every time you see yourself you'll think of me.' He poked at her again with his boot and turned to me. One side of his face was covered in blood. 'You'll keep your mouth shut, bitch, about what went on here tonight or I'll see that you never give birth to the child you're carrying. Do you understand?' He pulled me so that I was beside him when he turned again to Beezy. The blood was running over his collar and soaking the front of his coat. 'Take a good look at what happens to harlots when they forget their place . . .'

  He heard Mary Adams too late. Before he could do anything she'd leaped from the stairs on to his back and brought the poker from the fire in her room crashing down on his poll. She jumped free as he fell backwards. He lay with his eyes staring sightless and dead, all fury and vengeance gone forever.

  Beezy staggered to her feet. 'Sweet Jesus, Mary, what've you done . . .' One side of her face was a bloody pulp. The other side was grey as ash. 'You've killed him. He's dead, Mary, he's dead.'

  'Death is too good for him,' Mary Adams said.

  I went to Beezy. I touched her face, the bloody part near her eyes. The skin wasn't broken there. The eye wasn't lost.

  'I'll go for the doctor,' I said, 'Daniel Casey will come.'

  Beezy gripped my arms. 'Do that,' she said, 'but promise me something . . .' She gave me a small shake. It must have taken what strength she had. 'Promise me!'

  'What is it you want me to promise?'

  'Don't say a word of this to anyone on your way. This will be dealt with, justice will be done. It'll be my justice, and it'll be fair. Do you understand?'

  'I do.' I wasn't capable of thought.

  'I don't want you to even tell Daniel Casey about this man,' she gestured without looking again at William Fleming. 'There was a fight and I'm cut and need stitches. That's all you're to tell him. Do I have your word?' She gave me another, weaker, shake.